Rice Asian Studies Review Volume 3 2018-19 Issue rasr.rice.edu ABOUT RICE ASIAN STUDIES REVIEW i Asia in the 21st century is undergoing rapid political, economic, and cultural change. As people, goods, ideas, and cultures reverse colonial fow and begin emanating from Asia across the globe, it is clear that the scholarly lens through which Asia has traditionally been approached by Western-trained academics is sorely in need of revision. Te Rice Asian Studies Review (RASR), as an undergraduate Asia- focused academic journal authored, edited, and published by students, situates itself on the front-line of this process by providing a venue for young scholars to exhibit their own ideas and learn from those of their peers. Our goal is produce a compilation of diverse, unconventional, and informed Asian studies perspectives. As authors, editors, and publishers come together in the production of RASR, this fresh cohort of 21st century scholars hopes to promote a dynamic, modern, and interdisciplinary approach to Asian Studies. From left to right: Coleman Lambo, Flora Naylor, Sophie Laferty, Gennifer Geer, and Erin Ye. VOLUME 3, 2018-19 ISSUE PUBLISHED ON APRIL 2019 Website: rasr.rice.edu Email: [email protected] About the cover: Fifty-one nations and territories defned geographically as “Asia” by the United Nations are represented in decreasing order of population. Designed by Justin Park (McMurtry College, 2017). ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Te 2018-19 RASR staf would like to ofer our sincerest gratitude to everyone in the Chao Center for Asian Studies. Tis third edition would not be possible without the intellectual, emotional, and fnancial support of the Center, as well as the generous eforts of Director Dr. Sonia Ryang and Associate Director Dr. Haejin E. Koh. RASR, in publishing its third volume, indicates it is well on its way to becoming a mainstay of Asian Studies at Rice, and this facet of undergraduate research would be impossible without their support. Te RASR Editors also owe unparalleled thanks to Dr. Sonia Ryang, Dr. John Zammito, Dr. Zobaida Nasreen, and PhD student Timothy Quinn. Te reviews from these experts contributed to the academic caliber of RASR and helped RASR enter into a tradition of high quality published works. Te current editors are forever in debt to the inaugural issue of RASR and the dedicated students who created this academic outlet. Without them, this journal would not exist. Finally, the RASR Editors would like to thank our contributing authors. We are lucky to be able to draw from a wide range of academic disciplines and geographic areas, and this would not be possible without the diverse talents and interests of Rice undergraduate students. As we hope the articles contained in these pages will inspire both new ideas and new scholars, we also thank you for reading. Photo courtesy: “Mechanical Lab Campanile with smoke, Rice Institute.” (1913) Rice University: https:// hdl.handle.net/1911/75075. CONTENTS iii PAGES Complicating Knowledge Production: HIV Research on Kathoey in Tailand by Sarah Gao 1 Japan’s Labor Challenge by Craig Joiner 15 Te Dynamic Role of Chinese National Oil Companies in Central-Provincial Institutional Relationships by Coleman 27 Lambo Early German Romanticism and Neo-Confucianism: Exploring Parallel Developmental Patterns in Man’s Search 41 for Oneness by Laura Li British and Japanese War Brides in Post-World War II Sydney by Susanna Yau 57 Complicating Knowledge Production: HIV Research on Kathoey in Thailand Sarah Gao ABSTRACT Translation is rife with subjectivity and complexities, especially with concepts full of nuances and meanings. “Transgender” is one such concept, one that risks exclusion and erasure when the Western defnition is applied across the world. Tis article attempts to complicate the translations of “transgender” and “Southeast Asia” in HIV/AIDS research by analyzing the experiences of kathoey in Tailand. Tis work is informed by transgender studies, specifcally Don Kulick’s work with travesti in Brazil. Te unique experiences of kathoey are found to be ignored by folding them into the larger category of “transgender,” despite having diferent conceptions of gender and sexual behavior. Tus, this article questions how efective is HIV/AIDS prevention is when informed by diferent understandings of gender. It begs us to ask what other people are being marginalized and excluded in large-scale studies such as global HIV/AIDS research. INTRODUCTION it tries to beneft. HIV/AIDS research by Western At its crux, transgender studies serves to question organizations conducts epistemological violence the category of “transgender” and how methods of on kathoey through their methods of knowledge knowledge production and power construe gender production.1 Translation is fraught with the potential variance as deviant. One specifc way to do this is of misinterpretation. Understandings of gender are to challenge how transgender as a category is used diferent in various cultural contexts, and this paper in cross-cultural contexts, especially those that exist serves to confront the translation of a Western outside of the anglophone West. conception