Duke University Press In the Mood for Texture: The Revival of Bangkok As a Chinese City

In the Mood for Texture considers the revival of Chinese pasts and the aesthetics of colonial modernity in contemporary Southeast Asian cultural production, both virtual and material. By analyzing how twentieth-century Shanghai and Hong Kong have been revived in modern Bangkoks architecture, design, fashion, and nightlife, Arnika Fuhrmann shows how Chinese pasts are redeployed in contemporary film, literature, and hospitality venues to shape present visions of Asia. At the heart of this inquiry stand Shanghai and Hong Kongs anomalous colonial temporalities and Thailands semi-colonial temporality of the never and yet still of colonization. Attending to the textures of built environments and agentive female subjects, Fuhrmann reconceptualizes the revival of Bangkoks Chinese pasts and demonstrates how Southeast Asian imaginations can challenge both domestic and diasporic narratives of identity and collectivity beyond China. Autorid: Arnika Fuhrmann