Asian History Commons^™

Modified Motorcycles: Stories From Chiang Mai, Thailand, Erin Meyers

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Motorcycles in Southeast Asia

Over the last two decades, a revolution has taken place on the streets of Asia. The ubiquity of motorcycles as a primary form of transportation has increased substantially. Since 1990, motorcycle ownership rates in Indonesia and Vietnam have increased by over 300 and 1,000 percent respectively (Muir and Brown 2011). Similarly, the number of motorcycles registered in Thailand has grown by over 280 percent, from 4,778, 220 vehicles in 1990 to 18,451, 518 in 2012 (Number). Asia has the highest level of motorcycle ownership in the world now (Barter 1999).

China's Use Of Economic Hard Power In The 21st Century, Taylor Shippen

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

China’s growing willingness to project military power may make the nightly news, but military power is not China’s greatest tool in achieving political ends. Since Deng Xiaoping began his reforms in 1978, economic influence has been the source of many of China’s diplomatic breakthroughs with the West. Although there is some dispute among scholars about what to call China’s growing influence (Klein 1994: 39; Huang 2013), for the purposes of this paper, China’s growing persuasiveness will be based on Joseph Nye’s definition of hard power, which he defines as “the ability to use the carrots and sticks of economic and …

Research And Documentation In The 21st Century: Oral History And Genealogy Of The Yuan Shikai Family, Sheau-Yueh J. Chao

Publications and Research

The oral histories and genealogies have long been used by historians, archaeologists, sociologists, ethnologists, and demographers in their investigation of past human behavior on social and historical evidences relating to a lineage organization or a clan. Chinese genealogical records has been used for thousands of years to record the genealogical history of a family, including a family’s origin, its subordinate lines, names and ages of the members, records of marriages, births and deaths, merits and deeds, and in early days brief biographical information of solely the male family members. This paper will examine the history of Chinese names and the …

China In Transition: Jesuit Encounters With The Dying Qing Empire, Anthony E. Clark

History Faculty Scholarship

When four French Jesuits first encountered China in the late 1800s, they were unexpectedly swept into the turbulence of a dying empire. In this lecture, Dr. Anthony Clark, considers what it was like to be a Jesuit missionary in China as the Qing empire erupted into the violent Boxer Uprising of 1900. Living in what is today called Hebei, these missionaries struggled to learn Chinese and adjust to Chinese culture, while also maintaining their relationships with their families back in Europe. Dr. Clark will also discuss his recent travels to where these Jesuits lived and died in 1900. When Sts. …

American Military Strategy In The Vietnam War, 1965– 1973, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

For nearly a decade, American combat soldiers fought in South Vietnam to help sustain an independent, noncommunist nation in Southeast Asia. After U.S. troops departed in 1973, the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 prompted a lasting search to explain the United States’ first lost war. Historians of the conflict and participants alike have since critiqued the ways in which civilian policymakers and uniformed leaders applied—some argued misapplied—military power that led to such an undesirable political outcome. While some claimed U.S. politicians failed to commit their nation’s full military might to a limited war, others contended that most officers fundamentally …

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BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

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The Changkufeng And Nomonhan Incidents - The Undeclared Border War And Its Impact On World War Ii, Tobias Block

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Nomonhan and Changkufeng

Immediately following the Mukden Incident in 1931 and the founding of Manchukuo, the Japanese supported puppet state in northeastern China, the Imperial Japanese Army found itself again face to face with their old enemy Russia, now the Soviet Union. The border disputes between these two countries would soon become armed conflicts. The Japanese Korea Army as well as the Kwantung Army, stationed in Manchuria, would soon follow a policy of limited war against the Soviet Red Army, here in particular during the battles of Changkufeng, in 1938, and Nomonhan in 1939.

These two battles proved to be …

Preserving Imperial Sovereignty In The Changing Political Order Of Prewar Japan, Shane Vrabel

History Theses

During the nineteenth century, several Western powers began to establish a presence in East Asia through the use of gunboat diplomacy. In 1853, United States Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrived on Japanese shores intent on forcing the ruling Tokugawa Shogunate to end its policy of sakoku (seclusion) and interact with the West through trade. Angered over the policies of the Tokugawa Shogunate, the han (domains) of Chōshū and Satsuma decided to launch the Boshin Civil War by instigating rebellion against the shogun. The military forces of Chōshū and Satsuma eventually captured the imperial capital of Kyoto and the young Prince …

Indira Gandhi: India’S Destined Leader, Josclyn C. Green

History Theses

This thesis explores the life and political career of Indira Nehru Gandhi and analyzes how the historical circumstances of her era shaped her character in a manner that made her uniquely prepared to confront the numerous political challenges that she faced during her tenure as India’s Prime Minister. Indira Nehru Gandhi was Prime Minister of India from 1966 until 1977, and again in 1980 up until her assassination in 1984. Indira Gandhi was seemingly destined to rule over India. She was born into a prominent family who led the way to Indian independence from Great Britain. She was also born …

Recruiting The All-Female Rani Of Jhansi Regiment: Subhas Chandra Bose And Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan, Tobias Frederik Rettig

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The recruitment of the all-female Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army in Japanese-controlled Singapore and Malaya, with a particular focus on the period between the first female guard of honour on 12 July 1943 through to the opening of the regiment's main camp in Singapore on 22 October 1943, has to date been insufficiently studied. Starting with the conception of the Regiment in an Axis submarine by the Indian nationalist leader Subhas CHANdra Bose (1897–1945), this paper examines the ideas and figures that inspired the regiment and the role of Bose and Dr Lakshmi Swaminadhan (1914–2012) in …

A Tangled Hope: America, China, And Human Rights At The End Of The Cold War, 1976-2000, Jared Michael Phillips

