East Asian Languages & Cultures

Newsletter Fall 2014

Dear Alumni, Students, Friends, and Supporters of the Inside this Issue: Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures,

With this new edition of the annual EALC Newsletter, we update Department News you on significant department developments, faculty accomplishments, and student club activities. New Hires We also bring you student news and feature several alumni. Faculty Updates

Student News We look forward to seeing some of you during the homecoming and reunion weekend in September and hope that you will Alumni Profiles continue to share your stories and experiences by visiting the Department’s website and filling out the alumni form: http:// Student Club Events college.wfu.edu/ealc/alumni/alumni-form

Announcements Department News

We had an unusually busy year and a particularly eventful spring. With only two full-time positions in Japanese language, literature and culture, Professor Yamada’s departure in Spring 2013 presented significant challenges to the Department in general and the Japanese Program in particular. Professor Yamada was on schedule to teach EAL 375 Senior Research Seminar in fall 2013 and EAL 285 Contemporary East Asian Cinema in spring 2014 besides courses in Japanese literature and culture. Professor Andy Rodekohr took over the senior seminar and the contemporary East Asian film class while other faculty members took on Professor Yamada’s advising duties. The Department started a search to replace Professor Yamada last fall and successfully recruited a tenure-track assistant professor of Japanese in spring 2014.

In spring 2014, the Department also clarified its mission and embarked on a comprehensive assessment of the Chinese and Japanese majors. Faculty members chose three learning outcomes and assessed them using a variety of means including focus group meetings and analyses of student projects and tests. The faculty were encouraged by the overall positive findings and formulated action plans to address curricular and pedagogical weaknesses.

In April, the Department sponsored Professor Shigehisa Kuriyama’s visit to Wake Forest University with the Humanities Institute and the Teaching and Learning Center. Professor Kuriyama is a well-known historian of East Asian medicine at and an expert in incorporating digital media in the classroom. In addition to delivering a fascinating lecture on the history of ginseng, Professor Kuriyama gave a talk on multimedia assignments and a workshop on maximizing the potential of PowerPoint. Spotlighting recent experiments at Harvard, Professor Kuriyama discussed new forms of pedagogy made possible by the democratization of audiovisual expression and the implications of electronic media for the future of teaching and scholarship. His lectures and workshop attracted a large audience of students and faculty from the College.

In October 2013, the North Carolina Confucius Institute awarded the Chinese Program $500 worth of books and teaching aids in recognition of the excellent performance of the Wake Forest University students in the 2013 North Carolina Chinese Speech and Writing Contests.

Finally, the Department took steps to enhance its web presence. In August, EALC launched a new website at www.wfu.edu/ealc. EALC is now also on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wfuealc. Alumni can connect via our LinkedIn page at http://www.linkedin.com/groups/WFU-Chinese-Japanese-EAL-Major-4935360. Please visit these sites to view upcoming department events and stay in touch with former classmates and teachers. New Hires

Nicholas Albertson joins the Department as assistant professor of Japanese. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2013, with a dissertation on nature, idealism, and allusion in Romantic poetry of the Meiji-era (1868-1912). His current book project takes this research further by examining competing ideals of poetic realism and objective sketching techniques. Nick was drawn to literature of the Meiji period because of its rich blend of tradition and experimentation in a time of cultural upheaval and rapid scientific progress. But he first fell in love with Japanese language and culture in the sixth grade, when his family spent five months in Kyoto. He went on to major in East Asian Studies at Brown University, and he spent his junior year abroad in Kyoto. After college, he taught English for two years in the northeastern city of Morioka. In graduate school, Nick returned to northeastern Japan to do research at Tohoku University in Sendai. Upon his return to Chicago, he taught courses on Heian-era (794-1185) noblewomen’s diaries, twentieth- century Japanese novels, and concepts of nature in Japanese literature, along with survey courses in Japanese history and literature. He also served as a writing intern for first-year college students. Most recently, he taught Japanese literature and language at Smith College, in his hometown of Northampton, . Nick is energized by the level of interest in East Asian cultures and the dedication among the students at Wake Forest, and he looks forward to teaching a variety of courses here.

The Department also welcomes three part-time instructors Li-Jung Lee, Kazumasa Ueda and I-Ning Huang this fall.

Li-Jung Lee received her M. A. degree from the Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University. She is interested in cultural communication and second language learning. In her spare time, she likes to jog on the campus and watching films. She is extremely happy about the many wonderful resources available for language teachers at Wake Forest University.

