Appointment of Dr. Abhisheka as Lecturer in Hindi
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Abhisheka as inaugural full-time Lecturer in Hindi in the Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature.
Abhisheka, since 2009 a full-time lecturer in Hindi at the University of Michigan, earned his PhD in Hindi Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where he also earned his MA and M.Phil in the same subject. His literary research concerns Bhakti and Bhaktmal literature. (He also holds a BA in Physics!) He has taught many levels of Hindi at Michigan, and before that taught Hindi as a second language as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Delhi, to American diplomats at the US Embassy there, and at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He has served as a reader for Critical Language Scholarships in Indic Studies and has participated in a number of ACTFL workshops, technology-training workshops for language teachers, and other forms of professional development. Besides Hindi and English, he is fully at home in Bhojpuri, Avadhi, Brajbhasha, and Magahi and has strong Urdu skills and some Persian as well.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Abhisheka to Boston this fall. It is a great satisfaction to have Hindi at last represented by a full-time faculty position.
Welcome to Yoon Sun Yang, Assistant Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Yoon Sun Yang has accepted our offer of the position of Assistant Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature and will be joining us this fall. She will be teaching Introduction to Korean Literature and Gender in East Asian Film.
Yoon Sun Yang earned her PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 2009 at the University of Chicago and since then has held the position of Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at Arizona State University. She holds two MA’s in Comparative Literature, one from SUNY Stony Brook and one from Yonsei University, one of the most distinguished universities in Korea. Dr. Yang is at work on a book manuscript tentatively titled The Rise of Modern Korean Fiction: From Domestic Women to Sentimental Men, 1906-1917. The book aims to give a gender-conscious account of the rise of modern Korean fiction, one that also calls into question dominant accounts of the “rise of individualism” in Korean literature. Yang argues that a genre of popular fiction centered on the portrayal of domestic women, the “sin sosol,” which is generally excluded from the category of modern fiction altogether, is actually an essential link in the transition from traditional to modern literature; women characters in the sin sosol “personify the historical processes that paved the way for the appearance of an individual in modern Korean fiction.” This is exciting work that promises to reshape accounts of this critical turning point in Korean literature, and it participates in the sophisticated conversation regarding colonialism and post-colonialism going on throughout literary studies. Dr. Yang brings strong Japanese skills and a good knowledge of Japanese literature to her work. Her teaching experience is broad, featuring thematic courses and survey courses taught in English translation as well as Literary and Cultural Theory, third-year Korean language, and Korean film; she also has a significant interest in translation studies and in the practice of translation.
We are extremely happy at this good news and look forward to welcoming Dr. Yang to Boston this fall. Thanks to the very hardworking search committee and to all who helped in various ways to bring us to this success.
BU’s Lauren Makishima takes 1st place at Japanese Speech Contest
We are delighted to announce that BU’s Lauren Makishima took 1st place yesterday at the Japanese Speech Contest run by the Consulate General of Japan in Boston. Selected from 24 applicants, twelve students representing Harvard, MIT and other schools in the area competed in the advanced division yesterday at the Brookline library.
Lauren’s talk focused on the Japanese homogeneous cultural identity and what it means to be Japanese from the outside. Her perspective came from growing up as a Japanese-American whose parents do not speak Japanese. Her love for and deep insight into the Japanese came through and seemed to have moved the audience. She worked very hard on perfecting the draft, her pronunciation and phrasing, and her presentation skills. Kodansha America’s vice president said that her speech was not only presented well, but had challenging and solid content. One Harvard professor commented that she couldn’t believe that Lauren had never lived in Japan.
Liberty and Security in a Time of Global Re-ordering
On March 5 and 6, 2012, a number of BUCSA faculty took part in an international conference on human security at Boston University. The two-day event, entitled Liberty and Security in a Time of Global Re-ordering, was organized by the Center for the Study of Europe at Boston University, in cooperation with the Center for the Study of Asia and the Center for International Relations, with funding from GR:EEN: a European Commission Seventh Framework program examining the current and future role of the European Union in an emerging multi-polar world. Boston University is one of 16 universities around the world participating in the program.
