Regional Pathways: Transnational Imaginaries, Infrastructures and Implications of

Student Mobility within Asia

Francis Collins School of Environment University of Auckland f.collins@auckland.ac.nz

THIS PAPER IS FORTHCOMING IN ASIAN AND PACIFIC MIGRATION JOURNAL. DO

NOT CITE OR CIRCULATE WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.

Abstract:

This paper offers a critical analysis of the narratives of South Korean international

students attending universities in the Asian region. It draws in particular on a

transnational approach to understanding these mobilities that highlights the imaginaries

that generate a desire to be mobile among students, the social and institutional

infrastructures that enable mobility, and the implications of student mobility for

students’ future aspirations and identities. Through this approach, the paper offers a

starting point for exploring what is an understudied dimension of international

education –the increasing number of international students who are choosing to study in

Asia rather than in traditional western destinations. The transnational approach taken in

this paper also opens up analytical space for understanding student mobility as a social

and geographic process that relies on the creative agency of students and their families,

but also social networks of friends, alumni and teachers, and the work of institutional

actors in piecing together the possibilities for mobility in the region. In this regard, the

paper also draws attention to the imbrication of student flows in the emergence of an

increasingly interconnected Asia, one that is articulated in the career pathways of

graduating students, their identities and their sense of place in a regional future.

Introduction: International Student Mobilities in East Asia

International students are an increasingly important component of international migration

flows. In purely numerical terms, there has been a 300 percent growth in tertiary degree-

seeking international students over the last three decades and an increase from 2.0 to 4.2

million between 2000 and 2011 (OECD, 2013).1 This growth is caught up in transformations

in higher education that have seen greater competition for places in domestic universities and

an increased emphasis on the globalization of universities (Raghuram, 2013). International

student mobility is also a reflection of an increasingly mobile world, where mobility is

imagined as an important resource for young people in particular (Conradson and Latham,

2005), tied up with aspirations for different kinds of futures (Waters and Brooks, 2012), and

enabled by emerging cross-border social and institutional networks (Altbach and Knight,

2007). Asia has long held an important place in these imaginaries and actualities of student

mobilities, as the largest source of international students for institutions in the Anglophone

world that have been dominant as educational destinations (Brooks and Waters, 2011). In the

last ten years, however, there has been a marked growth in the number of students on the

move within Asia, particularly in China, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan (Chan, 2012).

This paper investigates these patterns with a specific focus on South Korean2 students and the

emerging imaginaries, infrastructures and implications of this mobility.

A key characteristic of the growth and consolidation of student mobilities has been a

concomitant diversification of destinations for students. While the USA and the UK remain

as the most popular destinations, international students attending higher education

institutions in Asia have grown considerably. By 2008, for example, China hosted 238,000

international students (up from 40,000 a decade earlier), Japan similarly hosted 126,000

students (from 53,000), and South Korea3 50,000 (up from 2,000) (Kuroda, 2012).

International students in these destinations are predominantly from within East Asia (Chinese

and Korean students represent the largest numbers in most universities). These changing

patterns raise important questions about the future shape of international education, the

connections between student mobilities and other forms of migration, and the mechanisms

that channel, mediate and facilitate these flows.

South Korean students represent an important element of the increased mobility of

international students within East Asia. In China, Korean students form the largest nationality

grouping, accounting for 21.3 percent of all international students, and in Japan, they form

1 International students also include individuals studying at earlier educational levels and as language or

exchange students. For the purposes of this paper the focus is only on international students enrolled in university degree-level programmes.

2 Hereafter Korean. 3 Hereafter Korea.

the second largest group (after Chinese students) at 12.1 percent (Institute of International

Education, 2013). Looked at from another perspective, Figure 1 illustrates the growing

importance of East Asian destinations for Korean students seeking overseas education.

Moreover, in 2011, China and Japan were the second and third most important destinations

for Korean students, respectively, accounting for one-third of all overseas enrollments

together (Ministry of Education, 2011). This reflects an emerging trend during the first

decade of this century where student numbers in China in particular have increased quite

rapidly, alongside only modest growth in student enrollments in traditional destinations like

the USA.

This paper explores these emerging patterns through an examination of the narratives of

Korean international students attending universities in China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

The paper is theoretically framed around a focus on the transnational dimensions of

international student mobility that are articulated in the imaginations that drive student desire

to be mobile, the social and institutional infrastructures that enable this mobility, and the

implications of increased mobility in Asia for student aspirations, identities and regional

connections. This transnational approach reveals that the growth in student flows within Asia

is not just about the emergence of alternative global education destinations that calculating

students can compare with destinations in the West. Rather, a transnational approach

illustrates that the ‘choice’ to remain in Asia is one that must engender desire in students, be

actively crafted by different actors and institutions, and be oriented towards future potential

post-graduation. In this regard, the paper draws attention not only to the emergence but also

the implications of student mobilities in Asia, their contribution to a sense of Asia as an

assemblage of increasingly connected people and places. The paper concludes by considering

then the potential of student mobilities for individuals but also for their role within Asia’s

emergent future.

