Chinese Studies Commons^™

Introduction:Towards An Economic Anthropology Of Catholicism, In The Age Of Pope Francis, Samuel Weeks, George Bayuga

Journal of Global Catholicism

Introduction to Towards an Economic Anthropology of Catholicism, in the Age of Pope Francis.

Chinese Economic Behavior In Southeast Asia: A Historical And Cultural Overview Of The Migration Patterns, Culture, And Business Practices Of The Chinese Diaspora In Southeast Asia, Zachary Szklarz

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

For hundreds of years, ethnic Chinese have set sail in hopes of peace and economic prosperity in Southeast Asia. Over time, these immigrants became paramount to the culture, economies, and politics of their newfound homes. The immense success of these Chinese migrants and their descendants is based on two main factors: maintaining in-group preference in business and social life without explicit discrimination towards outsiders and holding individuals who have achieved wealth through ethical Confucianist means in high esteem. Unique among diaspora groups, the emigrants from China managed to become fully integrated in their adoptive homelands, while still maintaining traditional customs, …

Theological Implications Of The Symbols And Signs In The Sacrament Of Matrimony Of The Syro-Malabar Church, Nelson Mathew O. Carm.

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article discusses the significance of the signs and symbols used in the sacrament of the marriage of the Syro-Malabar Church and the adaptations from different cultures, particularly the Hindu culture of India. It concentrates on the specific elements found in the marriage celebration of the St. Thomas Christians. The rituals that are unique to the Sacrament of Matrimony of the Syro-Malabar Church, mainly expressed through symbols and signs, remain a significant contribution to the liturgy, spirituality, and theology of the Sacrament of Matrimony, and to the theology of inculturation. In the Syro-Malabar liturgy, marriage rituals, and signs and symbols …

Realizing Innovation And Sustainability: A Case Study Of Macau Sar’S Smart City Development Capabilities, Yujia He, Felix Ter Chian Tan, Carmen Leong, Jingbo Huang, Don Rodney Junio

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

The emergence of digital technologies has transformed organizational innovation with important implications for a city, its economy and policymaking. Despite this, research on how capabilities underpin innovation through smart city initiatives is still lacking. To address this gap, we conduct an empirical investigation of smart city initiatives in Macau, a former Portuguese colony and now special administrative region (SAR) of China. The case study adopts a qualitative approach, using data collected through fieldwork observations and in-depth interviews with stakeholders, and analysis of secondary documents. The study develops a stage-based assessment of innovation capabilities related to the use of technologies in …

The Belt And Road Initiative Policy: How Chinese Policy Influences Southeast Asia And South Asia, Chendong Wang

Sustainability and Social Justice

This article would be divided into two main parts. In the first part, this article introduces what is the BRI policy and the history of the BRI policy. The BRI policy is a Chinese strategy and network to connect with Chinese partners and potential partners through economic, political, and cultural three perspectives. In the second part, this article describes the BRI policy development and the response from Chinese neighboring countries which mainly include the Southeast and South Asian Countries. Southeast Asian nations and south Asian nations would first be directly impacted by politics, the economy, and culture. Southeast Asian countries …

The One Who Won, Jeanna Polisini

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

I am an adopted Asian American with an Italian last name who was raised in the Jewish faith. While I am one of the lucky ones, the One-Child Policy is responsible for how my life turned out. My intention is to confront the inhumanity of this horrific policy with my adoption story. Until policies personally affect someone’s life, many people do not think twice about the other country’s problems and their repercussions on a global level. For my senior exhibition, I created an autobiographical installation to explore my adoption story and how China’s inhumane dictatorship. The full immersive installation will …

Control, Allegiance, And Shame In Male Qing Dynasty Hairstyles, Carolle Pinkerton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis is about the politicization of hairstyles in imperial China. They indicated conformity with social norms, or rebellion against them. This was especially true under the country’s last dynasty. The Manchu conquerors imposed their own hairstyle, the queue, on their Han Chinese subjects to make their rule palpable to China’s illiterate millions. “Hair martyrs” who refused to accept this “barbarous” hairstyle were ruthlessly eliminated. The Manchus had feared assimilation into the much larger Han population. But the introduction of one uniform male hair style for both Manchus and Han blurred the lines between the two groups. In this way …

The Isolated As The Revolutionary: How “Leftover” Men In China Challenge Heteronormativity, Ruwen Chang

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

In contemporary China, demographers estimate that 30 million men are single because there are simply not enough women in the Chinese population, and the 2020 Chinese census shows that there are 34.9 million more men than women. These men are called guanggun, which can be directly translated to “bare sticks/branches,” a slur that indicates a lack of marriage and sex. In this project, I demonstrate that guanggun’s singlehood marks them as the marginalized at the intersection of heteronormativity, patriarchy, globalizing capitalism, and pronatalist governmentality. In a highly heteronormative and patrilineal culture, guanggun are branded as abnormal/incomplete. However, because …