The focus of the conference was on human rights and security issues and the ways in which rights are seen as a legitimate part of the security discourse. Panel discussions included “Power Relations and Global Challenges in a Time of the BRICS,” “The Rise of the BRICS: Emerging Issues,” “Europe, the US, and the Middle East,” “Religion, Radicalisation and Counter-Terrorism,” and “Cultural Discourses of Human Security. Keynote speeches were given by Shaun Breslin, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick – where GR:EEN is headquartered, and Andrew Bacevich.
Given the recognition that security can mean different things to different people in different places and at different times, the idea was to “fix” the concept of security by focusing on the core demands of humanity in relation to freedom from fear and freedom from want, an approach encapsulated in the concept of “human security.” It has been a core commitment of the European Union to work for the enhancement of human security, and thereby human rights, around the world. In fact, a key test of how the EU adapts to a reshaped world order will be whether it can retain its commitment to such values.
View conference schedule here.
Innovative Health Care for the Poor: Comparing China and India
On Monday, February 13, the Center for the Study of Asia and the East Asian Studies Program at Boston University cosponsored a talk by Prof. Tarun Khanna on “Innovative Provision of Health Care to the Poor in India and China.” Prof. Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Leman Professor at Harvard Business School and the Director of South Asia Initiative at Harvard University. His 2008 publication, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping their Futures and Yours, compares the rises of China and India on the world stage and has been translated into several languages. Mark Allen, the Faculty Director of the Health Sector Management Program at BU School of Management moderated the talk. And Min Ye, the Director of East Asian Studies Program and Assistant Professor in International Relations at BU introduced the speakers.
In the talk, Khanna introduced a cardiac surgeon, Dr. Shetty in Mumbai, India. Dr. Shetty’s hospital accepts penniless patients and carries out numerous heart operations on the poor. However, according to Prof. Khanna, it demonstrates a business model more than charity for the poor, because the hospital has been exceptionally profitable, and in the past ten years has expanded, covering a variety of operations in addition to cardiac surgery. The reason, as Prof. Khanna explains, is economy of scale. Dr. Shetty and his associates perform multiple times more operations than their counterparts in America and thus greatly reduced per operation cost.
Prof. Khanna’s talk ignited vigorous discussion and provoked fresh thinking among the students and faculty members in audience. Many asked and pondered how the U.S health care could be made more efficiently and what lessons the U.S could learn from Dr. Shetty. On China, Prof. Khanna argues that Dr. Shetty’s model is applicable to China, because China’s demography was similar to India’s and the Chinese government is capable of laying down infrastructure for large scale hospital care in many areas of China. Without making a direct link, however, Prof. Khanna ascribes the lack of similar social entrepreneurs in China to information bias.
Closing Remarks at Global Education Strategies: U.S.-China School Exchanges
Nimen hao. Wode mingzi jiao He Xueli. Wo shi yanjiu zhongguo lishi de jiaoshou.
Hello–My name is Shelley Hawks. I teach Chinese history at the college level, most recently as a visiting lecturer at UMass, Boston. I am the parent of two sons who have taken Chinese language classes since they were young, first at a weekend school with practically all Chinese students, and then later with a tutor. Several years ago, our family enjoyed hosting a principal and a teacher from China as part of an exchange program. Through these experiences, one of my sons really took to foreign languages, and is taking French and Chinese at his current school. He plans to continue taking foreign languages in college, possibly as his major. He wrote his college application essay about not wanting to go to Chinese language school on Saturdays at the time, but then recognizing the importance of taking Chinese as he matured. I bribed my sons into taking Chinese when they were young, by promising to take them to the Beijing Olympics. Yet, in my son’s college applications essay, he reported that his epiphany moment was not at the Olympics, but rather, when we went to a remote Chinese village during the same trip in 2008. Our tour guide had arranged for us to have lunch at a very humble home of farmers in that village. They served us wonderful homemade dumplings. My son was able to converse with them, and they were overjoyed.
