[clay dube]

The attached reading was produced by the US government.

What Japanese investments in the US are you aware of? Were/are these controversial?

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
This is going to be a great discussion and you'll go away with a valuable teaching tool no one else has. Please sign up now and bring a colleague.

Clay

[clay dube]

Thanks for the info on Dubé. The version without the accent (doobie, which is what I go by) is also a name found in India.

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This woman from Taiwan wanted her children, growing up in Britain, to love Chinese characters. See the solution she came up with:

She creates clever illustrations incorporating the character. Read about this from NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/03/11/288986143/these-cute-images-make-reading-chinese-characters-chineasy

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Berkshire has a new Chinese biographical dictionary. It is quite expensive (about $500) and they are exploring electronic options to make it more accessible. To mark the lunar new year, they decided to make one of the biographies, that of the Tang dynasty painter Han Gan available free of charge. At least one of Han Gan's paintings was turned into a stamp (Palau, 2002). The article also discusses the place of horses in Chinese art and life. The article is by Shelly Drake Hawks and is attached.

Attachments:

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[clay dube]

How do we teach core concepts? Hotly debated topic now as the "common core curriculum" takes hold. Even made the California Report (on some public radio stations) this morning (elementary math):
http://edsource.org/today/2014/common-core-standards-bring-dramatic-changes-to-elementary-school-math/55886#.Ut60DLSIaUl (or to listen: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201401210850/b)

I was struck, though, to read this blog entry on a South Carolina elementary school that focuses on engineering. It is from Deb Fallows and is at The Atlantic website:
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/americas-tiniest-engineers-report-from-greenville-south-carolina/283199/

The school gets a lot of help from volunteers from neighboring companies such as General Electric. The school though is in a troubled area with high unemployment and poverty rates.

So how does Asia fit in? It doesn't, except in that there's a lot of emphasis these days on teaching students to think, solve, and create. This US government report that Japanese students emerge from K-12 with stronger math/science skills. It noted that students are not grouped together in Japan according to skill levels, but that instead all students were to become competent in such skills.

Here is a Boston Museum site to aid teachers: Engineering is Elementary.

The US National Science Foundation noted:
The typical goal of U.S. mathematics teachers is to teach students how to do something, but the typical goal of Japanese teachers is to help them understand mathematical concepts.

So it seems that the common core aim should bring the US closer to Japanese approaches.

More common core NPR links.
Earlier story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=210253948
And in Florida:
http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/tag/common-core/
And in Delaware:
http://www.npr.org/2013/09/22/225120320/in-push-for-common-standards-many-parents-left-uneducated

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The Little League championships are upon us. Teams from Taiwan used to dominate the contest. That's no longer the case. What changed?
http://thediplomat.com/asia-life/2013/08/what-happened-to-taiwans-little-league-champs/

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David - please ask Sam about this. The meaning in Japan may be different and this may be one reason the Chinese understanding of what some soldiers did in China is so much more critical. Decapitation in China is a worse punishment than some other forms of capital punishment. This is because of belief that one must meet one's ancestors with one's body intact. Your parents gave you that body - you're supposed to keep it that way. In Japan, ritual suicide often included having a second cut off your head to end your suffering after you stabbed yourself in the gut.

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This was driven primarily by a belief that Japan needed material and markets. Rice was exported from Korea to Japan and Korea absorbed Japanese manufactures. Centuries before, Hideyoshi sought to control Korea.

NY Times article on annexation:http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F60E15F6395417738DDDA10994D0405B808DF1D3

A confounding but rich article as much about the present day debate as about the annexation: http://www.japanfocus.org/-Mark-Caprio/3438

The Library of Congress country study on South Korea discusses what Japan did in Korea (but not enough on why): http://countrystudies.us/south-korea/7.htm

[clay dube]

China 1800 - 1950
What indicators do we have of the strength and stability of Qing China? What accounts for this remarkable success?

What were the internal and external factors that resulted in the collapse of the Manchu dynasty? Was there interplay among these factors? Which factors seem most important?

How did Republican China differ from its imperial predecessors? What were the aims and successes of the Kuomintang, especially during “the Nanjing decade”?
To what can we attribute the eventual triumph of the Chinese Communist Party?

Key moments, places, names, terms
Qianlong 乾隆emperor (r. 1736-96, d. 1799)
Treaty of Nanjing, 1842
Self-Strengthening / Reform / Rebellion
Li Hongzhang 李鴻章[font=SimSun] [/font](1823-1901) / Kang Youwei 康有為[font=SimSun] [/font](1858-1927)[font=SimSun] /
[/font] Qiu Jin [font=SimSun]秋[/font][font=SimSun]瑾[/font] (1875 – 1907)
Boxer Rebellion 1989-1901
US – Open Door Policy
Tongmenghui 同盟会
1911 Revolution 辛亥革命
Sun Yatsen 孙中山 (1866-1925) / Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859-1916)

Nationalists (Kuomintang or Guomindang 國民黨)
Jiang Kaishek (Jiang Jieshi 蔣介石) 1887-1975
Nanjing 南京 (1927-1937), Xi’an 西安 (1936)，Chongqing 重庆 (1937-1945)

Communists (Gongchandang 共产党)
Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (1879-1942)
Mao Zedong 毛泽东 1893-1976
Hunan 湖南 (1927), Jiangxi 江西 (1931-1934), Yan’an 延安 (1935-1945)

Other important figures
Wang Jingwei [font=SimSun]汪精[/font][font=SimSun]衛 [/font](1883-1944) / Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881-1936) / Ba Jin 巴金 (1904-2005)
edited by Clay Dube on 7/30/2013

[clay dube]

These are from the USC U.S.-China Institute, please share them with others:

South China Sea: Troubled Waters (8 min) http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=2145 , plus related speeches, etc.
The Pivot (18 min) http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=2903 , again, includes links to related reports, etc.

[clay dube]

Hi Rachel,
Many of the primary sources are from Ebrey, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd edition, The Free Press, 1993. The Chiang selection is one of those. I compiled the Mao quotations from the several volumes of his selected works.

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A special issue of The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society is devoted to how textiles were used as money on the silk road. Access to the issue is free (at least for the moment):

http://journals.cambridge.org/jrassilkroad
edited by Clay Dube on 7/29/2013

[clay dube]

Hi McKenzie, When you get a chance, please click edit on your last two posts and then delete the stray code:

For example:
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

This often drops in when copying and pasting. Thanks!

Please let us know if this download works (you have to get past an ad, then choose the free download option, and more).

[clay dube]

The Charter Oath (1868) and the Meiji Constitution (1890)
http://www.iun.edu/~hisdcl/G369_2002/meijiconstitution.htm

Imperial Principles on Education (1879)
http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/125?section=primarysources&source=134

Imperial Rescript on Education (1890)
http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/125?section=primarysources&source=136

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