Kazumasa Ueda graduated from Kansai Gaidai in Osaka, Japan with a B. A. in English. He took Japanese linguistics classes in college and became interested in teaching Japanese. He hopes to gain valuable experience at Wake Forest University under Professor Yasuko Takada’s guidance. After leaving Wake Forest University, he plans to attend graduate school and study Japanese linguistics and pedagogy. His goal is to teach Japanese as a foreign language in a university setting.

I-Ning Huang graduated from National Tsing-hua University in Taiwan. Currently, she is finishing her master’s degree in Chinese language pedagogy at National Taiwan Normal University. She has taught American and Japanese college students for several different academic programs in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of . At Wake Forest University she will assist in the Department’s first and second-year Chinese classes. Faculty Updates

Fengyan Hu, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Chinese, travelled to Orlando, Florida to participate in the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) conference in November 2013. At the conference, she gave a paper titled “Textbook Writing of Advanced-level Business Chinese: a Case Study.” Based on her experiences with several textbooks and her analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, she wrote and presented a sample chapter focusing on Coca-Cola’s entry into the Chinese market.

Working jointly with the Chinese Club members and other colleagues in the Chinese Program, she organized several activities such as Chinese tables, the Chinese Spring Festival Celebration and Chinese movie nights. On April 5, 2014, she attended two workshops “Survey Design for Chinese L2 Classroom Studies”and “Introduction to Comprehensible Input and TPRS for Teaching Chinese” at Duke University.

Fangfang Li, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Chinese, co-organized Chinese speaking roundtables, a Chinese cooking event, movie nights, and a celebration of the Chinese Lantern Festival enhancing students’ Chinese language skills and helped them understand Chinese culture and society. In fall 2013, she joined a faculty book discussion group. In spring 2014 she attended a number of workshops sponsored by the Wake Forest professional development center and a teacher outreach workshop at Duke University. She received a certificate of achievement from the Confucius Institute of North Carolina in recognition of her contributions to the 2013 North Carolina Chinese Speech & Writing Contests. She also created a Facebook page for the Department.

Yasuko Takata Rallings, Associate Professor of the Practice in Japanese, derives her greatest satisfaction from teaching first through third-year Japanese classes. She has also been very active in various professional organizations. She presented “Project Work in the Japanese Classroom: Ensuring Learning and Motivating Students” at the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina Fall Conference in October, 2013. She also co-presented “Developing Language-Focused Tasks in Content-Based Instruction“ with Professor Noriko Fujioka-Ito of the University of Cincinnati at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Annual Convention in Orlando, FL in November, 2013. In addition, she is the second vice president of the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC), and helped organize the FLANC Spring Conference at the UNC-Asheville in March, 2014 as the Program Chair. The conference attracted over 130 K-16 world language teachers from all over North Carolina. She has also been serving on the Board of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) as the 2013-2014 Fall Conference Co-Director.

In April the College awarded Professor Rallings a prestigious Wright Family Faculty Fellowship in recognition of her excellence in teaching, mentoring and professional development. We hope you will join us in congratulating Professor Rallings! Faculty Updates

Andy Rodekohr, Assistant Professor of Chinese, stayed busy in his second year at Wake Forest. He and his wife celebrated the birth of their second daughter, Maggie, in July of 2013. In the fall semester, Andy taught three courses, including for the first time the Department of East Asian Languages' Senior Seminar. This iteration of the seminar combined a survey of East Asian media and cultural studies with thesis-writing training and instruction. This course also yielded two Honors' Theses (one on the social and political implications of indie rock in the PRC, and one on the intersection of video game and yakuza cultures in contemporary Japan) that Andy had the pleasure of supervising to completion in the spring semester. In the spring, Andy also taught the Contemporary East Asian Cinema course for the first time. This course is focused through two main points of inquiry -- "New Wave" and "genre" -- to explore the development of a transnational imaginary in recent films from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand.

In January of 2014, Andy travelled to Durham for the annual meeting of the Southeastern Regional Association for Asian Studies, where he presented a paper titled "Document or Surveillance? The Politics of the Camera’s Presence in Recent Chinese Film." This presentation, part of an ongoing project, looks at the rise of "camera consciousness" in documentary and fiction film from the PRC and inquiries into the possibility of a "just" camera able to capture the unevenness contemporary Chinese reality. In May a Chinese translation of his article "Lu Xun and the Figure of the Crowd" was published in the journal Wenxue (Literature). This article, drawn from Andy's larger book project on crowds and masses in modern China, looks at the ways the founding father of modern Chinese literature dealt with the problems of crowd representation. The crowd in Lu Xun cannot be simply reduced to either a powerful symbol of national solidarity or a regressive marker of the mindless rabble; rather, Andy argues, the crowd is a site of dialectical confrontation between these positions through which Lu Xun situates his own role as a modern, intellectual writer.

