Ying-kit Chan

Leiden University, International Institute for Asian Studies, Post-Doc

Princeton University, East Asian Studies, Graduate Student

National University of Singapore, Chinese Studies, Graduate Student

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PhD, East Asian Studies, Princeton University
MA, Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore
BA, Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore
Phone: [email protected]
Address: Schouwenhove 63, 2332 DR Leiden, The Netherlands

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Wei-chieh Tsai

National Chung Cheng University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Thongchai Winichakul ธงชัย วินิจจะกูล

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Tyrell Haberkorn

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Andrea Acri

Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

André Bueno

UERJ - Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / Rio de Janeiro State University

Xiamen University

My Home

Boston University

Ghent University

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Papers by Ying-kit Chan

Ying-kit Chan, "Making Millions: Culture, Gender, and Capitalism in the Context of a Thai Chinese Family," SOJOURN 40:1 (2025): 153-161.

SOJOURN, 2025

In 2024, a Thai film broke box office records across Southeast Asia. The film, How to Make Millio... more In 2024, a Thai film broke box office records across Southeast Asia. The film, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, is set in Talat Phlu, a historic Chinese district of Bangkok. In addition to possible interpretations through cultural lenses, the film, which features intergenerational conflict and reconciliation, is a fascinating gendered critique of Chinese patriarchalism, whereby sons rather than daughters receive an inheritance among Chinese families in Thailand.

Ying-kit Chan and Tong King Lee, "The 'Y' Phenomenon: Dystopia, Utopia, and Heterotopia in Thai Boys Love Media," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (Latest Articles).

Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 2025

In the past decade, Thai Boys Love (BL) media has gained phenomenal popularity in Asia in the for... more In the past decade, Thai Boys Love (BL) media has gained phenomenal popularity in Asia in the form of film and drama series, garnering considerable interest from scholars of cultural studies, gender studies, and media studies. Using frame analysis, this article traces the evolution of Thai BL themes from cinematic dystopia into small-screen utopia, i.e. from the tragic (dystopia) to the heart-warming (compromised utopia), and to the comic and hyperreal (utopia). We understand post-2014 BL productions as subsisting within a specific frame that breaks with that of pre-2014 Thai homoerotic films before BL series became mainstream. Frames are chronotopic in the Bakhtinian sense; they are timespaces in which spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Applying this to the case at hand, one may observe as follows: temporally, the post-2014 BL frame encompasses adolescence or young adulthood; spatially, it invokes the high school, senior high school, or university as microcosms of an idealized or romanticized pre-society characterized by childlike innocence, parental (usually maternal) approval, and homosocial relations. This article thus proposes a spectrum of affective readings from dystopia to utopia to critically understand the popular reception of Thai BL and explain why some of them are better received than others.

Ying-kit Chan, "Animals in Republican China: The Logistics of Science and the Rise of a Scientific Category," Asian Review of World Histories 13:1 (2025): 3-34.

Asian Review of World Histories, 2025

The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of an elite class of Chinese scientists w... more The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of an elite class of Chinese scientists who were educated in Europe and North America and occupied positions of authority in China. Historians of science have used the concept of scientific nationalism to frame the phenomenon and discuss how patriotism had motivated Chinese scientists to produce modern science in order to strengthen their nation. This article focuses on the logistics of science, which can help conceptualize modern Chinese science as not only a situated knowledge but also a broad, distilled context of “pure” transactional value – that of naming, displaying, and managing animals and epizootic diseases. Through the lens of “animals” as an emerging scientific category, the article examines how conceptual and epistemological shifts resulted from new urban, curatorial, and scientific practices, all of which transformed animals into an object of expert analysis in Republican China.

