University of Hawaii at Manoa Asian Studies Asian Studies Graduate MA Theses 1971--

Asian Studies Graduate MA Theses 1971--

Writing a thesis for the MA in Asian Studies is not compulsory. Those who choose to do so are taking on an additional burden. They do so because they intend to pursue a PhD program or because they want the satisfaction of having done one. These are the theses our program has produced. The division is artificial, but it shows the breadth of interest of our graduates. All theses are available in Hamilton Library.

Arts: A Descriptive Introduction to Vietnamese Traditional Theatre Forms: The Hat Boi and the Hat Cheo Traditions; Babad and Topeng: A Comparative Study; Chronological Development of Kosode Designs in the Edo Period; Gamelan Wanita: A Study of Women's Gamelan in Bali; Gender Representations in Taisho Popular Songbooks; Hula Across the Pacific: A Look at Hula Halau Mehana O Ka La of Tokyo; Japanese Artists in the United States: A Study of Japan-U.S. Artistic Relations; Japanese Colonial Architecture: Power and Authority in Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria; The System of Communication Cycle and Gender Codes in the Presentational Dances of West Java; Traditional Music in Japan's Schools: Reconstructing Cultural Identity; Western Military Field Music in the Late Edo Period: The Introduction of Western Music to Japan
Business: A Business of One's Own: Female Entrepreneurship in Contemporary Japan; A Portrait of a Plastics Company: An Ethnographic Study of a Small Manufacturing Enterprise; Convergence and Fragmentation: Industrial Politics and Information Society in Japan's Information Technology Industries; Southeast Asian Resins: Proven Past, Sustainable Future?; Technology Transfer to the People's Republic of China: Issues in the Transfer of Soft Technology; The Future of Japanese Investment in India; The Political Ecology of Philippine Rural Industrial Development and Environmental Pollution: The Case Study of the Leyte Industrial Development Estate; Towards an Integrated System of Recycling in Taiwan, R.O.C.: A Comparison With Japan and the U.S.; Tourism and Development on Lugu Lake: Understanding the Promises and Perils of China's Burgeoning Tourist Industry
History: Bunbu Ryodo: Actualizing the Myth of Warrior Identity in the Physical Realm; Ch'usa Kim Cong-Hui (1786-1857): The Development of Chusach'e (the Style of Ch'usa) Through the Chinese Metal and Stone Movement; Constructing the Ideal State: The Idea of Sukhothai in Thai History, 1833-1957; Dangerous Memories: War, Chastity, and the Politics of Divorce in Early 17th Century Korea; Power, Personal Bonds and Transformation in Thirteenth Century Japanese Warrior Leadership; Prehistoric Japan: Jomon Contact with the Continent and the Yayoi Transition; Questioning Linked Paradigms: Maitreya, Millenarianism, and Omotokyo, 1982-1935; Reconstructing the Role of the Father: Case Studies in the Literature of Meiji Japan; Social and Political Foundations of Schooling in Colonial Vietnam; Takamure Itsue: Feminist, Anarchist, Historian; The Incidental Colony: Nationalism and Colonialism in Okinawa Before 1945; Viet Nam's Economic Development in the Transitional Period, 1976-1986; Writing Tibetan History: The Discourses of Feudalism and Serfdom in Chinese and Western Historiography
Language, Literature: Quantifier Binding and Phrase Structure in Japanese; Voices From Contemporary Japanese Literature in Postmodern Conditions
Politics: Decentralization and Ethnic Regionalism in Indonesia: The Case of Minhasa; Generating Java: Youth Identify, Nationalism and Modernity in Indonesian Java; Japan's Migration Laws and Policies: The Japanese Brazilian Experience - A Case Study; Japanese Foreign Policy and the Quest for International Acceptance: United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in the Post-Cold War World; Occupation Reform of the Japanese Bureaucracy: The Configuration of Power Relationships in Postwar Japan; The Science, Globality, and Political Economy of BSE and the U.S.-Japan Beef Trade; Security Technology: Aerospace Procurement and Japan's Military Security Strategy; Sino-Russian Relations and the Implications for the Economic Development of Northeast Asia; Sino-Vietnamese Interests Collide in the South China Sea: A Case Study of the Disputed Paracel and Spratly Archipelagos; The Media, Information Technologies and Democratization in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore
Religion: Nichiren and Tendai: An Examination of Nichiren's Use of Tendai; The Role of Buddhism in the Development of Printing in Pre-Song China With Particular Reference to the Lei Feng Ta Dharani; Understanding Javanese Religion Through Javanese Dance; Zazen Returns to Zen Buddhism Sanbo Kyodan: Lay Zen in Contemporary Japan
Social: A Chronicle of the Lives of Francois and Louis Defosse; Abolishing Child Labor in the Philippines: Political History and Prospects for the Future; The Attitudes of Lowland Vietnamese Toward Upland Ethnic Minorities and the Problems of Developing Vietnam's Mountain Regions: An Experiment in Changing Conventional Beliefs; Changing English Education in Japan: From Juken Society to English Acquisition; China's Script Policies and Their Effects on the National Identity of China's Turkic, Muslim Minority Uighurs; Christianity and the British Colonial Project: The Beginnings of Western Elementary Education in India; Constructing and Deconstructing 'Kaigorotan': Examining Attempts to Formulate, Articulate, Legitimate Panethnicity in the Cordillera; Contemporary Japanese Women's Views Toward Marriage and Work: A Questionnaire Survey; Cultural Attitudes as the Basis for Law and Order: Failure to Address the Human Rights of Foreign Women in Japan's Sex Industry; Cultural Policy, Cultural Properties, and Cultural Politics in Okinawa; The Development of Production Responsibility Systems in Anhui; The Dynamics and Realities of Youth Socialization in Contemporary Japan: Conflicts and Compromise; Faces of Protest: Two Global Movements Against the Gulf Wars, a View From Japan; Heirs of Oppression or Progeny of Optimism? Muslim Women in Modern China in the Light of Traditional Chinese and Islamic Perspectives; The Hensachi in Japan's Education: The Changing Calculations of Examination and Nation; Indians in Japan: A Case Study of the Sindhis in Kobe; Indirect Communication and Interpersonal Conflict: A Comparison of Japanese and American College Women; The Influence of Ryosai Kenbo in Japanese Women of Marriageable Age; The Island Closest to Heaven: Japanese Encounters with Fiji; Japan's Declining Birthrate: Exploring Middle-Class Women's Resistance to Traditional Gender; Japan's Fertility Decline: A Biocultural Perspective; Karoshi and the Politics of Workers' Compensation in Japan; Korean Folks and Different Strokes: Diasporic Subjectivity in Korean American Literature; Life in Wartime Japan: A Preliminary Study of Japanese American Experience During the Second World War; Maternalism in the Prewar Japanese Feminist Movement; Mothers, Daughters, and Wives: A Study of Local Government Employees in Rural Japan; Peasant Resistance to Collective Agriculture in Vietnam: Cultural, Political and Economic Perspectives; Pivoting on the Imagery: Life Stories and Identity Narratives of Japanese Women in Hawai'i; The Postwar Health and Fitness of Five Japanese Prefectures; Recurring Dreams and Repetitive Themes: Psychoanalytic Tools and Post-War Japanese Melodramas; The Reemergence of Private Schools in China; 'Scapegoat Suicide' An Analysis of Suicide Related to Scandal in Post-War Japan; The Sinicization and Modernization of Tibetans in Western Sichuan; Status of Educational Resources and Facilities for the Physically and Intellectually Disabled in Thailand; Tattooing Identity on the Skin: The Changing Significance of Iban Tattooing Tradition in Sarawak, Malaysia; Under Construction: Amerasians and Their Mothers in Korean Society; Water in Mainland Southeast Asia: From Sacred to Secular; Western Models, Indonesian 'Modernisms': The Development and Place of Modern Art Within an 'Imagined Community'; Yakuza and Kkangpae: Organized Crime Ties Between Japan and Korea