Research Paper Ahoy

(Random picture from Quanzhou, one of my favorites!)

With about two months into this program, China is still as fascinating and foreign as ever! We have all definitely established our routines by this point, though there is quite a ways to go. As a group, we have established our favorite restaurants, our favorite work spots, our favorite people, and some semblance of order has evolved. Yet, homework will always persist!


Soon, we will be beginning our final research projects for our Asian Studies course with the UNC professor that is supervising us throughout this experience. I would love some suggestions for my own topic! The title of the course (ASIA 244) is Mapping Differences: Contemporary Chinese Social and Cultural Practices from Historical Perspectives.


“With the multitude of changes in the reform era of the last thirty years, has China – at least in urban areas such as Xiamen – become just another modern “capitalistic” society? Western visitors to China have had a very long history of writing about the “Middle Kingdom” and its supposed distinctive cultural and social features that set it apart from “the West.” Have those features been displaced by the recent onslaught of the forces of globalization – capital, technology, and cultural products – from the outside, or have those features persisted or perhaps been reconfigured and resurfaced in new guises and forms? How does one tell if something is “Chinese” or not these days? To whom and why is the question important? Or is it important?


The objective of the class is not only to provide the students with some useful context for evaluating the breathtaking pace of change in contemporary China, but also to help them to think critically about what we mean by “difference.” In Xiamen, students will have an opportunity to integrate class readings with their own experience of living in China, and to explore issues relating to a variety of cultural and social practices, such as gender relations, music, medicine, beliefs, sexuality and so on.”


I am hoping to focus my final research paper on video games in contemporary China, but I cannot decide yet which route to take. I can choose to discuss the impact of massively multi-player online role-playing games (and gold farming, the famously Chinese industry of selling virtual money), the blurring of Asian cultures within video games (and doing some “in depth” research with my own video games, of course!), or thinking of different topics to concentrate on. I would also love to investigate the issue of certain games being allowed in China while others are not, but I am afraid this would be a risky topic! :)


Any advice or suggestions would be absolutely wonderful!