Ying-kit Chan and Tonny Dian Effendi, "Re-Imagining Chinese Cultural Heritage in Surabaya: Mandarin, Chinatown, and Kampung Pecinan," Indonesia and the Malay World 52 (2024): 265-286.

by Ying-kit Chan and tonny dian effendi

Indonesia and the Malay World, 2024

The fall of the New Order regime under Suharto (1996–1998) allowed Chinese Indonesians to articul... more The fall of the New Order regime under Suharto (1996–1998) allowed Chinese Indonesians to articulate publicly their Chinese heritage in terms of culture and identity. However, after about 30 years of cultural discrimination and generational changes, Chinese Indonesians face challenges in re-imagining their cultural heritage. What is their imagination of Chinese cultural heritage? What factors are influencing their imagination? This article discusses the imagination of Chinese cultural heritage in terms of learning Mandarin, reviving Chinatown, and developing Kampung Pecinan (Chinese village) in Surabaya. Deploying the concept of imagined communities, this article suggests that different generations of Chinese Indonesians had different ideas of Mandarin as Chinese cultural heritage, while the development of Kampung Pecinan is the result of imagining Chinese cultural heritage in the local, hybrid context. The article further suggests that China’s rise is a critical factor in motivating young ethnic Chinese in Surabaya to learn Mandarin, offering the Chinese community an opportunity to explore Chinese culture as a foundation for rejuvenating Chinatown and developing Kampung Pecinan. However, learning Mandarin is driven by pragmatic purposes rather than a need for a Chinese identity. Local identity and hybrid culture are reflected in Kampung Pecinan, where Chinese culture is invented rather than replicated from mainland China.

Ying-kit Chan and Hannah Ming Yit Ho, "Teaching for the Rise: Chinese Education in Brunei Darussalam and Singapore," in India and China in Southeast Asia, edited by Amit Ranjan, Diotima Chattoraj, and AKM Ahsan Ullah (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), pp. 143-165.

India and China in Southeast Asia, 2024

This chapter offers a comparative analysis of Chinese schools in two Southeast Asian nations, tho... more This chapter offers a comparative analysis of Chinese schools in two Southeast Asian nations, those of Brunei Darussalam and Singapore. These small sovereign nations share a special relationship that is reflected, among others, in their currency peg agreement that reinforces their friendly and close cooperation. While their economic exchanges are well-documented, this chapter focuses on the cultural aspects of Chinese language education in both nations. Chinese schools’ motivations, appeal and outreach to the national populations have yet to be examined across these two nation-states. Considering China’s global rise, the growing influence of Mandarin Chinese can also be witnessed across these Southeast Asian nations. In comparing and contrasting the case studies of Brunei Darussalam and Singapore, this chapter discusses the educational choices of parents and students, language policies that shape and inform their choices, and Chinese schools’ relevance to them. Using interview data, policy papers and analyses of public discourses, multiple factors and key indicators that contribute to an increasing relevance of Chinese schools in Brunei Darussalam are highlighted. In contrast, challenges to the relevance of Singapore’s Chinese-medium schools, largely Special Assistance Plan Schools, are foregrounded. Ultimately, critical insights into teaching for the global rise of Chinese language are provided.

Ying-kit Chan, "Biographies and Revisionist Histories in Modern China," Bandung: Journal of the Global South (Latest Articles).

Bandung: Journal of the Global South, 2024

Born and raised in the British Caribbean island colony of Trinidad, Eugene Chen was one of China’... more Born and raised in the British Caribbean island colony of Trinidad, Eugene Chen was one of China’s foremost foreign ministers during the early twentieth century, defending his nation’s interests despite its military weakness and political disunity. Relying primarily on newspapers and what he calls the “Eugene Chen Papers,” sourced from Eugene Chen’s grandson in Hong Kong, Walton Look Lai reveals Eugene Chen’s multiple identities, first as “Sun Yat-sen’s personal representative and spokesman in Shanghai,” then as “the global face and voice of the Wuhan regime,” and ultimately as “China’s ‘dynamite’ diplomat [who] challenged the British lion over the Hankow concession and won.” For many, Eugene Chen, for all his political accomplishments and connections to the most illustrious personalities in Republican Chinese history, cut a relatively obscure figure. Eugene Chen’s obscurity points to an old problem in Chinese historiography, or any historiography, for that matter. The privileging or canonization of certain historical figures at the expense of attention to others stems partly from the binary of reform and revolution held by historians when investigating the transformations of twentieth-century China or its transition from empire to nation. Walton Look Lai’s book on Eugene Chen is thus a contribution to our broader historiographical attempt to dismantle the obsolete paradigms that caricature complex historical personalities as one-dimensional persons of their times.

