Asian Studies Commons^™

The Spirit-Mediums Of Singkawang: Performing Peoplehood Of West Kalimantan, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Chinese New Year in the West Kalimantan town of Singkawang is marked by a parade featuring hundreds of possessed spirit-mediums performing self-mortification and blood sacrifice. The event is a huge tourist draw, but beyond the spectacle, deeper meanings are enacted. The spirit-medium procession stages a fraternity of Dayak, Malay and Chinese earth gods united in the purpose of exorcising demons from the neighborhood. The self-conscious presentation of the Chinese as brethren among pribumi [sons-of-the-soil] Dayak and Malay, proposes the Chinese as belonging to the ‘peoplehood’ of West Kalimantan.

Cultural Differences And Switching Of In-Group Sharing Behavior Between An American (Facebook) And A Chinese (Renren) Social Networking Site, Lin Qiu, Han Lin, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Prior research has documented cultural dimensions that broadly characterize between-culture variations in Western and East Asian societies and that bicultural individuals can flexibly change their behaviors in response to different cultural contexts. In this article, we studied cultural differences and behavioral switching in the context of the fast emerging, naturally occurring online social networking, using both self-report measures and content analyses of online activities on two highly popular platforms, Facebook and Renren (the “Facebook of China”). Results showed that while Renren and Facebook are two technically similar platforms, the Renren culture is perceived as more collectivistic than the Facebook culture. …

Comparing Local Models Of Agrarian Transition In China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The development of markets and the penetration of capital into agriculture have started the agrarian transition in rural China, which is transforming smallholding, household-based agriculture into various forms of capitalistic production. This again raises in a new historical and social context the long-debated question in the agrarian transition literature: Can family farms survive the onslaught of capitalist agriculture based on wage labor and what shapes the confrontation between family farms and agro-capital? I argue that it is the local political economy—rather than some natural obstacles in agriculture to the penetration of capitalism—that shapes this confrontation and gives rise to a …

Central Asia, The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, And American Foreign Policy : From Indifference To Engagement., Charles E. Ziegler

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This paper examines U.S. engagement in Central Asia over the past two decades, with specific reference to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. While alarmist voices occasionally warn of the threat to American interests from China and Russia through the SCO, the organization’s influence appears limited. Washington has engaged it only sporadically, preferring to conduct relations bilaterally with the Central Asian states.

The Aftermarket Performance Of Initial Public Offerings, Chiyachantana N. Chiraphol, Theerawat Pinta, Nareerat Taechapiroontong, Anantaporn Wongkham

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the aftermarket performance of initial public offerings (IPOs) and explores the underpricing of IPOs in an Asian emerging equity market using a comprehensive sample of IPOs. Our findings suggest that there exist a significant underpricing. Specifically, new issues have been offered at an average market-adjusted discount of about 20%. The magnitude of IPO underpricing is significantly larger for large firms, older firms and firms with small offering size.

A Tale Of Two Superpowers: Nigeria And China Relations, Faouziatou Aboudou Kabassi

Master's Theses

The study discusses the historical development of the Sino-Nigerian bilateral relations. The paper provides a detailed view of china's FDI in Nigeria and the diverse challenges faced by the oil rich country to develop its own economy through NEEDS as a result of china's economic power. China’s partnership with Nigeria is ideally for economic growth but practically poisonous to Nigeria’s development goals as China is solely pursuing its own interest and diverting its partner from working toward its NEEDS goal. A deep investigation of the relations should be reviewed for both countries. This will be needed to produce vital economic …

Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made A Fetish Of Small Feet, Aubrey L. Mcmahan

Grand Valley Journal of History

Abstract for “Why Chinese Neo-Confucian Women Made a Fetish of Small Feet”

This paper explores the source of the traditional practice of Chinese footbinding which first gained popularity at the end of the Tang dynasty and continued to flourish until the last half of the twentieth century.[1] Derived initially from court concubines whose feet were formed to represent an attractive “deer lady” from an Indian tale, footbinding became a wide-spread symbol among the Chinese of obedience, pecuniary reputability, and Confucianism, among other things.[2]^,[3] Drawing on the analyses of such scholars as Beverly Jackson, Valerie Steele …

Fuelling The Asian Growth Engine: Talent Challenges, Strategies And Trends, Mario Ferraro, Catherine Mudford, Karina Kuok, Saumya Sindhwani, Rebecca Siow

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The emerging economies of Asia are increasingly playing a critical role in the global arena, even as there is continuing turmoil and uncertainty in other parts of the world due to economic, financial and political upheavals. While Asian economies are undoubtedly impacted by global headwinds, most of them have been buffered by their sound economic and policy fundamentals, healthy domestic demand and continued inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Meanwhile, Asia is undergoing its own transformation: many countries in Asia are experiencing greater economic prosperity and rising affluence, translating into higher demand for goods and services. As businesses flock to …

Living A Parallel Life: Memoirs And Research Of A Transnational Korean Adoptee, Mary C. Robinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This thesis project consists of two parts: a memoir of my experience as a Korean adoptee, and a research paper examining how transracial, transnational adoption affects identity development in Korean adoptees. The memoir, as a first person narrative, gives voice to the research as one example of the findings. The majority of research on Korean adoptees has focused on levels of adjustment within a short time frame after adoptees’ placement in their adoptive homes. While the overwhelming majority of the prior research has declared positive and overall satisfactory adjustment for most adoptees, serious flaws exist in the methodologies that do …

Taiwanese Willingness To Communicate In English: Can Watching American Television Programs Help?, Yu-Ting Chien

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study explored the relationship between Taiwanese audiences' use of American television programs and their willingness to communicate in English. Taiwanese participants filled out an online survey consisted of questions from uses and gratifications constructs and willingness to communicate constructs. In addition, different subtitle settings were also examined.

