Current and Past Research by UW Students

I am studying the implications of ethnic tourism on out-migration in the rural village of Yishala in Panzhihua, Sichuan Province.  I am looking at how potential changes in out-migration affect the residents of Yishala on the community, individual, and family levels.  I expect significant change on all three of these levels, and I plan to focus on two aspects that these changes might affect: 1) yearnings for modernity among the youth; 2) and the high number of bachelors in Yishala.  I am making a documentary to cover these topics. Ben Gersten

In 2003, China became the second largest consumer of energy in the world, second to the United States.  Most of the energy consumed in China, approximately 70% comes from coal and as a result the countries air and overall environmental quality has suffered.  Many research articles have pointed to SO2, NOx, TSP and ozone as the major pollutants present in the Chinese atmosphere and have used measurements of these compounds’ concentrations and decomposition pathways to forecast China’s future air quality.  However, many papers have vastly under-estimated the growth of the Chinese economy, and thus energy consumption and associated air pollution.  Several of the authors also pointed to a lack of field data for rural regions of China as a source of possible inaccuracy, focusing their field measurements on Beijing and Shanghai and using computer and satellite imaging for other regions.  As a research project, I will monitor the air pollution at several places in Chengdu and the surrounding rural areas to determine the air quality and identify the main contributors to pollution in the area.  I will compare this data to relevant forecasts and trend data from the United States.  The combined data will be used to identify trends with more current data, address the rural impact to and from air pollution, and to examine ways to address the problem locally, nationally, and globally. 

I will monitor levels of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and particulate matter.  This can be done through sampling and analysis of air, water, and soil at each site.  Sampling soil and water can further exhibit the effects of harmful pollutants on the ecosystem, by seeing how it affects soil and water composition.  Common laboratory instruments, chemicals, and supplies can be used to carry out these tests, as well as some simple industrial air monitoring devices.  I am in the process of designing exact laboratory techniques and identifying the equipment I will need. Sarah Widder

Communities of deaf and hard of hearing people are found in many parts of the world. In the United States, there is a large deaf/hard of hearing community that uses American Sign Language as their primary mode of communication. Members of this community often see themselves as part of a Deaf Culture; having their own language, stories, and traditions. While studying in Chengdu, I will conduct a research project focusing on the prevailing view of deafness in China, and how this is reflected in deaf education. With this as my research topic, I will be looking into deaf identity (how deaf children and adults view themselves and their place within society), language and culture. Laura DeVere


My research is comparing the old Chinese tea culture and the new coffee era in China. The tea plant, originally used as a medicinal herb, possessed the ability to detoxify and reinvigorate those who used it.  Drinking tea was not only for the quenching of one's thirst, but became a pastime and a means of relaxation.  Tea also influenced and inspired poets, painters, and song writers back in old times to show close relationship between tea and Chinese aesthetics as developing into an almost spiritual experience.  People of all social classes, from the gentry elite to common people alike, enjoyed the pastime of tea drinking and liked to gather together at tea houses. Tea houses were also for people to enjoy entertainment, such as traditional opera and storytelling.  In the other hand, coffee houses in U.S are more like the place where people could socially bond mostly.  Some read while drinking coffee, some just listen to music and drink coffee to relax.  When I read about the relationship between the tea and the people in China, I was wondering how the coffee house would effect and emerge into well- bonded tea and people's relationship.  For example, Professor Harrell was talking about one book in the other day, about the different perspectives towards McDonald of four East Asia countries; Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan.  Each countries had different perspectives toward McDonald because of their own varieties of cultural barriers.  Different age group, gender, and the motivated reason to go to McDonalds were found in each countries.  The coffee in U.S is similar to the tea in China.  Both drinks help people by physically, mentally, and psychologically, except over doze would hurt, but just right amount of tea or coffee would be helpful to people.  I want to research how the coffee houses would settle in Chengdu , and how people in Chengdu would relate to coffee, like they relate to the Chinese tea. Sunhee Boo
     

Plenty of studies have been done about the effect of Chinese tea on Western culture, but what about the effect of coffee, a mostly Western and Middle Eastern beverage, on contemporary urban Chinese culture?  Exactly how popular has coffee become in China in comparison to tea?  What types of people have been choosing coffee over tea?  On the other hand, what types of people now choose tea over coffee?  How and why did coffee become popular in the first place and what will Chinese culture and society do with it in the future?  Will it ever reach the same status as tea in Chinese culture, to the point where an American from Seattle, the coffee capital of the United States, could find a Starbucks on every street corner of Chengdu?  Exactly what do coffee and tea currently mean to the Chinese? Tabitha Hart

