ABSTRACT

This edited volume explores how success is conceptualized and represented in texts for young people in Asia. The essays in this collection examine how success for children relates to education, family, gender, race, class, community, and the nation. It answers the following questions: How is success for children represented in literature, cinema, and popular media? In what ways are these images grounded in the historical, political, and cultural contexts in which they are produced and consumed? How does childhood agency influence ideas about success in Asia? Highlighting the similarities and differences in how success is defined for children and young adults in Japan, South Korea, People’s Republic of China, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India, this volume argues that success is an important keyword in the literary and cultural study of childhood in Asia.

chapter 1|16 pages

Dreams of Success

Young People, Agency, Values, and Citizenship in Asia

part 1|52 pages

Educational Success

chapter 2|17 pages

The Grace in Failings

Reading Failure as Success in SKY Castle and Assassination Classroom

chapter 3|17 pages

Success at Any Price

Exam Hell and Morita Yoshimitsu's The Family Game

chapter 4|16 pages

Unfulfilled Dreams of IIT

Notions of Success in Five Point Someone and 3 Idiots

part 2|42 pages

Cultural Politics of Success

chapter 6|13 pages

Hope, Oppression, and the Indian Urban Poor

Portrayals of Success in Trash! and Dear Mrs. Naidu

chapter 7|13 pages

Disappearing Girls

Gendered Success and the Reproduction of the Singapore Family in Jack Neo's Films

part 3|69 pages

Success and the Nation

chapter 8|19 pages

To Be Red

Child Propagandists and Their Success in the Cultural Revolution

chapter 9|16 pages

Reaching for the Stars

Identity and Success in Three Indonesian Children's Films

chapter 10|16 pages

Becoming Indonesian

Political Constructions of Successful Children in Aku Ingin Menciummu Sekali Saja and Denias Senandung di Atas Awan

part 4|75 pages

Success in the World

chapter 13|12 pages

Saviors of the World

Impersonality and Success in Shinkai Makoto's Animated Films

chapter 14|21 pages

Cultivating Dreams

Becoming Middle-class and Affluent in Globalizing Urban Vietnam