Education About Asia

Archive articles will be added to this new, more user-friendly interface on an on-going basis over the next few months. In the meantime, to view the full run of archives, please visit http://aas2.asian-studies.org/EAA/TOC/index.asp . NOTE: Since understanding a substantial number of articles depends upon images and graphics, all article and essay illustrations may be viewed in the PDFs available on each page.

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Online Supplement, Resources

Arundhati Roy’s The Greater Common Good: Dams, Development, and Democracy in India

by Paige Tan

By Paige Johnson Tan Arundhati Roy, a contemporary writer from India, is best known globally for her Booker Prize- winning novel The God of Small Things (1997). In addition to being a celebrated novelist, Roy is also a passionate activist who rails against globalization, multinational corporations, alleged US global hegemony, Hindu-Muslim violence. nuclear weapons, and of course, big dams. The following essay is an account of how I use one of Roy"s works in conjunction with a variety of' othe...

Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Using the Lowy Institute Asia Power Index to Teach Social Science: A Plan for a Facilitated Discussion

by Paige Tan

The Lowy Institute, one of Australia’s most well-regarded think tanks, released its second annual Asia Power Index in May 2019 (available at https://power.lowyinstitute.org). High school and college educators can use this resource to get students doing hands-on explorations of Asian political, military, economic, and diplomatic power using data. Students can learn about Asia while enhancing their data literacy and critical-thinking skills. This essay provides a plan for an interactive discussi...

Columns, Teaching Resources Essay

The Place of the Ghosts: Democracy in the Philippines–Dead Season: A Story of Murder and Revenge

by Paige Tan

If I had to assign one book to teach students about politics in the developing world, that would be Alan Berlow’s Dead Season. I use Berlow’s book every year in my Asian Politics course at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Bright high school students could enjoy it as well. Dead Season unmasks politics in a country that is formally democratic, and it conveys to readers in an unforgettable way what politics feels like for many in the developing world....

Film Review Essay

Up the Yangtze

by Paige Tan

Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang’s documentary Up the Yangtze is not easy to watch. Like the story it tells, the film is unsettling with the wrenching change it portrays. Chang follows twoChineseyoungpeople, Yu Shui and Chen Boyu, as they embark on new jobs with a “Farewell Cruise” company on China’s Yangtze River....

Feature Article

Aung San Suu Kyi: A Leader Born, a Leader Made

by Paige Tan

Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi is today feted around the world. Why is she so celebrated? Before 2010, she spent fifteen of the previous twenty-one years under house arrest, jailed by the country’s military rulers. In 1989, she faced down the guns of the regime’s soldiers.  In 1990, her party triumphed in elections rigged against it, only to be deprived of the chance to take power when the election results were ignored. In 1991, Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, something she says sh...

Feature Article

Indonesia Doesn’t Want to Be Number Three

by Paige Tan

When it comes to Asian populations, China and India get all the attention. According to the US Census Bureau, China’s population, the largest in the world, is about 1.38 billion people, with India close behind at 1.28 billion. Together, the two nations’ people comprise more than 35 percent of the global population. Unbeknownst to many, though, is that Indonesia, an archipelagic nation in Southeast Asia that stretches across an expanse of ocean larger than the continental United States, is th...
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