Author: Yihan

Cat Links 2024 Blog, Lecture 6: Housing Stories

[Reading Response 2]: Communal After-Living: Asian Ghosts and the City

Posted on Carina

In “Asian Ghosts and Cities”, Katarzyna Ancuta argued that the due to the loneliness of modern urban life, creating an environment that have a haunted norm. He also considered the specifics of different Asian cities and cultures, for example, Korea and Japan, theirs ghost films often reflect the urban isolation. In contrast, ghost stories are created by the dense living environments and rapid modernization in places such as Hong Kong, which leave no room for the dead, forcing ghosts to enter urban living spaces. In the urban space, architecture has been influenced by neoliberal urbanism. So it is no longer

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Lecture 6: Housing Stories

[Class Exercise]- Moving House Reflection Xu Yihan

Posted on Carina

This video talks about a family lives in Singapore which comes from Fuzhou needs to move the grave of their parents. Their parents have been buried in the cemetery for more than 20 years. Due to the development of Singapore, they have to do so. The family has a very amicable atmosphere and they buried their died brother with their parents. I guess that’s why this film is titled Moving Home.

Cat Links 2024 Blog, Workshop 2: Dreamland Film Screening + Director's Chat

[Questions to director Chen] Xu Yihan

Posted on Carina

This film is about a real estate agent and a photographer in Cambodia. The first half of the film switches between shots of the male and female protagonists at work and shots of them returning home at night to spend time together, and I would like to ask if there is any special meaning in filming this way? Due to the difference in their work, the female protagonist laments the changes in the male protagonist  and expresses the sadness in her own heart. In the middle, there is a shot of her going to an amusement park to play the

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Fieldwork

[Fieldwork Report] Xu Yihan & Wang Dongtong

Posted on Carina

Xu Yihan (UID: 3036102218) Wang Dongtong (UID: 3036099394) Video essay Youtube link: https://youtu.be/LO3K_4JWT0U Text transcript Carina: This is our video podcast of CCHU9034. I’m Xu Yihan. This is my partner Wang Dongtong. Katherine: Today we will talk about the vanishing city. These days we went to the Man Wah Building which is the filming site of the ‘Breaking News’. Carina: During the trip, we saw many buildings and facilities that have existed for a few decades, such as laundries, restaurants, and barbershops. Among all the facilities we saw, the traditional food market will be discussed as our topic. The main

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Cat Links 2024 Blog, Lecture 3: The Post-war Asian City as Set

[Reading Response] Noirs: The City, the Woman and Other Spaces

Posted on Carina

The reading includes “Black Rose” and “Elevated Girl” which is released in the year of 1965. “Black Rose” describes two upper-class sisters who steal from the rich and help the poor. The film takes the audience through the different classes of people living at the time. The changing background of space and architecture in the film also reflects the inequality of Hong Kong society in the process of rapid modernization and industrialization—moreover, this inspired society’s stereotype of women as not just stopping at housework. When we talked about “Elevator Girl,” it shows the daily lives of a working-class female elevator

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