About

Hey y'all!! I'm Aster, currently a sophomore in university studying Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Chinese with a minor in French. I'd say that 99% of my days deal with university or my research. I focus on the use of Buddhism by the Chinese and Taiwanese governments in cross-strait relations, along with Buddhism's interactions with the Chinese state. I want to one day do fieldwork at 九jiǔ華huà山shān since I find the figure of Kṣitigarbha/地dì藏zàng to be interesting and comparatively understudied. I'm very early into my studies, however, so I often think I know nothing at all, which is probably pretty correct. One of my dreams is to get the Rhodes Scholarship-- very much a pipe dream, but the process of being competitive enough for it should at least get me some nice experience. I'm currently working on a website dedicated to my research, but in the mean time check out /research. :)

Otherwise, I enjoy genealogy, learning languages, cooking, calendar systems, conlanging, reading, film photography, travelling, running, journaling, studying history, solarpunk, writing... basically if it is studying or anything mildly esoteric I'm probably into it! Check out /interests or my media log for more.