I greatly appreciated this seminar. It was consistently interesting, entertaining, and informative. I have a much stronger understanding of early East Asian history and, I believe, enhanced skills and strategies to use in order to incorporate this history in my own classroom.

One of the elements that I most appreciated from the course was the approach of the different lecturers. By and large, our lecturers grounded their presentations in a specific timeframe, but they were unafraid to draw connections to contemporary events or make comparisons across cultures. This was an effective model because, while communicating large amounts of content, it also helped us understand the relevance and importance of what we were learning. It also helped me realize how much of East Asian history can be used as case studies for global historical patterns.

One issue that I kept returning to throughout the course was the way the different East Asian cultures influenced one another while simultaneously asserting their own independence and uniqueness. I believe that any course looking at world history would benefit from spending at least a portion of time examining the connections between these nations. The tension of asserting nationalism while also maintaining open cultural exchange is profoundly relevant, and East Asia provides many examples of both the good and the bad that can arise as a result of such tensions.

In summation, this course helped me greater appreciate both the themes and some of the particulars driving the formation of East Asian nations and cultural identities. With this understanding, I feel much more equipped to weave East Asian history into any course I teach, since the region’s history is so profoundly relevant for our world today.

It’s been 30 years since I attended university (a very small university far away on the East Coast), so it was really cool to take classes at USC in the 21^st century.  That has been a special treat.

Taking a close look at the history of East Asian countries including China, Korea, and Japan immediately revealed how little I’ve been exposed to these cultures over the course of my education up to this point.  Truth is, when I was in school, the textbooks and lectures focused almost exclusively on the Fertile Crescent, Mediterranean-centered empires, Europe, Britain, America (mainly the United States), and the Judeo-Christian aspects of U.S. heritage.

Reality is, our lives in present-day Southern California—not to mention life around the globe-- are hugely influenced by Asia.  And the Asia of today is a reflection and product of millennia of cultural development.  This course introduced us to people from ancient times who were both remarkable and depraved, just like human beings have been throughout the whole world.  We were challenged to question preconceived ideas and assumptions we have held without much information to back them up.  We were exposed to warriors and peasants, missionaries and explorers, emperors and aristocrats and despots.  A wall constructed over the course of a couple centuries to keep out nomadic people who invaded, took over, and eventually were replaced by someone else.  A trade route so long it took lifetimes to travel back and forth between the sources of cotton, wool, horses, ivory, gold, and silver and the source of fine porcelain, paper, tea, exotic spices, and precious silk.  Peasants who worked harder, but not smarter, to get ahead on a short-term basis.  Scholars who studied classical literature and Confucianism in hopes of passing exams that would land them a prestigious government job but take them far from home.  A reclusive society that scorned the advances of Europe and Great Britain.  Tyrants who suppressed education and eliminated perceived threats.  Monks who devoted their lives to seeking a balanced world.  A written language that could be read by people who spoke completely different words.  All of these paving the way to a global superpower with 25% of the world’s population, a mountainous island nation with far-reaching influence, countries with nuclear weapons that keep the world on its toes, kung fu, manga, and K-pop.  So much to think about!

I feel like visiting East Asia would be an essential next step.  But actually a much easier step would be just to start taking better advantage of the opportunities that surround me right here in LA to experience Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese culture.

I truly enjoyed learning so much Asian history this spring semester.  This is refreshing because the history that I learned in this seminar was not delved into thoroughly for most of my schooling.  Thank you Clay; Catherine; and all the visiting professors for making this semester so wonderful.

While there were so many interesting topics discussed in class, the one topic that immediately caught my attention was the sijo.  I love poetry and have collaborated with teachers during National Poetry Month.  I’ve collaborated on writing haikus and blackout poetry.  What is this sijo that predates the haiku?  I had to learn more!  Our practice session on writing the sijo with professor Jung-Kim helped me gain the confidence to bring this topic into the classroom.

