session E: sunday, October 11, 8:45 a.m.-10:15 A.M.
E1 Convergence and Divergence of Religious Systems in Asia | 1501 Posvar
Chair: JUHI ROY, University at Buffalo State University of New York
VENERA KHALIKOVA, University of Pittsburgh
“Muslim” Unani and “Global” Ayurveda: Convergence and Disparity of Two Medical Systems in India
Ayurveda and unani are legitimized 'alternative' medical systems in India. Comparable in philosophy and therapy, both are considered 'holistic medicine.' Yet, in the context of Hindu-Muslim antagonism, their similarities are outweighed by differences and disparities, since ayurveda is associated with Hinduism and unani, with Islam. Hindu nationalist rhetoric presents ayurveda as Indian medicine, assuming that, despite Hindu heritage, it has national outreach, while unani is rendered “cultural” and “Muslim”. The Indian government extensively promotes ayurveda in the West, while restricting promotion of unani to Muslim countries.
However, such ideologies do not always translate into practice. If some unani practitioners raise concerns regarding marginalization, other ayurvedic and unani doctors emphasize points of convergence and even prescribe ayurvedic and unani drugs interchangeably. This paper discusses how cultural identity, religion, and nationalist rhetoric reinforce disparity between medical traditions, but do not eliminate cases when people contest the boundaries between the state-defined medical categories.
GANG SONG, University of Hong Kong
Virtue as Power: The Remaking of the Virgin Mary in 17th-Century China
This paper explores the transmission and transformation of Marian devotions from early modern Europe to 17th-century China. It focuses on the dynamic interplay of two key components, 'virtue' and 'power,' that constituted multiple representations and re-interpretations of Mary in the late imperial Chinese context. By examining a group of interrelated Christian texts, icons, and practices, this paper reveals how Catholic missionaries strategically introduced Mary as a new model of perfect virtues compatible with established Confucian moral ideals, how Mary competed with native goddesses (e.g. Guanyin Bodhisattva) in terms of doctrinal orthodoxy, compassion, child-giving power, and miraculous healing, as well as how Marian devotions helped Chinese converts consolidate their collective religious identity in daily experiences. The paper concludes that the phenomenal rise of a composite Chinese Marian culture towards the end of the 17th century contributed to the localization of Christianity from a Western religion to a marginal Chinese religion.
MARGARITA DELGADO, University of Pittsburgh
Understanding the funerary Buddha: the problem of “the introduction of Buddhism in China”
In this paper I argue that, contrary to received knowledge, the foreignness of the Buddha was not an obstacle to the success of Buddhism in China during the early decades of contact. Far from that, once we extricate the depictions of the Buddha both in the textual and archaeological record from the prevalent narrative about the introduction of Buddhism in China we can see, I aver, that the very foreignness of the Buddha served as a catalyzer for the interest and adoption of this deity. I approach this issue in relation to contemporaneous funerary practices and use it as a case-study to discuss the methodological problems involved in approaching religious change triggered by cultural contact to finally support the use of an anthropological model that fosters a comparative approach.
UDAYAN ROY, Ram Narayan Roy Foundation
Religious Practices in the Era of Globalization and Development
Indian civilization dates back to some 3000 BC and religion has been practiced in various forms including rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration of a deity, gods or goddesses, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, initiations, etc.
Buddhism was the first major reform movement that sought to strike a balance between extremes with its philosophy of 'following the middle-path" and providing a concrete platform for opposing the tyrannical hold of Brahminical or priestly classes. Gradually Buddhism was “state-sponsored” by major dynasties and became a global religion. The modern Hinduism is a hybrid of ancient Brahminical religion, Buddhism and several tribal/animistic beliefs. There has been a steady and strong influence of Islam and Christianity. Contrary to expectations and popular belief, Secularism though mandated constitutionally, has been under threat as also the class/caste based discriminations due to certain religious festivals. Some of the main festivals that celebrate discrimination and violence are Dassehra, Holi and Durga Puja. My paper will focus on the evolution of religious practices in India and how it has affected the different varna (caste) system. It will also throw some light on how this evolution and practices will continue to not only evolve but will also make significant changes in the community and history as well.
