Asian Studies Commons^™

Can Asians Be Creative?, Chua, Roy Y. J., Jerry Zremski

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A crotchety American named Henry Ford invented a modern, fast and efficient way to manufacture automobiles and a Japanese man named Eiji Toyoda refined and perfected it. A series of innovators across the western world developed the television - and the tech specialists at Sony, Toshiba and a host of other Asian companies found ways to make TVs better, cheaper, faster. And an idiosyncratic Californian named Steve Jobs invented a company that made a smart phone for the masses - and then outsourced the manufacturing to China. If you detect a pattern here, you are not alone. Asia may be …

Film Tourism And Expectation: Using The Hallyu Wave To Model How Governments And Media Exports Influence National Image, Aishat O. Bello

Undergraduate Research Posters

Film tourism encompasses the interest, investment and influence that exported media products can contribute to cultural globalization, and subsequent visitation of a nation. The Korean Wave or Hallyu wave has been studied and commended for its rapid spread and growing popularity within Asia and more recently, on a more global scale. By comparing and contrasting the methods used by the Korean government to enhance Hallyu, with several trade deals made by the US government to support Hollywood, we can see how the effects of film tourism were directed towards modifying perspectives on Korean culture. A few consequences of making trade …

Theravada Buddhism, Identity, And Cultural Continuity In Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, James H. Granderson

Student Publications

This ethnographic field study focuses upon the relationship between the urban Jinghong and surrounding rural Dai population of lay people, as well as a few individuals from other ethnic groups, and Theravada Buddhism. Specifically, I observed how Theravada Buddhism and Dai ethnic culture are continued through the monastic system and the lay community that supports that system. I also observed how individuals balance living modern and urban lifestyles while also incorporating Theravada Buddhism into their daily lives. Both of these involved observing the relationship between Theravada monastics in city and rural temples and common people in daily life, as well …

Von Fischen Im Wasser Und Andere Mediationserzählungen [Of Fish In Water And Other Mediation Stories] (In German), Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This essay offers an international and cross-cultural perspective on mediation. It builds on the contributions to this journal issue and extends the conversation to include (1) the role of culture in mediations models and (2) the taboo topic of directive, evaluative approaches. After reviewing various taxonomies of mediation models, the author’s mediation meta model is used as a framework to analyze diverse approaches of mediation including those presented in this issue. Historical-cultural perspectives provide further layers of depth and nuance that thicken the already complex storylines of the human mediation narrative. If mediation is to succeed in attaining truly global …

The Thailand Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington, Serene Chen

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Thai migrants first began trickling into the Chao Phraya river valley from Southern China in the eleventh century. Thai chieftains established petty kingdoms in modern-day Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, initially as tributaries to more established Burmese and Khmer rulers. However, both the diminishing influence of the Khmer Empire and the Mongols’ sacking of the Burmese capital Bagan in 1287 left a political vacuum in mainland Southeast Asia, which was soon filled by Thai kingdoms such as Sukhothai (1238–1463), Chiang Mai (1296–1775), Ayutthaya (1351–1767) and eventually Bangkok (f. 1 782). In the process, the up-and-coming Thai polities supplanted the Khmer Empire …

The Indonesia Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

A maritime analogue to the silk road running through Central Asia, the Indonesian archipelago was a key ancient trade route linking Chinese goods to markets in India and farther west into the Mediterranean. Its cosmopolitan ports attracted significant numbers of Arab, Indian and Chinese merchants and holy men and fostered the exchange of goods as well as cultural and religious ideas. Cultural appropriation had a clear Indian bias. Starting in the early eighth century, the various islands saw the rise and fall of several Indianised Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms, including Mataram, Singhasari and Majapahit in east Java and Srivijaya in …

The Metro Manila Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Although Western colonisers have, to varying degrees, shaped the political structures and economies of nearly all modern Southeast Asian nations, they achieved an unmatched level of cultural and institutional penetration in the Philippines. Far from the Indic influences that inspired Angkor Wat, Borobudur and Bagan, the island group was only marginally sanskritised during the pre-colonial period. With some notable exceptions in the south, Muslim communities were also never able to establish firm roots. Mindanao, Sulu and even southern Luzon were home to maritime sultanates beginning in the late 14th century, but a Spanish victory over the Muslim Rajah of Maynila …

