Papers by Dredge Byung'chu Kang
Pop Empires: Transnational and Diasporic Flows of India and Korea, 2019
Asian Studies Review, 2021
Current analyses of Asian cosmetic surgery and other beautification practices assess their use fo... more Current analyses of Asian cosmetic surgery and other beautification practices assess their use for economic gain (e.g., increasing chances of gaining employment when photos are required with applications) or improving one's luck (e.g., removing features that are likely to make one's life more difficult). However, my research in Thailand details broader concerns about being riap-roi (neat, orderly, completed and properly groomed). That is, rather than being merely "cosmetic", these transformations address broad moral concerns about face, expressing appropriate social status, and the management of social interactions. Additionally, these body practices are also increasingly keyed to Korean and Japanese beauty ideals. The desire to look "white Asian" seeks to mould the self and the Thai nation in the context of a newly regionalised and racialised developed East Asia.
.” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2019
This study reflects on the development and implementation of mid-term oral examinations in large-... more This study reflects on the development and implementation of mid-term oral examinations in large-scale lecture courses at a large, public research university; specifically, this work examines the implications of oral exams for fostering student engagement and concept-based comprehension in addition to institutional and course commitments to diversity. This research traces the development of an effective method for administering oral midterms and assesses the advantages and challenges of utilizing oral examinations for student assessment by detailing student feedback and TAs' reactions to administering this examination format. Findings reveal that oral examinations provided a chance for students to develop skills through a different means of engaging material and to foster a concept-based learning approach. In a discussion of student and TA reactions, this paper reports a predominantly positive assessment by both groups while noting the challenges and disadvantages of this format.
Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, 2019
A complex Thai term most commonly used to refer to male-bodied individuals who express a feminine... more A complex Thai term most commonly used to refer to male-bodied individuals who express a feminine gender and seek relations with heterosexually identified male partners. The Thai term kathoey is often translated as third sex (phet thi-saam). The label can have negative connotations and should be used with care. The Royal Thai General System would transliterate kathoey as "kathoei," but "kathoey" is common in English academic use. English Romanizations of the term also include krathoey, gatoei, and gatuhy. Kathoey is often used synonymously with "ladyboy." Alternate English translations of kathoey are "gay," "fag," "sissy," "queen," and "transvestite." In everyday Thai usage, kathoey are considered along a continuum of degree rather than as an absolute difference of kind from gay men. Thus, the term includes intersex individuals, postoperative transsexual women, and feminine gay men.
Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, 2019
The impact of this popular music genre on queer Thai identity.
Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History, 2019
Coordinating body for organizations serving trans individuals in the Asia Pacific region.
AIDS and the Distribution of Crises, 2020
Chapter 8 of the volume AIDS and the Distribution of Crises (Duke UP 2020), co-edited by Jih-Fei ... more Chapter 8 of the volume AIDS and the Distribution of Crises (Duke UP 2020), co-edited by Jih-Fei Cheng, Alexandra Juhasz, and Nishant Shahani. “Dispatches from the Pasts/Memories of AIDS” is a dialogue between artists, activists, social service providers, and scholars Cecilia Aldarondo, Roger Hallas, Pablo Alvarez, Jim Hubbard, and Dredge Byung’chu Kang-Nguyễn, with an Introduction by Jih-Fei Cheng. The conversation figures between individual and collective experiences with HIV/AIDS. Recorded here is pain, fury, resentment, fear, determination, and more. The first prompt for this asynchronous set of “dispatches” commenced in September 2016. The second prompt was initiated in December 2017 and registers the anxiety and impassioned responses to what was then the new election of US president Donald Trump. Whether their edges are left coarse or worn soft, these memories of AIDS refuse to be resembled—to look exactly like one another or simply reflect one another. They also refuse assembly into a singular or coherent past. We trace these memories of shattered pasts with our fingertips. We struggle to love and hold each other with barriers; we struggle to love and hold each other without barriers.
