South Pasadena HighSchool has a course called Asian Cultures. That might offer some help to you.

If you find one, I'd like to see what's included -- if it's organized by culture or by topic, for example. Thanks. BBK

I really want to recommend the author Jhumpa Lahiri whose first book, The Interpeter of Maladies, won the 2000 Pulitzer. She is English born of Indian descent. The book is a collection of wonderful short stories all set in the U.S. but complied of Indian characters who deal with common situations in sometimes American and sometimes Indian ways. It's a cross-cultural slice-of-life look at blending but not blending. Very interesting read. Read about the author here http://saja.org/lahiri.html
Edie

Iliad As I reviewed the state standards for social studies last week for a district workshop I attended I was reminded again of a pet peeve of mind regarding these standards. Their overwhelming emphasis is on political and economic history, with very little mention of intellectual or cultural history. This of course is a modern perspective on what is important, but ignores what was important to people in the periods being studied. The words "art" and "literature" are not mentioned in the 6th grade sections on Mesopotamia, Ancient Hebrews, and China, though Egyptian art and architecture, and Indian literature, incuding the Bhagavad Gita, are to be discussed, and of course the "significanceof Greek mythology... and how Greek literature continues to permeate our [my emphasis]literature and language today...such as Homer's Iliadand Odysseyand...Aesop's Fables" are to be explained. Roman art, literature, language, and law are "legacies" to be discussed.

In the 7th grade, again art and literature are not mentioned in the unit on China, but they are mentioned in the unit on Japan, specifically the "ninth and tenth centuries'golden age of literature, art, and drama and its lasting effects on culture today, including Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji." Aside from the fact that we learned it was the tenth and eleventh centuries when most of the great works were done, I've always wondered why the state and the text paid so much attention to Japan and so little to Chinese culture. My theory is that Japan had become an industrial leader and major trading partner, while China has been seen as less important to the global economy--though of course that has changed drastically in the last few years. However, in my class, since I know China was the mother of much of the art and literature styles and values in other Asian countries, I do attempt to cover some of the aspects of Chinese art and literature. I use the 1 1/2 pages in the text (pp.202-3) and some supplemental readings and activities. Thankfully, from our class this summer, I have much more background information and actual examples that I can use now also.