The Singapore Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, Aji Paramartha, Shihui Khee, Regina Unson, Sai Hein

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Singapore has come a long way, since her beginnings as a sleepy fishing village and a tiny Malay settlement ruled by the Sultan of Johor. Sir Stamford Raffles first arrived in Singapore in 1819 and immediately recognised that its strategic location along the Straits of Malacca would be useful to the British in developing an alternative to challenge Dutch influence and monopoly in the region. During British colonial rule, Singapore developed into an important free port and trade city, an essential trait that continues to feature heavily in Singapore’s economic development to this day.

The Vietnam Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Although most of Southeast Asia is home to religions and cultures carrying significant Indic influence, Vietnam alone is the mainland’s only Sinicised culture. Chinese emperors directly ruled northern Vietnam for most of the period spanning 111 BCE to 938 CE. The next eight hundred years saw a series of independent Vietnamese kingdoms administered by Chinese-style mandarins gradually extend control over and supplant the Indic Champa civilisation to the south—even as French incursions began chipping away at Vietnamese territory as early as 1858.

Textualizing Cultures: Thinking Beyond The Mit Controversy, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines how the MIT Controversy hardened identities in terms of the time worn template of geopolitical conflict of national stereotypes. It critically analyzes the Chinese students’ response to the “Visualizing Cultures” project by putting it in the context of the PRC’s patriotic education policy that securitizes culture by focusing on identity as difference in a zero-sum game that distinguishes civilization from barbarism, and China from the rest of the world. It critically analyzes the professors response to the controversy by highlighting how meaning is not only produced by the author; it is also consumed by various audiences that …

The Malaysia Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, Natalia R. Rodrigues

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Malaysia’s story is one of pluralism. Like many nations in Southeast Asia, its borders are not drawn along ethnic lines. Immigration and the influence from colonial European powers were particularly prominent in Malaysia because of its many important ports. Thus, many aspects of the country – its economy, its people – are very different on the coasts than they are in the interior of the country, a distinction which generally mirrors the divide between urban and rural areas as well.

The Vientiane Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growt, Institute For Societal Leadership, Lai Cheng Lim

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Laos is a small, landlocked, mountainous country in Southeast Asia. As a country, it shares borders with Myanmar and the People’s Republic of China to the Northwest, Vietnam to the East, Cambodia to the South and Thailand to the West.

The Dili Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, Lai Cheng Lim

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Timor-Leste, Asia’s newest nation, is located in Southeast Asia, on the southernmost edge of the Indonesian archipelago. The country was colonised by the Portuguese for over 450 years, occupied by the Indonesians for 24 years and administered by the United Nations for two and a half years. As a nation, Timor-Leste has had a very traumatic birth.

The Yangon Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Since its independence from British rule in 1948, Myanmar has struggled with multiple obstacles, including a series of violent internal ethnic and sectarian conflicts, isolationist fiscal policies instituted by an increasingly distrustful military government and international sanctions and condemnation following government crackdowns in 1988 and 2007. In spite of all these setbacks, President Thein Sein’s decision in 2011 to liberalise the country’s political and economic systems has created a new wave of optimism for what was once commonly regarded as a failed state.

Parenting Behaviors, Adolescent Depressive Symptoms, And Problem Behavior: The Role Of Self-Esteem And School Adjustment Difficulties Among Chinese Adolescents, Cixin Wang, Yan Ruth Xia, Wenzhen Li, Stephan M. Wilson, Kevin Bush, Gary Peterson

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Cross-sectional data from 589 Chinese adolescents were used to investigate whether parenting behaviors are directly or indirectly (through self-esteem and school adjustment difficulties) associated with adolescent depressive symptoms and problem behavior. Structural equation modeling results showed that school adjustment difficulties fully mediated the relations between two parenting behaviors (parental punitiveness and paternal monitoring) and adolescent problem behavior and partially mediated the relation between maternal monitoring and adolescent problem behavior. Adolescent self-esteem partially mediated the relations between maternal punitiveness and adolescent depressive symptoms and fully mediated the relations between parental support and adolescent depressive symptoms. Parental love withdrawal was not significantly …

China's 80后 And 90后: The Next Generation Of Leaders In The World's Next Superpower, A Students-Teaching-Students Course, Patrick Slavin

Senior Honors Projects

In light of China’s recent reemergence as a global superpower, it is becoming increasingly important for westerners to understand its history and culture. For current college students, the culture of China’s youth is particularly pertinent.

