| It reminds me of advocation to Muslims in the past that they should go as far as China if that was where knowledge and wisdom was seated, and the present Malays are urged to do likewise. Okay, just in the field of academia, especially tertiary (in view of China's rising status to soon challenge USA as superpower?) At one time it was "taboo" to even commend our neighbour to the South as a benchmark for anything progressive with the times for us to emulate. Hey, the Times-they-are-a-Changin', as Bob Dylan and Royal Prof Ungku Aziz would sing; Desi would jest hum te chorus, OK! K Ra La OK as the Chinoserie mixing up their "l"s and "r"s would say. ~~ YL Espouse China's Competitive Spirit | | | |
| |||
| KUALA LUMPUR -- The present generation of young Malays should espouse China's culture of competitiveness to become more innovative and creative, besides being able to think out of the box, Royal Professor Ungku Aziz said. He suggested that the government send Malay students for education at renowned universities in China to inculcate these values in them. "I feel it is about time we shift direction and expand our horizon from looking to Japan and Korea, to China," he said while speaking at a workshop in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the 'Look East Policy' at University Malaya here on Saturday. He said the problem with the current generation of young Malays was that they live in a comfort zone and lack competitiveness, unlike their counterparts and the students in China. "The world is moving but we are not. I am only trying to emphasize here that the Japanese have changed, why have we not?" the distinguished academician stressed. Ungku Aziz opined that studying in China would impact a change in Malay students because mastering the Mandarin language and acquiring skills from that country would already be in itself capable of shaping them to be competitive besides providing them vast potential employment opportunities. "They must acquire such values and bring it back to Malaysia as a means to become progressive and competitive," he said. (Bernama) *************************************************** Another renowned academic shares his perspectives on China of the dynastic periods, and the Chinese Diaspora...BestA you buy a copy of Prof Wang Gungwu's book; okay buy a second copy to gift to Desi if you're inclined towards playing Santa Claus:). From cpiasia.net:) Wang Gungwu’s perspective on the Chinese diaspora Written by Jeffery Sng Thursday, 10 November 2011 15:19 Commentary
Wang Gungwu: Junzi Scholar – Gentleman by Asad-ul Iqbal Latif is a book of conversations with Wang Gungwu published, in 2010, to mark his 80th birthday. These interviews with Wang Gungwu seek to introduce the reader to the life, times and thoughts of an eminent Asian intellectual, scholar, historian, Southeast Asianist, Sinologist and teacher. The text is reflective, lucid, conversational and easy to read. It is a good introduction, for the general reader, to the ideas and thoughts of Wang Gungwu, as well as, the scope of his interest as a public intellectual. Wang Gungwu was born in 1930, in Surabaya, Dutch Indonesia, to an Overseas Chinese teacher, Wang Fo Wen and his wife Ting Yien. Wang Fo Wen had come from Taizhou, China, to teach Chinese in Surabaya. Subsequently, the family moved from the Dutch colony to the British Colony of Malaya. Wang Gungwu grew up in Ipoh where he attended Anderson School. From his parents Wang Gungwu acquired a strong Chinese identity because it pertained to his own past and his parents. Growing up in a European colony impressed upon him deeply that Europeans dominated Asia and that Asians had lost out over the centuries. Why did China after so many centuries of greatness fail to respond to the challenges of the 19th century? The question why China became backward while the West has advanced led him to knock on the door of history for answers. However, the scope of his interest extended beyond China reflecting his multiple identity. Born into a Chinese migrant family, Wang Gungwu became passionately interested in the history of Overseas Chinese and the pattern of China’s relationship with the countries around the South China Sea. The ambivalent relationship between China and her Overseas Chinese as well as the tensions between local nationalisms and the host countries’ resident Chinese communities and the sensitive issue of Communism in the region are reflected in most of his writings. In his interviews with Latif, Wang Gungwu sums up many of the above concerns in his own words. His vivid reminiscences of his childhood and the Japanese Occupation in Colonial Malaya, are charming, poignant and reflects the challenge of identity re-orientation that many Overseas Chinese had to face. His initial encounter with history, as taught in a British colonial school, left him uninspired. History taught in British Colonies meant British Imperial and Commonwealth history. Whilst the English educated their children on the classics of Greece and Rome, British subjects in the colonies were taught what their sailors, soldiers and merchants did to create the British Empire. In his adult life he came to understand that history was regarded as a dangerous subject by the political authorities. The intellectual restrictions imposed on the study of history in Southeast Asia frustrated his quest for answers to the deep questions which had haunted him since his childhood. His youthful intellectual curiosity about China remained unsatisfied. Chinese history was not taught in school, during the “Pre-war” period, because the British wanted to play down Anglo-Chinese conflicts and encourage Chinese emotional outbursts against Japanese Imperialism in China. The strategy of playing the Chinese against the Japanese was probably the most successful British policy contributing to Japan’s military defeat during the Second World War. “The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 gave Chinese nationalism its particular stridence and the war of 1937-1945 still provides the trigger, if not the core, of contemporary Chinese nationalism,” said Wang Gungwu. “Compared to Chinese nationalist passion against the Japanese, even the nationalism against the Great Powers and America seemed pale in retrospect,” he added. Japan was also important in inspiring nationalist movements against Western colonial