Session 1 w/Dr. Dube

Although I have been teaching Medieval Chinese history to 7th graders for the past seven years, I am not familiar with contemporary Chinese politics. After attending the first session with Dr. Dube, I became more aware of the land and territories controlled by China. Taiwan is a separate entity; while Hong Kong now belonging to China administers its own elections. The seminar also discussed the anticipation of upcoming elections in 2012 in China, Taiwan, and of course the United States. I did not realize prior to the session, the demand of the mineral rights in the South China Sea. I hope to learn more about the demand and control of the mineral rights in this region as well as become more familiar and updated about the government practices of East Asia.

I now know that the U.S. and China have a lot in common. These countries are trying to advance in a very problematic economy.I was really focused on the geographical features. The Chinese have made major contributions in the search for raw materials.My interest is in learning what the future relationship will be between the U.S.and China.

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In our first session, we discussed the idea of the globalization of news and the way that September 11th was seen in Asia. As a result, I found myself reflecting on my own experiences of that day.
September 11, 2001, was a normal workday. As usual, I went from my microscopic apartment in a suburb of a major Japanese city to the local public high school, where I taught a full day of English classes. After school, I went home – still nothing out of the ordinary. Later that evening, however, I realized something was wrong while listening to the radio. My Japanese was still rudimentary, but the announcer kept saying “New York” and “airplane” over and over. After about the 3rd time, I tried to go to the CNN webpage. Nothing would load. So I turned on the TV – it was all in Japanese, but the images were clear enough.
I panicked – several of my relatives regularly had meetings at the World Trade Center, and many of my friends lived or worked nearby. All circuits were overloaded – there was no way to call home and see if people were safe. So instead, I called a close friend (another American) who lived in a different suburb of the same major Japanese city. Her mother had been booked into the hotel at the foot of the WTC buildings. She, too, could get no news.
In the US, if there is a major disaster in another country, we’ll see clips of it on the news. That day, however, the Japanese news kept reporting live for hours. The events were unfolding half a world away, but the nation watched that night, much the way Americans did at home.
Finally, desperate for English-language news, I called a Japanese friend with a car. It was too late to make the train connections to the far suburb where a different friend had English stations. We drove across the city, late at night, but still in touch. It was 2001, but Japanese cars had TV. Not a screen you could use to watch a video or DVD but actual live TV. Now, one could question the wisdom of being able to watch live TV in your dashboard while driving, but I was grateful.
The three Americans stayed up all night, watching the news and making periodic attempts to call home. We were fortunate – all our loved ones were safe. Still in shock, we all took the day off of school. It was surreal – life in Japan continued as normal, but the Americans all walked around in the same daze that people at home experienced. We felt a fundamental disconnect from the people around us.
In Japan, strong public displays of emotion aren’t common, and our coworkers didn’t know how to respond to our obvious distress. In Japanese, a normal thing to say to someone who is sad is “genki dashite.” It’s roughly culturally equivalent to “feel better” or “hang in there,” but has the unfortunate tendency to be translated by Japanese people as “cheer up.” It was hard, listening to well-meaning people say “cheer up” on September 12 and 13. I was not going to cheer up any time soon.
Few things changed in our daily lives. Security tightened around the consulate, we got searched more extensively at the airport – taking every item out of carryon bags, and fewer Japanese people traveled to Hawaii, but things mostly stayed the same. When we went home, though, it was to a new America. The changes that had taken place in the US were even more striking since we had been away in Asia, not taking part in them. We’d become strangers in our homeland, and it took a long time to readjust.

There are many impressions of China I have acquired over the years, most of them vague and second hand. I'm old enough to have been told by my mother at dinner that "there are children starving in China" to her fussy kids. Yes, she really said that. I went to China last year and saw this starvation first hand. I was devastated, I had so much to learn! Yes, at some point in the day, many people WERE starving - sitting, dazed, but now struggling to arrange all the choices they knew would lead to even more intestinal distress. I joined them in this suffering.

Yup, China is different now.

A workshop for "East Asia and the USA" had to start as it was, talking about things that got the relationship to start. I was trying to remember who was the Secretary of State that told the US President to expand the US commerce and economic interest as fast as possible into Asia, but instead I found this time line.
http://us_asians.tripod.com/timeline-overall1.html

I'm very happy to be here for a 3rd time. I remember ordering and receiving the books granted after the first workshop, but I don't remember doing it for the second one. Is there a way to check? who should I ask? At the San Pedro High school I have placed most of the books I received from that first order, the rest are in my classroom, but I feel we need more :o)