Which is pretty much why I generally avoid most of my university mates who are Asian studies majors.
As do many people at my home university. The very few serious Asian Studies students identify as history or linguistics students. 'Asian Studies Major' is something like a pejorative because of those anime otakus who I avoid like the plague. Sadly, quite often people instantly assume I study Japanese because of an interest in manga or anime. I have no such interests. The truth is I've never really watched anime and I have never read manga. I read books about Buddhism in Japanese, not some silly comic written for children. That sounds harsh, I know, but when damn near every student in the department is part of the campus anime club and soil the entire department's image (and mine through association), I just find myself getting hostile towards them.
As of late I find myself shifting more over to Sinology. I originally started doing Japanese related stuff a few years ago, but after really getting to know Asian history and languages (as a Canadian I was educated with little to no information regarding Asia in general so I pretty much started my study from scratch), I seem to just enjoy diving deep into really ancient Chinese topics the most. A year or so ago I took up studying Classical Chinese and it become both a self-study goal for grad school and a hobby. I'm going to do my Ph.D. on something to do with Classical Chinese, probably something pre-Qin dynasty. Fortunately, no anime otakus or pop culture fiends would ever dare enter into the stuff I am doing now. The other thing though is that as far as western academia goes so little has been done with Old Chinese, so it is largely available for exploration.
You sound like a very enlightened healthy-minded person! I am glad I stumbled on your journal. I'm doing a general linguistics minor myself (though I found semantics to be fun it was really mind boggling at times). Curious, what languages do you have?
no subject
As do many people at my home university. The very few serious Asian Studies students identify as history or linguistics students. 'Asian Studies Major' is something like a pejorative because of those anime otakus who I avoid like the plague. Sadly, quite often people instantly assume I study Japanese because of an interest in manga or anime. I have no such interests. The truth is I've never really watched anime and I have never read manga. I read books about Buddhism in Japanese, not some silly comic written for children. That sounds harsh, I know, but when damn near every student in the department is part of the campus anime club and soil the entire department's image (and mine through association), I just find myself getting hostile towards them.
As of late I find myself shifting more over to Sinology. I originally started doing Japanese related stuff a few years ago, but after really getting to know Asian history and languages (as a Canadian I was educated with little to no information regarding Asia in general so I pretty much started my study from scratch), I seem to just enjoy diving deep into really ancient Chinese topics the most. A year or so ago I took up studying Classical Chinese and it become both a self-study goal for grad school and a hobby. I'm going to do my Ph.D. on something to do with Classical Chinese, probably something pre-Qin dynasty. Fortunately, no anime otakus or pop culture fiends would ever dare enter into the stuff I am doing now. The other thing though is that as far as western academia goes so little has been done with Old Chinese, so it is largely available for exploration.
You sound like a very enlightened healthy-minded person! I am glad I stumbled on your journal. I'm doing a general linguistics minor myself (though I found semantics to be fun it was really mind boggling at times). Curious, what languages do you have?