Yaohua Shi Associate Professor of Chinese and Chair of the Department, enjoyed teaching courses in Chinese literature, early 20th-century Chinese modernism, and East Asian cultures. He also went back to teaching Chinese last fall. Because of increased enrollment, the Department offered a second section of CHI 220 for the first time. As a result, Professor Shi took over CHI 231 Advanced Chinese III. It was a very lively class. Most of the students had recently returned from studying in China but came from a wide range of academic disciplines with different interests and needs. Professor Shi also helped three Chinese majors tackle research materials in the original language for their senior projects.

In January of 2014 Simon & Schuster published an audio Mandarin course that he wrote for the publisher’s popular Pimsleur foreign language audio series. In July the Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center at Ohio State University published on its website “Indian Summer” a short story by the Chinese writer Yang Jiang that Professor Shi had translated with Judith Amory. The translation was originally to be included in a special edition of the journal Renditions but was left out for lack of space. Professor Shi just signed a contract with the People’s Literature Press in to translate the sequel to Yang Jiang’s novel Xizao (Baptism, literally “bathing”) with Judith Amory. Their English translation of the original novel was published by the Hong Kong University Press in 2007. Yang Jiang achieved literary success in the 1940s as a playwright. Starting in the 1950s she became a celebrated translator of French and Spanish picaresque fiction. Her great accomplishment as a translator, however, is the first unabridged Chinese version of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes from the original Spanish. After the Cultural Revolution, she returned to the public eye as a memoirist and essayist. Her book Six Chapters of My Life ‘Downunder’ records the turbulent times that she and her husband Qian Zhongshu, a famous scholar and novelist, went through in the 1960s and ‘70s. In 1988 at the age of 77 she published her first novel Xizao, which depicts the Thought-Reform Campaign by the Chinese Communist Party in the early 1950s. She completed her sequel to the novel shortly before turning 103 in July of this year. It was published a month later. Student News

Yian Wang, a student in Japanese 102 participated in the Japanese Speech Contest at Duke University on March 29, 2014. Her speech, titled “My Hometown” won the second place in the Level 1 category.

This past summer several Chinese major and minor students studied abroad or interned in Shanghai. On June 26, Professor Yaohua Shi got together with Devon Fownes, Joe Klein, and William Anderson as well as alumni Xizi Liao and Jacob Blackwell. Devon and Joe took Chinese classes at Donghua University. William did a summer internship with Syracuse University. Jacob, who graduated from Wake Forest University with a Health & Exercise Science and Chinese Language and Culture double major in 2013, is a rising second-year student at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He spent the summer traveling to over 20 Chinese cities, shadowing doctors, assisting with operations, and studying the health care system of China. Xizi, who also graduated in 2013, studied Japanese at Wake Forest University. She is currently completing her master’s degree in College Counseling and Personnel Services at Appalachian State University. Both Xizi and Professor Shi were back in their hometown visiting family. The group met in the lobby of the historic Hengshan Picardie Hotel and walked down several blocks to Sasha’s, a popular restaurant despite a heavy downpour. Sasha’s occupies a western-style garden house which Jacob Blackwell, Yaohua Shi, used to belong to a prominent Chinese family during the Republican William Anderson, Xizi Liao, Period (1912-1949). From Sasha’s Devon, Joe and William went to another Joe Klein, Devon Fownes establishment in the former French Concession to watch the USA soccer World Cup match with Germany.

Japanese Program Updates

The Japanese Program offers many opportunities for students to be a part of a learning community as well as to experience Japanese culture. In the 2013-2014 academic year, many students attended the activities and events hosted by the Japanese Studies Club. Mr. Ryosuke Sano, Teaching Assistant in Japanese, conducted weekly conversation tables at Benson Center Food Court to help students develop Japanese skills. The annual Japanese program luncheon at Professor Takata-Rallings’ home in April, 2014 was a big celebration of the end of the academic year as well as a fond farewell to the graduating seniors. Alumni Profiles

In this edition of the Newsletter we feature several alumni in their own words.

