ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about engaging Asian ideas of Self and exposing the binary falsity of East and West in the process, all in the context of higher education. The term transnational education, moving beyond its original intent to distinguish itself from international education, with its attendant ills and limitations, can also be taken semiotically. Transnational education may supersede international education if it can reflect this complexity. Conceptions of the Self vary and pulsate; here, people seek to draw on Asian notions of Self to supplement, rather than collide with, any Western ones. The specific case of Vietnamese students studying in Australian offshore degree programmes offered in Vietnam and investigate their confrontation with a commercialized notion of education, apparently predicated on their 'Otherness' against the West, a pathology they may not actually accept from the onset. The chapter draws on extensive interview data collected by Thi Nhai Nguyen, concerns situating theories of Self and Other on the shifting sands of Asia.
