About Myself
I grew up in Kawasaki, went to graduate school in Washington, D.C, and have worked as a researcher in a dozen countries including the United States, Bosnia, and China. I became interested in intercultural communication research while at Georgetown University, which is where I wrote my doctoral dissertation on how and why Americans and Japanese misunderstand each other in business negotiations.

My affiliation with a Japanese television network broadened my horizons and made me more aware of global issues. I conducted research and interviews for TV documentary features whose subject matters ranged from the negotiating of the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the whereabouts of the 1984 Sarajevo Olympic Committee members twelve years on.

I moved to Hong Kong in April 1997, three months before the territory’s historic return to Chinese sovereignty. Thousands of foreign correspondents were in place to cover the handover, and I teamed up with a group of Australian colleagues to look at how the international media were reporting an Asian milestone. Our collaboration resulted in an edited volume, Reporting Hong Kong (1999).

As an Abe Fellow in 2000, I initiated a project on what young people in China think of Japan and its people, and the role played by popular culture in this process. I addressed these issues in a series of articles – the latest of which will be published as a chapter in the upcoming edited volume Soft Power Superpowers.

After joining the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Japanese Studies in 2000, I began looking into the globalization of “Made in Japan” products. Using the rice cooker as an example of this process, I have examined how this electrical appliance was localized for the Hong Kong market, and how it has followed in the footsteps of Asian migrants and made its way around the world.

In November 2009, I was named Associate Dean of the Factulty of Arts for Outreach and Development. One of my main goals is the promotion of diverse learning opportunities for students both on and off campus.

As a teacher in the Department of Japanese Studies, I also look for chances to involve Hong Kong’s Japanese community in our programs. In June 2007, I was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Hongkong Japanese Club to sit alongside over 20 Japanese business leaders in Hong Kong. I am the only academic and woman on the Board.

I teach three courses at the School: two traditional lecture-style courses, "Introduction to Japanese Studies" and "Media and Japan", in conjunction with a more experiential, project-based course for advanced students entitled "Project in Japanese Business".

Fellowships
University Teaching Fellow 2006-2007
The University of Hong Kong

Asian Leadership Fellow 2003
International House of Japan and The Japan Foundation Asia Center

Abe Fellow 2000-2001
Social Science Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, and The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership

Selected Publications
Books
2009 Where There Are Asians, There Are Rice Cookers: How “National” Went Global via Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press.

中野嘉子＋王向華 (Nakano, Yoshiko and Dixon H.W. Wong)
2005. 『同じ釜の飯：ナショナルの炊飯器は人口680万の香港でなぜ800万台売れたか (Eating Rice from the Same Pot: How National/Panasonic has sold 8 million sets in Hong Kong with a population of only 6.8 million)』平凡社 (In Japanese)

利琦珍 中野嘉子 王向華 (Refsing, Kirsten, Yoshiko Nakano and Dixon H.W. Wong).
2003. 『由樂聲牌電飯煲而起: 蒙民偉和信興集團走過的道路 (Selling Japan in Hong Kong: William Mong and the National Brand)』Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. (in Chinese)

Knight, Alan and Yoshiko Nakano (eds).
1999. Reporting Hong Kong: Foreign Media and the Handover. Surrey, England: Curzon Press and New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Book Chapters
2008. "Shared Memories: Japanese Pop Culture in China" In Watanabe, Yasushi and David McConnell, Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe.

2007.“等身大”的日本像：大衆文化文和“実像与虚像”的二元論[Japan as It Is: Pop Culture and Dualism of "Real and False Images”]. In 『東瀛求索(Dongying qiusuo): China and Japan under the East Asian Formation of 21st Century』, edited by 中国社会科学研究会, 169-185. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press (in Chinese)

2006.“’De-Orientalizing’ Rice? The Role of Chinese Intermediaries in Globalising Japanese Rice Cookers”, In Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy, edited by Joy Hendry and Dixon H.W. Wong, p.82-88. London: Routledge/Curzon.

2003.(with Wu Yongmei) Aspirations for a Middle-Class Lifestyle: Japanese Pop Culture on Chinese Campuses. In Global Prism: Japanese TV Drama as an Asian Dream, edited by Koichi Iwabuchi, p. 183-219. Tokyo: Heibon-sha.
[中野嘉子・呉咏梅「プチブルの暮らし方： 中国の大学生が見た日本のドラマ」岩渕功一(編) 『グローバル・プリズム--＜アジアン・ドリーム＞としての日本のテレビドラマ』p. 183-219. 平凡社] (in Japanese)
An abbreviated version of this article was reprinted in the following Japanese language textbook for advanced learners published by University of Tokyo Press.

Kondo, Atsuko, and Chika Maruyama (eds.), Abroad in Komaba, The University of Tokyo. 2005 For Advanced Learners of Japanese: Facets of Culture, p.122-136 Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
[東京大学 AIKOM 日本語プログラム　近藤安月子・丸山千歌（編） 2005. 『上級日本語教科書　越境とアイデンティティ』 東京大学出版会]

Journal Articles
2004. Japanese Products, Chinese Intermediaries, Asian Desires: From Rice Cookers to Pop Culture. In International House of Japan Bulletin, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2004, p.1-21.
「ナショナルからグローバルへ：アジアから見た炊飯器、そして日本のテレビドラマ」『国際文化会館会報』 Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 2004, p.1-21 (in Japanese)

2002. (With Wu Yongmei). Kimura Takuya and Lu Xun: Japanese Soap on Chinese Campuses. In Gaiko Forum, October issue, p.48-50.
[中野嘉子・呉咏梅「キムタクと魯迅―中国の大学生が見た日本のドラマ」外交フォーラム 2002年10月号] (in Japanese)

2002. Who Initiates a Global Flow?: Japanese Popular culture in Asia. In Visual Communication 1(2), p. 229-253. London: Sage.

Anniversary Publication
2007. Globalizing Rice Cookers: How “Made in Japan” Went Global via Hong Kong, In The Japan Society of Hong Kong, 45th Anniversary Commemorative Volume, p. 105-110. Hong Kong: Japan Society of Hong Kong.

Encyclopedia Entries
2006. 中国における日本のポップカルチャー,『北東アジア事典』 環日本海学会（編）[Japanese pop culture in China] In A Handbook on Northeast Asia: Politics, Economics, Society, History, Culture, Environment in the Northeast Asia Region, edited by the Association for Japan Sea Rim Studies], p. 278-280.
2002. Radio Broadcasting. Encyclopedia of Japanese Contemporary Culture. Edited by S. Buckley, p. 411-412. London: Routledge.

Journalistic Writing
1995. アメリカは原爆をこう教えている (How Hiroshima and Nagasaki are Taught in the United States). 『諸君！』Shokun monthly magazine, September Issue, p.140-9. (In Japanese)

1995. 原爆展と米国市民 (Smithsonian A-bomb Exhibit and American Reactions). 『諸君！』Shokun monthly magazine, January Issue, p.176-83. (In Japanese)