Third-year Japanese students have contributed articles about Boulder
written in Japanese to www.BoulderCoUSA.com, a
cybermarketing website run by Kei Izawa and his company, Unkai.com. The project team
provides services to create web sites
in Japanese and offers services--market research, Japanese search engine registration, product
brochures in Japanese, etc.--to
promote those sites to targeted segments in Japan. Profs. Madeline Spring and Chao Fang-yi worked with TAs in the
Chinese program to organize a Chinese New Year's
Celebration to welcome in the Year of the Dragon. There was lots of good food, and students and
TAs from all levels of
Chinese classes participated. A talent show, which included a martial arts demonstration,
singing, the reciting of poetry, and a
special erhu performance topped off the evening's festivities. Sponsored by EALC and ALTEC, the first Chinese-Japanese Language
Contest was held on April 19. It provided
an incentive to the 37 contestants to develop
communication skills vital to students studying the target languages. At Level One contestants
performed skits; Level Two
students gave an interpretation, and Level Three participants presented a research
paper. Nancy J. Andrews - B.A., Asian Studies *** Malachi J. Carré-Smith - Steven Berry Memorial
Scholarship In 1999, the East Asian Library purchased and implemented the
CD-ROM edition of the Siku Quanshu. We welcome faculty
and students to call us for appointment to use the collection. After successful implementation of
the Chinook CJK module in
1998, EAL closed its public card catalog as of June 1999. EAL has been working hard towards
obtaining more space for its
fast-growing collections (last year over 7000 volumes were catalogued and added to the library)
and we look forward to some
real improvement in our space situation in the coming year. This year, a major change will take
place in East Asian libraries in
the U.S.--the change from the Wade Giles romanization system for cataloging Chinese language
materials to the Pinyin system.
We will work hard to make that transition as smooth as possible for our users. New Graduate Internships: EALC has had an active
Internship/Service Learning component in its undergraduate curriculum
for several years, allowing students to receive course credit for supervised community service
projects involving Japanese and
Chinese language and culture. This past year the department has been fortunate to add a graduate
component to this program as
an inaugural participant in a new internship program sponsored by the Center for Humanities and
the Arts (CHA) and the
Woodrow Wilson Center. The CHA is interested in encouraging graduate students in the
humanities to explore employment
opportunities that utilize their humanities degrees outside academics, and to that end part-time,
paid internships with local businesses are being established for graduate students in various
departments. EALC was contacted by the local offices of software
giant Sun Microsystems, and this spring Brent Zionic (M.A. in Japanese) began an internship that
will use both his Japanese
and computer skills. Sun has indicated its interest in employing additional EALC students in the
future, and the department is
anxious to encourage the expansion of this beneficial program. During spring semester 2000, eight CU Japanese language students
served as interns in the third year of "It's Elementary: A
Japanese Language-Culture Service Project," in which the college students visit first-grade
classrooms in the Boulder Valley
School District. The project is coordinated by the Teaching East Asia (TEA) Program at the
Social Science Education Consortium in collaboration with EALC. The project is designed to
give undergraduate language students an opportunity to apply
their Japanese language skills and their knowledge of Japanese culture in a practical setting by
creating and delivering lessons
to young children who are studying Japan as part of Boulder Valley's first-grade social studies
curriculum. The program also
serves to enrich the classroom experience of the elementary students and foster greater interest in
Japan. This year, the interns from EALC were Shannon Sorenson, Laura
Fukuzawa, Malia Cordel, Caleb Ekbad, Leah Englebart,
Sydney Heiman, Mike Merriman, and Brittany Mitchell. The CU students began their internship
in January with several
training and lesson development sessions with TEA staff. Between February and April, the
interns made a total of 65 visits to
29 first-grade classrooms throughout Boulder Valley; they worked with approximately 725
first-grade students. All the
students earned CU credit for spending a minimum of 45 hours preparing and presenting lessons
to the first graders; Sorenson
and Fukuzawa also served as student coordinators for the program at TEA. Reflecting on the
program at the project's closing
meeting in April, one intern noted, "It was really fun; it gave me valuable exposure to teaching. It
was great to see the kids get
so excited about what I could teach them about Japan." --Lynn Parisi, Director, Teaching East
Asia; Acting Co-Director, Social
Science Education Consortium. http://www.ssecinc.org Two CU Boulder teams participated in the college division of the Japan
Bowl on March 8, 2000. One team--Alyssa Sanusi and
Laurel Swift--won third place. The Bowl was sponsored by the Japan America Society of
Colorado and the Japanese Firms
Association of Colorado. A group of second- and third-year students have started the Japan Club.
