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 class-room, 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:

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; TriveniMathur, Fulbright-Nehru Scholar (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”

TriveniGoswamiMathur (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 IaDrang 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

ShekiraRamdass (56)

CONTEMPORARY CULTURE IN ASIA

Japanese “Idols” in Trans-Cultural Reception: The Case of AKB48

Wendy Xie (74)

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 Sūtraand its ‘Bodies’: Physical Bodies, Spiritual Bodies, Bodies of Knowledge

John M. Thompson, Susan Degnan, Caitlin Graney, Ryan McCann and Charles McCracken (131)

SokaGakkai 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

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 ShekiraRamdass

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

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)