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The famous Chinese novel by Wu Cheng'en (most accessible in an inexpensive paperback translated and abridged as Monkey by Arthur Waley) is now been adapted by the Asia Society in an illustrated web story. Please take a look and let us know what you think and if it could be used in the classroom.

http://kids.asiasociety.org/stories/journey-west-part-1?utm_source=Asia+Society+eNews&utm_campaign=7439532e36-eNews_122309&utm_medium=email

The story has been adapted into an opera now being performed in NY.

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Leigh, thanks for bringing this review and the film references to our attention. Mizuno is a UCLA grad, earning her PhD in history in 2001. She now teaches with another UCLA history grad, Chris Isett (China) at the University of Minnesota.

Here is the 3/25/2009 link:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5968172.ece

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I don't often get a chance to see this program, but always appreciated the greater attention Lehrer and company give important enduring issues. What I just discovered is the rich teacher-focused website that accompanies The Online Newshour. It offers teacher resources, student materials, and plenty of video. The lesson plan collection can be browsed by region and topic. There's more here on Asia than at most sites. China's economy, India and Pakistan at 60, and much more.

What do you think of the resources? Let us know if you try any of the Asia-related materials.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/teachers/

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Sarah focuses on an important issue. We've twice visited a human rights museum located in an office building in Osaka. It's located in what was a burakumin district. Exhibits document the segregation of people and discrimination that has continued despite legal prohibitions on such status distinctions. Not surprising, Americans find discrimination that wasn't rooted in race/ethnicity hard to fathom.

Please look in the Asia in My Classroom forum for posts on how Google, libraries, and museums are wrestling with the question of publishing maps which show "outcast" districts. Check on the thread on teaching about contemporary Japan.

Here's a Japan Times column on ongoing discrimination, including hate speak on the web:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090120zg.html

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Thanks to all who have contributed assessments of the textbooks they use or have considered. Please keep these reviews coming! If possible, change the subject line of your message to include the subject (world history, literature, or whatever).

Here's an LA Times article about a joint textbook project.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/30/world/fg-textbook30

Here's a journal article on the topic:
History & Memory, Volume 21, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2009
E-ISSN: 1527-1994 Print ISSN: 0935-560X

Old Wounds, New Narratives:
Joint History Textbook Writing and Peacebuilding in East Asia
Zheng Wang
Abstract

Powerful collective memories—whether real or concocted— often lie at the root of conflicts, nationalism and cultural identities. In most societies, history textbooks are the “agents of memory” and function as a sort of “supreme historical court.” This article reviews initially how controversies over history textbooks have become sources of conflict in East Asia and then examines the activities of a trilateral history textbook writing project between China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. It also aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion about why history textbooks are worth fighting over and how joint history textbook writing can be used as a means for peacebuilding.

Here's an article about the Chinese version of the book:
http://www.danwei.org/books/a_joint_approach_to_history.php

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The South Korean film mentioned above is JSA -- Joint Security Area. It's a bit melodramatic, but it pounds home the notion that what unites us far surpasses what divides us. It is available from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/J-S-Joint-Security-Area/dp/B0009NZ78I

You can probably buy it for less in Koreatown or elsewhere, but be sure you get the English subtitled version (some only have Chinese subtitles). As you saw, there are clips available on YouTube.

I've probably posted a lot more on this in threads on Korea, but for now, you might find this discussion of the JSA (meaning that UN/North Korean jurisdictions overlap) interesting. I visited in 2003 and found it fascinating. That was the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War (or at least the end of major fighting, no peace treaty has ever been signed) and National Geographic had good coverage (July issue?). The USO (yes, the USO) organized our tour to the DMZ and JSA.

http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Culture/DMZ/dmz.cfm?subject=jsa#Joint%20Security%20Area%20%28JSA%29 -- the "In front of them all." tagline is everywhere at the military installation there.

(annoying pop-ups at this site)http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/jsa-pics.htm

(US Army site)http://8tharmy.korea.army.mil/JSA/

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This isn't a workshop announcement, but rather a "pulse of the profession" announcement. Teachers in California are understandably depressed. The state's economic decline has devastated state and local budgets. Layoff notices, larger classes.... It's a steady drumbeat. But apparently teachers nationwide feel a good deal better. Here's news from the Gallup polling organization:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124778/Teachers-Score-Higher-Professionals.aspx?CSTS=alert

December 23, 2009
Teachers Score Higher Than Other Professionals in Well-Being
Teachers rate their lives higher in four of six well-being indexes
by Shane Lopez and Sangeeta Agrawal

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A career in teaching might be good for your well-being. While the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index previously revealed that business owners were richer in well-being than other job types, further research isolating teachers from other professionals finds teachers fare as well as or better than business owners in overall well-being.

