Local Museums

When I was training for Humanitas back in the mid 1990s, one of the places they introduced us to was the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at UCLA.

At the time, they had a superb exhibition on Vodou, the West African religion that has been making a comeback in the Caribbean where it was once illegal. At any rate, the Fowler had a special training for us in their seminar room and gave us materials to use in class. We toured the exhibit as well. They also had another Humanitas event around Peru's Moche people (pre-Inca). That was an eye-opener.

The Fowler Museum of Cultural History at UCLA has some very interesting displays. When some exhibits open up, there are live, interactive displays or performances to highlight them. Experts come down to give talks for members. It can be a great experience for teachers wanting to look deeper at other cultures. Another interesting mode of exhibition is their thematic presentations. Presently, there is an exhibit on doors. The collection is international in nature. The promotion points out how doors not only separate space, but define it. That is an interesting concept.

http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/incEngine/

Though I am guilty of not attending events in the past few years, I still get e-mails announcing live events and openings on weekdays and weekends. Events include musicians, artists, experts, some from the lands being represented. These events are great to go to because they bring the exhibit to life--that makes it useful for teachers, who don't have the money to go to all the countries represented.

subscribe to the e-mail and get these notices. After you are done, take a walk around the campus, go to the gift shop (Fowler's and UCLA's), and enjoy the atmosphere. I like walking up the steps to Royce Hall and the library--quite a view.[Edit by="vortiz on Jul 28, 9:33:16 PM"][/Edit]

If you watch the bad WW2 movie, Midway, starring a lot of wasted Hollywood talent and the great (infuriatingly dubbed over) Mifune Toshiro as Admiral Yamamoto, the Japanese garden at the Huntington is the location where Yamamoto is told that the Americans have bombed Tokyo, and other sites (the famous Doolittle Raid). Just FYI.

Is the bridge in the garden still that Chinese orange? Seems to me that Japanese bridge would be natural wood. A torii might be orange, but not a bridge. That's how I remember seeing the place in the late 70s.

BTW, I just looked at some pictures and someone must have got through to the Huntington, the Moon bridge is now natural wood color. yatta!

Other shots of the garden I have just seen show a stronger effort to be culturally correct, as well. Looks like the Huntington's Japanese garden might be a worthy place.

Has anyone been to the Donald Tillman Water Reclamation plant? There is a small Japanese teahouse and garden there. There are items donated by LA's sister-city of Nagoya. It is run by DWP and located in the Balboa Basin of Van Nuys.

Tillman Center Japanese Garden

[Edit by="vortiz on Jul 28, 9:35:54 PM"][/Edit]

The Japanese garden at the Huntington is very nice. In addition to the garden is also a display showing a traditional interior of a Japanese house. Included in the garden is a rock garden as well as a display of various Bonsai plants. I believe that the Japanese garden part of the Huntigton was recently reopened after renovation. The entire Huntington museum is very nicely done along with the various parts of its garden, but the Japanese garden is definitely a highlight and is very much cecommended.

For another salary point class on Saturday I had to go to the Japanese National American Museum and I agree it is really interesting. Beautiful architecture and displays, with a main focus on Japanese internment. They have an actual barrack from one of the camps rebuilt inside the museum and a lot of artifacts showing how much hatred there was towards the Japanese during the WWII era.

I do agree that there is no equilateral comparison to the Japanese internment and the Holocaust. There were some mentions of the camps as being, "Concentration Camps," which was a bit strange because I always related that term to the death camps in Europe. What we did to Japanese Americans was horrific and racist, but you cannot compare the two.

This comparison becomes a problem with my 10th grade English class. Two texts we are required to teach is Night and Farewell To Manzanar. One year I made the mistake of teaching Night first and when we got to Manzanar the kids didn't care. How can you feel sorry for a girl who is forced to eat rice covered in canned peaches when you just read about a boy witnessing little babies getting thown into a fire?

I guess the point is that you have to teach your students about relativity. Japanese internment was a terrible thing and asking our kids how they would feel if they were sent off to live in camps is a good way to put it in perspective.

I would like to also share about a local Museum. The Korean Cultural Center located on Wilshire in Los Angeles provides many resources related to Korea. The website is http://www.kccla.org/. The Korean Cultural Center has a museum on the lower level and offers Korean language classes and host films, seminars, and other workshops related to Korean culture such as tea ceremonies. I attended the monthly tea cemonony held on the fourth Wednesday of every month. At the tea ceremony, they demonstrated a traditional tea ceremony and showed us how to make traditional tea cookies as well.

I first found out about the Korean Cultural Center through a salary point workshop on Korean History last summer. They are offering the same workshop this summer as well. It's a one week workshop and you can find more about it on the LAUSD salary opportunities website. I highly recommend visiting the Korean Cultural Center and the workshop.

http://www.janm.org/education/

Check out the "education" section on Japanese American National Museum's website. It is full of useful information and is align to the California State Content Standards.

There are links/resources for teachers where you can order a Teacher Tool Kit for teaching the Japanese American Experience.