Thai Journal of East Asian Studies

Pedagogical Implications for Coping with Reading Anxiety Among Korean as a Foreign Language University Students

Wattanasak Fuengbangluang — 2025-06-30

This study analyzed research implications from journal articles to discern pedagogical implications for coping with reading comprehension anxiety among Korean as a foreign language (KFL) university students. In April 2024, 15 articles were chosen from online journal databases in South Korea, including Korean Studies Information Service System (KISS) and Korea Citation Index (KCI). Content analysis was used to analyze articles following the pedagogical implications of emotional control and instructional design. Results were that most discussed was de-stressing the learning context by teaching student reading strategy and redesigning appropriate instructional contents to suit target KFL students, followed by emotional control. Two pedagogical implications were suggested: a) giving appropriate feedback to student responses; and b) sequencing the instructional design based on pre-reading, while reading, and post-reading.

Asymmetric Economic Strategic Approaches Responding to Economic Warfare: A Case Study of the South Korea Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Dispute

Naphakhawat Wanchai — 2025-06-30

This qualitative research examines South Korea’s asymmetric strategic approach to economic disputes, focusing on the case of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) controversy, using an economic warfare conceptual framework. The objectives are to analyze: 1) Chinese anti-South Korean economic sanctions; and 2) subsequent South Korean response. Results are that Chinese economic warfare targeted South Korean industries vulnerable from dependence on China’s domestic demand, state power, and media influence. Specifically, China leveraged internal factors as economic warfare weapons stemming from geopolitical security concerns. The South Korean asymmetric strategic response to this economic warfare shifted from a zero-sum game mentality. Instead of comprehensively decoupling from the Chinese economy, South Korea strategically worked to reduce dependency on China. Efforts included expanding investments in Southeast Asia, leveraging industrial expertise, and aligning foreign policy with the broader goal of ensuring South Korean economic security.

Ethnic Tourism Potential in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China

Patthira Phon-ngam — 2025-06-30

This qualitative research studies ethnic tourism potential and activities in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, People’s Republic of China. Data is gathered by in-depth interview, and fieldwork participant observation. The target group comprises 17 participants, including Xishuangbanna tourism operators, tour guides, and visitors. Data is analyzed by content analysis. Xishuangbanna ethnic tourism potential is assessed by the ability to attract tourists by unique traditional cultural resources of 13 different ethnic groups: Dai, Akha, Lisu, Hani, Bai, Lahu, Hui, Zhuang, Yao, Miao, Han, Blang, and Jinuo, in decreasing order of population. Each group has a distinct history, housing style, cultural tradition, religious belief, and ritual. Tourism activities include: 1) ethnic group cultural performances by the Dai and Jinuo; 2) ethnic festivals; 3) Religious ceremonies; 4) Dai ethnic food; 5) celebrating the Dai lifestyle; 6) visiting ethnic cultural centers. Each activity highlights the diversity and unique customs of Xishuangbanna's ethnic groups, enhancing regional appeal as an ethnic tourism destination.

The Villainous Image of Wu Zetian: Revisiting Origins and Analyzing Contexts

Namthip Arthabowornpisan — 2025-06-30

Economic prosperity and cultural achievements under the reign of Empress Wu Zetian were recognized by her seventh century contemporaries. After the May Fourth Movement, twentieth century intellectuals, historians and politicians considered her as a skillful politician, but negative collective memories of her were also constructed in diverse Chinese literary genres during the Fengjian period. This research investigates the origins of negativity and underlying factors by revisiting the memory text presenting the villainous image of Wu Zetian as ruining states, promiscuity, and ruthlessness in official Tang dynasty court histories. Additionally, the dominant discourse ideology is studied by consulting Pre-Qin to Han texts by Confucius and his disciples and books for women by elite Han to Tang period female authors, with social, political and cultural contextual analysis of memory and discourse texts. Results indicate a political agenda motivating an official memory contestation by Tang dynasty court elites promoting the Western Zhou dynasty natural law maintenance concept; the latter deep-rooted discourse supported male-dominated politics and economics in a gender and social hierarchical division of labor. Chinese patriarchal society has long confined women to the private domestic realm through the doctrine of following and dependency.

A Study of Relationship Between Characters of “虫” Radical From Reptiles to Arthropods in Shuowen Jiezi

Siriphen Kamphangkaew — 2025-06-30

This qualitative documentary research 1) studies conditions and factors in the use of the Chinese radical 虫 to create animal names in diverse categories; and 2) investigates and explains the semantic relationship between animal names appearing in the Chinese radical 虫, from the meaning of “snake” (the original meaning of “虫”) to the current meaning “insect or worm” based on positivistic zoological criteria and evidence. Results are that 1) animal name creation in the Chinese radical 虫 in the Shuowen Jiezi is significantly influenced by morphology, genetics and evolution; growth; and movement of animals noted by ancient Chinese observers; 2) the Chinese radical 虫 in the Shuowen Jiezi contains most animal names, accounting for 57.89%. Therefore, the number of arthropod names in modern Chinese remains the highest, and the meaning of the word 虫 (chong) eventually changed from “poisonous snake” to “insect or worm”. These findings reflect intellectual crystallization in forming Chinese characters based on Chinese character morphological principles (汉字构形学) and systematic classification of character groups according to semantic class (义类) of the Chinese population over time.

A Study of the Role of Salt on the Southern Silk Road from Chinese Historical Documents: A Case Study of the Salt Industry in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces

Suphacha Sriratanaban — 2025-06-30

This article examines the role of salt on the Southern Silk Road by analyzing the development of the salt industry in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, using ancient Chinese documents as primary sources. Results are that sodium chloride has two key significant aspects:

First, salt functioned as a strategic resource in the economic structure of the imperial Chinese state. Sichuan and Yunnan were major centers of salt production starting from the Qin and Han dynasties. Continuous technological advances expanded the salt industry, making the two provinces into key distribution centers. The imperial state strictly monopolized and taxed salt, establishing specialized administrative agencies to oversee its production, trade, and taxation. The market was regulated by issuing salt trade licenses. The state monopoly on salt generated vital royal court revenue and controlled local economies, supported military logistics, and reinforced political stability. Therefore, salt was a strategic resource linked to the public livelihood, economic structure, and state security.

Secondly, salt was an essential commodity and currency in local economies, particularly in frontier areas. In Yunnan province borderlands, part of the Southern Silk Road network connecting to Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, salt was a basic daily product and in certain areas, used as a trade value unit. This was especially so in ethnic group exchanges and at community markets, reflecting the flexibility of regional economies where formal currency systems were inchoate.

Spiritual Ends: Religion and the Heart of Dying in Japan

Benjamin Ivry — 2025-06-30

This publication by Assistant Professor Timothy O. Benedict, who teaches in the School of Sociology at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan, is an ethnographic case study and memoir. It is based on interviews with hospice patients and workers, compiled when the author served as a chaplain at a Presbyterian hospital in western Japan between 2009 and 2011.

These origins give an inescapably Christian outlook to a research work about a country, most of whose inhabitants adhere to Shintoism. Assistant Professor Benedict maintains an empathetic tone in his descriptions of the bafflement expressed by patients confronted with his essentially Christian approach to counseling. He stresses that Japan as a super-aging society where the birthrate is in decline will require caregivers to assist aged persons at the end of their lives. This role may be fulfilled by hospices, which try to preserve a sense of patient individuality and personhood, or kokoro (heart, spirit, mind, wisdom, aspiration, essence, attention, sincerity and sensibility). In addition, hospice chaplains may increasingly serve a population without many affinities to traditional organized religion, as usually defined in theistic societies.