Research & Reflections

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Research & Reflections

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Tag: English

Zhongshan Road

John Gregory 葛約翰 July 30, 2018

       I arrived on the “beautiful island” with my wife, originally a native of Taiwan, and five children nearly ten months ago. That arrival was not unlike many of our arrivals over the last twenty years. But, although over the years we have also experienced many departures, this departure was unlike any in the past. Unlike other times, the children and I left this time less as foreigners. Rather than returning from a place we were merely visiting, we left a place we had lived. Indeed, during this time, we lived in Shulin District of New Taipei City. More importantly, we lived on Zhongshan Road, and what a road it is. In this essay, I use Zhongshan Road as a focal point to say a little bit about Taiwan’s history, its current society, and what it was like to live in such a place.        To understand that Zhongshan Road translates to Sun Yat-sen Road in English is to understand something essential about the recent history and ongoing question of identity in Taiwan. The name itself is both a relic of a bygone era and a symbol of a continuing journey. The three districts surrounding Shulin—Banqiao,

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Reflections, Refractions, and Reorientations: Conducting Ethnographic Research in Indigenous Taiwan

Chris Upton 歐啟祥 July 30, 2018

     I spent my Fulbright year engaged in ethnographic research on Taiwan’s indigenous communities and their practices, and the ways in which these practices are being addressed under Taiwan law. This year has been a year of returns for me. My family lived in southeastern Taiwan when I was young boy. At that time, the area in which we resided had a high concentration of indigenous peoples, and members of the Amis, Puyuma, and Paiwan tribes were some of our closest friends and neighbors. As a result, this year has been an opportunity for me to return to an island nation that has since transitioned from martial law to democracy; to reconnect with indigenous communities that were so much a part of my life as a youth; to revisit old memories and places; and to create new memories and visit new places, and experience all this newness through the eyes of my two young daughters who accompanied me on my Fulbright research project.      Over the past year, I worked closely with the Bunun, Puyuma, and Truku tribes, and with judges and lawyers involved in the Hualien District Court. I spent my time observing legal proceedings involving indigenous

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Unpacking U.S. Aid in Taiwan: Developmental Perspectives

Elyse Mark 麥麗施 July 25, 2018

     For development scholars, few postwar success stories are more fascinating than that of the four Asian Tigers in the twentieth century. Due to its political isolation, many authors have attributed Taiwan’s miraculous economic growth to long-term stimulus from U.S. aid packages in the post-WWII period. International relations (IR) scholars have historically neglected development studies, preferring to focus on the state-centric power dynamics of the overall international system rather than developing nations of the global “periphery.” IR theorists often view the global system in terms of national interest, balance of power, material capacity, and institutionalism; these levels of analysis frame cooperation (e.g. development assistance) as either a self-interested means to bolster state security or a selfless effort to affect positive change. Beginning in the postwar period, classic development theories emerged that sought to explain how underdeveloped nations might join the industrialized world, a question that contemporary scholars continue to examine today. This piece examines the mechanisms underlying Taiwanese development from a variety of theoretical perspectives developed in the second half of the twentieth century.      Modernization theory suggests any country can achieve highly developed status as long as it follows in the footsteps of the industrialized North, and

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Putting Memory to Work: The Ming Court and the Legacy of the Mongol Empire

David M. Robinson 魯大維 July 25, 2018

     Empires create legacies that successors use in diverse ways.  My project explores the court of China’s Ming dynasty (1368-1644) on a broad Eurasian stage.  It focuses on a moment when much of Eurasia shared a common reference point, the Mongol empire.  In the thirteenth century, the Mongols created the greatest land empire in history; their courts in China, Persia, and southern Russia were centers of wealth, learning, power, religion, and lavish spectacle. Scholars have rightly stressed the Mongol empire’s lasting impact on later ages, drawing attention to the emergence of an early modern global economy, the rise of Western Europe, and the development of the concept and practice of world history.  I tell the story from a different perspective. Rather than focus on how the Mongol empire shaped those who followed in its wake, I trace how ambitious men throughout Eurasia sought to exploit the memory, institutions, and personnel networks of the fallen empire. In other words, I highlight the historical agency of these rulers and their courts as they selectively appropriated elements of the Mongol legacy to advance their interests.      My work takes advantage of momentum in several fields of early modern history. Scholars have

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Everyday Life on Yongkang Jie

Kay Duffy 杜圭 July 25, 2018

      In 2016-2017, I conducted research for my dissertation on early medieval Chinese literature in Taipei as a Fulbright Fellow. Upon arriving in Taipei in early September, my husband and I set to work trying to find a home for the year. Over the summer, I had spent hours “researching” life in Taipei (reading food blogs), but our main concern upon arrival was finding a place accessible to our respective research institutions, National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica. After a few disheartening weeks sifting through online apartment listings, we found a place near Yongkang Jie, a street in Da’an District. Before moving there, I had only been to Yongkang Jie once, for a quick dinner. It was a just a few days after arriving in the city, and on the rainy evening the bright, narrow alleys were somewhat disorienting.  I remember thinking, “What a neat area! I’m glad I got to see it once…”        At the time, I didn’t have a strong sense of the history of the neighborhood, whose distinctive character has been shaped over the years by community activism, government bureaucracy, and commerce. Once the preserve of Japanese officials, Yongkang Jie and the adjacent

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Active aging through the socio-ecological model

