I heard of Stanford, Princeton for courses upon Chinese Civilisation, but recently Yun gave me a reference to Chinese Conquest of Vietnam and from that I know you can even study Chinese culture in Australian National University? Is this true? Are they good?

Thanks!

For what I know, Kevin rudd (the present Australian prime minister) did his chinese language and chinese history studies at Australian National University. Yes, this is a good university for Asian studies. The chinese history courses are housed under Faculty of Asian studies.

For info about chinese studies in ANU, refer to
http://studyat.anu.edu.au/majors/ASSTMCHIN;overview.html

Where are you? Are you anywhere near Australia? Other than Princeton and Stanford, UC Berekeley is another good school for Asian studies in the USA. If you are willing to go to Canada then the University of British Columbia has an absolutely top notch Asian studies program also. They have the largest Chinese language program in North America and the second largest Japanese program. They also have one of the largest collections of Asian language materials in North America in their library. Here is a list of well known and highly regarded East Asian studies programmes throughout the world....

Noted East Asian Studies Programmes

United Kingdom
University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds, the University of Bristol, the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Manchester, and University of Sheffield.


United States
The universities listed are NRC Awardees:


Columbia University, Cornell University, Duke University, Harvard University, Indiana University Bloomington, Michigan State University, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Chicago, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Kansas, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Southern California, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Yale University.


Canada
University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Alberta and University of British Columbia.


Australia
Australian National University

I agree with the list here, but you need to realize which area you want to emphasize on, and your emphasis would determine your choice of the schools.

For example, if you want to study modern or near modern Chinese history or Chinese American in U.S., UCLA would be a good place to be. However, if you want to study anything more ancient, UCLA is REALLY a pretty bad choice, in my own opinion!!!

I have been looking at close by UCs (to me) in Southern California for ancient Chinese history studies since late 1970's to now, and I really don't think they have the kind of resources comparable to other Universities listed here -- I am talking about UCLA, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego!!!

I will choose UC Berkeley for ancient Chinese history because it has a lot of top faculties as well as resources, like original materials, and is very good in many related disciplines, like Archaeology, etc.

If you want to study more ancient material, you really need to go to a school that had been around for a long, long time, like Cambridge University or Oxford University in Britain (I know you are in Europe) because they have a lot of original material through donations from their older students in the last few hundred years and those original materials, well, some were from you know what, I believe!!! Anyway, if you can use those original materials to study Chinese history and Chinese culture and have some extrodinary discoveries, it would be OK to me as a Chinese. I just can't stand the stuff got stuff in some old warehouse and got sold in garage sales as trash or got thrown into trash after the person's death just because his/her children have/had no idea of these were very important stuff for some historians and for some other ethnic group!!!

Anyway, back to the topic: if you want to emphasize certain discipline, like linguistics, then you MUST make sure you choose a school that is good in that area and NOT just Chinese studies. Therefore, you need to choose carefully and ask the right questions and check out the ratings of many related disciplines in that school related to other schools.

In addition, many of my friends and others told me the ways of the school are very important to a young student. I am OK in many environments as long as my school has the resources I want, and I know I can get over anything because I am very determined for my studies. However, some of my friends said to me that they are/were very easy getting lost in a large school, so ... they choose/chose a smaller and less famous school or major. Some of them made a mistake to choose a large school or a school in a major city and spread out all over the city, and they got really lost because they were from a smaller place and can't get used to big city life and a spread out campus like UCLA!!!

I also suggest you live on campus and NOT out of campus and join as many student activities as possible and as many school sponsored activities as possible, like the activities to help you graduate!!! It's very important for your happiness in your school life because you will feel more included and joined in your school. Almost all of my classmates and later students from my school who had lived outside of campus and worked a lot and not joined in the campus activities said that they REALLY did NOT enjoy their campus life, and I think they did NOT get the most out of their schooling as well!!! Please be careful about it. In campus, you can also get jobs, and most of the campus jobs are also pay very good (for an immigrant student and can't speak English well and don't know the local job situation well) and will consider your school hours. In addition, if you have very good grades, you can be tutors or graders (grade tests and homeworks for your professors, and an excellent way to get to know them) and will get more out of your studies, like I did with my Computer Science degree. I also had a lot of free time sitting there waiting for students to come ask me questions, and I was able to study and do my own homeworks!!!

