Woman on Wheels: Touring Vietnam by Bicycle

On March 23, 2016, IU South Bend archivist Alison Stankrauff gave a presentation on her summer 2016 trip traveling solo through Vietnam, a trip she described as “nothing short of amazing” and “days of wonder.”

She encouraged all her listeners, but especially women, to consider embarking on an adventure on their own and referred them to resources for solo women travelers.

She told her audience that traveling solo had empowered her, allowed her to forge a deeper connection to the places and people where she was visiting, and helped her to think about who she is and what kind of person she would like to be.

This talk was sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and International programs. Thanks to media services for filming the talk.

Alison’s guides introduced her to the people, culture, and food of Vietnam

She had a chance to visit cities

as well as the beautiful countryside

and she loved exploring the public markets

but best of all were the people that she met,

…and the chance to do it on her bike.

More resources for women traveling alone:

Solo Women Travelers – A closed group on Facebook – a*very* affirming group, offers good advice!

Woman  Travel Guide:

HostelWorld – “Solo Female Travel: Nine Myths and One Truth”:

Young Adventuress 

“…one of my big big BIG opinions that I frequently and loudly profess in real life as well as online is the following; I am a strong believer that all women should travel solo, at least once in their lives.”

Jessie on a Journey:  “How Solo Female Travel Changed My Life (And How It Can Change Yours, Too).”

GypsyGals:  A love letter to traveling solo and female in Hanoi!

Women’s Adventure Magazine has Vietnam in its Top 10 Places for Women to Travel Solo:

Women Traveling to Vietnam:

“I have never felt that my gender has been particularly relevant in Asia.”

 

International Curriculum: IU South Bend and China

Recently the New York Times declared that “China is on track to overtake the United States this year as the world’s biggest economy, years sooner than many economists had previously forecast” (Forsythe and Gough). In another article the Times states that “China has become the world’s leading exporter; it also surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest trading nation in 2012” (Heriberto and Cardenal). To understand the world today, it is imperative to know and comprehend the role of China and East Asia. This year IU South Bend is fortunate to have Dr. Ke Ren, a specialist in China and East Asia, as a Visiting Assistant Professor. 

IU South Bend provides numerous opportunities to provide unique and diverse courses to its students. This coming semester Dr. Ren will be teaching Chinese Revolutions and the Communist Regime. This course will focus on the “history of modern China through the lens of the numerous revolutions – Republican, Nationalist, Communist, and Cultural – that marked the twentieth century.”* The course will also “emphasize the socioeconomic and political conditions as well as cultural and intellectual factors, including the legacy of revolution for contemporary Chinese state and society.”

Another course offered by Dr. Ren this semester is Cultural History for Contemporary China. This course focuses on the “cultural and intellectual changes in post-Mao and reform-era China.” This includes exploring present day “literature, film, art, music, academia, and the mass media, it seeks to provide students with an understanding of the interactions between developments in popular, mass and elite culture and the profound social and economic transformations in China over the past three decades.” Courses such as these are vital to understanding the complexity of the global economy. This also makes Dr. Ren’s course, as well as the other courses taught by Dr. Ren and the East Asian Studies faculty, a great addition to every major offered at IU South Bend.

Regardless of career choice, understanding China and East Asia is vital for the growth of our community. Classes such as Chinese Revolutions and the Communist Regime and Cultural History for Contemporary China enrich the lives of IU South Bends students’. This includes both academic and intellectual pursuits as well as understanding the practical reality of East Asia and China’s increasing influence and stature in the World. Students should take this opportunity to take a class with Dr. Ren before he ends his term as a visiting assistant professor.

Works Cited:

Araújo, Heriberto and Juan Pablo Cardenal. “China’s Economic Empire.” New York Times, June 1, 2013.

Forsythe, Michael and Neil Gough. “By One Measure, China Set to Become Largest Economy.” New York Times, April 30, 2014.

