| Originating from the significant historical event of the Maritime Silk Road that Malaysians shared in the past,Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road is preserved and embodied through rituals,customs,diet,festive ceremonies,monuments,relics,Chinese medicine,literary stories or works,and so on.Meanwhile,the “cohesive structure” of cultural memory is also manifested through the symbols of history,space,media of rituals,textual archives,and images,which have become the important media for recording ancient,modern and contemporary exchanges between China and Malaysia.In the process of preserving cultural memory in these media,the representation of cultural memory is not a closed cultural practice in a single direction,but a dynamic structure and dialogical system that constructs cultural memory while symbolically representing it.The thesis takes Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road as the object of study.Employing the literature analysis and case study method,by virtue of different media carriers and symbolic systems of cultural memory,the thesis describes the historical and cultural memories common to the collective memory of Malaysia and China in the process of ancient and modern interactions within the framework of the value of the Maritime Silk Road culture.The collective shared cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road is further formed in the construction of texts,imagery and rituals in temporal and spatial dimensions.Firstly,cultural memory preserves the culture with historical reference,and spatially carries the culture with social existence.In the time dimension,Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road has a clear historical reference,dating back to the historical exchanges between China and Malaysia along the Maritime Silk Road from more than 2,000 years ago to the Opium War,while in the diachronic dimension,the history and culture of China-Malaysian friendship and exchanges are preserved and perpetuated within the cultural system.In the spatial dimension,the Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road is formed by the shared cultural values and memories of the two countries,which confirm the collective ownership of the value system and codes of conduct.Secondly,the construction of the Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road requires a symbolic system for cultural representation,through the repeated rituals,festivals,and ceremonies,the canonical texts and oral literature that can be stored and interpreted,as well as the images in historical buildings and relics,to complete the symbolic encoding of history and culture.This symbolic representation is less restricted by time and has remained stable over a long period of time.The friendship and exchanges between Chinese and Malaysian people along the Maritime Silk Road in the areas of diplomacy,ethnicity,folklore,beliefs and architecture have been reflected and preserved,and are understood and remembered by different generations,thus constructing a cultural memory of the Malaysian Silk Road.Finally,from the perspective of cultural subjectivity,as demonstrated by Malaysian Chinese opera culture,Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road is a process of constructing cultural subjectivity and identity with its own cultural attributes,building the self-identity of social groups through external uniqueness and internal persistence,forming a solid social image and a homogeneous cultural identity within the Malaysian cultural system.Therefore,the construction of Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road is a cultural construction activity of collective history and holistic consciousness through symbolic social practices and cultural symbols,which involves the interpretation of history,present and future in different time and space.The contemporary interpretation could be taken from three aspects:historical reality,soft power and connotative spirits,promoting the development of Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road while advancing in-depth exchanges and cooperation between China and Malaysia,and achieving mutual benefits.In the process of reconstructing similarities and differences,the collective shared memory is reshaped and the shared Chinese cultural memory and identity of the Malaysian people is established.Exploring Malaysian cultural memory of the Maritime Silk Road from the perspective of cultural memory theory could broaden the applied research of cultural memory theory and provide a new reference for research related to the Maritime Silk Road in Malaysia. |
