The Changing Faces of Chinese Canadians: Interpellation and Performance in the Deployment of the Model Minority Discourse

The history of Chinese settlement in Canada is one that closely parallels the evolution of the Canadian states own racial and immigration policies. As policy shifted from covert and overt forms of racial exclusion and discrimination, including the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 that attempted to ban immigration from China altogether, to the introduction of an official multicultural policy and a points system that admitted prospective immigrants based upon their academic and economic credentials, the portrayal of Chinese Canadians has centred on two predominant stereotypes: the Yellow Peril and the Model Minority. While it is easy to retroactively assume that the Yellow Peril discourse has been superseded by that of the Model Minority particularly in light of Canadas official multiculturalism policy, the increased economic and social capital of Chinese Canadians, and Chinas own recent economic boom this dissertation argues instead that both discourses have co-existed since the beginning of Chinese immigration to Canada, and continue to do so today. Using a combined examination of Chinese Canadian history and life writing, I argue that the Model Minority discourse is not a recent phenomenon; rather, it is an example of the complex relationship between external interpellation by mainstream Canadian society, and the agency and affective performance of Chinese immigrants and their descendants. While the Model Minority discourse has been used as a tool to maintain the Eurocentrism of mainstream Canadian society by placing Asian immigrants, including Chinese, upon a pedestal in contrast to other racialized minorities, it has also found footing in the desire of Chinese Canadian communities to be accepted and acknowledged as desirable citizens by the Canadian state and the public

"""Fresh off the boat"" or ""Canadian born Chinese"": cultural translation in the Chinese-Canadian community"

Over the course of its history, the Chinese-Canadian community has had to adapt in various ways to the encounters, similarities and differences between Chinese and Canadian cultural practices and worldviews. While the situation began with racial discrimination and self-imposed isolation in ethnic enclaves, it has evolved to champion cultural integration, but also raise questions of cultural identity in the face of cosmopolitanism. This paper, therefore, examines those issues from the perspective of cultural translation, particularly the dynamics between the I and the Other as cultures, as well as translational resistancy and accommodation. These, combined with a statistical study on self-identification in Chinese-Canadian autobiographical literature, can articulate the tension that exists within the Chinese-Canadian population as it attempts to find its niche within Canadian society: being both Chinese and Canadian. From this, both the Chinese- and mainstream-Canadian population can glean lessons for future cultural integration and preservation in a cosmopolitan setting

Obesity and risk factors for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes: Investigating the role of physical activity and sedentary behaviour in mid-life in the 1958 British cohort.

A key public health priority is to minimise obesity-related health consequences. We aim to establish whether physical activity (PA) or less sedentary behaviour ameliorate associations of obesity with biomarkers for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes

Studying ICT supported pedagogical practices

During the past decade there has been an exponential growth in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and this has made pervasive impacts both on the society and on our daily lives. It is thus not surprising to find increasing interest, attention and investment put into the use of ICT in education all around the world. In addition to efforts to make use of ICT to improve learning, the emergence of the knowledge economy has also brought about in recent years a much greater emphasis on education and a number of masterplans in ICT in education has been produced in many countries. Such masterplans detailed not only strategies for implementation but more importantly embedded the plans within a broader framework of education reform that aimed to develop students’ capacities for self-learning, problem-solving, information seeking and analysis, critical thinking and the ability to communicate, collaborate and learn via the internet, abilities that figured much less importantly in the school curricula before. In this context, a new term, “emerging pedagogical practice”, was used in SITES (the Second International Information Technology in Education Study, conducted under the auspices of the IEA) (Pelgrum, 1999) to highlight the changing pedagogical goals and practices that has resulted from the use of ICT in education, as opposed to those uses that just aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of “traditionally important pedagogical practices”. However, the concept of “emerging pedagogical practice” as depicted in the SITES Module 1 (M1) report is still rather vague. When schools have access to computers and the Internet to support teaching and learning, how would teachers and students make use of them? What impact has ICT made on classroom practices? What changes, if any, has ICT made on the roles of teachers and students and the interactions between them? Has the introduction of ICT in schools brought about the desired education reforms envisaged in the ICT in education masterplans or are these wishful optimisms? Are there more effective models of ICT implementation in schools, and if so what are their characteristics? In conjunction with the SITES M1 Hong Kong study, we have conducted a study of good practices in the use of ICT for teaching and learning using the case studies approach. The main goal of this extension study was to explore the above questions in the context of good practices as commonly recognized by members of the education community, and to develop ways of disseminating such good practices. This paper describes the conceptual framework and methodology used in this study and reports briefly on some key findings from the study. The research methodology used in this Study is based on a model of pedagogical practice that is couched within a broad curriculum framework where the pedagogical practice is the implemented curriculum. There are two parts to the research. The first part is to investigate and to build models of pedagogical practices involving use of ICT. Here the assumption (substantiated by observations) is that the way ICT is incorporated into classrooms is very much dictated by the teachers’ general beliefs and approaches to education. The second component of the methodology deals with the models (strategies) of educational change used in different schools in introducing ICT across the curriculum and to explore if particular models of pedagogical practice is linked with specific school implementation strategies.published_or_final_versio

