We are pleased to share with you Issue 6 of Asia in Focus!
Read online or download a pdf of the entire journal or the individual manuscripts at www.asiainfocus.dk
We recently made an exciting change by opening the journal up to submissions from scholars across Europe. We look forward to receiving increasing numbers for Issue 7! In the current issue we publish authors of different nationalities studying and researching in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany.
Issue 6 starts with a look at historical events from the 19th century in Japan, with John Hennessey doing a reevaluation of William Wheeler’s Work for the Kaitakushi, the Japanese government agency responsible for the settlement of the northern island of Hokkaido, through a postcolonial lens. In the second chapter, Deirdre Sneep takes us into the 20th century with an analysis of the history of the smartphone. She sheds light on the dominant techno-orientalist narrative which almost entirely overlooks the historical achievements and contribution of technologies originating in Japan. We then make a shift to look at contemporary social and institutional change. Firstly, Nhung Lu Rots’ examines how domestic and global food anxieties impact sustainable pangasius production in an analysis of the aftermath of the 2016 marine disaster in Vietnam. Secondly, we return to Japan for Christer Kold Lindholm’s analysis of economic inequality in Japan between the 1880s and the early 2000s reveals how policies designed to promote growth, which neglect redistribution, constitute a weak and disjointed approach to development in which growth may even lead to deeper socio-economic inequalities. The issue closes with Karin Hongsaton Zackari’s critical review of Tyrell Haberkorn’s In Plain Sight: Impunity and Human Rights in Thailand.
Enjoy the read and we hope you a enjoy a wonderful summer!
All the best
Asia in Focus Editorial Committee
Asia In Focus will take a holiday until 15 August. Remember the submission deadline for the Call for papers for Issue 7 is 17 August 2018. You are always welcome to contact us with questions and comments at asiainfocus@nias.ku.dk.
Thomas Østergaard Rasmussen is a student at China Studies at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
Thomas says: I'm currently writing my master thesis on the Qing Embassy in the US from 1880-1902. The focus will be on praxis of foreign policy and international diplomacy during the transition from Qing imperial praxises to western oriented ones. I've chosen NIAS because of the great scholarly atmosphere and the great expertise on China that is housed at this institute.
I am a master student in Asian Studies (and in linguistics – Swedish being my specialized field) at Stockholm University. I have a B.A. in Chinese and a B.A. in linguistics. My current project is on place and identity in Hong Kong literature written in Chinese. How do Chinese writers identify and depict themselves in a metropolis that have changed from being a British colony into a Chinese Special administrative region? How is place and identity being put forward in Hong Kong literature, and (how) has it changed during the last decades considering the handover?
Thien Nguyen, MA student, University of Tampere
I am a student of the master program in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) under the management and funding of Erasmus Mundus Program. Currently I am writing my thesis on “Exploring Organizational Culture of Vietnamese Higher Education Institutions and Its Impact on Faculty Turnover”. My desire to explore this topic derives from the fact that there have been a few studies investigating turnover of faculty in Vietnamese institutions in spite of the increase of this phenomenon. In addition, the study also hopes to find trends and tendencies of the organizational culture of public universities in Vietnam. Also, it is expected that the findings of this study will enrich the existing literature on turnover and organizational culture. Comparing to research studies on the topic of faculty turnover, this thesis looks at the matter from the perspective of organizational culture which may be influenced by the academic culture of the country as well.
Henna Juusola, PhD candidate, University of Tampere
Quality beyond the borders: Perspectives on Quality of Higher Education in the Context of Finnish Education Export
I am currently doing a PhD research that is focusing on the factors that explain the quality of higher education in the context of Finnish education export (transnational education) phenomenon. My research is combining the national higher education policy, institutional quality assurance practicalities and concrete education export implementation that is a master degree programme in teacher education in Indonesia (Aceh region). The programme was organized between the years 2016-2017 in a collaboration with Indonesian Sukma foundation and the Faculty of Education, University of Tampere. In my research, quality of education is as a political and relative concept, and from that perspective my study also challenge the concept of quality of education that is often taken for granted and stress the multiple, sometimes conflicting socio-cultural frames (conventions) where the value creation is based on.
