IAS Winter 2025 Newsletter

Welcome from the Director

Greetings!

I hope the winter term is wrapping up smoothly for all of you. I know this academic year has presented challenges, yet I am pleased that IAS has hosted a number of successful events, providing exciting educational opportunities for our community.

In this newsletter, we are delighted to share highlights from the lectures and cultural events we organized or co-sponsored during the Fall and Winter terms. Additionally, I am thrilled to introduce four exciting events coming up this Spring:

Piano/Trombone Performance – Featuring Drs. Susan Chan and Li Kuang (Professors at PSU) alongside their students.

Lecture on the Asian American Myth – Presented by Dr. Jiannbin Shao (Professor at University of Oregon).

Korean Modern Art Talk – Led by Elisabeth Agro (The Nancy M. McNeil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art).

Trena Gillette Memorial Lecture on Korean Street Food – Delivered by Dr. Hyaeweol Choi (President of the Association for Asian Studies and Professor at the University of Iowa).

Scroll down for more details on these exceptional events, and be sure to mark your calendars—these are rare opportunities you won’t want to miss!

In this issue, you’ll also find a special “Community Partner” feature on Jim Mockford, President of the Northwest China Council, who has been a long standing supporter of IAS. Additionally, we celebrate the achievements of our affiliated faculty members and highlight upcoming Asian Studies courses for Spring.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions or inquiries. Stay connected with us by following us on Instagram and liking our page on Facebook—we would love to engage with you!

Hyeyoung Woo, Ph.D.

Director of the Institute for Asian Studies

Professor and Chair of Sociology

A Look Back at Fall & Winter Events

Upcoming Spring Events

Community Partners

Jim Mockford

President of Northwest China Council

^{I have served since 2021 as board president of the Northwest China Council (NWCC), a non-profit non-political organization founded in 1980 to promote a better understanding of China, Chinese Culture, business ties, and US-China relations.}

^{I am a native Portlander and graduated from the University of Oregon Honors College with a BA in Asian Studies and Japanese in 1976 after spending a year at Waseda University in Tokyo (1974-75). I continued graduate studies on China at the University of Washington in 1980 the same year that the NWCC was formed in Portland. I retired in 2021 from a career in consumer electronics software, teaching, and public affairs that enabled me to travel to Asia many times over the years. I am the author of the bilingual Chinese and English illustrated children’s book The Kite That Touched the Sky (2020) and presented a talk about his family connection to China in 2020 that is available on YouTube https://youtu.be/-FsiPYQgoSk and currently has family teaching in China and grandchildren who live in China.}

^{The mission of NWCC is to promote a greater understanding of Chinese history, culture, business, and contemporary affairs in the Pacific Northwest. We have worked to offer Willow Zheng’s Mandarin classes online and developed a series of successful book talk series, creative professional series, and special lectures.}

^{Our partnership with PSU’s Institute for Asian Studies goes back many years and includes cosponsoring of programs related to China at PSU and co-promotion of lectures and events in our respective newsletters and social media channels. On March 6, 2025 we are delighted to co-present with IAS our board member Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Kinkley of St. John’s University and PSU Courtesy Professor his talk at PSU China Mysteries: Crime Novels from China's Others.}

^{NWCC looks forward to the rebuilding of Portland’s Chinatown and Old Town communities that need support for the survival of Lan Su Chinese Garden, Portland Chinatown Museum, Oregon Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Society and other organizations who maintain heritage properties and cultural resources that are important to the future of the city. NWCC acknowledges the difficulty in the current China-US relationship and it will continue to be a challenge to present programming that will bring leading experts to discuss the times that we now live.}

^{However, with the many disruptions in international diplomatic relations there is a role for sub-national organizations to explore the relationships that exist through sister-city associations, non-governmental exchanges, and local academic and community organizations who have their own histories and expertise to share on contemporary China-U.S. relations. Portland for all its current difficulties in returning from the pandemic era also has remarkable institutions and people for us to engage with including the Institute for Asian Studies, Portland State University.}

Faculty Achievements

Honors, Grants and Awards

Liu-Qin Yang was the recipient of the 2024 Journal of Business and Psychology Stan Gully Award for Sustained Excellence in Reviewing. Journal of Business and Psychology (JBP) is one of the premier journals in organizational research (acceptance rate of 4.3%), and this award recognizes a JBP board member who has provided 7 or more years of sustained excellence in reviewing.

Pronoy Rai received the 2024-25 Gerontology Education and Research Initiative research grant (along with Alex Stepick in Sociology) from the PSU Institute on Aging.

