[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
I hope we can keep the session, though I'm loathe to intrude on your all-too-short break. I wish the district folks had let me know about this earlier. We could, perhaps, have the session earlier in the day. What do the rest of you think?

[clay dube]

Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN correspondent in Beijing, wrote about internet censorship back in June. Her article can be seen at:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=26945

In Oct., Time correspondent Matt Forney wrote about "China's Web Watchers:"

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501051010-1112920,00.html

The Open Net Initiative Report on China's internet filtering can be found at:

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/

A 2002 study (an internet lifetime ago) at Harvard reported on blocked Google search terms:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/block-kw.html

A Wikipedia article on blocked search terms can be seen at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_blocked_by_search_engines_in_Mainland_China

[The reliability and utility of Wikipedia is examined at:

http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/columns.asp?parentid=35944]

[clay dube]

Thanks, Dan, for alerting us to the upcoming Marketplace series. Additional details about the series are available at: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/china2006/.

Many public radio stations carry Marketplace (which originated at USC, but is now part of the Minnesota Public Radio empire that includes KPCC, 89.3).

[clay dube]

The Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge dominated all of Cambodia for a bit less than four years and during that period exterminated millions of people. Henri Locard's new book, Pol Pot's Little Red Book: The Sayings of Angkar examines the slogans used to mobilize people and the speeches where party and state policy was articulated. Attached is a review of the book by Jason Edwards. The review was published by the Genocide discussion list of H-Net, a terrific resource for history teachers and others. You can find H-Net at: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/

[clay dube]

Hi All,

I hope that the suffering endured (shots, sips, and more) wasn't too hard! And I wish I'd been there to share the pain.

smiling,
clay

[clay dube]

Scholar and author Liza Dalby is an American who became a geisha and subsequently wrote her dissertation about the experience. She's since produced a number of interesting works, including a rich website which includes information about her book. Go to http://www.lizadalby.com/ and click on the "geisha" button. (The Tale of Murasaki section of the site is also recommended.)

[clay dube]

Teachers in the Los Angeles-area may be interested to learn that some scenes from Geisha were shot in the Japanese garden of the Huntington Library. Here's a link to still photos in the garden from a Michelle Yeoh site:
http://michelleyeoh.info/Movie/Mg/mg_102204.html

Here's the official Huntington Library site:
http://www.huntingtonbotanical.org/Japanese/facts.htm

[clay dube]

I'm looking forward to teacher evaluations of this new film, which is already out in Los Angeles. Please do share your thoughts about the story, the performances, and settings. Can any portion of it be effectively used to teach about Japan?

Certainly the various controversies surrounding the film provide many teachable moments. These include:

-- debates about the best-selling book, including whether or not the male American author unethically "used" his principal source

-- Steven Spielberg's original plans to make the film, including his frustration with not finding actual geisha for the roles

-- the decision by director Rob Marshal and others to cast Chinese actresses in the lead roles rather than draw upon American actresses of Asian descent or Japanese actresses

Who can "rightfully" write about a culture or a society? Must one be an insider to offer an assessment or a narrative? Is it inappropriate for actors of other ethnicities portray Japanese? Should a Texan such as Renée Zellweger be permitted to play a Britan such as Bridget Jones?

The image below is from the Hello Ziyi fansite and shows a billboard for the movie in Japan.

[clay dube]

I love this discussion, but think we should probably discuss this sort of general topic in the Asia in My Classroom forum rather than in the seminar forum. I think a lot of teachers would be interested in the points Rochelle has brought up.

This storehouse of goodies from abroad is a long-standing tradition and not unique to East Asia, though perhaps most pronounced there. In the US, gifts to the Pres. worth more than $285 wind up in the National Archives (see attached story about gifts to Bush and Clinton).

In EA, the gifts to Japanese and Chinese rulers, as well as to the Kims are taken to symbolize the important place the empires/nations hold in the world. In Beijing one sees some of these gifts on display at the Palace Museum.

[clay dube]

Hi Portia, Shari, and others,

These are terrific posts. In the Asia in My Curriculum forum, some of the possible places to talk about the Geisha film are: Movies and Books and Film Festival (I'd opt for film festival). There are also threads about contemporary issues. And we probably should have a new thread there about drama and dance! Feel free to start one to talk about kabuki.

By the way, please remember that to make the links you introduce "clickable", just click on the link icon and follow directions:

" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/forum/images/rte_Link.gif

Again -- these are terrific topics and I think a lot of teachers, including ones in our Torrance group, will enjoy talking about. Please note that in the Asia in My Curriculum forum there are three pages of different threads. Click on the page number at the bottom of the list to move to the next thread. Once a new post is added to a thread, it is automatically moved to the top of the first page list. [Edit by="Clay Dube on Dec 17, 7:43:21 AM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

Arthur and Kokoro have made reference to legal disputes and battles to protect economic and human rights in China. We were fortunate earlier this year to have well-known Chinese labor activist Han Dongfang speak at UCLA. His talk was broadcast on UCTV and is now available via streaming video. Please see it at:

http://www.asia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=35613

Han speaks at length about the challenges ordinary villagers and workers confront in asserting their rights and in collecting money owed to them.

[clay dube]

Prof. Robert Entenmann of St. Olaf College recently suggested the following works:

John Dower, "Three Narratives of Our Humanity," in Edward T. Lilienthal and Tom
Englehard, eds., History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (New York: Henry Holt, 1996). Dower cites a 1994 poll where 80% of the Japanese surveyed felt their government had not done enough to compensate those countries Japan invaded.

Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan, (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994).

Laura Hein and Mark Selden, Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000).

[clay dube]

Hi Rochelle,

I'm delighted that you've combined for fun and exchange. Channel those energies into discussions in the Asia in My Classroom forum. Current events, curriculum materials, films, and whatever comes to mind....

[clay dube]

Darlene is right about workplace safety and other horrors. In the Asia in My Classroom forum, many are talking about the recent shooting of villagers by policemen in SE China and about other human rights issues.

Those interested in the challenges of forming unions and advocating for labor rights may find the following links useful:

Han Dongfang, well-known labor activist giving a Regents Lecture at UCLA
http://www.uctv.tv/library-test.asp?showID=11006

Solidarity Center, an effort sponsored by AFL-CIO, has several reports on China
http://www.solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?contentid=450

Amnesty International
http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/china/index.do

[clay dube]

This is in your binder, but just in case...

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