Organizer: Michael Aung-Thwin, University of Hawaii, Manoa
American Qi: Resenting and Marketing the Life Force in the USA
Adam Frank, University of Texas, Austin
The concept of qi, a Chinese word that roughly translates to "life force" or "vital energy," has filtered into American popular culture through several paths. Using the theoretical frameworks of Foucault, Adorno and Gramsci as a starting point, this poster session will first graphically represent seven ways that qi is looked at and experienced in Chinese culture. Then, through photographs and recorded interviews, the session will give participants a window into the history of qi-related practices in America, from their roots in pre-World War II Chinese immigrant communities to the postwar dissemination of the concept among an eager population of non-Chinese martial artists.
The poster session will also address the representation of qi products and qi-related practices in contemporary American popular culture, including cinematic references in films like Easy Rider and current product marketing through video (e.g. "The Buns of Steel Mind/Body Series Tai Chi") and the internet; through magazines, books, and journals devoted in whole or in part to qi; and through medicinal products that mix Chinese health-related discourses about qi with American references to Native American healing and muscle-building. Representative products will be displayed as part of the poster session.
Using the above examples of how Americans adopt and adapt Chinese practices, the brief narrative accompanying the display will explore the question of whether or not it is our own hubris that creates the idea of hegemony over "colonized" subjects, while we deny similar forces working within our own culture.
Stereotyping and Perceptions of Asian Culture in Children’s Literature
Jo-Ann Mullen, University of Northern Colorado
Participants in this session will learn about the purposes and benefits of quality multicultural children’s literature. They will become aware of how to evaluate a children’s book for cultural appropriateness and will become familiar with a wide range of books representing various aspects of Asian Culture. This will include both positive and negative examples with accompanying explanations. Participants will be able to compare and contrast various Asian forms of the "Cinderella story."
The Concept of "Jing" in Texts on the Traditional Chinese Garden
Jin Feng, Indiana University
In the theory of traditional Chinese garden-making, a concept that is represented by the character jing seems to be very important in terms of both the design and perception of Chinese gardens. However, in the writings on the traditional gardens, the concept of jing has never been clearly defined or explained. Neither have the origin and evolution of the usage of this concept been specifically examined or studied. The meanings of the character jing have been taken for granted as the visual aspects of scenery. However, a comparison of texts on gardens in different periods suggests that this concept is not a constant in history. This study examines the development of the concept of jing in a survey of selected texts on gardens through history in ancient China. It analyzes the uses of the character jing in texts selected from anthologies of texts on Chinese gardens to reveal the meanings of jing in Chinese garden-making in different periods. The findings of this study indicate that after its first appearance in texts on gardens in the Tang dynasty, the meanings of jing and the approaches employed to define and apply the concept of jing had been changing and evolving. It meant different things to different people at different times. The survey of the texts on gardens reveals a rich and diverse collection of ideas and meanings of the concept of jing developed in different times of Chinese history.
A Study of the Buddhist Relic Deposits from the Tang (618–907) to the Northern Song (960–1127) Period
Hsueh-man Shen, University of Oxford
Buddhist relic deposits in China have been studied as a separate field, though they have had connections with Buddhist caves and tomb burials. Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered nearly sixty well preserved Buddhist relic deposits of the Tang and the Northern Song periods. Some of them were built underground in the shapes of Chinese chamber tombs. In addition, the fittings of Chinese chamber tombs were also applied to these relic deposits. It well reflected people’s understanding of the nature of the practice: a Buddhist burial of the corpse of a human body. But the people also absorbed elements from Buddhist caves, which also had a long tradition in China. In this connection, the role of tianwang (Heavenly King guardian) figures in both tombs and caves was a key to see through the relations between relic deposits, tomb burials, and Buddhist caves.
In the mid-tenth century, deposits in the forms of secret cells inside pagoda bodies became popular. It was out of a growing need of the secrecy and safety for relic deposits. In order to safeguard offering goods and Buddhist relics of sutra scriptures in the mofa (the final Law) period, people hid these valuable things in secret cells inside pagoda bodies. In this way, relic deposits functioned like hoards rather than burial grounds.
By analyzing to what extent Chinese relic deposits integrated with tomb burials and hoards in China, we come to realize how Chinese people adapted the Indian practice to existing traditions of burials in China.