Romantic partnerships affect local ways of thinking about and experiencing the self amid rapid ec... more Romantic partnerships affect local ways of thinking about and experiencing the self amid rapid economic, social and political change. In evaluating social status, Thais are reconciling local mores, Western gazes, and Asian cultural flows that shape sensibilities, aesthetics and desires. I show how middle-class gay men negotiate romantic partner preferences with East Asians or ‘white Asians’. While there is a body of scholarship that addresses Western influences on Thai gender and sexuality, little is known about the impact of East Asia. Following Ara Wilson’s (2004. The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City. Berkeley: University of California Press) ‘intimate economies’ and her (2006. ‘Queering Asia’. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context N:14. Available online: intersections.anu.edu.au/issue14/wilson.html (accessed 15 March 2010)) call for studies addressing connections within Asia, I use macrosocial and ethnographic data to argue that Thailand’s geopolitical position, situated between wealthier and poorer countries in the region, constrains and enables new partner preferences. Specifically, there is a racialisation of Asianness and reorientation of desire away from Caucasian partners towards East Asian ones.
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, 2016
New Media Configurations and Socio-Cultural Dynamics in Asia and the Arab World, 2015
The Internet has facilitated the development of queer subcultures throughout Asia. Previous schol... more The Internet has facilitated the development of queer subcultures throughout Asia. Previous scholarship has focused on the globalisation or localisation of Western gay subjectivities and norms. It is clear, however, that new media also provide increasing opportunities for the restyling of localised gender norms using non-Western sources. K-pop cover dance, the copying of choreographed movements in Korean popular music, has become a definitive social activity among feminine Asian gay males and is organised into an extensive international contest circuit. Thai sissies (young, feminine males) are among the most prolific practitioners, engaging in various forms of cover dance and posting their videos online. Indeed, groups such as the Wonder Gay have risen to national celebrity. I describe how cover dance demarcates a new social arena for effeminate Thai males to express themselves through the idiom of modern Korean female embodiment. Semi-professional cover dancers constitute a class of ‘hyperfans’ who become ‘demi-idols’, with fan followings in their own right. Cover dance provides a means through which Thais create new rituals that
transform the self and engage cosmopolitan Asian status. The K-pop cover dance phenomenon in Thailand highlights recent shifts in Asian regionalism, idol fandom, and transgressive gender performance.
Inter-Asian cultural flows are transforming everyday Thai gender practices and performances in un... more Inter-Asian cultural flows are transforming everyday Thai gender practices and performances in unexpected ways. The most striking example is the way in which Korean popular music, or K-pop, is molding contemporary beauty and dance aesthetics through cover dance, the copying of choreographed movements from music videos. K-pop cover dance has become a definitive social activity among Asian sissies (young feminine gay men) and is organized into an extensive contest circuit leading to an annual competition in Korea. Thai sissies are among the most enthusiastic and skillful practitioners of K-pop cover dance, and some practitioners, such as the members of the group Wonder Gay, have become national celebrities. I describe how cover dance demarcates a new social arena for feminine Thai males to express themselves through the idiom of modern Korean female embodiment. Semiprofessional cover dancers constitute a class of “hyper-fans” who become “demi-idols,” with fan followings in their own right. I argue that Thai K-pop cover dance can be read as both an aspiration for personal and national development that indexes participation in a new cosmopolitan Asian sphere. The cover dance phenomenon in Thailand highlights recent shifts in Asian regionalism, idol fandom, and transgressive gender performance.
Contemporary Socio-Cultural and Political Perspectives in Thailand, 2014
In this chapter, I expand on the notion of “-scape” (Appadurai 1996: 33) in conceptualizing gende... more In this chapter, I expand on the notion of “-scape” (Appadurai 1996: 33) in conceptualizing genderscapes in Thailand, which can act as a case study in developing genderscapes elsewhere. I argue for the conceptualization of a Thai sex/gender system, or genderscapes, based on five key gender categories. I explore the cultural logics of naming and transformations in meaning ascribed to gender-variant people and describe the contemporary genderscapes, or the conceptual distribution of gender/sexuality forms in everyday practice as they are conditioned by fields of uneven power. I contend that genderscapes provide an enhanced theorization of contemporary Thai gender categories. The lines between tom : woman : kathoey : gay : man are neither clear nor fixed, but coalesce around these key formations. These categories are grounded via the repetition and ritualization of routine practices in everyday life as they appear to others but also remain fluid in that gender performances exceed their intentions and interpretations.