Results indicated that participants with high integrative motivation consuming information from American television programs, in addition, the setting of subtitles were associated with perceived communication competence, integrative motivation, language anxiety and social interaction motivation.

Aesthetic Constructions Of Korea Nationalism: Spectacle, Politics And History, Yooil Bae

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Singapore Inflation Expectations: Expecting The Unexpected, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

The study of inflation expectations of Singapore house-holds is a multi-disciplinary industry-relevant research that comes out of a partnership between Singapore Management University (SMU) and MasterCard. The research team for this MasterCard-SKBI Singapore Index of Inflation Expectations (SInDEx) project applied rigorous methods using current internet-based marketing survey tools for data-collection and advanced econometric techniques to analyse the data. The updates from the quarterly waves are keenly followed by policymakers, market watchers and the media because of the enormous importance of cost of living to individuals and businesses alike.

The New Hong Kong Mediation Ordinance: Much Ado About Nothing?, Nadja Alexander

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In this post on the Kluwer Mediation Blog, the purpose of the Mediation Ordinance (MO) passed in June 2012 by the Hong Kong Legislative Council is discussed.

A Preliminary Survey Of The Right To Presumption Of Innocence In Singapore, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The right to presumption of innocence is said to exist in almost all criminal justice systems, including Singapore. Curiously, however, no Singapore case has ever attempted to establish the exact source and contours of this longstanding right. This is unsatisfactory, as this diminishes the meaningfulness of what is supposed to be a fundamental right in the criminal justice process. The primary aim of this article is thus to conduct a preliminary survey of the law on the presumption of innocence in Singapore. It begins by proposing the Woolmington conception as a workable starting point, but posits a guiding principle to …

Taking Crime Out Of Crime Business, Mark James Findlay, Nafis Hanif

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is one thing to assert that conventional market analysis is critically useful in understanding criminal enterprise. It is more challenging to suggest that corrupt and compromised legal regulation interacts with other critical market variables to maximise market advantage for crime business in a similar manner to legitimate regulatory forces in their protection and enhancement of legitimate business enterprise. The central argument of this paper is that crime business mirrors other business forms when considered in terms of critical market variables, and that in particular regulatory forces when inverted from their original purposes can influence market conditions in the same …

Shall The Twain Never Meet? Competing Narratives And Discourses Of The Rule Of Law In Singapore, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article aims to assess the role played by the rule of law in discourse by critics of the Singapore Government’s policies and in the Government’s responses to such criticisms. It argues that in the past the two narratives clashed over conceptions of the rule of law, but there is now evidence of convergence of thinking as regards the need to protect human rights, though not necessarily as to how the balance between rights and other public interests should be struck. The article also examines why the rule of law must be regarded as a constitutional doctrine in Singapore, the …

China's Rare Earths Export Quotas: Out Of The China-Raw Materials Gate, But Past The Wto's Finish Line?, Han-Wei Liu, John Maughan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Several recent studies have discussed the ramifications of the China – Raw Materials case for China's rare earths. However, none of these studies has conducted a thorough investigation of China's current export quota regime for rare earths or how it might stand up under WTO rules, assuming that it would be treated the same. This article makes no such assumption, investigating China's export quota regime for rare earths as it stands in early June 2012. The regime is somewhat improved over that applied during the Raw Materials case and could allow a more favourable WTO ruling. However, if General Agreement …

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2012: Q3 Results, Institute Of Service Excellence, Smu

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence (2007-2024)

The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) computes customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. The CSISG serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy over time and across countries. This is the sixth year of measurement.

Smu Launches Livelabs To Enhance Singapore’S Capability In Consumer & Social Analytics, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

Officiated by Mr Teo Chee Hean, Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security, Minister for Home Affairs and Chairman of the National Research Foundation (NRF), and witnessed by over 300 guests comprising the academia, industry partners and senior representatives from private and public sector organisations, SMU and StarHub jointly launched two Interactive Digital Media (IDM) initiatives - LiveLabs Urban Lifestyle Innovation Platform (LiveLabs) and SmartHub, on 5 November 2012. Both city-scale test-beds aim to strengthen Singapore’s standing as a preferred location for innovation and research, particularly in the area of consumer and social analytics. LiveLabs is SMU’s newest research …

Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application To The Philippines, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time-reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. It integrates the existing methods of growth-redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose poverty change into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g. regions or sectors) in the economy. We extend our method to have six components and provide an empirical application to the Philippines for the period 1985-2009.