Ryan Buyco, GW ’10, was a Japanese major who was accepted into the Master Program in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii. He was also awarded the Starr Fellowship for Academic Year 2010-2011. Here’s a brief note from the man his peers came to know as the boxing monk. (Long story...)
I’m officially here in Hawaii and this week is my first week of school.
It's actually pretty awesome so far, the Asian studies grad students have their own grad room and I find all the professors really helpful. Also, right now, I'm in the Southeast concentration but trying to switch over to the Japan studies concentration. I sat in their seminar today with Professor Huey, and it ended up being really interesting. In fact, Professor Huey was talking about new historicism today. In any case, I've talked with him a couple of times this week and he seems like a really laid back professor. (Note: Robert Huey is Hanami sensei’s senpai at Stanford)
Anyways, I talked with a few professors and they told me a big reason why I received my fellowship at all was because of my duel interest in Japan and Southeast Asia. So after talking with several professors of what kind of research I could possibly do but still retain my background in Japanese literature, I figured that a possible option was to analyze Southeast Asia in Japanese literature. For example, Takeyama Michio's Harp of Burma or Murakami's short story "Thailand" in After the Quake. Actually, the other day I talked with a professor of Japanese modern literature and she gave me these titles among several others from the top of her head.
This might end up being interesting so I'll let you know if this becomes anything!