In this project, a course, HPR 107: Chinese Youth Culture, was designed and taught through the Students-Teaching-Students program, which provides senior Honor’s Program students the opportunity to design and teach their own Honor’s Program course. The HPR 107 course focuses on China’s 80后 and 90后 generations, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

This multi-faceted project includes: subject matter research, course development, pedagogy development, …

Negotiating Successfully In Asia, Michael Benoliel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Cross-cultural negotiations are complex, challenging, and difficult to navigate because much of the Asian culture is unstated, implicit, and internalized in subtle behavioral patterns. It is like an iceberg; more is invisible and less is visible. To understand how the Asian negotiation values and practices are different from those in the West, I describe briefly the Asian cultural roots, highlight the major dimensions that differentiate cultures, explore the factors that influence the Asian negotiation processes and outcomes, and provide a list of practical suggestions for negotiating successful deals with Asian negotiators.

The Better-Than-Average Effect In Hong Kong And The United States: The Role Of Personal Trait Importance And Cultural Trait Importance, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K. Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Al K. C. Au

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

People tend to make self-aggrandizing social comparisons on traits that are important to the self. However, existing research on the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and trait importance does not distinguish between personal trait importance (participants’ ratings of the importance of certain traits to themselves) and cultural trait importance (participants’ perceptions of the importance of the traits to the cultural group to which they belong). We demonstrated the utility of this distinction by examining the joint effects of personal importance and cultural importance on the BTAE among Hong Kong Chinese and American participants. Results showed that the BTAE was more pronounced for …

Speaking In Thai, Dreaming In Isan: Popular Thai Television And Emerging Identities Of Lao Isan Youth Living In Northeast Thailand, Catherine Hesse-Swain

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This is an ethnographic study of how Lao Isan youth living in the northeastern provincial capital Khon Kaen and nearby town Mahasarakham experience Thainess or khwampenthai in its most popular form – television. People who inhabit the northeast of Thailand interchangeably label themselves and are labelled by others as Isan, Thai Isan, Lao Isan, Thai or Lao, depending on the ethnic, political, social or familial nuances of any given situation. I use the term Lao Isan to refer specifically to Isan people of Lao origin or ethnicity. Lao Isan are subject to complex and often competing notions of Isanness, Laoness …

Parental Influences On Hmong University Students' Success, Andrew J. Supple, Shuntay Z. Mccoy, Yudan Wang

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

This study reports findings from a series of focus groups conducted on Hmong American university students. The purpose of the focus groups was to understand how, from the perspective of Hmong American students themselves, acculturative stress and parents influenced academic success. Findings of a thematic analysis centered on general themes across focus group respondents that related to parental socialization, gendered socialization, and ethnic identification. Each identified themes is discussed in reference to gendered patterns of experiences in Hmong American families and in reference to academic success.

Prevalence, Nature, Context And Impact Of Alcohol Use In India: Recommendations For Practice And Research, S. Prabhu, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd, Catherine N. Dulmus Phd, K. S. Ratheeshkumar

Brown School Faculty Publications

Presently alcohol policy in India takes a moral stand rather than a scientific approach towards understanding and dealing with the problem of alcoholism. To effectively address this social problem in India, public policy must take into account the nature, extent of the problem and the context in which it occurs. This literature review examines the nature, prevalence and impact of alcohol use and misuse in India, within its historical and cultural contexts, as a beginning step to inform policy. Recommendations for practice and future research directions are suggested.