The Cultural Revolution undoubtedly impacted China and its people. Within the Han majority, the social experience between 1966 and 1976 had written itself into the human body and emerged as an illness. In addition to feelings of anger, anxiety, and sadness, victims also experienced neurasthenia – “a common syndrome of chronic pain, sleeplessness, fatigue, and dizziness.” The societal breakdown and delegitimation of the decade had manifested itself in physical symptoms. Symbolically representing bodily memory, biography, and social history, these symptoms became the vehicle through which the Han would recall their ordeal.
How did the Nuosu understand and cope with this era? Not only were they facing a period of oppression, but cultural and historical annihilation became a possibility. Restrictions and prohibitions did not allow the bimo to fulfill its social and religious functions, thus severing the mediated ties between the villagers and the supernaturals. Since ancestors, gods, spirits, and ghosts are understood to have significant roles in Nuosu culture, their daily lives were completely disrupted: there were no more peace making with the ancestors, no escorting of ancestors, no preventing of disasters, no expelling of ghosts, no treating of diseases, no asking for fertility, no guiding of souls, no praying for fortune, no divining, and so forth. What, then, was undertaken to substitute for this loss?

My thesis focuses particularly on the bimo’s role as a healer of illness in the Nuosu society and the impact on the concepts of health by the Cultural Revolution when the bimo was stripped of his position. Have the Nuosu, like the Han, manifested their social and cultural experience in an illness only seen after the years of reform? Deborah Sung


I will be performing a herpetology field survey around Yanjuan and Jiuzhaigou.    This will consist of 3 or 4 visits to the field over the course of the year and corresponding to different times in the amphibian and reptile lifecycle.    I intend to go into the countryside and set non lethal traps as well as actively capturing specimens by hand.   Also, I intend to enlist local school children to help collect specimens.   After the specimens are captured, they will be examined, photographed and documented.   Each specimen will be listed along with its size, location, time of discovery, and species.   If all of this information is readily apparent, the specimen will then be released back into the wild.      If the species can’t be readily identified, the specimen will be scrutinized so it can be fully described.   The goal of the project is to see what lives in these areas and hopefully find and describe something new. Matthew Reinert


I am looking at the state of education in Sichuan and whether it is correlated with the budgetary state of local governments. Within Sichuan, all levels of government are having difficulty raising the revenue to pay for public infrastructure. Any cutbacks on education funding, in efforts to mitigate government debt, could have huge consequences on the quality and availability of local schools, especially in rural areas. The questions I hope to answer are: Are education indicators correlated with the budgetary state of local governments? Are rural schools more dependent on the local government than those in urban areas? How are schools compensating for decreased funding?

My hypothesis is that local infrastructure and development are very dependent on the fiscal state of the government. I believe I will find that within poor rural areas there are less means of outside funding, and therefore decentralization and budget reforms have negatively impacted the local education infrastructure. In contrast, more urban and wealthy townships are able to mitigate decreasing government funding by finding outside sources of revenue. Therefore, the state of their infrastructure is less dependent on the budgetary state of the local government. (Dec 2005) Christina Chan


My research is about why the marriage attitudes towards Yi women are changing and the implications that follow. Many things are changing about the Yi community - better transportation and communication, better education, the development of urban Yi, and outside influences. I look at how each one influences the traditional outlook of marriage from the perspective of women. (Dec 2005) Sandley Chou

I'm researching the differences in prices that farmers can get for their crops in areas close to urban areas, and those farther away. I'm conducting research at Mianzhu county north of Chengdu, Manshuiyuan north of Xichang, Shaba near Yanyuan, and Yangjuan. Seeing as China has one of the largest urban-rural income gaps in the world, and that Sichuan has a large gap between people in its basin areas and mountain areas, I believe researching the plight of farmers in Sichuan is very important. (January 2005) Louis Horn



The purpose of my research is to investigate how traditional forms of heating and cooking, ie. wood and coal burning stoves, correlate with respiratory diseases in children, mainly in the form of asthma. This research will take place in Chengdu, Sichuan province of the Peoples Republic of China. In areas where the main fuel for cooking and heating is wood, coal, or other biomass, there will be higher instances of asthma in children, as the children, when at home, are likely to be around a stove that emits the particulates and pollution into the air.

Our hypothesis is that we will see higher instances of child asthma from children in households with less than adequate ventilations systems, and generally just from houses that utilize a wood/coal burning system vs. centralized gas or electric heating systems. The reason we are studying this relationship is because there is still not very much empirical information studying the correlation. Research has just started in the area, but more still needs to be done to properly confirm the relationship. (March 2006) Bharath Kumandan