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Hi Darlene,

This is a good question to throw out in the film festival thread of the Asia in My Classroom forum. Here is some contact info for the film.

http://hrw.org/iff-97/filmae/choyname.html

Here's a rental source -- but it's pricey, about $75.
http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/InNameEmperor.htm

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
These are outstanding evaluations! You are doing a great job locating resources and assessing their potential value to teachers.

Please share these with all the teachers in our forum -- post film reviews in the Asia in My Classroom forum thread entitled "film festival" and please post website reviews in the web resources thread of the Asia in My Classroom forum.

There's no need to move these, though, they are terrific.

Let's use the Torrance forum to discuss seminar presentations and Torrance-specific issues.

[clay dube]

Our debate is Saturday, Nov. 19 -- you'll need to prepare to stand up for your school of thought (Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, or Legalism) and to point out the shortcomings in the thinking of your opponents.

Through the primary source documents in the “Early Chinese History” curriculum guide, those contained in the Ebrey Chinese Civilization reader, and (if you are so inclined) in the EWP East Asia textbook, you’ll be able to gain a sense of the richness of these teachings and how they are intertwined, how their advocates sought to address the problems they identified and realize, in some cases, shared aims.

If we had more time to cover the schools and for the debate itself, I’d have an elaborate debate format, with each group making presentations on several themes, each would also have a hatchet-man/woman whose responsibility would be to attack the perceived flaws in others groups’ thinking. We don’t have enough time to prepare and coordinate in this way, so we have to take a more informal approach.

Encounter: A Hundred Schools of Thought Contend

In capitals throughout the region rulers are consulting their advisors. It is a time of crisis, governments are crippled by corruption and war/war preparation is never-ending. States join schemes against other states and powerful families plot with others to improve their own positions. Little concern is shown common people. The elite tends to see them as a resource to be managed and marshalled in struggle against one's enemies. Commoners can only resist by running away. And they are doing this in great numbers, fleeing greedy lords and officials and brutal armies.

What has led to this danger? Technology has advanced so much. Agriculture has never been so productive. Our cities are sites of terrific trade (aided by new means of exchange) and places of a great cultural flowering. There is dance, music, and scholarly investigation.

But at the same time, weapons have been made even more lethal. Armies are larger and the devastation of war is greater than ever. Small states are being devoured by the large. Or they engage in secret diplomacy and espionage to undermine their neighbors.
In the past, in the days of the sage kings, our ancestors did not have to endure such chaos. There was order. There was peace. There was prosperity. Where have we gone wrong?
At our next session, devotees of Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, and Legalism will gather to reflect on the desperate situation that has emerged. They will engage in a debate over what should be done to overcome this crisis.

Focus Questions
Ideologies have to provide three essential elements:
1. A description of how we arrived at the present situation (a history?) – what’s the problem(s)?
2. A description (proscription) of what should be – how things ought to be.
3. A description of what should be done to move from 1 to 2 – an action plan.

Begin your debate preparation by thinking about how your school of thought addresses these needs.

In the debate, I’ll ask questions of each school and you may ask questions of each other. In general, accent the positive in your doctrine, but it may be occasionally helpful to draw contrasts with the way other schools deal with issues you consider critical.

We’ll definitely explore the following:

Education
Is education necessary? Define a "well-educated" person. What would such a person know and be able to do? Who should provide this training?

Loyalty
To which people/institutions should a person owe his/her loyalty? What is the nature and what are the limits (if any) of these obligations?

Society/Government
Describe the ideal society and government's role (if any) in that society. Be sure to address issues such as stratification, relations between people, and qualifications/responsibilities of leaders.

You may find the chart on pages 44-45 of the curriculum guide (or that neighborhood) useful as you prepare.

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Click on the icon below to open a map showing the parking kiosk, parking lot, and Bunche Hall.

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Hi Folks,

Are you ready for the launch of our seminar? We’ll be meeting at UCLA at 9 am. Courtesy parking permits in lot 3 three have been arranged for you. Simply drive to the parking kiosk at Wyton and Hilgard, give them the magic phrase “UCLA Asia Institute” and you’ll be provided with a permit.