E2 Central Asian Identities | 1700 Posvar
Chair: TBD
SEON HEE NA, University of California, Berkeley
Narrative Literatures on the Silk Road: Ramayana(India), King Gesar(Tibet), Xi-you-ji(China)
The Silk Road has played an important role in Eastern Asian culture history. Narrative literature that occurred along the Silk Road was crucial because it produced the effect of internationalizing very basic concepts.
This paper focuses on three representative stories in three distinct regions on the road; Ramayana in India, King Gesar in Tibet and Xi-you-ji(Journey to the West) in China. This paper conducts a review of literature and comparative analysis with regards to these epics to investigate commonalities and interactions between the three stories. These stories appeared in different regions and during different eras, but they share important ideas. Common across all three stories are heroic actions and mythical elements that discuss the god and the devil. Another shared theme is the ability to transcend and travel across dimensions in terms of celestial and terrestrial space. These stories are epic narratives, shaping the psychology of entire populations and generations--defining the culture of respective societies. Yet, the striking similarities in themes, concepts beg the question of influence from the Silk Road.
CHRISTINE BAKER, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Paper-making and the Exchange of Ideas: The Legend of the Battle of Talas (751)
There is a legend that the knowledge of how to make paper spread from China into the Islamic world at the Battle of Talas in 751. At this battle near Samarqand, the forces of the newly founded Abbasid caliphate (750-1258) defeated the army of the T’ang Dynasty (618-907), capturing Chinese paper makers and thereby winning paper-making technology for Islamic civilization.
This paper will examine how this legend is remembered in medieval Arabic sources: it is not mentioned in the nearest contemporary surviving source, al-Tabari’s ninth-century universal history, but it is referenced in twelfth and thirteenth century sources. Was the Battle of Talas really the decisive event in the spread of paper-making technology from China to the Islamic world? Why is it remembered differently in later Arabic sources? And, most significantly, what is the rhetorical significance of this battle in the twelfth and thirteenth century?
E3 Poetry and Prose in China and Japan | 5130 Posvar
Chair: MAHUA BHATTACHARYA, Elizabethtown College
HIROSHI NARA, University of Pittsburgh
Kuki Shūzō’s Poetry and Poetics
Japanese philosopher Kuki Shūzō (1888-1941) is best known as the author of ‘iki’ no kōzō (The Structure of 'iki'), which has been translated to Western languages and extensively commented on. Many Kuki scholars think that this work is the most representative of his philosophical output. In recent years, Kuki has been discussed in connection with the aestheticization of Japanese culture, militarism, and even Martin Heidegger. Yet, looking at Kuki's entire intellectual output, one cannot help but notice that such a view may be one-sided. I will show that not recognizing Kuki as a philosopher who was able to comfortably navigate the worlds of the literary and the philosophical would put us in danger of pigeonholing him simply as "a chauvinist philosopher who wallowed in decadent tradition."?I will also show that Kuki followed a long, venerable Japanese tradition of intellectuals of his caliber, who shared his own personal thoughts in poems and short essays in newspapers and magazines.
HAIHONG YANG, University of Delaware
A Serious Study of Playfulness in Late Imperial Chinese Women’s Poetry
Playfulness, an important aspect of women’s poetry in late imperial China, is in need of serious investigation and scholarly discussions. In this essay, I explore women’s poems bearing the word xi (playful, teasing) in their titles. Women writers wrote these poems as poetic games, for self-mockery and self-comfort, and to communicate with families and friends. I argue that as snapshots of women’s everyday life, these poems provide the reader a better understanding of the various functions of poetry in women’s lives and allow us to better appreciate the substantiality of the inscribed selves in the poetry. In addition, the proclaimed “playfulness” enables the writer to negotiate the unconventional, the improper, and the unusual into their poems. Consequently, women writers appropriate this sub-genre to aestheticize an important aspect of their daily life, and engage themselves and their readers in poetic discussions on extensive topics.
