Since I finished my semester around May 10th, I have been going back and forth between NY and DC until May 28th, when I finally packed and left NY for my summer Asia trip. My first stop was Los Angeles. Believe it or not, this is my first time, as far as I can recall, coming to this city. I was invited to a graduate conference at UCLA, and it was great to hang out with people I had made friends with at the grad conference that Columbia had back in February. The conference was interesting, and hopefully I did not bore the audience too much with my presentation.
There were a number of professors who supportively attended the conference as discussants and audience. When I had a chance to have conversations with these professors in person, since I was the only student from Columbia, let alone the only student who is officially enrolled in the “international and global history” PhD track, they asked me a lot about the program. They (China historians/literature professors) told me that history departments are still organized based on nation-state compartments, and the institution is hard to change. 
I was surprised to hear that Japan historians are the most resistant to the trans-national/global history trend, since my advisers in NY are radically pro-transnational (although I wasn’t surprised to hear the old generation of Korea historians are against it). Apparently, among Japanese and Korean history professors, there is a fear that Chinese history is absorbing Japan and Korea in the name of ‘global.’ The UCLA professors asked me how I would market myself when I do job-hunting. I could not care less about the labels I would use — whatever convenient for the occasion. I am even not totally sure whether I am a ‘historian’ or a ‘historical social scientist’ or ‘political historian’ or something else.
The Los Angeles airport was a bit of mess. At least where my gate was. It was under some sort of renovation, and people needed to wait in bizarre space with lots of silver pipes and bulbs. It felt like I was in a refugee crowd in a sci-fi movie.
I just flew into Taiwan this morning, and am staying with my fiends, here. Taiwan is as fascinating as ever. I had Guangdong rice porriage (less then 2 bucks) and a huge cup of ice coffee with half sugar (1 dollar) this morning. I love this island. (The Pic: an emergency exit on the airport bus that I took. It successfully conveys that it really is an emergency exit.)