Ying-kit Chan and Tong King Lee, "Hair Discipline in Singapore: Aesthetics, Morality, and Gender," Critical Asian Studies 56:4 (2024): 539-554.

Critical Asian Studies, 2024

In the 1970s and 1980s, several Asian governments, including those of Hong Kong, Malaysia, South ... more In the 1970s and 1980s, several Asian governments, including those of Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan, enacted varying measures to proscribe long hair on men. Singapore’s government was no exception in this regard, barring even longhaired global male celebrities from entry. Adopting a social semiotic perspective, this article traces the vicissitudes of the male hairscape in Singapore from the colonial period to contemporary times, with a view to uncovering its differential indexical meanings. It argues that the stigmatization of long hair was part of a moral-aesthetic regimen of hair hygiene that fashioned shorthaired men as poster boys of a young, disciplined, and aspirational nation, while longhaired men were discursively constructed as a bad influence and the archnemesis of a desired work culture and social life. Men’s hair, then, was not an innocuous sign with an organic meaning, but a loaded signifier for a cultural ethos tied to shifting social imperatives.

Ying-kit Chan and Peera Charoenvattananukul, "Singapore’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: A Case of Principled Hedging," East Asia: An International Quarterly 41:3 (2024): 255-272.

East Asia: An International Quarterly, 2024

A tiny city-state, Singapore has perceived its vulnerability as rooted in its miniscule size, lim... more A tiny city-state, Singapore has perceived its vulnerability as rooted in its miniscule size, limited resources, and geopolitical setting. Not directly involved in the competition between great powers, Singapore has hedged between the dominant powers of the Indo-Pacific for survival. This article introduces the concept of principled hedging, as opposed to desultory or indiscriminate hedging. It adds that Singapore’s role of mediator, which counterintuitively challenges its hedging strategy by involving itself in regional and great-power geopolitics and taking sides based on the key principles of non-interventionism and observance of international law, allows Singapore to carve out for itself maximum space in diplomacy and geopolitics. Singapore also mediates between great powers and pursues the role of international middleperson and host of high-profile summits to assert its identity, not only for branding and public diplomacy but also for pushing China and the United States to reach a kind of détente so that it does not have to take sides explicitly. Singapore strictly adheres to the principles of non-interventionism and observance of international law, developing not only a collective position through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) but also an independent role of mediator between China and the United States. By playing the role of mediator, Singapore has projected an image of impartiality, pragmatism, and rationality that plays into the strategic considerations of great powers and offers opportunities for independent policymaking and self-expression of geopolitical views.

Ying-kit Chan, "Skateboarding in Singapore: Youth, Masculinity, and Urban Sports Culture," The International Journal of the History of Sport 40:14 (2023): 1272-1286.

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2024

Singapore is a highly urbanized city-state, so arguably all sports assume an urban nature and con... more Singapore is a highly urbanized city-state, so arguably all sports assume an urban nature and constitute an urban sports culture. Using skateboarding as a lens, this article examines how its history in Singapore reflects the Singaporean state’s governmentality and general attitudes towards youth in the country. More specifically, the article suggests that Singaporean statesmen and policymakers, in response to greater challenges from an increasingly educated and liberal-minded populace that demands alternative expressions of freedom and personal aspirations, have refashioned and even encouraged skateboarding as a productive sport that can channel youth energies away from delinquency and endear the state to young skateboarders, who are generally teenage boys. Skateboarding thus forms an integral part of Singapore’s urban sports culture, as evidenced by the creation of skateparks in both the downtown and heartlands and the popularity of skate videos on the internet. Skateboarding, once a symbol of an undesirable masculinity displayed by supposedly idle and boisterous young boys, now presents an alternative masculinity of active and energetic youth that coexists with the hegemonic masculinities of male technocrats and academically successful students.

