Re-familiarization with (East-)Asia
Emma Chun-Yu LIU
For a student who graduated from the Foreign Languages Department, and later got the master degree in English Literature, it never occurred to me that I would get a job at the cultural studies field, yet this job indeed has created influences in my life.
As a child, I was colonized by the American cultures, such as the Disney and super-hero cartoons. Further, I began to learn English (the teachers were all Americans), and also got very enthusiastic with American pop music and Hollywood movies. Although I read a lot of Japanese manga at the same time, I think these “western” cultures rooted very deep in my brain. So, it seemed very natural to me to choose English as my major in college. It was also the same when I decided to continue studying, thus, I spent another 3 years and half to get my master degree in English Literature. Looking back, almost my whole life was closely connected with the English/western/American cultures (and I’m still deeply influenced by these cultural productions now). Moreover, in one conversation with my classmate, we found out that both of our reference for 1980s was the American ‘80s, and I didn’t know much about what happened in the ‘80s in Taiwan.
Author’s biography
Emma Chun-yu Liu was the managing editor of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies from 2006-2009.