Final Essay

[cgao]

Please post your reflective essay here.

[Natali Ramon]

I really glad I participated on this seminar about contemporary China because I got the opportunity to explore a number of topics that are extremely relevant.  I appreciate that the topics presented because these are happening right now because it makes it very easy to implement into the classroom.  Within the Spanish Language discipline, I feel that this seminar provided a lot of ways in which I can make connections between Latin American culture and Chinese culture.  For example, one of the topics that I feel will be very compelling and interesting for my students are the expectations of marriage that both Chinese and Latino families have.  As high school-aged students, I don’t think they are quite critical of the expectations of marriage that young people face, as a matter of fact I feel that at such a young age, they are on par with the expectations their parents have.  However, exploring this topic might offer a glimpse into the social pressures my students will face in the coming years as they enter their 20s. Another very powerful way in which I can connect Latin American culture to Chinese culture is through the exploration of immigration.  A lot of the issues China faces as a result of mass migration are issues that a lot of Latin Americans face but in an international scale.  Most notably, I think it would be particularly powerful if we explored the lives of young children who are left behind by their parents because this is something that central American children experience.  In this way, we can examine the universal effect caused by the movement of people.   

 

[Katrina Oh]

As a teacher, I found the Contemporary China experience to be informative, enjoyable, and valuable. Thanks to Professor Dube’s lectures, I have deepened my understanding of China and am confident that I can do a better job of teaching Chinese history to my students.

In the past, my understanding of China and its history was limited to whatever was written in my students’ textbooks. That was where I was primarily obtaining my information, which meant that lectures were predictable, if not a bit dull. For example, when teaching my AP World students about Mao Zedong’s agricultural reforms, I would tell them that the government seized land from rich peasants and redistributed land to poorer people. But after listening to Professor Dube’s lecture, I now know that the Chinese Communist Party created cooperatives, where farmers were directed to share tools and farm animals with other farmers and that each person would receive a return based on their own contribution to the project. While I was aware that these agricultural “reforms” failed at increasing agricultural output and that mass starvation struck China as a result of these failed government plans, I did not know that the Chinese resorted to cannibalism during the Great Leap Forward. This I learned from a student in the class who had posted this information in the discussion forum. I believe stories like these will pique my students’ interest and enable them to retain the information more readily.

 In addition to improving my own content knowledge, this seminar gave me new ideas for classroom lessons.  Prior to taking this seminar, I struggled to find a way to make the Cultural Revolution interesting for my World History and AP World History students. Try as I might, I could not find a clip that captured the hysteria that surrounded the Cultural Revolution. At the time, I did not know of any film about the Cultural Revolution. But my search for a memorable clip came to an end when this course introduced me to the film “Blue Kite” by director Tian Zhuangzhuang. Considered one of the greatest Chinese films, “Blue Kite” chronicles the life of a young Chinese boy name Tie Tou, who lives through events like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. My plan is to show my students excerpts of the. One of the most memorable clips for me was the scene where Tie Tou’s principal and stepfather are being attacked by members of the Red Guard and later when Tie Tou is separated from his mother. Those scenes are just so gut-wrenching that it would be hard to forget about the Cultural Revolution.

 

[Christine Xu]

Over this past 5 weeks seminar learning about the contemporary china I have learned a lot about the Chinese history and cultures from this educational journey and I got many ideas for my own teaching. 

The readings from the seminar are very-thought provoking, and the writings of reflection on what we read and talked make me think deeply about how I can use them into my own teaching.

I teach Mandarin, and I plan to use the knowledge I learned into my classes to make my lessons be more interesting. I believe teaching Chinese culture and history can help my students understand China and Chinese culture better in order to learn the language better. For example, I will talk about soil pollution, Filial Piety, Global views about china, Beijing Opera, Chinese characters, etc. In my class we will watch videos, and students will do research about the topics as well. They will talk and share ideas in peers and small groups to reflect their understanding. Doing this could help my students view China and Chinese culture from different point of view.