Luran Min, MA Student, Stockholm University
The Chinese Communist Party’s Public Opinion Warfare against Taiwan：A Discourse Analysis of the Depiction of the Cross-Strait Issue on Mainstream Media of China (P.R.C)
I am currently doing a MA thesis project on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) public opinion/media warfare against Taiwan. The project might allow to explain to what extent and how the public opinion warfare works from the perspective of political communication. My background is East Asian studies at Stockholm University. My undergraduate program included a exchange program at Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, a summer school of Japanese language and culture at Meiji University in Tokyo, and two media traineeships at China Central Television and China Review News Agency in Beijing. My MA thesis focuses on Chinese political communication and its effect on East Asia. I am confident that that my stay at NIAS, including consultations and communication with researchers here and use of available resources, will be most beneficial to my MA thesis project.
On 16 may the Taiwan Resource Center for Chinese Studies (TRCCS) was officially inaugurated at the TORS Center of Knowledge at the Southern Campus of the University of Copenhagen. TRCCS is the result of a cooperation agreement between the National Central Library of Taiwan (NCL) on the one hand and Department of Cross-cultural and Regional Studies (ToRS) together with NIAS Library on the other hand. The agreement was jointly signed by Mme Tseng, General Director of the National Central Library, Lars Højer, Deputy Head of Department of TORS and Geir Helgesen, Director of NIAS.
The agreement includes a TRCCS book collection, a gift from NCL, with titles from Taiwan which will be physically located at ToRS Center of Knowledge but available for Nordic users via interlibrary loan, a number of e-resources which will be available to member institutions of the Nordic NIAS Council (NNC) via the Asiaportal, as well as exchange of information regarding new publications on Taiwan and Chinese studies, and assistance for academic or professional events outside Taiwan. The book collection at ToRS will be updated annually with new titles. The establishment of the first TRCCS represents a major strengthening on the information side for studies on Taiwan and Chinese studies, especially classic studies, in the Nordic countries.
Mme Tseng also brought two precious facsimile book gifts for the TRCCS and ToRS library in recognition of the importance of the cooperation, “Dongpo’s Poetry” (21 volumes,) and Diamond Sutra (1 volume). There are only 350 sets of "Dongpo' poetry" in all on the market. Below is a picture of the Diamond Sutra from the inauguration ceremony.
The National Central Library as the National Library of Taiwan are also responsible for the public library sector in Taiwan and in connection with the inauguration of the TRCCS, the delegation from NCL also visited the Royal Danish Library, the Culture Yard (Kulturværftet) in Helsingør and Copenhagen Public Library.
Image:General Director Mme Tseng shows the Diamond Sutra together with Lars Højer, Deputy Head of ToRS.
Martin Lavicka studied Chinese and Japanese philology at Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, and International Relations at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He is a lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, where he teaches modern Chinese history and Chinese politics. His Ph.D. research focuses on sociolegal aspects of China's ethnic policies.
Martin is also affiliated as a visiting scholar to the project led by Professor Ildikó Bellér-Hann from the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies titled Between Homogenization and Fragmentation: Textual Practices as Strategies of Integration and Identity Maintenance among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, China (20th‒21st centuries).
We are happy to welcome Martin to NIAS, he will stay with us for the next 6 months.
Historical Climate Change in the Jiāngnán Region in the Late Míng and Early Qīng periods (1600-1700): Perceptions, Effects and Adaptation.
I am currently doing a Ph.D. researching on the human side of historical climate change, with a focus on the Jiāngnán region of Eastern China in the 17th century. This includes the effect on climate change on society, how climate change was perceived by local societies and which measures were taken to counter it. I will approach this topic through the use of contemporary historical sources, and especially local gazetteers. My Ph.D. is a part of the research project Airborne at the University of Oslo.
My background is in Chinese and East Asian studies at the University of Oslo, including exchange programs in China and Taiwan and a traineeship at the Norwegian Embassy in Beijing. My MA thesis focused on Chinese perceptions of foreigners in a historical perspective. I am confident that that my stay at NIAS, including consultations with researchers here and use of available resources, will be most beneficial to my Ph.D. project.