I began taking Chinese the year after college. (I wish that I had started earlier. I took French in high school and college). I can read Chinese well enough to use it for research purposes. Nowadays, I am striving to improve the speed of my reading and move from proficiency to fluency in speaking. The best way to do this will be to spend some extended time in China or Taiwan. I offer these details as background for the main message of my talk: The organizers and I want to emphasize how important, indeed critical, we feel it is for American schools at the pre-college level to educate students with the goal of foreign language fluency. Consider this thought experiment: If we look out fifty years to the time when today’s babies will be adults, it is clear that this future cohort of Americans will need to be equipped with a much deeper knowledge of Chinese culture to operate effectively. A much larger percentage of American students will need to study Chinese language at an earlier age, so that they can function skillfully in a world that will be much more China-focused. Learning Chinese requires a considerable investment in time and energy. For Americans, Chinese is more difficult to learn than European languages, so it is best to start early in life, preferably in kindergarten or first grade. Introducing exchange programs into our middle schools or high schools can incentivize students and teachers to stay committed to the study of foreign languages and instill in them a deep understanding of foreign countries.
Time-out for a joke:
What do you call someone who knows two languages? (bilingual)
What do you call someone who knows three languages? (trilingual)
What do you call someone who knows one language? (American!)
Why is this so? Because English is the universal language of science. Americans are accustomed to thinking that only English is truly necessary, since most foreigners who come to America speak English already. But, will our world be so English-centered in 50 years? In all likelihood—not. Increasingly, Americans will need to understand Chinese and read Chinese publications to keep up with business and scientific trends. There will be significant opportunities for enterprising Americans to find jobs in China or even pursue a university education in China, but they’ll need to be able to speak and read Chinese first.
Now let’s look at the numbers that many of us feel are predictive of a world more focused on China. China’s economic strength is projected to become the leading economy over the next decade. Their scientific and technological sector, especially their computer industry and their space programs, are fast becoming rivals to the US.
Moving beyond the issue of national competitiveness, what I find an even more compelling argument for deepening US engagement with China is the environmental crisis that the world is facing, because of man-made climate changes and rapid deforestation. US and China are the leading emitters of carbon dioxide. The problem of greenhouse gas emissions will not be solved, unless US and China rein in their current practices and achieve a new level of cooperation and transparency. There are no national borders, when it comes to air and water pollution. Scientists tell us that we must act now to develop frameworks for cooperation and enforcement, so that a strategy for stopping the damage can be worked out. The next generation must possess the communication skills to mobilize a consensus around solutions to these environmental issues in both China and the US.
Finally, brain studies suggest that there are significant cognitive benefits associated with learning a foreign language. For Americans, learning Chinese can open up an entirely new world of understanding and broaden the student’s capacity for flexible thinking and empathy. Furthermore, the cognitive stimulation in the prefrontal lobe acquired when learning a foreign language is linked to academic achievement in math and reading. According to the College Board, SAT test-takers who took Chinese in high school (only 3% of America’s college-bound seniors) scored 615, quite a bit higher than any other group of foreign language learners. While we cannot say for sure that these students scored high in math because of taking Chinese, we can say that taking Chinese did not distract them or prevent from excelling in Math.
As we look ahead fifty years there is room for optimism. China’s rise should not make us predict gloom and doom. However, it should make us want to get our act together! America should not simply adopt a wait-and-see approach. We should adopt a strategic plan to build a foundation of knowledge about China for the next generation of Americans. To remain dynamic and innovative, America must look outward and train our youth to become fluent foreign language speakers. It is critical that we establish foreign language programs in our elementary schools, because the benefit of starting early has been definitively shown in scientific studies. If we invest in foreign language learning in our pre-college curriculum, then the next generation of Americans can achieve fluency in a strategic language AND train in their area of professional expertise, whether medicine, engineering, law, or teaching. We must evolve with the times and rise to the challenge of a future that requires Americans to be bilingual or trilingual.