Figure 1: South Korean International Students by Region of Study 2003-10. Includes international students at all educational levels, including language students (tertiary only statistics are not readily available). Anglophone includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States; East Asia includes China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. (Source: Ministry of Education, 2011)

International Student Mobility as a Transnational Process

Research on international student mobility has been usefully informed by approaches that

emphasize the transnational connections involved in the movement of students (Collins,

2008; Kwak and Hiebert, 2007; Waters and Brooks, 2012). International students can be

conceived as archetypal 'trans-migrants': “travelling frequently over national borders, living

for an extended period of time in one country while maintaining significant ties (emotional,

social, material) to another, and embodying a 'cosmopolitan sensibility' that often includes

simultaneous proficiency in more than one language” (Waters and Brooks, 2012: 23).

Students are also embedded in what Goss and Lindquist (1995) call a “migrant institution”

that operates across borders in imaginative, embodied and material ways. Their mobility

through different educational spaces is mediated by actors and organizations ranging from

friends and family, to recruitment agencies, educational institutions and nation-states. They

are, in other words, embedded within a 'transnational social field' (Levitt and Schiller, 2004)

that supports but also channels ongoing mobility (Collins, 2012). This focus on transnational

social networks is important because it emphasises the manner in which the mobilities of

students is generated not only by the growing globalisation of education but also the practices

of both proximate and distant social relations.. In this way, a transnational approach

highlights the always differentiated character of student mobility, the uneven landscape of

educational access, and the embedding of students in social and economic relationships that

link places of origin, study and beyond (Waters and Brooks, 2012).

In order to explore the emerging mobility of Korean students within East Asia, this paper

focuses on three dimensions of these transnational processes. Firstly, I am concerned with the

role of imagination in generating the ‘desire to circulate’ among international students

(Raghuram, 2013). As Nonini (1997: 204) notes, much transnational mobility is generated by

the circulation of “collective imaginaries, or utopian fantasy-scripts for repertoires of

practices.” These imaginaries include the perceived value of an overseas degree for

accumulating cultural capital (Waters, 2008) and the potential it holds then for future career

aspirations (Gürüz, 2011). There are also other possibilities imagined in student mobility: the

yearning for travel and adventure among young people, to be independent from familial and

community social constraints, or a desire to embody subject positions as ‘cosmopolitans’ or

‘global subjects’ (Y. Kim, 2011). As Raghuram (2013: 148) notes, such imaginaries are also

critical to the aspirations of universities and the continuing globalization of higher education:

Institutions need to recruit students, to engage them and to persuade them of the

benefits of partaking in the global circulation of knowledge. Students need to see the

effects of and be affected by the institutional reach of education providers. They need to

identify with knowledge institutions, their ability to enhance the students’ status and

employability and to recognise the institutions as key players in global knowledge.

Considerable institutional energy is then invested in generating imaginaries of the potential of

international student mobility (Sidhu, 2006). As scholars have noted (Collins, 2008; Pimpa,

2005), the value of overseas education and the manner it unfolds is also shaped in important

ways by social networks. Aspiring international students often look to the experience of their

family, friends, former-classmates or others as they develop imaginaries of traveling abroad.

Yet, the imaginative drivers of mobility are more diffuse than this. As Youna Kim (2011: 73)

notes in her account of Asian women’s attraction to Western educational spaces, for example,

local, national and transnational media consumption can also be significant:

what drives and shapes the migratory aspiration is intimately linked to the long-term

consumption of the symbolic West, proliferating media texts, images, new concepts and

alternative lifestyles constantly transcending national borders and entering everyday

consciousness.

This emphasis on the West and the US in particular as premier educational and cultural

destinations is well established in scholarship on international student mobility (Waters,

2008; Brooks and Waters, 2011). Yet, the increasing number of students from Korea and

other parts of East Asia remaining in Asia for study highlights the need to examine emerging

imaginaries of the region as an educational destination in its own right. As I discuss below,

the growth in the number of these students is driven in part by imaginaries of a ‘rising Asia,’

of cultural familiarity and geographical proximity, and aspirations for post-graduation careers

that are regionally networked.

Secondly, a transnational approach to international student mobilities also provides the

opportunity to explore the manner in which mobility is shaped not only by student ‘choice’

but also by the social and institutional networks within which students circulate. There has

been a marked managerial or infrastructural turn in the study of migration over the last

decade (Lindquist et al., 2012; Xiang, 2007). Migration is increasingly understood as

‘managed’ by the state, and enabled by a range of state, institutional and inter-personal

infrastructures that simultaneously serve to condition the directions and outcomes of

mobility. Scholars informed by ‘governmentality’ perspectives, for example, have

highlighted the manner that states craft new political projects through the promotion of higher

education and facilitation of student mobility (Lewis, 2011). An archetypal example in Asia

is Singapore’s ambition to become a Global Schoolhouse – a vision of premier local and

foreign universities and the circulation of elite students from the city-state’s regional

hinterland and further afield (Sidhu, 2006). Elsewhere in Asia, state aspirations are emerging

to attract international students to support knowledge economy development, supplement

declining domestic student enrollments, and reposition the region’s leading universities

amongst world-class hierarchies (Mok, 2003).

The infrastructure of student mobility is also assembled by a range of other actors beyond the

state, whose transnational practices both stimulate and shape the directions of student flows.