Go to the article (link above) to see the scores:
composite score for teachers: 71.7
life evaluation 60.4
basic access 89.4
emotional health 75
healthy behavior 67.4 (no. 2)
work environment 55.9 (no. 4)
physical health 81.8 (no. 6)

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Back in 1978, historian Michael Godley wrote about China's first world's fair. It was in Nanjing in 1910. The article "China's World's Fair of 1910: Lessons from a Forgotten Event" begins:

****
FROM before the turn of the century, the great powers held large commercial, industrial and technological exhibitions to show off the fruits of progress and to give their citizens a glimpse of where civilization was headed. World fairs thus provided one window into the future. But it must be remembered that such events also constructed monuments to their own era-an age when jingoism and a paradoxical recognition of the shrinking nature of the globe coexisted before the road to war.
In the final analysis, the grand exposition, with its curiosity about other peoples and nations and its faith nonetheless that mechanical invention would soon make everyone much the same, was a place where imperialists met in thinly disguised competition. How strange it must seem, then, to learn that the last Chinese dynasty, having just discovered the power of nationalism, attempted an international exposition of its own in the summer of I9IO at the same time that the 'Festival of
Empire Exhibition' was booked into London's famed Crystal Palace.

Of course, the 'Nanking South Seas Exhibition' never attained the scale or fame of the grandiose foreign efforts of the epoch. Although the Chinese managed to attract fourteen other nations and to construct a good number of buildings in an impressive
array of architectural designs, the fair was not a complete success. Fortunately, historical significance is a far more relative judgement. In perspective, the Chinese undertaking was as important as the Columbian exposition or the affairs behind British glass because it, too, served as a landmark.

Modern Asian Studies, 197812:3, pp. 503-522.
****

What have you read about the 2010 Shanghai Expo? What is the point of such fairs? Do you know of any important developments tied to such fairs? Does the upcoming expo offer teachers any useful "hooks" or themes to take up with students?

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It would probably be best to include this topic in the human rights thread or the contemporary China thread.

Huang Qi is a fascinating figure. We mentioned him in last week's Talking Points. That issue of TP includes links to a variety of resources on human rights in China and on Chinese perspectives on human rights. http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=1904

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I love this discussion - so many varied and interesting points and we're lucky to have Lilia and others sharing on the ground experience.

-- a note on the loose sand idea. That was Sun Yatsen's complaint, that the Chinese people were too atomized, separate. There was no sense of nation. He was eager to tie people to together and build the Chinese nation. That's why he named the party he built the Nationalist Party (in the older romanization, the KMT Kuomintang, and in pinyin, the romanization used in China and in most US publications these days, GMD or Guomindang). Sun, though, complained that foreigners didn't fully understand that what he sought was liberty for individuals within a united body.

"[T]he Chinese people have only family and clan solidarity; they do not have national spirit. Therefore even though we have four hundred million people gathered together in one China, in reality they are just a heap of loose sand. Today we are the poorest and weakest nation in the world and occupy the lowest postion in world affairs.Other men are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat. Our position at this time is most perilous. If we do not earnestly espouse nationalism and weld together our four hundred million people into a strong nation, there is a danger of China's being lost and our people being destroyed." (1924)

You can hear echoes of these ideas when China's current leaders worry about Western regions. There is a long-standing suspicion in China that foreigners who talk about protecting ethnic diversity and promoting human rights are really just using these issues to weaken China and perhaps to divide China.

-- a note on sports. Richer countries feel less need to develop sports factories because we have existing leagues, competitions, and so on. We had a delegation visit USC two years ago from China's university sports federation, the visitors were shocked to hear that, although USC trains and sends many student/athletes to the Olympics (about 40 last year), the US government doesn't pay the university for this. USC does it, like many other schools, of course, because they also compete for and represent the school. In China and, earlier in Soviet block nations, the eagerness to win medals and recognition for the nation causes the government to choose to invest in accelerating this process and leave a whole lot less to chance.

We screened a fascinating documentary from China last night. Director Gu Jin showed Dream Weavers, her film about the preparation for the Olympics. Among the stories she followed for years was the development of three gymnasts, two of whom eventually made the national team and starred in the Olympics. I suspect that American competitors are pushed just as hard as their Chinese counterparts. There may be a difference in the earliest stages, though, where I imagine it is the parents and peers doing the pushing. In any event, it's a lot to ask of a adolescent. Making the transition from getting up early for skating or spending every afternoon in the gym out of a love of the activity to the grueling work that all top competitors now engage in can't be easy and it's no doubt the reason Olympians of all nationalities astonish us with their performances.