The club encourages participation by anyone interested
in studying the language and culture of Japan and in promoting cross-cultural understanding
between Japan and other cultures.
It has been meeting every other week and usually has an attendance of 20 people, which
sometimes includes local businessmen
and Japanese nationals who are enrolled in the International English Center and at CU. Logan
Van Der Pyl is the President and
Charles Wallis the Vice-President. Japan Day 2000 took place on March 18 with support from a major
grant from the CU Outreach Committee. Other supporting
organizations included the Japan Information Center, the Center for Asian Studies at
CU-Boulder, and EALC. In addition,
local Japan-related businesses and community people made monetary and in-kind donations. The
day consisted of six programs: mini language lessons; a hands-on session at the Humanities PC
classroom; "Teen Tokyo," an interactive exhibit; cultural demonstrations and
performances; "Fun Activity Room"; and a food and language demo. Approximately 120
high school students, teachers, and parents came from six high schools throughout Colorado.
Over forty volunteers helped in
various capacities throughout the day. Three EALC graduate students--Sarah Dvorak, Tracy
Pollard, and Jessica Arntson--worked hard to make the event a success. The 16th Annual Colorado Japanese Speech Contest was held on March
18 at the CU campus in Boulder in conjunction with
Japan Day. The 22 finalists represented four colleges and universities and one high school. The
three judges were selected from
the UCB campus and the Boulder community. Contestants chose from a list of three topics: 1) Japanese
language learner's responsibilities in the world today; 2) Japanese
culture reflected in the Japanese language; 3) experience as a foreign language learner.
The level of speeches at this year's
contest clearly indicates a rising level of standard in Japanese language education throughout
Colorado and an increase of
interest in Japanese language education and culture. This event also served as a forum for
students and teachers. Again in 2000, a number of CU students, including several EALC
graduates, were selected for participation in the JET (Japan
Exchange Teaching) Program sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbusho).
Participants were selected after a
rigorous application process and interviews and will be placed in school systems and regional
government offices around Japan
to serve as assistant teachers in the mandatory English-language program or as cultural exchange
coordinators. The JET
program is one of the largest and best-organized efforts to promote international understanding,
and it has proved an excellent
"next-step" for graduates anxious to get to Japan to begin using their Japanese skills.
Congratulations to all those selected. Four EALC students--Malia Cordel, Aaron Hayden, Kelly Peters and Nick
Palubinski--participated in the Mentorship Program
sponsored by the Japanese Firms Association of Colorado (JFA) and the Japan America Society
of Colorado (JASC) and won
the best team prize in the college category. Chinese Timothy Davis (M.A., Chinese, 1999) has
completed his first year of Ph.D. work in Chinese literature at Columbia University,
where he holds a five-year fellowship. Tina Jenkins (M.A., Chinese, 1999), Lead
Graduate Teacher for the Chinese TAs, has entered the Chinese track of the Ph.D.
program in Comparative Literature at CU. Jia Jinhua (Ph.D., Fall 1999) received her Ph.D.
in Chinese in December with a thesis on "The Hongzhou School of Chan
Buddhism and the Tang Literati." She has recently taken up a tenure-track position at the City
University of Hong Kong. David A. "Andy" Knight (M.A., Chinese, 2000)
will receive his M.A. in Chinese this summer, with a thesis on the eighth-century poet and
statesman Zhang Jiuling. He was awarded a Devaney Fellowship from CU to continue on to
doctoral studies
here, but instead accepted a six-year fellowship to pursue Ph.D. work in Chinese literature at
Yale University. Keith Kofford, Ph.D. candidate in Chinese,
delivered a paper with Prof. Spring at the annual meeting of the American
Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages held in Dallas in November. Kong Hai Li (Ph.D., Comp. Lit. Chinese track,
1994) received tenure at Swarthmore College. Brigitta Lee (M.A., Chinese, 1998) has been
awarded a five-year fellowship to pursue Ph.D. work in Chinese literature at
Columbia University. She spent the previous two years studying and working in Beijing and
Hawaii. Liu Jianmei (M.A., Chinese, 1992) is teaching at
the University of Maryland. Aurore Loranger will participate in the
U.S./China Links Internship at Qingdao Oceanic University China, program offered
through Ohio State University, training July-August 2000, followed by a 4-month internship in a
Chinese company on the
mainland. Michelle Low (M.A., Chinese, 1998) has entered
the Chinese track of the Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature at CU. Ng Kum-Hoon presented a paper, "Degrees of
