5,501 research outputs found

    Hsiang Yu's Kai-hsia ko

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    In the Hsiang Yü pen-chi 項羽本紀 of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shih-chi is preserved a four-line song which is said to have been composed by the tragic hero himself sometime before his death at Kai-hsia 垓下. In sorrow, Hsiang Yu laments his misfortunes, attributing his downfall to a capricious Heaven. An underlying feeling of uncertainty and despair betrays his belief that man's earthly existence is subject to the unreliable and unpredictable will of Heaven. Such a sentiment is seldom found prior to this time. In the poetry of the Shih-ching or Ch'u-tz'u, Heaven, rather than behaving capriciously, is in general conceived of as giving to human life an eventual direction and object. The pessimism of Hsiang Yu's song thus represents the first appearance of that general feeling of uncertainty which pervades the poetry of the Han and later dynasties. The author has had at his disposal a text of the Shih-chi preserved only in Japan. In this manuscript the poem contains one additional line

    Anti-AIDS-Discrimination and Legal Mobilization-On the AIDS Control Law in Taiwan(1981-2009)

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    社會運動的法律動員是研究法律與社會關係的取徑之一,運動者可運用法律來形構動員議程展開行動,以達成運動者的目標。分析法律對於社會運動的意義,可讓研究者從運動者的動員面向動態地思考法律與社會之間的相互形塑關係,進而對台灣的法律與社會互動提出更具脈絡的反省。本文以社會運動的角度出發,研究台灣民間的AIDS運動者,探究AIDS運動者進行法律動員的條件與方式,並分析法律體系將對運動者的回應,我將循著AIDS歷史的軸線探究AIDS運動的變遷,並同時關照動員時的社會脈絡與政治結構,以探求反AIDS歧視運動的發展歷程。 衛生署在1985年正式推動AIDS防治政策,在醫學專家與防治官員的疾病建構下,感染者與男同性戀者有著本質上的關連,感染者被當作是不正常的人,而男同性戀者則為AIDS所烙印。〈後天免疫缺乏症候群防治條例〉在1990年通過立法三讀,立法者對於感染者雖有「隱私權」的保障,但並未考慮到感染者可能受到歧視的社會處境,法規以防堵病毒為核心考量,並不重視感染者隱私權之外的保障,此後〈防治條例〉成為台灣AIDS運動中,重要的法律動員對象。在1990年後,以防治條例為抗爭場域,爭取對感染者權益的保障以及相關AIDS人權規定成為台灣AIDS運動者重要的行動議程。 1992年台灣第一個民間AIDS組織出現後,關懷AIDS議題的民間行動者逐漸現身於台灣社會,在行動者的動員之下,AIDS政策的權力結構開始受到挑戰與質疑。1996年運動者進行了第一次對〈防治條例〉的修法行動,在謝啟大立委的合作之下,成功地開起了一次修法動員。此次修法增訂了反歧視法令,明文規範感染者之人格與權益應予以保障,不得因感染事實而歧視感染者,可謂防治條例對於感染者權益保障的肯認。1997年之後「愛滋感染者權益促進會」成立,象徵著台灣AIDS運動的法律動員走向組織化的進展, 反歧視法雖然在1997年通過,但卻沒有能夠具體保障感染者權益,台灣社會對於感染者的排斥以及恐懼並不因為反歧視法的制訂而有顯著的改變。反歧視法不曾被執行,感染者權益也經常在公衛防治傳染病的考量下,受到侵害。〈防治條例〉曾在2000年與2005年進行修法,兩次的修法都涉及到外籍感染者之處境,雖然民間團體試圖以感染者權益保障的立場參與修法,但卻未能開創出有利於外籍感染者權益的法令制度,在防治政策中的「國族主義」思維下,外籍感染者被認定有害於國人健康,而必須被驅逐出境。反歧視條款雖為保障感染者權益而制訂的法令,但卻沒有能夠將反歧視價值落實於政策與社會之中,使得反歧視法僅具有法令宣示性意義。 儘管如此,反歧視法象徵的國家對於感染者主體權利的肯認仍然是重要的,在2005年侯水盛立委試圖提案刪去反歧視條款時,引起了民間運動者的不滿,進而展開守護反歧視條款的抵抗行動,由此可見縱然反歧視法令雖可能不具實效而流於宣示性意義,但對於容易受到排擠、歧視的群體而言,法令的象徵意義也是值得加以動員保衛的規範。 2005至2007年的關愛之家事件,是台灣近年來最受注目的AIDS議題之一,收容感染者的關愛之家受到社區住戶已不受病毒威脅之權利要求關愛之家遷離,事件進入訴訟後,關愛之家一審敗訴,引發社會對於感染者權益關注,而這樣的關注也連帶了影響了民間運動者所進行的修法動員。 2007年,防治條例進行了歷次最大規模的修法,運動者與黃淑英、王榮璋立委合作,是歷次修法以來最接近運動者期待的一次修法,法案名稱也改為《人類免疫缺乏病毒傳染防治即感染者權益保障條例》更加強調了防治政策對於感染者權益的重視,修法過後,關愛之家二審法院也以新法宣判關愛之家勝訴,不須遷離。感染者權益保障的主張在立法與司法場域都獲得了勝利的結果。然而,修法2年以來,感染者之處境是否有明顯的改善?仍屬未知,仍有待時間來檢證2007年運動者的法律動員成果。 由本文的研究可知,運動者要進行法律動員有其行動上的條件,並非所有的社會運動者都將法律當作達成運動目標的手段;而運動者的法律動員雖然無法在一次修法的成功或一次訴訟的勝訴判決後,達成運動者所期待的理想目標,但法律象徵著國家權威對於特定狀態的合法性承認,如果運動者在法律場域中的抗衡行動成功的爭取到國家對其價值的承認,將使運動者更容易達成其推動社會變遷的目標,法律動員意謂著運動者爭取一次合法性競逐的機會,僅管機會並不必然帶來成功的結果,但如果運動者放棄了法律作為異議行動的場域,則可能將使得既有的壓迫節構更加強大,反而可能增加了運動者的不利及動員成本。The legal mobilization of social movement is one of the research approaches to the study of Law and Society. The Activists can use law to frame the agenda of social movements to achieve their aim. Studying the role of “Law” in social movements can let researcher thinking about the mutual framing relationship between law and society, and then reflect on Taiwan’s law and society. I would start from the social movement study to find the conditions and methods for Taiwan AIDS movement activists mobilize the Law, I also analyze the feedback from Taiwan Legal System to AIDS movement. In order to seek the historical development of AIDS movement, I will focus on the historical dimension of anti-AIDS-discrimination movements, and also on the social context and political structure of the collective action in the legal mobilization of AIDS movement. In 