This body of research investigates how visual artists express ideas or meanings about Otherness and issues of belonging in their art. The focus of this study is on women artists with an (East) Asian diasporic background; however, the context of the inquiry includes other American and European artists of various cultural backgrounds. A further aim is to explore the artistic strategies and the historical circumstances of the works as well as to understand the theoretical correlations. The author of this study is a visual artist who has been exploring similar issues in her own artistic practice. In order to examine various themes of Otherness, selected pairs of artists – where at least one is a woman artist of (East) Asian diasporic background – are compared and analysed using the following four categories: literary devices (such as irony, parody, connotation or juxtaposition), reappropriation (cultural references which are reclaimed and transformed), anamorphic situations (distortion of conventional ways of viewing in order to become aware of other bodily senses and experiences), and theoretical correlations (connections between artistic practice and relevant theoretical concepts). The specific artists and artworks chosen are: Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1965) with Patty Chang’s Melons (at a Loss) (1998), Lorna Simpson’s work in the 1980s and 1990s with Nikki S. Lee’s Projects (1997-2001), Guillermo Gómez-Peña with Fiona Tan, and Yong Soon Min with Mona Hatoum. In addition, the author presents critical social and cultural developments that influenced these works such as the historical background of representations of Asian women in America, the rise of the Asian American movement, and the shift in contemporary art discourse from concerns of ‘identity politics’ to a ‘post-identity’ framework. Finally, correlations are made between the artistic strategies and relevant theoretical discussions about representations of race and gender, the role of power, knowledge, and truth in ethnographic practices of identification and categorization, and the function of place and ‘cultural identity’ in relation to concepts of origin and belonging. The results of this research confirm the significance of cultural, historical, and geographic experiences on both the conception and reception of visual art and indicate that various artistic strategies have the potential to expose and undermine culturally constructed meanings of difference. Despite the abundance of research conducted in this area, the scope and framework of this particular study are original not only because it is written from the perspective of a practicing artist, but also because the focus on artistic practices from women artists with (East) Asian diasporic backgrounds is located within a more wide-ranging investigation of artistic approaches that articulate and interrogate themes of Otherness.

This thesis attempts to explore within what historical context and with what documented content, A Bite of China: Season I, a Chinese documentary television series that explores the history of food, eating and cooking garners widespread popularity. By theoretical analyses, Chapter 1 concludes the relationship between documentary and the "reality" is built upon representation and there is "something beyond reality" in documentary. Moreover, in documentary representation, affect helps the "reality" to transform into "documentary reality," and affect is the key to understand "something beyond reality." In order to analyze documentary in historical context, Chapter 2 reviews and analyzes western documentary film history, Chinese television documentary history and The New Documentary Movement in China. As conclusion shows, this movement changes Chinese documentary history and provides historical context for A Bite of China. In particular, it makes common Chinese people's lives and general Chinese society become main documented content, which constitutes a non-governmental power discourse. Chapter 3 turn the case study of A Bite of China. As it concludes, historical context is the integration between governmental discourse and non-governmental discourse. As for documented content, the intertwined representation between the representation of Chinese gourmet food and affective resonance among director, documented people and spectators makes A Bite of China popular. This thesis advances "affect" as an approach to further understand "documentary reality" and provides a new viewpoint on how A Bite of China becomes a popular Chinese television documentary.

Muan Xingtao was a prominent Chan master of the seventeenth century. This study attempts to examine his religious and cultural legacy and his numerous accomplishments. Among his many achievements were his successful consolidation of the Obaku headquarters of Manpukuji in Japan and cultivation of many Japanese dharma heirs which greatly expanded the Obaku’s territories. He was praised for his artistic abilities in painting and calligraphy which led to the Japanese designating him as one of the “Obaku sanpitsu 黄檗三筆”. He earned the highest religious honors of the purple robe and obtained the patronage from the shogun and Japanese elite. He characteristically manifested the virtues of filial piety and loyalty and transmitted the Ming style of Buddhist teachings, which placed more emphasis on the lay believers, nenbutsu and monastic discipline to Japan. His life represented the religious influence achieved through the interconnection between nations.

