When the Zen master asks, "who are you?" a reply as to your name, age, and place of residence would be out of order. The proper answer might be silence. But if silence were consciously resorted to in contrast to sound, this would still be no answer. In fact, the only acceptable answer would lie in your merely being what you are at that very moment, without a second, or reflective, thought. And this amounts to being what you have always been and always will be. The question has to do with your "original nature," that which you were before you were born or even conceived. This nature is of the nature of voidness. To Western ears such statements may sound absurd. To us "self" is for the most part identified with what call "I," the subject; selfhood is that particular individuality which the body encloses and defines, or perhaps mechanistically gives rise to. But from the fact that we can say "my body" and "my self" a deeper sense of selfhood arisen--the sense that something "other" than the body and even "other" than the self-conscious mind resides within the body.

Thesis advisor: Zhijie Xiao / This paper attempts to deliver a side-by-side examination of the similarities and differences between the economies of East Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea Republic, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines) and China. After the devastating 1997 Crisis, many investing eyes have turned to China as the next Asian growth engine. China has been opening its economy to foreign investors and its accession into the World Trade Organization will push for increased transparency and efficiency. The paper discusses the internal and external forces that drove the economies, with focused attention on its financial systems, using pre-crisis data. With foreign banks allowed entry into China by the end of 2006, its financial system will be an important component in economic longevity. Lastly, the question of whether or not China is vulnerable to a crisis is assessed based on the same factors that caused it in East Asia. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

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The primary purpose of this study was to develop and establish the reliability and validity of the East Asian Student Stress Inventory. Data was obtained from 235 East Asian students at the University of North Texas during the fall semester of 1992. The procedures used were a two-week interval test-retest for reliability, experts' assessment of test items for face validity, a factor analysis, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient for construct validity. Significance was set at the .05 level. The EASSI was identified as having moderately high reliability. High test anxiety, physiological symptoms, social support, financial difficulty, and culture shock were found to be constructs of the EASSI. Majority of independent variables in this study effectively identified stressors and stresses among East Asian students.

Zugl.: Bayreuth, Universiẗat, Diss.

In the following thesis, two interrelated arguments are offered: firstly, a re-appropriation of the passing figure from an African-American context to the Anglo-Indian context is suggested, which it is argued, will allow new methods for the study of the hybrid figure in British literature to develop. Secondly, the thesis works to critique the relationship between poststructuralism and postcolonialism, suggesting a move away from a discourse concerned with anti-reality and its linguistic-theoretical focus to a framework with stronger roots in the study of postcoloniality as a real, lived condition experienced by a large number of people. The above arguments are realized through a reading of Anglo-Indian literature which closely aligns both the displaced postcolonial figure and the passing figure through a shared ability to perform multiple identities. In adopting the passing figure, Anglo-Indian literature illustrates the rejection of in culture forms of rigid and constraining essentialisms and the commitment to modernist and contemporary cultural discourses of identity construction in the hybrid figure of postcolonial works. Such cultural discourses of identity presuppose the intervention of performativity in the negotiation of multiple selves. Both the hybrid postcolonial figure and the passing figure display an adoption of performance in identity construction. In a theoretical reflection of the multiplicity offered by the passing figure, a number of diverse critical approaches to these Anglo-Indian texts are introduced. Specifically, the aim is to suggest alternative theoretical approaches to the hegemonic poststructuralist critical view. I will argue that the reliance upon poststructuralist theory can be detrimental to the full exploration of the postcolonial identity, due largely to the tendency to privilege textual fee-play over experiential analysis. I am proposing a modification to the relationship between deconstruction and postcolonialism, whereby certain selected deconstructive techniques are appropriated alongside more existentialist concerns that reflect the real, lived conditions of postcolonial environments. In relocating textual critique within an approach more concerned with the real-life experience of multiplicity, this study advocates a continuing relevance of a more existentialist mode of postcolonialism, as exemplified by Sartre and Fanon, and other adjacent theorists. An example of this is that popular and contemporary authors such as Naipaul, Rushdie, Kureishi and Malkani are read in light of “dialogical self theory”, R.D. Laing’s “false-self system”, Fish’s “interpretive communities” thesis and Goffman’s concept of “front”. Dialogical self theory and the false-self system ensure a firm underpinning of the internal psychological structure of the passing figure’s psyche, establishing a discourse of postcolonialism that is centred on the real experience of multiplicity. The following work on interpretive communities and front allow for the connection of the internal construction of self to the wider social environment through the relocation of the passing figure’s identity in relation to the interpretations of the audience.

