7. Casey Man Kong Lum
This book is an ethnography
of how karaoke is used in the
expression, maintenance,
and (re)construction of
social identity as part of the
Chinese American
experience.
Research Question
1996
9. Media Ecology
“The interactions of
communications media,
technology, technique, and
processes with human
feeling, thought, value,
and behavior”(as cited by
Lance Strate, 2004, p. 5）.
10. Methods
Ethnography of communication, including
participant observation and interviews
Comparative Analysis
Case-oriented, comparing cases, reasonging (Ragin,
2009).
11. Karaoke Singing & Cultural
practice
“Karaoke embodies a process of human interactions and
practices whereby certain values, meanings, or social
realities are created, maintained, and transformed as part
of a culture”(Lum, 1996, p. 6)
“Different ways to engage karaoke represent the
connections of different ways of life” (Lum, 1996, p. 6).
12. Hong Kong Cantonese & Taiwanese
& Malaysian Chinese
Cantonese
Hong Kong citizen
Taiwanese Hokkien (70%)
& Mandarin(Official)
Taiwanese citizen
Malay & English
Malaysian Chinese
13. Hong Kong Cantonese immigrants in
New York’s Chinatown
Cantonese Opera Singing at the Mid-Autumn Festival
14. Hong Kong Cantonese immigrants in
New York’s China
They use karaoke as a cultural connection
Karaoke provides them with a link to an older
cultural practice
People in this community use karaoke to expand
their social life worlds and to create a ritual
performance context for their compatriots in the
Chinatown neighborhoods.
15. Taiwanese community in affluent
suburbs of New Jersey
Private Karaoke Clubs and dancing party
16. Taiwanese community in affluent
suburbs of New Jersey
An expression of their wealth and social class
How they organize their private karaoke clubs and
galas and their approach to their karaoke
experiences reveals a conspicuous degree of
corporate managerial mannerisms and a competitive
drive
As part of the members' professional ascents, and
run parallel to the way they have been assimilated
into the U.S. economic mainstream.
18. Malaysian Chinese community in
New York
As an escape mechanism
Through karaoke, they construct a voice of their own
that their human condition, their alienation, their
loneliness, and the all sense of recognition from the
larger social environment
Karaoke is transformed into a sort of therapeutic
heaven where they can find relief from their isolated,
humdrum routine.
24. Conclusion
Karaoke: Maintaining cultural identity (Hong Kong
Cantonese, Taiwanese, Malaysian Chinese). Many
Chinese immigrants made their adjustment by
staying close together for social acceptance,
economic survival, political protection, and cultural
26. Ram, A. (2004). Memory, cinema, and the
reconstitution of cultural identities in the
Asian Indian Diaspora. In Fong, M., &
Chuang, R. (Eds.), Communicating ethnic
and cultural identity (pp. 121-134). Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
27. Research Question
How do acts of collective and personal remembering
preserve selective constructions of national and
gendered identities while muting others in the Asian
Indian Diaspora (Ram, 2004, p.122)?
28. Context -- Asian Indian community in America
Theory – Social construction
Method -- Ethnography of communication, including
participant observation and interviews
Cases -- Diwali celebrations
-- Film and song.
29. Happy Diwali
This celebration contain elements of recollection and
the performance had been designed to promote and
preserve their culture
30. Greetings from President
“We are so proud to have come together as one
family and be able to continue with our traditions and
heritage and share the richness of it with our other
local community friends although we are so far away
from our homeland.”
-- by president of the Indian association
31. Hindi cinema
The singers and dancers are re-
enacting, representing, and
recalling the “richness” of their
traditions, provide live bodies to
capture and contain these
memories.https://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=gl7Z90bVW
HU
The bodies of women
recollected the past
32. Collective memory
Purab aur Pashim is an
overtly nationalistic film.
written, produced and
directed by Manoj Kumar,
well-known for making
patriotic films 1970s and
1980s.
It is portrays its patriotic
theme by aggressively
counterpoising the
“degeneration” of the west
against the “purity and
33. Dhulan chali (the bird walks)
The song from the film that inspired the “Grand
Finale’’ during the Diwali celebration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTbKfUTj1s
35. Personal memory
Hum Aapke Hai Kaum
captured how things
happened in normal
Indian family. It has
struck a responsive
chord in the hearts of
Indians.
36. Sites for forgetting
Collective memories help us fabricate, rearrange, or
omit details from the past we thoughts we knew.
Hindi cinema assists in acts of forgetting is in its
portrayal of Indian identity as Hindu identity.
Example: Diwali
37. Conclusion
Hindi cinema was used media to maintain a
continuity with the past, serving as a constant
remainders of their origins.
it facilitates and shapes recollections.
it allows the past to be reconstructed within the
present context.
