Reflections on Session #2 (2/5)

[Anonymous]

Geography most certainly has an impact on the way people live, especially in Japan and Korea. In the readings I found it interesting that both do not have large ethnic populations. Yet, historically both have been influnced by the other. Though, influenced by China, willingly it seems in the case of Japan, both countries have developed rich cultural traditions of their own. Most interesting of all, I found Japan's treatment of Taiwan during WW II surprising.

[Anonymous]

I found the lecture and discussion on geography helpful. It is logical to start with geographic factors when looking at cultural developments, but this is not always obvious to students. Jared Diamond does an amazing job of this in Guns, Germs, and Steel. He discusses why Africa’s and the Americas’ North-South orientation put then at a disadvantage to Eurasia’s East-West orientation. The book describes the different rates of development and dispels past racist explanations. See http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/.
On Tuesday, I thought of teaching students about the population density in Korea as a starting point to a further discussion of societal norms. Another great example is having students list their favorite pieces of technology and labeling those that come from Korea or Japan. This leads to the question: why from there and not here? Hopefully, students can come to the conclusion that a higher population density leads to an increase in specialization and demand.
On another note, when North Korea’s prison camps came up, I thought of the great National Geographic documentary Inside North Korea. See http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/explorer/videos/inside-north-korea/. It is also on Netflix to watch instantly. I show clips of this when I’m teaching about Totalitarianism. It was especially effective last year, because students were able to compare North Korea to the book and film Hunger Games.
edited by gsharpe on 2/8/2013

[Anonymous]

From the session I took away several interesting tidbits. I found the notion that there are advantages to the population density of a city such as Tokyo to be enlightening--particularly valuable was the idea that infrastructure would be less costly per capita. I also thought that it was very telling that rice and tea are treated with honorific prefixes in Japan.

In terms of take-aways for teaching, we touched on the Japanese Empire and its influence and impact on Korea--I hope to learn more to develop a unit for my students in Modern World History. I want to know more about Japan's ambitions, the raw materials they gained from colonies and the type of control and relationship they maintained with regions in their domain.

My students have already been studying population and graying of Japan as well as water issues in China. These are topics in the Global Studies course I teach. My students are also very interested in North Korea and I thought "The Odd Couple" article might interest them--it talked about the potential issues with unification of the Korean peninsula. Several points struck me: "...the epitome of globalization's success, who men on average are three inches taller than their poorer neighbors." This made me wonder how connected--after 60 years--the two nations were--culturally, politically, socially, economically, and literally--by blood. The article explains: "South Korea is ill-prepared, psychologically, politically and economically, for the unification presumed to follow the eventual collapse of the north." The challenge of merging the two countries seems like it could devastate S. Korea's growing but still emerging economy and the analogy to East and West Germany pounds home that point. North Korea holds so many interesting dilemmas for the world community: will its dictatorship endure and for how long, will it provoke its neighbors into a high stakes confrontation or is it more likely to harm its own people than threaten other nations.

In class, we also began talking about China and I was very interested in hearing more about the water issues there as well as the explanations for the rapid urbanization in the past decade. Currently in my Global Studies class, we are discussing "leapfrog technology" and I am eager to learn more about how China is and will be progressing toward a greener future as it continues to industrialize.

[Anonymous]

Session 2 was my first session as I was late to sign up. I was nervous about attending because I was not sure how the class was structured, how the professor would teach, or how the interaction between students and the professor would take place. I was also a bit intimidated as I have very little knowledge about Asian history or Asian culture. However, by the end of the session I was extremely interested in the subject matter and felt my time was well spent beginning my participation in this program. The professor seemed adept at providing basic information for the rookies in the field as well as giving extended detailed information for those who are already well versed.