Life Stories Of Older Chinese Immigrant Women In The U.S., Lijun Li

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study is an effort to turn to older Chinese immigrant women aged 60 and above, one of the most marginalized groups in American society, to recognize their humanity and rediscover the unseen and unheard. It asks what we can learn from their life stories, particularly from the ways in which each experience(d) being a woman in different societal systems. Using in-depth life story interviews supplemented with secondary sources of information, this study crafts four women’s stories that are first read and interpreted individually to capture the whole person in context, and then are looked at thematically. Nine themes are …

The Constructing Of “Chinese-Ness”: The Culinary Identity Of Chinese Restaurants In Gettysburg, Pa., Lureann A. Semple

Student Publications

General Tso’s Chicken. Egg Rolls. Fried Rice. Fortune Cookies. Since the creation of Chop Suey in 1849, Chinese restaurants have not only displayed one of the most fascinating ethnic cuisines in the US but also become a commonly recognizable cultural symbol for Chinese-ness in the American “melting pot." Then what kind of “Chinese-ness” is presented and how is it constructed by these restaurants? Does its Otherness prevent it from fitting into mainstream American society or does its Americanization make this identity less ‘authentic’? By taking the Chinese restaurants in Gettysburg, PA, as a case study, this research studies the construction …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Model Minorities: Asian Americans And The White-Black Racial Paradigm, Jason Tom

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the racial wedge driven by Whites between Blacks and Asian Americans during the Cold War on to the present. Model minorities is a term coined by whites in the 1960s to suppress Civil Rights protests and Black demands. By elevating a minority group through success stories, whites constructed a means to suppress Black people’s organizing for change against systemic racism and oppression.

Mulan: An Exploration Of Culture And Representation In Hollywood, Annie Okuhara, Bernadine Cortina, Hung Le, Ryan Nakahara, Jerry Zou

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

'Mulan: An Exploration of Culture and Representation in Hollywood' is a presentation and detailed analysis of various representational, cultural, and minority-related issues in the context of Hollywood and western media. The presentation will focalize specifically around the recent live-action remake of the 1998 film "Mulan". The remake, premiered in March 2020, received critical backlash from various audiences (mostly from the BIPOC community), bashing the film for its misrepresentation of Ancient China and Ancient Chinese culture. Through this misrepresentation, the Hollywood film ultimately reflects views of cultural appropriation, misogyny, and overall minority underrepresentation in the United States. The research presents the …

Culture Stress And Difficulties: Lived Stories Of Teenaged Mothers In Macau, Luis Miguel Dos Santos

The Qualitative Report

The traditional Chinese culture influences perspectives toward family, marital status, and living style in Macau SAR, where Eastern cultures meet Western cultures. Although the Western living styles and standards highly influence the daily practices of residents; broken marriage, single parenting, and divorce are considered taboo in the community. The purpose of this study was to understand how teenaged single mothers describe their sources of stress and difficulties in the city. Eight single mothers, who were at different stages in single parenting and broken marriages, were interviewed and asked to share their lived stories. Guided by the Ecological System Theory, analysis …

Jesus, The Last Scapegoat: A Chinese-Indonesian Christian Theological Imagination For Peacebuilding And Reconciliation, Hans Harmakaputra

The Journal of Social Encounters

After enduring the systematic oppression under Suharto’s three-decade regime (1967-1998) in Indonesia through discriminatory policies, Chinese-Indonesians suffered an enormous loss in the 1998 riots that signified the end of Suharto’s regime. Many Chinese-Indonesians were killed, raped, and displaced. A few years later, the new government abolished the discriminatory policies against Chinese-Indonesians, and they started to enjoy equality as citizens of Indonesia. However, negativities that resulted from the traumatic experiences cannot be diminished easily. This essay suggests a Chinese-Indonesian Christian theological imagination of Jesus’ crucifixion that aims to deal with communal trauma and contribute to the peacebuilding and reconciliation efforts. This …

A Changing Tea Culture, A Changing China: Variations In Conceptions Of Gift Tea Among Tea Sellers, Tiana Wang

Student Work

A 2019-2020 Williams Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Tiana Wang (Ezra Stiles College '20) for her essay submitted to the Department of Sociology, "A Changing Tea Culture, A Changing China: Variations in Conceptions of Gift Tea Among Tea Sellers” (Jeffrey Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, advisor).

