Final Essay

[Anonymous]

I thoroughly enjoyed taking this class. The lectures were extremely thought provoking and I came away with so many wonderful materials to use in my classroom. Below is a list of my favorites I can’t wait to use in my Middle School History classroom. Thank you for a wonderful experience!

• The drama surrounding the "Visualizing Cultures" incident at MIT: Who would have thought that a century old Japanese woodblock print would cause so much controversy? It's fascinating that a project dedicated to overcoming the destructive effects of violence and racism was interpreted as doing just the opposite! The incident brought up two wonderful essential questions:

Should MIT have given in to the outcry and taken the site down?

Should we allow concerns for sensitivity inhibit teaching and research?

In this age of political correctness, these are very important, timely questions to consider. I would love to give my kids the facts of this incident and have them debate the essential questions.

• The New Year's Sacrifice. I can see this story really resonating with my students and encouraging many very rich discussions on a variety of important topics - gender roles, superstition and empathy to name a few.

• I remain very intrigued about whether or not America did, in fact, know that the attack at Pearl Harbor was coming. The timing of moving the carriers certainly is suspect. I have a feeling my kids will have a lot of fun researching, then arguing for or against this historical conspiracy...

• Red Scarf Girl: I have an entire unit planned around this novel. Afterwards, I will have my students research then write an argumentative essay on the following essential questions:

-After a national conflict, who should be held responsible for events that affect an entire society?
-Are individuals responsible for their crimes if they were following the orders of their leaders?
-What helps societies heal after years of conflict and violence?
-After learning about moments of past violence and injustice from the past, how can we ensure history does not repeat itself?

• The Four Pests Campaign: I would love to use this incident to teach my students about the many ways that government (and civilian) actions can have unforeseen effects. There is also a wonderful cross-curricular opportunity to delve into different animals’ jobs within ecosystems. It’s a terrifyingly delicate balance!

• I would love to teach Hwang Sun-won's short story Cranes: In researching Hwang, a common theme in his writing is the resilience of the Korean spirit in times of adversity, and the discovery of love and goodwill even in the unlikeliest of circumstances. This theme can be clearly seen in Cranes, as two childhood friends overcome their ideological differences to preserve both friendship and life. For such a short piece, Cranes is particularly rich in theme, symbolism and language. The two main characters represent the two Koreas. The aggressors symbolize a divided Korea that punishes any who don't cut ties with the other side. And, the crane symbolizes the unity, hope, and the repair of relationships broken and damaged by war.

• Freedom of Speech in America versus China: I was shocked to hear how few Chinese youth could identify the Tank Man picture. I also found it very interesting that people keep trying to remember the 4th and the banned word list keeps getting longer! Each year, Chinese mourning flowers, birthday candles, even the word "nostalgia", disappear from the internet as people try to use these words or symbols to remember the massacre. It's insane that as recently as last year, 115 - very different - people were detained for remembering Tiananmen: a Buddhist monk and the people he was lecturing, a young factory workie who took a selfie at the square. Not to mention, the poor mother who is not allowed to visit her son's grave and "remember" him in public. My kids are at an age where they are very obsessed with the concept of fairness. They will be fascinated by this concept.

edited by khumphreys on 1/22/2016

[Anonymous]

Reflection USC-China Seminar Fall 2015
This seminar, East Asia since the 1900’s has a been such a great experience and a great learning opportunity. Thank you. Now that I know more about the region my interest has grown exponentially. In part is because this area is becoming more and more important in the world in terms of culture and economy. If students are familiar with the area starting now then maybe we can be better prepared to deal with future problems and collaboration between countries. Especially for me, since I teach math, I think the growth that this part of the world in the last 60 year is incredibly impressive. As my curriculum project shows, is a great opportunity for students to see what were the factors that made, not only China, but the whole region grow at an exponential rate and the benefits and issues that arise from this growth. I think students will learn even more if the we look at how as population gets bigger, how can countries deal with the growth. How these countries have dealt with managing their consumption of natural resources and so on. I want my students to reflect on how we can have a sustainable world given our resources and we can learn a whole lot from East Asian countries.
I really enjoyed the experience this seminar provided. Teaching math does not give me as many opportunities to learn about different cultures, it was a refresher for my brain to do something other than math. I really appreciated every session. Just getting to learn from great professors was eye opening on how others think when you do something other than math. I really enjoyed the seminar about Tiedemann Square, having to listen to people who were actually there when the tragic events happen gave me a sense that there are so many things happening around us and most of us don't pay attention to. Thank you for the opportunity.
edited by cgonzalez on 1/22/2016

