Parenting approaches, family functionality, and internet addiction among Hong Kong adolescents

© 2016 Wu et al. Background: Internet addiction (IA) among adolescents has become a global health problem, and public awareness of it is increasing. Many IA risk factors relate to parents and the family environment. This study examined the relationship between IA and parenting approaches and family functionality. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 2021 secondary students to identify the prevalence of IA and to explore the association between adolescent IA and familial variables, including parents' marital status, family income, family conflict, family functionality, and parenting approaches. Results: The results revealed that 25.3 % of the adolescent respondents exhibited IA, and logistic regression positively predicted the IA of adolescents from divorced families, low-income families, families in which family conflict existed, and severely dysfunctional families. Interestingly, adolescents with restricted Internet use were almost 1.9 times more likely to have IA than those whose use was not restricted. Conclusions: Internet addiction is common among Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong, and family-based prevention strategies should be aligned with the risk factors of IA.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Is 'oil pulling' a 'snake oil'? : a clinical trial

The traditional Ayurveda practice of ‘oil pulling’ has become a recent phenomenon and concerns about its efficacy have been raised. Objectives: (1) to determine awareness about the practice of ‘oil pulling’ among a group of young adults, and to determine variations in awareness with respect to socio-demographic factors, oral health behaviours (oral hygiene and dental attendance) and use of natural health products; (2) to determine the effectiveness of ‘oil pulling’ and conventional oral hygiene practice compared to the use of conventional oral hygiene practice alone in terms of oral hygiene and (3) to determine the effectiveness of ‘oil pulling’ and conventional oral hygiene practice compared to the use of conventional oral hygiene practice alone in terms of gingival health. Methods: Group members recruited seventy-four young adults to participate in a clinical trial over a two-month period comparing the effectiveness of (a) ‘oil pulling’ and conventional oral hygiene methods (toothbrush and toothpaste) versus (b) conventional oral hygiene methods alone. Oral hygiene was assessed using the Plaque Index - PI (Silness and Löe, 1964) and the proportion of sites with visible plaque (PVP). Gingival health was assessed using the Gingival Index – GI (Silness and Löe,1963) and the proportion of sites with gingival bleeding (PGB). Participants were block randomized in groups of four to a cross over clinical trial and assessments were conducted at one-month and two-months. Results: Approximately a quarter (28.4%, 21) of participants was aware of the practice of ‘oil pulling’. Awareness of the practice was associated with reported use of natural dental/oral health products (p0.05). There were observed significant differences in gingival health among both the test and control groups from baseline to one-month (p0.05). No significant differences were observed in oral health parameters from one-month to two-month among neither the test nor control groups (p>0.05). Conclusion: Awareness of the practice of ‘oil pulling’ is relatively common and is associated with use of natural dental/oral health products. Findings from the clinical trial failed to support the adjunct use of ‘oil pulling’ in addition to conventional oral hygiene practices.published_or_final_versio

Sindhi community in Hong Kong: a century-long tale of a South Asian diaspora

The COVID-19 pandemic has raided the whole world, abruptly disrupting the cross-country, long-distance travels in an unprecedented scale. In Hong Kong, we do not know when and how international travels would resume to the pre-pandemic level. While we are still largely stuck in our own places, it may be a good time to rethink what human mobility really means to us and many others, especially people whose communal lives have been largely defined by ongoing mobility and transregional networks. Sindhis in Hong Kong are one such group of people, having formed what one may call ‘a transnational community’ in Hong Kong since the early 20th century. This article, based on author’s research on several Sindhis in Hong Kong, reveals some valuable information about this century-old South Asian diaspora

从移民企业家到跨国商人: 绍兴印度人的人类学研究

文章以文献回顾讨论了关于印度商人的民族志研究，说明印度商业活动受到学者关注的原因，分析了移民企 业家这个概念为什么不能解释今天日益频繁的跨国商业模式。研究绍兴的印度商人，可以为学界提供及时的案例，让我们 更了解印度跨国企业的内部运作

Transforming the 'field' through an inclusive, public-facing, and globally oriented ethnographic pedagogy

In this time of the global pandemic, a major challenge to teaching field-based subjects, including but not limited to anthropology, is the difficulty of organizing in-person, on-site ethnographic field activities for students (e.g. the instructor brings a group of students to visit a field site). This is particularly the case in East Asia, where students continue to face considerable barriers to in-person, group-based, and beyond-university learning due to the ongoing ‘Zero-COVID-19’ policies. This short position paper proposes to create transferable tools, methods, and skills that will create alternative forms of ethnographic field learning activities, especially ones that will directly challenge the traditional place-based definition of ‘field’ as well as ones that will support students to overcome the barriers of learning during the pandemic time. In so doing, the paper explores innovative field-based teaching approaches that will (1) bring the field sites to the classrooms, (2) cultivate long-term and sustained community engagement with ethnic minority and diasporic populations in Asia, and (3) disseminate teaching outcomes to multicultural populations in and beyond the local Asian societie

Global fabric bazaar: an Indian trading economy in a Chinese county

This thesis is primarily based on ethnographic fieldwork that lasted fifteen months, between 2010 and 2012, in Keqiao, a municipal county in eastern Zhejiang Province, China. Despite its inferior administrative status and rather inland location, Keqiao is Chinaâs trading frontier for fabrics, which are the semifinished textiles that are industrially weaved, knitted, dyed, and printed in bulk before being exported. Contributing to the turnover of more than one-third of all fabric produced in China, the countyâs fabric wholesale market is not only the mainstay of Keqiaoâs economy. It is also the worldâs centre for fabric supplies, and where around 10,000 Indians have flocked to start their intermediary trading businesses. The major aim of this thesis is to examine the everyday encounters between Indians and Chinese in the local fabric market. It begins by exploring how Keqiao emerged as the global distribution centre for a wide variety of cheap fabrics. It also shows how Keqiao becomes characterized by the growing importance of low-end fabric sales and the influx of Indian traders, who specialize in exporting these fabrics. The thesis then describes the encounters between Indians and local Chinese in the fabric market, addressing the challenges and difficulties that these Indians, especially the newcomers, confront when dealing with the Chinese suppliers. Focusing on novice traders, the thesis turns to investigate the internal dynamics of Indian trading companies. Remarkably, novice Indian traders successfully learn several strategies to counteract their precarious position in the workplace. These strategies leverage the accumulation of work experience and expanding social networks. These insights bring the thesis to chapters that highlight other strategies, particularly those created from encounters between Indian traders and Chinese clerks, as well as those between Indian traders and Chinese salespersons. Taken together, this thesis illustrates how transnational and local actors team up to create their own, locally based, intermediary economy within a small Chinese county, and how such a collaborative economy, which I term a âglobal fabric bazaar,â sustains these actors. Without this collaborative economy, these players would otherwise be vulnerable within the fabric wholesale industry because this supply chain is increasingly polarized and weakened by todayâs global capitalism.</p