powers in Southeast Asia after the former defeated Russia in 1905. The Japanese invasions of 1941-1945 speeded up the decolonization process in Southeast Asia. The Second World War brought about the demise of Western Colonialism and the installation of independent nation states throughout Asia. These new states became divided into two opposing camps: Capitalist countries and Communist countries. In post colonial Malaya and Singapore one could not study modern Chinese history because China had become Communist after 1949 and provoked a fiercely anti-Communist reaction in post colonial Southeast Asia. The governments of Malaya and Singapore suspected every Chinese of Communist sympathies. All books published in Chinese about modern China were banned. Communist phobia in the region was intensified by the outbreak of the Korean War, in 1955, followed by America’s prosecution of the Vietnam War ten years later. Anti-Communist propaganda, official suspicion of Chinese intellectuals, the banning of Chinese language books and a travel ban to Communist China had made it almost impossible for an Overseas Chinese to do research on modern China. Unable to do modern Chinese history Wang Gungwu shifted his attention to ancient Chinese history. The scope of political restrictions on Chinese studies was limited to the Communist period. Historical source materials on ancient China are freely available in most countries outside China, although the travel ban to China precluded access to source materials located within the Peoples’ Republic of China. Wang Gungwu’s earliest publications reflected a careful avoidance of modern China. In 1957 he completed “The Structure of Power in North China during the Five Dynasties,” for his Ph.D. Dissertation. “The Nanhai Trade: a study of the early history of Chinese Trade in the South China Sea,” was published a year later. Beside his academic research on ancient China Wang Gungwu also wrote extensively about the Chinese diaspora in the region, although he discouraged the use of the term “diaspora” to describe the migration of Chinese from China because of its association with anti-Chinese propaganda to perpetuate fears of a “Chinese threat” in the South China Sea. He was among the first to describe the dilemmas facing Overseas Chinese as they tried to cope with multiple identities in relation to their country of origin, to their local dialect regions within China and to the host country in which they live. He observed that Overseas Chinese have neither assimilated into Chinese nationalism nor identified with the local nationalisms in their host countries. In turn the rise of local nationalisms sought to enlist and incorporate their resident Chinese communities in building new nations in the wake of decolonization in Southeast Asia. Witnessing at close quarters the formation of Malaysia in 1963 and Singapore’s separation in 1965, in the wake of divisive ethnic politics, must have disappointed his faith that people of diverse heritages could enrich national culture while being loyal citizens to their new nation. Wang Gungwu has been honoured both by his academic peers as well as by governments. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of London, he joined the University of Malaya as Assistant Lecturer in 1957. His talents were recognized at an early age. By 1962, at the age of 32 he became Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Malaya and in the following year a full professor. In his illustrious academic career Wang Gungwu has held eminent appointments in universities and organizations around the world. After teaching at the University of Malaya he moved to Canberra in 1968 to become Professor of Far Eastern History at the Australian National University. The Malaysian Government’s refusal to grant his son a Malaysian Identity Card coupled with restrictions on his freedom to travel freely to China made up his mind to settle and work in Australia. There supported by abundant resources and books on China he was able to renew his academic interest in contemporary China, then in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, without fear of official suspicion or reprisal. Wang Gungwu spent 18 academically productive years of his life in Australia. Australia had brought him closer to China. Consequently, the offer of Vice Chancellorship at Hong Kong University in 1986 proved to be too attractive to pass up. It suddenly presented him with an opportunity to have a close-up view of post Cultural Revolution China. If Australia had provided him with a long distance view of The Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong unwittingly gave him a ringside view of the tragic Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. Despite the apparent setback of Tiananmen Square the decade he spent in Hong Kong convinced him that Deng Xiaoping’s reforms to reunify China had reversed the last period of decline which began in the 19th century. He characterized Deng Xiaoping’s reconstitution of a united China as China’s “Fourth Rise” after the Qin-Han unification, the Sui-Tang reunification and the Ming-Qing reunification of the country. It must be gratifying for him to see a rising China seeking to rejoin world history largely on Chinese terms. He left Hong Kong in 1996 – one year before Britain’s historic handover of Hong Kong to China. In 1996 Wang Gungwu returned to Singapore as Chairman of the East Asian Institute. Starting out as an undergraduate student at the University of Malaya, in Singapore in 1949, his new appointment at the East Asia Institute had brought him back full circle to the island of his youth. Wang Gungwu continues to live in Singapore. Currently, he is also Chairman of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), as well as, Chairman of the Board of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
| |||
Monday, December 19, 2011
Ah, finally a Malaysian academic lauds China as a GOoD model...
Perhaps more than anyone else Wang Gungwu has highlighted the complex dilemmas facing Overseas Chinese living abroad and their interaction with China. In a world dominated by Western science, Western thought and Western scholarship, Wang Gungwu has succeeded in being recognized internationally, as one of the world’s leading historians on China and Southeast Asia.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment