Thank You "East Asia Since the 1800s"

I am so grateful for the incredibly thoughtful, rich, and intelligent design of the “East Asia Since the 1800s” seminar! In the course of a few months, I feel that I have breezed through decades of history, differentiations between cultures in the East, and have developed a greater understanding of how to teach Asia from a truly Asia-centric perspective. As I stated on the very first day of the program, I longed to use my experience at the seminar as a starting-off point to teach my students how to think of themselves as “global citizens” and that is exactly what I intend to do! Since I am an English teacher, I intend to begin introducing East Asian topics into my classroom through the use of “comparative texts” (both literature and informational texts). One of the most fascinating approaches I have found to teaching about Asian culture was through both the lectures of Professor Jennifer Jung-Kim and Professor Bill Tsutsui. What I found so impressive was the way they used an analysis of social life in Korea and pop culture in Japan, respectively, as ways to begin conversations about the history & culture of East Asia.

I think the way I will begin my teaching is through the use of the “historical encounter” role play activity that Professor Dube practiced with us during one of our first few sessions of the seminar! I believe I will start with a “role play” activity that asks students to research the differences between North Korean and South Korean ideologies at the start of the civil war. I will then transition into having students read articles that provide personal accounts of Korean experiences (such as Kim’s “Lost Names” or Park’s “When My Name Was Keoko”). Since there is an array of film about Korea (esp. in the North), I would then ask students to analyze how American involvement in the Korean War may have led to the current governmental state. I might finally conclude my lesson about Korea through looking at Korea through a cultural lens, by analyzing the popularity of K-Pop & why the strong cultural capital of SK may in fact be connected to the political/social history of the country. While this would just be one set of lessons, I believe teaching Asia through these frameworks may be a strong way to increase student interest and enhance classroom engagement. I am so grateful to the USC US-China Institute for this experience and helping my students learn about Asia from a truly Asian perspective! My students will now be one step closer to becoming global citizens of the 21^st century.