Also, I learned that watching a film is a good idea to teach the language and the culture. Students will be able to hear the authentic language from the film. By listening to the music and seeing the visuals students can learn different Chinese lives at the time. From viewing the scenes, they will be able to see the Chinese architectures, communities, Chinese martial art, etc. Then they can use scenes analysis framework to explore why the director chose the setting, camera angles, lighting, and music and what choices do they create the scene’s tone. Additional, students will reflect on the scene individually and in groups, and they will create their own scene and present it to the rest of the class.

I have valued the personable exchanges of thoughts from the online forum posting during the seminar.  I appreciate and want to say thank you to the people who are involved. Thank you to our professor and teachers, without your hard work, we wont have this opportunity to learn contemporary china and history which it is beneficial to our students. 

 

[Marcos Rico]

     I enjoyed learning about contemporary China. Most of my knowledge was based on information about China prior to the 1900’s. It is embarrasing to admit, but until last year I was ignorant and confused about the relationship of Taiwan and China. I did not understand how China passed from being our ally on WWll to becoming a Communist country. Now, I had an excellent opportunity to learn about join a group of educators to increase our knowledge about modern China. It was an eye opening experience, it filled many gaps on my knowledge about China (Plus, I am having the opportunity to earn Continuing Education Units).

     I teach 4^th grade, Social Studies, our focus is on California. On Chapter 7 Transportation and Communication, we talk about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and Rails across California. Central Pacific Railroad Company hired mostly Chinese workers to build the railroad tracks (late 1800’s). Chapter 8 A Growing Economy, Lesson 1 we talk about Immigration and Migration, we talk about Angel Island, About Prejudice, Racism and Discrimination that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This was the area where I would stop teaching about China and Chinese Immigrants.

     After having completed this seminar, I know have the knowledge to teach about Contemporary China during our Final unit, California Today and Tomorrow. Chapter 11 The Golden State, specifically during, A Modern Economy and Overcoming Challenges. There are many economic and cultural links that connect China and California (there is some trouble due to current leadership in our government). We belong to the Pacific Basin region. Apple, the most successful California based company develops their ideas and design in our state, but has their final products manufactured in China. China was also the main purchaser of California’s recyclable materials, but changes in the market has made China no longer interested on purchasing California’s recyclable refuse (Overcoming Challenges). China and California also face serious trouble with water shortage in some regions of their territory, and have dealt with it in similar ways. I now have a better understanding of the transformation that has been taking place in China over the past 50 years, as it moved from an underperforming Agricultural economy towards the second strongest industrial economy in the world.

I am thankful for this wonderful learning experience and will be using my new knowledge to the benefit my 4th graders. 

[Lin ZhaoDavison]

        This program deepens my understanding of China, Chinese history, cultures and the Sino-American relation especially in the following aspects.  I would incorporate these points in my Chinese language and cultural instruction and tutoring.

• Chinese dialects: 

         As far as I know, there are 7 major dialects spoken in China: 北方方言、吴方言、湘方言、赣方言、客家方言、粤方言、闽方言 whereas Mandarin is the official language.  There are also subdivisions of these 7 major dialects.  Emperor Qing united the written language across the China around 200 BC when he also standardized the currency and measures. People could read the same language although speaking different dialects. It was Emperor Qing's significant contribution to China because it helped unity of such a big country.  When I teach Chinese, I focus on Mandarin in simplified Chinese, but introduce Cantonese in traditional Chinese and let students be aware of the dialects.  The four tones in the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation are very important because variation of tones changes meaning of words.  I would encourage students to explore the differences and similarities between Mandarin and another dialect through talk shows and TV programs.