‘Infrastructure’ is used in this paper to refer to those relatively stable social and institutional

connections that support or enable student mobility, the ‘moorings’ that enable other things to

be fluid (Hannam et al., 2006). Education agents, for example, are a key intermediary force in

the movement of international students who act on migrants by “channeling information and

resources” in ways that “have an influence in molding the process of international migration”

(Findlay and Li, 1998). Kwak and Hiebert (2007: 42) offer insight into this mediation of

mobility through an examination of the role of education agents as entrepreneurs navigating

the changing regulations of the Korean and Canadian states to “facilitate the transnational

circulation of people” for education and tourism (see also Collins, 2008). In China, Xiang and

Shen (2009) also highlight the role of education agents in directing students through the

provision of hierarchized information on cities, universities and departments. Moreover, they

suggest that there is significant overlap with other actors: education agents are often

introduced through personal contacts, can be former officials utilizing previous experience, or

become personally involved in students’ lives beyond arranging education. In this regard,

there is also a clear need to look at the role of other actors in mediating student mobilities, not

least family and close personal relations, but also teachers in high school and university

settings providing advice about potential destinations, or classmates, seniors or alumni.

Finally, a focus on international student mobility as a transnational process also points to its

implications both for students themselves and for the places they come from, study in and go

to after graduation. For students and their families, international study carries transformative

potential, providing social and cultural capital for geographical and class mobility (Brooks

and Waters, 2011). Indeed, scholars informed by Bourdieusian sociology point to the manner

in which an overseas diploma can serve as a route to enhance individual socio-economic

position, either as a credential for career opportunities or by facilitating greater mobility in

the world (Waters, 2008). In other instances, international students may view study abroad

and the accumulation of educational qualifications as part of a broader migration strategy, an

attempt to gain residence in the country of education or a third country. In Anglophone

contexts, like Australia, Canada, New Zealand and UK, the ‘education-migration nexus’

(Robertson, 2013) has seen international education become part of broader immigration

policies that seek to attract and retain ‘desirable’ migrants while still earning export income

through fees from students who will have to eventually return home.

The implications of international student mobility within Asian contexts remain less clear,

not least because numbers of international students in the region have only recently started to

increase. Nonetheless, emerging patterns suggest that student mobility is also likely to lead to

increasing presence of foreign student graduates in local labor markets. In Japan, for

example, Liu-Farrer (2011) has observed the emergence of what she describes as an

‘immigrant occupational niche’ for Chinese student migrants in Japanese corporations.

Recruited preferentially by these firms, Chinese graduates of Japanese universities are viewed

as ideal candidates for corporate positions that specifically deal with businesses in China.

Likewise, Singapore’s Global Schoolhouse project identified above is also part of a broader

state project of attracting ‘foreign talent’ in training that can then be incorporated into

Singapore’s high-skilled labor market (Sidhu, 2006). These emerging patterns of regional

employment after graduation for international students raise the potential of increasing

circulation of professionals within Asia (Yeoh and Willis, 2005). It also raises substantial

socio-cultural questions for students and their sense of identity and affiliation as they gain

degrees and employment experience in neighboring countries (Kim et al., 2009).

The Study

This paper emerges from a research project on Globalising Universities and International

Student Mobilities in East Asia (GUISM) that investigated the changing strategies of nine

leading universities in the Asian region and the biographies of international students moving

through them. The universities include leading national and private universities in major

cities in China (Renmin and Sun Yan Sen Universities), Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Asia

Pacific Universities), Singapore (National University of Singapore), Korea (Seoul National

and Korea Universities) and Taiwan (National Taiwan University). Research was conducted

between June 2009 and December 2012. At each university, the research study included

approximately 20 interviews with international students, an in-person survey of around 500

respondents and interviews with up to 10 officials. In this paper, I draw primarily on

interviews with 18 students of Korean nationality at seven of the universities included in this

project (all but the two universities in Korea). Survey findings are drawn upon to

contextualise qualitative findings where appropriate. Interviews were conducted in English,

Japanese and Mandarin by different members of the research team across the duration of the

project. They explored decisions to study abroad, learning experiences, social relations and

future aspirations. Prior to thematic and narrative analysis all interviews were transcribed and

where necessary translated into English.

Alternative Trajectories: Imagining Student Mobility in East Asia

Overseas study has become a taken for granted element of the higher education landscape in

Korea over the last two decades (Abelmann et al., 2009). In part, the increasing desirability of

overseas degrees has been one result of the rapid expansion of higher education and the

resulting decline in value of university education in Korea (Y. Kim, 2011). Increasing

emphasis is hence paid not just to the possession of a degree but to the ‘right’ degree from the

‘right’ university, with quite intense competition occurring for entry into the best national and

private universities (Park, 2004). It has also led to increasing interest in overseas degrees that

are seen to offer an advantage to young people returning to Korea post-graduation or a

potential ticket to migratory possibilities (Choi and Nieminen, 2013).

The leading institutions of North America and the West have held a strong grasp on the

imagination of the value associated with international education in Korea (Abelmann et al.,

2009). It is often imagined that western degrees have the potential to automatically enhance

class positions as a ticket to greater job opportunities, that the United States in particular is a

global centre of knowledge without compare, and that time spent in more ‘cosmopolitan’

destinations will enhance English language and global social capital (Park, 2009). As Youna

Kim (2011) argues, these imaginative dimensions of the United States as an educational

destination and its broader hegemonic socio-cultural and geo-economic position is

internalised as normative goals by many students and their families in Korea.

