The present academic studies on Wang Wei usually focus on his landscape poems and claim that these landscape poems imply Buddhism. Their methods usually analyze Wang Wei’s Buddhist tendencies from his life experience. But it needs more textual analysis to prove that the relationship between his poem and Buddhism. The Introduction section provides the relationship between the Buddhist principles and Wang Wei’s Buddhist poems. The Buddhist principles were figuratively represented in Wang Wei’s poems by describing certain images from Buddhist Sutras. Chapter 1 presents the analysis of the couplets of each Buddhist poem through their connection to Buddhist doctrines. Chapter 2 summarizes the characteristics of Wang Wei’s Buddhist poems and emphasizes the use of Buddhist philosophy as a poetic image.

The focus of this study is on portrayals of religious awakening in four short works of literature: a Chinese play, two Chinese short stories, and an American short story. In all of these works, the protagonists attain religious awakening, but only do so because they experience suffering and loss. The experience of suffering and loss in these works helps to bring about the protagonists’ willingness to leave the worldly life. This is because the experience of suffering and loss clears the minds of the protagonists and helps them to realize the bitter nature of worldly existence. In addition, these works portray worldly concepts from the perspective of a mystical, transcendent order of reality. Things that appear normal from a worldly perspective are abnormal from the mystical perspective, and vice versa. Thus, the wise may appear foolish, the sane crazy, and the successful materially destitute, to name a few examples. In these works, religious heroism (a characteristic of the protagonists) also appears unheroic because of this distorted perspective. Religious heroism may appear cowardly, for example, and religious success may appear to be a failure or a tragedy. These literary portrayals of religious awakening through suffering and loss may thus help to shed light on religious concepts common to Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity, and also on the differences between the worldly and mystical perspectives.

As one of the most prominent female film directors, Sylvia Chang has always had women as the main subject of her attention. Previous researchers focused on the analysis of female characters, and explored the awakening of female consciousness in her films, but they often ignored the analysis of male characters. Other scholars thought the female consciousness was very limited in her films. In this thesis, from the perspective of female consciousness, I would like to explore how women resolve dilemmas in Chang’s three films, 20 30 40 (2004), Murmur of the Hearts (Niannian念念, 2015) and Love Education (Xiang ai xiang qin 相爱相亲, 2017). I argue Sylvia Chang’s works demonstrate a new perspective of female consciousness: Women’s dilemmas are from the traditional gender roles in love, family and society. They can resolve these dilemmas by searching for self-identity, psychologically transforming, and reconciling. After their rebirth, women, as liberated individuals, can choose what role to fulfill, regardless of whether that choice is traditional or not. During this process, men are not always seen as barriers for women’s growth.

In contemporary Taiwan, Mandarin language proficiency and literacy in Han characters are not only key skills needed for success in academic institutions and employment markets, but they also carry meaning as symbolic markers of national and supranational Chinese identity. This study examines how Taiwanese-language medical studies curriculum planners are promoting alternative linguistic practices as a means of resisting the influence of Chinese nationalism in Taiwan and striving to replace it with a rival Taiwanese nationalism. I conducted research for this study during the 2010-2011 school year in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I collected data for this study by engaging in participant observation research at Taiwanese-language curriculum-editing meetings; auditing Taiwanese-language courses at Kaohsiung Medical University; and conducting interviews with both curriculum planners and students at KMU. The role of official languages, literacy, and historical narratives are examined as symbolic components of a Chinese nationalist hegemony, which was constructed through the policies of the Kuomintang's Republic of China administration in post-war Taiwan. This study also examines the relationship between occupation, language skills, and national identification in the context of the contemporary Greater China regional economy. The curriculum planners who are the subjects of this study are employed in the field of medical care, where Taiwanese language skills are valued resources for communicating with patients from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, medical doctors have historically been vocal opponents of the Kuomintang administration's pro-Chinese nationalist policies. Therefore, this case study illustrates how the curriculum planners' occupations and language practices are utilized as resources in their efforts to foster Taiwanese autonomy in the Greater China region. This study also examines current limits to the effectiveness of language preservation and revitalization policies in Taiwan due to the importance of Mandarin-language literacy in the majority of high-status occupations in Greater China and to changing conceptions of the relationship between language practice and national identity. This study contributes to the fields of linguistic anthropology and Asian studies by examining relationships between nationalism, employment, language practice, and literacy in the context of Taiwan's ambiguous status as a national entity. It also analyzes ways in which language practices and literacy forms are created and modified as strategic acts to both identify people with competing nationalisms and allow them access to employment opportunities in the context of shifting administrative and economic power structures in the Greater China region.

The present works of reading Chinese poetry offers a biographic reading method, but it cannot fit for reading Han Shan’s poetry, as he had unclear recording in history. Focused on exploring the persona and religion in Han Shan’s poetry world, I examine reading Han Shan’s poems in Buddhist way. Chapter 1 provides the biography of Han Shan, and presents his vernacular expression as different from other poets in history. Chapter 2 introduces some new methods on reading poetry brought up by some literature critics. Chapter 3 presents the Buddhist reading method that I have adopted to read and understand Han Shan’s poems. This reading method is inspired by the similarity between Han Shan’s writings and Buddhist texts. Chapter 4 explains how to read Han Shan’s poems in the Buddhist way. In this chapter, I analyze the persona and Buddhist thinking in the world of Han Shan’s poetry with the explanation of Buddhist sutras and literatures.

