Asian Studies Commons^™

Chinese Youth: A Quick Q And A With Mary Bergstrom, Jeffrey Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Whenever I take a trip that includes stops in Shanghai and Beijing, two people I make sure to meet up with are Jeremy Friedlein and David Moser, the Academic Directors of the CET study abroad programs in those cities. I do this for several reasons. One is that CET has deep ties to China Beat, since the blog’s founding editor Kate Merkel-Hess and current editor Maura Cunningham are both alums. Another reason is that, for almost two years now, CET has been sponsoring a series of literary events at M on the Bund (in Shanghai) and now also Capital M …

“Unwavering Public Support” Not Quite So Easy To Find These Days, Duncan Hewitt

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

It was just like old times—in many of China’s major newspapers, a prominently displayed half-page story headlined: “Officials and citizens all across the country express unwavering support for central party leadership’s decision.” It followed hot on the heels of the previous day’s People’s Daily headline: “Resolutely support the party’s correct decision,” which appeared on many front pages. In the wake of the stunning news that Bo Xilai, one of China’s most prominent politicians, had been suspended from the ruling Politburo, and his wife arrested on suspicion of being involved in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, the Chinese Communist …

Book Review: The Gender Of Memory, Nicole Elizabeth Barnes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Gail Hershatter and her Shaanxi-native research collaborator Gao Xiaoxian (of the Shaanxi Provincial Women’s Federation) spent ten years interviewing 72 women and a few men in rural Shaanxi province in northwest China. The Gender of Memory, Hershatter’s sole-authored product of this joint effort, fills a crucial gap in historiography of the 1950s, providing the first personal stories of land reform, the 1950 Marriage Law, collectivization, and the Great Leap Forward. Moreover, through incisive gender analysis, Hershatter illustrates how gender determined not only how Chinese women and men lived their lives, but also how they remember them. Whereas male interviewees …

A Q&A; With Janet Chen, Author Of Guilty Of Indigence, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Every society sees and treats its poorest members differently. The distinctive way that Victorian Britain dealt with poverty is a central theme in many novels by Charles Dickens, the prolific author whose books are getting even more attention as the bicentennial of his birth is being marked. For those more interested in India’s present than England’s past, the book of the moment on this theme seems to be Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, which is earning enthusiastic advance reviews and is due out soon (coincidentally or not on February 7, Dickens’ …

Book Review: Phoenix: The Life Of Norman Bethune, David Webster

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Millions of Chinese have memorized Mao Zedong’s 1939 lines “In Memory of Norman Bethune,” written soon after the Canadian surgeon’s death amidst the war against Japan. As a result, Bethune remains the best-known Canadian in China, still outstripping comedian Dashan (Mark Rowswell).

“Comrade Bethune’s spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, was shown in his great sense of responsibility in his work and his great warm-heartedness towards all comrades and the people,” Mao wrote, extolling Bethune’s “spirit of absolute selflessness.” If Bethune was pure selflessness and internationalist heroism after coming to China, it was only after …

Ai In Mumbai, Reshma Patil

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Chinese artist offered a firm handshake and his business card. The Indian curator hesitated for a split second. They were, after all, standing in a men’s loo in Gwangju, South Korea. The curator returned to Mumbai, a financial powerhouse that several Chinese artists in the study group at Gwangju had never heard of. “What is Mumbai?” they asked him. The artist, who happened to know where Mumbai lies, returned to his studio in Beijing. He and the curator communicated via email for over a year. There were long silent gaps, until one day this year, the curator received a …

A Flourishing Profession: Reflections On A Career In Asian Studies, Charlotte Furth

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

At the March annual meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, held in Toronto, the association recognized Charlotte Furth with the AAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies. Furth is Professor Emerita of history at the University of Southern California and has written and edited five books, including A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960-1665 (UC Press, 1999). Below is an expanded version of remarks that Furth gave at the AAS award ceremony, in which she reflects on the changes to Asian Studies that have taken place since she entered the field in 1959, particularly regarding the …

Social Welfare Of Burmese Refugees And Human Security, Naruemon Thabchumpon

Asian Review

This paper investigates the social welfare and social security situation of Burmese refugees1 living in temporary shelters along the Thai-Myanmar border. The study applies the human security framework and right to education framework to analyze findings from both documentary and field research in order to examine the accessibility and availability of existing welfare services, as well as to identify the potential implications and the sustainability of access to local Thai education, health, and judicial services of these refugees in the future. Overall, the paper argues that under the human security framework finding sustainable solutions to the current protracted situation may …

Notes To Contributors

Asian Review

No abstract provided.

Human Security And Chinese Political Economy, Vorasakdi Mahatdhanobol

Asian Review

This article examines how China looks at the issue of human security and the change of their internal and external policies toward human security. Chinas repressive regime is now having a hard time maintaining itself while trying to enter into the world market. Opening up the country involves applying international versions of human rights for their citizens, adjusting their production system to suit international standards, cooperating with foreign countries, and so on. Changes that came with economic liberalization are shifting China into a new phase of development and governance with problems of ethnic conflict, corruption, and abuse of authority by …

Taiwanese Preferences And Cultural Factors Influencing Visuals In Taiwanese Health Pamphlets, Lucas Keola Baclayon

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study aims to discover what preferences Taiwanese people have for visuals in health documents, with the research question being, "What are Taiwanese preferences for visuals and visual elements in health documents?" Research is conducted through a mixed-methods approach with a comparative analysis of a collection of American and Taiwanese health pamphlets, surveys conducted with Taiwanese people inquiring about preferences concerning visuals in health documents, and interviews conducted with doctors educated and practicing in Taiwan. In this way, the study moves from what visuals are currently being used, to what kinds of visuals Taiwanese people prefer, to how health professionals …

Review Of Daniel Mockli's "Strategic Trends 2012: Key Developments In Global Affairs, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

This review essay describes and analyzes the content of this annual compilation of international affairs essays published by the Zurich-based Center for Strategic Studies.