1985, department of Health started to proceed the AIDS policy in Taiwan. The hiv-infected was seen to be related essentially with gay from the disease construction of the medical experts and the governmental officials. The Infected was regarded as the abnormal, and gay was stigmatized by AIDS. The “Hiv Infection Control Act” was legislated in 1990; the legislator did not put much emphasis on the right-protection of the infected, rather on the control of the infected. After 1990, the Primary Regulation, Hiv Infection Control Act, becomes the important agenda of Taiwan AIDS activists. In 1996, the activists made the first attempt on legal mobilization. They drafted a law amendment to proceed a legislative lobby, the activists tried to persuade the legislators into accept the draft of the activists, which is concerned with the rights of the infected and the anti-discrimination article. From the amendment of the Act in 1997, we will agree that the activists got a good outcome in the first legislative lobby. The anti-discrimination article was added, and the debate of legislative committee sided with the activists. But the law reform in the legislative dimension can not be viewed as the achievement of social movement apparently. The anti-discrimination law was passed in the Legislative Yuan 1997, but the law is not capable of being the legal protection of the infected. The social rejective attitude and fear toward the infected don’t change by the law reform. The Act was amended twice in 2000 and 2005, the twice amendment were about the alien infected’s rights, due to the nationalism thought of the AIDS policy, the alien infected are believed to harmful to the Taiwanese and shall leave the county. Even though there is one important organization that uses legal discourse to persuade the protection of the infected set in 1997, which is the primary legal mobilization organization in Taiwan AIDS movements, but the anti-discrimination law is still just a symbol with no real effect at all. The outcome of the legislative lobby in 1997 seems to be useless for the activists. . But the symbol is still important to the activists. In 2005, there is one legislator tried to erase the anti-discrimination article, the activists object this suggestion soon. In this event, we can find the power of law, that though the law is just declaratory but still can’t be canceled. In 2005, there is still another important event, the Harmony Home Association case, which is concerned with the housing right and the people’s not-to-be-infected right. However the other side of the rights conflict is the attitude toward the infected, and the effect of the anti-discrimination law. After the loss of Harmony Home Association in the district court in 2006, the department of health begins to draft the law amendment, in another hand, the activists try also to make a legislative amendment to hang out a draft which is much care about the rights of the infected. In 2007, the Legislative Yuan passed the amendment which is closest amendment to the expectation of the activists; the name of the Act is also changed to be: “HIV Infection Control and Patient Rights Protection Act.” The new law put much focus on the right of the infected. And Taiwan High Court made the decision by the new anti-discrimination law and the Harmony Home Association won this case after all. Two years later, the success of legal mobilization of AIDS activists in 2007 is still questioned. We can still not say that: “the rejective attitude toward the infected is eradicated, and the AIDS stigma is finished, and there is no more denial to the AIDS. The outcome of legal mobilization in 2007 still needs time to be examined. From my study, I find that the legal mobilization has its own conditions, even though the activists use the “law”, it doesn’t promise the fulfillment of the activists’ aim. But once the activists get the confirmation of authority of the state, the activists will be closer to their aim, and vice versa