Given this broader context it was not surprising that participants in this study often referred to

American universities, and secondarily those in the Anglophone world as ideal destinations

for international education. While only a small number of participants had seriously

considered studying in the West, almost all characterized this as the normative route for

Korean international students: “Everybody just, if they have [the] opportunity, they [will] just

to go to Canada or America” (Female, Undergraduate - Business, Asia Pacific University).

The rationale for identifying the United States in particular varied between participants;

undergraduates often emphasized learning appropriate English, while postgraduates

mentioned research excellence. The PhD students in this study also reported experiencing

social pressure to view the United States as an automatic choice, and to justify decisions to go

elsewhere:

[Other people always ask] ‘Why do you want to go to [the] US?’ Because I have to

think about my future after I have completed to do my PhD. That time I thought I might

be going back to Korea after my Doctorate, then I have to settle down in a Korean

university. […] The majority of Korean professors got their Doctorate degrees in the

US but I think the situation has changed . […] I thought I can study further in India

[where I got my Masters degree] but if I can get into a good university, I don’t mind

going to the US; either one of [those options]. […] It was a really difficult decision.

Female, PhD South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore

As this account suggests the process of university selection can be challenging, as students

are caught up in the multiple demands posed by current educational and financial

circumstances and future career aspirations. For many participants, education in an Asian

university did not emerge as a natural choice but was rather seen as an alternative trajectory

that was more suitable or practical than studying in more traditional destinations. Many

students, for example, strongly desired the opportunity to study in the best Korean

universities but were constrained in terms of their own academic abilities or performance in

examinations:

I think the circumstance is really important. Maybe in Korea, I would like to get into

Seoul [National] University, the best of the best in Korea if you’ve heard about that.

But I can’t. I don’t know but NTU is the best of the best in Taiwan and in the world as

well.

Male, Masters in History, National Taiwan University

Intersecting with the challenge of entering the best Korean universities, was the cost

associated with studying abroad. A number of students noted that they or their parents simply

could not afford to study in Western universities where fees can be four or more times the

cost of universities in East Asia. Examples such as this suggest that students choosing to

study in Asian universities are seeking what Brooks and Waters (2009) describe as ‘a second

chance at success.’ In the context of increasing competition for spots in the best universities

in Korea, and the pressures exerted by family, friends and broader society, enrollment in the

leading universities of neighbouring countries offers something akin to an ‘honorable

substitute.. Students can claim to be experiencing an international education while at the

same time occupying a spot in universities that are in themselves highly competitive for

domestic students. An education at an Asian university then, also offers redemption for

students who have not otherwise succeeded in their earlier academic experiences.

While there was evidence that participants in this research had chosen to study in Asian

universities as part of a ‘second chance at success,’ it is also clear that the desire to be in Asia

is generated through emerging transnational imaginaries of the region. Throughout the

interviews, participants referred to the rising power and significance of Asia or specific

countries like China in socio-cultural or geo-economic terms:

“One day when I was watching news, the news said China will become richer than

Korea ten years later and it showed me a lot of insights. What is China now, what

universities China has. China was bad before, but it would improve very fast in five

years. I thought it would be better if I go to study in China instead of [the] USA.

Male, Undergraduate - Chinese Literature, Renmin University

Here, then, an Asian university is not simply a substitute for the more authentic desire for an

American degree but rather an alternative educational strategy that seeks to engage with an

already changing world. Other participants, noted specific skills that could be acquired

through study and living in Asia that might generate future opportunities within an

increasingly networked region. This included the opportunity to learn regionally significant

languages like Chinese and Japanese, or to gain exposure to cultures from around the region:

Even though this school is in Japan, it is [an] international school and then even though

I didn’t know Japanese, I can study many subjects with English and then above all, I

can study another language like Japanese and then I studied a little bit [of] Chinese here

so [it] was so attractive. So I just decided to come here. It was also a little bit related to

my dream; at that time, actually, my dream was really [to] be [an] international citizen.

Female, Undergraduate - Asia Pacific Studies, Asia Pacific University

For graduate students, research and study in an Asian university was also imagined as

superior because of the quality of staff and facilities available, and the rising reputation of

particular institutions. Our sample included PhD students specializing in South Asian Studies

in Singapore, Materials Engineering and Comparative Education in Japan, Chinese Studies in

China, and Urban Planning in Taiwan. In each case the participants had chosen to study at

these universities because they recognized the extant or growing reputation of these locations

as sites of research:

My parents also recommend that I go to America. But the reason [why] Koreans go to

America is [that] they expect they [will] come back to Korea after [completing their

studies there. […] The PhD is very useful to professors in [a] Korea[n] university. But

I did not think I have to live in Korea. […] For comparative research, it is more useful

to [compare] Japan and Korea, not America and Korea. Koreans [want] to get a job as a

university professor job. America’s high ranking universities , such as Harvard or Yale

is [more] useful for that purpose than the contents of the research. But I did not like

that.

Female, PhD Education, University of Tokyo

While for many participants in this study Asian universities offered a strategic opportunity to

build on the emerging significance of Asia, the desire to remain in the region was also

informed by imaginaries of cultural difference and familiarity.

When I was in France, the experience was not that pleasant because I could not speak

French. Even if I had adjusted toliving in France, I [still] found it hard to communicate

in some sense. If I want to discuss about very Asian things, it was difficult. While

working in the institute, I travelled to China once. I fe[lt] very comfortable and I felt

that maybe I am more comfortable in Asia, not in Europe.