I shared the sijo with an English teacher and he also loved the idea of having our students write one for National Poetry Month.  We collaborated last year and had the class write haikus.  The sijo is also short and represents a different challenge.  Together we designed a sijo lesson and read examples from http://sejongculturalsociety.org/. We read the Korean poet’s sijo and sijos written by high school students. The website also featured a sijo writing contest and we also introduced the contest to students.  All the students were required to write the poem, but submission to the contest was optional.

The sijo project was a success!  Students enjoyed the challenge of writing about a theme and then elaborating on the theme or situation.  And the counter-theme or twist and conclusion provided another challenge to complete. 

The results of the sijo writing contest are in and our students did not win.  Here are the winning entries for this year: http://sejongculturalsociety.org/writing/past/2019/winnerssijo.php. I’m going to collaborate with the teacher again next year for National Poetry Month. Maybe this time we will also write a sijo and submit to the contest for fun.  And I think we will give our students more than one class period to work on their poem.  They did not have a whole hour to write because of the introduction and examples.  Thank you again for a wonderful seminar!

The very expansive lectures, readings, and themes yielded a plethora of possibilities for inclusion in my U.S. Government, economics, and World History courses. The series of course topics connected the dots of my existing lodes of knowledge on East Asia, especially from early history to the early 19th century. In other words, I am grateful to have had this learning opportunity which provided so much knowledge which I realized were my weak points in geographical, historical, and East Asian nations and peoples. Many issues across the spectrum were addressed and examined. A number of queries were raised which I will pursue wholeheartedly. For example, I will look into the exensive Golden Age of China and how a powerful civilization fell into disfavor as the onslaught of European economic and political colonialism proved very disruptive with the two Opium Wars, Boxer Rebellion, and recurring Japanese invasions. I am most intrigued by the Zheng He voyages and how these precursed the European voyagers who were seeking fame, fortune, and favor from their respective monarchs. 

My economics students will be called upon to compare and contrast the role of wealth building, mercantilism, and trade relative to classical works by Adam Smith, David Ricardo, etc. The clash of political economic interests and national trade, tariffs, and competing international powers will be examined from the earliest to contemporary developments. 

I will find a way to include the study of Confucianism as one of the masters of early philosophical, social and political philosophy and thought. His words, as documented by his students and researchers, certainly exist as corresponding to the Age of Enlightenment thinkers who are credited with concepts such as Natural Law and  Rights. Ven diagrams of overlapping and complementary thoughts and quotes would make for an interesting diagram of other great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Rousseau, de Tocqueville, Montesquieu, etc. 

I was most intrigued by Marco Polo's travels and controversy over his authenticity. Either way, the Mongol period in China serves as a construct for why nations seek to expand through conquer and colonial aggression. Mongolian invasions of Japan will be compared and contrasted with the Spanish Armada's attempt to invade England. These exercises will examine challenges to a nation's sovereignty and how nationalism emerged or was strengthened. 

These examples are the most evident ones on my future agenda starting in the summer with extensive research and preparation for the upcoming school year. No doubt, my economics class will focus on current conditions relative to U.S. and Asian economic cooperation and conflict. As well, the inter connectedness of global powerhouses will be examined and subject to critical analysis and discussion. 

Thank you Mr. Dube, Catherine, and fellow cohorts in creating a most fascinating learning experience. I am enthused with many more challenges to enhancing my knowledge base and teacher's arsenal. 

         It was privilege to attend the East Asia: Origin to 1800 Seminar at USC. Thank you, Dr. Clay Dube, Catherine, and the several guest Professors who made this seminar possible.

          I love learning about history, being presented with this wonderful opportunity to study and learn more about East Asia was wonderful and I did not mind all the driving from San Diego to USC. I had some basic knowledge about East Asia or “El Lejano Oriente” (Far East) prior to the 1800. But after having attended this seminar I was able to fill in many gaps and increase my knowledge and understanding of East Asia. One of the details that stays fresh in my mind is about the Warrior Gentlemen or Bushi often misidentified in the U.S.A. and Western culture as Samurai.