of gender on Tai gender non-conforming In this paper, I will complicate how researchers peoples. studying HIV in Southeast Asia defne both Southeast Asia and transgender populations. By questioning LITERATURE REVIEW the region called “Southeast Asia” I will show the inefectiveness of generalizing health interventions MEDICAL / BIOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS and conclusions on a global scale. By questioning the Human immunodefciency virus (HIV) is a application of “transgender” to gender-variant bodies, viral infection that destroys the CD4 cells of the I will demonstrate the epistemological violence done immune system, which attack infections.2 If left on the kathoey of Tailand through exclusion and untreated, HIV leads to acquired immunodefciency erasure. I understand epistemological violence here syndrome (AIDS), defned by severe immune system as cruelty against communities of people through damage. AIDS makes one especially susceptible to knowledge production. When academic pursuits opportunistic infections or cancers, which signifcantly such as categorization and designation fail to include reduce life expectancy.3 HIV is spread through bodily the full lived experiences of these people, the result fuids; research identifes unprotected sex and needle is a body of knowledge that poses a danger to those sharing as two behaviors that contribute most to HIV it refers to. Others who consume this knowledge incidence.4 understand the community as that represented by HIV was frst identifed in the United States this body of knowledge, even if it may be inaccurate. in 1981, when a number of seemingly healthy gay If action is taken based on this knowledge, it is based young men in New York and California contracted on exclusion and erasure, and ultimately harms those rare infections and cancers.5 However, HIV/AIDS 1 2 HIV RESEARCH ON KATHOEY IN THAILAND spread unequally across the world, with some areas were born in the “wrong body;” for example, a trans still sufering from high rates of infection and some woman would feel as if she was born in the incorrect, countries having rarely seen a diagnosis. male-reading body. Tis dissonance leads to signifcant amounts of stress and engaging in gender-crossing HIV/AIDS HERE - WHAT MAKES changes can decrease this anxiety. Examples of such TRANSGENDER WOMEN IN AMERICA SO changes may include taking hormones or engaging in SUSCEPTIBLE? various surgeries, such as facial feminization or genital Today, antiretroviral therapy (ART), a reconstruction. combination of various medicines, helps people living with HIV to live longer and healthier lives. In GLOBALIZING HIV/AIDS IN addition to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which TRANSGENDER WOMEN prevents people from contracting the disease, HIV can be managed in the community and people who GLOBAL HIV RATES are HIV-positive.6 Unfortunately, HIV/AIDS still Today, over 36 million people live with HIV/ remains a widespread health concern because of drug AIDS.13 However, low-and middle-income countries resistance and doubt of creating an efective vaccine.7 have signifcantly higher rates of HIV than highly- Despite this progress in HIV treatment, many technologized, Western nations.14 A variety of people today are still at risk of contracting HIV. reasons may explain this disparity, such as higher Of these, in the United States, transgender women rates of mother-child transmission and lack of access are disproportionately afected by the disease.8 to testing and prevention methods. Baral identifes Transgender women are 48.8 times as likely to unprotected sex as the main reason transgender be infected with HIV than other adults. Of these women globally get infected with HIV, but they women, trans women of color are even more also note that specifc cultural contexts contribute to susceptible to contracting HIV.9 Many social factors transmission, such as drug use in Pakistan, Indonesia, intersect to generate this increased vulnerability, and Vietnam.15 Additionally, lack of access to ART such as socioeconomic exclusion, homophobia and and other treatments lead to disparities in suppression transphobia from law enforcement and judicial from population to population. systems, stigma, poor mental health, and substance use.10 Various life stressors contribute to promote risky DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS AND sexual behaviors, which then increases the risk of HIV METHODOLOGY - TRAVESTI incidence. Trans women who experience high life Exploring diferent cultural contexts, as Don stress and engage in avoidance coping tend to engage Kulick does in Travestí: Sex, Gender, and Culture in unsafe sex, usually accompanied or brought about among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes, can by substance abuse.11 Generally, gender abuse (either/ provide important nuances to how transgender both physical and emotional), depressive symptoms, identity is experienced globally. Kulick explores and substance abuse increase likelihood of engaging in the travesti of Brazil, (typically) homosexual men unsafe sex.12 who engage in various methods to achieve feminine Tese trans women in the U.S.