Having conducted a successful long range ballistic missile test in December 2012 and a third nuclear test in February 2013, North Korea increasingly poses a security threat to Northeast Asia. Given these heightened escalations, the international community has come to depend more and more on China’s potential to influence North Korean behavior. Beijing’s unique leverage is based on the historical bilateral relations between the two countries in addition to China’s sole willingness to support the North Korean regime. Therefore, the following paper seeks to determine whether China’s North Korea policy shifted during the consecutive Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping administrations in response to North Korean provocations. Ascertaining China’s North Korean paradigm is constructive and worthwhile in order to understand the future development and hopeful resolution of the North Korean security dilemma. In order to better examine the two administrations, the paper first defines China’s strategic interests regarding the Korean peninsula. Song Jooyoung’s dual threats model and Taewan Kim’s politico-economic linkage model are then used to assess the different factors that influenced China’s decision-making process when deciding whether to maintain its support after each North Korean provocation. Analysis of the two administrations reveals that Beijing’s underlying foreign policy objective of stability remains unchanged. On the other hand, unyielding North Korean provocations have forced Beijing to reassess its current policy of bolstering the North Korean regime toward the end of the Hu administration and even more so during the current Xi administration. In addition, North Korean actions in defiance of China’s public warnings illustrate a North Korea diverging from its usual subservience to Chinese influence. More importantly, the defining reason for the shift in China’s policy is the fact that North Korean behavior undermines Beijing attempts to posture itself as a responsible global power in addition to fulfilling its own strategic interests. Assessing China’s North Korean paradigm is meaningful due to Beijing’s capacity to resolve the North Korean security dilemma. Although skeptics question whether China will ultimately break from its customary support for North Korea due to fears of damaging instability, increasingly public statements rejecting North Korean provocations signal the Xi administration’s recalibration.

In the West architectural historiography, or writing on architectural history, can be considered as a modern practice. Its emergence accompanied with the development of modern nation states. Architecture’s reflection on its historical texts came to find particular expression in the search for the origins of architecture. The formation of oriental architectural history tended to follow this pattern. Oriental architectural historiography was initiated by a Japanese scholar, Chūta Itō. In his formulation, the origins of Japanese architecture were linked not only with Chinese and Indian architecture, but also with Classical Greek architecture. In addition, Itō’s theoretical formulation of architectural history was also followed by other Japanese scholars, and it informed those later scholars who studied Taiwanese architectural history. That is, the formulations and classification systems that Itō set out for Japanese architecture framed subsequent scholarship on the architecture of other parts of East Asia, including Taiwan. The system that Itō established has been widely regarded as being based on modern and scientific academic research. This thesis investigates Itō’s system, its significance for architectural scholarship in other parts of East, as well as its claimed scientific basis. The thesis pays particular attention to the architectural history of Taiwan in the Japanese colonial period. The thesis hypothesises that the historiographical tradition that Itō’s work established was based on an unbalanced colonial relationship of power and uneven structure of authority, It explores how authenticity in East Asian architecture was authorised, and how hidden ideologies and methodologies lie behind these historiographical practices. This is the first ambition of the thesis. The examination of Japanese construction of oriental and Taiwanese architectural history in this thesis pays particular attention to the context of Japanese colonialism. In doing so it draws on a range of contemporary postcolonial theoretical perspectives. In addition, the particular kind of oriental colonialism, as a materialised colonial medium, Japanese writing on oriental and Taiwanese architectural history provides an additional perspective on that current and recent postcolonial criticism expressed through such concepts as Edward Said’s orientalism, Homi Bhabha’s hybridity and Gayatri Spivak’s strategic essentialism. At a theoretical level, the thesis argues that since these concepts emerged from the colonial/anti-colonial operation and negotiation between the west and its colonies, a refined analysis is required for thinking through Japanese colonialism. To this end, the thesis supplements postcolonial theory with the idea of oriental orientalism as developed by Yuko Kikuchi. In so doing, the thesis aims to contribute to an enriched discussion of contemporary postcolonial criticism in general, and as it applies to East Asian in particular. The exploration of architectural history as the subject of a wider colonial operation and the revision of the core conceptual tools of postcolonial criticism in the context of Japanese colonialism in East Asian, and Taiwan, provides further possibilities for the the construction of identity in those formerly colonised subject in places such as Taiwan. A postcolonial reading of Japanese writing on architectural history shows both the limitation of postcolonial criticism, and to question the framework of architectural discourse in the discipline. This project has to be based on an inquiry into the way in which the other’s architecture has been formulated and constructed in the discipline of architecture in the light of postcolonial criticism. Without such an inquiry, we are unable to open the metaphorical ‘space’ to negotiate the self-writing of Taiwanese subjects on their own architecture and architectural history.

