Additional readings below.

Hello, may I please join the Daoism group?

Let me try to answer Clay’s question from the first video – Have you seen early Chinese thought in popular culture? How would you share such examples with the students?

The Monkey King stories include elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism.

The Journey to the West  - a classic Chinese 16^th-century novel strongly promoted Daoism and Buddhism inspiring several modern film adaptations. I suspect that the novel might have had a huge influence on The Wizzard of Oz. It would be easy to relate many Buddhist concepts to students. Upon googling anything on that connection, It seems that nobody else saw obvious parallels except for this short post. I should probably write a paper about it.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wonderful-wizard-oz-v-journey-west-dominique-n-thieu-l-i-o-n-

Sticking to Denis's idea of Chinese cultural influence in film and growing up in Mexico City, I distinctly remember a facination with Chinese culture amongst the kids in the 80's. Kung-fu films, specifically Bruce Lee (but others as well) was an exciting new phenomena.  After pick-up soccer bouts on the street, the kids would "play" Kung-fu and everybody would want their turn at being Bruce Lee. Now we had an alternative to the American Western.

My uncle had one of the few VHS players around, and almost every week we'd gather to see films about 20 people, old and young, crowded in a room.  Martial Arts was a favorite genre.  Soon after, Karate schools started started popping up and the latest "moves" were a hot topic in the school yard. 

The facination with the culture only grew from there; I remember friends losing teeth to nunchucks, ninja stars being being confiscated by teachers, and kids pretending to have learned to read Chinese. It represented a new alternative to American culture, which often came down to the American cowboy vs. "The Savage."  Chinese culture and symbolism represented something extraordinarily new, which is why, I suspect, has endured and even embedded into other cultures. At that time, if you "spoke" English at about the same prificiency that you "knew" Kung-fu, you were set.

A more recent cultural influence of the 2000's is in the Nickelodean series Avatar:The Last Airbender.  My children were fans of the show and we watched it as a family. Many of Chinese and other Asian cultural references and symbols were scattered throughout... such as Yin/Yang and the need balance.  There was a setting of an "Air Temple" that strongly resembles the Hengshan Temple in Shanxi.  Evidence of Confucian, Daoist and Legalism are sprinkled throughout the series as well. 

As a kid growing up in India, we were amazed by Bruce Lee, Jackie Chen, and Jet Li movies dubbed in Hindi which were made in Hollywood. Chinese Martial Arts found a permanent home in America thanks to these artists. Karate kid remains one of my favorites. This also leads to karate, martial arts, kung fu, etc schools in the US. Through these movies, other Chinese cultural traditions, teachings, rituals, and festivals also Americans came to know more about it. The martial arts also being taught by the US military and police officers generated a lot of interest in the culture. Video games gave a new life to the spread of Chinese culture and symbols.  Comics, TV dramas, music, and Anime also became popular over the years to further the interest in overall oriental culture.  

Now if we talk of early school of thought, I think US education system is influenced by confucius school of thought. Education is considered as a tool to instill moral values and create human beings with good character.