session 2 9/6 materials

[Anonymous]

During the last session, discussion regarding the Mid-Autumn Festival and Thanksgiving was a topic that struck my interest as it gave me the idea of incorporating the differences between the two holidays with my kindergarten students. A unit comparing and contrasting the two holidays would serve as a great opportunity to tap into my students culture and prior knowledge. My own children that attend the school where I teach in Rosemead, came home talking about the Moon Festival and posing questions about what it meant. Apparently the children are talking about it at school and it seems to be an important holiday in their culture.
edited by janetgarcia on 9/9/2014

[Anonymous]

Since our last class, I have really been doing a lot of thinking... For me, I found the fact that the Chinese save more than 30% of their monthly income very interesting, when compared to Brazil's 10%, Egypt's approximate 7%, India's 17%, Russia's 14%, and the US's meager 3%: (from a 2011 report-- http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/03/how-we-spend-money-in-china-india-russia-egypt-brazil-and-the-us/73001/). I say "interesting" because lately--and quite coincidentally--I have been hearing about some BIG moves toward China. (After our 2nd class, these "moves" come as no surprise...anymore.) Consider IKEA's move. China, 15 years later, home to 8 of Ikea's 10 largest stores and becoming the company's fastest-growing market: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/09/ikea-sales-rise-china-middle-class. Consider another move..."The Simpsons": http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/the-simpsons-to-air-in-china-for-first-time-in-pact-with-sohu-video-1201300605/.

As we had discussed, China's deep pockets with respect to savings are the makings of some high-end opportunities. Things are starting to make sense. =]
edited by cfahey on 9/10/2014
edited by cfahey on 9/10/2014

[Anonymous]

This presentation was very relevant to my classroom. We are currently discussing world myths and some of my students had to research Chinese mythology. Not all of the groups (I have three sections of World Lit) presented the myth of Chang'e but the information we discussed on Saturday provided enough background for me to start the discussion with my students, many of whom were already familiar with the myth (my school is 70% Asian) and we talked about the explosion of moon cakes that have hit the scene in America - one of my students even gave me a moon cake to try!

[Anonymous]

Janet: Thanks for sharing information about the book you received - I'll have to look for a copy to use as my World Lit class moves into folklore and archetypes.
edited by jyaklich on 9/10/2014

[Anonymous]

Looking back at my notes from our last meeting , I am just surprised how East Asian ignorant I am I usually take pride in being open and multiculturally sophisticated I am, but I am not. How did I miss the Moon Pie???? After class , and especially the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the moon pie were everywhere. I would have not known there was a traditional holiday occurring, until I went to class. I am humbled.
Another topic that was on my mind, and approach our instructor about this matter, was my concern with " How do countries plan to get women who have become more educated and not marry and have a child? " I am a single mom by choice, I often think of having another child, but daycare is expensive I have opted out to have another and wait . However, if the my country wanted me to subsidize me income to stay home or help with day care, I would have another child. I was very interested in the other alternatives men , families, and a country will need to do to jumpstart a population growth.
edited by mlizarraga on 9/12/2014

[Anonymous]

After the session, I actually called my mom and asked if she was planning on celebrating Chuseok, the Korean Harvest Festival/Thanksgiving. She didn't feel like making the traditional feast, so we ended up going to a Korean restaurant. We did stop by the market and have the traditional dessert, though--songpyeon (glutinous rice cake stuffed with sesame and honey or mung bean).

I enjoyed the discussion about Marco Polo. I was not aware of the skepticism surrounding his travels, so I will definitely putting more research into this topic-it would be a great lesson for my students. How much should we trust primary sources? Is it important to have corroborating sources? Does it matter?

[Anonymous]

One idea i have about the primary source on the Treaty of Nanking is to give an abridged version of it to students. Ask them to interpret or summarize a number of the articles. They can come up with a list of "demands" for the British and the Chinese. As they are adding items to the list, they will find that it is mostly demands for the Chinese. The students could try to figure out the motives for each of the clauses. This could lead to a class discussion on the implications of such a treaty. We can even compare this to other treaties from other imperial wars.

[Anonymous]

There is a lot to digest in the second session. The growth and "rediscovering" of China was certainly enlightening. We are all familiar with the Silk Road, Marco Polo, and the motives for Christopher Columbus' voyages. Not to mention the search for the Northwest Passage. The presentation that showed the space race was real interest however as it shows how far China has come on its own to reach the stars. I was studying some articles on the voyage to Titan (moon of Saturn) and how Europe had to work with the United States to reach the surface and transmit information. Certainly this moon is much farther than our own and China is a ways off from doing this on their own, but it seems to be positioning itself to be able to do just that. I was also interested in the Moon cake section. I didn't have the opportunity during the class, but I wanted to make a connection that in Thailand (which has a large Chinese population) had, at the various "Swenson's Ice Cream Parlours" moon cakes with ice cream filling.

[Anonymous]

Me being a History Major in college, was aware of the controversy of Marco Polo claims, but it was more of a discussion and did not get to research further. I am glad he mentioned the counter-argument ( pro-Polo) against the skeptics. Does it matter? no....I know I have elaborated with my life's' anecdotes in my classes over the years to get students to achieve the overall goal. It was for the greater good, and I hope Polo's used his powers for good.