The Chinese Book—History and Culture In Its Forms
Nancy Norton Tomasko, Independent Scholar
In general, scholars of East Asia use old and rare Chinese books for the information in the text on their pages. At various times, however, scholars and bibliophiles have given special attention to the Chinese book as a physical entity and as evidence for the study of Chinese material culture. On occasion an exhibition of Chinese art will include, incidentally, book formats (albums, scrolls, bound books), not for their forms so much as for the art work and calligraphy contained therein. In recent years there have been a few books and a CD ROM published by museums and libraries in China that show highlights of their collections. In 1995 Soren Edgen curated a handsome exhibit on the form and function of traditional Chinese books at Princeton University, and in June of 1998 a small group of scholars held a conference on book culture in China. David Helliwell’s translation of a work on the binding and repair of traditional Chinese books is due for publication in the fall of 1998.
This poster session explores visually the Chinese book bound in its various traditional forms. The layout of the exhibit will be the frame of a Chinese book page with its parts identified. Each vertical column will contain photographs of one book form, explaining and illustrating its various binding features. Beginning with bamboo and wooden strips on the right, subsequent innovations in book design (scroll, accordion, butterfly, wrapped-back, string-bound, gold-edged-in-jade) will be laid out in columns to the left. The last columns on the left will feature styles of protective cases.
Upper marginalia on the page layout will be brief text on the history of each book format. Interlinear commentary will caption the photographs. Actual examples of the book forms, either published examples or models that I make of traditional materials purchased in China, will rest on a fold-down shelf. These models and examples will be for hands-on inspection.
With this poster session it is my intention to present the physical features of the Chinese book, its structures, materials, and layouts, and to encourage scholars of East Asia to begin to recognize the identity of these forms and to explore and utilize the valuable extratextual and supratextual information available from Chinese books in traditional formats. I intend also for the small exhibit to suggest the pleasure and scholarly utility there is in learning to use Chinese-made materials to construct Chinese books.
Chinese Migrant Labourers and the "Green Jade Mountain Village": A History of the Dalian Dockyards and Japanese Colonialism in Manchuria, 1905–1931
Robert John Perrins, Acadia University
China’s Northeast (Dongbei), or as it more commonly called Manchuria, was the ‘land of opportunity,’ for Japanese imperialists and dispossessed Chinese peasants alike in the early twentieth century. Millions of Chinese migrants from the provinces of Shandong and Hebei traveled to Manchuria in search of work. While the majority of these sojourners traveled northward where they found employment on the region’s soybean farms, or in the territory’s Japanese-controlled mines and industries, tens of thousands moved no further than where their feet first landed—the dockyards at the great port city of Dalian.
Founded by Tsarist Russia in 1898 and transferred to Japan in 1905, following the Russo-Japanese War, the port of Dalian stood at the terminus of the Manchurian railway network and served as the funnel through which the region’s agricultural products and raw materials were shipped abroad. By the late 1920s Dalian had emerged as the second largest port in China, after Shanghai, and played crucial roles in both the development of Manchuria and in Japan’s colonial efforts in Northeast China. Thousands of Chinese labourers were employed on Dalian’s wharves, docks and warehouses, and it is the lives of these people that this proposed poster examines.
The dockyards at Dalian are an important topic in the history of not only the port city and the surrounding Guandong (Kwantung) Leasehold, but also in the larger histories of Japanese colonialism in Manchuria, and Chinese migration to and development of the Northeast in the first half of the twentieth century. Using a variety of archival sources including yearbooks, censuses and labour surveys published by the local Japanese administrations (both those of the Guandong Government [Kanto-cho] and the South Manchuria Railway Company [Mantetsu]), local newspapers, and recent Chinese and Japanese scholarship on the topic, this poster addresses several questions. Who were the Chinese dockworkers in southern Manchuria? How were they recruited? What were their working conditions and wages? How important was their contribution to the development of the port of Dalian? And, what were relations like between the labourers and their Japanese employers? In answering this final question, this poster examines the career of Aoi Yutaro, one of Dalian’s most famous Japanese businessmen, and a leader in the city’s early government and commercial associations. Aoi founded the Hekisanso (Bi Shan Zhuang in Chinese, or ‘Green Jade Mountain Village’), in the 1910s. Until Aoi’s death in 1935, this company provided the port authorities at Dalian with more than 10,000 daily workers, who performed most of the labour on the city’s piers and rail-yards. Hailed by many Japanese and Chinese historians as one of the most compassionate employers in colonial Manchuria, Aoi and his enterprise symbolized the importance of Dalian, its harbour, and its residents in the development of China’s Northeast. Not all Chinese dockworkers, however, were fortunate enough to be employed by the Hekisanso, which provided dormitories, cafeterias and medical facilities to its workers. For the many thousands of other migrant labourers working on the city’s docks and warehouses, life was hard. Housing in the city’s Chinese quarter was often over-crowded, wages were low, and many workers were mistreated by their Japanese and Korean foremen. In the end, this proposed poster examines an important aspect of labour/urban history in colonial Manchuria prior to the creation of the puppet state of Manzhouguo; a history that has often been overlooked in more general works that emphasize the macro-levels of the economics and politics of Japanese colonialism. This proposed poster on the workers from the ‘Green Jade Mountain Village,’ would help to illuminate the Chinese side of the coin in the history of modern Manchuria.