 

• Individual freedom and entrepreneurship:  

        China has evolved from a highly centralized and state-controlled society to a semi-capitalized society.  Individuals enjoy more freedom in pursuit of personal aspirations and marriage as well as other things.  For example, many women’s marriages were arranged by parents and their personal happiness depended on the luck in old Chinese society. And females were expected to get married when passing certain age threshold; otherwise, parents might intervene to find a husband for them. Marriage was more of a duty than love.  Today, Chinese women enjoy much more freedom in choose their own partners and husbands.  They have the same educational opportunities as their male counterparts at least in the primary education, and they can decide what they want to do after graduation from college or high school. As one of the girls said in an interview about her attitude towards marriage, “ I will not bow to the outside pressure.” She will not get married until she finds her love.  The “Left Over Park” is a dating system helping unmarried women to find partners.  And contemporary Chinese women have other channels to pursue their desire for love.  

        Entrepreneurship is another impressive progress made in the recent Chinese history.  Contrasting to the traditional state owned enterprises, young Chinese people today have the courage to open their own businesses to sell their products or ideas.  An outstanding Chinese entrepreneur is Jack Ma, who was an English teacher in China.  He started the company, Alibaba, which is now a well-known brand in America and the world, and he becomes one of the richest people in the world. 

        The pursuit of individual freedom is one of the characteristics of modern Chinese people against the backdrop of the traditional collectivism.  I would encourage students to write essays about the individualism in China with life examples in the modern Chinese history.  They would have group debates on the pros and cons of individualism vs collectivism.

[Nira Sun]

Regardless of the subject and background of the students we teach, the common ground in one classroom that is significant to teaching is to truly understand our students so that our content relates to their everyday life outside the classroom. This is essentially crucial when it comes to language and culture learning. I also believe that this is the reason teachers like us chose to spend our own time attending PD or seminars. One benefit of it is for us to meet with and learn from other teachers who share common or different perspectives. At the same time, we get ourselves updated with what’s going on outside our little classroom.

In this seminar, we were exposed to vast variety of social issues and concerns in the contemporary China: the population, the Hukou system, the economy, the technology development, the social transformation, the young generation, the relationship with the rest of the world, and etc. I started to feel that there are a lot of information I’m able to bring back to my classroom.

I personally feel that the topics about the technology development and the current young generation will be interesting topics that my students can find themselves relate to in terms of culture learning. These are real events that happen in our lives regardless of the locations. The connection that students feel with the rest of the world might be stronger than how we used to feel. They simply just need teachers to integrate them into the curriculum and expose them to our students.

Because of this session, it makes me think how to introduce these little topics to my students. I used to believe that we shall design some types of complicated thematic unit in order to introduce them. After seeing the complexity and diversity of the topics, I started giving the information as they appear. For instance, I have introduced the 11.11 online shopping festival for students to compare with the black Friday and cyber Monday here in the US. I showed them the countdown they had for the gigantic e-commerce company Alibaba in China and how much they were making in seconds. Students were astonished to find out how this so-called festival has developed and how much of impact it had made in Chinese people’s life. This is not something we can describe with words. It also certainly relates to students’ life here.

 

[Natalie Sanchez]

It has been such an honor to have been included in the Contemporary China online seminar. Every lecture kept me glued to the screen and I was able to take portions of some of the lectures and share the information with my students. The readings were always relevant and I appreciated the regular round table discussion about current events. It really helped to keep me informed and more aware of where I can go to find more information on topics like the economy and society in relation to China. The topics inspired my teaching and helped me create and recreate some lessons. I feel so much more comfortable teaching more topics about China to my students. I feel so much more confident about China’s geography and landscapes. I’m also more informed about the many ethnic groups China has and the language dialects too. China has been industrializing and developing at a rapid rate and my understanding is that people are also developing when it come to economic, political and social issues. I’m still interested in researching more about China’s political institutions and how that works in relation to societal structures and hierarchies. I still have many questions about how the government will grow with people expanded freedoms while still keeping control of some aspects of life. I still think about the United States being a country of industry and the changes that have occurred since then. Will China go beyond the factories and pass the industrialization process? Will China outsource labor once labor becomes too expensive?

Not only did I take away a lot from the discussion with Professor Dube but all of the other educators in the class were a wealth of information. That is always one of my favorite takeaways from these type of professional developments is the stories people contribute and all the knowledge they have to share.

 

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