Tiana Wang’s essay, “A Changing Tea Culture, A Changing China: Variations in Conceptions of Gift Tea among Tea Sellers” makes substantial use of original interviews and observations with twenty tea sellers across Jinan, Shanghai, and Beijing to show that tea culture is changing with new …

Placing Notes In The Virtual “Western Wall”: Online Memorial Culture In Chinese Social Media, Xiaoyu Zhang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Each society has a unique way of understanding death and coping with mourning. The increasing online mourners in China gradually generated a collective reference to the Weibo account that belongs to the dead, the “Western Wall.” This project searches for answers to two questions: 1) What characterizes Chinese online memorial practice? And how do these practices compare with those in the Western countries? 2) What aspects of Chinese culture and social conditions can explain Chinese online memorial practices? By combining corpus analysis with thematic analysis on 1,606 comments left on the last tweet of two accounts of deceased Weibo users, …

Islam In China: Uyghurs In Crisis, Isabella Baez

Senior Honors Theses

Islam has been in China for hundreds of years and has been the religion to ten people groups in China, including the Uyghur people group. The Uyghurs have been under China’s domain since the mid-1700s and since then have stood out among the fifty-five recognized minority groups due to their ethnic differences in comparison to the Han majority. The Uyghurs have a rich and distinct history and cultural heritage, which is different than the Han majority culture. Since 2001 there have been campaigns to curb religious freedom in China by controlling the Uyghurs’ autonomous region of Xinjiang, located in western …

La Construcción Del Imaginario De Una Ciudad Multicultural: El Barrio Chino De Buenos Aires Como Exhibición Pública De Cultura, Yiran Lin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

En el marco de la globalización, ha surgido una nueva competencia entre las ciudades contemporáneas donde su multiculturalidad se convierte en símbolo de prosperidad. El imaginario urbano se creó en la intersección de los espacios públicos y los espacios sociopolíticos, de las culturas y sus representaciones, de lo ideal y la realidad. Estas dualidades nos hacen preguntarnos: ¿cómo afecta la espacialización pública de la cultura a la comunidad misma y a la sociedad receptora? ¿Quién se incluye en este imaginario y a quién se excluye? En este estudio, examinamos el Barrio Chino de Buenos Aires como caso de estudio de …

The Interwoven Existences Of Official Catholicism And Magical Practice In The Lived Religiosity Of A Transylvanian Hungarian Village, Cecília Sándor

Journal of Global Catholicism

During the last five years I have been doing field research in a Transylvanian Hungarian village, Sânsimion (Hu: Csíkszentsimon). I present my research on this religiously homogenous, Catholic community’s worldview. Based on interviews conducted with members of the village’s various age groups, I map religious and magical knowledge passed down through the generations, using the theoretical frame of collective memory and religious transmission. Second, I highlight two different but coexisting “constructions of reality” in this rural community. By “constructions of reality,” I mean interpretations of reality expressed in narrative discourses and local magical practices that are closely and inextricably interwoven …

Factors Supporting Turkey’S Policy To Purchase Russian S-400 Anti-Air Strike Defense Units, Chendika Yonanda, Maryam Jamila, Zulkifli Harza, Ilman Syarif Masri

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Turkey is a member of the NATO military alliance since 1952, as a member of NATO, cooperation between Turkey and Russia invites counterparts from other NATO alliance countries. But even with criticism, Turkey continues purchasing S-400 from Russia . Therefore, this study aims to analyze the factors that support Turkey's policy on purchasing S-400.This research is a descriptive research through internet-based literature.Turkey's policy in purchasing S-400 analyzed using the concepts of Arms, Alliances and Security Tradeoffs proposed by James D. Morrow. James stated that there are three factors that influence the state to conduct arming; economic & military technological factors, …

Nearly Halfway There: The Future Of Hong Kong, China, And One Country Two Systems, Lery Hiciano

CMC Senior Theses

The 2019 Hong Kong Protests mark a critical juncture in the history of Hong Kong. Although they started due to an extradition bill, the demonstrations are deeply rooted in larger concerns regarding Hong Kong’s place within China and its future. The global responses to the protest, from Beijing to London, reveal a complex web of relationships and interests. As the Chinese Communist Party continues to expand its global footprint, the bridge between domestic and international concerns will widen. Ultimately, that makes the Hong Kong situation a balancing act, one that observers can use as a litmus test for the Chinese …

Ethnobotany And Dai Medicine: Herbal Roots, Jasper Tsai

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Xishuangbanna is home to one of the most biologically and culturally diverse regions in China. Dai medicine from the Dai people has been recognized by China as one of the four major ethnic minority medicines. With over 2,500 years of practice, Dai medicine utilizes the herbs found in the diverse region mixed with principles and theories from Buddhism. There have been over 500 unique herbs used in Dai medicine, each with different properties and functions. As Xishuangbanna continues to develop as a city and expand its rubber and banana plantations, it has large impacts on the environment, living standard, education, …