Cyrus Gearhart Sie, MA Student, University of Tampere
Perceptions of Peace and Renewed Conflict on the Korean Peninsula: Views from the Toronto-based community of North Korean defectors on Kim Jong-un’s Diplomacy
With wide-ranged interests spanning diverse subjects and experiences to match, Cyrus landed on a topic that threads all these aspects and ties them together. Taking his interests in international relations, security, and the movement and distribution of people and societies that he realized through his BA at the University of British Columbia, adding in his initial exposure to North Korean defectors at the One Young World Summit in Bangkok as well as his experience working first-hand as a service-provider to asylum-seekers and refugees in Malta, and combining them with his present MA Peace, Mediation and Conflict Resolution programme and additional credit in East Asian topics, Cyrus endeavours to make his contribution to the literature on North Korea. With the Hermit Kingdom being front and centre of the international news cycle but with little information available on it, interactions with the country is a lesson in trial and error. His thesis hopes to pull back some of the veil of mystery by interviewing members of the Toronto-based community of defectors from the regime and gathering their invaluable insight on the prospects of peace and renewed conflict with the regime of Kim Jong-un, using recent diplomatic events as data points.
Kaisa Tolvanen, MA Student, University of Tampere.
Tibetan Buddhism in Finland from 1970’s to 1980’s.
My name is Kaisa and I come from the University of Tampere, Finland. As a history MA student I am examine how Tibetan Buddhism come to Finland in 1970's. I ask what kind of mentality in society as well as individuals' lives allowed Buddhism to spread to Finland. My main sources are the interviews I have made but I am also looking at new papers and television programs from that time as well as people's own personal archives, such as photographs and diaries.
I applied SURPA scholarship because Denmark plays a role in a scene - first Tibetan lamas come to Finland through Denmark. Here in Copenhagen I have set a task to myself to get to know better one of these lamas, called Tarab Tulku.
I am also a mother of three children, so this opportunity to come here and have a peaceful time to write means a lot to me.
Yue song, MA Student, University of Oslo.
The Challenges and Potentials for the Revival of Cycling in China
I am currently doing my master in the Centre for development and environment at University of Oslo. I got my bachelor degree in Resources Environment and Management of urban and rural planning and minor in finance at Sun Yet-sen University, Guangzhou China. I am interested in sustainable city development and planning, especially sustainable transport system. I am greatly impressed by the recently bikeshare wave in China. Although bike sharing is not a new concept globally, what differs in China is its “dockless” operating system and the fierce market share competition among different companies. In my thesis, I want to explore: does contemporary popularity of sharebikes bring a possibility of the revival cycling in China? The potentials and challenges towards a more sustainable travelling practice.
Shubhomoy Haque, MA student, University of Gothenburg.
Human Rights or Hegemony? H&M’s Fair Living Wage Initiative and Workers’ Wage Concerns in Bangladesh Ready-made Garment Industry.
Shubhomoy Haque is attending the ‘Erasmus Mundus Human Rights Policy and Practice MA’ at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He also studied at the University of Roehampton in United Kingdom and at University of Deusto in Spain in the same programme. Previously, he worked at the ‘Programme, Policy and Campaigns’ unit of ActionAid in Bangladesh. Working within the civil society for the last five years, he has been involved in research and policy advocacy on labour rights and industrial governance issues in the garments and clothing industry in Bangladesh. ‘Business and human rights’ is the key area of his academic and professional interest. His research interest includes the issues of social movements, transnational advocacy networks and transnational labour solidarity, among others. His Master’s thesis is a qualitative research project which attempts to examine the relevance of H&M’s Fair Living Wage initiative to the worker’s wage concerns in the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh, drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony.
Loan Pham, MA student, University of Gothenburg.
Land grabs for development projects and human rights’ implications on Vietnamese peasants.
I am currently studying for a Master’s degree in Human Rights Policy and Practice at the University of Gothenburg, University of Deusto and University of Roehampton in Sweden, Spain and the UK (Erasmus Mundus). My main fields of interest are workers and peasants’ rights.
My dissertation looks at the problem of a domestic land grabbing case in Vietnam: the expropriation of agricultural land from farmers for development purposes without sufficient compensation, which appears to serve the benefit of private investors and at the expense of rural communities. Land in Vietnam has become a de factor commodity to sell and buy in the market. However, it is still owned and managed under the state perception of collective ownership, which belongs to the whole people. This has created growing struggles and social unrests in Vietnam society. By looking through the human rights perspective, the thesis shall reveal impacts of agricultural land appropriation on the human rights enjoyment of Vietnamese peasants. Due to the lack of a specific international human rights of peasants in the current discourse, this thesis also discusses on what human right would be appropriate to protect farmers in the context of Vietnam.