Hsueh-Wen Chow 周學雯 July 23, 2018

     I was very honored to receive the opportunity to conduct my research project in UC Berkeley, US in the academic year of 2015-2016. My project was supported by both the Fulbright-Formosa Plastics Group Senior Scholar Scholarship and The Top University Strategic Alliance in the Republic of China (Taiwan). What follows is a brief summary of the research and my personal reflections. Research Populations of older adults are increasing dramatically worldwide, especially in Taiwan. Aging populations have major social and economic consequences. Such consequences can be mediated by active aging. Reducing sedentary lifestyles and increasing social participation represent identifiable preventative strategies. However, developing initiatives to increase physical activity among seniors remains a pressing challenge in public health.      Park and recreation professionals are as important contributors since built- environments, especially recreational sites and parks, are the preferred venues for most seniors for increasing physical activity, and these places are more effective than other programs in terms of sustainability and reaching populations. Framed from a socio-ecological model, this research project investigates various factors, including informational, socio-cultural, natural, intrapersonal, perceptional, behavioral, circumstantial, and governmental environments to examine the effect of park-based physical activity on seniors’ health in conjunction with a

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Altered functional connectivity of semantic processing in youths with autism

Tai-Li Chou 周泰立 July 23, 2018

     Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have aberrant neural activity during semantic judgments. I aimed to examine age-dependent neural correlates of semantic processing in boys with ASD as compared to those in typically developing boys (TD). I used functional MRI to investigate 37 boys with ASD (mean age = 13.3 years, standard deviation = 2.4) and 35 age-, sex-, intelligence quotient (IQ)- and handedness-matched TD boys (mean age = 13.3 years, standard deviation = 2.7) from age 8 to 18 years. Participants had to indicate whether pairs of Chinese characters presented visually were related in meaning. Group (ASD, TD) x Age (Old, Young) ANOVA was used to examine the difference of age-related changes. Direct comparisons between the adolescent group and the child group were performed. Functional connectivity was also used to estimate the directional influence among brain regions for participants. The behavioral results showed that the ASD group had lower accuracy in the related condition relative to the TD group. The neuroimaging results showed greater activation in the cuneus and less activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in boys with ASD than TD boys. Children with ASD produced greater activation in the cuneus than TD children.

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Reflections on the Fulbright Taiwan Experience

Sandy Soohoo-Refaei November 29, 2017

It is with great anticipation and excitement that I embark on this new journey of exploration, discovery and learning through the Fulbright Taiwan program. I deeply appreciate the thorough preparations and full support from the dedicated staff of the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan); I felt well taken care of from as early as the pre-departure stage. My first Fulbright experience was in Japan fifteen years ago. It was an amazing experience both culturally and educationally. Since then, I’ve had many opportunities to participate in educational visits almost annually in countries such as Spain, Germany, Cuba, South Africa, and China, yet Fulbright’s mission to provide participants from both the United States and the host country with the opportunity “to gain a little more knowledge, reason and compassion, while reducing conflict” sets this program above the rest. Working with Fulbright means collaborating with people who are passionate about international educational exchanges and devoted to promoting world peace. I.  Fulbright Taiwan Group 2017 We are a diverse group from eleven educational institutions in different parts of the United States, and each group member brings with them extensive international experiences, interesting personal backgrounds, and professional accomplishments. All participants feel very honored to

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Contents and Orientations of Chinese Nationalist Discourse

Daniel Glockler 葛樂德 November 14, 2017

Chinese nationalism continues to be an important but inadequately understood phenomenon. On the one hand, it is evident that nationhood and national identity are deeply embedded in Chinese society. Polling conducted in 2005 and 2010 among the publics of thirteen Asian countries ranked PRC citizens first in positive feelings towards their nation.1 This unusually strong sense of national pride appears to be supported by a particularly nation-oriented worldview. In but one example, a 2008 survey showed that 84.3 percent of Chinese respondents agreed with the assertion, “Your country should pursue its national interest even if it could harm the interests of another.”2 This is not typical; as Linley notes, only about 40 percent of Japanese affirm such an “unconditional support” for their national interest.3      More importantly, China’s sense of nationhood appears to be highly salient at the individual level. More than four-fifths of PRC citizens polled in 2010 and 2014 agreed, “When other people criticize China, it is as though they are criticizing me.”4 As Dickson writes, “This is a clear indicator that the self-identity of many Chinese is intimately tied to their country.”5 So it was unsurprising when, in late May, a disparaging description of China’s air quality coupled with

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A Case of China’s Economic Power

Grant Nordby 羅若彬 November 13, 2017

A case study provides the opportunity to delve deeper into the perceived advantage that China wields over the United States in monetary power. By analyzing a real world case of Chinese monetary power, this research aims to answer the questions: when is economic coercive action in the Chinese-United States relationship likely to succeed, and why aren’t there more instances in which China tries to make use of its theoretical leverage. Over the course of the case studies, deeper analysis presents a more complex and complicated picture of the broader and more definitive areas of leverage presented in the analysis of economic realities. This suggests that theoretical advantage, while supported by economic figures, can often be hard to capitalize on in reality. In the case of China’s monetary power, this research makes use of “the most likely case” of economic coercive action (Eckstein, 1975). As such, this research aims to take a case of Chinese utilization of economic power that has a high likelihood of success and explore how successful it was in reality as well as what were the circumstances of its failure or success. This falls short of an all-out attempt to disprove the theoretical advantage, as is often

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