Final Essay for Seminar Fall 2017
There is no doubt that this seminar has improved my knowledge of East Asia, but even better this seminar has open my mind to a wealth of new resources and ideas to improve my teaching practice. I really enjoy looking at my surroundings and finding Chinese influence all over the place. During Thanksgiving week, I took a trip to Eastern Europe and I kept finding Chinese influence at every place. I found at least one Chinese restaurant on each country that I visited, also I found teahouses and even a few Chinese artifacts at a museum in Budapest and a great deal of Chinese artifacts at a palace in Vienna. According to the guide the Queen Mary Teresa was in love with Chinese artifacts and used to collect them to use as part of the decoration of her palace. While traveling I realized that China is every where and it is of the upmost importance to learn its history and its neighbors’ history to become better acquainted with the reasons why their influence is so strong around the world. Furthermore, this is not my first trip where I have found China’s influence around the world. In the past I have eaten at Chinese restaurants in Sweden, Mexico, London, Ireland and Italy. My question is always the same, what drives the Chinese people to keep their heritage so strong as immigrants in other countries? As part of this seminar, I have also being inspired to implement more of the East Asian history and contemporary events in my classroom in order to prepare my students with basic knowledge they will need to successfully navigate a world where the influence of East Asian countries is so strong. Also, immigration is a big topic to study and the information from this seminar will help me to improve my lessons on that topic. Many times I find myself wondering how to engage students and I found this semester great resources and information to engage my students and implement my lessons and discussions more
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