For directions to UCLA, please go to:
http://international.ucla.edu/asia/article.asp?parentid=2390

We’ll be meeting on the 10th floor of Bunche Hall in room 10383. Bunche Hall is located immediately south of parking lot 3. You’ll walk past the Broad Art Center (under construction), Melnitz Hall (where we are screening a Japanese film Saturday), and the sculpture garden on your way to Bunche Hall (okay, extra credit time – for whom is Bunche Hall named?). We will start promptly at 9 am, so leave early. You can meander through the sculpture garden with any extra time you’ve got.

From 9 am to noon, we’ll be looking at early East Asia and East Asian geography. We’ll provide refreshments. From noon to 2 pm you are free to eat lunch at one of the campus dining halls or to bring your own lunch (we have microwaves in the dining areas). You can also use this time to tour the Fowler Museum of Cultural History on your own (admission is free, visit their website for details
http://fowler.ucla.edu) .

At 1:50 pm, we’ll reconvene at the door of the Lenart Auditorium (Fowler Museum). From 2 to 3:30 pm, we will hear and see a presentation on early Chinese family rituals and stories about family rituals. Cary Liu, curator of Asian art at Princeton University’s Art Museum is our speaker. His presentation concludes our first PVPUSD/UCLA seminar session, but we hope you’ll join us for a catered reception in the amphitheater beside the auditorium.

After enjoying the reception, you could walk down to the Hammer Museum ($5, http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/). The Hammer is open until 7 pm, so you could also wait and check out the “Frank Lloyd Wright and the Architecture of Japanese Prints” exhibition that is currently there http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/96/) . At 7:30 pm, the UCLA Film Archive is opening its new series on Naruse Mikio (http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/public/calendar/calendar_f.html ) . Of Naruse Miko and Saturday’s film, Kevin Thomas wrote:

“Director Naruse Mikio (1905-69) was a master at transforming the traditional "woman's picture" into an enduring expression of the human spirit under siege. With compassion but detachment, the generally pessimistic Naruse viewed people's tangled lives and deepest longings straight on, and his steadfast vision and simplicity of style could bring dignity and meaning to even the most melodramatic soap opera plots.

“The UCLA Film and Television Archive begins its retrospective of the Japanese filmmaker with one of Naruse's finest films, "Floating Clouds" (1955). It packs such an emotional wallop that it's worth adjusting to its measured pacing, ample hand-wringing and full-blown score. It is in glorious black-and-white, features some of Japan's greatest stars of the era and is based on a famous novel by Hayashi Fumiko. It's an epic-scale romantic love story set against the morally bankrupt postwar era. Takamine Hideko and Mori Masayuki are the star-crossed lovers whose ill-fated affair is bathed in ineffable poignancy.” (LA Times, Nov. 3, 2005)

So you could spend the entire day in Asia at UCLA! The formal seminar, however, only includes the following:
9 am to noon in 10383 Bunche Hall
2 to 3:30 pm in the Lenart Auditorium

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In an Oct. 26, 2005 story, Knight-Ridder reporter Tim Johnson describes how people from Jakarta to Chicago to London are studying Mandarin and expressing an interest in things Chinese. The article notes, however, that few Chinese brands or personalities have the name-recognition of top Western entities. The complete article is below.

"As China rises, many rush to get on the 'Middle Kingdom' bandwagon"

Within your circle of friends and colleagues, what Chinese brands or individuals are widely known?

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In an article published today at the Inside Higher Education website, Scott Jashick reports that interest in studying Chinese has never been greater. He notes a rapid rise in enrollments at schools across the nation, noting that 369 students are enrolled in first year Chinese at UCLA. (He could have also noted that total enrollment in Chinese language courses is 572, the highest in the nation.)

http://insidehighered.com/news/2005/10/28/chinese

From the article:

"As dramatic as some of the enrollment increases colleges are already seeing are, they may be a fraction of what is to come. Next year, the College Board will offer an Advanced Placement test in Chinese for the first time, as part of an expansion that is also introducing AP tests in Italian, Japanese and Russian. As with all AP language courses, several years of language study would be required before the test. Earlier this year, the College Board surveyed high schools, asking if they planned to offer the new AP language courses. Board officials expected a few hundred would indicate interest in each of the new language programs. That was true for all except Chinese, for which 2,400 high schools indicated that they planned to build their Chinese programs to levels where students could take the AP exam."
[Edit by="Clay Dube on Oct 29, 2:24:45 PM"][/Edit]

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Korean (first and second year) 5 161 93 254 13 11 2.13 19.5 19.5
2213 Korean (advanced) 3 149 97 246 13 13 1.88 18.9 18.9

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Hi Folks,

Please take a look at the attached list of sites. You might wish to write reviews of one or more of them.

