Preface
Although my primary focus of study at Rice University was Mechanical Engineering, my fascination with Asia and my four study abroad sojourns there as an undergrad helped me to attain an Asian Studies degree as well. I didn’t really need the degree, and I certainly didn’t think it would be of any use in the job market. But I was certain that I possessed a much greater interest in Asia than in engineering, and planned to spend a fair share of my life in Asia. So useless or not, I was very happy to have the degree (and very thankful to Professor Smith for helping me secure it!).
Recently the Asian Studies department at Rice contacted me and asked me to write a letter about myself for their bulletin. I think they were reaching out to a number of their alumni and asking them to write letters about what they were currently doing and how their Asian Studies degrees had helped them in their careers. This was probably an attempt to convince current and prospective students that an Asian Studies degree was an economically viable option, and that they would have a wide range of job options with such a useful degree (I’d certainly have needed that kind of convincing while at Rice had I not been pursuing an engineering degree at the same time). The fact that I’m now back in school getting a Masters in Asian Studies may not seem very convincing to students wanting to go straight out and find work with their degree in a few years, but the great experiences I’ve had while studying and working in Asia could possibly serve as enticement to stick with the field, so I wrote the following letter in response to their request. I’m posting it here for the rest of you prospective Asian Studies students out there who need a little extra encouragement (or perhaps discouragement depending on how you view my experiences) to pursue Asian Studies as a viable academic and career path.
The Letter
Having used my Asian Studies classes mainly as a means to fill in the gaps of boredom and monotony that the life of an engineering student inevitably produces, initially I thought I’d never really put this supplementary B.A. to use in a world insatiably hungry for the trusty old BS (periods intentionally omitted). Yet as graduation drew closer and closer, I had absolutely no inclination to join my engineering peers working at refineries in Stinkadena (that’s Pasadena for you non-native Houstonians) or designing space shuttle toilets for NASA. Sure, the money would have been great, I could have paid off my student loans in my first six months out of school, and by now I could have an oversized house with a fully stocked three-car garage. But how terribly exciting is that? The vast contrast between the long, miserable hours invested in pointless problem sets and my many incredible experiences abroad in the world’s most dynamic continent were a clear indication to me that I needed to do something different, and for once it looked as if that ‘supplementary’ Asian Studies degree might just be useful after all.
I spent my first year after graduation teaching English in a small town of 10,000 people in northern Japan under the auspices of the JET program. Although a degree in Asian Studies certainly isn’t a prerequisite for participating in the JET program, my background in Asia, and more importantly my year spent studying abroad in Japan on the Kyushu Exchange, greatly broadened my experience. While the rest of the newbies were still trying to figure out which way to orient themselves over the squat toilets and inquiring around their countryside towns in broken Japanese about where to buy cheese, I was playing soccer with the locals, spending long nights in the local hostess bars with my eccentric boss, and beating taiko drums in the local festivals with my new neighbors.
More importantly, this time around I was able to use my knowledge acquired from Asian Studies classes and my travels and studies abroad in other parts of Asia to make in-depth comparisons between Japan and its Asian neighbors, something I was unable to do my first time abroad in Japan. During spring break, I finally made my long-anticipated pilgrimage to South Korea, a country that had long captured my fascination as a cultural and linguistic link between China and Japan. Despite it’s historic role as an intermediary for the dissemination of information from China to Japan, and it’s brutal history of conquest and occupation by these same two countries, I found in Korea not a mirror image of its neighboring cultures but a self-determined country whose own cultural identity has been strengthened because of, not in spite of, it’s role as East Asia’s middleman. And would I have ever known this sitting in my plush engineering office somewhere in Texas playing with AutoCAD all day? Perhaps from a book, but then I’d merely be taking somebody else’s word for it.