Ying-kit Chan, "The Chineseness of Chinatown in Singapore: Chinese New Year Celebrations in a Multiracial Heritage Site," in Edward Boyle and Steven Ivings, eds., Heritage, Contested Sites, and Borders of Memory in the Asia Pacific (Leiden: Brill, 2023), pp. 56-79.

Heritage, Contested Sites, and Borders of Memory in the Asia Pacific, 2023

In the official narrative of the postcolonial Singaporean state, Chinatown is the cradle of Chine... more In the official narrative of the postcolonial Singaporean state, Chinatown is the cradle of Chinese community development, but such a claim can be made only retrospectively. The maintenance of Chinatown in Singapore demonstrates the official desire to establish cultural, ethnic, and historical links between a lived present and an imagined past. By extension, Chinatown is defined as a Chinese cradle on the basis of a constructed and highly essentialized Chinese identity in Singapore. This chapter suggests that an essentially new Chinatown has resulted from the state’s urban redevelopment plans. No longer organic in its growth and composition, the new Chinatown nonetheless has the symbols – pagodas, red lanterns, stone lions, and Chinatown arches – that would strike the casual tourist as being intuitively Chinese. At the national level, the mere existence of the new Chinatown has reduced or simplified the diversity of Chinese communities in Singapore, subsuming the various dialect groups under the Chinese label. The transformation of Chinatown is best exemplified in its Chinese New Year celebrations, which feature the participation of other ethnic groups in Singapore, notably the Indians and Malays. The site and festivities have become multiracial, in line with the official narrative that Singapore is a multiracial and socially harmonious nation. In effect, the new Chinatown has evolved into not only a transnational heritage site but also a multiracial showroom of cultural diversity contributing to nation-building in Singapore.

Natthanai Prasannam and Ying-kit Chan, "Thai Boys Love (BL)/Y(aoi) in Literary and Media Industries: Political and Transnational Practices," Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific 49 (June 2023).

Intersections (Australia), 2023

Ying-kit Chan, "Doing Business as a Christian: The Case of C. K. Tang and the Tangs Department Store," Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies 12:1 (2023): 5-22.

Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies, 2023

Drawing on oral history interviews conducted by the National Archives of Singapore, this article ... more Drawing on oral history interviews conducted by the National Archives of Singapore, this article examines the life of Tang Choon Keng (1902–2000), colloquially known as C. K. Tang, an ethnic Chinese Singaporean entrepreneur who founded Tangs department store in Singapore. As the first major retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in what is now the premier retail district of Orchard Road, Tangs is historically significant for helping shape and fashion Singapore into a shopping paradise for domestic consumption and tourist promotion. While C. K. Tang’s life was typical of Chinese entrepreneurs of his time, being marked by a long period of hardship and struggle against adversity prior to eventual success in business, he belonged to a small group of Chinese Christian businessmen in Singapore who attributed his triumph not to Chinese or Confucian roots but to his Christian upbringing in his hometown Shantou (Swatow) in southeastern China. In the context of Singapore’s secular and highly calibrated economic modernity, C. K. Tang’s overt account of how the Christian faith had positively influenced his business life is intriguing. However, at least initially, he operated Tangs as a family business, following the model of familism, which scholars have conventionally ascribed to “Chinese” commercial enterprises. This article thus suggests the inadequacies and blind spots of viewing Chinese businesses through only the lens of culture, ethnicity and language and of assuming a shared “Chinese” culture and ethnicity between the Chinese in mainland China and those in Southeast Asia.

Ying-kit Chan, "Taiwan's Hardening Soft Power," in Karl Chee-Leong Lee and Ying-kit Chan, eds., Taiwan and Southeast Asia: Soft Power and Hard Truths Facing China's Ascendancy (London: Routledge, 2023), pp. 235-244.