Transformational Leadership And Job Satisfaction Of Retired Army Noncommissioned Officers In South Korea, Terra Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizations, including the military and their managers, have used transformational leadership for over 30 years to increase job satisfaction. The purpose of this correlation research study was to determine whether a relationship existed between transformational leadership and job satisfaction among retired Army noncommissioned officers who had rejoined the military workforce in South Korea. The research question was grounded in a synthesis of theories concerning transformational leadership and job satisfaction. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ5X), the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), and Job in General (JIG) scales were used to gather data from 141 participants. Univariate analyses were used to document that …

Japan’S Love For Derivative Actions: Irrational Behaviour And Non-Economic Motives As Rational Explanations For Shareholder Litigation, Dan W. Puchniak, Masafumi Nakahigashi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Not long ago, there was a consensus in the legal academy that the Japanese were irrational litigants. As the theory went, Japanese people would forgo litigating for financial gain because of a cultural obsession with maintaining social harmony. Based on this theory, it made perfect (but economically irrational) sense that Japanese shareholders let their U.S.-transplanted derivative action lay moribund for almost four post-war decades, while at the same time the derivative action was a staple of shareholder litigation in the United States.The 1980s brought a wave of law and economics to the scholarship of Japanese law, which largely discredited the …

An Institutional Perspective And The Role Of The State For Chinese Ofdi, Bing Ren, Hao Liang, Ying Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Napoleon called China a ‘sleeping dragon’, but recent economic developments as China enters the twenty-first century show that the dragon is awakening. China has maintained strong economic growth since 1979 and sustained a GDP increase of more than 9 percent over the years. The total volume of economic output increased from 2.8 percent in 1970 to 7.23 percent in 2008, ranking China as the third largest economy in the world (United Nation Statistics Division Statistical Databases). China launched its ‘Go Global’ policy in 1999 to encourage highperforming Chinese firms to invest abroad and upgrade their global competence. Since then, outward …

Public Housing: Appreciating Assets?, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

The topic of HDB housing is one that is close to the hearts and minds of the majority of Singaporeans. The first part of the presentation will provide a brief overview of price trends in Singapore’s housing sector. The second part delves into the market and policy factors behind the rapid increase in HDB housing prices since 2006. The monograph “Reflections on Housing a Nation” published by the Ministry of National Development in February 2011, contains numerous statements on the goals of housing policy. Briefly, the government is committed to affordable home ownership as a major pillar of Singapore’s public …

Opportunity Lost? Revisiting Recordtv V Mediacorp Tv, Warren B. Chik, Cheng Lim Saw

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Taking the Singapore Court of Appeal’s Decision in RecordTV Pte Ltd v MediaCorp TV Singapore Pte Ltd [2011] 1 SLR 830, this article seeks to argue that the copyright fair dealing defence would have been the more appropriate basis to exempt RecordTV, a digital recording service for recording television programmes, from primary copyright liability. This judicial approach towards legalising digital video recorder (“DVR”) services is more suitable taking into consideration the following: The role and objectives of copyright law in Singapore; the history and development of the fair dealing defence (including the latest amendments pursuant to the US-Singapore Free Trade …

The Resurgence Of Uncorporation: The Business Trust In Singapore, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The business trust has enjoyed resurgence in Singapore following the enactment of the Business Trusts Act. In March 2011, a high profile initial public offering in Singapore involving a business trust raised a staggering US $5.5 billion making this one of the world’s largest initial public offering of the year. Further, Hong Kong telecommunication company, PCCW Ltd has also offered a business trust via a stapled security structure in November 2011. Yet the business trust is not widely understood by many lawyers. Thus, one of the aims of this paper is to provide a description of the business trust as …

Forecasting Inflation In Asian Economies, Freddy Chian Fatt Liew

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper surveys the recent literature on inflation forecasting and conducts an extensive empirical analysis on forecasting inflation in Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong paying particular attention to whether the inflation-markup theory can help to forecast inflation. We first review the relative performance of different predictors in forecasting h-quarter ahead inflation using single equations. These models include the autoregressive model and bivariate Philips curve models. The predictors are selected from business activity, financial activity, trade activity, labour market, interest rate market, money market, exchange rate market and global commodity market variables. We then evaluate a vector autoregressive inflation-markup …

Assessing Urban Environmental Management Practice With A Scalar Approach: The Case Of Shanghai, Wei Tu

Earth, Environment & Sustainability: Faculty Publications

Shanghai’s urban environmental management in the past three decades has been focused primarily on the environmental problems at the intra-urban level. While this ‘end of pipe’ approach greatly mitigated domestic and industrial pollution, progresses were much slower in dealing with environmental impacts both at a smaller (i.e., those related to people’s daily activities) scale and at a larger (i.e., those related to inter-urban/regional or global issues) scale. Urban environmental management policies in Shanghai and China should prioritize and address urban environmental impacts at continuous geographic scales to achieve long-term ‘triple bottom line’ sustainability.