Education About Asia: Online Archives

Browse and download over 1,500 articles — feature articles, lesson plans, interviews, classroom resources, and book and film reviews — from Education About Asia (EAA)!

Sign up for the EAA Digest E-Newsletter and receive monthly updates and announcements from the EAA editor. Subscribe

Help us do more

by supporting EAA through print subscriptions and donations.

How to use the EAA Online Search Engine

PLEASE NOTE: All article and essay illustrations, including many images and graphics necessary for understanding the content, may be viewed in the PDF.

  1. 1

    Use the dropdown menus

    to search by author, geographic location, article type, and academic field

  2. 2

    Enter keywords

    to search the full text of articles (where search terms may not appear in the article title, eg.)

  3. 3

    View an article

    by clicking on its title. To view the original print version of the article, select “PDF”

Search for Articles

(culture, history, art, marriage, etc...)

NOTE: Archive articles may be downloaded and reproduced for personal or classroom use only.

EAA Interview

EAA Interview with Herbert P. Bix, 2001 Pulitzer Winner: Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

by Kathleen Krauth

Herbert P. Bix is a professor of history and sociology at Binghamton University in New York, where he was recently appointed after three and a half years at the prestigious Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. In the fall of 2001, I had just moved to Tokyo to teach Japanese history and Asian studies at The American School in Japan. After reading Bix’s biography of Hirohito, I immediately invited him to speak to my senior honors classes, and thankfully, he graciously accepted. The talk Professor B...

Feature Article, Teaching Resources Essay

Reading Across the Curriculum: Using the Fiction of the Indian Subcontinent in Social Science Classes

by Andrea Caron Kempf

There is a publishing boom in fiction by authors from the Indian subcontinent. Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi authors are being discovered almost daily. The literature from India is several thousand years old. However, following the notoriety of Salman Rushdie, the meteoric success of Arundhati Roy’s novel The God of Small Things, and the Oscar-winning screen adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, it is almost impossible to open the New York Times Book Review w...

Book Review Essay, Resources

The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family

by Jayne Werner

BY DUONG VAN MAI ELLIOTT OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1999 544 PAGES, ISBN 0-1951-3787-6, PAPERBACK EDITION, 2001 Courses on the Vietnam War and Vietnam remain popular across American campuses, but there has been a dearth of literary materials from a Vietnamese point of view, originally written in English, which can be used for such courses. As the poet William Ehrhart once observed, the Vietnam War has generated the most prolific U.S. veterans’ literature in American history, so this side of...

Book Review Essay, Resources

Understanding Contemporary China

by Mary Karen Solomon

Understanding Contemporary China is an anthology of essays on contemporary China, edited by Robert E. Gamer. Consisting of 14 chapters, authored by various experts in different fields, it presents a varied and well-rounded introduction to modern China. Beginning with the geographic and historical basics (“Geographic Preface” by Stanley W. Toops and “The Historical Context” by Rhoads Murphey), it includes essays on Chinese pol­itics, international relations, and “China Beyond the Heart...

Teaching Resources Essay

Ten Misconceptions About India and Indic Traditions

by Arvind Sharma

By Arvind Sharma Different disciplines or fields of study outgrow their earlier conclusions or assumptions as new evidence accumulates, or at least they should. But any academic field of study also tends to exhibit a certain measure of inertia in abandoning earlier formulations which have been rendered questionable or obsolete with the accumulation of new data, and the application of new methods to the available data in the field. Abandoning or modifying old positions for new entails discomfo...

Book Review, Resources

Access Asia: 3 Volumes

by Maureen Rustichelli

Impressions (lower secondary) 49 PAGES, ISBN 1-86366-415-7 Reflections (middle secondary) 66 PAGES, ISBN 1-86366-416-5 Dimensions (upper secondary) 81 PAGES, ISBN 1-86366-417-3 By Anthony Bott, Lee Grafton, Carolyn Millard and Doug Trevaskis MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: CURRICULUM CORPORATION, 1998 The Access Asia project has produced a new trilogy for lower (Impressions), middle (Reflections) and upper (Dimensions) secondary school students. These volumes, dealing with Asian themes, repres...

Teaching Resources Essay

Teaching About India at the Secondary School Level

by Kelly McKee

I have been teaching a course on Asian Studies at Evanston Township High School for the past four years. As an educator I feel fortunate to have traveled to India twice, once in 1996 as a National Education Security fellow, and again in 2001 as a Fulbright-Hays scholar. Both experiences have provided me with a foundation to begin to understand the complexity of Indian culture. In my role as an educator, I have been able to transfer my travel experience into a practical teaching curriculum to be ...

Resources, Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Afghanistan, the Taliban and Related Sites

by Judith S. Ames

Title: Yahoo! – Taliban & Al-Qaeda Network URL: http://uk.fc.yahoo.com/a/afghanistan.html Yahoo! UK links to articles and multimedia on the conflict in Afghanistan. Title: Afghan Network URL: http://www.afghan-network.net/ A portal to information on many areas of Afghan life. Title: Afghanistan Online URL: http://www.afghan-web.com/ A site published in the U.S. with links to information about Afghanistan ranging from the history to languages to sports. Title: America Responds to T...

Resources

Asian Factoids: Winter 2001

by

India: Population Statistics Population: 1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.) Age Structure: 0–14 years: 33.12% (male 175,630,537; female 165,540,672) 15–64 years: 62.2% (male 331,790,850; female 308,902,864) 65 years and over: 4.68% (male 24,439,022; female 23,687,200) (2001 est.) Population Growth Rate: 1.55% (2001 est.) Infant Mortality Rate: 63.19 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.) Life Expectancy at Birth: total population: 62.86 years male: 62.22 years female: 63.53 years Ethnic g...