Female, PhD Engineering, University of Tokyo

Accounts of this kind are not surprising, given that much research on international student

mobilities from Asia to the west has highlighted the manner in which students experience

intercultural challenges abroad (Brooks and Waters, 2011). Despite their claims to being

cosmopolitan spaces of encounter, many western universities and cities are challenging

places for students from Asia, where their bodily, linguistic and cultural differences often

become the subject of discrimination and abuse (Collins, 2010). There was also evidence of

challenges around cultural difference in this study but they did not appear to emerge in the

same everyday manner, perhaps because as one participant in Taiwan noted, “I look Asian so

they think that I’m Taiwanese.”

In addition to a sense of familiarity, other participants highlighted the importance of

geographical proximity in their imaginings of Asia, particularly in terms of remaining close

to family and friends:

The distance also. […] I have never been to any other country in 19 years. So it was

also kind of challenging for me and then to my family too. My parents and I had never

been separated for 19 years […]Japan or China is very close to Korea.

Female, Undergraduate – Asia Pacific Studies, Asia Pacific University

For undergraduates especially, we need to recognize the significance of experiences of

international study and independence, particularly by contrast to peers who remain in Korea.

The experience of studying abroad is also often a first experience away from home,

undertaken in a culturally different context and away from established familial and friendship

social networks. In this context, geographical proximity can enable more intense and intimate

connections with home than is possible for those who travel further afield. In this regard, in

addition to being a ‘second chance at success,’ a foundation for a future with a rising Asia

and a genuine competitor in reputational hierarchies, it is clear that as a study destination

Asia is also imagined as a space of familiarity and safety. In order to tease out these

imaginative dimensions of Asia as a space of learning, it is crucial to pay attention to the

manner in which they are generated as students move through different social and

institutional networks. It is to these infrastructures of student mobilities that I now turn.

Social and Institutional Infrastructures of Student Mobilities

Why is it that Asia is emerging as an alternative destination for international students from

Korea? Clearly, the answer is tied to individual circumstances but it also lies in paying

attention to the actors and institutions that contribute to the generation of ideas, images and

imaginaries of studying abroad. In Anglophone contexts, a key component of the social

infrastructures that enable student mobility have oscillated around the activities of education

agents and other intermediaries in emerging education industries (Collins, 2012; Kwak and

Hiebert, 2007). In contrast, however, none of the Korean students interviewed in this research

had spoken to education agents prior to arranging their study, and even in responses to the

questionnaire survey only 6.8 percent had engaged these services. Similarly, other official

sources of information, such as ‘host country government’ (8.1 percent), ‘university rankings’

(6.2 percent), and ‘education fairs’ (3.7 percent), were relatively unimportant. Rather, Korean

respondents to the survey sought information through either the Internet (35.3 percent), their

school or university in Korea (30.5 percent), the host university directly (28.5 percent), or

various social networks including friends (30.2 percent), family (24.4 percent) or school

seniors/alumni (21.1 percent). Interview findings further suggested that family histories of

mobility and connection in the region, social networks with friends and family, significant

others like teachers and alumni, and emergent regional institutional networks are more

important in shaping the flows of students.

Significantly, many of the students in this study had come from families where international

travel and mobility were normalized. A number of the participants had spent time abroad

themselves while they were growing up including in parts of Asia or further afield in France,

New Zealand and the United States. These earlier experiences of mobility generated an

interest in the possibilities of travel as well as in the specific places where students eventually

decided to study. In other cases, participants spoke about parents working overseas,

contributing to capacities to be mobile for education or that informed the advice given to

them about studying abroad:

When I was young, my father [was] working for Samsung […].He went to Singapore

and worked there for seven years. […] I don’t have fear about traveling alone. My

father travelled to many places like Hong Kong. […] I visited my father in his overseas

assignments. I travelled alone when I visited him, hence, I don’t have any fear of being

alone. Later when I asked him about studying overseas, he just said, “Okay, let’s think

about it more. Right, you want to study history.” He also gave me an advice: “Most of

people should speak Chinese. It’s really important. You can catch two balls, two balls,

like Chinese and history. And I said, “Oh, okay!”

Male, Masters in History, National Taiwan University

In these situations, an awareness that mobility is normalized informs the process through

which students come to imagine the possibilities of international study. Moreover, the

experiences of parents in the region has also meant that they play a critical role in guiding the

imaginations of students towards what is on offer in Asia. Sometimes, this process was

implicit, providing information and inspiration. In other cases, it was more unequivocal,

reflecting a strategic family project:

“Before [I] came to Japan, my father told me...[that] he studied in a private school, a

dental college, in Tokyo. He did the graduate course there. He met many professors

and got a lot of information about Japanese medical service. He sent my older sister

there on a trial basis and got more information through her. She took a test in my

department to find out what kind of test it will be.”

Male, Undergraduate – Medicine, Osaka University

Narratives of this kind have been an important theme within the literature on student mobility

where scholars have argued that “gaining overseas qualifications is very much part of a

family project of capital accumulation and social mobility” (Waters and Brooks, 2012: 30).

This father has clearly been influential in the paths taken by both his daughter and son, and

notably privileging the latter over the former. This project draws on personal experience as

well as family networks (the father’s sister also lives in Japan) and through these, seeks to

position children as successful graduates through their education in Japan. This trajectory

also builds on alternative histories of international education in the region (as embodied in the

father himself) but it also reflects a different approach to contemporary education that

appears to challenge accepted norms about overseas study as necessarily oscillating around

the west.