Conference Presentations

Woo, Hyeyoung and Jieha Lee. “Invisible Voices: Sexual Desire and Intimacy among Sexual Minority Women in Korea.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Sociological Association, Montreal, CA.

Woo, Hyeyoung and Ui Jeong Moon. “Do Boys Cost More? The Association between Afterschool-Activities and College Enrollment.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Sociological Association, Montreal, CA.

Suwako Watanabe was invited to give a keynote presentation titled, "DEI in Japanese Language Education," at the Washington Association of Teachers of Japanese Spring Conference on February 8, 2025.

Suwako Watanabe gave a panel presentation, "Advisors are our allies," in the panel, "Advocating for World Languages: Structures That Work for the Students You Have," and co-led a Discussion Group on the MLA Report on 2021 Enrollments: Meeting Enrollment Challenges in Languages and Literatures at the Modern Language Association's Convention in New Orleans, LA, on January 10, 2025.

Gamburd, Michele R. 2024. “Gender and alcohol consumption in a Theravada Buddhist village in Sri Lanka.” In Holy Waters: An Interdisciplinary Examination of Religion and Alcohol, edited by Ryan Lemasters and Stephen Covell, 77-95. London: Routledge.

Holt, Jon and Ayumi Naraoka. “A Translation of Shimizu Isao’s Essay ‘The Literati and Painters Depicted in Great People Manga’ with Translators’ Introduction.” The Comics Journal https://www.tcj.com/the-literati-and-painters-depicted-in-great-people-manga/

Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Review of Patrick Fuliang Shan, Li Dazhao: China’s First Communist, Choice 62.3 (Nov. 2024): 62-0775.

Jeffrey C. Kinkley, Review of Perry Link, The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Writings on China (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2025), in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, January 14, 2025. https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/kinkley2/ .

Hyeyoung Woo was featured as a panelist on “New Policies for 2025: Strengthened birth support measures and use of AI education materials.” Arirang News, January 3, 2025."

Yue Ni is Consulting Editor of Journal of Research on Adolescence, starting Jan 2025

Liu-Qin Yang has been working hard to plan the biennial, multidisciplinary conference of Work, Stress and Health to take place in July 2025, at the University of Washington Campus.

Pronoy Rai is appointed Chair of the Awards Committee of the American Association of Geographers for 2025-26.

Pronoy Rai is elected Chair of the American Association of Geographers' Development Geographies Specialty Group for the 2025-27 biennium.

Spring 2025 Courses

Check out some of the upcoming courses

Institute for Asian Studies

Check out our website:

https://www.pdx.edu/asian-studies/

Email us: asianstudies@pdx.edu

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Dr. Ayako Hirata, Associate Professor of Law - University of Tokyo Event Title: Being Legal Professionals in Public Service: Navigating Roles and Responsibilities of Government Lawyers in Japan and the US.

Dr Michelle Gamburd, Professor Anthropology - Liberal Arts & Sciences - Portland State University Event Title: Elder care and financial crisis in Sri Lanka: Intergenerational obligations and international migration

Dr. Evaon Wong, Dean of School of Social Work - Portland State University Event Title: Serving the Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities, Opportunities and Challenges

Juhea Kim, Author of the international bestseller Beasts of a Little Land (Oneworld, 2021) Event Title: "From Portland to St. Petersburg: an Asian American author's journey to writing for the world"

Prof. Janice Lee, Associate Professor of English - Portland State University Event Title: The Princess Bari Myth: On Death, Ritual, Han, and Language in Korean Culture

Dr. Jeffrey Kinkley, Professor of History at St. John's University (ret.) Event Title: China Mysteries: Crime Novels from China's Others. (Book Talk)

Live Performance by Drs Susan Chan (Piano), and Li Kuang with his students Enpeng Cui and Ziqi He (Trombone) Event Title: "Scenes from a Jade Window: Piano and Trombone Music by Contemporary Chinese Composers"

Dr. Jiannbin Shiao, Professor & Department Head - Sociology, University of Oregon Event Title: "Modeling Asian American Exceptionalism in Socioeconomic Attainment"

Elisabeth Agro Nancy M. McNeil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts, Modern and Contemporary Art Department Event Title: "The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989"

_{Trena Gillette Memorial Lecture} by Dr Hyaeweol Choi Department Chair (DEO), Gender & Women Sexuality Studies; Professor Stanley Family and Korea Foundation Chair in Korean Studies Event Title: "The Princess Bari Myth: On Death, Ritual, Han, and Language in Korean Culture"