Professor Yamashita actually guided me our of my darkness to the bright light, and I have to say " Here Comes the Sun' with a complete shocking discovery aboout the intercoures among ancient China, Korea, and Japan.. The Ancient Japanese acknowleged the advancement of Chinese calendar, governing system, and Confucian religons, and they bottowed the concepts and used them accordingly in Japanese ways, as well as Buddhism adoption in Japan. The ancient Japanese' modesty, honesty, and elegant characters really gained my higly respect. It's amazing to find out the Emporor QIn's decedants still exist in Japan. I wonder what they have done to contribute to the friendship between China and Japan for resent hundreds years, which reminded me of the very popular Chinese American author Geling Yan and her great interest to seek the truth of what exactly happend to Chinese victims in Nanjing Massacre. I am still haunted by the cruety of the Japanese murderers. I am shocked by the facts that the Japanese royal tombs occupied huge lands in this tiny country. I wonered if that was the purpose for those Japanese worriors to expand their territory fo rmore spaces to bury themselves. The crimes they commited to Chinese by invading China with the " Kill all, seize all, and burn all" policy will never be understood, but it made the darkest history.

From here, I will design a lesson to tell my 10th graders to respect the historical truth and undertand the causes and effects of the events.

As evidence for the origins of Japan ands its culture, Professor Yamashita provided various types of evidence that corroborate the origins of the Japanese people. One type of evidence presented is the mythological evidence or an example of a creation myth: The Birth of the Land. This narrative describes how two deities, Izanagi and Izanami, descend upon the Earth and then by coming together, give birth to many islands, each given a specific name.  This text, as an example of a creation myth from a Japanese perspective, is revealing of some aspects of the Japanese culture and world view.  Creation myths are generally taught to teach students about a culture's cosmology: its relationship to the natural world and geography of the land, deities and their relationship to the Earth, and so on.  This text would be good to include within a unit of creation myths from different cultures.  I would have students look at the similarities and differences between different creation myths and examine what the distinct themes and characteristics suggest of the creation myth as a genre and more specifically, of the cultures which produced it.  As they find the similarities, they can understand some of the universal motifs and archetypes expressed in these myths.  As they think about the differences and variations among the different myths students can reach their own conclusions about what values these variations might suggest of that culture, their identity and experiences. Some of the questions students can explore are: what values does the myth reveal?  What might this suggest about the people's relationship to the land and its topography?  What is the relationship of the God/s to the Earth and what might this suggest?    This kind of multicultural exposure is particularly important because students generally get taught the traditional western creation myths, particularly Greek and Roman narratives.  By including creation myths from East Asia and other parts of the globe, students would get a broader and more inclusive perspective of the multifaceted world in which we live in and gain some understanding of its diversity of thought and experience.

Professor Yamashita started his lecture with projecting a text written by an official from China. During that time Japan was called Wei. Before characters were introduced into Japan is appears that there was no writing system to categorize and explain their own cosmology or local histories. Not until the Yamato conquest do we see Japanese, or those living in Japan, recording the history of Japan. Once the Yamato come into power Tang style government is adopted as well as their way of writing history. Government is now centralized, kingship is based on Emperor, all land is public, and its military is reorganized. Furthermore, people from Paekche (southwest Korea) like Ajikki and Wang'in introduce horses, writing, and Confucianism, which shows there was migration from Korea. In fact as the professor pointed out there were 326 clans of foreign origin in the Kinai area. Unfortunately for the Yamato by the 800s there is a breakdown in Sui/Tang styled government, nonetheless its legacy in the form of writing, and religion continue to remain for many more years.

What was fascinating to learn from the lecture were the waves of migration to Japan from East Asia and what they brought to Japan, writing systems, forms of government, religion and even animals. One can argue that this was a time of opening for Japan, but it most likely was war that came attached with all these gifts of civilization. Nonetheless, it was after the Yamato begin to tell their story and explain their own myth that we begin to get a better idea on Japan before the introduction of continental statecraft. In the Sources of Japanese Tradition-Volume One: From Earliest Times to 1600 one can see that first textual evidence on Japan comes from Han Dynasty and it’s not till later that Japanese begin to explain their myth stories. Nonetheless, by reading their myth stories especially Early Shinto: Chapter 2 we see that there is still something to be learned from reading early Yamato histories, and how they shed light into what existed before they came to power on page 20 of the text it states that, "even passages meant to assert dynastic supremacy  or that became systematized along this line betray the existence of diverse and competing cults or inadvertently reveal traditional attitudes and practices taken for granted by all." So when we look at the myth creation of Japan, and how islands were formed by the blood of the male and female gods, one then can understand why maybe tombs like Nintoku's look like small islands. It can also explain why people were so regional and why they saw water and mountains as important to their cosmology. 

Another aspect that I found fascinating in reading through the text, which was not highlighted by Prof. Yamashita was that after a few years of the Yamato coming to power, Japanese educated in Chinese characters renamed their kingdom Nippon, land where the sun rises, as opposed to Wei. On page 12 in New History of the Tang Dynasty (Xin Tang Shu) it states, "In the first year of Xianheng [670] an embassy came to the court......about this time, the Japanese who had studied Chinese came to dislike the name Wa and changed it to Nippon. According to the words of the Japanese envoy himself, that name was chosen because the country was so close to where the sun rises." With this new perspective of perceived history Japanese begin to see themselves, or at least those in power, in a new light. They want to differentiate themselves to how they have been seen by the dynasties in the continent. 