Greatness?--A Critique of Ontological Hierarchizing in Rationalistic Objectivist
Theology," at the Second Annual Rocky Mountain Student Philosophy Conference held at the
University of Colorado at
Boulder in April. Wang Ping (M.A., Chinese, 2000) has
completed her M.A. thesis on the late fifth/early sixth-century poet He Xun. She has
been awarded a multi-year fellowship to pursue Ph.D. work in Chinese literature at the
University of Washington. She will
move to Seattle this fall. Wang Wei, Ph.D. candidate in Chinese, taught
this year at the University of Michigan as an instructor. He has been rehired
there for next year. Solomon Weil will be studying Uzbek at Indiana
University this summer and will be back in Boulder in the fall. Drake A. Weisert (M.A., Chinese, Fall 1999) is
now working for the Voice of America in Washington, DC. Nathan Bak is ALTEC liaison and teaching
assistant for the ATLAS project to develop Japanese instructional technology Charlotte Eubanks (Ph.D. candidate in Japanese)
published "Re-Writing Gendered Hierarchies: Tsushima Yuko's The
Marsh" in the Utah Foreign Language Review and is on the board of
graduate students organizing the Third Annual CU East
Asian Graduates Association (CUEAGA) Conference, to be held in November. Michael Glazer (M.A., Japanese, 1999) is
working for Global Knowledge Network, a U.S. company with interests in Japan. David Gotsill, B.A./M.A. student, is at Tsukuba
University on the C.U.-Tsukuba exchange program this year. Mari Hrebenar (M.A., Japanese, 2000) was Lead
Graduate Teacher for the Japanese TAs this year. She has been accepted
into the graduate program in Linguistics. Tetsuya Kirishima (M.A., Japanese, 1999)
entered the Ph.D. program in Japanese pedagogy at the University of Oregon. Christian Reyns (Ph.D., French, 1998; M.A.,
Japanese, 2000) has accepted a tenure-track job at Lafayette College, PA, where
he will teach one course of Japanese Culture. He is co-organizer with Prof. Snyder of the
conference "Japanese Women Filmmakers" (Oct.5-7, 2000, Boulder). Danielle Rocheleau gave a presentation on
loanword use in Japan entitled "Gairaigo Yuuzaa no Furesshu na Imeji, The Fresh
Image of Loanword Users," at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies Final
Speech Event, Yokohama,
Japan, in June. She accepted a position as Assistant to the Consul General at the newly-opened
Consulate General of Japan in
Denver and is working full-time at the Consulate and writing her master's thesis on "Changes in
Morphology, Syntax, and
Semantics of English Loanwords Borrowed into Japanese." Carla Stansifer (M.A., Japanese, 2000)
completed the non-thesis track M.A. with an emphasis on literature and visual
arts. Ben Tompkins (M.A., Japanese, 1999) started
his own translation business in Kansas. Wei Qing (M.A., Japanese, 1999) is currently
working for the Bureau of the Census but will be moving to Tennessee in the
summer where her husband got a job at Middle Tennessee State University. Brent Zionic (M.A., Japanese, 1999) began work
on a degree in computer science here at CU. As the first participant in a new
graduate internship program in the department, he began an internship at Sun Microsystems that
will use both his Japanese and
his computer skills. The CU East Asian Graduates Association (CUEAGA) will hold its third
annual conference November 3-4, 2000. The theme is "Outcasts," and the keynote speaker is Ted
Fowler, author of San'ya Blues. Abstracts are welcome.
Please contact the EALC office for more information. EALC will sponsor an international symposium entitled "Japanese
Women Filmmakers" from October 5-7, 2000. The
colloquium will be the culmination of a five-week film series by women directors held in
conjunction with the campus International Film Series and will bring together two dozen experts
on Japanese cinema from Japan, Europe, and the United States.
The keynote speakers will be Kawase Naomi, one of Japan's most important filmmakers and
director of Moe no suzaku, and
Professor Keiko McDonald of Pittsburgh University. Panels of papers by film scholars will be
presented on subjects ranging
from classic actress/director Tanaka Kinuyo to contemporary women's animation. A number of
films will also be screened
during the conference. All events will be held in the Humanities Building, and all are free and
open to the public. The EALC
community is encouraged to attend this first-of-its-kind event. For more information and a
conference schedule, please contact
the EALC office. Campus lectures and workshops sponsored or co-sponsored by EALC
included: Sumiko Iwao, Prof. Emeritus, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, Member of
the Japanese Prime Minister's Task Force on
Problems of Youth, "Children and Violence: Comparing American and Japanese Solutions,"
September 23. Professor Zhou Wu, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Modern
History Division, "Reflections on the State of 'Shanghai
Studies' in China," September 24. Dr. Shen Hongxun, Director of the Buqi Institute International, Honorary
Chair of the China Qigong Science Association.