MICHAEL TANGEMAN, Denison University
Conflicting Forms – EnJoe Toh and Modern Japanese Prose Fiction
The fiction of EnJoe Toh (b. 1972) is typified by conflict, but not by violence. EnJoe’s fiction is a result of the collision involving his training as a scientist (PhD in the Physics of Language), his fascination with language, and his oft-expressed desire to challenge received notions of appropriate literary forms. EnJoe uses non-linear, apparently discordant plot elements, and irregular—almost magico-realist—character traits to explore the nature of language and language-learning, memory, and creativity at the same time, pushing the boundaries of literary forms.
This paper considers two of his short stories, “Harlequin Butterflies” (2011) and “Record of a Pine Bough” (2012).
YUZHEN LI, Seton Hall University
The Mirror of Women in the Meiji Period: Higuchi Ichiyo (1872-1896) and Her Works
Higuchi Ichiyo was a legendary woman writer during the Meiji Period in Japan, created a lot of excellent works in her shorts 24 years' life. Her works gave a most vivid picture of the social reality of her time and much of her concern was put on women's fate. Those female characters in her works even author herself lived in a gap between traditional social value system and new social orders. Therefore, their images and personalities were full of contradictions. They wanted free lifestyle. But since traditional social rule, they could not realize their wishes. In fact, Higuchi Ichiyo herself and female characters in her works were epitomes of women in the Meiji Period's Japan and social transition period's East Asia.
My research paper will analyse women's social roles and images in the Meiji Period's Japan from Higuchi Ichiyo's works and personal experiences.
AILI MU, Iowa State University
Tragic Beauty--The Catharsis of Love in “Always By Your Side”
Many stories in Chinese literature have been associated with the “tragic” moniker. This paper argues that the straight application of the Western concept of tragedy can limit understanding. With a close reading of “Always By Your Side,” a short-short story by a contemporary peasant writer Wu Zhongzheng, this paper explores the connections between the Western concept of tragedy and the Chinese concept of tragic beauty. My analysis of the text hopes to broaden the Western formula of the tragic in four aspects. First, individual can be finitude with limitations and infinitude in their capacity to love. Second, the flawed individual does not have to perceive the self as in confrontation with the greater social and natural forces and fall down in destruction. Third, as the “forces” can be the necessary conditions from which human decency emerges, to see the self as part of the “forces” and to try to work from within can also be constructive. And lastly, imperfect solutions are life; when they originate from love they can transcend the tragic with a sense of beauty. This sense of beauty, I argue, has been a signifier of ultimate life satisfaction in Chinese culture for a long time. This paper will end on how the story, rooted in Chinese aesthetic tradition, achieves the Aristotelian effects of catharsis and edification.
E4 New Directions in Pedagogy of East Asian Languages and Asian Studies | 5200 Posvar
Chair: TBD
RAJGOPAL SASHTI, Middle Georgia State University
Cost Effective Ways to Integrate Asian Perspectives Across the Curriculum: A Presentation of Success Stories
This paper will summarize cost-effective ways to integrate Asian perspectives across the curriculum, including collaborations with non-profit organizations, community organizations, federally funded programs, and institutions of higher education; utilizing international faculty and students, first- and second-generation families in the area, and local business leaders from other cultures; and field trips to cultural sites and study units based on group study abroad experiences.
VAUGHN ROGERS, Seton Hall University
New Chinese Morphology: Adapting to New Technology in a Globalizing World
As a globalizing culture emerges in the twenty-first century, causing language to morph with it, all languages must adopt new technological terms into their lexica in order for intra-language and inter-language communication to occur. This is true especially for the more extensive, accessible, and widely-spoken languages such as English and Chinese.