Please also make sure you ask students you know already in those schools about how they feel about their schools both about academic life as well as personal life in order to get more information for your choices.

My husband XL5 chose Cal State Domigus Hills (I think that is how it is spelled) for his undergrade school instead of UCLA or UC Berkeley because it is a small school and has custom programs to his taste. He ended up doing well and blossomed and get into a good graduate (PhD) program in UC Irvine for Computer Science in an very hot area (Artificial Intelligence), and he was NOT even Computer Science major!!!

I chose UC Irvine over UCLA even though UCLA had better history department and supposedly a better Computer Department. I like UC Irvine because of the following reasons:

1. It was in the countryside 30 years ago -- in the middle of a cattle ranch and strawberry fields with people riding horses around it and cattles right across the campus and wild animals (including coyotes and sometimes mountain lions) roaming the campus!!! The air is/was unbelieveably good, and the traffic was unexistence (30 years ago)!!! Also, a wild animal preserve is right next to the campus. Comparing to UCLA's environment ... Well, there was no contest (even today), except for restaurants and shopping areas being around 15 to 20 minutes drive (freeway)!!! Growing up in the center of a city, I really wanted to change the scenery.

2. It was a smaller school, and I would not get lost.

3. It is a Preppie school, and my conservative parents and I felt better and safer in it. One of my very conservative classmates went to visit UC Berkeley with her parents and saw the students doing what most very conservative Chinese and other non-Chinese parents would consider as activities that is close to sex or practically sex -- something like deep kissing, etc. Anyway, my friend's parents turned around and told her, "Don't you ever think of coming here!!!" Good school or not, internationally famous or not, it is definitely NOT a school for someone who is very conservative or from a very conservative family, unless you want to break away from your family traditions, which I think would be a good idea for College life!!!

Re-edited below:

4. In addition, the Information and Computer Science Department (now is an independent School) was NOT associated with other schools (like Engineering, Physics, or Math), so I would NOT need to take a lot of strange classes that I didn't even want to touch. For me, the list of the required classes from UC Irvine was the shortest (about 1/2 or 1/3 of the next University) among all the Universities and all the majors I want to take, so ... UCI it was!!! (I am a very lazy person, especially as a student in a major that I had to take for my career and NOT what I want to take!!! )

For some of very conservative parents or people, you should also consider some of the private schools that are very conservative. I know at least a few Catholic and Christian schools that have pretty good Chinese programs, IMO. You should also check them up -- the private schools, that is. The Catholic and Christian (New Protestant) schools usually have very indepth Chinese language and cultural programs because they want to produce a lot of missionaries to China. They also have a lot of collections and original resources!!! You might find a lot of Professors and students who can speak fluent Chinese and/or various dialects and had been to China for many years and know in depth Chinese society and culture due to their being ex-missionaries or children of missionaries!!!

For some people who want to get connections as well as schooling for later political or business careers, please choose places where wealthy and high level Chinese (from greater Chinese areas, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) sent their children to study. Then, you can also meet some of the future leaders and CEOs from there, and if a future CEO like you, you can immediately hired on as a management level employee in his family company when you graduate!!! I know at least a few people like that!!! USC, UCLA, and UC Berkeley are all very good places, especially USC.



Good luck!

There are some good aspects about ANU, and there are some very good academics there (including my cousin - in mathematics).

It is quite a young university, but among Australian universities it has the advantage that it is based in the capital, so the academics are often given good exposure to policy making. It has a very good Professor of Central Asian Studies, Armin Saikal.

Boleslaw:

ANU was a good place to study Chinese history in the 1970s and 1980s, because of the presence of Mark Elvin, C.P. Fitzgerald, and Wang Gungwu on the Division of Pacific and Asian History and Rafe de Crespigny on the Faculty of Asian Studies. But Fitzgerald died in 1992, Elvin and de Crespigny have retired from teaching, and Wang Gungwu moved on to Hong Kong and then Singapore (and has also retired in Singapore). The only faculty member currently teaching pre-modern Chinese history is Colin Jeffcott of Asian Studies, who specializes in Song history, but he is only a visiting fellow (not tenured) and not particularly well-known.:

http://asianstudies.anu.edu.au/Dr_Colin_Jeffcott

Other scholars at ANU Asian Studies working on China-related topics include John Minford (literature and translation):
http://asianstudies.anu.edu.au/Professor_John_Minford

John Makeham (Chinese philosophy):
http://asianstudies.anu.edu.au/Dr_John_Makeham

The Division of Pacific and Asian History has two scholars who work on topics related to Chinese history.

