Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 16 (2014)
Contents
THE VIRGINIA REVIEW OF ASIAN STUDIES
VOLUME 16 (2014)
The Virginia Review of Asian Studies (VRAS) is an annual on-line publication of the
Virginia Consortium for Asian Studies (VCAS) and the Department of Asian Studies at
Mary Baldwin College in Staunton Virginia. VRAS (ISSN 2169-6306) replaces the
Occasional Papers of the Virginia Consortium for Asian Studies that was published from
time to time from 1984 through 1988.
VRAS is designed to promote quality scholarship on Asia in Virginia and the Southeast, but
potential articles and reviews from outside the region are welcome as well. The editors of
VRAS invite material on any aspect of Asia Studies for review by the Editor and selected
readers. Because VCAS especially encourages research and study on Asia in the classroom, high quality work from graduate students and advanced undergraduates is very
welcome. Faculty are invited to submit exceptional scholarly work by advanced students.
VRAS is indexed at Asia-Studies.com
Editorial and business matters should be addressed to the Editor:
Dr. Daniel A. Métraux,
Dept. of Asian Studies
Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, VA 24401
Email: dmetraux@mbc.edu
Please submit all material for editorial consideration for the 2015 issue of the VRAS no
later than 15 May 2015.
All rights reserved. No part of the VRAS may be produced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing by the editor. © 2014 by the
Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Editors and Editorial Consultants:
Editor: Daniel A. Métraux, Mary Baldwin College
Associate Editor: James W. Yoxall, Mary Baldwin College
Production Editor: Dustin Yoxall
Editorial Board of Advisors: Wilton Dillon, Smithsonian Institution; Margaret
Richardson, Christopher Newport University; Triveni Mathur, Fulbright-Nehru Scholar
Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 16 (2014)
Contents
(2013-2014); Roderic Owen, Mary Baldwin College; Amy Miller, Mary Baldwin College;
Nasreen Akhtar, International Islamic University, Pakistan
CONTENTS
THE 2014 INDIAN ELECTION
Deciphering the Indian “Dance of Democracy”
Triveni Goswami Mathur (i)
THE LEGACY OF ALBERTO FUJIMORI
Foreigners in Their Own Land: An Interpretation of Alberto Fujimori’s Electoral
Victory in 1990
Ivy Arbulu (1)
Foreword and Update by Jorge Secada
CHINESE PHILOSOPHY AND AMERICAN HISTORY
Confucius in the American Founding: The Founders’ Efforts to Use Confucian
Moral Philosophy to Create New Virtue for the New Nation
Dave Wang (11)
WHEN THINGS STARTED TO GO WRONG IN VIETNAM
A Re-Assessment of the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, 1965: The Role of Airpower,
Heroic Soldiers and the Wrong Lessons
William Head (27)
INDIAN SOCIETAL PROBLEMS
The Socio-Economic impact of HIV/ AIDS on Indian Women
Shekira Ramdass (56)
CONTEMPORARY CULTURE IN ASIA
Japanese “Idols” in Trans-Cultural Reception: The Case of AKB48
Wendy Xie (74)
Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 16 (2014)
Contents
Bodies of Conflict: Asian Conceptual Art in China and India in the 1990s
Margaret Richardson (102)
ASIAN EMIGRATION TO THE WEST
Laotian Emigration: An Untold Story of Searching for a Place to Call Home
Sabrina Phansa (116)
BUDDHISM IN ASIA
The Lotus Sūtra and its ‘Bodies’: Physical Bodies, Spiritual Bodies, Bodies of
Knowledge
John M. Thompson, Susan Degnan, Caitlin Graney, Ryan
McCann and Charles McCracken (131)
Soka Gakkai International: Japanese Buddhism on a Global Scale
Daniel A. Métraux (167)
TEACHING JAPANESE
Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language in a Sociocultural Context
Xuexin Liu (184)
THE U.S. – JAPANESE ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP
The Role of Culture in the U.S.-Japanese Economic Relationship
Kazuo Yagami (193)
CHINESE AT HOME AND ABROAD
A Society in Crisis: China’s Growing Generation Gap
Kelly Donovan (202)
Revisiting Frustrated Micro-Regionalism: An Analytical Eclectic Analysis of the
Greater Tumen Initiative
Tony Tai-Ting Liu (217)
Social-Emotional Adjustment of Chinese Immigrant Children in Western Countries
Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 16 (2014)
Contents
Yonggand Ren and Shirley Wyver (231)
ESSAYS & IDEAS
Economic Literacy and the Tokugawa Era
Lucien Ellington (242)
Korea as a “Degenerate State”: Then and Now
Daniel A. Métraux (251)
BOOK REVIEWS (258)
Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss.
Reviewed by Roderic Owen
Peter Popham, The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi
Reviewed by Shekira Ramdass
David Pilling, Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival
Reviewed by Daniel A. Métraux
Kondo Masaomi, Alfred Deakin: A Scholar Politician Who Founded Australia
Reviewed by Kazuo Yagami
Robert K. Fitts, Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination During the 1934
Tour of Japan
Reviewed by Daniel A. Métraux
Earle Labor, Jack London: An American Life
Reviewed by Daniel A. Métraux
FROM THE EDITOR’s DESK (268)
Tourism Reigns at the DMZ While North Korean and South Korean Vessels
Actively Shell Each Other
Korean Youths Demand International Recognition of Dokdo Island As Belonging to
Korea and Plead for an Apology from Japan for WW II Crimes
Virginia Review of Asian Studies
Volume 16 (2014)
Contents
How This Writer Accidentally Stumbled on Jack London’s Deep Interest In Asia
and His Advocacy of the Concept of the Pacific Rim
Long Lost First-Hand Report on the Kennedy Assassination Details Death Scene at
the White House on 22 November 1963
No Penny For Your Thoughts in Canada
CONTRIBUTORS (280)