[Anonymous]

USC’s China program offered a unique opportunity to explore the breadth and depth of the school’s offerings in all topics East China including the scope of other east Asian ideologies – Japan, Korea, Twain, and even Hong Kong. Through the small sampling of classes I’ve been fortunate to take, I found this program to be a mix of history, literature, and philosophy. My expectations – aligned with the objectives with the program – where met through some classes and supplemented by the readings. I imagined the USC China-US program to supplement my knowledge of East Asian history but did not expect to integrate so much into my English classes. I imagined this program to inspire new teaching methods to bring back to my students. This has not been consistently true. It has solidified the notion that America is Western centric and taking this program has helped to develop new curriculum that I can integrate.
The breath of information available to teachers and the range of instructors were impressive. Especially since I am not a world history teacher or even a U.S. History teacher, I was pleasantly surprised to see that so many texts could be useful in looking at the history context, language, and genre in the forms of narrative and expository. [font='Times New Roman']Overall, I found this program to be informative and comprehensive.[/font]
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edited by crhude on 1/22/2016

[Anonymous]

[font=Arial, sans-serif]The theme of the semester War, Revolution, and Nation Making: East Asia was in every way relevant to what I do in both my AP Human Geography and World History classes. As a new student to the USC US-China Institute, I found the course to be extremely informative. My goal was to learn more about East Asia in general. The depth of the readings, topics and discussions just left me wanting to explore more. The first day was a great start with all the great maps that we analyzed. I took those right back to my students as a resource. [/font]

The highlight of the seminar had to be the Saturday with Mike Chinoy and the discussion on Tiananmen Square. In college I studied journalism and if I had not chosen to be a teacher, I would have picked the path of an investigative reporter. I find it fascinating that these group of reporters were in the middle of this historical event and were able to broadcast it to the rest of the world. They truly are soldiers of information. I feel like from the previous sessions I had enough context to really get what was going on in China during that time period of chaos.
Prior to the seminar I was really confused about China, its past and where they are politically, economically and socially today. The seminar presenters did an excellent job in scaffolding the information so that I can now read an article, watch a documentary or have a discussion and feel like I know what’s going on. Aside from the resources I have to take back to my students, I now have more knowledge which is just as valuable in the classroom. Students have many questions and I often didn’t know how to answer them. Now I feel more knowledgeable about the region.

[Anonymous]

I have already been incorporating East Asian material into my classes. Actually it was there all along, since I teach Modern World History. Because the text for out class is more of a survey, the East Asia course did a good job filling in the details as well as connecting crosscutting concepts.
Our text is written in standard objective language so much of the dramatic storytelling that can make the unfolding of events exciting is absent. We experienced some great insight into perspectives of Korea during the Japanese occupation, Japan as it struggled with the war effort (while people starved), and China during several revolutionary “upheavals”, and the plight of Korean and Dutch sex slaves.
I also enjoyed going through the lesson plan forum. Obviously this is a great resource for classroom material. I choose to include in my lessons: comparative discussion of texts and what role governments have in deciding what its history should be; discussion of the American use of the atomic bomb on Japan- I am surprised how many of my students are not aware of this event; more Korean history as Korea appears in our text as a Japanese colony and then as a place of war.
I would like to call attention to focus on the arts as well. We experienced some great talks at Huntington Library and the Japanese film lecture had me seeking out new films to experience.
My curriculum project lesson found me exploring online mapping resources- something I hadn’t considered before. This adds another layer of engagement that works well in the format of our school.
I do hope that my exploration of Asian (okay, East Asian) culture and history doesn’t end with session twelve of the class. I now have so many resources I can follow up on.