Dream Weavers 2008:
http://china.usc.edu/ShowEvent.aspx?EventID=1215

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Cheryl raises important questions about China's expanding role in Africa. I am sure that most will agree that over the past centuries most of the interaction between Africa and others did not rebound to the general benefit of Africans (though many individuals and groups did benefit). Only in more recent decades has been fostering economic development and self-rule been an aim embraced by foreign powers. China's engagement with Africa is not completely new (the Tanzanian/Zambian railway is a good example of early assistance. An Associated Press report from 1977 begins:

"The Great Uhuru Railway, China's showcase aid project in Africa, begins incongruously at the end of a red dirt road in this bush town at the heart of Zambia's copper belt, 100 miles from the capital, Lusaka." (published in the NY Times, 4/24/1977)

According to a scholarly article published in 1971 (George Yu, "Working on the Railroad: China and the Tanzania-Zambia Railway," Asian Survey, 11.11 (Nov. 1971) :1101-17.) this was China's largest foreign aid project ever at more than US $400 million.

China's aid in those days was driven primarily by politics. It was building solidarity with newly independent nations. Those nations, incidentally, were key in voting to bring China into the UN in 1971.

I met many African students in China in the early 1980s. They spent a year studying Chinese in Beijing and then went to various schools for technical training (medicine, engineering, computer science).

What is new is a) economics now drives decision-making on investments in Africa, and b) the scale and scope of the new engagement. A travel agent friend in Xi'an devotes most of his time to sending Chinese businesspeople to Africa. There are many articles about this and CSIS and the Jamestown Foundation are among the institutions that have produced studies on the impact of China in Africa.

I hope that Cheryl and others who are interested in this topic will join us at USC on 1/21/2010 for Deborah Brautigam's book talk (The Dragon's Gift: The True Story of China in Africa) and on 2/10/2010 for Zhou Xiaoli's presentation of her new film, The Colony. Xiaoli and her husband have carried out extensive interviews with both Chinese in Africa and Africans who work for and with the Chinese.

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Google dominates most of the markets it competes in, but in both Japan and China it is a distant no. 2. How can this be? And what is the search giant trying to do about it?

In Japan, it's changing how it looks and is using a variety of stunts. Here's a NY Times article with more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/technology/internet/30google.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

In China, it's worked out a deal with music publishers to offer free MP3 downloads -- easily the first time that having a Chinese-based computer gives one more rather than less access. Tech Crunch has more, including screen shots:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/google-china-signs-big-music-for-free-mp3-search-engine/

What might these trends indicate about differing cultural norms and about assumptions regarding globalization?

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Joe raises big questions regarding China and Japan. The Japanese were slow to acknowledge their role in launching war in East Asia. Many feel that even the acknowledgments are inadequate because they include Japanese among the victims of the war. This is true of course, but seems to some in East Asia (and in America, for that matter) to be dodging responsibility. It's important, though, to remember that none of the decision makers from WWII are alive today and that only the oldest among us were even adults at that time. Still, isn't it useful for later generations to honestly "face history"?

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Great question, Morgan.

The focus on sports is partly because of the attention given sports in the West. The rise of the modern Olympics (since 1896) attracted a great deal of notice in China. By the first decade of the twentieth century you had some who were pushing for China to organize a team and to even host the games. One former star US athlete who knows a lot about all this is anthropologist Susan Brownell. She was a consultant to the Chinese gov't and wrote a book, Beijing's Games, What the Olympics Means to China on the subject.

Of course ping pong occupies a special place in US-China history. Take a look at this article written by one of our students. It includes a video featuring a presentation by a former world champion who played a key role in the ping pong diplomacy of the early 1970s. http://www.uschina.usc.edu/ShowFeature.aspx?articleID=1067

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Hi Julie,
Great questions!

I think that both sexes seek parental guidance on marriage in roughly equal amounts. It's a giant step. The age of first marriage has risen steadily in China and is now about the same as in the US.

Please note that the suicides/murders I mentioned in class on Saturday were in the mid-1950s in a single province. The party decided to stop pushing the marriage/divorce freedom law as a result, though it remained the law (see Kay Ann Johnson, Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China, 1983 for details).

There are other reasons for rural women suicides, but the most common is unhappiness in marriage. Sometimes this is because of mistreatment or harassment because one hasn't given birth to a son.

Please note -- most women aren't unhappy and most who are do not kill themselves. Unfortunately, though, it does happen. Here's a Washington Post article on the subject:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051401506.html

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