Chinese “netizens” are at the forefront of this new language revolution as their creativity and incentive for expression fosters the change. They represent an acceptance of a globalizing culture and a shift in ideology surrounding expression, not only in terms of independent, critical thought, but also in terms of how they use characters to express those thoughts. Because of the new revelations in technology and its impact on the world, language will inexorably shift to incorporate it, and written Chinese needs to adapt in a similar way in which English has. The question becomes how can new words and new characters be created in Chinese, and will the neologisms be accepted into the lexicon? Chinese netizens are using puns, phonetics, semantics, and pictographic forms in order to express new, common, and, most importantly, censored ideas on various forms of social media. Their methods will help define the general methods that native Chinese writers can use as new technologies arise. I shall identify and explain these methods below.
MI-HYUN KIM and KYUNGOK JOO, University of Pittsburgh
Perceptions and realizations of Korean Sounds by English and Chinese Speakers
The purpose of this study is to analyze perceptions and realizations of Korean sound production by English and Chinese learners of Korean. This study tries to find reasons for the discrepancy between efforts and results from learners’ perceptions of their own pronunciation of the Korean language with two research questions: 1. How do the learners evaluate their Korean pronunciation? 2. Are the sounds that learners think are difficult to pronounce the same sounds that they have difficulty producing? With ever increasing enrollment numbers of native Chinese speakers in Korean language classes in the U.S, teachers now face additional challenges in pronunciation instruction. Our goal is to provide effective pronunciation instructions for Korean language teachers based on differences between sounds that the learners perceive to be difficult and other sounds that they do not recognize to be difficult but indeed do struggle with pronouncing correctly.
ANIS SUNDUSIYAH, University of Pittsburgh
English-Indonesian Bilingual Education: From Opportunities, Competitiveness to Folk-bilingualism
This study explores language ideologies embedded in English-Indonesian bilingual policy in government-funded International Schools. Employing interviews and documentation, I applied inductive analysis to derive concepts and themes through interpretations. The findings well illustrate economic and cultural capital of English. The policy goals were dominantly economic-driven, stressing on English utilities for individuals and nation. Respondents valued English as a resource for individual’s academic opportunities. Government’s stipulations underlined a correlation of English, skill gaps at work, and the country’s competitiveness. With language being a private cultural goods, there was an aspiration from middle-class groups for an affordable, international-like, English-immersed education. This exemplified folk bilingualism, or English acquisition by wider socioeconomic groups, massively and systematically instilled through public schools—as opposed to elite bilingualism enjoyed by upper, affluent members (Paulston, 1992). The conflicting narratives grew and brought up issues of social cohesion, inequality, and insufficient resources, led to the policy termination in 2013.
E5 Opportunities and Challenges for Media in Politics | 5400 Posvar
Chair: NEIL DIAMANT, Dickinson College
HOWARD Y.F. CHOY, Hong Kong Baptist University
Postcolonial Conflict and Popular Culture: The 2014 Hong Kong Protests
The conflict of political interest between mainland China and Hong Kong reached a boiling point at the Umbrella Revolution in the last quarter of 2014, when tens of thousands of protesters joined the civil disobedience movement by occupying the financial and commercial districts of the former British colony. Unlike Tung Chee-hwa, the first Chief Executive of the Special Administrative Region who resigned in the middle of his second five-year term in 2005 after mass demonstrations, Leung Chun-ying is fully supported by China's central government to implement a highly restrictive electoral system in spite of the sit-in protests. This paper studies the practices of popular culture during the strike and the ongoing movement as seen on posters, banners, and cardboard cut-outs found at the protest sites, multi-colored post-it notes on the “Lennon Wall,” as well as meme-creations collected on the internet, including Facebook and mobile phone apps such as WeChat and WhatsApp.
YIHAN ZHOU, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Silent Change: Chinese Censorship on News Headlines from 2013 to 2015
It is infamous that China filters information from outside sources by forbidding the access to foreign websites, also known as the Great Firewall of China. However, the studies on censorship of domestic websites are insufficient. The headlines on news portals are also under monitor. For example, the very first two news headlines are usually about Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang with few exceptions in major news portals. The article collects historical data of four leading Chinese websites from 2013 to 2015 and analyzes the news headlines. It investigates when the headline censorship happened, where its influence spread, and what are the exceptions. The article argues that the censorship has something to do with Xi Jinping, it a universal but subtle policy, and it was not observed when Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were in office.