Of the many and varied institutions which make up a particular culture or society, enabling it to survive and prosper, and judgement as to relative importance or significance is perhaps impossible. Yet it is difficult to deny that law, defined in its broadest sense, with its accompanying legal institutions, normally plays a significant role. To the historian dealing with ancient history, the Code of Hammurabi, the Russkais Pravda of Yaroslavi the Wise, the Laws of Manu, and the Acts of the Saxon Kings are documents of immense importance. They portray in clear terms property relationships, behavior patterns, and class structure. In addition, however, they represent value judgements. Each prohibition, each effort to provide restitution for injury, each rule governing the conduct of the individual or the group, rests implicitly on a positive “ought”. Each era, historically speaking, makes ethical judgements which are enshrined in law. The historical entity which we label the “Chinese civilization” is no exception. As one uniquely qualified observer has noted, “A county could not possibly have lasted so long without sound legal principles as her foundation and without having continually drunk from the life-giving fountain of justice to perpetually renovate herself.”1 It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the Chinese legal system not only was the third earliest historically, preceded so far as is known only by the Egyptian and that of Mesopotamia, but also had the unique distinction of being the only ancient system that survived continuously to the 20th century.2 In this study an attempt has been made to paint a broad picture of the role of law in Chinese society down through the centuries of Chinese recorded history. The similarities and contracts particularly the latter, between the structure of function of law and legal institutions in Western civilizations and those in China are investigated. The role of the almost indefinable “li” and its never-ending struggle with the forces of positive law are surveyed. Beginning with the development of law in ancient and feudal China, and the, historically speaking, early conflict between the Confucianists, exponents of the “li”, and the Legalists, advocates of positive law, the study proceeds to an historical survey of the sources of positive law, from the classic texts through the unbroken line of codes. An attempt is made to analyze the apparent lack of a clear distinction in Chinese laq between the civil and the criminal aspects, seemingly so “foreign” to Western thinking. FInally, the Westernization of Chinese law in 20th century is described, concluding with some tentative observations of the developing structure of law in Communist China and the difficulties faced by a society attempting to reconcile its role as historical heir to the “li” - “law” dichotomy and political heir to Marxist legal theories.

The study of Chinese economic and social problems requires that certain fundamental Chinese conditions be kept constantly in mind by the Western student, lest he attempt to analyze from the contemporary economic and social viewpoints of his own country. Accomplishments and plans must both be considered in relation to what has gone before and what is within the realm of possibility under given conditions, rather than by comparison with accomplishments and plans in other countries where the basic situation is entirely different. The object of this paper is to place cooperatives in relation to the to the reconstruction as a whole, and to estimate the extent to which cooperatives are an effective instrument of economic reconstruction. As the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party has been the governing power in China since 1928, this study of necessity a description of cooperatives as a phase of reconstruction under the Kuomintang.

In the field of second language acquisition (SLA), motivation of second language learners is of great importance to the research of the language, the learners and the learning situation. When "Chinese heritage students" (hereafter CHL students), and students learning Chinese as a foreign language (hereafter CFL students) study Chinese in the same classroom, their motivation of learning Chinese has drawn researchers’ attention. Drawing on theories on motivation of second language acquisition, this study explores how different factors influence Chinese language learners' motivation by qualitative case study. The results indicate that students' Chinese language and culture exposure explains their choice of learning Chinese in college and determines their basic learning goals (goal); that students' perceptions of their own language proficiency reflect the directions in which they would put more effort and their need for achievement (effort and want); and that the situational factors of the learning environment, such as the course, the teacher, and the groups, all influence students' learning motivation (attitude towards the activity). Based on the result that teachers can influence students' learning motivation through activities in the classroom, this study gives teachers and researchers some pedagogical implications about how to strengthen Chinese language learners' motivation in the learning environment.

This is a diachronic study of Shan Gui 山鬼 (the ninth poem of the Nine Songs九歌). The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I choose to study Shan Gui from a religious perspective. A lot of effort is made to return to the scenes of sacrifice in the Nine Songs, by studying the sacrificing locations, totems, myths, and rituals. Through the literary appreciation with interrelated materials injected into this poem, Shan Gui would be read as a drama of wu’s巫 (shamans) worship performance in this paper. Western religious theories are used in order to understand primitive Chu people better and to explore the general rules in primitive people’s religious lives reflected by Shan Gui. The second part is an image study of famous Shan Gui paintings, and a lot of attention is paid to the artistic tension through the image re-creation. During this paper, I would like to create a picture of how Shan Gui developed through history from a religious image to a romance figure, and the way this image stepped from people’s common sacred sense into the literati’s private world.

This study focuses on how Middle Chinese zhi and zhao initials are reflected in Modern Mandarin and Wu dialects. Also, the topic of sound change is incorporated based on the results from the study.