UH Manoa graduate students awarded for excellence in Chinese studies

HONOLULU — The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa‘s Center for Chinese Studies recently announced the recipients of awards from the Tung Bui Guangdong Project and the Chung-fong and Grace Ning Chinese Studies Fund. The awards of $500 were presented recently to four outstanding graduate students focusing on Chinese studies.

The two recipients of the Tung Bui Guangdong Project Student Excellence Award, designated for students combining the study of China with information technology, are:
· Jennifer Dunn, a student in Asian studies, who has dedicated her academic career to understanding social and cultural aspects of development in China, with emphasis on the multi-cultural Southwestern regions. Her master‘s project for Chinese studies is the production of a documentary exploring culture, tourism and development on Lugu Lake in Northwestern Yunnan.
· Jay Hubert, who is completing a master‘s degree in Asian studies with a focus on China. For his master‘s thesis in Chinese studies, he has begun work on a documentary that explores Sinicization and modernization of Tibetans in the Danba region of Sichuan.

The two recipients of the Chung-fong and Grace Ning Excellence in Chinese Studies Graduate Student Award are:
· Yoshihisa Amae, a student in political science, who began his research on the relationship between China and Taiwan, and its implications for regional security and order. For his dissertation, he is concentrating on Taiwanese nationalism, particularly on the role of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan in the creation of a Taiwan-centered discourse and identity.
· Kuan-hung Chen, a student in philosophy, who is studying Chinese epistemology from the perspective of the Chinese written language and its symbolic power. His master‘s thesis in Chinese studies was titled, "A Philosophical Interpretation of A Book from the Sky," a collection of fantastical characters composed by the famous Chinese artist Xu Bing. Chen‘s essay is being revised for publication in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism.

The Chung-fong and Grace Ning Chinese Studies fund benefits graduate students and faculty members with China-focused academic projects by providing support for conference or research travel; purchase of books, materials, or supplies; and hiring student assistance. The fund is named for the parents of UH Mānoa Center for Chinese Studies Associate Director Cynthia Ning. They were originally from China, but lived in Pakistan for 17 years before arriving in the United States in 1967. Since all four of their children received scholarships for their education in the United States, they set aside a portion of their nest egg to fund a modest endowment at UH to benefit the Chinese Studies Program.