         During one of our classes I had a Eureka moment, when I realized that without China and the Europeans quest to find an easier route to trade with Chinese merchants, the United States of America would not exist as it is right now. Christopher Columbus quest for a route to China took him East and he landed in the Caribbean by mistake. Regardless of our current political and economic issues with China, our history is deeply connected. Someone once said that, we need to understand our past in order to make a better future.

       I am fortunate to teach 4^th grade Social Studies, were we are able to explore and learn about California’s history and East Asia has a many strong links to our history. With the knowledge that I have earned during this seminars, I feel empowered to do a better job at teaching my fourth graders about this shared history between East Asia and our continent.

This is my first seminar with USC-China Institute. I am not sure how I came across this institute, but I think I google searched for a possible summer PD for myself this summer. This wasn't exactly what I was looking for and would be a bit of a drive for me but when I read the description about this seminar, it sounded very interesting and decided to apply for it. Still, I wasn't sure if I would be able to apply anything from the seminar to my class as a 4th/5th grade teacher with very different topics in our social studies curriculum. That proved to be wrong. I came away with many ideas to incorporate what I have gained in this seminar into my class.   Not only did I gain knowledge and ideas for my class but the seminar  lectures and discussions have helpe me understand myself better as an Asian American. I now understand better why my parents have said over and over those "annoying" things to me and my siblings growing up. I come to better understand the students of Asian heritage and their parents. Deeper understanding of my students and their parents will certainly help me as an educator. I am now also better equip to foster understanding of Asian culture and people to students who have little understanding about them. When we seek to better understand one another, we can reduce ugly conflicts and agree to disagree in a more civil manner. 

I was also able to gain a lot more ideas for class from this semnar than I had first expected. First, I was delighted about the idea of incorporating literature such as poetry forms, different styles of paintings/ceramics and what we could infer from them--all of which are important ELA/critical thinking skills to review and practice in upper elementary grades. It is still relevent how philosophy and religion could impact people's behavior and thus history of its people. Technology of the time reflect the time in history. As Dr. Dube emphasized in his closing lecture, "We are all intertwined!"  What has happened in the past impact us today but what has happened in one area in the world, very well impacts people elsewhere in the world, too. Yes, we ARE all intertwined!

This is my second course with the US China Institute.  The structure of the lectures were very helpful- they were chonological in order and gave a great over view of each topic covered.  Many of the themes in this class were new to me as the historical perstective of this class went much further back in time.  It was interesting learning about the way in which culture, language, land territory, social class, leadership all seemed to weave the story from the beginning of such countries as Japanand Korea- with China in East Asia.  

My students have many academic challenges- so one of my biggest obstacles to over come with them as a teacher is making content comprehensible.  The content, I admit, in theis course is pretty dense and would be very confusing to most of my students, however using strategies for English Learners, accomodations and modifications I was able to create fun and exciting lessons for my students that helped them understand East Asian better.  In my lesson plans I chose to dive into a comparative lesson on funerary art practices.   First I though about what sort of "hook" or background knowledge I could tap into- death and dying is something they all have been around growing up so close to their families as they all are.   They are students that are entirely dependent ont heir families for all their needs and so diving into this content was interesting to them.  Hard to believe but true- they loved the lesson.  

The arts in East Asian are a great spring board for teachers like myself to dive into as well.  They Sijo poem lesson I created was a great way to intgrate cross curricular studies into my teaching practice.  For this particular lesson I used many visuals and large print materials that helped everyone jump on board with the learning that was taking place.  It was a very fun lesson- and it was all thanks to learning about the fine arts through the course that I was able to them teach my students.  They really expressed themselves and really seemed to like the format that the poems have.  Simple and artistic- it worked.

The lecturers for the course were very engaging.  Thier passion for the subject came through in many ways.  Their excitement for the subject and the country they were covering was passed onto us - the students.   There were so many facts about ancient Wast Asian that were very fascinating to me.  How Japan was formed?  Who commissioned the Great Wall of China? and why? ,  what was the social class system like in China, Korea and Japan in Ancient times?  How is China dealing with the pollution problem we face today?  Although this was a more recent study, it was very informative and interesting.