I teach cultural anthropology, economics, and U.S. government so I am pretty excited about how the ideas presented in this session can apply to all of my courses. Specifically, I want to incorporate a lot of the ideas into my anthropology class (where I have more flexibility on what I can teach). My anthropology students are very familiar with the concepts of cultural relativism and historical particularism and I am going to use those concepts as the basis of discussion about Asian cultures. I am specifically interested in 1) how the psychical environment influences culture, 2) the cultural norms and restraints of particular cultures, and 3) how culture is affected by diffusion and contact. These ideas ran through the majority of the session so I was well pleased. My theoretical orientation most often aligns with Malinowski (functionalism), Claude Levi Strauss (binary structuralism), and Clifford Geertz (interpretive approach) so this will be the framework from which I analyze the lessons presented by the professor and the format I will use to explore Asian cultures with my students.

I do not feel I have enough factual knowledge yet to begin implementing lessons about Asian cultures with my students, but I believe that if the rest of the sessions are presented in a similar style and build on the knowledge I acquired in this session that by the end of the program I will be well prepared to add a productive, meaningful unit on Asian cultures to my anthropology teachings.
edited by rlaunius on 2/8/2013

[Anonymous]

Session 2 was also my first session. There was an overwhelming amount of interesting information presented. I came in with very little prior knowledge about Asian history and culture. I learned a wealth of information. I was really interested with what we learned about Japan. It seems like such a different society and culture than here in America.

Although I teach English and not history, the academy I am at is the school of Business and Tourism. We focus on project based learning with all subjects. This year, 9th graders take Geography, and I can see this fitting in perfectly with an interdisciplinary unit with the Geography teacher. Each student could be assigned a different country in Asia, and make a travel and tourism guide for that country. In my class, they could write a persuasive essay that asks students to persuade tourists to visit that country. Or it could be an expository essay in which they write an informational essay comparing and contrasting our culture in America to a culture in Asia.

I was also very interested in learning different facts about Japan, China, and North and South Korea. It was shocking to learn about the water in China, and interesting to think of how differently the Japanese save their money as opposed to Americans. Also, just out of curiosity, why do people in North Korea have such a higher caloric intake than people in South Korea?!

Overall, I look forward to learning more about Asia and how I can incorporate it into my classroom.

[Anonymous]

The points of discussion that I remembered the most about session #2 had to do with ecology and the environment and the long-term impact that these behaviors will have coupled with the population growth in China. I was interested in the inter - relationship between environmental awareness and population density. Japan's approach to environmental management is an impressive one. I was interested in Clay's explanation of the positives that have come out of the growth in Japanese urban areas. This was in sharp contrast to China's approach.

I was shocked by the numbers Clay was rattling off about the water quality in China. This was intensified by the points discussed about rainfall amounts in China. It is difficult for me to fathom how Chinese leaders seem to show little concern for these two problems. Although there is very little that humans can do to control rainfall, there is much they can do about managing their ecological footprint. I am also shocked that we hear very little about the public's opinions on this. I would be frightened and extremely concerned if I lived in China about the quality of my drinking water and the level of pollution. When I heard the percentages of water that is unfit for industrial use, I was very shocked. I would like to know if there are any rumblings among the general population about these matters.

[Anonymous]

I thought the Geography topic of this week was very appropriate. I often start my unit with a geography lesson, since the geography of a culture can tell us so much about the people I thought it was a good foundation. For example, we examined how Japan is about 2/3 mountain and forest, therefore most people live in the cities, making them very crowded. These over crowded cities had many advantages from specialized labor, public transportation, to better technological and educational advances. Within the overcrowded cities topic there was a discussion about how crowded the subway is during rush hour. I really liked the example that was presented of laying a sheet of newspaper and asking students to visualize 7 people standing on it. I think this would be a great visual lesson for my students to see what it would be like to take the subway in Japan in the middle of the day. I would extend this lesson and have students reflect on how their transportation is different than theirs.