JOHN GIVENS, University of Pittsburgh
Justice Online? The Internet and Legal Mobilization in China
This paper investigates the Internet as venue for average Chinese to challenge the landscape of law and politics within China. The ever-increasing wealth of information online gives even disadvantaged citizens in remote areas powerful tools for challenging the Chinese state. They are able to search and consult laws, rules, regulations, and precedents, and seek advice from experienced lawyers thousands of miles away. The analysis primarily examines online legal consultations from China's three most prominent legal websites, which together have provided around 52 million legal consultations. From land requisition to forced abortions some of China’s most sensitive issues are addressed on these sites. I subject these to content and statistical analysis. This wealth of data allows me to draw conclusions not only about the Internet’s impact on rule of law and legal profession, but also about China’s regime of online censorship, the rise of rights-based consciousness, and strategies for mobilization.
RACHEL STERNFELD, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Private Ownership, Public Control: A Comparison of State Press Policies in China and Egypt
Starting in the 1970s authoritarian regimes around the world have enabled and even encouraged privatization of the media. Many such regimes have maintained control over the content that appeared in the new, private media outlets. The paths to control over media content, however, vary across authoritarian regimes. This paper will compare the strategies used by China and Egypt in the 1990s and the 2000s. It will argue that the institutional mechanisms of control adopted by the Chinese government proved more sustainable than the repressive tactics adopted by the Egyptian government in the 1990s. This research contributes to the growing literature on 'varieties of authoritarianism' in political science and critiques large-N cross-national studies that find media environments with considerable private ownership are more likely to enjoy freedom in the content they produce.
E6 War and Memory in East and Southeast Asia | 209 Lawrence
Chair: DAVID KENLEY, Elizabethtown College
PETER WORTHING, Texas Christian University
A Case of Mistaken Perception: He Yingqin and American Officials in Wartime China
The story of Sino-American relations during the Pacific War and its aftermath reflects a pattern of conflict and cooperation. The “Stilwell Incident” is perhaps the best-known single example, which many tend to characterize as a personal clash between Chiang Kai-shek and Joseph Stilwell. Much more than a simple clash of strong personalities, such conflict often resulted from American officials who fundamentally misunderstood the intentions and actions of Chinese Nationalist leaders. Due to differing perspectives on the war and a poor grasp of the realities of the situation in China, Americans often misread their counterparts, which had important consequences for the Nationalist war effort and Sino-American relations. To illustrate this point, this paper examines relations between American military and diplomatic officials and another high-ranking Nationalist officer, General He Yingqin, in order to reveal how misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Chinese officials engendered significant conflict during a period of close cooperation.
JING LI, Duquesne University
Field Armies and the Great Cultural Revolution: Military Factionalism in Chinese Politics
This paper examines certain events in the Great Cultural Revolution to highlight the effects of military factionalism on Chinese politics. Among episodes examined are the ouster of General Luo Ruiqing in 1965; the struggle between Marshals Lin Biao and He Long over the control of the Air Force; the July 20 Incident of1967; the routing of the alleged “Yang-Yu-Fu” clique in 1967-68; the purge of top military figures following the death of Marshal Lin Biao in 1971; and the promotions of Generals Li Desheng and Chen Xilian in the last few years of the Mao era. Together these cases demonstrate that the personal bonds among China’s military leaders that date back to the 1930s, when Chinese communist military forces were grouped into three field armies, still figured prominently in China’s political life of the sixties and seventies. In this sense, the Great Cultural Revolution was as radical as it was traditional.
WAN CHUN HUANG, University of Pittsburgh
The East Asian Post-War Memory on a Disputed Island Grouping
The conference on Apec in 2014 was the first time China’s President, Xi Jinping, and the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, met each other after the 2012 territorial conflict concerning the ownership over an island grouping—which China calls the Diaoyu Dao, and Japan the Senkaku Islands. We can see from the tension between China and Japan in this conference that both authorities holding on to its memory of the Second World War, have been, and are, fighting for such an island grouping, which each of the authorities claims to be their own due to each authority’s historical account. This paper intends to show how each authority’s memory of the past not only legitimates its own authority over the island grouping but also seeks to establish its political role and a “new” political order in East Asia after the Second World War.