*All quotes pertaining to Dr. Ren’s courses are from the IU South Bend Course Catalog

The Continued Adventures of the Foreign Local

Intern Staci Barke is still in Japan doing independent research, and she has several new posts about her experience up on her blog, The Foreign Local. Here’s a list of her posts to date, by date:

May 17:
The Foreign Local
Onward to Tokyo!

May 18:
Taking the Backstreets

May 22:
Party Time! Oh, and Possessed Dolls 
Antiques, Festival, and 2nd Tallest Structure in the World
Strangers? Never Heard of Them!
Let it Go, it is Only Honey

July 21
The iPad Struggle is Real…
Monomachi
Osaka Pt. 1

Take a look at her posts, and get a taste of life in Japan.

Tokyo

Osaka

 

 

The Foreign Local

In mid-May, blog contributor Staci Barke traveled to Tokyo, Japan to do independent research for two months. She’s been posting updates on her blog, The Foreign Local. We’ll be cross-posting her posts here for our reader’s information and enjoyment!

Here’s her first installment, from May 17:

I have always been a last minute traveler. The night before I moved to Korea was when I began to pack. And I packed the morning I left for Germany. Traveling is in my blood, it has always been a passion of mine. The first time I traveled abroad was one month after I turned 15. This was to travel around Japan for 3 weeks with my Japanese teacher and upperclassmen; I was the youngest allowed to go. The next time was 2 years ago in February of 2012 when I moved to South Korea to become an English teacher. This happened on a whim when my boss asked me one morning if I would like to teach in Korea, of course I said yes and 2 months later I was on an airplane. While in Korea I went to Osaka, Japan for a weekend. The following year I was looking at airline tickets to Germany for no apparent reason one night. I found tickets for 50% off! Of course I bought them. And now, summer of 2014, I am back to my first love: Japan. I will be staying here for 2 months to do research on the old districts of Tokyo and the globalization effects the Skytree, the recently built broadcasting tower, has on these areas.

Skytree Tower, Tokyo

When I travel, I try to break down the language and culture barriers. I take the backroads, go where the locals go, and avoid other foreigners. I immerse myself in the language and culture of the country I am in. Because of this, I get accepted into the communities I stay in. This is how I came up with the name for this blog. I want to share my experiences with everyone, which is the reason for this blog. Follow me on my adventures around the world! Hopefully you, too, will be bitten by the travel bug.

Aung San Suu Kyi

In celebration of South Asian Heritage Month in Canada and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in the United States, I will briefly discuss a hero of mine.

When people think of nonviolent freedom fighters throughout history, their minds rightfully race to people like Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, or Mahatma Gandhi. However, a name that is consistently left off this list, which may even deserve to be placed first, is Aung San Suu Kyi. May 6 is the anniversary of President George W. Bush signing legislation conferring the Congressional Gold Medal to Suu Kyi. A small and unimposing woman in a nation that does not praise strong women, Suu Kyi rose up to fight for her people. For two decades, she was a political prisoner in country that brutally oppressed its people, utilized forced labor camps, used rape as a means of control, and forced its citizens into a perpetual state of destitution.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born to a Burmese General Aung San, one of the founders of modern Myanmar, who was assassinated two years after Suu Kyi’s birth. When her mother became the ambassador to India, teenaged Suu Kyi moved with her to India.  After graduation she enrolled at Oxford University in 1964, where she eventually met her future husband, Michael Aris. They were married in 1972. Suu Kyi was considered by many to be a stereotypical housewife and an adoring mother, to the dismay of her numerous feminist-leaning friends, and their first child was born the following year. In 1988, Suu Kyi received a phone call that her mother was in the hospital after suffering a stroke. Without hesitation, she rushed to her ailing mother. That experience was what led her to become a peaceful revolutionary.

While staying at the hospital with her mother, Aung San Suu Kyi met numerous students, monks, and other protesters who were shot during a political demonstration. Suu Kyi knew she needed to fight for her country, but in a nonviolent way — a confrontation of peace. As a child of a political and military hero, she felt that she had the clout to force the military to back down on the violent reprisals against peaceful demonstrations. In front of a reported crowd of 500,000, she delivered her first public address espousing Buddhist values with the principles of Gandhi. Sadly, less than two months after her speech, the military crushed a protest and killed several hundred people. At this time, Suu Kyi realized she would have to sacrifice her life and family for her country.