If you are working on a MA or PhD thesis during Fall 2018 and need some inspiration, literature or simply just time to write on your thesis, then NIAS has something to offer: the Nordic Scholarship!
The Nordic Scholarship covers inexpensive travel to Copenhagen, two weeks board and accommodation plus a working place at NIAS! A perfect chance to concentrate on your thesis, have inspirational talks with our researchers or access material from Northern Europe's most comprehensive Asian studies library.
We are pleased to share with you Issue 6 of 
Thomas Østergaard Rasmussen is a student at China Studies at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
I am a master student in Asian Studies (and in linguistics – Swedish being my specialized field) at Stockholm University. I have a B.A. in Chinese and a B.A. in linguistics. My current project is on place and identity in Hong Kong literature written in Chinese. How do Chinese writers identify and depict themselves in a metropolis that have changed from being a British colony into a Chinese Special administrative region? How is place and identity being put forward in Hong Kong literature, and (how) has it changed during the last decades considering the handover?
I am a student of the master program in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) under the management and funding of Erasmus Mundus Program. Currently I am writing my thesis on “Exploring Organizational Culture of Vietnamese Higher Education Institutions and Its Impact on Faculty Turnover”. My desire to explore this topic derives from the fact that there have been a few studies investigating turnover of faculty in Vietnamese institutions in spite of the increase of this phenomenon. In addition, the study also hopes to find trends and tendencies of the organizational culture of public universities in Vietnam. Also, it is expected that the findings of this study will enrich the existing literature on turnover and organizational culture. Comparing to research studies on the topic of faculty turnover, this thesis looks at the matter from the perspective of organizational culture which may be influenced by the academic culture of the country as well. 
I am currently doing a PhD research that is focusing on the factors that explain the quality of higher education in the context of Finnish education export (transnational education) phenomenon. My research is combining the national higher education policy, institutional quality assurance practicalities and concrete education export implementation that is a master degree programme in teacher education in Indonesia (Aceh region). The programme was organized between the years 2016-2017 in a collaboration with Indonesian Sukma foundation and the Faculty of Education, University of Tampere. In my research, quality of education is as a political and relative concept, and from that perspective my study also challenge the concept of quality of education that is often taken for granted and stress the multiple, sometimes conflicting socio-cultural frames (conventions) where the value creation is based on. 
I am currently doing a MA thesis project on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) public opinion/media warfare against Taiwan. The project might allow to explain to what extent and how the public opinion warfare works from the perspective of political communication. My background is East Asian studies at Stockholm University. My undergraduate program included a exchange program at Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, a summer school of Japanese language and culture at Meiji University in Tokyo, and two media traineeships at China Central Television and China Review News Agency in Beijing. My MA thesis focuses on Chinese political communication and its effect on East Asia. I am confident that that my stay at NIAS, including consultations and communication with researchers here and use of available resources, will be most beneficial to my MA thesis project. 
Martin Lavicka studied Chinese and Japanese philology at Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, and International Relations at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He is a lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, where he teaches modern Chinese history and Chinese politics. His Ph.D. research focuses on sociolegal aspects of China's ethnic policies.
With wide-ranged interests spanning diverse subjects and experiences to match, Cyrus landed on a topic that threads all these aspects and ties them together. Taking his interests in international relations, security, and the movement and distribution of people and societies that he realized through his BA at the University of British Columbia, adding in his initial exposure to North Korean defectors at the One Young World Summit in Bangkok as well as his experience working first-hand as a service-provider to asylum-seekers and refugees in Malta, and combining them with his present MA Peace, Mediation and Conflict Resolution programme and additional credit in East Asian topics, Cyrus endeavours to make his contribution to the literature on North Korea. With the Hermit Kingdom being front and centre of the international news cycle but with little information available on it, interactions with the country is a lesson in trial and error. His thesis hopes to pull back some of the veil of mystery by interviewing members of the Toronto-based community of defectors from the regime and gathering their invaluable insight on the prospects of peace and renewed conflict with the regime of Kim Jong-un, using recent diplomatic events as data points.
If you are working on a MA or PhD thesis during Fall 2018 and need some inspiration, literature or simply just time to write on your thesis, then NIAS has something to offer: the Nordic Scholarship!