‘Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question’, the much-celebrated aphorism from Oswald de Andrade’s ‘Cannibalist Manifesto’ (1928), conflates literature and cannibalism, offering Brazilian modernists a means of creatively ingesting the culture of the colonizer and liberating themselves from oppression. This article extends de Andrade’s emancipatory notion to a new context through a critical analysis of the (anti-)colonial discourses of Chinese cannibalism in the Japanese empire. Although cannibalism functioned as a recurring calumny in Western colonial practices of ‘othering’, the figure of the Chinese man-eater circulating in Japanese imperial discourse from the Meiji (1868–1912) to the Taishō eras (1912–1926) has received scant scholarly attention. Two contrasting engagements with the subject of Chinese cannibalism are read contrapuntally: Kuwabara Jitsuzō’s seminal Sinological study, ‘The Custom of Eating Human Flesh Among the Chinese’ (1924), and the counter-discursive essays of the Hong Kong writer Ye Lingfeng, published during the Japanese occupation (1941–1945). Ye’s anti-colonial discourse is analysed through the lens of ‘writing back’ or, more precisely, ‘literary cannibalism’, a post-colonial strategy that rewrites canonical texts as a form of subversion. Similar to, yet distinct from, ‘writing back’ in Anglophone and Francophone post-colonial literatures, Ye’s rewritings constitute a form of ‘literary restoration’ aimed at reversing the colonial distortion of Chinese cultural heritage under Japanese imperial rule. Ultimately, this article proposes literary cannibalism as a critical framework for (re)discovering marginalized voices and bodies of knowledge at the periphery of empire throughout the course of Japanese and Western colonization in modern East Asia.

In 1936, one of the largest mass disrobings of Buddhist monks and novices in modern history took place in northern Thailand. Around 1,000 monks and novices were disrobed, with some estimates as high as 2,000. The disrobed monastic clergy were members of the ‘Tiger Order’. The movement took its name from its leader, Khruba Srivichai (1878–1939), who was born in the Year of the Tiger. The arrest of Srivichai and the subsequent mass disrobing were crucial turning points in the formation of the modern nation-state of Thailand. Nonetheless, this extraordinary mass disrobing has been virtually erased from historical memory. Drawing on archival sources and oral histories conducted with over 200 northern monks and villagers, this article seeks both to highlight the historical fact of the mass disrobing and analyse the process of its erasure from memory. Analysing four phases in the chronopolitics of erasure, this article shows how processes of remembering and forgetting underlie the paradox of both the maintenance of memories of Srivichai and the disappearance of memories of the widespread disrobing.

This paper examines how tourism served as a vehicle for informal political propaganda in postwar Taiwan under Guomindang (GMD) rule. Following the Second World War, when the GMD began governing Taiwan, the government recognized tourism’s potential for ideological projection and national legitimation. Through analysis of tourism promotional materials, policy documents, and news reports from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, this paper demonstrates how Taiwan deliberately positioned itself as the authentic guardian of ‘Cultural China’ within a competitive regional context. The GMD government strategically deployed Chinese cultural traditions and landmarks as tourism attractions to establish Taiwan’s cultural legitimacy, particularly targeting overseas Chinese communities through ‘returning home tourism’ initiatives that framed Taiwan as the authentic homeland for all ethnic Chinese. Significantly, while Hong Kong promoted itself under the banner ‘The Orient is Hong Kong’ primarily to Western tourists, Taiwan’s dual strategy sought to attract both international visitors interested in experiencing ‘mysterious China’ and overseas Chinese through tourism experiences that showcased ‘Free China’ or ‘Cultural China’. This approach constituted a systematic attempt to legitimize Taiwan’s claim to represent China proper, even as its formal diplomatic position deteriorated in the 1970s. The paper argues that Taiwan’s tourism strategy represented a deliberate political calculation that transcended economic objectives, transforming cultural tourism into a powerful tool for asserting sovereignty and maintaining international relevance despite growing diplomatic isolation.