Unlike most political prisoners, Suu Kyi could have left Burma at any time; the military junta would have even helped her leave. This may have been the best possible solution for the military junta, because execution of the daughter of a national hero could cause an uprising that would be hard to suppress. Her family was only allowed to visit her a few times, which was designed to try to get her to leave, but she and her family held strong to their convictions. This proved to be harder as the first decade of her imprisonment came to an end and Michael, her husband, learned he had prostate cancer. Knowing that his wife would never be allowed back into Myanmar, he sought permission to visit her, but was rejected by the military junta even though Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton wrote letters on his behalf. On March 27, 1999, Michael Aris died of complications from prostate cancer and Suu Kyi was never allowed to visit him, illustrating Suu Kyi’s devotion to her nation.

While a political prisoner, Suu Kyi’s political party won eighty-two percent of the parliamentary seats in the 1990 election, but the junta refused to recognize the results. Also while detained, Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the following year she announced that the prize money would be placed in a trust to help establish health and educational services for the Burmese people. Aung San Suu Kyi struggled for her people and felt that a country that is rich in natural resources should spend more than one percent of the national budget on healthcare and education. She also believes that people have the power to change, and to work together for the betterment of the Burmese people. Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize for these reasons as well as her dedication to nonviolent struggle. With good reason, Suu Kyi distrusts the junta, but has shown some optimism as the current leadership is liberalizing the economy. On November 13, 2010, she was freed from her house arrest and received the first visit from her son in over a decade, a symbolic gesture from the junta on November 23. In total, Suu Kyi spent 15 out of 22 years under house arrest without warrant or trial. In 2012, Suu Kyi successfully ran for political office and the leniency of the new government finally allowed her to receive her Nobel Peace Prize.

Within the twentieth century, the fight for democracy has grown larger than any other time in world history. Imperialism has been overturned and is nearing extinction, and racism and prejudice are halting in numerous nations because people are finally starting to realize that people are really the same regardless of ethnicity and race. Oppression needs to be eliminated, and with willpower and resolve, it will slowly become a thing of the past and something that people will not tolerate. Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the numerous heroes of this cause and she should be praised and upheld as a hero of women and of nonviolent resistance.

References:

Beech, Hannah. “The First Lady of Freedom. (Cover Story).” Time 177.1 (2011): 30-35.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.” New York Times. May 29, 2012.

Frayn, Rebecca. “The Lady’s Destiny.” Newsweek 159.11 (2012): 40-48.

Gluckman, Ron. “Women of Peace.” Newsweek 158.24 (2011): 12-13.

Hookway, James. “Aung San Suu Kyi Steals the Show,” Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2012.

 

 

 

 

India’s Hijra

As of April 15, India now recognizes transgender people as individuals that deserve full rights and recognition under the law. The momentous court ruling views transgender people as a third neutral gender, neither male nor female, and alters government documents to give the option of identifying as a third gender. Article 15 of India’s Constitution states antidiscrimination rights on the basis of caste, race, religion, and sex, but discrimination was still prevalent among the Hijras, which have a long history in India. When handing down the court’s ruling, Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan proclaimed, “Transgenders are citizens of this country … and recognition as a third gender is not a social or medical issue but a human rights issue.”

The Hijras had a long and storied history in India. There are stories about them in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. They were normally devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata or Shiva, identifying with these gods’ gender ambiguity in their various incarnations. During British control over India, the British Raj tried to eliminate the Hijras, believing they were indecent and giving legal sanction to the discrimination that continues today. The over 3 million Hijras are easy targets for discrimination, as their culture promotes unusually bright colored attire and performing certain religious and cultural activities. Often these activities make them extremely visible in communities that contain hostile elements, leaving the Hijras vulnerable to abuse and violence.