According to the Unaccusative Hypothesis (Perlmutter 1978), intransitive verbs fall in two distinct classes: the <strong>unaccusatives</strong> (whose subjects originate as direct objects) and the <strong>unergatives</strong> (whose subjects originate as subjects). Although there are studies of split intransitivity in Modern Japanese and European languages, very few exist for earlier stages of Japanese. To fill in part of this gap, this thesis presents a comprehensive investigation of split intransitivity in Old Japanese (largely, 8th century Japanese). The descriptive and analytic work of this research is based on the newly developed ‘Oxford Corpus of Old Japanese’ (OCOJ). It consists of original and romanized Old Japanese texts, with a wide range of information including the original orthography, part-of-speech, morphology and syntactic constituency in the form of XML tags following TEI conventions. It is part of a larger collaborative research project: ‘Verb semantics and argument realization in pre-modern Japanese: A comprehensive study of the basic syntax of pre-modern Japanese’, in which my DPhil project is situated. As part of my DPhil project, I took part in the analysis and tagging of the OCOJ, in addition to contributing to translation. My original contribution to knowledge is a comprehensive investigation and in-depth analysis of the lexical-semantic aspects of split intransitivity in relation to its morpho-syntactic expressions in Old Japanese. This includes: exploring to what extent intransitive verbs could be classified as unaccusative and unergative, what factors are involved in the classification, how they interact, what are the possible ways of representation, and the theoretical implications it brings to linguistic theory in general. Syntactically, I looked into manifestations specific to Old Japanese (e.g. perfective auxiliary selection), and also examined to what extent diagnostics – which show split intransitivity in English, Italian and Modern Japanese (e.g. N+V compounding and resultative construction) – could be applied to Old Japanese. Semantically, I investigated various semantic factors and proposed basic and complex models of the interaction between intentionality and affectedness in Old Japanese. I also proposed a ‘complex format for representing simple event structures’ which enhances the understanding of semantic aspects of split intransitivity. As such, the results of my research not only contribute to a detailed understanding of Old Japanese verbs, but also have implications for linguistic theory in general.

Situated in the changing context of Mandarin learning in the United States, Mandarin these days is changing from a less commonly taught language to a more commonly offered foreign language option in American secondary schools. However, in the applied linguistic literature, "few empirical studies have focused on pre-college CFL learning" (Ke, 2012, p.98). Moreover, the transition from high school to university often entails complex social, cultural, and emotional changes (e.g., Nathan, 2006). The goal of this dissertation project, therefore, is to investigate how students' investment in Mandarin is socially and historically constructed at these three levels: personal, familial, and institutional, as they transition from high school to university. This study draws upon the theory of identity and investment (Norton, 1995) to examine how these teenage language learners are multidimensional beings with multiple desires, and how their investment is produced or reproduced from social interactions, and is subject to change. Three high school campuses were chosen, because Mandarin classes are now offered from kindergarten through twelfth grade in these schools. Six students who expressed their intentions to continue learning Mandarin in university consented to participate in this study. Data collection for this study lasted from March to December 2015, which covered these students' last semester of high school, their first semester of college, and the period between. Data were collected from interviews and monthly informal Skype chats, and supplemented with class documents. Using qualitative analysis methods, the findings show the following factors as salient to their investment in Mandarin learning at the high school stage: 1) the students' personal interest, and 2) the influence from their families and their institutions. In the university setting, these students' investment in Mandarin was mostly mediated at the personal and the institutional levels. The results reveal the identity shift from childhood to adulthood these adolescent learners experienced during the transition. Specifically, the adolescent learners became more independent in making their own decisions, and less dependent on their families, both financially and symbolically. Second, the findings also highlight how these individuals' investment in Mandarin could be constrained at the institutional level. This points to the need for L2 educators to pay attention not only to individual students' personal interests and motivations in language learning, but also to a better understanding of how students perceive their own identities and whether foreign language learning is accessible to learners institutionally.

This study explores the accounts of first generation East Asian mothers living in England, for the purpose of examining if and how these women perceive their national and/or ethnic cultural heritage has affected their experiences and identity formation. In order to achieve this aim, the thesis investigates the gendered division of labour within the family and discourse around motherhood and employment, using biographical interviews with 30 first generation East Asian mothers with children under the age of 11. I develop an integrative theoretical framework by deploying various theories in order to analyse the complex and dynamic characteristics of identity formation for ethnic minority mothers. The concepts I draw on are ideology and discourse, storytelling and ‘othering’, patriarchy, masculinity and femininity, nation, ethnie, culture, class and intersectionality. The data was analysed by using discourse analysis, focusing on discursive themes across interview data, in conjunction with detailed narrative analysis of the individual life stories of four of the women. The findings of the data indicated that despite the increasing involvement of male partners in childcare and domestic work, women’s stories suggested that they continued to take on the majority of household labour. In addition, this pattern was more prominent among East Asian couples than mixed ethnic couples. This is suggestive of the persistent influence of the Confucian patriarchal norms among East Asian couples outside East Asia. Alongside this, the examination of discourse and narratives around motherhood and employment indicated that the motherhood ideologies of individual women, influenced by national and/or ethnic cultural heritage, had a major impact on mothers’ decision towards childcare and employment. For example, the majority of mothers from Korea and some mothers from Japan tended to endorse an intensive mothering ideology, in which women were expected to stay at home devoting their time and energy to looking after their children. The talk of home-stay mothers was dominated by the importance of the mother’s care for the psychological wellbeing of their children. In this discourse the mother’s absence was portrayed as having a detrimental effect on the healthy development of young children. But rather than referring to a Western notion of intensive motherhood (see Hays 1996), they talked of their decisions in reference to the way that mothers and fathers were expected to act in their country of origin. This contrasted with the discourse of employed mothers (especially from China), which did not necessarily support the incessant presence and availability of mothers for children, regarding childcare as replaceable by others, such as grandparents. The Chinese women talked of this in reference to their perception of the culture in China where all adults are expected to work, regardless of childcare responsibilities. However, despite notable differences in discourse around ‘good’ mothering and employment between home-stay mothers and employed mothers, the gendered idea about men’s and women’s roles seemed to continue to affect the predominant majority of women in my study, irrespective of their employment status. Hence, both home-stay and most employed mothers remained to be the primary care provider as well as taking the major burden of household labour, being subject to a gendered understanding of motherhood and womanhood.

by Frankie Tat-kwong Lau. / Bibliography: leaves 63-70 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1985

Drawing on primary sources in Chinese, Japanese, and English, my doctoral dissertation investigates the structure and development of maritime order in East Asia against the backdrop of the Cold War. It covers the period from the collapse of the Japanese empire in East Asia in 1945 through to the point when the United States broke off its official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979. By shifting the spotlight from land to sea, my dissertation challenges the conventional understanding of the Cold War in East Asia by illustrating the relationship between the geopolitical value of the sea and decision makers' strategic deliberations. I present the sea as a historical platform to examine US maritime policy in East Asia in three broad contexts: military, international law, and exploration for natural resources. In terms of the military dimension, my study argues that the US shifted its maritime strategic focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the 1950s. This development was symbolised by the establishment of the Pacific Command in 1947 as well as changes in its organisational structure for maintaining sea routes during the crises of the 1950s - including the Korean War and the 1954-1955 Taiwan Strait Crisis. To supplement my argument about the military dimension of US maritime policy, I further investigate the establishment of international maritime law and the exploration of underwater natural resources, to depict the dynamic role that seas played in grand strategic thinking when crafting US policy in East Asia. My research argues that the clashes over maritime sovereignty between East Asian allies such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea led the US to refrain from taking a dominant stance in areas such as the demarcation of maritime boundaries and offshore oil development. This formed a crucial part of US strategy in balancing conflicting interests within its hub-and-spoke alliance system in East Asia. However, US-China rapprochement during the 1970s led to a change in Washington's maritime policy. For US decision-makers, the sea temporarily ceased to be a strategic space for containing China, but rather served as a platform for signalling goodwill.