[Anonymous]

The East Asia Since 1900 Seminar reinvigorated my teaching as it allowed me to focus my attention on a vast region of the world I rarely have a chance to consider in my mostly Western oriented teaching of English Language Arts. Effective communication is integral to success in any field and a narrow worldview must be expanded to stimulate lively discussions and critical thinking skills to tackle the most pressing problems we encounter as global consumers of 21st century living. This seminar redeployed my attention on the burgeoning reemergence of East Asia as a major player on the world’s stage.

As a valley girl who lives in the San Gabriel Valley and teaches in the San Fernando Valley I am always attuned to the diverse array of ethnicities that are often compartmentalized but sometimes fuse together in the most alluring ways. I am surrounded by faces, voices, food, art and music bequeathed by Latino and Asian communities alike. The greater part of my teaching career has been lopsidedly concentrated on incorporating elements of Spanish and Latin American culture. This seminar afforded me the opportunity to seek out multiple means of delving more deeply into the undeniable influence East Asia has on our myriad aspects of our daily life.

The historical connections were most fascinating to me and helped me understand the literature I have read from Asian writers at a deeper level, allowing me to make connections that had eluded me prior to this course. The lesson plans I submitted for the curriculum project incorporate new perspectives regarding old problems: how imperialism impacts identity. It is easy to wrap one’s brain around the idea that a culture completely divorced from one’s own imposes its philosophy and world view upon another, a recipe for disaster emerges. When the culture occupying and seeking to eradicate the other is in closer proximity is it no longer imposition, but rather superimposition of one culture atop another?
edited by niruparmar on 1/23/2016
edited by niruparmar on 2/3/2016

[cgao]

Reflect on the seminar experience in a 250-500 word essay. Discuss how you intend to incorporate East Asia into your teaching. Possible topics you may wish to address include attitudes, approaches, and materials. Which issues or ideas raised in the seminar are of greatest relevance to your courses and your students?

[Anonymous]

This was my first seminar with the US-China Institute, and I look forward to more. It was extremely interesting, enlightening, and educational. I must admit that I felt that I was swimming in a sea of information, most of it geared toward students older than my third graders, but I did find a lot of relevant literature and themes that can be paired with third grade. I am in the process of going back to our previous units of study from the beginning of the school year, and adding Gooru collections to accompany the themes. Unit 1 covers adaptations, and we can analyze how the people in the stories from Korea, Japan, China, and etc. adapted to their new environments. It is clear that there are serious and genuine examples of people needing to, or being forced to adapt to new circumstances. Unit two is where I will use most of the materials from this seminar, as it is entitled, "Culture impacts who we are", and it's essential question is, "Which traditions do families practice to preserve their culture?" Unit three continues with the theme that the world is a land of diverse people, and asks students how people have contributed to their community. Currently, the only East Asian literature that accompanies these three units is a story about a Korean girl and her grandmother taking a trip to visit Korea.(Yunmi and Halmoni's Trip) I have chosen this as my jumping off point, and I'm adding another story about a girl from Korea who has her Korean 'name seal' with her on her first day of school in America. I also plan to incorporate parts of the two stories, "When My Name Was Keoko", by Linda Sue Park, and "Lost Names", by Richard E. Kim. I will be using a wikipedia website defining what a 'seal' is, and what they look like, and having my students learn how to write some Chinese characters. I have begun creating a Gooru collection to expand our Korean curriculum, and when I finish it, I will try to make it public and add it to the website forum.

I would like to continue to be part of the US-China Institute in the future, and perhaps become an unofficial liaison between the Institute and Riverside Unified School District. I have an Ed.M in Administration, and would soon like to look into creating curriculum and Gooru collections to expand the teaching of East Asian subjects, considering that it is heavily tied with the development of Riverside, and we still have a huge Asian population. We also welcome many, many Asian visitors and students to both our Community college and to UCR, so it is important for our students to learn about the many different people groups in Riverside, including Asian. I am currently obligated to a science research program through UC Berkeley for two more years, but I would like to continue to gain resources for our Social Studies and History curriculum from the US-China Institute as well. Since my son is returning home from Afghanistan today after five months, I will not be joining the Spring Seminar, unfortunately.

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