Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
Based on an international workshop convened in Yangzhou in 2005, Lifestyle and Entertainment in Yangzhou provides a kaleidoscopic view of the city's history, culture and arts. It is a monumental volume marked by a fine production, especially in its colorful illustrations. The editors characterize the book's multi-disciplinary approach in the Introduction: "Far from a standard narrowly-defined academic project, the book is a collaborative enterprise that has resulted in a collection of essays each of which adds details and considerations that enrich the whole" (p. xxiii). Thus the volume seeks to promote the city's rich cultural heritage to a broader readership, especially through collaboration with locally-based scholars.
For example, the chapter by Fei Li, a Yangzhou-based storyteller-turned-researcher, is the translation of a Chinese essay that introduces Yangzhou's storytelling houses and business practices to general Chinese readers. This essay provides readers with an insider's observations and knowledge of details, and represents an interesting approach in the English-language scholarship of local Chinese history. Similarly, the chapter by Vibeke Børdahl is highly insightful in analysing the use of scripts by the storytellers and comparing the scripts with vernacular novels based on the storytellers' performances. This work seems to have resulted from her long-time collaboration with local storytellers.
As one of the initiators of this book project, Børdahl has published widely on the local culture...