Editor's note.
Jones, David
Welcome to the eleventh volume of East-West Connections. From its inception, Connections has offered scholarly articles on content and pedagogical topics. In this issue, our articles reflect that practice and exhibit the regional range of Asia that includes India, China, Japan, and Myanmar.
This issue is divided thematically into three sections: Development, Global Shaping, and the City; Film and Politics; and Literary Responses to Colonialism. In the first section we are pleased to kick off with "The Impact of the Great Western Development Strategy on Three Provinces of Northwestern China" by Isa Harrison, Meredith Houck, Naushin Jiwani, Richard Mack, and Jennie Welch. This study was overseen by Richard Mack and made possible by a National Science Foundation's "Research Experience for Undergraduates Program." Our next article, "The Canon and the Refle(cts)x: Narrating a Modern City in South Asia" is by Ashish Nangia. Using Chandigarh, the first planned city of India, he addresses how architecture and the building of cities require the praxis of discourse and text as invaluable supplements in understanding urban dynamics. In their "Resistance, Adaptation, and Transformation: How Global Forces Shaped Religion in South Asia," Koushik Ghosh, Dipankar Purkayastha, and Thomas Tenerelli investigate the outcomes of religious cultural clashes and their subsequent adaptions by applying principles from economics.
In the next section, Film and Politics, Julia Quincy considers how films can have an astute philosophical relevance to the global context of law in her "Visualizing War; Affirming Peace Provisions." She focuses on how Japan and the U.S. have been inextricably inter twined since the Treaty of Amity in 1858. In "Critical and Popular Reception in China of the Films on the Nanjing Massacre" Li Pu shifts the conversation to China and Japanese relations as she explores the press discourse and audience reception of three Chinese films about Japanese wartime atrocities. She concludes that films about Japanese war-time atrocities play an important role in replicating, perpetuating, and reinforcing negative historical memories of Japan in Chinese society.
Our final section, Literary Responses to Colonialism, picks up on the themes of the first two sections with "Imagery and Interiority of the 'Real' Chinese: A Feminist Postcolonial Reading of Eileen Chang's 'Love in a Fallen City'" by Bi-Ling Chen. In this article Chen draws upon Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's feminist theory of palimpsest and parody, as well as Homi Bhabha's postcolonial concept of hybridity and Edward Said's Orientalism, to understand how Chang employs culturally specific Chinese images to delineate her protagonists' interiority and negotiate their identities. Our concluding article is "Connecting East and West: Shway Yoe's Burman" by Stephen Keck. In this article Keck makes the case that Shway Yoe's (Sir George Scott) The Burman: His Life and Notions is a good example of attempting to create a deliberate hybrid text. This sense of hybridity is the emergent possibility arising from cultural interfacing and is a thread running through the articles of this issue. Specifically, Keck sees that Scott's efforts should be understood in the broader context of writers who were discontented with their own intellectual traditions and practices. The pseudonym "Shway Yoe," which in Burmese means "Golden Truth," becomes a metaphor for the interaction between cultures. Wherein lies the truth of culture when it interacts with another either through war, trade, or cultural exchange? The "Golden Truth" of this interaction is an emerging theme in this eleventh issue of East-West Connections.
Book reviews remain an integral component of Connections and fall under the guidance of Ronnie Littlejohn. In this issue we feature a review by Rachana Sachdev of Raymond-Jean Frontain and Basudeb Chakraborti's A Talent for the Particular: Critical Essays on R. K. Narayan.
We at East-West Connections and the Association of Regional Centers of Asian Studies are pleased to bring Connections to you. East-West Connections enjoys ongoing support from its contributors, generosity from its editors, and support from patrons. We continue to appreciate moral support from Terry Bigalke (Director of Education at the East-West Center), the East-West Center Alumni Office, and Charles Morrison (President of the East-West Center). We also value the foundation from the Asian Studies Development Program current co-directors, Peter Hershock (East-West Center) and Ned Shultz (University of Hawai'i) and the ASDP staff of Grant Otoshi, and Sandy Osaka. Recently, Betty Buck, former co-director of ASDP, announced her retirement. We thank Betty and former ASDP co-director, Roger T. Ames, for their longtime service to ASDP. East-West Connections: Review of Asian Studies is endorsed by the Association of Regional Centers of Asian Studies.
I remain grateful to the Connections editorial staff of Michele Marion, Ronnie Littlejohn, Jeffrey Dippmann, and Harriette Grissom. John L. Crow, our production editor, has taken us once again from electronic text to a quality journal design. We give a special thanks to Warren Houghtailing of Kapio'lani Community College for his outstanding cover image.
East-West Connections continues in its commitment to cultivate a special place for publishing in Asian studies. We thank you for your continued support.