Inter-personal networks formed another substantial dimension of the social infrastructures

shaping the mobilities of Korean students. Many participants noted that they had been

introduced to study destinations through social contacts such as alumni from their high-

schools or universities in Korea. In other cases, students encountered ideas about where to

study through the social networks of their families:

My mom’s friend’s daughter went to the Asia Pacific University (APU) first so she

introduced about it to my mother.[…] What did I do when my mom told me about

APU? Well, I got really interested in APU. I did some search on the Internet. I didn’t

know it, but my friend’s cousin also went to APU. My friend ask[ed] her cousin about

APU and she gave me more information. This got me more interested in APU. I met the

cousin during the vacation and […] he provided me more information about APU.

Female, Undergraduate – Business, Asia Pacific University

In these cases, social networks have an important if indirect influence on students through the

generation of specific ideas and imaginaries about study. They provide an example of

‘bridges to learning’ (Collins, 2008) that facilitate and mediate the flow of information from

current or former to future potential international students. More explicit guidance, however,

was more likely to be provided by professionals such as teachers, who seemed to have a

notable role in inspiring students and specifically advising them on Asia as a study

destination:

At first I told her that I don’t want to go to a university in Korea; she knew that I was

trying to apply to the US. In the last year of high school when teachers had to decide

which universities students are going to apply for, I told her that I wouldn’t be able to

apply to the US [because of the cost]. She informed me that APU also uses English and

that is how I found out about APU.

Female, Undergraduate – Marketing, Asia Pacific University

The advice provided through social networks and inter-personal contacts, including family,

friends, alumni and teachers, contributes to a growing pattern of Korean student mobility in

Asia. Given the manner in which these social infrastructures “channel information and

resources” (Findlay and Li, 1998), it is not surprising that they facilitate student mobility in

the region.

Another set of transnational connections that supported the mobility of students in this study

was a range of emerging institutional networks between education providers in the region

(Mok, 2003). There were various ways in which students in this study interacted with these

emerging institutional networks. For some, such as those attending APU, a key moment

emerged through the recruiting activities of this relatively new and explicitly ‘international’

university. Unlike other universities in this study, APU engages in student recruitment

directly at high schools in Korea, providing information on courses, funding and careers

through information days or the provision of promotional materials to teachers. APU also

operates a recruitment office in Seoul where all of the students in this study had contact at

some point.

One of the particular features of international student mobility in Asia is that it often relies in

part on the learning of regional languages through which education is conducted. Because

most students in this study were not proficient in languages beyond Korean (and sometimes

English), the decision to study in Chinese or Japanese also involved a commitment to seek

pre-admission training in those languages. Language preparation schools in both Korea and

in China, Japan and Taiwan, then, constitute another emergent feature of the higher education

landscape in Asia. As the following excerpt illustrates language preparation schools, often

run by or for Koreans, can also play a broader role in student mobilities by providing

information on particular universities or programmes, and as a space for meeting and sharing

information with other Korean students:

A Korean college which teaches Chinese also prepares materials about China’s college

entrance exam. […] I met friends from the same high school in Korea. […] They all

said that if I want to study as an undergraduate, I should prepare for [the] college

entrance exam. It is not sufficient to study Chinese here. You need to learn about other

things. It is better to go through [a] Korean college. One of my elders is the vice-

president of that college. My older brother is also studying there. […] He told me to

study there after I finish the courses in Tsinghua University.

Male, Undergraduate – Chinese Literature, Renmin University

Another institutional pathway to study in Asia that a number of students in this research

identified was the increasing number of exchange opportunities available to those who

choose to study in home country universities. Student exchange provides an opportunity for

students to experience a country or university that may later contribute to their decision to

enroll for further study there:

At that time I went to Nagoya University as [part of] the exchange program. […] At

that time, I [had] never heard or [spoken in] Japanese! I only knew Hiragana. After I

returned to Korea and finished my university, I spent about a year of preparing for the

entrance exam, after which I came to Japan. Actually I want[ed] to goto America, but

changed my mind when I found out about the program in Osaka University while I was

an exchange student in Nagoya University.

Male, Masters in Engineering, Osaka University

For graduate students, particularly those pursuing PhD studies, it was also clear that many

had chosen their university because it had been recommended to them by supervisors or

mentors who themselves had experience or connections with those universities:

[Why did you come here?] Just because there are some teachers from Sun Yat Sen

University (SYSU) teaching in my university, so I had the chance to have contact with

them. […]Actually SYSU sends a teacher to my university (in Seoul) every year, and

my university sends a student there, but I don’t know if it’s done by the organization or

institution. The teacher from SYSU introduced me to the school. In addition, my own

masters supervisor also helped me to come here. […] I know some teachers in Seoul

and a teacher in SYSU, so it may be easier for me to do a PhD degree here.

Female, PhD Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language, Sun Yat Sen University

While academic mobility for PhDs of this kind is not especially new, there is an increasing

number of opportunities for students to gain reputable qualifications in Asia rather than

following the normative route to North America. As Kim (2010: 578) notes, “previously

sporadic, thin, limited and inter-national academic links and mobility have become

systematic, dense, multiple and trans-national.” For this student, these connections include

the institutional networks established between increasingly globally-oriented universities in

China and Korea, but also the interpersonal academic networks that are created and

established through this transnational academic field.