Taiwan and Southeast Asia: Soft Power and Hard Truths Facing China's Ascendancy, 2023

The conclusion summarizes what the book has accomplished through the empirical findings of each c... more The conclusion summarizes what the book has accomplished through the empirical findings of each chapter based on the conceptual framework of Taiwan’s soft power in Southeast Asia. Overall, this book concludes that the variations of Taiwan-Southeast Asia relations as well as the diffusion of Taiwanese soft power in individual Southeast Asian countries should be understood within the four categories, namely, emerging partners, traditional partners, disinclined partners and indifferent partners. As academic works on Taiwan’s soft power diffusion in Southeast Asia continue to be limited, this book suggests there are new avenues for which future research can be undertaken in the discipline of Taiwan studies.

Ying-kit Chan, "Who, or What, is Lost: Singapore’s Impressions of Christmas Island, c. 1960–1990," Manusya: Journal of Humanities 25:1 (2022): 1-16.

Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 2022

Although Singapore no longer governs Christmas Island, either on behalf of its British colonial a... more Although Singapore no longer governs Christmas Island, either on behalf of its British colonial administrators or for itself, some Singaporeans continue to regard it as a lost territory and have false impressions that it once belonged and should again belong to Singapore. By examining this complexity related to Christmas Island and its possible implications for Singapore’s national psyche, this paper surveys the newspapers of Singapore and oral history records of Singaporean ministers and officials for accounts of Christmas Island. It suggests that Singaporean newspapers’ portrayal of Christmas Island as a neglected Australian overseas territory contributed to some Singaporeans’ perception that Christmas Island might actually be better off with Singapore; others even had a misconception of Christmas Island as a lost territory. Such opinions have never really dissipated because the government has never publicly clarified the transfer of Christmas Island and rejected claims about its “sale” to Australia.

Ying-kit Chan, "Toxic Masculinity in Singapore: National Service, Sexual Harassment, and the #MeToo Movement," East Asia: An International Quarterly 39:3 (2022): 225-238.

East Asia: An International Quarterly, 2022

The #MeToo Movement, which originated in the USA against sexual harassment and violence, has caug... more The #MeToo Movement, which originated in the USA against sexual harassment and violence, has caught on in Singapore. This article suggests that the recent debate on toxic masculinity in the country, brought to public attention in a speech by Corinna Lim, chief of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE), is an extension of the #MeToo Movement. The debate on toxic masculinity has largely revolved around the issue of whether the mandatory National Service (NS), which all Singaporean men have to perform, is a site of toxic masculinity. This article is a preliminary attempt to connect the dots and examine the implications of the debate for civil society, NS, and women’s activism in contemporary Singapore.

Ying-kit Chan, "Hougang: The Origins of a 'Safe' Alternative Constituency in Singapore," Asia-Pacific Research Forum 69:1 (2021): 97-123.

Asia-Pacific Research Forum, 2021

This article is a historical inquiry into the making of a safe seat in Singaporean politics. Sinc... more This article is a historical inquiry into the making of a safe seat in Singaporean politics. Since 1991, the Hougang Single Member Constituency (Hougang SMC) has been a Workers’ Party (WP) stranglehold. Despite the efforts of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to win it back in subsequent elections, the WP has managed to retain a firm hold on the constituency—a remarkable feat, given the decades-long dominance of the PAP in Singapore. The article suggests that the history of Hougang as a rural, somewhat backward Teochew enclave, as well as a fortuitous mix of personalities, provincial issues, and policy reactions, ultimately resulted in Low Thia Khiang’s electoral victory in 1991. The WP has been able to maintain its grip on Hougang primarily because it has convinced its residents to conflate local and national concerns. It has fortified its Chinese-educated, working-class constituents with a “Hougang spirit” that has become a rallying cry for democratic progress.

Ying-kit Chan, "'Let Raffles stand where he stands today': A Symbol of the Colonial in Singapore During the Cold War," in Cold War Cities: The Politics of Space in Europe and Asia During the 1950s, ed. by Tze-ki Hon (New York: Routledge, 2021), pp. 148-170.

Cold War Cities (Routledge), 2021

Ying-kit Chan, "The Legend of Luo Fangbo and the Hakka Ethnic Movement in Taiwan," Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies 10:1 (2021): 1-14.

Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies, 2021

For more than three decades, Taiwan has engaged in the Hakka ethnic movement, which aims to prese... more For more than three decades, Taiwan has engaged in the Hakka ethnic movement, which aims to preserve Hakka culture, identity, and language after a long period of neglect and state indifference. The Hakka ethnic movement has been marked not only by activism but also by the publications it has spawned, which promote a general, if not authoritative, understanding of the Hakka diaspora among the Hakkas in Taiwan. This article examines The Legend of Luo Fangbo, a historical novel ordered into existence by the state-led Hakka Affairs Council. It suggests that the novel not only helps construct a new genealogy of Hakka migrations in fulfilment of Taiwan’s visions of multiculturalism and a new Hakka homeland but also infuses the new Hakka identity with masculine characteristics embodied by its eponymous hero. By extension, then, the Hakka ethnic movement, specifically the homogenization of Hakka culture and history into a pan-Hakka consciousness, is a masculinized project that has little to say about the role of women and other gender groups in the Hakka diaspora.

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Ying-kit Chan, "A Heteropatriarchy in Moderation: Reading Family in a Thai Boys Love Lakhon," East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 7:1 (2021): 81-94.

East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 2021

A subgenre of popular culture, Thai Boys Love (BL) series is increasingly significant within Asia... more A subgenre of popular culture, Thai Boys Love (BL) series is increasingly significant within Asia, but it remains under-researched in the light of new series that push the parameters of viewer acceptance of homoerotic romance in Thai society. Drawing upon a close reading of the BL lakhon Love by Chance, this article explicates how Thai cultural concepts surrounding the family are reflected in the series. While acknowledging the impact of East Asian popular culture on Thai understandings of gender and sexuality, the article highlights how the themes of familial dynamics and parental acceptance in Love by Chance represent a glocalization of the BL genre, or BL with Thai characteristics. By introducing the concept of ‘moderated heteropatriarchy’ and sketching the role of family in Thai queer lives, the article suggests that there is still space for subtle challenges or changes to the heteronormative structure as plotted in Love by Chance, even as the lakhon continues to uphold national and patriarchal principles that deny overt expressions of homoerotic romance.

Ying-kit Chan, "Creating Modern Women: The Kitchen in Postcolonial Singapore, 1960–90," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 51:3 (2020): 414-434.

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2020

This article examines the modern kitchen as a technological artefact and a mechanism through whic... more This article examines the modern kitchen as a technological artefact and a mechanism through which the postcolonial Singaporean state and agents of household consumerism such as advertisers, retailers, home economists, and social scientists constructed the image of a modern Singaporean woman. By revealing how the female consumer-cum-homemaker became a symbol of material success and middle-class status in Fordist Singapore, the article highlights two types of domestication: the subordination of women to the patriarchal imperatives of family and nation, and the transformation of hard successes in the economy into soft comforts in the kitchen. This article suggests that although the state had narrowed the gap between popular expectations for improved living standards and its ability to fulfil them, it also unwittingly enmeshed definitions of femininity, womanhood, and female citizenship in a series of contradictions and tensions that had implications for contemporary Singaporean society.

Ying-kit Chan, "Making Millions: Culture, Gender, and Capitalism in the Context of a Thai Chinese Family," SOJOURN 40:1 (2025): 153-161.

SOJOURN, 2025

Ying-kit Chan and Tong King Lee, "The 'Y' Phenomenon: Dystopia, Utopia, and Heterotopia in Thai Boys Love Media," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies (Latest Articles).

Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 2025

Ying-kit Chan, "Animals in Republican China: The Logistics of Science and the Rise of a Scientific Category," Asian Review of World Histories 13:1 (2025): 3-34.

Asian Review of World Histories, 2025

Ying-kit Chan and Tonny Dian Effendi, "Re-Imagining Chinese Cultural Heritage in Surabaya: Mandarin, Chinatown, and Kampung Pecinan," Indonesia and the Malay World 52 (2024): 265-286.

by Ying-kit Chan and tonny dian effendi

Indonesia and the Malay World, 2024

India and China in Southeast Asia, 2024

Ying-kit Chan, "Biographies and Revisionist Histories in Modern China," Bandung: Journal of the Global South (Latest Articles).

