Title: Multiple Voices, Shared Space: The Lushun Russo-Japanese Prison as a Transnational Difficult Heritage

Speaker: Yiyang Xiao (Department of Anthropology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Date: Friday 27 March, 2026

Time: 1:00-2:30pm

Mode: In-person

Venue: Room 213, Humanities Building, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Abstract:

This talk investigates the Lushun Russo-Japanese Prison Museum, a paradigmatic transnational difficult heritage site entwined in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Russian histories. It challenges conventional approaches to contested memory by arguing the museum employs a dual curatorial strategy: deploying a powerful, state-sanctioned patriotic narrative for domestic Chinese audiences, while pragmatically using spatially segregated accommodations for key transnational visitors, notably Koreans. Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork (2023-2025), we demonstrate that this dual approach leads visitors primarily to seek affective validation of pre-existing national memories rather than initial learning. This strategy results in ‘managed coexistence’ – a difficult heritage in harmony achieved not through direct dialogue, but strategic narrative and spatial separation. The study contributes significantly to critical heritage studies by 1) questioning oversimplified monolithic views of Chinese difficult heritage, revealing pragmatic institutional negotiations; 2) highlighting segregation as a pivotal, often unacknowledged, curatorial strategy for navigating profound transnational dissonance; and 3) illuminating how memory is managed when direct reconciliation remains elusive, particularly in politically charged post-colonial contexts.

Bio:

Yiyang Xiao is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research explores the Russian and Japanese colonial heritage of Lushun, focusing on how multi-layered and unresolved pasts haunt the contemporary city. She holds an MA (Distinction) from UCL and a BA from Nankai University, and was a visiting PhD at Humboldt University of Berlin. Yiyang is a coordinator for the ACHS Early Career Researchers Network.  Her  work  is   published   or   forthcoming   in the   International   Journal   of   Heritage Studies, New Media & Society, and The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict.