Oriental Institute Journal, 2020, №46 (2)
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CULTURE
UDC 372, 81.33 doi: doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/6-14
The article analyzes Chinese textbooks of the Russian language from the point of view of their reflection of stereotypical ideas about the behavior of a Russian person in various everyday situations. The material is limited to the topics of the first year of study, during which Chinese students of language faculties learn the basics of knowledge about Russian culture. The list of topics includes: “Family”, “About Me”, “Study”, “Workday”, “Away”, “Rest”, “At the doctor”, “In a cafe”, and “Supermarkets, purchases”. The authors draw attention to controversial points in the educational material, requiring special commentary from the Russian language teacher. The article analyzes both positive and negative stereotypes, which are the basis for creating the primary image of a representative of Russian culture. The image of a Russian person represented in first-year textbooks is not ideal, both advantages and vices are noted. The authors also point out that some of the material in the Chinese textbooks no longer corresponds to today’s Russian reality and needs to be corrected. A comparative method is used in the analysis of the material.
Key words: Russian as a foreign language, Russian language in China, stereotypes, Chinese textbooks of the Russian language, “Russian language at universities (East)”, stereotypes about Russian names, Russian appearance, behavior and habits of Russian people, outdated information
POLITICS & POLICY
UDC 327+339.9 doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/15-28
Ivan Yu. ZUENKO Coronavirus Pandemic and Russo-Chinese Regional Cooperation
The article is dedicated to the analysis of the effects of coronavirus (COVID‑19) pandemic on the processes in the Russo-Chinese borderlands (border regions of Russian Far East and China’s north-eastern provinces) as of May, 1, 2020. The author believes that it is possible to draw some interim conclusions about the situation, despite its high dynamics and unpredictability. According to these conclusions, the pandemic’s negative effects on the social situation and development at the Russo-Chinese border appeared to be less than one could expect – that fact undermines little interdependence between border regions and low intensity of cross-border contacts. Expectations by some Western experts, who believed that tensions between people across the border due to the pandemic spreading would break Russo-Chinese quasi-alliance, seem to be missed as well. Quite the opposite, worsening of contradictions between Washington
and Beijing makes Russia and China get closer and closer. Meanwhile, sealing off the border puts a break on development of certain integration processes: liberalization of visa-regime, development of expats communities in both Russia and China.
Key words: China, North-Eastern China, Russian Far East, coronavirus, integration, xenophobia
UDC 327+551.521 doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/29-45
The article examines worst-case scenarios of nuclear crisis on Korean Peninsula involving possible use of military force in terms of potential damage and threat to the lives and health of the residents of Russian Far East bordering Korean Peninsula. The authors formulate four crisis development scenarios and provide the calculation of its possible outcomes carried out on Nostradamus 7.1 programming module (system developed by Nuclear Safety Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Drawing from the calculations, authors conclude that the greatest danger for the population of Russian Far East can come from an accident at the South Korean Hanul nuclear power plant as a result of a deliberate North Korean attack. With respect to the North Korean Yongbyon nuclear research center destruction scenario, the authors consider that the possible outcomes can be assessed as insignificant and would not require extraordinal measures to respond to the situation.
Key words: Radiation safety, nuclear problem of Korean Peninsula, scenario approach, Russian Far East, DPRK, ROK
SOCIETY
UDC 342.571 doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/46-56
Based on the views of urban sociology as reflected in the works of such authors as Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Robert Park, Ernest Burgess etc, this article considers possibilities of modern urban neighbourhood community, its unique properties which were previously lost according to the Chicago school. They include both properties of a traditional community and an economic operator. With consolidation of separate power bases, it becomes an element of the unified system of public authorities. In the presented work local public self-government (LPSG) is considered as a possible institutionallegal form of a neighbourhood community. The authors analyse characteristics of the LPSG in Russia and reveal its identity to the characteristics of the “free community”. The authors allocate a list of the functional tasks, the solving of which characterizes residents of one or several houses, self-organised in the form of LPSG. By gathering into the LPSG citizens represent a specific entity of the dialog between people and the authorities therefore ensure the effectiveness of local issues solution process.