It has long been observed that, in a double object constructions (DOC), the two objects exhibit different syntactic behaviour. In Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), these two objects are characterized as two distinct grammatical functions. The object that syntactically patterns with the monotransitive object is the unrestricted object OBJ. The one that does not is the restricted object OBJθ. The goals of this dissertation are to investigate the syntax of DOCs, and to explore the two object functions in LFG. When thinking about DOCs, the verb that almost invariably comes to mind is GIVE. This verb, however, may not be as prototypical as is commonly assumed. In Cantonese, it is the only verb whose objects are in an anomalous order, with the object that bears the theme role preceding the object which expresses the recipient role. Cantonese as a language does not uniformly have the direct (theme) object preceding the indirect (recipient) object. Other than the difference in their linear order, the objects in the GIVE-construction pattern with those in all other DOCs in the language. In some languages, there is a possibility of having more objects than is required by the underived form of a verb. An additional object can be licensed by the affixation of an applicative morpheme to the verb root. The syntax of the objects in an applicative construction is directly related to the type of semantic role that is applied. This has posed challenges for previous accounts of applicative constructions, as a change in the morphological structure of a verb is accompanied by a change in its argument structure. A new proposal is offered to account for this. A study of the syntax of DOCs involves much more than merely acknowledging the presence of two object functions in the construction. The morphology of the verb, the semantic roles that are required by the verb and the linear order of the arguments that express these roles are all relevant. Assuming various parallel but inter-related levels of representation, the theory of LFG has the suitable tools to take all these into consideration. Reference can be made straight-forwardly to the information at the different levels of representation, including the a-structure, the c-structure, the f-structure and the m-structure.

East Asian welfare states have experienced major reforms in the last two decades, raising the question as to whether these welfare reforms signify a fundamental departure from the East Asian welfare model, or merely an adaptation of the model to socioeconomic changes. Overshadowed by the state-driven policy-making model with a strong functionalist bias focusing on socio-economic drivers, the existing East Asian welfare state literature has overlooked the fundamental political change brought by the dual transition (i.e., democratisation and economic liberalisation), which have led to the emergence of pluralistic societies. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this thesis investigates the political underpinnings of welfare reforms in Korea with special attention to societal actors, (notably trade unions, employers’ associations, and political parties) whose role feature prominently in the comparative welfare state literature, are still largely neglected in East Asian welfare state research. Bringing these actors into the analysis, the thesis examines how the rise of societal actors has changed Korean welfare politics by constraining policy autonomy of the state in the domains of employment protection, unemployment protection, and work/family reconciliation policies. To this end, the thesis engages in analysing policy documents and in-depth elite interviews with senior government officials as well as high-profile representatives of employers associations, trade unions and parties. The thesis argues that the politics of the Korean welfare state has undergone a three step transformation process in the post-transition period. The developmental alliance could no longer function as the sole driving force of welfare state development during the first civilian government (1993-1998), when organised labour exercised its newly acquired status of a veto player. Furthermore, the old driving force of social policy-making, the developmental alliance, was replaced by the new alliance between the centre-left party and organised labour during the first left government (1998-2003) Lastly, parties moved to centre stage of social policy-making during the second left government (2003-2008) and the current conservative government (2008-presnet). Drawing on competing theories of the welfare state –in particular, the Power Resource approach, the employer-centred varieties of capitalism perspective, and the state-centred theorem, and the parties-matter thesis – the thesis contributes to developing a comprehensive political account on welfare state transformation in East Asia and to the better embedding of the East Asian welfare state literature into the comparative welfare state literature.