Student summer research presentations

Each semester, APSI organizes several events under the banner of our Asia-Pacific Forum. These informal sessions are opportunities for students, faculty, and members of our community to gather and discuss topics of interest, including research projects and opportunities.

At this event, four students will share findings from their summer research: Heyu Yang, Yaming You, Uriel Galace, and Nil Nyah.

Lunch will be provided to registered participants.

Presenters + Abstracts

Image

Uriel Galace—“Does Good Governance Reduce Corruption? Evidence from the Philippines”

abstract

Does good governance reduce corruption? The literature suggests that good governance—the outcomes of which include transparency, accountability, bureaucratic efficiency, political pluralism, and the rule of law—should lead to reduced corruption. However, numerous real-world examples show this relationship is not deterministic, and that corruption can thrive even in good governance environments. This puzzle exists because the precise mechanisms for how good governance actually reduces corruption are not currently well understood. In order to address this issue, this study introduces a model that conceptualizes corruption as a multiple-equilibrium phenomenon driven by agents’ expectations, and models the expected level of corruption in the system as determined by three parameters: social norms, transparency, and accountability. It hypothesizes that when social norms against corruption are strong, corruption will be low, but when social norms are weak, corruption will be determined by the strength of transparency and accountability mechanisms. In order to test these hypotheses empirically, this study employs an instrumental variables regression, using a novel municipal-level dataset from the Philippines that uses unliquidated cash advances from audit reports as a proxy for corruption, an index for measuring local government performance as a proxy for governance quality, and an instrument based on the proportion of Filipino politicians with Hispanic surnames to address unobserved heterogeneity. It also employs fieldwork in select municipalities to qualitatively understand the mechanisms at play. This study contributes to the literature by formally modeling how good governance outcomes shape corruption equilibria as well as introducing a novel instrument for identification.

Image

Nil Nyah—“The Interpretation of English Bare Plurals by Native Japanese Speakers”

abstract

It has been observed that bare plurals in English (e.g., tigers) convey only a generic reading, with a specific reading prohibited (Ionin & Montrul, 2010). In contrast, the Japanese plural marker -tachi has been claimed to allow only a specific reading, with the generic reading unavailable (e.g., Nemoto, 2005). However, based on consultations with native Japanese speakers, we found that both generic and specific readings are readily acceptable for Japanese bare plurals such as tora-tachi (‘tigers’).

If this is true, it raises a poverty-of-stimulus issue for L1 Japanese L2 English learners: can they acquire the restriction that English bare plurals only allow generic readings, given that Japanese equivalents permit both? Also, does English proficiency matter? To address these questions, we conducted a sentence-picture matching truth value judgment (TVJ) task and an English proficiency test (LexTALE; Lemhöfer & Broersma, 2012).

Image

Heyu Yang—“Corporeal De/Relocalization: The Politics of Bodies in Post-socialist Hong Kong Cinema and Literature”

abstract

This project proposes to analyze the theme of de/relocalization emerging in Hong Kong cinema and literature with a focus on the representation and politics of the bodies. The term “de/relocalization” intends to illustrate HK citizens’ attempt to reconstruct local identities under the intertwining between Hong Kong’s decolonial process and the ongoing cultural assimilation from PRC. Building on the theoretical frameworks of corporeality including Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou’s notion of “dispossession” (2013) and Diana Taylor’s discussion of the body as an archive (2006), I argue that the corporeality of the HK locals as explored by local literary and cinematic works serves as a site of resistance and negotiation regarding the seeming impossibility to preserve local consciousness, because the fluidity of the body is able to transcend linear historical storytelling and capture the sentiments which cannot be told and seen.

The paper will first scrutinize the works which emphasize on the subaltern and the marginalized such as Jun Li’s Drifting (2021) and Wong Chun’s Mad World (2017), discussing the relationship between the transition of the local film industry due to declining capital and the major themes of recent local films, while contemplating the disappearing myth of Hong Kong cinema in the present day. It will further examine the historical narrative in Wong Bik-wan’s works such as the nonfiction The Death of Lo Kei (2018), analyzing how the revisiting of the revolutionary times resonates with current political conditions. This paper will eventually examine works written in English by authors who identify as Hong Kongers, some of whom live in Hong Kong and others outside of it, such as Louisa Lim’s Indelible City (2022) and Karen Cheung’s Impossible City (2022), analyzing the diasporic sentiments. Different bodily experience portrayed in these works paints a comprehensive picture of the flow of Hong Kongness and leads to a re-definition of Hong Kong’s cultural subjectivity.

Image

Yaming You—“Pharmaceutical Sciences across Borders: Reinventing Traditional Drugs in Modern Asia, 1900s–1930s”

abstract

Chemical identification and extraction of active ingredients gradually came to dominate the study and usage of traditional Chinese medicinal drugs in the twentieth century. This development in China’s pharmaceutical practice resulted from a collective effort by many Western- and Japan-trained pharmacists and chemists who brought back their newly acquired knowledge to China. 

This paper focuses on Zhao Yuhuang, the leading figure in the development of pharmacognosy and modern bencao (classical Chinese materia medica) in twentieth century China. Zhao matriculated at the Imperial University of Tokyo in Japan in 1909 and studied under the Japanese pharmacognosist Shimoyama Junichiro and pharmaceutical chemist Nagai Nagayoshi. After he returned to China, Zhao introduced the subject of pharmacognosy to China, including one of its basic principles of “active ingredient.” Apropos of the epistemological change, traditional Chinese medicinal plants were rendered lifeless objects for laboratory research, completely detached from the previously holistic approach of traditional medicinal formula (yaofang 药方). The beginning of laboratory experiments on and chemical analyses of traditional Chinese medicinal drugs in early twentieth century China offers a unique case to reconsider how modern science travelled across borders, and its implications for the pharmaceuticalization of global health.