Key words: municipal policy, neighbourhood community, the free community theory, local self-government (LPSG), municipality, local public selfgovernment, local issues
UDC 327 doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/57-66
Larisa N. GARUSOVA US Foreign Policy in the Reflection of Modern American Society
This article analyzes the relationship and correlation of the US modern foreign policy strategy with public reflection on it. Washington's active foreign policy and US claims to the role of world leader are supported by American society in recent decades. The informational basis of this work is the analysis of the sociological surveys of leading American research centers, statistics, academic articles, as well as official documents on the studied issues. The study revealed the peculiarities of the perception of traditional and new threats to national and international security by the American elite and society. The author traces the connection between official foreign policy doctrines and the opinions of American citizens regarding Russia and China. A correlation was found between the strengthening of anti-Chinese sentiment in the US over the past two years and the appearance of a new official strategy of Washington towards the PRC (“United States Strategic Approach to The People’s Republic of China”) in May 20, 2020.
Key words: foreign policy, USA, strategy, reflection, public opinion, Russia, China, national security
ARCHIVE
doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/67-69
Artyom L. LUKIN Thirty Years Ago, a Soviet-American Seminar Was Held in Vladivostok
Precisely thirty years ago, in June 1990, an international scientific seminar dedicated to cooperation between the countries of the North Pacific was held in the then Soviet Vladivostok. The seminar was initiated by the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Fletcher is one of the oldest and leading international training institutions in the United States. The main inspiration for the seminar, which was supported by the Soviet Peace Committee and its Primorsky branch, was the head of the North Pacific program of the Fletcher school, Professor John Curtis Perry. The core of the participants of the ten-day seminar in Vladivostok, held in the House of Negotiations at the suburban Sanatornaya station, were students and professors of Fletcher, as well as young Soviet scholars and diplomats. There were also representatives of Japan and China. Among the Soviet participants of the seminar there were many very well-known names. These are Alexander Yakovenko (the recent Russian Ambassador to the UK, and now the rector of the Diplomatic Academy), prominent political scientist Boris Makarenko, historian and writer Konstantin Pleshakov, and historian Amir Khisamutdinov.
doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/70-102
The Fletcher Vladivostok Seminar. June 1990
OIJ CLUB
doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/103-109
Amir A. KHISAMUTDINOV Fletcher School in Vladivostok (1990): Memoirs of a Participant
From editorial: Professor Khisamutdinov recalls participating in the Fletcher School in Vladivostok in 1990, the materials of which are published in this issue. The author speaks very warmly about John C. Perry, a professor at the Fletcher School. Professor Khisamutdinov recalls the establishment of non-governmental relations between the USSR and the USA in the late 80s, the great participation of university teachers and scientists in this matter. The range of issues discussed at the Fletcher School was very broad and focused on the study of contacts and contact zones in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the role of Russia and Vladivostok in establishing and maintaining these contacts. The work of the Fletcher School in Vladivostok coincided with the beginning of a new political era in the life of Russia, and allowed researchers and intellectuals in the USSR to become more familiar with the views of their American colleagues.
REWIEVS
UDC 861.121.1 doi: dx.doi.org/10.24866/2542-1611/2020-2/110-117
This publication is dedicated to the Japanese language textbook for foreigners published in Tokyo in 2011 and based on the story of the outstanding Japanese writer Soseki Natsume “Botchan”, which is presented in the textbook in the form of a comic strip. The article gives a brief overview of the Japanese language textbooks compiled in the form of comics. The author describes the main parameters of the above-mentioned textbook, its structure, content and applications, as well as vocabulary, hieroglyphics and grammar, the exercise system, and the Internet-related textbook resources. The creation of an educational comic strip on the basis of an outstanding work of Japanese literature seems to us extremely fruitful, since the educational process is enriched with aesthetic elements. Drawings provide important keys for understanding the text, and the content of a literary masterpiece gives us rich topics for various types of communication in the classroom. The described textbook contains wonderful material for teaching Japanese at intermediate and advanced levels. It introduces students to the history of Japanese culture and stimulates interest in the study of Japanese literature.
Key words: teaching Japanese language, masterpieces of educational literature, comic book genre in teaching a foreign language, comic book “Botchan”