Saturday Onsite Presentation Session 1

Cultural Studies

Session Chair: Nilobon Vongpattaranon

09:30-09:55

70639

| Consumption Habitus in the Comic Fan Community and Fans’ Devotion to Professional in China

Lok Fai Pun, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

The prosperity of animation, comic and game (ACG) industry in China is attributed to the passionate ACG fandom culture, which provide significant consumption demand and supply in creative labor force. To be more specific, the series of comic convention in China provides proactive fans opportunity to explore the industry from their proactive involvement in creating doujinshi (fan derivative arts) and nourish their dreams of being creative labor in the industry. To understand what kind of and how Chinese comic fans use conventions to enhance their professionalism, this paper attempts to measure the habitus of Chinese doujinshi artists. The paper is based on the research conducted by survey (In the Chinese biggest comic convention ComicUp23 held in Shanghai) and participant observation inside the field, and then outlines a general overview of doujins artists from captured statistical data, specifically in terms of their devotion to professional, social capital (the connection with other member inside the field), and cultural capital (the knowledge and taste on Chinese ACG fans community). This approach enables a clearer distinguishment between fans dreaming to be creative labor in industry and normal fans, and how they develop specific tastes and knowledge from their experience. The conclusions drawn about three characteristics of these proactive fans, and how fan action may significantly influence the consumption/production culture of fandom in Chinese ACG industry.

09:55-10:20

70654 | Conceptualizing Taiwanese Cultural Values in Souvenir Packaging Design for Foreign Tourists: How Japanese Tourists Purchasing for Casual Gift-giving

Taiichi Shimamura, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Tseng-Ping Chiu, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Shynan Liou, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Souvenir packaging design is the primary visual information that tourists interact with. Thus, for foreign tourists the appearance design should present a country's distinct cultural characteristics to trigger purchase. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of Taiwanese souvenir packaging design on Japanese tourist purchases with a perspective of how cultural values perceived by Japanese tourists in Taiwanese packaging design. Taiwan has long been one of the most popular tourist destinations among Japanese tourists. The target audience of the research is the millennial generations of Japanese tourists who prioritize travels in their lives. As for Taiwanese souvenirs, a pineapple cake is selected in order to explore the cultural meanings of package designs. The research is developed following four sections along with the objectives.

(1) Understanding Japanese millennial tourists' purchasing behavior for casual gift-giving by focused group interview.

(2)Exploring the cultural values in packaging design of pineapple cake by conducting a small brainstorming workshop with Taiwanese designs.

(3)Examining Japanese tourists' preferences on Taiwanese souvenir packaging design for gift-giving by using eye-tracking and interviews.

(4)Conceptualizing cultural values which Japanese tourists prefer in Taiwanese souvenir packaging design as a guideline. All findings and results during studies are documented and developed as a branding and design guideline to support Taiwanese designers with future souvenir packaging design use.

10:20-10:45

69701 | Agricultural Extension Strategies of Transforming Thai Desserts for Global Markets

Nilobon Vongpattaranon,

Kasetsart University, Thailand

This qualitative research aimed to study the transformation and agricultural extension strategies of Thai desserts for global markets in Thailand by collecting documents and observations at tourist attractions. The content analysis showed that there were 3 strategies as follows: 1) Marketing strategy for tourists to buy Thai desserts for a cultural souvenir. 2) Physical Transformation as the design of Thai desserts has changed to be more authentic and delicate to attract the consumers. The transformation referred to the cultural hybridization of Thai and Western desserts. 3) Thai desserts as cultural experiences of each part of Thailand where local ingredients can be value-added with story-telling of each location so that local recipes can be preserved. These agricultural extension strategies are beneficial for Thai farmers who wish to earn more income from tourism and processing Thai desserts as cultural souvenirs.

10:45-11:10

70634 | Learning Culture from Playing: The Cultural Influence on Students from Playing Edutainment Under the Steam Education Programme

Lok Fai Pun, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

STEAM (the abbreviation of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) is the major pedagogical approaches in Hong Kong education. Nourishing talented students on science-related knowledge majorly, this approach seldom links to the aesthetic, ethical and abstract concept as those are out of the scope of Science. This year, the Hong Kong government initiates the promotion of Chinese traditional culture and national identity to the new generation, so as to neutralize the cultural conflict and rebuild the sense of ethics in the society, STEAM is therefore considered as the major pedagogical tools for this purpose. While many relevant teaching programs have been launched, little research has been done in the past literature to explore the potential cultural learning outcome of STEAM education in ethics and cultural heritage, highlighting the significance of this research to supplement the missing discussion in education and cultural studies literature. Therefore, this research attempts to explore the possibility, both theoretically and practically, of education from gaming experience in promoting ethics and cultural heritage among the adolescence in Hong Kong. This research conducted an online survey and focus group interview with targeted schools’ students, after the intervnewees played a designed STEAM related "edutainment" mobile app, namely “smart learning Tai Chi”. How play/game could be aligned with education in the issues of cultural/national identity and cultural heritage (the philosophy of Taichi) are highlighted. This research is also to evaluate the cultural acceptance/influence of the audience from consuming cultural product with a specific political agenda.

11:25-13:05