In addition to a brief narrative and research bibliography, this poster will display my findings using a variety of techniques. Information related to the port’s trade, revenue and labour statistics will be presented using a variety of charts, graphs and tables. Maps of the port and surrounding leasehold will be mounted, as will an engineering schematic of the piers and their equipment. Black and white photographs of the harbour, dockyards and living quarters of the Chinese workers (acquired from the Dalian municipal library and archives) will also be displayed.
Empowering Women Through Daily Life Activities: The Consumer Co-ops in Japan
Ruth Grubel, Kwansei Gakuin University
In spite of their increasingly higher levels of educational attainment and participation in the paid work force, women in Japan still find it difficult to reach positions of power in public or private organizations. However, one type of organization which has provided opportunities for women is the consumer co-operative. Japan has the largest of such co-ops in the world, and they are ubiquitous in many regions throughout the country. As the co-ops have grown, their impact on individual communities, and on the nation as a whole, has political implications. Most of the active members of the co-ops are women, and they are acquiring first-hand experience in community organization, social programs, and international affairs. The sheer size of the co-op movement now makes it a force to be noticed by government officials, and in some communities, co-op representatives serve on powerful advisory boards.
Although the co-ops are struggling with the issue of male-dominated management in their predominantly female-membership organizations, there is a concerted effort to provide the support needed to encourage women to rise to the top positions. In my poster presentation, I plan to introduce various ways in which the consumer co-ops offer decision-making opportunities to women in Japan. By encouraging their participation through basic daily activities such as shopping, caring for family members, and even disposing of garbage, the co-ops are helping to empower women from the grass roots.
Matsuri: An Outsider/Insider’s View of Akita’s Kanto Festival
John Mock, Minnesota State University, Akita
The Kanto festival is known as one of the big three Tohoku festivals, the other two being Sendai’s Tanabata and Aomori’s Nebuta. It is derived from two Edo period (1600–1868) rituals. The earlier forms were from mid-summer rituals to avoid illness on the one hand and to bring back the spirits of the dead as part of the overall obon rituals. However, the modern version is very much a merchant/townspeople’s expansion dating from the early nineteenth century. In this festival, very large structures of bamboo and lanterns (the actual kanto), are balanced successively on one hand, the forehead, the shoulder and the hip of individual men acting as members of teams. There is also a very energetic musical accompaniment from the great drums, flutes and cymbals. The teams themselves are formed usually by older neighborhood associations but increasingly also by companies.
This presentation, part of a larger analysis of the changes in the festival through time, will have graphics including photographs (a few rather dramatic of several hundred of kanto with a total of more than 10,000 60 cm lanterns) festival planning diagrams and route maps. The graphics, with labels, will comprise the bulk of the description. The text will trace the roots of the festival, current changes and adaptations and a comparison with other Tohoku Tanabata festivals.
Nine Lives: An Oral History of Life on Okinawa During the Postwar Period
Ruth Ann Keyso, Northwestern University
The postwar history of Okinawa is a history characterized by military occupation and foreign subjugation. For twenty-seven years following the conclusion of World War II, this southern Japanese prefecture was occupied by American military forces. After reversion to Japanese jurisdiction in 1972, the U.S. military bases remained on the island, now joined by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF). Today the island of Okinawa is home to over 50,000 American military personnel and their dependents, as well as 6,000 Japanese SDF troops. Such a large concentration of military bases and personnel contributes to the island’s martial atmosphere. This is ironic, considering Okinawa’s long history of peace.