Third gender people are recognized and a vital part of numerous cultures throughout the world. Outside the Indian subcontinent, Amerindian populations in North and South American recognize third genders, such as the Zuñi male-bodied Łamana, the Lakota male-bodied winkte and the Mohave male-bodied alyhaa and female-bodied hwamee. The Zapotec’s In Mexico include a third gender, the Muxe. With the court ruling, India joins several South Asian countries to give limited (but important none-the-less) recognition to a third gender, including Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. The first western nation to give limited recognition of third gender identity was Germany, when last year they allowed parents to mark “indeterminate” on birth certificates. The India court, by declaring that “transgender is generally described as an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to their biological sex,” has taken a small but vital step in the recognition of common human rights. Or as Anitha Shenoy, one lawyer who helped argue the case, more elegantly states it, “This is an extremely liberal and progressive decision that takes into consideration the ground realities for transgender people in India…The court says your identity will be based not on your biology but on what you choose to be.”

References:
Ferraro, Gary and Andreatta, Susan. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective (9th Ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.
Limaye, Yogita. “India court recognizes transgender people as third gender.” BBC News, April 15, 2014.
Lalwani, Nikita. “India’s Supreme Court: Transgender is a Third Legal Gender.” The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2014.

The Salt March

84 years ago this month, a sixty year old man took a stand and forever changed the world. Starting on 12 March 1930, Mohandas Gandhi led a 24 day march from, Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, a village on the Arabian Sea. The march, based on tax resistance and anti-colonialism in the guise of salt was based on nonviolent civil disobedience. The march culminated with Gandhi and 79 other people going to the sea and making salt, which was outlawed by the British Colonial Government and heavily taxed.

In other coordinated efforts, Khān Abdul Ghaffār Khān led other groups in various protests. Khān was a lifelong pacifist and extremely devout Muslim, and organized approximately 50,000 other people to perform nonviolent opposition to the British colonial system. Eventually millions of Indians, both male and female, of all religions made salt illegally as a form of civil disobedience. Within the year, over 80,000 Indians were jailed for making salt and performing other forms of nonviolent protest. The Salt March was a watershed moment in peaceful protest in the 20th century and heavily influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights marches:

Like most people, I had heard of Gandhi, but I had never studied him seriously. As I read I became deeply fascinated by his campaigns of nonviolent resistance. I was particularly moved by his Salt March to the Sea and his numerous fasts. The whole concept of Satyagraha (Satya is truth which equals love, and agraha is force; Satyagraha, therefore, means truth force or love force) was profoundly significant to me. As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi, my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform.

China, the New Silicon Valley

When many think of China, their minds do not automatically snap to modern technological hub. In an article written on Spiegel Online, Bernhard Zand delves into the new world of technology sweeping through China. Technology here in the United States is a way of life. We use our cell phones on possibly an hourly basis, and frequently check emails. We live in our own little technology bubble. China has begun to burst our bubble. There is a company in China called 36Kr, which is similar to Microsoft and Apple. A few months ago, 36Kr held a party in a nightclub in downtown Beijing where music was played on apps made by 36Kr. There was also a raffle held at the end of the night that required the audience to shake their cellphones:

“Okay, everyone log in to Weixin,” the MC says, “and shake your phones: three, two, one, now!”

Weixin, WeChat in English, is the most successful Chinese chat app and everyone in The Basement had it installed on their mobile devices. When the phone is shaken, the app displays a list of everyone nearby within just seconds. Those at the top of the moderator’s Weixin list win the raffle: iPhones, paid vacation days, giant-screen televisions. One winner is so ecstatic that, new iPad in hand, he begins breakdancing on stage.

A band plays at 36Kr’s New Year party.

This is the new face of China. It is estimated that over 84% of the 1.3 billion people in China have access to cellular devices and internet. Akio Tanaka, a technology investor, said, “When I came to Beijing 10 years ago, China’s Internet was so ugly. But now, the websites of some Chinese vendors are better than those in America.” Beijing is taking an avid interest in technology, and the state is more than willing to help start-up companies get their ideas off the ground. All types of tech giants are now coming to China for ideas in technology, including Facebook, Yahoo, and various social networks. Beijing is becoming the Silicon Valley of China.