Message from nminassian

[Anonymous]

I'm very glad that I had a chance to be a part of the China Institute Summer 16 program. I had extremely limited knowledge before this course, and looking back it is embracing that most of my knowledge was limited by sushi or Chinese restaurants. From day one I have learned many terms such as guanxi (relationships in business deals), the ever-growing Chinese economy in the world (from Stephen Cheung's presentation), and Japanese food traditions from Mr. Yamashita's presentation. I am very interested to learn more about Japanese food, and I wish we could have more time to discuss the Traditional tea parties. I had no idea that some of the Japanese food items had Portuguese origins. I also have learned about the four cooking techniques (ageru, yaku, niru, and musu). My favorite part of the presentation was the history of Ramen. The third day of our study was about Korea/globalization and the Korean wave. I am very interested in learning more of the fact that Korean kings preferred to marry to Mongolian princesses. I didn't have much interest in boy bands or girl groups, but was interesting to learn that the agencies would pay for their plastic surgeries, and make them "more desirable". To me they were loosing their personalities, and becoming fake, carbon copy puppets. The second part of the presentation by Yunxieng Yan was about the individuals and social groups. I found some similarities in traditional Chinese societies, and Armenian traditional family structures. In our culture we too honor our ancestors, and unfortunately not much attention is given to women. I agree with big self (me) vs. bigger self (family). The highlight of the China Institute was Lori Meek's presentation about Buddhism. I want to learn more, and will use every opportunity to take more classes that involve that topic. The perfect end of the institute was our field trip, which tied everything we have learned together, and was a perfect conclusion. I want to use this opportunity to thank all the organizers of this wonderful program, and as a teacher I will use the learned material to plant seeds of curiosity for East Asia in my students.