Guanxi Versus Networking: Distinctive Configurations Of Affect- And Cognition-Based Trust In The Networks Of Chinese And American Managers, Roy Y. J. Chua, Michael W. Morris, Paul Ingram

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research investigates hypotheses about differences between Chinese and American managers in the configuration of trusting relationships within their professional networks. Consistent with hypotheses about Chinese familial collectivism, an egocentric network survey found that affect- and cognition-based trust were more intertwined for Chinese than for American managers. In addition, the effect of economic exchange on affect-based trust was more positive for Chinese than for Americans, whereas the effect of friendship was more positive for Americans than for Chinese. Finally, the extent to which a given relationship was highly embedded in ties to third parties increased cognition-based trust for Chinese but …

Cowboys And Shoguns: The American Western, Japanese Jidaigeki, And Cross-Cultural Exchange, Kyle Keough

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Understanding Chinese Business Behaviour: A Historical Perspective, Taieb Hafsi, Li Yan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The behaviour of Chinese business has been studied by a variety of strategic management scholars (see in particular Hafsi and Tian, 2005; Peng, 2006; Peng and Heat, 1996). Most of these studies rely on traditional data gathering, either in the form of interviews or published data banks. Very little attention has been given to history as a determinant of strategic behaviour. In this paper, we propose that the cognitive orientation of Chinese managers is dominated by their knowledge and understanding of Chinese history. We take the Three Kingdoms historic novel as a proxy to history to derive basic behavioral norms …

Hao Bu Hao: A Survival Guide For Zhejiang University, Jenna N. D’Amico

Senior Honors Projects

In an ever-expanding global society, we must learn to embrace other cultures much different from our own. The University of Rhode Island’s International Engineering Program has opened several opportunities for students to work and live in an environment much different from that in Kingston, the most recent one being at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. The first group was sent to Hangzhou during the summer of 2006 for seven weeks to learn Mandarin and learn about the Far East. The fourteen of us lived in a dorm, studied Mandarin Chinese, visited cultural and historical sites, and took in all …

Ideology, Social Commentary And Resistance In Popular Music: A Case Study Of Singapore, Phua Siew Chye, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Popular music as a site of struggles over meaning is focused upon, where the social and political relations between different groups in Singapore society are mirrored. How ruling elites and everyday people make use of the same cultural form--popular music--for different purposes is examined.

A Catalyst For Culture: Early Child Development And Education In Japan, Kate Swenson

Senior Scholar Papers

A popular Western perception of Japan is that it is an eminently homogeneous and conformist society. However, both conformity and homogeneity, recognized even by the Japanese themselves, coexist with the concept of individuality, which is valued in a manner unique to its culture. In order to come to a deeper understanding of that dynamic, it is important to comprehend the specifics of child rearing and education within Japanese society. Based in part on the author's observational fieldwork conducted while in Japan in 1994, the thesis explicates the manner in which various core relationships exhibit the socialization of an individual that …

Popular Music And A Sense Of Place In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper illustrates how popular music written, produced, and performed by Singaporeans provides a means through which the culture and society of Singapore may be understood. Music with English language text conveys a sense of place and reflects a distinctively Singaporean spirit and identity. The paper examines four themes: the portrayal of Singapore's multiracial population which reflects a unique cultural synthesis; the Singaporeans' concept of urbanity, manifested as the simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards the city and the desire for nature and the rustic; the distinctive social engineering in Singapore; and the way in which global issues are imported into …

Making "Music At The Margins"? A Social And Cultural Analysis Of Xinyao In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Formalist critics and aestheticians have argued that music does not possess any kind of "extra-musical" significance, that there is no meaning beyond the form and structural relations of the notes. For them, music exemplifies the laws of mathematical harmony and proportion rather than the social and political contexts within which it is produced, reproduced and consumed. This view has been challenged by a number of social theorists: Max Weber, Theodor Adorno and Edward Said have all argued for an understanding of music within its social, cultural, economic and political contexts. Such analysis of popular music is now unquestioned. Indeed, it …

Miriam Kahn's Review Of Lenore Manderson's Shared Wealth And Symbol: Food, Culture, And Society In Oceania And Southeast Asia, Miriam Kahn

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.