Blogs

After a night in the village, I made my way to Sanya (三亚) where my cousin lives and works. When I was in Hainan in 2008, I was only able to meet him for a dinner and during this trip, I was eager to spend more time with him.

My cousin is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official. Passionate about the island on which he grew up, he was happy to bring me around Sanya.

Sanya is a beautiful coastal city; its tropical climate and 23km long beach draws millions of tourists to its shores annually.

During the 4 days spent in Sanya, my cousin drove me around the city and took me to Wuzhizhou Island (蜈支洲岛). Being a great seafood lover, most of our time was spent at various seafood restaurants.

I arrived in Hainan just before lunchtime and was picked up at Haikou's Meilan International Airport (海口美兰国际机场) by my uncle. When my grandfather left Hainan Island in 1947, his oldest brother stayed behind to take care of the ancestral home and also raised his family there. Nevertheless despite being away, my grandfather always made sure to keep in contact with his family members in Hainan to ensure that they had a comfortable life.

I recently visited Hainan Island (海南岛), China's smallest province located in the South China Sea. This was my second trip to the island; the first was in 2008 when my family and I went to visit our ancestral village close to Bo'ao.

Before I go on to blog about my trip to Hainan, I figured I'll get the awkward first introductions out of the way. My name is Faith and I am one of the publications editors at the APR (do check out Passages 2009-2010!). Besides spending time with the APR, I am also a first year grad student at the University of Toronto where I am currently in the middle of completing my Masters in Political Science and Asia-Pacific Studies, with a focus on Chinese society and politics.

Once again, the Asia Pacific Studies capstone seminar has secured generous funding of nearly $30 000 for an overseas field school. This year, eleven students will be travelling with Program Director and Professor of Geography Rachel Silvey to Bandung, Indonesia for two weeks to learn about urban planning and other issues.

Although I’m not enrolled in the seminar, I will be joining the field school as one of the additional students. I will be blogging about our discoveries in Bandung. Before the field school begins on April 25, I decided to stopover in Malaysia for a week to visit my paternal grandmother.

I'm currently an Asia-Pacific Studies and East Asian Studies double major in my final year at the University of Toronto. I was really excited when I heard about how the Taiwan government decided to start a global pilot project of inviting student delegates, at UofT in Canada. I was even more over the moon when I was selected to be part of the delegation.

The Taiwanese government invited 10 upper year undergraduate students from the University of Toronto to participate in an exciting pilot program for students to contemplate the topic of "Global Taiwan". The 8 day fieldwork excursion will take 10 future leaders to Taiwan to experience one of the largest and most dynamic economies and cosmopolitan cultural innovators as well as a vibrant democracy. The student delegates will meet with government officials, civil society groups, and observe various aspects of Taiwanese culture, innovation, and institutions. Before departure, the students have to write an eight page paper on "Global Taiwan" and will present the paper at a conference at Taiwan National University to their Taiwanese counterparts.

At this point we would like to invite all applications for editor positions for this 2009-2010 school year. In addition to the available editor positions all applications will be considered for available staff positions. Successful applications will be awarded with a $2000 grant. Please tailor your application to suit either the Research or Publication departments.

The application deadline has been set as next Friday October 2nd at midnight, with notification shortly after. All participants should be prepared to attend a general meeting the following Friday afternoon.

Applications should include:

a) Program of Study and Year
b) A note on Asia Pacific related scholarships, courses and any related languages
c) A brief cover letter
d) Resume

Hello Readers,

The calendar, found at left, pulls together information from all new content on the site, creating an easy place to schedule talks, conferences and scholarship deadlines.

Don't forget that content is parsed into both subject and country in the catalogue as well, in case you are particularly interested in one thing or the other.

Cheers,

Adam