What was it like to live in Okinawa during the past half century since the end of World War II? How do the islanders choose to remember and interpret their past? Nine Lives: An Oral History of Life on Okinawa During the Postwar Period offers one interpretation. Written from the perspective of nine Okinawan women of different generations, this book provides an eclectic view of the social, political, and gender transformations taking place on the island over the past fifty-three years.
Nine Lives is divided into three sections, the first one centering on the memories of three women born in the prewar period. The second section focuses on the reminiscences of three women born during wartime, while the final part concentrates on the remembrances of three young Okinawan women. An examination of each section reveals that there is much more to Okinawa than simply a battle heritage; there are stories of real human lives and the way in which people choose to remember the events that occurred on their island during one of Japan’s most tumultuous centuries. As we prepare to move from the 20th century into the 21st, it is important that these women recall and record the most significant moments of their past in an effort to educate, enlighten, and inform future generations.
The Gordon W. Prange Collection: Japanese Publications Issued During the Allied Occupation of Japan
Amy Wasserstrom and Ernest Notar, University of Maryland, College Park
The Prange Collection is the most comprehensive collection in existence of Japanese-language materials dating from the early years (1945–49) of the Allied Occupation of Japan. It represents the nearly complete publishing output of Japan for this period. The contents of the Prange Collection once constituted the files of the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP); when, between 1945 and 1949, SCAP required that everything published in Japan be submitted for pre-publication censorship or post-publication review by the CCD. Many of the publications in the Prange Collection bear censorship markings. The breadth of the Prange Collection holdings, as well as its evidence of censorship activity, make it indispensable for the study of the Occupation and for an understanding of the profound impact of the Occupation on developments in the post-World War II era.
The Prange Collection consists of approximately 1.7 million items. Encompassing some 60,000 book titles, 21,000 pamphlets, 13,000 magazine titles, 16,000 newspaper and newsletter titles, and 700,000 pages of news dispatches, it is predominantly a collection of publications; however, holdings also include news agency photographs, maps and posters.
Many scholars today believe that the post-World War II Allied Occupation of Japan constitutes one of the truly pivotal historical events of the 20th century. The Occupation was a period of sweeping and revolutionary change in Japan. A new constitution, heavily influenced by Americans, was instituted; the educational system was completely redesigned; and the industrial reconstruction begun during these years served as the base for what later became Japan’s "economic miracle." The Prange Collection holdings report the attitudes and perceptions of the Japanese people at the time and document local and national developments on a daily and weekly basis in nearly all areas of Japanese life: politics, economics, science and technology, philosophy and religion, education, literature, social life and culture. Given the scope of the Collection and the impact of the Allied Occupation, it is not an exaggeration to say that all humanities disciplines will benefit from the University of Maryland Libraries’ project to preserve and provide access to these materials.
Cultural Archetypes of Love in Popular Female Teen Magazine Advertisements in Japan and the United States
Naoko Kimura, University of Nevada, Reno
This poster will present cultural archetypes of love manifested in advertisements in popular teen magazines for girls in Japan and the United States. The purpose is to illustrate culturally unique presentations of love in advertisements in the magazines.
Themes of love appear equally often in both Japanese and American teen magazines for girls. However, Japanese advertisements often portray love with themes of a broken heart or unrequited love whereas American advertisements often portray love with themes of "happily ever after." Interestingly, the unique cultural presentation of love in current advertisements resembles archetypes of love manifested in the country’s folktales. The findings suggest that images and meanings attached to love are culturally constructed.
Hayao Kawai, a distinguished Japanese Jungian psychologist, has pointed out the difference in the trajectory of love between Japanese folktales and Western folktales. Love in Japanese folktales often ends with sorrow and sadness whereas love in Western folktales ends with union and happiness.
This paper utilizes Jung’s theoretical framework, specifically folktale analyses, in analyzing and contrasting cultural archetypes of love in advertisements in Japan and the United States. Jung suggests that cultural archetypes are apparent in a broad spectrum of human artistic endeavors. Thus, such distinct forms of human expression—ranging from modern art to commercial advertisements—can be used to understand embedded cultural archetypes.
Advertisements for this project were selected from three of the most widely-circulated popular female teen magazines in Japan and comparable magazines in the United States during the years 1995–1997.