Herbal Medicine And Pediatric Massage: Interning At A Tcm Pediatric Clinic, Yvette Way

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Before entering this program my knowledge of TCM was practically nonexistent. However even from a young age, I had an interest in learning about the healing properties of plants and herbs but, I had no way of exploring this interest of mine. After entering this program, I have learned more about TCM and herbal medicine. Because of the lessons that we have taken in class, it made me want to have a deeper understanding of TCM because of this, I decided to do an internship that would involve TCM. My time at Yang Zhen Er Kang clinic has taught me …

"The Chinese Animation Industry: From The Mao Era To The Digital Age", Stephanie Jones

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since the 1950’s the Chinese Animation industry has been trying to create a unique national style for China. The national style of the 1950’s and early 1960’s was one of freedom, fantasy, and creativity. With the success of “Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland”/草原英雄小姐妹(1965), the government administration, namely Jiang Qing of the “Gang of Four”, demanded that all animation should follow specific guidelines based on Social Realism guidelines. This in turn, ushered in a new national style of animation during the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976). During this ten-year period government policies imposed strict restrictions on animators and cause a drain of creative …

Social Support And Discrimination: The Experiences Of Recovering Heroin Addicts In Kunming, China, Phoebe Li

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Opioids have had a long, complex position in Chinese society, dating all the way back to the Ming dynasty. In 1949, 5% of the overall Chinese population and 25% of the population in Yunnan smoked opium regularly, which led to societal collapse and economic downturn. Since then, the Chinese government has used many different methods to attempt to control drug use and trafficking, including registering all users, executing traffickers, and using Compulsory Rehabilitation Centers. Starting in 2008, the government switched to a harm reduction approach and began to invest in methadone clinics, community support groups, and needle exchange programs. Because …

Is Technology The Key To Prevention Of Falls Among The Elderly In Rapidly Aging Societies? A Case Study Of Kunming, China, Phoebe Kiburi

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the aging society rapidly becomes more dominant in the world, there is a pressing need for different stakeholders to tend to the needs of the aging sufficiently. This is crucial in ensuring the robustness of the healthcare system as a whole; given that it can only be as strong as its weakest link. This study focuses on one of the areas of need of the ageing society: fall prevention.

Numerous studies have been done on interventions by the government, private entities, elderly people and their caregivers to prevent occurrence and recurrence of falls. However, most of these have been …

Perception And Prejudice: Sino-Ghanaian Relations Within The Service Sector And The Wavering Perception Of China On The Global Stage, Jodi-Ann (Juexuan) Wang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Opinions on the impacts of China in Africa differ from one observer to the next, be it in media, academic, or elsewhere. While most general discourses have been nuanced and coherent, there is nevertheless a prevailing sentiment of unbridled fear and Sinophobia, or anti-Chinese populism. Based on a two-sided study in Ghana, this research uses Chinese-Ghanaian employment relations as a way of entry to analyze and explore cross-cultural understandings, or lack thereof, that leads to conflict. From there, this paper examines the style of politicized media in broadcasting Sino-Ghanaian (Chinese-Ghanaian) engagements and its role in creating the anti-Chinese populism on …

The Social Provision Of Healthcare To Migrants In The Us And In China, Van C. Tran, Katharine M. Donato

Publications and Research

This article develops a comparative analysis of healthcare provision to migrants in the US and in China. It proceeds in three parts. First, we begin by describing the growth of the unauthorized population and trace the evolution of social provision of healthcare to immigrants, highlighting the restrictive nature of federal social provisions and greater autonomy of state and local governments in redefining eligibility criteria in the US. Second, we examine the impact of legal status on healthcare access and utilization among Mexicans, using original data from the 2007 Hispanic Healthcare Survey and the Mexican Migration Project. We find that unauthorized …

From Habits To Habitus: Chinese Elites Attempt To Create An Aristocratic Class Along The British Model, Karina Salomatina

Master's Projects and Capstones

Lately, new trends have appeared in the spending habits of Chinese elites, which include money spent on etiquette classes, butler service, British afternoon tea, debutante balls, education in boarding schools, and immigration to Britain. These new consumption patterns of Chinese elites signify their desire and attempt to adopt the British aristocratic lifestyle portrayed in popular TV series, classical novels and mass media. This study examines anthropological research, documentary videos, news reports and interviews with Chinese elites and applies Bourdieu’s theory of habitus as the main analytical tool in order to explain this phenomenon. Considering that forty years ago all Chinese …