[clay dube]

First, some numbers:
Here are California enrollments (note that this does not include elementary school instruction):

CA Students Enrolled in Japanese
1982 566
1995 6,451
2004 13,327 (LA County 3,695)

CA/LA Students Enrolled in Chinese
1982 1,085
1995 3,859
2004 7,827 (plus 365 taking Chinese for native speakers) (LA County
2,652, plus 295 taking the course for native speakers)

CA/LA Students Enrolled in Korean
1982 245
1995 874
2004 1,962 (plus 136 taking Korean for native speakers) (LA County
1,551 plus 136 taking Korean for native speakers)

CA Students Enrolled in Vietnamese
2004 1,230

Do you know what the numbers are for your district? Which schools, if any, in your district offer these or other Asian languages? Anyone know what the numbers are for the nation? Hint: I got the most recent California and Los Angeles data from the web.[Edit by="Clay Dube on Oct 27, 9:13:08 PM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

Here's the link to the LA Times story that Darlene referred to:

"Shanghai's Edge"

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The recently published Jung and Halliday biography of Mao Zedong has attracted enormous popular and scholarly attention. Jung Chang is the author of Wild Swans, a best-selling book about the experience of several generations of women in her family. Halliday, her husband, is a Russian historian with the language and research skills needed to mine recently opened Russian archival sources.

Most reviews of the book have noted that new information is brought forward, but most have also noted that the authors routinely reach for the most damning possible interpretation of this information.

reviews of the book
Sunday Times of London
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-1626700,00.html

The Guardian
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,1498719,00.html

Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501050613-1069136,00.html

radio interview
Australian Broadcasting Corp.
http://www.abc.net.au/queensland/stories/s1420192.htm

The effort to sweep away much of Mao's economic and social policies has been dramatic, meriting book titles such as Richard Baum's Burying Mao. But the Chairman, who died a generation ago in Sept. 1976 still looms large. His picture rises above Tiananmen, his resting place is at the very center of the capital, his face is on the 100 yuan note, and -- according to a recent article published in the China Daily, he is now (or rather, Mao impersonators) are now hitting the wedding circuit. See http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/21/content_486606.htm

The official 1980s CCP assessment of Mao concluded that while he made tragic mistakes (the two main examples being launching the Great Leap Foward and Cultural Revolution), overall, his contribution to creating contemporary China was quite positive and critically important.

How should we portray Mao Zedong and his era?[Edit by="Clay Dube on Oct 23, 6:28:39 PM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

I was unaware of The Chairman prior to Richard's post about this Gregory Peck film. According to the capsule description on the INMD website, Peck is sent to China to get the secrets to a newly developed agricultural enzyme. His American bosses, however, take action to be sure that he can't give up any secrets of his own. The film was directed by J. Lee Thompson and was written by Ben Maddow based on a novel by Jay Richard Kennedy.

A fuller plot description is available from the
NY Times.

Roger Ebert reviewed it for the Chicago SunTimes on August 19, 1969:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19690819/REVIEWS/908190301/1023
Ebert uses his review to complain that "heroes have gotten too noble."

Interested in hearing some dialogue from what sounds like a rather bizarre Cold War film (playing on the Sino-Soviet dispute, for example)? A website devoted to all things Peck has samples. Here them at:
http://www.jefflangonline.com/peck/sounds/

I don't know that students can learn much about China from this film, but certainly they can learn what the filmmakers thought about China and the political climate of the age.[Edit by="Clay Dube on Oct 23, 6:29:41 PM"][/Edit]

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italics

bold

asia institute

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California has been a leader in mandating instruction on Asia, though it's not clear how much more instruction is actually taking place or how effective that instruction might be. Here's a link to the California history, social studies, and language arts "standards" relating to Asia.

http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/standards/index.asp

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