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Tangled Hope: America, China, and Human Rights at the End of the Cold War, 1976-2000, discusses the evolution of both the international and American understanding of human rights. Beginning with a discussion of the philosophical and cultural frameworks concerning "rights" that developed in Europe and the Americas throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, this work moves into the post-World War II climate that shaped Jimmy Carter and his unique understanding of human rights and America's role in the Cold War world. In particular, I argue that the existing narrative concerning Carter's foreign policy is lacking in a nuanced understanding …

Negotiating Colonialism And Chineseness: Museums, Tours, And Heritage Preservation In Pearl River Delta, Macau, And Hong Kong, Wing-Kai To

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

The history of Hong Kong, Macau, and the Pearl River Delta in connecting China with the world through European colonialism and globalization is a well-documented story. Yet the recent designations of the Historic Centre of Macau in 2005 and the Kaiping "diaolou" (fortified watched towers and mansions) in 2007 as World Cultural Heritage sites have further placed two Chinese outposts of western influence and overseas emigration into sharper focus. With the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty at the turn of the last century along with cultural change in the Pearl River Delta, museums, tourism, and heritage …

Maneuvering Modernity: Family Law As A Battle Field In Colonial Taiwan (1895-1945), Yun-Ru Chen

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

Twenty five years after launching its own legal modernization in response to Western imperialism, Japan imposed a modern legal system upon its first colony, Taiwan. In accordance with the “respecting old custom” colonial policy, the Japanese created a system called Taiwanese customary law, a mixture of imperial Chinese laws, local customs and European legal concepts, and gradually implemented its newly adopted European-style Meiji Civil Code (1898). However, even since the late 1910s when the colonial policy changed into “full-flag assimilation,” family law remained an exception to the transplantation of Japanese laws. That did not, however, mean that family law was …

Artful Networking: Art Collecting And Cultural Positioning In Early Qing China - The Case Of Gao Shiqi (1645-1704), Amy Huang

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

In this paper I analyze Gao Shiqi’s高士奇 (1645-1704) collecting practices in the context of early Qing politics. This paper argues that art collecting was used as an effective networking tool and played an significant part in defining Gao Shiqi’s cultural status in the court during the Kangxi reign (r. 1661-1722).

Gao Shiqi rose to prominence as Kangxi Emperor’s favorite courtier despite not having a jinshi degree. Because of his inferior background, Gao Shiqi was under pressure to assert his status within the circle of cultural elite—art collecting was his solution. Analysis of his private art inventory indicates that Gao had …

The East India Company's 1835 Currency Reform, Ian Barrow

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

This paper examines the East India Company’s 1835 currency reform. The measure created, for the first time, a unified currency within the Company’s Indian territories. Moreover, it stopped the longstanding practices of minting rupees in the Mughal Emperor’s name and solely in Persian, and instead introduced coins that featured the bust of the British King along with the Company’s name and the denomination written in English. Because coins are among the most evident ways states express their sense of self and power, the political effect of the reform was to underscore the decades-long process whereby the Company phased out Mughal …

Searching In The Dark - Han Learning And The Controversy Of 1799 Metropolitan Exam, Shiu On Chu

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

This paper investigates the introduction of Han Learning (hanxue 漢學) in Qing civil examinations from an institutional perspective. Focusing on the controversy over the 1799 metropolitan examination, I argue that hanxue was resisted not only by the intellectual orthodoxy Cheng-Zhu learning, but also a concept of “proper advancement” (zhengtu 正途) from examination.

The 1799 metropolitan examination was often seen as a triumph of Han Learning because the chief examiners Zhu Gui (朱珪1731-1806) and Ruan Yuan (阮元1764-1849), who were famous patrons of Han scholarship, awarded degrees to a number of established Han scholars. Contemporaries attributed this high rate of …

The Emergence Of Singlehood In The 20th And Early 21st Century: Hong Kong, Japan, And Taiwan, Joanna Kang

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

In East Asia, Confucian philosophy is the dominant value system, especially its prominent doctrine of filial piety. Filial piety is a requirement of life, and being filial is an essential approach to acquire public recognition as an individual with integrity. The most unfilial and unforgivable behavior is being unmarried or sonless.[1] However, there are more and more Asian women who are immersed in this social milieu yet are choosing to embrace their singlehood. The liberation of Asian women is one of the momentous outcomes of Western modernization. This is also a trans-cultural trend that spans nations, societies, and ideologies. What …

Field And Factory: Chinese Revolutionary Posters, Molly E. Reynolds

Schmucker Art Catalogs

The images on display for Field and Factory, political propaganda used by the Communist Party of China during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, construct a fictitious world. In perceiving these kinds of illustrations, the audience is asked either to visualize the society in its ideal form or unify in opposition to a national enemy. In the first half of the twentieth century, before the possibilities of the television advertisement were fully realized, posters were one of the most popular forms of propaganda: cheap to produce in mass quantities and simple enough to hang in any public building. The art form’s …

Rice And Magic: A Cultural History From The Precolonial World To The Present, Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr

History Department Faculty Publications

Beliefs in rice spirits were integral to the magical worldview of the precolonial inhabitants of the Philippine islands. Under Spanish colonialism, rice became a staple but it underwent disenchantment and symbolic marginality. By the 1870s rice production fell short relative to demand. Twentieth-century initiatives to address persistent shortages culminated in the 1960s Green Revolution, which further altered the rice plant and ushered in the age of practicality. Because rice production cannot be fully controlled, farmers still deploy culturally meaningful strategies to deal with uncertainties. The old meanings of rice for commensality have also proven resilient and reveal peculiarly Filipino ways.

The Changing Face Of China: Chinese Women And Their Awakening Culture, Celia Ella Thornton Corrad

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The Changing Face of China: Chinese Women and Their Awakening Culture