Cumulatively, these social and institutional connections constitute elements of the

infrastructures that support increased student mobility for Korean students in Asia. Their role

is to enable student flows by circulating ideas and imaginaries about studying in the region

through the provision of specific information about universities and the opportunities

available in them. These connections then also constitute part of the assembly of a more

diffuse set of regionalisms that emerge through personal and familial histories of mobility in

Asia, social networks that straddle national borders, and the growing aspirations of

universities to attract students from the region. These emergent Asian regionalisms are also

embodied in the aspirations of students for future mobilities and new kinds of identifications.

It is to this point that I now turn.

Aspirations and Identities

A transnational perspective on student mobilities makes it possible to explore not only the

forces that generate the desire to be mobile but also its implications in terms of personal

outlooks and aspirations for the future. International student mobility is not an end-point but

rather needs to be viewed as a critical moment in young people’s lives, a first experience of

different cultures, of independence from family and community, and a time for reflection on

the opportunities available to them. In this respect, international study can enhance

individuals’ ‘capacity to aspire’ (Appadurai, 2004), a ‘navigational’ ability commonly

generated through social interaction, exploration and thoughtfulness. In taking the second

chance to study internationally, pursuing education in a rising Asia or following the advice of

regionally networked contacts, the students in this research are also generating new

possibilities for themselves to become part of an Asian future. In the process, they are also

constituting this increasingly connected future, through the career paths that open up for them

or the new identifications that they are taking on.

While the reasons for attending universities in Asia varied considerably, students in this

research were almost completely united in claiming that their current educational activities

were having a transformative effect on their aspirations for the future. Participants spoke of

realizing what they wanted to do with their lives, of reflecting on the possibilities of being

abroad not just for study but for career or even future family formation, and of the effects of

life abroad on their self-identity, social networks and affiliations. One central theme that

emerged among participants was that study oriented them towards opportunities for career or

further study outside Korea:

If I studied advertising in the US, I don’t like think I would come back to Japan. I’m

not targeting Japan as the only country for me to work. For now, Japan would be the

first country because I am graduating from the university in Japan. My second and third

choices are China and Korea. Actually, my mother country is the last target for me right

now.

Female, Undergraduate – Marketing, Asia Pacific University

This was a common theme that also emerged in responses to the survey. Although 59.8

percent of Korean respondents indicated that they would like to return to Korea, many also

envisaged opportunities to be in Japan (21.7 percent), China (18.0 percent), North America

(14.1 percent), other parts of Asia (7.9 percent) or Europe (4.4 percent). When asked about

their career plans, the responses included multinational companies (49.9 percent), home

country company (36.3 percent), government (31.5 percent), university/research (30.9

percent), host country company (25.6 percent), own business (22.7 percent), family business

(19.2 percent), and non-profit organization (12.7 percent). In this respect, study in Asia can

support further mobility in the region but it also serves as a springboard to destinations

further afield. Indeed, even for those participants who could imagine working for Korean

companies they expected to be able to leverage off their study experiences to become part of

global circulations:

There are four world-wide known international accounting firms. The international

accounting firms established branches across the world and each firm is affiliated with

major firms in each country. For example, there is an accounting firm called Sam Il in

Korea, and the firm has been affiliated with Price Water House Coopers, sharing the

same system and communicating with [them] all across the world. I am not only

considering Japan. I want to go everywhere in the world, thus, I am enhancing my

English skills.

Male, Undergraduate – Economics, Osaka University

Although educational credentials earned are useful in opening up these opportunities, it is

also clear that the development of social networks and broader socio-cultural skills is equally

important. One key feature of the growth of student mobilities within Asia, then, has been the

formation of cultural ‘contact-zones’ (Yeoh and Willis, 2005) that might generate new kinds

of transnational friendship networks. Many students, particularly those at Asia Pacific

University, spoke about developing friendships with students from other parts of Asia, with

some highlighting the potential these might have for their future lives:

For me, it’s better to know [the] culture of the world and the cultures of different

peoples. It is more convenient if I just get along with Koreans, but I think I can’t learn

anything new in terms of language or culture from them. I think for my future, it’s

better to get along with people from around the world. Actually, it doesn’t matter if my

friends come from Korea, Japan, Singapore or China.

Male, Undergraduate – International Relations, Asia Pacific University

While all students in this study saw the value of developing friendships with peers from other

backgrounds and the potential of intercultural competency, not all were equally successful in

their desire to cross borders. Students at APU, whose university is explicitly international and

has large numbers of international students (almost 50 percent), appeared to have more cross-

cultural opportunities than students at other universities. In contrast, some students noted

being explicitly excluded:

Speaking Korean everyday is not a good practice while studying abroad. However, it is

hard to become intimate with classmates from other countries because of cultural

differences.

Male, Undergraduate – Chinese Literature, Renmin University

The politics of language is an important dimension of these differences. Indeed, where

students at APU and NUS study first in English and hence have proficiency in this global

lingua franca, students at the other universities in this study were struggling with either

Japanese or Chinese and often with developing English skills that they knew would be

important for current and future aspirations:

I feel that I cannot compete with my Chinese classmates because my Chinese is not

very good. […] I also feel that my professors are staring at me when I am talking; they

keep asking me what I am talking about. Little things make me feel pressured and also I

feel lonely in the school, [I] have no one to talk to. […] If my English was good but my

Chinese is not very [good], there’s no problem for me living in China, [it’s] acceptable

for daily life. But my English is not very good, my Chinese is just mediocre […] I have

the feeling that if I was American or European, things will be different. […] It’s kind of

like, [having] good English means [you are a] talented person.