RUICHUAN RU, University of Pennsylvania
Unconventional Means and Deceptive Warfare: The Battle of Inchon and the Battle of Chosin Reservoir (1950) in Light of Ancient Chinese Military Theories
The Art of War, a Chinese classic of military theories written in the fourth century BCE, claims that in all battles, one engages the opponent with full-frontal attacks and obtain victory through extraordinary and deceptive maneuvers. It coins a pair of terms, qi and zheng, to denote unconventional and conventional means of battle, which have since become the c`ore of debate and reinterpretation among generations of Chinese militarists. In modern warfare, one can still observe the active applications of qi and zheng by military strategists.
This paper focuses on two decisive battles fought in Inchon and the Chosin Reservoir in 1950 among Korean, Chinese and the U.N. forces, and attempts to answer: first, what strategies were adopted by each side, and how much did they determine the outcome of the Korean War? Second, how does one understand these strategies in light of the concepts of qi and zheng, and why is such an understanding crucial? The paper aims to demonstrate that a critical approach to ancient Chinese military theories and core concepts will greatly deepen our knowledge of the modes of warfare in history, and further facilitate one’s observation and analysis of the conflicts and competitions among modern nations.
E7 Negotiating the Cold War in Asia | 1501 Posvar
Chair: CHRISTINA HAN, Wilfrid Laurier University
MONICA TANG, Wilfrid Laurier University
Between Allies and Enemies: The Sino–Soviet Split and its Impact on North Korea and Vietnam
The Sino–Soviet split was a significant conflict in the Cold War, affecting the unity and cooperation of the communist bloc. The rivalry not only affected the two powers, but also put smaller communist nations in a position where they had to choose a side. North Korea and Vietnam were the two communist nations most impacted by the rift due to their close relations with the Soviet Union and China. This paper discusses how Sino–North Korean and Sino–Vietnamese relations developed as a result of changes in Chinese foreign policy from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s. The split’s implications for other nations are not often examined, despite the fact that foreign policy in the Cold War was forever changed by this conflict. North Korea and Vietnam utilized the split to benefit their respective interests by leaning to one side or the other based on Soviet and Chinese support.
DALTON RAWCLIFFE, Wilfrid Laurier University
Hong Kong: Economic Miracle from the Cold War
This paper examines the economic development of Hong Kong in the 1950s. Hong Kong’s early industrial phase has often been overshadowed by its economic achievements during the 1970s and 1980s. However, the later economic success would not have occurred had Hong Kong not taken the vital step of industrializing during the early Cold War years. Despite the American embargo of China in 1949, which put the colony in a precarious position, this paper shows that Hong Kong’s economy flourished in spite of losing China, the colony’s former number one trading partner. Taking advantage of the Cold War situation, Hong Kong developed light industry and diversified its trading partners, thus laying the foundation for later economic success. Overall, this research highlights the importance of the 1950s in shaping Hong Kong into the economic giant it is today.
CHRISTINA HAN, Wilfrid Laurier University
Picasso North and South: Cultural Politics in Cold War Korea
This paper investigates the role of Pablo Picasso and his art in the construction of cultural politics in Cold War Korea. Picasso’s allegiance to and support of communism from 1944 onward had a monumental effect on cultural and political developments globally. His activities in the West during his communist period have received some attention in recent years, but their impact on Cold War Asia has remained largely unexplored.
This paper examines the interpretations of Picasso and his art in North and South Korea between the 1950s and 1970s. While the Korean attitudes toward Picasso were influenced by international opinions, they did not always coincide with the official rhetoric of the leading Cold War powers. As will be shown, the Korean reactions—especially to his painting Massacre en Corée (1951)—were shaped by both domestic and international tensions as the two sides tried to use the artwork to bolster their own ideologies.