[Anonymous]

The second session was very interesting for me because it presented a lot of new information that I was not familiar with. The main topic of interest for me was learning about the geography of countries and the similarities that coexists between them. For example, as a class, we pointed out that China has 15 neighbors compared to the two that the United States has. As a result of this, China’s communication and outsourcing system is impacted. Moreover, learning about Japan’s rapid growth in the field of technology is a topic that amazes me. I am interested to know what their motivation is about constantly changing and updating their technological advances. With the introduction of new technologies in Japan, whether it is for military, business or social media purposes, what is being affected or destroyed in society based on these actions? In other words, is the new technology taking advantage of the old forms of technology and working against it by changing the lives of many people? Despite the fact that technology, such as the internet is a helpful tool in education and other institutions, how has this changed the lives of many people when looking to the future?
edited by dcoronel on 2/9/2013

[Anonymous]

I overawed by the demographic issues that were presented. I am particularly interested in the mix in China when you think about the combination of urbanization with the rapid pace of technologal changes that the whole world is wrestling with. This seems a clear recipe for extreme societal changes. It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out.
edited by lstribling on 2/9/2013

[Anonymous]

On Session #2 I could tell how little I know and understand about East Asia. It was like stepping into a journey to a new frontier. I am interested in learning more about this topic in this class. As a History teacher, I try to bring as much geography as I can to my lessons, especially to my English Learner(EL) students. Most of them have no notion of the world beyond the places they were raised. During this week, I had an interesting conversation with one of my students from Kazakhstan. He rose the topic of geography and fact that he noticed that other students did not know where he was from, less alone about his culture.
Question: How can we be prepared to be a 21st century country when our children are not aware of their global surrounding?

[Anonymous]

Oops! I posted in the wrong section. Try again.
Taiwan gives gift certificates that must be used, Bush gave tax cuts. The government made an attempt to directly impact the economy with money in specific categories ? I'm wondering if the impact was greater? I find the cultural differences in our cultures to be fascinating. Korea's obsession with video games, Japan's young children on the subway, and Korea's long history of division. I pondered what if would look like if Korean united? What ideas and creativity would come from this sort of giant unifying force?

[Anonymous]

I was very impressed by Tuesday's lecture. It would be interesting to have students research a number of countries and Asia and have them create a powerpoint with their research on the history, demographics, and current issues that affect the country. They can also do a comparison between what sources in the country are reporting about a specific issue (if they are available) and what the U.S. is reporting on the same issue.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the links! I also showed my students the National Geographic documentary: Inside North Korea. While they were in shock at the level of restrictions put in place in North Korea, and the subsequent social programming that results, they very much enjoyed it. It's a great piece for introducing the topic of Totalitarianism, and generating a discussion on its impact.I believe they would also be interested to see that satellite shot Professor Dube showed us of North Korea at night time. It would hit the message home even more. They are literally and figuratively kept in darkness.

[Anonymous]

I did a search on old historical maps to find the old European names of countries and territories in East Asia. These are the names of exotic far away lands that would have showed up in literature or journals devoted to the adventures of explorers. These are the territories that focused the attention of so many colonial and mercantile interests seeking to reap fortunes trading with the Orient: Burma, Thibet, Chinese Tartary (land of Mungals), China, Corea, Nipon (Isles of Japan), the Isles of Zezo, the Isles of Leeo Keeo, Formosa, Philippine Isles, Borneo, the Moluccas, Java, Sumatra, Malaya, Siam, Cambodia, Laos, Cochin China and of course there is more. With any luck the link below will take you to the map I consulted from the year 1808. I think it is relevant to recall these names, even if no longer used in modern era geopolitical maps, because they still show up in so many cultural reference points.

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~241615~5512677:Asia-?sort=Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&qvq=w4s:/what/World%20Atlas/when/1800;sort:Pub_List_No_InitialSort%2CPub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No;lc:RUMSEY~8~1&mi=14&trs=32

[Anonymous]

This session was very interesting when observing the different ways Geography plays a key role in the development of cultural traits and the evolution of society. Furthermore, East Asia has played an important role in the development of humanity due to the different inventions, commercial activities, warfare, etc. Also the information regarding the Lunar New Year was interesting because I always thought that it was the Chinese New Year celebration and nobody else's. The fact that it is celebrated by most of the East Asian communities around the world make me wonder about the implications this even has for our community too. I decided to share this information with my Journalism students and we will view some of the different celebrations around the world. Cheers!

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