Book Review, Resources

Brush Meditation: A Japanese Way to Mind & Body Harmony

by Gary DeCoker

“We are witnessing the meeting of East and West. Through positive, non-biased Eastern and Western cultural exchange, a new, more balanced, more enlightened global culture may result” (preface). So begins Brush Meditation by H. E. Davey, who according to the author biography is the first non-Japanese ever to receive the highest rank from a worldwide Japanese calligraphy association and who has received numerous awards for his calligraphy.

Book Review Essay, Resources

The Democracy of the Dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China

by David Jones, Joanna Crosby

BY DAVID L. HALL AND ROGER T. AMES CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, LASALLE OPEN COURT, 1999 267 PAGES ISBN 0-8126-9394-9 HARDBACK David Hall and Roger Ames rely upon a very useful and adaptable source in John Dewey in making their case for the possibility of democracy in China. From their point of view, any chance of a democratic China depends upon China’s reaffirmation of Confucian philosophy, especially as outlined by Confucius himself in the Analects, and the engagement with Western social thinkin...

EAA Interview, Resources

An Interview with Buchanan Prize Winner Yong Jin Choi

by Lucien Ellington

This is our fifth consecutive interview with a winner of the Franklin R. Buchanan Prize. The Association for Asian Studies awards the prize annually for the development of outstanding curriculum materials on Asia. The 2001 winner was Yong Jin Choi, Director of Korean Studies for the Korea Society. She won the award for developing the 1–12 Curriculum Package that aids teachers in teaching about Korea....

Feature Article

Ten Misconceptions About India and Indic Traditions

by Arvind Sharma

Different disciplines or fields of study outgrow their earlier conclusions or assumptions as new evidence accumulates, or at least they should. But any academic field of study also tends to exhibit a certain measure of inertia in abandoning earlier formulations which have been rendered questionable or obsolete with the accumulation of new data, and the application of new methods to the available data in the field. Abandoning or modifying old positions for new entails discomfort. Moreover, once a...

Book Review, Resources

Access Asia: 3 Volumes

by Maureen Rustichelli

The Access Asia project has produced a new trilogy for lower (Impressions), middle (Reflections) and upper (Dimensions) secondary school students. These volumes, dealing with Asian themes, represent a timely resource. With cul­tural studies back on the school curriculum and interest in other cul­tures at an all-time high, the publication of these books is particular­ly welcome. They will be useful to teachers of Asian studies, lan­guages other than English, and English as a second language, ...

Facts About Asia, Resources

Asian Factoids: Winter 2001

by EAA Editorial Office

India: Population Statistics Population: 1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.) Age Structure: 0–14 years: 33.12% (male 175,630,537; female 165,540,672) 15–64 years: 62.2% (male 331,790,850; female 308,902,864) 65 years and over: 4.68% (male 24,439,022; female 23,687,200) (2001 est.) Population Growth Rate: 1.55% (2001 est.) Infant Mortality Rate: 63.19 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.) Life Expectancy at Birth: total population: 62.86 years male: 62.22 years female: 63.53 years ...

Book Review Essay, Resources

The Democracy of the Dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China

by David Jones, Joanna Crosby

David Hall and Roger Ames rely upon a very useful and adaptable source in John Dewey in making their case for the possibility of democracy in China. From their point of view, any chance of a democratic China depends upon China’s reaffirmation of Confucian philosophy, especially as out­lined by Confucius himself in the Analects, and the engagement with Western social thinking on democracy. John Dewey is a per­fect choice for this engagement.

Book Review Essay, Resources

The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family

by Jayne Werner

Courses on the Vietnam War and Vietnam remain popular across American campuses, but there has been a dearth of literary materials from a Vietnamese point of view, originally written in English, which can be used for such courses. As the poet William Ehrhart once observed, the Vietnam War has generated the most prolific U.S. veterans’ literature in American history, so this side of the story is well represented. Academic studies on such topics as Vietnamese history, culture and society, diploma...

EAA Interview, Resources

An Interview with Buchanan Prize Winner Yong Jin Choi

by EAA Editorial Office

This is our fifth consecutive interview with a winner of the Franklin R. Buchanan Prize. The Association for Asian Studies awards the prize annually for the development of outstanding curriculum materials on Asia. The 2001 winner was Yong Jin Choi, Director of Korean Studies for the Korea Society. She won the award for developing the 1–12 Curriculum Package that aids teachers in teaching about Korea.

Book Review Essay, Resources

Comparing History: Beasley Versus Schirokauer

by Peter K. Frost

Teachers offering basic courses on Japan will welcome the recent publication of William G. Beasley’s general text. Elegantly written by one of the outstanding patriarchs (b.1919) of Japanese studies, Beasley’s text has the usual index, maps, bibliography, and short glossary found in works of this kind, and almost the same amount of text as Conrad Schirokauer’s heavily used but somewhat more expensive work. While James McClain’s magnificent new Japan: A Modern History (New York, W. W. Nor...

Feature Article

Traditional Female Moral Exemplars in India

by Madhu Kishwar

While I was growing up I was oblivious of and somewhat indifferent to religious matters. During my childhood, secular figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru (India’s first Prime Minister) were more important as symbols of inspiration than our vast array of devis and devatas (goddesses and gods). However, our deities do not presume to punish us, or even get angry with us, if we choose to ignore them. One can be an atheist while being an integral part of the Hindu community.

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.