View the panel discussions from Global Education Strategies: U.S. China School Exchanges on Vimeo:
Opening Remarks by Hardin Coleman, Dean, BU School of Education [video]
Keynote Speech: “Why Have U.S.-China School Exchanges?” [video]
Panel 1: “What Do U.S.-China Exchanges Look Like?” [video 1] [video 2]
Panel 2: “How Are U.S.-China Exchanges Run?” [video]
Lunch Address: “The 100,000 Strong Initiative” [video 1] [video 2]
Remarks by S. Paul Reville, Secretary of Education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts [video]
Panel 3: “What Are the Outcomes of U.S.-China School Exchanges?” [video 1] [video 2] [video 3]
Awash in Debt: Chinese State Liabilities and Monetary and Welfare Implications
In recent years, Boston University’s Center for the Study of Asia has hosted a number of conversations with renowned political economists. Joining them, on Tuesday, December 6, was Victor Shih, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation, the first book to inquire about the linkages between elite politics and banking policies in China. Shih is a frequent adviser to the financial community on the banking industry in China.
In his talk at BU, Shih focussed on Chinese state liabilities, a weak spot in China’s “miracle economy” with its 3 trillion USD foreign exchange reserve. What people don’t realize, Shih explained, is that the amount in reserve is balanced by another 3 trillion in state issued liabilities. In fact, if one were to add the combined debt of state owned enterprises in China to that of the central and local governments, it would comprise some 150 percent of Chinese GDP. And the central government is on the hook for all of it!
Over the past decade, in response, the government has set up a number of special purpose vehicles to recapitalize the state banks, the result being huge increases in current assets and ever tightening cash flows. The situation, Shih stated, is not urgent: the loans are balanced against assets in foreign exchange reserve, the Chinese banking system has the world’s highest reserve requirements, and, since all the money is owed to domestic creditors, there is little risk of a European style financial crisis.
Nevertheless, Shih argued, there are some disturbing implications in China’s economic picture, one being inflation. The government, as the largest debtor in the financial system, has been reluctant to raise interest rates in order to combat inflation.
One reason the government is so “addicted to liquidity,” as Shih put it, is that capital is being used inefficiently. The projects being financed are not generating sufficient cash flows to keep up with interest payments. So, to stem the pile up of distressed debt, a lot of loans are being rolled over into medium and long term debt. As the average maturity of debt lengthens over time, partly due to new mortgages, but mostly due to roll over of non-performign loans, the central bank must allow the money supply to increase robustly year after year.
This is why, Shih explained, massive foreign exchange inflows are not a problem for the Chinese government. As long as the foreign exchange reserve was growing, it allowed the central bank to increase the money supply without needing to print new money. As the trade surplus declines, he argued, the government will have to resume re-lending.
Another problem that Shih touched on is the enormous amount of debt being financed by Chinese households. Chinese households are net lenders in the Chinese banking system: deposit transfers to the state corporate sector amount to some 50% of GDP while borrowing hovers at 20% of GDP. According to Shih, if consumption is ever to become a driver of growth in China, as it has been in the US, the political economy of China will need to change drastically.
The current situation (high inflation, low interest rates), he argued, is unsustainable. Chinese households are earning negative real interest on their deposits, and this motivates them to look outside the formal banking system for investment opportunities. For the time being, they are buying real estate. But if anything were to happen to the real estate market, the risk of capital flight is very real.
Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia’s Developmental State
On Friday, December 2, Joe Wong, Associate Professor of Political Sciences at the University of Toronto – where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Democratization, Health, and Development – and author of Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea, was at Boston University talking about issues animating his latest book, Betting on Biotech: Innovation Beyond the Development State. Over forty people attended the afternoon lecture, which was organized by Boston University’s Center for the Study of Asia with support from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston.
On one level, Wong’s new book is about the emerging biotech sector in the development states of Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore: Asian economies are betting billions of dollars on industries whose potential has been slow to realize. On another level, the book is a study of uncertainty and the logic shifts that will be required if those bets are to pay off.