"Empty Force: Principles of Chinese Mind/Body Practice," October 8. The Midwest Association of Japanese Literary Studies (MAJLS)
conference, "Issues of Canonicity and Canon Formation in
Japanese Literary Studies," took place in November in Boulder, with attendees from all over the
country and abroad, including
Korea and Australia. Principal speakers at the conference were Takahashi Mutsuo (author and
poet), Kubota Jun (scholar of
medieval waka), and Suzuki Sadami (scholar of modern Japanese literature and
author of several books on literary criticism). Candace Chou, National Foreign Language Resource Center, University
of Hawai'i, presented a technology workshop on
"Using Dreamweaver and Fireworks for Creating Chinese and Japanese Language Teaching
Materials in one of the new high-tech classrooms in the Humanities Building in
February. Tu Xinshi, Calligraphy Demonstration, February 23. Mr. Tu has exhibited
in China publishes a local Chinese newspaper. The
lecture was attended by students and faculty in both Japanese and Chinese and was warmly
received. Mo Yan, Author of Red Sorghum, spoke on his new novel
The Republic of Wine, March 21. The Center for Asian Studies conference on "Asian Human Rights:
Critical Issues" was held on April 7-8. The keynote
address, "Universalizing the Universal Declaration," was given by Daniel Lev, Political Science,
Univ. of Washington. Topics
included self-determination and human rights in Southeast Asia, religious freedoms in East Asia,
gender and women's rights in
South Asia, and labor and workplace rights in Asia. Wang Hui, Chief Editor of the journal Dushi [The Reader],
Visiting Professor, University of Washington, "Intellectual
Debates in 90s' China," April 10. Dong Kun, Prof. of Linguistics, Assoc. Director of the Institute of
Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
"Chinese Characters at the Turn of the Century: Past and Future," April 14. Prof. Yu Hsiao-jung, Director of the Chinese Language Program at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, presented "A
Demonstration of 'Cyber-Chinese,' an Interactive Computer Program," in April. Professor Jintana Thunwaniwat spoke on "Chinese Influence on Thai
Literature and the Arts" in May. Hirofumi Yamamoto of the University of Tsukuba visited Boulder for ten
days to advise on Japanese instructional technology
development.
BoulderCoUSA.com
Chinese-Japanese Language
Contest
Malachi J. Carré-Smith - B.A., Asian Studies, Japanese
Daniel J. Elgin - B.A., Chinese
Colin T. Flahive - B.A., Asian Studies
Chu P. Ho - B.A., Chinese
Mari J. Hrebenar - M.A., Japanese
Yuki E. Hung - B.A., Japanese
Jia Jinhua - Ph.D., Chinese
Tetsuya Kirishima - M.A., Japanese
David A. Knight - M.A., Chinese
Benjamin T. Matsuda - B.A., Japanese
Monica R. Morales - B.A., Asian Studies
Susan M. Morton - B.A., Japanese
Helen S. Pa - B.A., Chinese
Wei Qing - M.A., Japanese
Christian Reyns - M.A., Japanese
Nancy Robinson - M.A., Chinese
Peter D. Sakosky - B.A., Asian Studies
Naoki Shikimachi - M.A., Japanese
Yoko Shiota - M.A., Japanese
Lloyd R. Slevc - B.A., Chinese
Michael K. Staley - B.A./M.A., Japanese
Sean M. Stallings - B.A., Asian Studies
Carla S. Stansifer - M.A., Japanese
Lee S. Vigil - B.A., Japanese
Ping Wang - M.A., Chinese
Bruce B. Watts - M.A., Chinese
Drake A. Weisert - M.A., Chinese
Huijie Zhang - M.A., Chinese
Brent A. Zionic - M.A., Japanese
Daniel J. Elgin - Van Ek Award
Mavourneen L. Graves - Lamont Scholarship for Chinese
Lucius Q. Morehouse - Lamont Scholarship for Japanese
Charles R. Wallis II - Steven Berry Memorial Scholarship
Internship and Service
Learning
Tim Wai-keung Chan, Ph.D., Chinese 1999, taught
this year at Ohio State University as a visiting assistant professor. He will
be moving to the University of Sydney in Australia, where he has accepted a tenure-track
position.
Japanese
Jessica Arntson will be the Lead Graduate Teacher
for Japanese TAs next year.