47in local languages. Major East Asian societies including the Chinese mainland,
Japan, Korean and Taiwan have all developed a solid research system operating
in local languages. For both international and local researchers, it is no longer fea-
sible to continue to ignore the increasingly large bodies of literature the system
produce. Indeed, the width and depth of such locally produced literature are often of
high quality. Anyone who aims to truly understand East Asia needs to pay serious
attention to it.
The fact that local literature, especially those on local history and culture in
native languages, has been incorporated so little is indeed a serious issue for research
on East Asian higher education. Higher education is deeply rooted in culture, and
universities are after all cultural institutions. They are most profoundly influenced
by the cultural conditions of their societies locally, regionally, and globally. East
Asian high education development is fundamentally about the relations between
Western and East Asian cultural values. Whether or not East Asian societies can
fulfill their long-desired integration between the two knowledge systems is the true
meaning of and biggest challenge for East Asian high education development.
Within such a cultural context, researchers have to understand their own cultures
and societies well. Yet, understanding their own cultures and histories has been a
mission impossible for the generations born after the mid-twentieth century due to
the dramatic historical changes in these societies. Without understanding their own
histories, cultures, and societies, it is just not possible for them to build a truly
locally based perspective. It would also be beyond their capacity to challenge the
often inappropriate Western perspective in observing East Asian societies.
Theoretical Framework Employed
The theoretical frameworks employed by the 31 publications can be categorized
into 4: pure description of East Asian practices (2), using foreign (Western) theories
to analyze East Asia (15), using East Asian examples to confirm foreign (Western)
theories (13), and trying to challenge foreign (Western) theories (1). This scenario
echoes the findings from a similar survey of literature a few years ago which used
Hong Kong and education policy as keywords (Yang 2013 ). In the survey, only one
piece of work among 73 publications was trying to challenge the existing Western
theory. Interestingly, the author of the work was from Australia originally with
decades of academic working experience in Hong Kong. In the current survey, the
author is from Germany working at a Japanese university. The fact that they are both
Western working in East Asia is not purely accidental. While most Western scholars
observing from the West tend to be Euro-centered, East Asian local researchers have
had a strong colonial mindset. The mindset is most evident in former colonized
societies such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is also strong among the societies such
as China and Japan where although there was no political colonization, there has
been colonization of their mind. A typical research work produced by East Asian
3 Foil to the West? Interrogating Perspectives for Observing East Asian Higher...