Dorronda Bordley, Chinese Language and Culture minor, Class of 2014 I decided to pursue the Chinese language and it has really changed my life. I confess, at times I was frustrated. At times I thought maybe I should just take Spanish. However, with a patient and challenging Chinese Language department my reading and listening skills began to improve. I soon become so fascinated with Chinese culture that the fall of my junior year I studied abroad in Shanghai. As a first generation college student, this was the first time I had ever stepped foot outside of the United States, and it was amazing. While taking language and culture classes, I interned for a Chinese marketing company and taught English to migrant children every Monday. My time in China drastically increased my speaking skills, allowed me to really get to know the Chinese lifestyle, and helped me realize that although China is very unique, it is not that much different from the U.S. After graduation, I will be flying to Taitung, Taiwan on the U.S. Fulbright scholarship. For the next year, I will teach English to students in the area as well as promote U.S. Culture. I am very excited for this opportunity and I Dorronda teaching English to migrant hope that it will help me maintain the Chinese language skills taught to me children in China during my four years at Wake. After completing the Fulbright, I will attend law school with a focus on public interest and East Asian studies. I hope to use my degree in the fields of criminal, immigration, and/or international law.

Jacob Nazareth Blackwell (廖一龙), Health & Exercise and Chinese Language & Culture double major, Class of 2013

As a Chinese Language and Culture major at Wake Forest University, I discovered the value of a liberal arts education. My studies in the East Asian Language and Culture department counterbalanced the various science course that I attended in preparation for medical school, and provided an education that profoundly enriched my college experience. Indeed, my Chinese studies were what set me apart from other medical school applicants and was the primary topic of conversation during my interviews because of its uniqueness.

I hold my study abroad experience in China, to be one of the most valuable components of my college education. Studying Chinese both abroad and at Wake Forest not only equipped me with the ability to speak a second language and navigate a different culture, it made me realize the importance of linguistic in constructing the world that we live in. Understanding Chinese allows me to view the world from a different perspective.

Currently I am a rising second-year student at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Over the past summer I spent my time in over 20 different cities in China traveling, shadowing doctors, assisting with operations, and studying the health care system of China. As an executive in the WFSoM Global Health Interest Group and the Integrative Medicine Interest Group, I have maintained my academic interests in the language, society, and culture of China while simultaneously studying medicine with the goal of becoming a Cardiologist. In my free time I volunteer at the Reynolda and Wake Forest Sustainability gardens, practice traditional Chinese watercolor painting, study the culinary arts, ferment wine, exercise, and play erhu. Alumni Profiles

Dian Yuen, Japanese Language and Culture major, Class of 2010

When one thinks of Japan, what comes to mind? Fresh sushi, tranquil shrines and temples, traditional kimono, steaming bowls of ramen, crowded Tokyo subways—absolutely some of the defining characteristics of this unique country. But when I think of Japan, what comes to my mind goes beyond all of those things: standing in front of class after class of Japanese elementary schoolchildren during my work weeks; going grocery shopping at the local Co-Op supermarket; driving on the left side of the road; calling out a humble, “Osaki ni shitsureishimasu, otsukaresama deshita,” as I left the staffroom at the end of every work day; waking up at five in the morning to dig my car out from under two feet of snow that had fallen overnight, just so I would get to work on time; and drinking with coworkers at work enkai parties. I could go on and on, but my list of what it was like to live—actually live—in Japan would be infinitely exhaustless.

As I write these words, nearly one year has passed since I returned to the U.S. from my three-year stint on the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (otherwise known as the JET Programme). I was placed in a “city” called Iwamizawa-shi, in the central part of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. Iwamizawa is located northeast of Sapporo, the capital of the prefecture, roughly half an hour by car. I worked as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT), one of as many as thirteen ALTs living within Iwamizawa at one point. I was assigned to three elementary schools and one junior high school for all three years of my stay there, visiting each school at least once a week and teaching a total of probably 600 or more total students.

Outside of work, I maintained a social life. The advantage of being a JET participant in Hokkaido is that there are as many as 250 other participants on the island that serve as a support network. The Hokkaido Association for Japan Exchange and Teaching (HAJET) is instrumental in organizing events and activities for JETs to mingle and interact. Furthermore, living in Hokkaido meant snow, snow, snow, and LOTS of it! I picked up snowboarding as a hobby, which I have maintained since returning to the U.S. I have also made many lasting friendships, with both other JETs and Japanese people. Those three years have flown by, but I do not regret any of it.

Now, I am preparing to begin my second year of graduate school, pursuing a Master of Science in Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University. Upon finishing my degree, I hope to be able to return to Japan— indeed, to Hokkaido—to possibly work for a ski resort. As I have come to realize: Once a Hokkaidoite, always a Hokkaidoite! Alumni Profiles

Stephen G. Collins – Japanese Language and Culture minor, Class of 2007

I am a proud member of Wake Forest University's class of 2007, having graduated with a B.S. in Finance and a Japanese language Minor. Despite my business-focused education, my favorite times in college were those spent in Takata-Sensei's Japanese classes and at EAL Department events. During Fall of my Junior year, I received an Ambassadorial Scholarship from Rotary Club International, which involved study abroad and home-stay in Tokyo, Japan. Through this experience, I became determined to live and work in Japan after finishing my degree.