    Dynamic Changes and Recovery of Blood Pressure and Heart Rate Variability under Different Work Shifts

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    背景 為發現不同輪班工作中之心臟壓力,我們研究年輕護士輪班工作中血壓及心搏變異之變化法 研究對象為16名年輕輪班之護士,對照組為6位正常班護士;在工作日與工作後休息日連續兩日接受動態心電圖與血壓之監測。果 線性混合效應統計顯示在睡眠與夜班、小夜班時,副交感神經控制會增加;在工作及輪班大小夜班後的睡眠中,副交感神經控制則會減少,血壓及交感神經控制則會增加,比白班睡眠偏高。輪班後隔日休假小夜班及白班狀況的血壓及心搏變異會回復至正常白班狀況,但輪大夜班則無法完全恢復(p<0.05)。收縮壓與舒張壓在睡眠中會明顯下降,在工作時會顯著上升與心臟交感神經調節增加及副交感神經控制降低時之狀態具相同情形。不同輪班護士在工作天與隔天之睡眠血壓下降/非下降狀態(dipper/nondipper)改變率分別為門診33%、大夜班44%、小夜班50%和白班38%;69 %輪班護士至少改變一次。論 年輕女護士輪班工作與心搏、血壓變異狀態有顯著相關。輪班時生理與心理壓力負擔,不僅於工作期間,輪大、小夜班後的睡眠中,輪大夜班之工作天,尤其顯著。年輕女護士輪班與睡眠血壓下降/非下降狀態有顯著相關,除大夜班外,輪班隔天之血壓皆會回復至正常白班狀況,大夜輪班之效應會持續到隔天休息日。我們建議測量血壓時應將輪班之狀況納入考量。Dynamic Blood Pressure, Heart rate Variability Changes and Recovery under Different Work Shifts ackground To explore the effect of shift work on cardiac stress, we studied the heart rate variability (HRV) profiles and blood pressure (BP) change in young female nurses.Methods We recruited 16 young female nurses working rotating shifts and 6 working the regular day shift and gave each of them simultaneous and repeated 48-hour ambulatory electrocardiography and BP monitoring during their workdays and the following off-duty day.esults Using a linear mixed effect model, we found increased vagal autonomic control during sleep and on a night or an evening shift, and a decreased vagal autonomic control and increased BP at work, during sleep after a night or evening shift, and on the work day of a night shift. Cardiac sympathetic modulation showed reciprocal changes in the corresponding conditions (all P<.005). Blood pressure (BP) appeared to synchronize with the increased cardiac sympathetic modulation and decreased vagal modulation. The recovery of HRV and BP on the following off-duty day appeared incomplete after adjustment for other risk factors. The rates of change in dipper/nondipper status between work day and off-duty day were 33%, 44%, 50%, and 38% for nurses worked in outpatient clinic, night shift, evening shift, and day shift, respectively. We also found 69% of those working rotating shifts had at least changed once in dipper/nondipper status.onclusion The effects of rotating shifts on HRV and BP in young female nurses are significant not only at work but also on the day of a night shift, during sleep on days of a night shift or an evening shift, and the entire work day of a night shift. Shift work is significantly associated with BP and HRV and possibly dipper/nondipper status in young female nurses. We recommend that potential influence of shift work be considered when evaluating a person’s blood pressure. The residual effect of night shifts may carry over to the next off-duty day.目 次 1 目 錄 2 目 錄 3文摘要 4bstract 6一章 背景 8二章 研究目的 9三章 研究設計 10.1 研究對象 10.2 研究設計 10.3 24小時動脈血壓監測 11.4 24小時心電圖監測 11.5 統計分析 12四章 結果 14五章 討論 24六章 結論 27考文獻 28錄 33 目 錄 4 - 1 研究對象基本特性 16 4 - 2 血壓線性混合效應統計模式之結果:相關係數及標準誤 17 4 - 3 心搏變異線性混合效應統計模式之結果:相關係數及標準誤 18 4 - 4 心搏變異恢復情形。線性混合效應統計模式之結果(各輪班及各時段):相關係數及標準誤 19 目 錄 4 - 1 輪班動態血壓變化及睡眠段。平行線表示門診護士之平均收縮壓及舒張壓(111 and 61 mmHg),陰影高度表睡眠人數及時間(平均值±標準差) 20 4 - 2 比較各班別血壓於休息日恢復之情形。,以白班之次日休息日為參考值,則各班、各段之每小時平均血壓減此參考值,則獲得各班、各時段之差異值,此差異值依各班、各時段,取中間直及25至75百分位及10至90百分位作比較 21 4 - 3 輪班護士在之睡眠血壓下降/非下降狀態(dipper/nondipper)之變化;輪班比較(上圖)及工作日與休息日比較(下圖) 22 4 - 4 各輪班動態血壓變化、心搏變異及睡眠段。陰影表示收縮壓及舒張壓 2