Why Volunteer: Motives for Working with People with AIDS in Japan
Akiko Takai, University of Tokyo; Thomas Hardy, Tamagawa University
Japan is frequently portrayed as a society focused on the group, with charitable and volunteer work, when done at all, serving mostly those within the group. Further, Japan is often seen as a society in which categorical moral and ethical imperatives are generally lacking, with situational and context sensitive evaluations being the primary factor in shaping actions. Our work on volunteer motives for working with PWA (People With AIDS) in Japan complements this work, while raising questions about some of its socially and culturally loaded conclusions.
Our current research emphasizes in-depth interviews as well as participant observation, structured interviews, and questionnaires at major AIDS social service centers in Tokyo and Kyoto. It indicates that volunteer motivations for working with PWA break down in unexpected ways along the expected lines of age, sex, sexuality, class, and religion.
One practical significance of this study rests first on its import in shaping programs for PWA that might better attract volunteers by targeting their specific interests and motivations for doing volunteer work. Theoretical issues include the way it raises questions about the meaning of "group" in contemporary Japanese society, and the ways individuals develop non-situational standards of conduct regarding personal and social issues.
Political Crisis and the Allocation of Labor Union Rights: Theory and a Korean Case Study
Lisa Milligan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
What is the relationship between political crises and the state’s decision to alter the structure of associational rights? Under what conditions do legitimacy crises prompt states to empower groups that previously had been denied recognition and protection of associational rights? What induces states in countries with a history of labor repression to lift restrictions on union rights and enforce capital’s compliance with a new industrial relations regime? In order to address these questions, this paper applies the literature on institutional change and continuity to the problem of labor movement governance under democratic capitalism.
This paper compares state response to the question of labor rights during two "crisis" periods in South Korean democratic development. These are the 1987 transition from authoritarian rule and the clamorous 1997 presidential election. Both the democratic transition and the 1997 election took place against a backdrop of widespread labor protest; and in both instances, democratic incumbents were confronted with a choice between buttressing institutions that restricted workers’ rights or amending them. After assuming office in 1988, President Roh Tae Woo cracked down on labor union activity, mobilized the police against illegal strikes, and intervened forcefully in labor disputes. Despite intermittent labor uprisings, the state in South Korea preferred to absorb the rising costs of maintaining the status quo system of industrial relations, rather than contend with the uncertainty that institutional change might bring. Using institutional analysis, this paper then explains why outgoing President Kim Young Sam ceded to labor demands in late 1997. Explicit attention is given to exogenous economic and political factors that altered the state’s calculus on the question of associational governance.
New Sources of Power and Energy Policy Issues of Sri Lanka’s Electricity Generation Capacity
Cynthia M. Caron, Cornell University
Accelerating rates of industrialization and urbanization as well as increased disposable income in rural areas are among the factors leading to increased demand for electricity across Asia. The growth rate of electricity demand in Sri Lanka, for example, has increased 8.4 percent annually over the past five years. According to demand forecasts, the country’s present generating capacity will need to double over the next seven years. How the country will meet this increased demand has generated a number of critical concerns. One concern is the role of foreign capital in economic self-reliance and aid dependence. Since 1992, for example, the Global Environment Facility has lent over $55 million to the Sri Lankan government to develop renewable, and often decentralized, forms of energy; yet, historically, power generation and distribution have been controlled by state-owned enterprises. In this presentation, I will graph the current status of the country’s electricity generation capacity and provide pictorial documentation of the conditions under which the energy sector is responding to increased energy consumption. I will also present a chronology of events in electricity generation policy and planning since the island’s first electrification in 1894 and summarize interviews with officials from the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Development Finance Corporation of Ceylon, the World Bank, and engineers and environmental activists. In combination this examination will capture the tensions between economic development and environmental protection which have implications for how new sites and sources of energy sustainability are negotiated politically worldwide.
A House Divided: British Sikhs and the Khalistan Question
Sue Gunawardena, University of Texas, Austin
Why do some overseas Sikhs support Khalistan while others oppose it? What kinds of conflicts emerge within immigrant communities regarding nationalism? What role do religious institutions such as gurdwaras (Sikh temples) play in shaping diasporan attitudes? What strategies do separatists use to further their agenda in their host countries? These questions form the locus of this project. Employing Sikhs in Great Britain as a case study, I explore the role of trans-state networks developed by modern diasporas and their impact on politics in their host and home countries.
