Make-up Assignments

[cgao]

If you need to miss a session (no more than three in the duration of the seminar), please let us know. You will need to make up each missed session. Please note that the four Saturdays count as two sessions each. If you miss a Saturday, you will need to submit two make-up assignments.

• Attend an event (lecture/meeting/discussion panel, etc.) that focuses on issues related to East Asia or visit a museum exhibition or performance relating to East Asia. The U.S.-China Institute offers at least one public event each month.
• Submit a 150-200 word summary of what you learned, and post it in this thread. 

Attached is a list of resources to help give you an idea of events/places to visit around Los Angeles.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Lizette Bernal]

Earlier this month I went to the SuihoEn Japenese Garden where my sister got engaged! It was beautiful and very peaceful, and also very green. There’s plenty of cultural references and pieces about the Japenese lifestyle and traditions. I learned that there’s a Shoin Building where people take courses on tea etiquette (which is what my sister was told she was doing). This course is intended to give people the high-class experience of those in Japan. I was told by one of the tour guides that only the wealthy and/or those with a superior title would have tea in Shoin buildings - super cool! The language to the name of some of the statues and area of the Japenese Garden is purposeful. For example, there’s a Log bridge that is meant to have four foundation stones but because the words “four” and “death” sound similar in Japanese, they’ve added a fifth stone in hopes to avoid bad luck. I’d like to arrange for one of the tea courses they offer. I’ll post what I learned!

[Iris Marin]

Makeup Session 3

Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens : Chinese and Japanese Gardens

 

I visited the Chinese and Japanese Gardens at the Huntington. Both are beautiful and as the tour guides explained, are accurate replicas of such structures and gardens in those respective countries. Chinese workers were flown out to help create all the statues and other artifacts in the Chinese garden. I believe this was also done for the Japanese Garden, in fact some pieces were actually created in Japan and shipped to the US. 

The Japanese Garden consists of The Japanese house, The Ceremonial Teahouse, The Bonsai Collection and Zen Court. The Japanese House has paneled doors to allow for the house to remain open so guests can enjoy the garden. The Ceremonial Teahouse serves as a demonstration of a traditional  tea house with a traditional tea house garden. There is a beautiful bridge which is now closed to pedestrians for safety reasons. THe Bonsai Garden is full of small Bonsai trees and my favorite section in the Japanese garden was the Zen court , with a sand rake garden. It was so calming just standing there and viewing the lines in the sand. 

I highly recommend this visit for individuals, families, and class groups. It’s a beautiful space for all ages

 

[Iris Marin]

Makeup Session 4

 

Korean Cultural Center 

The Korean Cultural Center is located on 5505 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA. It is a wonderful space with a Museum on the first floor with Korean artifacts and replicas of homes/rooms. They offer many cultural rich classes and activities. The following are some of the culturally enriching activities offered by the Center: Korean Language Program, Performing arts (KPOP academy), Seminar/workshops, Cinema/Entertainment (movie nights). They do offer field trips to students and they will cover the cost of transportation, you just need to email them. I am interested in learning Korean and participating in the Language program. It used to be free and now there is a fee for the 6-8 week courses. If you get a chance to participate in the week long Korean seminar, it is a wonderful experience.

 

[Iris Marin]

If you havent visited the Korean Friendship Bell in San Pedro, CA it is a beautiful place and the story behind it is even more interesting. It was a gift from the Korean government to the US to mark the friendship and comradery. They ring it a couple times of the year. 

[Katherine Oh]

To make up session 10, I went to the KCCLA. I had the opportunity to take my class on a field trip to go visit the museum during the 2018 Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang. The museum had a great exhibit that showed the history of South Korea, a current gallery of student made art, as well as a curling exhibit. I got a chance to visit again recently and saw the All of the Above art exhibit. The exhibit highlighted artist Robert Rhee and most of his pieces were scupltures that showed his interests in gestural qualities of shared use and negotiation. The gallery space is a shared space to display his art as well as a language classroom. Doing further research, he was awarded the KAFA (Korea Arts Foundation of America) 30th Anniversary award that gives artists a $15,000 grant to visual artists every 2 years. I found out that the previous recipents of this award have their art displayed all over Los Angeles, including LACMA. 

I thought that this foundation is important to aspiring Korean American Artists and the community. It highlights the importance of showcasing art from Korean American artists as well as providing the funding for them to pursue their careers. 

[Lizette Bernal]

Since the tea course at the SuihoEn Japanese Garden I previously mentioned is not available at the time, I visited the Chinese American Museum. In here, I went into a shop called “Sun Wing Wo General Store and Herbs” where plenty of Chinese artifacts and goods are sold. What’s neat about this place is the color and vintage appeal. It’s nice to be in a place that feels authentic to the culture and this place offers that. Aside from the items on the shelves and displays, this shop also offers traditional Chinese medicine such as acupuncture. I still haven’t decided if the tools used for acupuncture were more or less frightening than what I thought about them beforehand. What’s most interesting at this location is the postal service available for costumers. I was informed that in the late 1800’s, when the Sun Wing Wo store opened, workers arrived with poor education and needed a writing service provided to communicate with others from their homeland. Now, they have a similar writing station for visitors to write postcards (which I couldn’t do at the time) to their friends and family.

[Andrew Frank]

I had an absolutely wonderful afternoon in Pasadena at the USC Pacific Asia Museum! Though small, I found the museum full of incredibly interesting pieces that surveyed a vast array of Asian countries (in both East Asia & otherwise). What I perhaps found most intriguing during my visit was seeing the work of Kusakabe Kimbei, a Japanese photographer popular in the late 1800s in the Honmachi district. What was fascinating about his photographs was how his work personified the clash between classic Japanese tradition & Western influence, as his photographs were created specifically for Americans/Westerners that visited Japan. As the placard next to the “(Geisha) Teaching Songs” photograph explained, the inauthenticity itself is what is perhaps most fascinating – the “geishas” themselves were simply recreations of traditional scenes that Western tourists wanted to see. It would be highly beneficial to pair these photographs with lessons for students about Western influence on Japanese culture and ask students to analyze how this art may symbolize a greater theme about U.S.-Japan relations over the history of the Asia’s development.

[Andrew Frank]

At the wonderful suggestion of my fellow teacher, Lizette, I also visited the SuihoEn Japanese Garden in Van Nuys, which is conveniently located less than 10 minutes from my place! What I found so incredible about the garden was the way it was designed to make the visitor feel as though they have left the city altogether and been transported to a truly zen space. I discovered through research upon visiting that every aspect of the garden is purposeful and designed with a spiritual meaning (i.e. the mound in the Dry Garden represents a tortoise, which in term represents the idea of perpetuity). Knowing that the garden was also designed in the 1700s/1800s feudal style indicates to me that the garden could be an excellent field trip spot to work in cooperation with teaching Japanese history. If students were able to choose one element (i.e. the waterfalls, lanterns, bridge, etc.), they could then visit the garden to identify the history of this element in Japanese architecture and even write a Japanese-form poem based on the element during their visit.

[Author]

Posts