    [[alternative]]Connect and Dynamic Equation

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    [[abstract]]The Content-Addressable Memory Problem is one of the most famous in neural nets. This problem is recently settled by Shih-Tsai. In this thesis, we introduce the notion of the connection and give a different approach to some of results obtained in Shih-Tsai. We shall show that the nets will govern the fixed points base, the transient length, and the behavior of the dynamic equation.

    Mining Framework for Pervasive Applications

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    A pervasive web application is a server providingmany web services for its registered users. Nowadays, three of basic services that a typical pervasive web application offers are membership management, search service and map-enabled photo service. In this thesis, we design a data mining framework composed of three different data mining techniques to improve the performance of three services. In order to improve the performance of membership management, in the second chapter, we develop a categorical decision tree classifier to classify users efficiently. It noted that the data of user profiles has an unique phenomenon. Its characteristic is that few attributes of user profiles have higher information gains to distinguish users. By exploiting this characteristic that a traditional decision tree classifier does not consider, our designed classifier can reduce the execution time in generating a decision tree for user classification. As a result, the decision tree generated by our classifier can identify users efficiently for special marketing needs of an advertisement. For the improvement of a search service, in the third chapter, we propose a sequential web search algorithm that leverages the sequential queries issued by users to search the required information. Compared with previous works, our approach uses the additional feedback data on result pages of sequential queries where prior works only use feedback data of a query. Thus, our approach can provide a better ranking of result pages for sequential queries. For the efficiency of retrieving geotagged photos, in the fourth chapter, we design a clustering algorithm that incrementally clusters geotagged photos in accordance to thresholds of different scales. Compared with other applications, we show the photo clusters instead of all photos where the number of photo clusters is much less than that of all photos. As a result, the performance of map-enabled photo service is improved efficiently.1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Overview of the Dissertation . . . . 3 1.2.1 Inference Based Classifier: Efficient Construction of Decision Trees for Sparse Categorical Attributes . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.2 Effective Sequential Web Search with Personal Page Eigenvectors . . . . . . . 4 1.2.3 Geotagged Photos Clustering Algorithm for of aMap-Enabled PhotoWeb Service 5 1.3 Organization of the Dissertation . . . . . 5 2 Inference Based Classifier: Efficient Construction of Decision Trees for Sparse Categorical Attributes 6 2.1 Introduction . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2 Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.3 Inference Based Classifier . . . . . . . . 10 2.3.1 Algorithm of IBC . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4 PerformanceStudies . . . . . .. . . . . . 14 2.4.1 Real-life Datasets . . . . .. . . . 15 2.4.2 Experiment One: Classification Accuracy . . . . . . . 15 2.4.3 Experiment Two: Execution Time in Scale-Up Experiments for data set of sparse categorical attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 3 Effective SequentialWeb Search with Personal Page Eigenvectors 19 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.2 ProblemStatement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3.3 Incremental Personal HITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.3.1 ReviewofHITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3.3.2 IPHITSAlgorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.4 SystemFramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.4.1 Design of a Search Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.4.2 Design of Feedback Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.4.3 Design of Ranking Refinement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.5 Experimental Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.5.1 System Architecture of TOP Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.6 Experimental Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 3.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 4 Geotagged Photos Clustering Algorithm for of a Map-Enabled PhotoWeb Service 40 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 4.1.1 ProposedFrameworkof aMap-EnabledPhotoWebService . . . . . . . . . . 46 4.2 RelatedWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 4.3 ProblemStatement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 4.4 Geotagged Photo Clustering Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 4.4.1 UsageScenario1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.4.2 UsageScenario2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 4.4.3 Design of the Client Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.4.4 Design of the Server Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.4.5 Design of an Incremental Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.4.6 photo Clustering Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.4.7 Design of User Clustering Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.4.8 Design of a Map Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.5 Experimential System Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.5.1 The Architecture of a Client-SideProgram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 4.5.2 The Architecture of a Server-SideProgram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 4.6 Scenario of Data Synchronous Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 4.6.1 On-Line Synchronous Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.6.2 Off-Line Asynchronous Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.7 Experimental Platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.7.1 The user-interface of the client-program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.7.2 The user-interface of the server-program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 4.7.3 The Experimental Result of DisplayingDifferentphotoClusters . . . . . . . . 64 4.7.4 The Experimental Result of DisplayingDifferentMapScales . . . . . . . . . . 66 4.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 5 Conclusions 7

