{"product_id":"on-not-speaking-chinese-ien-ang-9780415259125","title":"On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West","description":"In this major new book, leading cultural thinker Ien Ang engages with urgent questions of identity in an age of globalisation and diaspora. The starting point for Ang's discussion is the experience of visiting Taiwan. Ang, a person of Chinese descent, born in Indonesia and raised in the Netherlands, found herself \"faced with an almost insurmountable difficulty\" - surrounded by people who expected her to speak to them in Chinese. She writes: \"It was the beginning of an almost decade-long engagement with the predicaments of  Chineseness' in diaspora. In Taiwan I was different because I couldn't speak Chinese; in the West I was different because I looked Chinese\". From this autobiographical beginning, Ang goes on to reflect upon tensions between  Asia' and  the West' at a national and global level, and to consider the disparate meanings of  Chineseness' in the contemporary world. She offers a critique of the increasingly aggressive construction of a global Chineseness, and challenges Western tendencies to equate  Chinese' with  Asian' identity. Ang then turns to  the West', exploring the paradox of Australia's identity as a  Western' country in the Asian region, and tracing Australia's uneasy relationship with its Asian neighbours, from the White Australia policy to contemporary multicultural society. Finally, Ang draws together her discussion of  Asia' and  the West' to consider the social and intellectual space of the  in-between', arguing for a theorising not of  difference' but of  togetherness' in contemporary societies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ien Ang\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0415259126\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780415259125\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Routledge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/08\/2001\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 244\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.40h x 6.40w x 0.72d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/01\/2002 pg. 189","brand":"Ien Ang","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43919701704959,"sku":"9780415259125","price":160.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_8c5f3cbe-276b-41ea-905d-4723e4444be5.jpg?v=1680810834","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/on-not-speaking-chinese-ien-ang-9780415259125","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}