During the long, cold winter months in northern Japan, I found time between my snowboarding and teaching to apply for a scholarship at the East-West Center, a federally funded research center that focuses on the Asia-Pacific region. After four long years of engineering, I had promised myself that glorious sunny morning in May 2002 that this would be the last time I walked across a stage for a piece of paper that cost more than my parent’s house. Not that it was a decision made primarily out of financial concerns – I was just tired of school. But the East West Center sounded different. I’d be studying about Asia. I’d be researching topics of my own choosing. I’d be reading books that wouldn’t put me to sleep before the end of the first page. And I saw no mention in the application of problem sets! Oh yeah, there was one small added bonus that sweetened the offer just a bit. The East West Center is located MUCH closer to Asia than Rice. That in itself isn’t such a big deal, but the fact that much closer means Honolulu, Hawaii did help make the deal a little more enticing, especially since at the time there was well over a meter of snow piled up outside my little Japanese house. So I put many long, cold nights in on my application, and then got back to my snowboarding and teaching. In the end I got the scholarship, and after a fruitful year in the Japanese countryside, I set sail for Honolulu.
These past two years while participating as a research fellow at the East-West Center, I’ve been pursuing my M.A. in Asian Studies with a China focus at the neighboring University of Hawaii. It’s all part of the incredible scholarship that the East-West Center provides me for four semesters, courtesy of good ol’ Uncle Sam. I’ve traded my 50-lb. Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics textbooks for much more portable, and vastly more interesting, books on Asia. When not thoroughly absorbed in my studies of Asia, I’ve managed to squeeze in some other classes of interest that I never had time for as an engineering student at Rice. My second semester I took two classes completely unrelated to my major in an attempt to stimulate those few remaining creative cells in the back of my head that weren’t gobbled up years ago by the more agressive engineering cells. One class was oil painting, and although I thoroughly enjoyed my first venture into the world of pure art, the class was a clear affirmation for me that I should stick with my day job. Whatever that is. With all the talented starving artists out there, I was pretty sure my lack of talent would preclude me from even the smallest moldy breadcrumbs upon which to live. The other class was in filmmaking, and this produced quite the opposite result. I made five short films, serving as screenwriter, cameraman, director, producer, and editor for all of them. I put a lot of work into each film, teaching myself as I went along how to use the video camera and editing software provided by the school. Personal satisfaction alone would have been enough to pay off my hard work on these virgin productions, but I also received the accolades of my classmates and professors, and last month one of my films was invited to screen at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Best of all is that the film was all in Japanese, a very important accomplishment for me personally because if I do pursue filmmaking as a career in the future, it will definitely be in Asia.
In Fall 2004, I took a leave of absence from Hawaii and went to China to study. Although my primary reason for the trip was to study more Chinese, it was also an excuse for me to spend more time traveling in the far western reaches of China and select a topic for my thesis. Although I was unable to make any more short films here, my photography flourished and I thought of several ideas for future films to shoot both in China and Hawaii. Best of all, I was able to combine my new interest in filmmaking with my major by arranging to shoot a documentary with a Tibetan Studies professor at Sichuan University. I recently came back to China for the summer to film the documentary, which I’ve almost completed shooting, and right now am finishing up a script for a short film I plan to shoot with several German and Chinese friends in Chengdu, time permitting. I have one semester left in Hawaii, where I will finish up my thesis and hopefully undertake a few more film projects. I’ve got my plate full right now, but I’ve never been more pleased with the choice of food on it.
Will I someday be a successful filmmaker? A travel photographer in Asia? A researcher or professor? A China or Japan ‘expert’? Who knows. The one thing I do know for sure though is that I almost assuredly wouldn’t have any of these options now had I not pursued Asian Studies while at Rice and spent time abroad in Asia as an undergraduate. My experiences in and related to Asia have certainly not only broadened my perspective, but also my future career possibilities. Surely having my name inscribed in small letters on the back of a NASA shuttle toilet that I designed would be quite a distinction. But having my name in big letters at the end of the next Asian blockbuster would be an even greater honor, and it’s nice to know that dreams like this have the potential to become a reality for me now.
