A panel of professors gathered yesterday afternoon to consider how Western globalization is affecting Asian cultures.

“The key question to consider is whether it is possible to maintain a Chinese essence in the face of Western means,” said Professor of History William C. Kirby, who is also director of Harvard’s Asia Center.

Nearly 70 students attended the event, whic hwas billed as an answer to the question “Is Modernization Westernization?”

Assistant Professor of Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies Eileen C. Chow ’90-’91 spoke about the cultural aspects of modernization and focused on the changes that can accompany globalization.

For example, she said, the Western-style novel has been adopted as a form of literary expression in East Asia.

But globalization does not necessarily mean homogenization, Chow said, and cultures can incorporate foreign ideas without losing their own distinctive elements.

“What is really interesting about modernization, or any cultural phenomenon, is not where it came from, but what happens to it after it arrives,” she said.

While Chow spoke optimistically about maintaining Asian culture despite Western influence, Ford Professor of the Social Sciences Ezra F. Vogel said that Western modernization can create ideological changes in Asian countries.

Historically, Vogel said, Asians who study science and technology in Western countries have found it difficult to return home without advocating changes in their nation’s system of scientific research.

He said it is difficult to modernize technologically without having more fundamental societal changes follow.

In the question and answer session that followed, students raised a number of concerns about the disappearance of Asian thought as a result of globalization.

Chow responded that it is impossible to define the West by a single ideology.

“It’s more complex than just the East and West,” Chow said.

The panel was sponsored by the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations, which organizes an annual conference on international relations. Yesterday’s discussion was intended as a “taste” of what to expect at this year’s conference in Sydney, Australia, said the group’s chair, Yiting Liu ’03.