[Anonymous]

Following one of our breaks during session two, Dr. Dube explained the translations of each Chinese character under the words "USC US-China Institute". It was very interesting and somewhat not surprising to hear that in Chinese (please anyone correct me if I'm wrong) the words U.S. would generally not come before China. I assume the intentional placing of the order of words is due to nationalism; a refusal to allow the U.S. to come before China even if it is just a few letters ahead. It had reminded me of something I had heard years ago regarding a movement to change the spelling of "Korea" back to its original English spelling of "Corea". What's the significant different? The reasoning from what I heard is that Alphabetically the letter 'C' comes before 'J', and 'J' comes before 'K'. Corea-----Japan----Korea. During Japanese imperialism in Korea, countries had found it noteworthy to be sure that even the first letters of their countries came before the first letters of the countries occupied, resulting in changing Corea to Korea (all hearsay I've nothing to back this up maybe Dr. Dube or anyone else can confirm any truth in this!). It was very interesting to see a continual pattern of these trends in terms of pride and nationalism within Asian countries in the subtleties of word placement and order. Here is a website for more information on the topic.

http://www.goldsea.com/Air/Issues/Corea/corea.html (not sure how reliable/credible the site is something quickly found)

Another topic discussed during session 2 was the different dialects in China. I hadn't truly realized how large of a country China is and the resulting dialects resulting from its size. With different dialects, there is as Dr. Dube had mentioned sometimes difficulty in communicating even between people within a single nation. In addition, I feel there are even certain biases towards people of different dialects. In South Korea, it doesn't seem so uncommon that for various reasons (and I imagine in other cultures in Asia and throughout the world) some people from the countryside who speak with a dialect (known as Sah-tuh-rhee) that moved to more metropolitan areas such as Seoul, and also Little Tokyo I imagine, as mentioned in the session 2 lecture, dialects were disguised with a more urban dialect. As Dr. Dube mentioned, people are not always welcoming to newcomers, and I imagine the lack of hospitality towards these newcomers caused many to disguise their native dialects. This also reminds me of college friends of mine who were South Korean born first generation students in the U.S., and many of them spoke with a very “Seoul” dialect, however after a few drinks, their Sah-tuh-rhee dialects would always seem to emerge and reveal itself.

I also particularly enjoyed the discussion on space and social norms in Japan. I thought the interactive activity of standing on the Newspaper with the four people on one page was a great activity to provide an idea of how norms on space differ in different countries. In my speech and communication class I’m teaching I recently had students do various activities for them to experience how important being aware of social norms on space and verbal communication are for effective communication. Students challenged these norms as a part of their experiment, and some of these things included students standing uncomfortably close to people in public areas, sitting immediately next to patrons in otherwise empty buses, and so on. The class had a brief discussion on how these norms differ in other countries, but I would have enjoyed showing an overview of the population of Japan in relation to its square footage and done the newspaper activity as Dr. Dube had done. I’ll be sure to do that one next time I teach the lesson!
On a side note, attached is the cover and back page of the novel I received in the last session. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but it does look very interesting. If anyone would like to borrow it please let me know!
edited by dchoi on 9/14/2014
edited by dchoi on 9/14/2014

[Anonymous]

In reply to the Chinese saving 30% of their income! I started thinking and have had to change my whole idea of them as a group. I have always thought that they were poor farmers who had nothing and that now they were being exploited by big manufacturing corporations. In my recent trip to China, I spoke to our guides and interpreters and it seemed as if they were in the lower socio-economic class. What I have just realized is that they are saving much more of their income then I am. Although I have luxuries like Disney passes and two cars for my family, my savings is paltry compared to the Chinese. We Americans live very much in the now and like to be comfortable, but the Chinese are looking to the future and living modestly. Interesting when I think about where the heck my money went.

[clay dube]

I love the idea of having students review this treaty and discuss the motivations for the various sections and the consequences of its provisions. Could they note the treaty ports on a map and perhaps learn what happened to them in the 172 years since the treaty was signed?

[Anonymous]

As was said during our last discussion, infanticide was not necessarily an option for families preferring sons over daughters; however, putting up daughters for adoption may have been. I will be looking into it further, but for some reason I remember reading about there being an overwhelming number of Chinese girls over boys who were housed in orphanages and/or adoption agencies. This would be easily explainable when considering the "one child" regulations (that may or may not have been strictly regulated.)

Nevertheless, after our class, I could at least understand the mentality of wanting boys versus girls: investing in time and money for a daughter, just to lose her to another family during marriage, is not economical; whereas investing time and money on a son promises returns. Although I don't agree, I do see now the reason.

[Anonymous]

I really liked what Janet posted regarding the discussion about Thanksgiving and Mid-Autumn Festival. I teach Vietnamese I and I try to incorporate as much cultural and historical lessons as teaching the language. After we ended our discussion on Friday about Mid-Autumn Festival, I prepared my own materials to teach Tet Trung Thu (which is Vietnamese for Mid-Autumn Festival). I presented the materials on Monday including some of the slides from Clay during our Saturday seminary! This is what I was hoping to obtain from this seminar, which are readily available materials that I can incorporate to teach my students. After we talked about the festival, I brought the moon cake and divided it amongst the students and we drank tea while enjoying our moon cake. We also read the legend, but there's a Vietnamese version of it as well. I did both, the Chinese one that we learned from Clay and the Vietnamese story. Next year, I will talk more about Thanksgiving and have students write a short paragraph comparing and contrasting the two holidays.

[Anonymous]

I would like to talk about the male baby preference with my middle school students, but I actually have a couple of female students who are adopted from China. I'm wondering if it would make them feel uncomfortable. Does anybody have any suggestions?

[Author]

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