Why do members of the Sikh diaspora, many of whom have resided outside for generations, have an interest in agitating for Khalistan? Some scholars contend that diasporan Sikhs have actively promoted Khalistan because as emigrants they were marginal to the home community in Punjab. Others focus on the cohesion of the migrant community and their disenchantment with host country society. Other analysts emphasize Sikh notions of collective identity and honor and its relation to Khalistan. While such explanations offer insight into some of the motivations driving diasporan Sikh separatists, they largely ignore the fissures that exist between pro-Khalistan and anti-Khalistan factions.
In contrast, this paper probes into the fundamental issue of who among diasporan Sikhs support/oppose separatism. I propose to do this by analyzing the political debates and conflicts that are generated within British Sikh communities regarding the Khalistan question. Fieldwork for this project was conducted in England during summer 1998.
Examining the Socio-emotional Implications of Home and School Imposed "Model Minority" Stereotypes on Asian Indian Students
Sapna Vyas, Michigan State University
Researchers such as Lee (1994) and Gibson (1988) have explored issues related to Asian students and the academic and cultural expectations that peers, teachers, and parents often have of them. Lee coined the phrase "model minority stereotype" to describe Asian and non-Asian individuals’ common belief that Asian students are high achieving and academically successful (Lee, 1994). This paper explores a slight variation of this stereotype, in relation to the socio-emotional implications of home and school imposed stereotypes on Asian Indian students. Data from an empirical study with male and female Asian Indian students reveal that this stereotype has a profound effect on how students view themselves, as well as their perceptions surrounding the possibilities of academic success. This paper argues that the socio-emotional impact of such a stereotype is potentially damaging to a student’s sense of self, especially if he/she does not see him/herself fulfilling this stereotype. For some students, the internalization of such a stereotype could lead to diminished feelings of self worth and learned helplessness in achievement oriented situations. Although on the surface, these students are often viewed as academically successful students, we may be quick to assume that they are doing fine, mentally and emotionally. We should not overlook how these students make sense of the expectations they receive from home and school and integrate them in their senses of self as Asian Indian students. Thus, this paper stresses that we cannot ignore such potential threats to students’ senses of self, and argues for a socio-emotional based perspective on this home and school imposed stereotype.
Transnational Tresses: Beauty Salons as Sites of Cultural Production for Cambodians in America
Lydia Breckon, Yale University
Cambodians in the U.S. refer to a remembered past in Cambodia as well as to local dynamics as they construct new lives in their new country. Increasingly, however, they refer also to contemporary Cambodia, which they know through recent visits, exchange of media and people, and the images and texts that circulate on the internet. This transnational dimension of these Asian-American refugee lives is understudied and reveals much about the processes by which ethnic, racial, national and gender identities are constructed. How do Cambodian-Americans choose from the multiple ideological, social, ethnic, national and aesthetic configurations around them? This poster session focuses on Cambodian-American beauty salons as sites where individual’s positions on gender, ethnic and racial identities, and nationalism are negotiated, enacted and in many cases, embodied. Cambodian-Americans use these salons to effect personal transformations that may emphasize their assimilation into the U.S. mainstream, their identification with minority groups in the U.S. or their replication of "Cambodian" norms and mores, past and present. In all cases, these transformations are discussed with other Cambodian-Americans who may or may not know each other, in a setting that is both acceptable and neutral for both genders and all ages. The paper is based on anthropological fieldwork in the U.S. and Cambodia, and features interview excerpts, photographs and observations. This work is most meaningful for those interested in how ideologies of gender, race, class, nationalism and ethnicity intersect in migrants’ lives.
Subak—The Social Embeddedness of a Balinese Irrigation Community
Nitish Jha, Brandeis University
Described as one of the pillars of rural Balinese society and dating back to over a millennium, the subak as a social institution is at once agrarian, economic and religious in nature. The majority of subak are concerned with matters of irrigation in the rice-growing areas of Bali, Indonesia. A subak is both a set of fields and an association of farmers: its membership comprising not only landowners but also lessees, tenant farmers and share-croppers of plots watered from the same source. But this is only the tip of the iceberg in a sea of social relations. Each subak member is not only a member of a particular village but may be a member of several structurally separate subak based on the location of his or her fields. Furthermore, the subak brings to mind a many-armed deity, with its numerous links to the village, village wards and temples, other subak, the Balinese water temple hierarchy, and the Indonesian state. In order to manage resources—such as labour, time and cash—better, the subak association may also separate its secular and religious functions; in effect becoming two associations. Based on original data, maps and schematic diagrams are used to depict the organizational complexity of a subak and highlight its importance for agricultural development elsewhere in Asia.