Bandung: Journal of the Global South, 2024

Ying-kit Chan and Tong King Lee, "Hair Discipline in Singapore: Aesthetics, Morality, and Gender," Critical Asian Studies 56:4 (2024): 539-554.

Critical Asian Studies, 2024

Ying-kit Chan and Peera Charoenvattananukul, "Singapore’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: A Case of Principled Hedging," East Asia: An International Quarterly 41:3 (2024): 255-272.

East Asia: An International Quarterly, 2024

Ying-kit Chan, "Skateboarding in Singapore: Youth, Masculinity, and Urban Sports Culture," The International Journal of the History of Sport 40:14 (2023): 1272-1286.

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2024

Heritage, Contested Sites, and Borders of Memory in the Asia Pacific, 2023

Intersections (Australia), 2023

Ying-kit Chan, "Doing Business as a Christian: The Case of C. K. Tang and the Tangs Department Store," Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies 12:1 (2023): 5-22.

Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies, 2023

Taiwan and Southeast Asia: Soft Power and Hard Truths Facing China's Ascendancy, 2023

Ying-kit Chan, "Who, or What, is Lost: Singapore’s Impressions of Christmas Island, c. 1960–1990," Manusya: Journal of Humanities 25:1 (2022): 1-16.

Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 2022

Ying-kit Chan, "Toxic Masculinity in Singapore: National Service, Sexual Harassment, and the #MeToo Movement," East Asia: An International Quarterly 39:3 (2022): 225-238.

East Asia: An International Quarterly, 2022

Ying-kit Chan, "Hougang: The Origins of a 'Safe' Alternative Constituency in Singapore," Asia-Pacific Research Forum 69:1 (2021): 97-123.

Asia-Pacific Research Forum, 2021

Cold War Cities (Routledge), 2021

Ying-kit Chan, "The Legend of Luo Fangbo and the Hakka Ethnic Movement in Taiwan," Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies 10:1 (2021): 1-14.

Malaysian Journal of Chinese Studies, 2021

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Ying-kit Chan, "A Heteropatriarchy in Moderation: Reading Family in a Thai Boys Love Lakhon," East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 7:1 (2021): 81-94.

East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, 2021

Ying-kit Chan, "Creating Modern Women: The Kitchen in Postcolonial Singapore, 1960–90," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 51:3 (2020): 414-434.

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2020

Fostering Biculturalism: The Nanyang Confucian Association of Singapore

Presented at the Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies in Asia 2015, 12-13 December, Kyoto Unive... more

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Li Hongzao at the Tongzhi Court

Presented at the 64th Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (MCAA) 2015, 16-18 October at Washingto... more

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Pets in Late Qing China: Material Culture and Consumption in Shanghai

Presented at Conference EACS (European Association of Chinese Studies) 2014, Braga and Comibra, P... more

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Chinese Science and Technology (Singapore: Asiapac, 2012)

In this volume "Chinese Science & Technology," we look at the accumulated knowledge of China stil... more

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Chinese Literature (Singapore: Asiapac, 2012); co-translated with Li En

In this volume, "Chinese Literature," you will meet great minds among the Chinese literates. Sinc... more In this volume, "Chinese Literature," you will meet great minds among the Chinese literates. Since reading is a form of pleasure that has been enjoyed for thousands of years, literature gives us the opportunity to meet great writers in Chinese history who have distilled their thoughts on life and society. This book will track the development of literature from the pre-Qin Dynasty era to the last monarchal regime, the Qing Dynasty.