    Can a Cognitive–Perceptual–Physical Battery Predict Driving Competence for People With Mild Cognitive Impairments? A Pilot Study

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    Abstract Date Presented 3/30/2017 Our research showed that some people with mild cognitive impairments can still drive safely. In addition, visuocognitive assessments, seldom included in driving evaluation in the literature, may predict performance in on-road assessment. Realistic on-road assessment is needed. Primary Author and Speaker: Bin-Huei Shih Additional Authors and Speakers: Lin-Hui Chang, Jye Wang Contributing Authors: Ming-Chyi Pai, Yung-Hsiang Cheng</jats:p

    Historiography and Hsiang-tu Imagination in Shih Shu-ching’s Walking Through Lo-chin

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    本文試圖從歷史書寫與鄉土想像的角度閱讀施叔青的《行過洛津》。《行過洛津》以古城鹿港的興衰為背景,從漢人移民如何落地生根、與原住民相處開始,描寫兩三百年前清領時期鹿港不同階層、種族、性別的眾生相。《行過洛津》參雜大量史料,然而當許多歷史事跡、社會組織、文化形式、禮俗儀典早已被淡忘,甚至消失之際,旅居國外多年的施叔青究竟以什麼角度呈現兩三百年前的故鄉?本文認為《行過洛津》主要情節聚焦於孌童、纏足和閹割恐懼,似乎是藉由搭上九○年代以來性別議題熱潮來跨越時間的距離,但它產生了奇觀化的問題,同時它也銘刻了現在與過去的差異。由主要情節輻射出去的另一焦點,則是有關外來者與本地人、帝國與邊陲不同卻部分重疊的位置之描寫。這一部分則大致是以對位式書寫並置、對照兩種觀點,並呼應當今中國中心與台灣中心的角力和交涉。這兩個層面的歷史書寫有所重疊,且需放在小說將鄉土想像歷史化的視野來看。敘述者統攝洛津古今的視野構成本書核心的鄉土想像,在性別和國族議題之外,其聚焦於商港的興衰改寫了傳統鄉土小說以農漁村為主的意象。其對商業活動既認同又批判的態度隱含了對現代性的雙重視野,暗示現代性與台灣的複雜關係。This article studies the historiography and tsiang-tu (or homeland) imagination in Shih Shu-ching’s novel Walking Through Lo-chin. Set in the port-city Lu-gang two or three hundred years ago when Han immigrants settled down and interacted with the natives (including aborigines), the novel gives a panorama of local life by portraying people from different classes, races and genders. While the novel blends in a lot of historical material, it begs the question as to the perspective of the author—who has lived abroad for many years—in portraying the historical past of her hometown, when a lot of historical facts, social organizations, cultural forms and rituals have either been forgotten or simply vanished. That the main plot focuses on pederasty, foot-binding and castration fears seems to tap deliberately into the immense popularity of gender issues in order to bridge the time gap, yet it also makes a spectacle of them, thus inscribing the difference between past and present. Another focus of the novel is the portrayal of the different but partially overlapping positions of visitors and natives, the metropolitan and the other. In what I call “contrapuntal historiography,” the juxtaposition and contrast of the two perspectives echoes the contestation and negotiation between China-centrism and Taiwan-centrism today. The two focuses of historiography should be put in the perspective of the historicizing of hsiang-tu imagination in the novel. The narrator’s vision of Lo-chin that encompasses its past and present constitutes the central hsiang-tu imagination of the novel. Apart from the issues of gender and national identity, the narrator focuses on the rise and fall of the port-city, a depiction that effectively rewrites the tradition of hsiang-tu imagination, given that traditional hsiang-tu fiction uses the village as its main image. The narrator’s ambivalent attitudes toward mercantile activities imply a double vision of modernity. By so doing, the novel suggests an intricate relationship between modernity and Taiwan
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