Female, Masters in Chinese Studies, Sun Yat Sen University

Clearly then, the capacity to aspire for and navigate new regional futures is not automatic but

rather the product of negotiating complex inter-cultural landscapes. Not all students are

equally proficient in these challenges or have the same opportunities to expand their personal

horizons. Notably, for those students who have been able to successfully develop inter-

cultural friendships, this experience appeared to have a profound influence on how they

viewed themselves in the world and in relation to their sense of home and abroad. Some

participants noted an increasingly open attitude towards difference in the world, and a

reducing attachment to Korea and a Korean identity. For others, something akin to

‘cosmopolitan patriotism’ (Appiah, 1997) emerged:

I am always aware of my identity and it’s very important I think. I am a Korean citizen

who is good [at researching] Indian politics and [even if I travel] all over the world, I

don’t want to give [up] my Korean citizenship. […] I can live in Singapore as a […]

permanent resident […] but not [change my citizenship]. […] Staying abroad has made

my Korean citizenship and my Korean identity stronger. […] I see Korea through

people in other countries. I think that helps in developing a stronger identity. I can see

Korea through you and through Singaporeans and Malaysians. How they see Korea,

how they accept Korea and how they talk about Korea help in my own reflection of my

identity.

Female, PhD South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore

As Appiah (1997: 618) notes, the ‘cosmopolitan patriot’ is someone who can “entertain the

possibility of a world in which everyone is a rooted cosmopolitan, attached to a home of

one’s own with its own cultural particularities, but taking pleasure from the presence of other,

different places that are home to other, different people.” As this student’s account suggests

then, it is possible to be both intensely Korean and yet open to the world, or more specifically

in this experience and those of the other participants in this research, open to Asia as a region.

Such an orientation is clearly not an easy achievement and it is one that is shaped not only by

personal desires and imaginaries but also by the influence of social networks and institutional

connections that seek to mold the direction and outcomes of student mobilities as part of an

emergent region.

Conclusion

Emerging patterns of student mobility within Asia represent an important development for

scholars of international education who have, to date, focused almost exclusively on the

movement of students to Western destinations. This paper has examined these developments

through the narratives of Korean students in the region, and the manner in which an Asian

university degree is imagined, enabled and implicated in the aspirations of students. In this

conclusion, I ask what insight can be generated through analysis of these mobilities from a

transnational perspective, and what these mobilities tell us about the role of students in the

stitching together of Asian educational spaces.

The transnational approach taken to analyzing international student mobilities in this paper

highlights the power of imagination in generating a desire to circulate for education. For

students in this study, the imaginaries of international education in Asia facilitate their ability

to move beyond the limitations of circumstances and to articulate alternative futures in the

region. From this perspective, even as a ‘second chance at success’ for students limited by

earlier educational performance or socio-economic status, studying in Asia represents a

creative form of agentive will. Furthermore, by imagining Asia in terms of cultural

familiarity and geographical proximity, of growing reputation among regional universities, or

within geo-economic discourses of a ‘rising Asia,’ students are actively repositioning

themselves in the world as subjects who have an increased capacity to aspire.

As this paper has shown, these multiple imaginations of Asia as a space of education also

need to be examined in terms of the actors and institutions involved in their generation. The

narratives of students in this research revealed that their awareness of opportunities to study

at Asian universities, and the imaginative rationalities that drove the eventual decisions they

made, were the product of interactions in social networks, of institutional activities, or

broader public discourses. For universities in the region, there is clearly an interest in

encouraging students to be mobile and to desire an education in Asia rather than other parts

of the world. For family, encouraging children to remain in Asia can ease the financial

burden of education but it can also reflect aspirations for their children and visions of an

emergent Asia. Alumni too, can valorize their own educational choices through re-narrating

student mobilities in Asia as an accessible and desirable place for future students to be.

Cumulatively, paying attention to the role of these actors in student imaginaries highlights the

wider relations involved in generating student mobility in the region. International student

mobility in this regard is not the result of independent calculated choices by students alone,

but rather is the product of multiple forces and is caught up in the aspirations of others.

Finally, then, the transnational approach deployed in this paper has provided an insight into

the role of student mobilities in the loose stitching together of Asian educational spaces. This

is clearly an emergent assemblage of transnational connections that is not generated top-down

but rather through the overlapping imaginaries of place, the practices of social and

institutional actors and, crucially, the aspirations that international students have for their

futures. Studying in Asia offers opportunities to imagine oneself as part of an emerging

region – either in the career pathways made possible by Asian degrees, the cross-cultural

social networks that students become embedded in, and the new identifications that they take

on as part of an emerging Asia. As in student mobility to other parts of the world, these

aspirations are never certain and require personal investment in the value of education,

capacities to operate cross-culturally even in a familiar region, and the nurturing of social

networks. In this way, this paper has shown that the emerging mobility of students in Asia

needs to be understood within a broader social and geographical context, one that draws

attention to the meaningful dimensions of crossing borders to learn and the implications this

has for students’ understanding of Asia and themselves in the world.

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