Wong began his presentation – a retrospective on the Asian development state as well as a glimpse at the prospects beyond it – with a selection of vignettes encapsulating the current state of the biotech industry in Asia. As appetite for uncertainty wanes in the face of biotech’s “spectacular failure” – huge R&D investments that have yet to pay off, begging the question, “How is this good for the country and the population as a whole? - Asian governments find themselves in a quandary. The way out, according to Wong, is not to tweak the development state model, no matter how spectacularly it may have worked in the past.
There’s a difference, Wong said, between risk and uncertainty, and especially what Frank Knight calls “primary uncertainty,” where you don’t know what you don’t know. In the past, East Asian economies were good at making bets, and at mitigating risk. There was a focus on products with a short time to market, high consumer demand, in short, known quantities. Biotech is a different sort of game, raising the question: how to bet on something about which you know nothing.
Wong traced the implications of “betting blind.” Economic logic, he said, demands a “hands off” approach. Failure, from an economic perspective, is valued as a learning experience. But this is at odds with the political need for a more “hands on” approach. In order to save face, Asian governments have fallen on a number of strategies from recalibrating expectations to reframing what “biotech” even means.
Taiwan in a New Centennial: Cross Strait Relations and Viable Diplomacy
On Thursday afternoon, November 17, Boston University’s Center for the Study of Asia hosted an afternoon tea for Anne Hung, Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Boston. The occasion for the event, attended by over 50 students, was the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China (Taiwan), which began on October 10.
Ms. Hung, who began her post in Boston in September 2009, has held various positions in Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs including Director-General of the Department of European Affairs and Section Chief of the Department of North American Affairs. In the US, she has held posts in Washington DC and in San Francisco. As Director-General of TECO-Boston, Ms. Hung serves to enhance Taiwan’s relationship with the region on many levels including trade, education, cultural exchange, and political affairs.
In her remarks at Boston University, Ms. Hung addressed the prospects and challenges of cross strait relations and Taiwan’s “flexible diplomacy” at the start of a new centennial. She began by stating her view that Taiwan’s soft power remains its strongest asset; Taiwan’s democracy and freedom are values esteemed around the world. She went on to clarify her government’s current policy of normalizing economic and cultural relations as the first step to achieving better cross strait relations. She outlined a number of recent accomplishments including the recently signed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, improvements in Taiwan-US relations, and Taiwan’s presence in international space, including participation in the World Health Assembly and in the World Trade Organization.
As Hung describes it, balancing domestic interests, cross-strait relations, and external relations, is a delicate act. As far as China is concerned, Ms. Hung said, Taiwan is diplomatically realistic, seeking neither unification or independence, but maintenance of the status quo and an an end to diplomatic warfare. Through peaceful interaction and exchange with the mainland, Taiwan is laying ground work for improved relations with other countries, especially the United States, with which it shares a long history of cooperation, despite the severing of diplomatic ties in 1979.
Deng Xiaoping, China, and Japan
On Wednesday evening, November 16, the Center for the Study of Asia, in cooperation with the Japan Society of Boston, had the honor of welcoming renowned East Asia scholar and Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University Ezra Vogel to Boston University. Over 100 people attended the lecture and book-signing.
Vogel, who in addition to his long career at Harvard, served as the Clinton administration’s national intelligence officer for East Asia from 1993 to 1995, is author of a new biography of Deng Xiaoping, the indomitable force behind China’s rise to power in the late 20th century. The book, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, weighing in at 714 pages, charts how Deng, a revolutionary and military commander under Mao Zedong, emerged from political exile to become propel China onto the international stage.
Vogel’s hour long lecture, accompanied by photographs, followed Deng’s life from his early education in Paris, where he met Zhou Enlai, to his return to China, his political career under Mao, his role in the Cultural Revolution, and his exile from 1967 to 1973, and finally, to the years following Mao’s death, when Deng began the process of dismantling the economic system he had helped to build, paving the way for China’s remarkable transformation. Vogel focussed his remarks on Deng’s economic reforms and on his relationships with western powers, notably, the United States and Japan.
[View lecture on Vimeo] [View question and answer session on Vimeo]