Prolonged myoclonus after a single bolus dose of propofol

Propofol is a commonly used anaesthetic agent and is rarely associated with seizure-like phenomena. This case report presents a young woman with seizure-like phenomena lasting more than 4 weeks after a single dose of propofol. The underlying pathophysiology of this condition is poorly understood but a psychological component is possible in this case. © 2009 The Authors.postprin

Designing CALL for learning Chinese characters

Despite the enormity of its quantity, printed or written forms of Chinese characters are composed from a limited number of common components. For example, the characters for pond( ), lake( ), stream( ), river ( ), sea( ) and ocean( ) all contain a component in common, a three-dot component representing water. When this clue is explicitly highlighted to students, the learning of Chinese characters can be greatly enhanced. Using a computer to help students to develop this kind of structural awareness about language learning has not yet been thoroughly examined. This paper reports on the design of CALL software based on a pedagogic method which helps students to develop the higher order skills to analyse and categorise Chinese characters by using components. The result of the classroom experiment has shown supportive evidence on the feasibility and the need of integrating the software with an affective and contextual way of teaching Chinese characters.postprin

神話的再現 : 論也斯〈養龍人師門〉的文學改編

也斯的〈養龍人師門〉是一則神話文學，寫於1975年，收錄於《養龍人師門》一書。作者汲取了古代神話元素，配合魔幻寫實的手法，反映現實。以下將會追溯相關的典籍記載，繼而找出也斯所作的增補，最後分析該篇神話文學的幾個主題，探討作者的創作意義

A Gentleman with Anemia and Cholestasis

Primary sclerosing cholangitis is a rare cause of cholestasis caused by progressive inflammation and fibrosis of both intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts leading to multifocal ductal strictures. Herein, we report a case of primary sclerosing cholangitis and inflammatory bowel disease. The concomitant diagnosis of these two diseases is not typical. The management includes the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and potential complications of primary sclerosing cholangitis, including dominant strictures of bile duct, portal hypertension, gallbladder diseases, cholangiocarcinoma, and colonoscopic surveillance

《學習2.0》：一個支援新高中通識教育及專題研究的學習及評估平臺

Liberal Studies as a mandatory subject in the New Secondary School curriculum will be implemented starting from September 2009. This subject adopts an inquiry-based approach and the content is structured around a range of important contemporary issues. Teachers face new challenges in teaching and assessing this subject: how to guide students to read critically, find useful information from the internet, formulate inquiry questions and to undertake evidence-based inquiry; how to support student collaboration and at the same time be able to assess the efforts and achievements of individual students; and how to provide adequate feedback to students at various stages of inquiry such that assessment can be both formative and summative. In addition, facilitating students to work autonomously online generally brings heavy workload on teachers. This paper introduces the Learning 2.0 project which comprises the development of an open-source online learning and assessment platform using Web 2.0 technology to provide support for the learning and teaching in the NSS Liberal Studies Curriculum.published_or_final_versio

此時彼刻文化研究 = Cultural studies still in the making

時光荏苒，MCS15年了！ 今年MCS年度研討會與過去有點不同，主題是「展演CROSSOVER：香港文化研究的變奏與另類新選擇」。在舉步維艱的社會政治泥沼中，我們如何理解和面對這境地？透過這次研討會，MCS表達對這個時代的關切，並在這關口中提出新概念，加入「表演研究」元素──不但帶來學術上的協同效應，而且使未來教育的路更闊、與大家走得更遠，發揮更大的潛質。 研討會分為兩部分。第一部分以MCSian的論文為引旨，透過對話去思考在當前處境如何尋找出路，由梁旭明主持，分別由吳紹奇主講〈作為歷史哲學家的班雅明：論歷史哲學兼評〈歷史哲學論綱〉〉，Kong Yee主講〈The Identity of Cheung Chau Kai-fong : The Cultural Disparity of The Northern and Southern Cheung Chau〉，古卓嵐主講〈Modern Educayshun 的啟示──從恐懼女性主義心理 到課室政治的省思〉，並由羅冠聰評論及與講者進行討論