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Taiwan and Southeast Asia: Soft Power and Hard Truths Facing China's Ascendancy

by Karl Chee-Leong Lee and Ying-kit Chan

Routledge, 2023

Despite not having formal diplomatic relations with Southeast Asian countries after their diploma... more Despite not having formal diplomatic relations with Southeast Asian countries after their diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China decades ago, Taiwan continues to be a key economic and socio-cultural partner for the region at large. Successive administrations in Taiwan from the Chen to Tsai eras have circumvented the long-standing absence of diplomatic recognition with the diffusion of soft power ─ shaping what others want with attractiveness ─ through the utilization of its existing economic and socio-cultural links with Southeast Asian countries. While such soft power diffusion contributes to Taiwan’s triple quests for legitimacy as a member of international community, status as a constructive actor in the region and long-term economic prosperity for the island-state, the emergence of China as an economic superpower in the 21st century has significantly challenged such quests from Taipei. The contributors to this volume examine both the intentions and the reception of Taiwan’s approach to the nations of ASEAN.

Southeast Asia in China: Historical Entanglements and Contemporary Engagements

by Ying-kit Chan and Chang-Yau Hoon

Lexington Books, 2023

As part of “China’s south,” Southeast Asia has historically assumed a peripheral position when ju... more As part of “China’s south,” Southeast Asia has historically assumed a peripheral position when juxtaposed against the power of the Chinese state. In the existing scholarly literature, the power asymmetry is reflected in the ostensible bias where most studies are about China’s presence in or engagement with Southeast Asia rather than the reverse; studies on the presence or influence of Southeast Asia in China have been a marginal enterprise. The present volume aims to fill this void by exploring the historical entanglements and contemporary engagements of Southeast Asia(ns) in China through a Southeast Asian perspective. As China seeks to understand Southeast Asia’s presence in the country on its own terms, it is also engaged in a process of self-discovery and defining where and how it should stand in relation to the region. Departing from the discourse of China as the a priori center dominating the scholarship on China–Southeast Asia relations, the present volume hopes to subvert such power relations in order to bring fresh perspectives on the historical and contemporary contributions of Southeast Asia(ns) in China.

Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia

by Ying-kit Chan and Chang-Yau Hoon

Springer, 2021

Combining a historical approach of Chineseness and a contemporary perspective on the social const... more Combining a historical approach of Chineseness and a contemporary perspective on the social construction of Chineseness, this book provides comparative insights to understand the contingent complexities of ethnic and social formations in both China and among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. This book focuses on the experiences and practices of these people, who as mobile agents are free to embrace or reject being defined as Chinese by moving across borders and reinterpreting their own histories. By historicizing the notion of Chineseness at local, regional, and global levels, the book examines intersections of authenticity, authority, culture, identity, media, power, and international relations that support or undermine different instances of Chineseness and its representations. It seeks to rescue the present from the past by presenting case studies of contingent encounters that produce the ideas, practices, and identities that become the categories nations need to justify their existence. The dynamic, fluid representations of Chineseness illustrate that it has never been an undifferentiated whole in both space and time. Through physical movements and inherited knowledge, agents of Chineseness have deployed various interpretive strategies to define and represent themselves vis-à-vis the local, regional, and global in their respective temporal experiences. This book will be relevant to students and scholars in Chinese studies and Asian studies more broadly, with a focus on identity politics, migration, popular culture, and international relations.

Alternative Representations of the Past: The Politics of History in Modern China

De Gruyter, 2020

Test Cover Image of: Alternative Representations of the Past Alternative Representations of the... more Test Cover Image of: Alternative Representations of the Past
Alternative Representations of the Past
The Politics of History in Modern China
Edited by: Ying-Kit Chan and Fei Chen
De Gruyter Oldenbourg | 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110676136
OVERVIEW
CONTENTS
The relationship between the Chinese nation and its recent past has been fraught with contradictions and tensions. This collection aims to make sense of this complex relationship and challenge the prevalent state-centric and nation-centric modes of history writing on modern China. It explores alternative representations of the past and the salience of political conflicts and competitive histories in China, highlighting the paradoxical similarities in such representations of the past from the late nineteenth century to the present. Ultimately, this book contributes to the ongoing discussion on the politics of interpreting the past and its many manifestations in both China and other societies.

Encyclopedia of Empire: 7. Ming dynasty period, 1368-1644

by Cheuk-Yin Lee and Ying-kit Chan

John Wiley & Sons, 2016

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