session 2 9/6 materials

[Anonymous]

Benjamin Franklin would have been pleased with the presentation since he had proposed that the glorious turkey should have been the national bird for the United States rather than the eagle.

[Anonymous]

Session two placed special attention to the topic of the legend of Marco Polo’s Chinese travels. More specifically, did they really occur? After much evaluation and historical context, I would argue that there is significant proof to suggest that Marco Polo did actually travel to China.
In context of using this topic in my classroom, I think it would be a great opportunity to teach common core research skills. With guided research over extended time periods it is important to get students using research skills and search engines to answer guided questions. Providing students with a set of prompted questions to research looking for historical evidence that Marco Polo did or did not visit China would be an exemplary opportunity to address both common core standards and East Asia content. Following the research the students would have to justify their standpoint on whether or not Marco Polo actually visited China.

[Anonymous]

I didn't realize there were two American citizens being held in North Korea jails. An interesting website:http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news
provides interesting tidbits, quick and easy to read

[Anonymous]

During the Industrial Revolution, populations boomed. One of the California State standards focuses on the reasons for the growth in population. As we look at this with our students, we can start to ask questions about what could cause the reverse, or decline in populations. We could look at Japan and show our students what is going on with their Graying population.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, I was out of town for session 2 when the moon festival was discussed. I would like to share that I went to Rosemead's Moon Festival on August 23. The city closed a block on Valley Blvd., a main thoroughfare of the city, for the day and night. I would describe the event similar to a street faire with a carnival twist. There were several carnival rides, games to play to win prizes at one end of the street and a stage at the opposite end of the street. There was a young man singing solo with a back-up band. There was a small crowd standing in front of the stage watching, but just a few people were "moving to the beat." My guess, he was a new singer the crowd didn't recognize. There were several booths aligned on both sides of the street. A television company's booth, I'm guessing, had a spinning wheel to win prizes drew a long line of eager people. Other booths had mops, trinkets, toys, and even insurance to buy. The most popular booths beside the spinning wheel booth were the food booths. People lined up to buy spiral potatoes on a stick, barbecue on a stick, fish dishes, and drinks. It was well attended causing my husband and I to weave through the crowd, yet we enjoyed the atmosphere of the evening.

[Anonymous]

I am writing in response to this post because I found a very interesting article regarding online dating that I'm starting to make connections to the ratio imbalance between male and female in China. The link to the article is http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/15/sugar-baby-service-underground_n_4283374.html.
My friend told me about this new dating website where they set up "sugar daddies" with "sugar babies" in a nice type of "arrangement." The site is called Seeking Arrangement. The arrangement is that these women, often young college girls, get matched up with older, established gentlemen and eventually they establish some type of arrangement where both parties are content. The girls get financial stability and the men receive companionship. After pursuing the article, I decided to look at the website, and to my surprise, many of the men who are on there are from China. I might be pushing this connection a little bit, but my brain did start to spin and I started to make connections, considering what Catherine Teliczan had brought up in discussion one day as well. Is it more culturally accepting for people to date online now in China? Is it also more acceptable to set up this type of arrangements? It was really fascinating to me. If anyone else is interested, you should read this article.

[Anonymous]

The Qing emperor seems to really spell out why he does not want the British in China. At first it sounds polite and we'll reasoned, but it later takes on a condescending and superior tone. At first he lets the British know that it would not make any sense to accept the Envoy because there is no place for him at Court. He would not fit in and he would not expect him to take on Chinese traditions as others have in the past. It seems diplomatic and like he is trying to let him down easily. Later, he takes a condescending tone when he refers to England as a barbarian land and China's traditions as civilized. He characterizes British actions as "evil" and the requests of the British government as ignorant. It sounds very brave and since there was no response from the British, I would assume that the British did not know how to react to this act of bravado. Maybe it was just bad timing since they were coming off the loss to America about a decade earlier and were worried about the French Revolution to the south of them. The Napoleonic wars were just around the corner and probably Mae more sense for them to take care of affairs closer to home.

[clay dube]

I've attached a compressed version of part 1 of this morning's presentation.

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[Anonymous]

I really enjoyed the discussions and materials regarding Marco Polo. I recall vividly my parents talking to me about this legendary person in my childhood. I recall watching the tv mini series starring Leonard Nimoy. And of course I grew up with a dog-eared paperback on Marco Polo's travels. As an adult I've reread the tome and am always fascinated at all the locales and names. I remember the book mentioning rocks that burst to flame (with a side note in the book letting us know that it's charcoal). This alone was enough to fuel my imagination because what would we think of these wonders from Asia with no context at all living in Europe. Was he real, did he go? Does it matter? Let's see if the new Netflix movie event of Marco Polo can answer that

[Author]

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