Geremie Barme (20th-century Chinese cultural and intellectual history):
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/barmg_pah.php

Igor de Rachewiltz (history of the Mongols):
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/dexri_pah.php

Both are fairly established figures in their respective fields, but if your interest is not in the 20th century or the Mongol empire in China, then they would probably not be able to supervise you.

See also:
http://asianstudies.anu.edu.au/Faculty_of_Asian_Studies
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/pah
http://history.anu.edu.au/interests_geographical.asp#asian
http://heritage.anu.edu.au/site1/_includes...s/429_RSPAS.pdf

The biggest drawbacks of graduate studies at ANU, besides the current lack of suitable faculty in Chinese history, are the shortage of financial aid (you are unlikely to receive a fellowship) and the fact that you have to contact a faculty member yourself and get his/her agreement to be your supervisor before the university will admit you - in other words, the university will not find a supervisor for you, you have to find one yourself.

I also considered ANU for a while when searching for graduate schools, but the above disadvantages soon led me to drop it as an option.

do any of you guys know much about the Chinese history or Asian studies program at the University of British Columbia? I have heard many good things about it and I have heard they have the largest Chinese language program in North America.

Mongol has always my interest. But recently I shift my study from full European history into China, wonder is this a good choice. Furthermore, I need a BA, and just wonder if I am able to get a bright future if I study in ANU?

Poland was a dismal place! Really, they are powerful in Kievan-Rus History, but other than that, really limited.

Wonder about Singapore? Any idea?

Thanks

If you can read Mongolian already and have been interested in the Mongols, I'd actually recommend you continue studying the Mongol empire but with attention to both Eastern Europe and China. There are fewer scholars who can do this because the Chinese ones usually are not trained in Eastern European languages, and vice versa.

Igor de Rachewiltz is a very suitable scholar to work with on Mongol history. If you can have him as your teacher, it wouldn't be a disadvantage to have a BA or MA degree from Australia rather than the US. But if you are looking for a place in the US that might offer more financial aid than ANU, you could try Christopher Atwood in the University of Indiana: http://www.indiana.edu/~ceus/faculty/atwood.shtml

Indiana is the strongest US university in terms of Central Asian and Inner Asian history.



The National University of Singapore is OK for studying modern Chinese history, but not early or ancient Chinese history. The two other Singaporean universities have no history program at all.

Thanks a lot, I will put all this into my considerations

I have another question?
Is ANU a good place for Tang History?
Also how about translating?

Thanks a lot guys

Actually there is no place outside China (and maybe Taiwan and HK) at present that I would call good for Tang history. Princeton was good when Denis Twitchett was alive and teaching there, but Tang studies have really declined since the 1990s and it will take some time for them to revive again. By comparison, Song, Ming, and Qing studies are much stronger now than they were before the 1990s.

For translating, it depends what you want to translate. Many places teach translation studies for the Chinese language, but translating historical, literary, religious, or philosophical texts requires additional knowledge and skills.

A LOT!!!

GOD! 18 years old, carrefour of career!

Just curious, what causes you to want to shift your study from full European history into China? Did CHF influence your decision?

I have fell in love with Far East Asia even before I knew CHF. I read some Dai Viet History books, and then knew little about China. CHF, however, rapidly expands my knowledge and widens my scope of understanding.

I still love European History, as it is my origin, but I like to find something new to be major in. Furthermore, European History is already saturated for some reasons, while Chinese History is at its springtime.

Yes, you have a Polish intrude into your CHF domain, but Sinicisation takes place gradually and he himself absorbs the culture of China.

That reminds me of Zhugeliang.
Background reputation and connection helps for a start!

It is not very young, it used be the national academy consentrated on research rather than teaching.
the Faculty of Asian Study there is very good, there is Dr. Aat Vervoorn, another mountain recluse:)