Over the past decade, China’s rural villages have lost over half of their residents as the young and talented have moved to coastal provinces in pursuit of better-paying factory jobs. As a result, rural China is now facing a funding crisis in education and health care services. Young children are among the most deeply affected. As rural villages have depopulated, a lack of students have forced many rural middle and high schools to close.

This dissertation study is a controlled comparison between a Han Chinese farming community engaging in an energy crop cultivation project and an indigenous Amis community practicing organic farming in Taiwan. Through investigation of cultural traditions and historical studies of interactions with agricultural specialists, I examine how these two groups’ conceptualizations of the environment have been shaped.

ASC and the Japanese language program at Pitt are offering a series of Japanese language tables on campus for students of Japanese language. This session on “practicing speaking with Show & Tell in Japanese” is designed for all level of Japanese language students-- 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year (and beyond). You will be sharing an item you will discuss with the group. In this session:

Please bring an item you would like to discuss. You can bring anything— a photo (digital or print), a memorable item from your childhood, or magazine article you would like to discuss, etc.

If you are interested in Japanese-related business in the U.S. and Japan, TOP group is the solution for you. We provide individual career information. Walk-ins welcome.

Please bring your resume.

RSVP recommended but not required. See contact information below.

“The subprime crisis revealed a simple fact, that is, that finance is nothing but a fraud,” a former derivatives trader at a major Japanese securities firm, told me in July 2009. He noted that financial market insiders like himself had known this all along, but now that the fraudulent nature of finance had been disclosed, he believed that no further innovation of financial technologies would be possible.

The theme for the 2012 conference revolves around the aspects of modernization and cultural development China is currently undergoing in an increasingly globalized and digitized world. China is now facing the challenges not only from the outside – a penetrating western cultural influence, but more from its own inside – lack of social cohesion from the weakened traditional value system due to fast-changing social and economic transformation in the process of industrialization, urbanization, and overall modernization.

This is the 12th seminar presented by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA), the Global Studies Center (UCIS), and the World History Center at hte University of Pittsburgh. The general public is welcome.

ASC and the Japanese language program at Pitt are offering a series of Japanese language tables on campus for students of Japanese language. This session on “Practicing your listening with Japanese websites” is designed for all level of Japanese language students. You will be exploring different Japanese websites and try to understand the contexts. In this session:
• You will be introduced a cultural website where you can practice listening skills.
• You will explore some short Japanese clips (TV commercials) and see how much you can understand the contexts

EVENT LOCATION UPDATED: Pittsburgh Athletic Association Library, 4215 5th Avenue (across from the Cathedral)

A ceremony honoring all graduate and undergraduate students who have completed the ASC Certificate during the past academic year (August and December 2011, and April 2012). Our students really appreciate seeing their professors and staff members as they complete their studies at Pitt, so please plan to attend.

Our guest speaker this year will be Dr. Thomas Rawski, Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh

The repertoire of the instrument qin (pronounced “chin”), or guqin (ancient qin), embodies China’s three major religious-philosophical systems of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. A major tenet in Confucianism lists five cardinal human relationships, of which the one between friends is a prominent theme in the qin repertoire. I shall discuss and play three pieces with the theme of Friendship:
Flowing Waters (Liushui 流水), from a 1425 notation collection
Magpies Cry in the Night (Wuyeti 烏夜啼), from the same 1425 notation collection