Asian Studies

This course examines the “Rise of China” by both theoretically and practically examining the increasingly important role of China in the international system. It covers the main features of Chinese foreign policy and reviews various factors that drive China’s foreign policy behavior, including its national and international priorities, foreign policy-making process, national security, and strategic culture. The course then looks at China’s relations with other major actors in the world including both developed and developing states. It also studies China’s “maritime” rise by analyzing its expanding maritime ambitions and capabilities as well as its role in global and regional governance. The course concludes by looking at the future prospects for Chinese foreign policy.

This course examines Hong Kong’s history through the narratives of women, a group often made invisible in history writing, as social actors in the fabric of (post-)colonial Hong Kong. From elites’ households to squatter huts, from brothels, textile factories to convents and schools, from public housing estates, government offices to LegCo Chamber, women of different generations and ethnicities have been caregivers, breadwinners, and pioneers, contesting the prescribed gender role and identity in a patriarchal society. By examining their private lives and public voices informed by their (marginalized) positions interweaved in different social and historical contexts, this course seeks to not only explore how they lived, or how their lives are shaped and reshaped by their own unyielding efforts, but also how their stories can make their ways into narratives and representations in the history of Hong Kong. 

This course examines Asian popular culture in a global and cross-cultural context, especially its role in the production of meaning and construction of various forms of identity. It examines music, fashion, Bollywood, manga, K-Pop, food, sports, and the arts in specific ethnographic settings in relation to 'dominant ideology', gender, sexuality, race, and social hierarchy. It focuses on the intricate interrelation of power and politics, and the ways in which popular cultures are produced, circulated, marketed, transformed and consumed by different audiences. 

The course surveys the region’s history and contemporary developments from an interdisciplinary perspective, including geography, history, culture, religion, economics and politics. It pays particular attention to how historical, cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions have intersected with contemporary political, economic, and social developments in Asia. It also examines similarities and differences in sub-regions of Asia, namely Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Northeast Asia. 

This course first gives a general overview of the financial system, and makes some comparisons between China and US. The main focus is on the basic economic principles behind the operation of the financial system and financial markets, and how the financial system is related to the real economy. The course is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the structure and function of major financial markets. The second part presents the central bank and its monetary policy. The third part introduces how banks provide liquidity and other financial institutions. Lastly, I will also choose actual events that occurred during the course to conduct analysis and draw conclusions, aiming to help students develop practical, analytical and thinking abilities.

This course provides a broad introduction to the social, cultural and historical aspects of Japan. It examines the key aspects of Japanese culture, the central concerns in Japanese society, and the changes and continuities in Japanese history. By engaging with Japan from a variety of topics that are mostly linked together in a coherent whole, students gain a better understanding of the complexity and diversity of Japanese culture and society.

This course explores the relationship between humans and the environment in Japan. The course examines how humans should interact with and treat the environment that sustains us. It considers the topic from a variety of disciplinary perspectives including myths, literature and thought, popular culture, architecture and art, politics, economy, law, environmentalism, and social movements. 

This course presents how to recognize and appreciate the importance and values of cultural heritages in Hong Kong, China and around the world, and to understand how digital technologies can be used to conserve and preserve cultural heritage worldwide. Three digital preservation projects serve as running examples throughout this course: one from Hong Kong (King Yin Lei virtual reality website), one from Mainland China (e-Dunhuang online gallery), and one from Europe (European digital collections). The course also gives a broad understanding on how economic development and heritage preservation impact us as global citizens in this information age. The capstone of the course is a group project where each group of students uses an off-the-shelf and easy-to-use Web application to create a digital gallery for a cultural heritage in Hong Kong or their own places of origin. The digital gallery is a unique contribution to preserving cultural heritage of the world!

This course examines social change in Hong Kong since from the post-war period. The focus is on how industrialization, urbanization, globalization ,and modernity affect everyday lives, institutions, relationships ,and identities. The first two sections of the course will look at the mechanics of these changes and selected social problems associated with them: the transformation of community life, mental health, political, economic and gender inequalities. The final part will examine the implications of and responses to these problems; the rise of social movements for democracy, experiences of discrimination, the emergence of distinct Hong Kong cultural identities, the search for intimacy, and family life.

This course examines the historical processes and features of China’s consumer culture development in the 20th century, especially after the 1970s.