Hong Kong-Canada Crosscurrents presents:
Cantonese Worlds (May 14-15th, 2015)
Date: May 14, 4:00 – 6:00 PM and May 15 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: St. John’s College, 2111 Lower Mall, V6T 1Z4, Vancouver BC
RSVP required, click link to reserve a seat
Cost: Free to attend**
**Optional tickets for lunch with the panelists are available for purchase for the day of Friday, May 15, online.
Early-bird lunch tickets $20, $15 for students. RSVP by May 1st, 2015
Regular lunch tickets $25, $20 for students. RSVP by May 8th, 2015
Over the last 50 years, migrations between Hong Kong and Canada have transformed cities such as Toronto and Vancouver. Significant changes in real estate, business, philanthropy, and education, as well as cultural transformations in language, popular media, and mass consumption have reshaped societies on both sides of the Pacific. Flows of people, goods, and ideas have been multidirectional–even as hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong Chinese became Canadian citizens, Canadians of both Chinese and non-Chinese heritage also migrated to Hong Kong for work and family. Counting the estimated 300,000 Canadian passport holders living in Hong Kong would rank it among the ten largest “Canadian” cities!
The Hong Kong-Canada Crosscurrents Project looks back on the last half century in order to understand how the migration of people, goods, and ideas across the Pacific has created a complex crosscurrent of dense and sometimes surprising connections, including the transformation and re-animation of a Cantonese Pacific world that had spanned the ocean for centuries.
The Cantonese Worlds workshop aims to begin an important conversation about how to make sense of the transformations of the last 50 years. In gathering leading scholars and observers to lay out an initial set of workshop themes for discussion, this pilot process will help create guiding questions that will shape the next few years of research, outreach, and public education. Initial themes might include, for instance, the role of the Cantonese language historically in shaping linkages between Hong Kong and Canada, or how the resurgence of Cantonese popular culture and music has been a formative element in youth identities. We invite all those interested in examining the last half century of crosscurrents between Hong Kong and Canada to participate in this important undertaking.
Thursday, May 14th
| Introduction | 4:00 – 4:15 |
| Keynote:“The Past, Present, and Future of Cantonese Language and Culture” | 4:15 – 6:00 |
Friday, May 15th
| Introduction | 9:00 – 9:15 |
| “Musicking the Cantonese Language: From Cantonese Opera to Cantopop” | 9:15 – 11:00 |
| Lunch Break | |
| “Collecting Hong Kong” | 12:30 – 2:15 |
| “The Past and Future of Cantonese Media” | 2:15 – 4:00 |
Panel Participants include:
- Ms. Zoe Lam, Ph.D. student, UBC Department of Linguistics
- Prof. Hedy Law, UBC School of Music
- Prof. Helen Leung, SFU Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
- Prof. Leo Shin, UBC Department of Asian Studies & History
- Prof. Henry Yu, UBC Department of History & St. John’s College
Panel Themes
“Collecting Hong Kong”
Hong Kong, of course, exists both in reality and in imagination. To think about Hong Kong is, in part, to think through the remains and the artefacts. How then has Hong Kong been collected (and recollected)? What are the challenges and opportunities? And how has what has been collected shaped the story that is Hong Kong? In the spirit of initiating a dialogue, speakers of the panel will draw from their backgrounds and expertise to explore some of these issues.
“Musicking the Cantonese Language: From Cantonese Opera to Cantopop”
The tonal language of Cantonese plays a crucial role in the genesis, performance, and dissemination of Cantonese opera and Cantopop. An examination of the melodic and rhythmic properties of classic Cantonese operas such as Dong Dik Sang’s The Flower Princess (1957) reveals song-writing principles that in turn explain music and lyric relationships in Cantopop. Using the concept of “musicking” developed by Christopher Small, this panel plans to explore the dynamic relationships between language and music. On the one hand, it investigates the ways in which the tonal language of Cantonese provides the musical foundation for Cantonese opera and Cantopop. On the other hand, it explores the ways in which Cantonese opera and Cantopop help sustain Cantonese-speaking communities in Asia and North America.
“The Past and Future of Cantonese Media”
Contemporary media studies continue to be preoccupied with the relation between media, mobility and place. On the one hand, the dissemination and consumption of media content has become ever more mobile: podcasts, youtube, instagram seem to defy boundaries and locations. On the other hand, the role of media in place-making and in forging identity and belonging seems more significant than ever before. This panel explores — from the perspectives of media producers, critics, and consumers — the past, present and future role of Cantonese media in forming and sustaining sociality and intimacy across different spaces.
“The Past, Present, and Future of Cantonese Language and Culture”
Is Cantonese a “dialect” or a “language”? is it a “culture” or a distinct “society”? Or is Cantonese something both more and less than all of these? The keynote for this workshop introduces how we might think about “Cantonese Worlds” both historically and in the present. Drawing upon the migration of peoples across the globe who spoke various forms of what we might consider “Cantonese,” we consider the “Cantonese Worlds” that have been made historically over the last 500 years, and their prospects in the present day.
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来源：星岛日报 2015-05-15
UBC辦2天工作坊 學者分析撐粵語
圖文：本報記者夏鎮權
卑詩大學(UBC)聖約翰學院(St. John College)周四舉行「唐人世界工作坊」(Cantonese Worlds Workshop)，多角度探討粵語在承傳方面所面對挑戰。與會的學者指出，培育年輕一代學習粵語的興趣，以及地區政府實施的語言政策，將是粵語能否承傳的關鍵；而UBC將於今年9月開辦粵語課程。
為期兩天的唐人世界工作坊由「港加交匯研究計劃」(Hong Kong-Canada Crosscurrents Project)」主辦，並由UBC聖約翰學院院長余全毅教授和UBC語言學博士生林慧雯主持，約有60人參加周四的首天會議。
通過流行文化學粵語
與會的學者先從歷史和地理角度，說明粵語的來源和發展。他們指出在19世紀時，粵語是美洲地區的主要華語，而華人遷移各地，更對粵語在全球流通，起著極大作用。
林慧雯在會上播放多套短片，講述在美加的年輕華人，如何通過觀看電視節目、欣賞音樂等不同的流行文化形式，認識和學習粵語。
她指出，年輕一代學習及哂没浾Z，是承傳的最大關鍵所在。一旦這流行文化媒介失去吸引力，年輕一代將難以使用粵語。
余全毅指出， 兒童在1至12歲期間所接觸的語言是甚麼，對於該種語言能否承傳下去很重要。從政治角度看，國家或地區的政策，對於語言的認受性和承傳，是極為主要的因素。
UBC歷史及亞洲研究系單國鉞教授認為，粵語代表的是深厚地區文化，無論它被界定為一種語言或是地區方言，從文化角度來看都應該保育，所以教育工作非常重要。
他還表示，UBC亞洲研究系將會在今年9月開辦粵語課程，希望通過教育方式，協助把粵語承傳下去。
