My Motivation for Writing This Book

I wrote this book to fulfil my lifelong curiosity. For years, I have been fascinated by the history of my undergraduate major. How did I become a major of East Asian Studies during my undergraduate days? How did such geographically-oriented field of studies begin in some Canadian universities? Why was there such a high demand for this unique discipline? Are students genuinely fascinated by the educational value of this discipline? Or are they interested in learning about the Pacific Rim in order to tool themselves for future opportunities there?

Sources and Approach

This book was completed through sources obtained during multiple from various Canadian university archives. It does not reinforce an explicit one-size-fits-all theory. East Asian programs highlighted were established under different heads of universities. But all of them one thing in common. Each was founded to accommodate the dynamics of Canadian foreign policy in the twentieth-century history.