I also found it fascinating to see how in the History of the Sui Dynasty (Sui Shu) the emperor of Japan offends the Sui Emperor. On page 11 it states, "[Then envoy brought] an official message which read: The Child of Heaven in the land where the sun rises addresses a letter to the Child of Heaven in the land where the sun sets." and "when the Emperor saw this letter, he was displeased." Now that Japan has a writing system in place and is communicating with officials in the mainland one can see the dynamics of how each one perceives the other and how they are all trying to accommodate to each other’s perceived legitimacy in their own kingdoms but world at large. 

A way of introducing such a variety of sources and points of views on Japan can be by giving students excerpts of Japanese myth stories, and closely linking them with Japanese geography. From there teachers can introduce to them pictures of tombs where kings were buried and have them look at those images, as a visual inquiry, by asking students what they see, and what makes them say that that is what they see. From there the teacher can build on what the students are talking about and reconnect it to mythological stories of how Japan came to be. On the other hand, textual evidence can be given to students to show points were Japanese and Chinese official diverge in perceptions. The section where Japanese no longer want to be called the kingdom of Wei (Wa) but Nippon can also be an excellent starting point in how people perceive themselves and other perceive them. This dichotomy can be further built upon by looking at examples where the Sui Emperor was angry at Japanese king for seeing himself as the "child of heaven from the land where the sun rises," and though that might have seemed presumptuous it was based on the fact that that is where the sun rose first. So, to make a long story short. These sources are excellent, and can be used in the classroom especially in the context of point of view, perceptions, and how we "name" or label others.

The tradition of eating soba originates from the Tokugawa period, also called the Edo period. In the Tokugawa era, every neighborhood had one or two soba establishments, many also serving Sake, which functioned much like modern cafes where locals would stop for a casual meal. Soba is typically eaten with chopsticks ( like Chinese),  and in Japan it is considered acceptable to slurp the noodles noisily. This is especially common with hot noodles, as drawing up the noodles quickly into the mouth helps cool them.

In my class we are going to do research about Asian noodles. And we are going to compare Udon, Soba and Rice noodles. And we are going to have a food tasting during the final class for fun. 

Sources: Wiki

In the two records that were provided of Japan, I found the descriptions of Japan incredibly helpful for understanding the relations they had with other countries. They also do a great job in describing the aristocracy in Japan and culture. But beyond that, the descriptions are also incredibly comical to read. One of my favorite lines in the accounts is in the History of the Kingdom of Wei where Japanese excursions to China are described. “When they go on voyages across the sea to visit China, they always select a man who does not comb his hair, does not rid himself of fleas, lets his clothing get dirty as it will, does not eat meat, and does not lie with women.” There is an awkward attention to detail that resonates throughout the accounts and translations of accounts. The accounts really went well with Professor Yamashita’s layer of history throughout classical Japan. There was certainly echoes of whimsicality that carried through from the accounts to his lecture in learning about the Land of the Dwarves.

As a science teacher, one of the most important things to science is phenomenon and scope, which is something that Professor Yamashita provided in his lecture. He began with the geographic beginning to Japan, which was an island that was created 20,000 years ago geologically and flooding shaped the islands into their final shape 15,000 years ago. This means that compared to most geologic structures, Japan is relatively new. This would allow for a lot of life to mix with the mainland compared to the most recent hawaiian islands, which were formed by hot spots 400,00 years ago or India, which was formed by the tectonic collision 75 million years ago. He also went into the genetic footprint that was kept among Japanese regions - such as fingerprint patterns and blood types. And the emergency of language that came about from both the east and west. This sets up a unique platform for foreshadowing Japan’s future, which is heavily influenced from the outside - but given Japan’s unique geography, leaves it with some place to evolve on its own.

It was a great pleasure to have Professor Yamashita   to come all the way from Pomona and lecture at today’s meeting. Professor Yamashita seemed to really enjoy talking, presenting and sharing his knowledge. I really like that Processor Yamashita takes the time to have his material printed out for us. The topic of today’s session was about Japan.  I really enjoyed listening and learning about the origins about classical Japan. The topics such as agriculture, taxes, liquor, food and longevity were touched upon but, I really found it quite interesting to learn that back then, the finger print pattern and blood types determined what origin of the peoples live in what areas/legions. I found this bizarre, as to who would even think to look into this subject, like what were they thinking, what made someone decide to thinks and say, “I know let’s look at fingerprints”, as if they had nothing better to do. However upon analyzing this I suppose it does make sense, as after they have dead corpses,( and I really do not think they would do autopsies on them, as it would seem there would be to many corpses), but yes they probably do look at the fingerprint patterns when doing an autopsy. I guess this was helped them determine that in the North the fingerprint patterns consisted of the loops and arches, while the South corpses had the swirls. Also if ones family live in a certain section, naturally their fingerprint patterns would be similar as they are family, they are related, heredity. I always like and enjoy hearing about the mysteries of life, so when Mr. Yamashita started to talk about Cosmology, I was intrigued. Mr. Yamashita talked about the Mythological Evidences, that the vertical cosmology has to do with the heavens, sky the earth, and the horizontal cosmology deals with the land and sea. Again here I wonder to myself, who makes and decides these things, but someone did and so I should just be justified with it.  Mr. Yamashita also talked about, “Shinto”, the native Japanese religion, the spirits and the Kami Gods.  I wasn’t too sure if I spelled the word Kami, correct, as spell check was not able to correct it so I asked, ”Siri”, for what is a Kami God, and she took me to a page that had all the names of the Japanese Gods, which was an awesome one, it had this address lowchensaustralia.com, but since it did not highlight I tried this address and it was a page advertising  dogs?,  I couldn’t find the page, I tried several times and various ways by using upper and lower case letters to no avail. I again asked “Siri’, and again it took me to the same awesome page, again when looking it up on the web; I still couldn’t find it, as I wanted to share it with my colleagues, but I still could not locate it. So I finally came to the conclusion that the Gods were messing with me. LOL!