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Home › Forums › Core Seminars › Modern East Asia, Fall 2021 › 8. December 8 East Asia Today
Kayla Kolean.
Kayla KoleanThank you for sharing this information. I would think this would be a great addition to any course that goes over Climate Change since so often we are focused on how much needs to be done to keep out Climate livable, but not a lot about how other's view the U.S.'s efforts to combat Climate Change.
I really liked the graphs on the difference between "I would make personal changes to combat climate change" 80% affirmative, to "Society is making good job and dealing with climate change" 56% affirmative. I remember listening to an NPR interview with a climate scientist that talked about how America's overall strategy is to put climate change on the individual, like telling people to stop using plastic straws or drive less. However, the scientist said this is unreasonable since these changes do not do as much good as societal changes such as banning plastic packaging (like France did in 2022) or making recycling efficient and easy or create a system for electric cars to be easy to charge and use. This data showed me that other countries may be making the same message to their citizens that "everyone should do their part" to stop climate change, but that companies and society itself can stay the same. Did anyone else hear this NPR special or know more about climate change messaging at a personal level vs. societal level?
Kayla Kolean
Kayla KoleanBeing a Japanese teacher, I often like to visit sites like JapanTimes to see how Japan is presenting events both within their own country, U.S. based events, and global issues. Comparing what Japan Times finds frontline news versus New York Times (or another US based news outlet) is very interested as well.
I also like to check out TikTok as well to get news. I follow a Chinese-American who covers news from China. She provides translations of articles from China and posts stories that might not be getting a lot of traction (either because it is not big news to Americans, or the Chinese government is actively suppressing the information). She posted about the story out of Xi'an days before sources like the BBC posted. This can be due to her sources usually being social media account posts in China and her reporting is not as regorious or as thurough as the BBC article found here (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59864266). While I do like to use social media for news, especially in countries that do not use my native language as their main language, I do take them with a grain of scepticism and look for other sources like the BBC to post articles as well.
What sources to you use to get information and current events from any of these Southeast Asia countries?
Kayla KoleanHi Todd,
I am a fan of Hikaru Utada! This is so neat!
My students are very interested in gender and often let me, and their classmates, know their pronouns and any name or nickname they prefer.
One topic they get really excited about is BOKU and WATASHI. Both of these words means "I/me" in Japanese. However, BOKU is a masuline form used by highschoolers, young adults, and anime characters. WATASHI on the other hand is gender neutral and can be used by everyone, and usually adults will use this once they enter the workforce. I personally have to keep up with this word, as a popular singer in Japan (identifying as female) started to use boku to refer to themselves. I wondered if this was a cultural shift and it was okay for femine individuals to use BOKU, but alas it turned out to be a way the singer used way to grab attention. I often have students who identify as a masculine, but born female, if they can use BOKU, to which I reply "of course". This word differentiation is a great way to get students to talk about gender and gender as a construct as people who might not have the male anatomy, but present as masculine, can use this word. Interesting, right?
Kayla Kolean