In the United States, there are increasing numbers of East Asian international students who are enrolled in higher education institutions. These students often face academic and social environment challenges. In addition to these challenges, they face problems and needs derived from the different food environment. A few studies have explored food consumption patterns, health status, and barriers to eating healthfully among international students. However, none of the studies has examined how their current consumption and consumption change are related to their perceptions and attitudes toward the U.S. food environment, as well as considerations of the sustainability and safety of the food system and environmental concerns in their food choices. Therefore, this study describes East Asian international students’ degrees of acculturation, cooking, and eating out; current processed food and whole food consumption; change in processed food and whole food consumption since coming to the U.S. (eat less, eat similar amount as home country or eat more); reasons for the change in each food category and as a whole; attitudes toward U.S. food system (when they make food choices in the U.S., how important it is for them to choose based on food system factors among other factors); and perceptions of the U.S. food environment (what they think of the U.S. food environment). The study was a cross-sectional study, using a survey developed from literature reviews and several in-depth semi structured interviews. After assessments of the validation and reliability of the instrument, the survey was transferred into an online survey format. The online-survey was given at four selected campuses including two universities in New York City (private and public) and two universities in New York State (private and public) through email invitations and recruitment using flyers posted around campus. The survey was conducted from April to October of 2016. The study’s participants were East Asian international students, both female and male, who had come to the U.S. to study; their ages ranged from 18 to 35, and included undergraduate and graduate students. The participants were from the following countries or regions: Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. However, students who were participating in mandatory meal plans and students who had attended high-school in the U.S. or other Western countries before enrolling in university were excluded. The results show that in terms of acculturation, participants’ (n=511) interpersonal and dietary factors were closer to Asian than American. They cooked and ate out more frequently in the U.S. compared to when they were in their home countries. They spent more money on eating out than grocery shopping on a weekly basis. After coming to the U.S., they ate/drank more processed food, water, raw vegetables, meat, dairy, and other Asian foods, and eat less foods from their home countries and cooked vegetables. The main reasons for the change in these food consumption were due to their concerns about health, weight, availability, convenience, taste, and price. The least used reasons for the change in food consumption by participants were concerns about food system sustainability factors (pollution, energy or water use, environment, worker conditions). These reasons were consistent with their attitudes toward the U.S. food system in that they tended to have favorable attitudes toward using nutrition, convenience, and price in their food choices and to have less favorable attitudes towards basing on their food choices on food system sustainability, food safety, and environmental concern factors. However, when they did have favorable attitudes toward environmental concerns and food safety, they tended to eat more whole foods. When participants perceived that there was better food quality and more availability in the U.S., they tended to eat more whole foods upon coming to the U.S. Factors that surprised them about with U.S. food environment were mainly because of the differences in food culture and the food system. This study is the first to examine the food intake of Asian international students in terms of processed and whole food categories, and the first to examine students’ food choice motivations, attitudes, and perceptions in terms of food system sustainability and environmental considerations. A strength of the study is its large sample size. A limitation is that there was no control group of U.S. students entering college for the first time. Based on the results of the study, future research should focus on conducting qualitative studies to better understand nuances in international students’ food choice concerns and motivations that were not captured in a survey as well as employing a comparison group in the research design. In terms of practice, nutrition education is clearly needed for this population in order to assist students in adjusting to the new U.S. food environment and to help them understand how the US food system works. Nutrition education can also provide information on the globalization of the U.S. food system that will assist students to understand how and why the food system is changing in their home countries. Effort may also be made to help them bring back environment friendly practices (e.g. eating local food, farmers markets) to their home countries, so that they may educate their fellow citizens, and contribute, where appropriate, to food policy discussions within their home countries.

This thesis examines the use of folklore and the folkloresque in Haruki Murakami’s novel Hitsuji wo meguru bōken, or, as it is translated by Alfred Birnbaum, A Wild Sheep Chase. Murakami blends together Japanese and Western folklore to present a Japan that has been colonized by a post-national, global capitalistic force. At the same time, Murakami presents a strategy to resist this colonizing force by placing agency onto the individual and suggesting that it is still possible to craft a meaningful identity within the Japanese/Western blended, globalized society in which these individuals now exist. Alongside examining the use of folklore in this novel, issues of translation are also considered by comparing Murakami’s original Japanese text to Birnbaum’s English translation. The fields of folkloristics and translation studies inform this comparison, and a new way to discuss translations (especially those that come from a text in which folklore is central) is developed. These two major threads are pulled together in an analysis of Murakami’s role as a multinational writer. His blending of multiple cultural references and languages make his message on constructing an identity from a globalized culture more accessible to those outside of Japan; rather than focusing on what is lost in Birnbaum’s translation, this thesis uses a folkloristic perspective on translation studies and explores how Birnbaum expands upon Murakami’s process.