In Thailand, genderscapes, or the terrain of gender and sexuality, continue to evolve quickly, wi... more In Thailand, genderscapes, or the terrain of gender and sexuality, continue to evolve quickly, with male-to-female transgenderisms and effeminate gay identities proliferating alongside masculine ones. The previous coding of kathoey in popular discourse as being traditional is shifting to one that identifies ‘‘kathoeyness’’, or male effeminacy, with modernity. Recent incidents point to a discursive shift based on a purified nostalgia for Thai ‘‘tradition’’, which excises kathoey presence. In this article, I consider how social evaluation and moral legitimacy underscore the contemporary terrain of gender/sexuality and contradictory attitudes towards kathoeyness. I describe how the increasing visibility of male effeminacy provokes national anxiety, becomes associated with degeneracy, and is used to excise non-normative gender from recent reconstructions of Thainess.
Dredge Byung'chu Käng, MA, is a PhD/MPH candidate in anthropology/global epidemiology at Emory Un... more Dredge Byung'chu Käng, MA, is a PhD/MPH candidate in anthropology/global epidemiology at Emory University. He conducts ethnographic research in Thailand on race, gender pluralism, social status, and Asian regionalism. Dredge is involved in community and HIV organizing with transgender women and sex workers and participates in the art scene.
In the Western popular imagination, Bangkok is a “gay paradise,” a city that affords cheap and ea... more In the Western popular imagination, Bangkok is a “gay paradise,” a city that affords cheap and easy access to exotic “boys.” This reputation for sex tourism as well as a local cultural tolerance for homosexuality and transgenderism is a common representation of queer Bangkok in English-language media. This article juxtaposes Thai media and lived experience to displace, recontextualize, and expand the prevailing Western view. It argues that Western gazes that depict Thailand as especially tolerant of homosexuality and gender variance may in fact inhibit the free expression of Thai male-bodied effeminacy. Finally, this article argues that the hypersexualization of Thais and new regional alignments are molding local desires and subjectivities away from the West toward East Asia.
Conference Presentations by Dredge Byung'chu Kang
The 1st World Congress for Hallyu Student Research Article Contest Awards, 2013
Cover dance is the copying of choreographed movements and other gestures to replicate the feeling... more Cover dance is the copying of choreographed movements and other gestures to replicate the feeling of watching an original concert performance or music video. In Thailand, K-pop (Korean popular music) cover dance has become a popular social activity among sissies (young effeminate gay men) and young women, and is organized into an extensive contest circuit. Effeminate Thai males are among the most prolific "prosumers" of K-pop cover dance, posting their videos online. Indeed, sissy groups such as the Wonder Gay have even risen to national celebrity. I describe K-pop cover dance and argue that 1) the structure of K-pop music videos, which focus on highly choreographed group dance sequences for songs in an unfamiliar language, are particularly suited to embodied mimesis via cover dance, 2) the extensive reproduction of K-pop music videos in online dance covers and parodies produces an aura for the original via what I term "delayed authenticity," 3) semi-professional cover dance performers constitute a class of "hyper-fans" who become "demi-idols," with fan followings in their own right, and 4) participation in K-pop cover dance demarcates a new social arena for effeminate Thai males to express themselves through the idiom of modern Korean female embodiment. A close examination of K-pop cover dance in Thailand highlights recent shifts in Asian pop-culture regionalism (the circulation of popular music, television, film, and commodities in East and Southeast Asia), popular music and social media, idol fandom, and transgressive gender performance.
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Papers by Dredge Byung'chu Kang
transform the self and engage cosmopolitan Asian status. The K-pop cover dance phenomenon in Thailand highlights recent shifts in Asian regionalism, idol fandom, and transgressive gender performance.
Conference Presentations by Dredge Byung'chu Kang
transform the self and engage cosmopolitan Asian status. The K-pop cover dance phenomenon in Thailand highlights recent shifts in Asian regionalism, idol fandom, and transgressive gender performance.