My favorite stamps are the two from 1968. That was the year I was born. Yes, I'm old. I was born the year of the monkey.
edited by cmorgan on 2/8/2016

Viewing the comparisons among the covers of national publications, it is clear that Asia – specifically, China, South Korea, and Japan – are global entities that take precedent in our modern lives; issues that should not be cast as simply foreign affairs. In fact, the recent developments of North Korea’s rocket launches especially when taking in to consideration their nuclear possessions, is an increasingly alarming factor. As recent as this past weekend, 7 February 2016, their testing of rockets displays a growing aggression towards testing the limits of what the 38th parallel, and other symbolic lines may restrain. Furthermore, as noted in the overview of tonight’s lecture, the issues amongst the East Asian countries are not isolated to a continent on the other side of the world. Teaching East Asia is an evident need that educators can no longer ignore.
edited by crhude on 2/8/2016

The demographic crisis consists of many factors. To begin with, families are having less children because women are deciding to pursue an education and focus on their careers. Whereas before a women's job was to take care of the household and the children. Now, woman are not wanting to get married at an early age or choosing NOT to get married at all. Men who desire to continue with the "traditional" family way of life are seeking for spouses outside their country through mail order brides. The crisis also consists of the fact that much of the population is older now and the work population is shrinking whereas it is creating a financial burden to the country. For example, in Japan (where life expectancy is longer than other countries) there is a crisis in taking care of their older population. Companies are adjusting to the smaller young age work force by replacing physical human labor with robots. It is evident that many changes will occur in these societies, and I am curious in learning what will be the outcome in the long term.

Gender Dynamics and Marriage
The two articles that caught my interest are, “Bride School: Where South Korea’s mail-order wives earn their trade” and “Foreign bride’ from Cambodia to make history in Taiwan vote.” Personally, I feel intrigued about marriage dynamics in different parts of the world and their cultural relevance. I am also interested because mail-order marriages are not the norm in the United States and therefore, not something I know much about. I feel that because this is different to popular culture here, my students will also enjoy these articles and can hold meaningful conversations and discussions with the proper amount of scaffolding. I think that this would be a great compare and contrast activity, cause and effect activity or an ethical discussion and analyze their own criteria for ethics.
Worker shortages
I think that in groups students can jigsaw the different articles about labor shortages and have them to use data and analytical skills to discuss the pros and cons of their articles. Students can then take these current events and look at multiple aspects of labor such as: gender, age, technology, government, etc. I can also see how students can contrast labor shortages in East Asia to the labor force in the United States. Based on my students’ prior knowledge they are not aware of labor shortages in the U.S. or in any parts of the world therefore, this would also require them to expand their knowledge about other countries’ labor experiences. I would be greatly interested, but I don’t think my students will be as interested as I am.
edited by csanchez on 2/9/2016

I've read many news articles augering fear of unemployment & falling wages due to robotics taking over American manufacturing jobs. Coming from the Midwest Rust Belt, these fears appear to have manifested. However, reading the Bloomberg article gave me hope. It occurred to me that if physical labor is outsourced to machines, skills like analysis, critical thinking, humanities, interpersonal skills will shape the necessary employment skills of the future. Instead of humans being plough mules, we have an opportunity to flourish in things machines can't do: arts, music, cultural development. Exploration of how to improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet. Thinking skills, rather than pure physical strength, will become more important. This makes my job as a teacher more important, in fact. I need to encourage these skills in my students. Still a half-thought out response, but it is my initial reaction to this article.

This article was very inspiring because my parents were immigrants from Mexico, and although they don't share a similar story to Lin Li-chan, there is a connection as they too had to leave their country and learn a different language. I experience this is my classroom every year. I get students that have left their country at an early age having to leave their friends and family. Unable to speak a word of English to communicate with their teacher and their colleagues could be very traumatic for a 2nd grader. This is when I totally immerse myself to their culture and customs, and they seem very enthusiastic to share this with me. This is what triggered me in taking this seminar. The great part of it is that the stories in our language arts program have definitely changed since I was in elementary school. Some of the stories we read in 2nd grade have a theme that young children can relate to such as young children immigrants coming to America. In the end, Lin Li-chan is definitely a voice to other women that have experienced what she went through. I am very curious as to what improvements Lin Li-chan will bring to Taiwan. I will definitely follow her and hope she makes positive changes.

Today’s lecture was definitely enlightening to get an overview of what we will be learning this semester. I appreciated the little tidbits from each country, and am looking forward to learning more about each country touched on. One idea that caught my attention that Professor Dube touched on are the tensions in the Himalayas between India and China over the issue of water from the snow packs. I am wondering what has been done to mediate the relations between these countries over this issue, and if any major conflicts have taken place over the water issue. Also, how has this impacted the people in both communities that depend on this water? Have they found other sources of water? This would be a great discussion to have with students regarding disputes over natural resources, and how it should be dealt with.

A connection I can make to this idea is when I visited India two summers ago, I bought an India map to bring back to my classroom. When I got to the airport, airport security opened my map and pulled me aside asking me where I bought it, and checked if India was “properly” charted on the map. At the time, it didn’t make much sense, but after researching a bit and listening to this lecture, it makes sense why they checked my map to make sure the territory disputed was marked as theirs.

That is an interesting story about airport security checking your map!