In July of 2007, I began a career in banking at Lehman Brothers Japan's Tokyo office. Following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, foreign firms drastically reduced local headcount, moving non-Japanese employees to Singapore and Hong Kong to reduce costs. At this time, a strong command of Japanese language became an essential job skill for those wishing to remain in the Japanese banking industry. It was at this time that I doubled my efforts and Stephen in Okinawa, Japan focused on improving my Business Japanese to meet the demands of the increasingly difficult job market. Thanks to hard work and some luck, I managed to survive the economic downturn, and currently work in Foreign Exchange (FX) distribution at UBS AG's Tokyo office. My daily verbal and written communication with clients is done solely in Japanese. The ability to communicate bilingually has been fundamental to my career progress.

If there's one thing I would recommend to current students, it is to be sure to use their personal time to expose themselves to as much of the language as possible. Extra time spent improving listening, reading,and writing skills as an undergraduate can make a world of difference post-graduation. In particular, I found watching TV and movies helped drastically with my listening and pronunciation. I would like to wish all current students good luck on their quests to Japanese fluency! Student Club Events

The Chinese Studies Club (current president: Scott Munger)

The Chinese Studies Club organized a series of events last year with the help of the Chinese faculty. The Club invited undergraduate students from China to attend several language tables. In November of 2013, the Club hosted a baozi night. More than twenty students learned how to make Chinese dumplings from Hu Laoshi and Li Laoshi. A good time was had by all and the dumplings weren’t bad either! On February 15, 2014, the Club marked the Chinese Lantern Festival with another food event. Club members and other interested students made jiaozi and yuanxiao in the apartment of adjunct instructors Li-Jung Lee and Man-yue Lim. On March 20, 2014, the Club invited three students Scott Munger, James McCallen and Jillian Shuster to share their study abroad experiences in Shanghai, Beijing and Kunming. On March 28th, the Club organized a Chinese film night. The movie Unbeatable (激战) attracted a full house.

Celebrating the Chinese Lantern Festival Chinese Language Table

The Japanese Studies Club (current president: Nanami Miyazaki) The Japanese Studies Club (JSC) is a student organization that explores and discusses Japanese culture. The 2013-2014 academic year was another active year for JSC, with weekly activities including classic and contemporary Japanese film screenings, cooking popular Japanese dishes, and celebrating traditional Japanese holidays such as setsubun. In addition, JSC hosted three campus events: a taiko drumming workshop on November 2nd at Benson Center, a tea ceremony co-hosted with Campus Life on November 7th in Reynolda Hall, and the annual Japanese Spring Festival on April 26th at the Barn. For this year’s Spring Festival, JSC officers and members built a torii shrine gate! JSC is planning many exciting and educational activities and events again for this year. Please visit our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/wfujsc) to learn about what we’re doing!

Tea ceremony photo by Ken Bennett Announcements

Homecoming 2014

This year’s homecoming and reunion weekend takes place September 19-20. We hope that some of you can make it. For a listing of events visit http://homecoming.wfu.edu/.

Upcoming Event:

Carma Hinton Robinson Professor of History and Art History at George Mason University will visit Wake Forest University on Thursday, October 30th, 2014. She will visit classes and attend a roundtable with several faculty to discuss her life and work.

Carma Hinton was born in Beijing and lived there until she was twenty-one. Chinese is her first language and culture. Together with Richard Gordon, Hinton has directed thirteen documentary films about China, including The Gate of Heavenly Peace, Small Happiness, First Moon, All Under Heaven, Abode of Illusion, and Morning Sun.

Hinton is a scholar as well as a filmmaker. She has a Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard University and has held teaching positions at Swarthmore, Wellesley, Northeastern, and MIT. In addition, she has lectured widely on Chinese culture, history, and film at educational institutions both in the United States and around the world.

Her films have been shown in numerous film festivals worldwide, including New York, Berlin, Hong Kong, Vancouver, and San Francisco. They have also been screened at the Film Forum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, among others, and broadcast on television stations around the world, including PBS, the BBC, and ARTE. Awards received include two George Foster Peabody Awards, the American Historical Association's John E. O'Connor Film Award, the International Critics Prize and the Best Social and Political Documentary at the Banff Television Festival, and nominations for Best Documentary Feature by the National Film Board of Canada, the ABCNEWS VideoSource and Pare Lorentz Awards by the International Documentary Association, and a National News & Documentary Emmy Award.