General Discussion Forum for the Class

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Please use this section to discuss issues and topics raised in class.

Feel free to post articles, links, and other information you've read in the paper or heard in the news that your classmates may be interested in.

[Anonymous]

I was wondering if anyone has read the novel Waiting by Ha Jin? It is about a man in 1960s China who is in an arranged marriage. He is a medical student and doctor living far from home and only returns to his home to ask for his wife's permission to divorce (for 18 years). Meanwhile he has become involved with another woman who he waits for. On another level it involves Confucian filial piety and duty to the government during the cultural revolution. It would make a good film if it hasn't already. The main characters display the universal struggle between the needs of the human heart and requirements of duty. All this is played out across different areas and climates of China. The book is restrained in the beginning for Western readers expecting explosions and "hooks" due to the inaction and lack of decision made by the main characters. Indecisiveness results in a decisions/consequences in an ironic way. Great story about China at this time in history.

Tell me what you think.
Betse Amador

[Anonymous]

It's an interesting concept for a movie. The theme of love and duty is a teetering conflict for many-- in fact, I heard that in Korea, there are many senior citizens who are filing for divorce. In their eyes, they've done their duty of raising children and do not feel the need to live with someone they don't love. It's an interesting phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

There have been quite a stir lately about child labor in garment production is this something that also takes place in China? What has been done to make sure that children are not exploited in such a way?

[Anonymous]

I have been searching for my fellow colleauge, Mr. Smythe's article about Japanese Magna and I just can't find it. However I do understand that everyone finds it as avery good way of cmmunicating values to children ,teenagers, women, and men, of all stages in life and of different levels of socioeconomic status. These books have been worked on to be very inexpensive so it can easily be bought by everyone and anyone. It leaves little excuse for illiteracy among the Japanese.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting that there has been a surge of the manga and anime culture in the United States. I grew up reading manga like any other novels/books and did not consider it a cartoon book, in a traditional sense. I think my perception about it was affected by the fact that the adults around me were also reading manga as literature or everyday reading (like a newspaper, for example). It is common for mangas to teach morality -- Professor Miyake covered that during the section about filial piety cartoons. It is also interesting that within the Asian culture, themes are similar cross-culturally: I've read many stories in both Japanese and Korean that covered similar topics or themes.

[Anonymous]

It is interesting to know that you grew up reading manga, and how you didn't consider it a cartoon. I remember when I was a little girl back in Guatemala-I used to read comic books, like manga's. The books always had a hero, but I just read them because they were funny and interesting. It made me understand it more by looking at the pictures and how the emotions of different characters were showned. It was how I got started into reading. I think that if it had not been a colorful and animated book I would have never liked reading as much as I do now. Now in our schools we have so many children at a low level and maybe if we can us the manga in our classroom to get them started in reading more, than maybe eventually they will pick up a book and read on their own.

[Anonymous]

1-Dec 15, 8:48:05 AM

[Anonymous]

2-Dec 15, 8:48:10 AM

[Anonymous]

3-Dec 15, 8:48:16 AM

[Anonymous]

4-Dec 15, 8:48:21 AM

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, it appears that the East is following the footsteps of the West in the way in which societies should evolve. The West's social evolution is better represented by the term of involution, regression of culture and social improvement. In addition, the industrial-market economies of the developing nations are being cloned after the West's models, and, more so, the U.S. model which is pregnant with individual human and civil rights deformities. China's abandonment of its cultural/ethico-moral principles supplanted by the West's laissez-faire, anarchistic and irresponsible expansive economies propelled by greed is the last strike against human societies. Th U.S. and China appear to be the most egregious culprits in offending nature's and human rights: the US in its ever-increasing hunger for consumption, and China in its ever-increasing greed in production and flooding world markets with its over-production of consumer goods. China, with its 1.5 billion people, appears to me to have lost sight of its sense of universal and human responsibility and has become more zealous than any other country in its application of the Darwinian principles of "survival of the fittest". Everything in China is expressed in superlative absolute terms: the most, the biggest, the largest, the greatest, etc., just like the U.S. I do not see any indication of a change in this trend... Even India appears to be following a similar social involution... irresponsible conduct towards the protection and expansion of universal and human rights.

[Anonymous]

5-Dec 15, 8:48:26 AM

[Anonymous]

6-Dec 15, 8:48:36 AM

[Anonymous]

7-Dec 15, 8:48:41 AM

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