Movies and Books

[Anonymous]

Mark Haskell Smith's "Salty"
ISBN 0-8021-7034-x

Is another adventure tale in the setting of Thailand. Personally, I can't get enough of Thai-themed books while I'm away from Thailand. It rekindles my desire to travel there as soon as possible.[Edit by="dcolato on May 6, 6:06:01 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

DuangKaew
ISBN: 141205657-8

A good story about the life of a village girl in Thailand. An easy read for upper middle school students, and possibly as a read aloud for upper elementary school students. This book as a phrasebook section, maps, and photographs.[Edit by="dcolato on May 6, 6:05:42 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

This novel depicts samurai life in the mid-1500s as seen through the eyes of a young boy. The plot is centered around the boy's ascension into samurai life and his participation in the struggles of real-life Japanese figures, like Oda Nobunaga and Takeda Shingen.

It is a great choice for middle school (or high school I suppose) because of the young age of the protagonist and the fast-paced story-line. Not only does it reinforce the history standards, but it gives the students a genuine feel for the time period. I have a class set and have used it in World History class and my homeroom, where students read the whole thing over the course of about six weeks (c. 230 pages).

Title: The Samurai's Tale
Author: Erik Christian Haugaard
1984

[Anonymous]

Title: The Man With Three Faces
Author: Hans-Otto Meissner
1957

This is a biography of Richard Sorge, centering on his time spent in Japan before and during World War Two. There are other (and longer) books out there, but this is one of the earliest attempts to capture the inner-workings of his mind and the reasons for his success. Richard Sorge was a Soviet spy who worked in Japan under the cover of a German journalist. As such, he was able to gain the trust of both German and Japanese officials and pass along critical information to the Soviet Union. He is widely considered one of the great spies of all-time.

Beyond the fun of reading this book (it reads like a spy thriller because it is a real spy thriller), it also casts a light on Japanese society of the 1930s and 1940s. War mobilization and political censorship and the role of the Japanese secret police are highlighted.

[Anonymous]

There is an other excellent book about the Sorge spy ring by Chalmers Johnson titled "An Instance of Treason: Ozaki Hotsumi and the Sorge Spy Ring". It has many photos and is very well written by an authority on Japanese history and culture. I know you will enjoy it. I too have found that bit of history very interesting. There are some other books about the Sorge spy ring but their titles escape me at the moment.[Edit by="mwhittemore on May 14, 12:04:25 PM"][/Edit]
[Edit by="mwhittemore on May 14, 12:05:29 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

One of the best books I have seen on Haiku and on teaching Haiku is called Haiku Handbook: How to Write, Share, and Teach Haiku by William Higgins and Penny Harter. One of the most important insights I got from this book is that Haiku is essentially about brevity--so in English to say that it has to be 5-7-5 is inaccurate. In fact, to approximate short syllables of Japanese (one or two letters often in length) it might be more like 3-5-3 syllable count.

I have used this book for teaching Haiku concepts such as the use a cutting word or some use of juxtaposition of images for effect. Book provides a glossy of literary terms, I found the discussion of Wabi, Sabi, and Yugen interesting but not complete (check out my recommendation of the children's book Wabi Sabi). The book has plenty of non-Japanese haiku examples, many are by Spanish or English writers. There is a discussion of Haibun, a travel prose style of Haiku writing. Finally, there are lesson plans to use in the classroom. I recommend this book along with Joseph Tsujimoto's Teaching Poetry to Adolescent Writers. Tsujimoto teaches many Hawaiian Japanese and other Asian middle school kids. He believe in starting a literary tradition in the classroom through various poetic forms.

[Anonymous]

A short documentary that I saw on Frontline World is narrated and written by Douglas Rushkoff is worth getting a hold of. It is possible 30 minutes or less in length and is about the problem with video game addiction.

Douglas Rushkoff if you don't know is a media critic, he has done two documentary for Frontline: The Persuaders and Merchants of Cool, both of which are about advertising and pop media. His books Cohersion and Media Viruses are intriguing reading. He has even written a graphic novel and a sci fi book.

Anyway the Frontline (my favorite tv show) is about how in Korea (and Seoul, possibly the most wired city in the world, even Professor Jung-Kim noted this) video game addiction can and does kill. Kids will play for 24-72 hours straight in computer game centers. As you may know, the video games now are more networked and usually involve interaction online with other players. Since Korea has extremely high speed internet connections, games are even more compelling. Education in Korea is threatened and traditional roles. You probably can watch the episode online.

[Anonymous]

One book that I have just started reading, my summer reading, The Pearl Jacket edited by Shouhua Qi (Stone Bridge Press an interesting East Asia publisher) is an anthology of very short stories or what is also called flash fiction or microfiction of contemporary China. It is my hope that next year I will try to use more of this type of fiction in the classroom, to lace in more narrative in during persuasive and expository units and to enrich the curriculum. I see myself teaching minimalism i.e. Raymond Carver, Ann Beattie, May Robinson, Grace Paley and sudden fiction at the beginning of the year before moving onto longer pieces.

Flash fiction in China is called wei xing xiao shuo or goes by the name Minute Story yi fen zhong xiao shuo which indicates the amount of time needed to read it. There are other names for this genre of fiction, another interesting one is Smoke-Long Story quite appropriate for China and Asia. The editor believes that flash fiction began with the creation myths of Nuwa (ca. 350 BC), Fuxi, and Pangu. In the volume you will find "masters of modern fiction": Lu Xun, Lao She, Guo Morou, and Yu Dafu. The selections are arranged in thematic units. All that's missing is good highly interpretative discussion questions for a Shared Inquiry/Socratic Seminar.

[Anonymous]

I recommend the documentary The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara as a good supplemental video on the Firebombing of Japan, the bombing of Hiroshima, and of course for material on the Vietnam War.

I usually teach the book Hiroshima by John Hersey and use this video to show the extensive firebombing campaign of Japan. The segment that I show has images of each of the 70 cities that were firebombed during WWII. For each image there a comparison with an American city of equivalent size--it s a powerful segment and is short.

[Anonymous]

A good pairing with Siddharta by Herman Hesse is Buddha by Osamu Tezuka. I think several sections could be used to parallel a reading of Siddharta. Also, I have used Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for examining the genre type and format. Check out Scott McCloud's online comics for a digital take on comics.

[Anonymous]

In watching the History Channel International I came across an interesting, and very useful, one hour show called "China - The Dragon's Ascent - Two Way Traffic" that explored the topic of the opening and closing of China to trade and outside influence. It began with the archaeological dig of a Silk Trade Route city, continued with the exploration of the maritime port of Guangzhou, showed how Buddhism was spread throughout China, and ended with showing how influences from the west have permeated China's culture today.

This was an easy to understand and visually stimulating show for students to watch. It is well organized, and would be simple to formulate an accompanying cloze summary for. It is an excellent source of new information on how the archaeologists analyze what the trade between the Middle East and China was. I discovered several new pieces of information with which to pepper my teaching. A very valuable hour spent.

[Anonymous]

These two books, one Chinese (Waiting, 1999) and one Japanese (Snow Country, 1956) deal with the same theme in two entirely different ways. Both books are about married men caught up in extramarital affairs and the women they are involved with.

Waiting by Ha Jin: I've had this book in my personal library for several years now and never got around to reading it. After attending the 2009 Summer Seminar, I gave it a read and really enjoyed it. The book takes place during China's Cultural Revolution and is the story of a man, his wife, and his mistress. Lin Kong works in Muji City as a doctor and only returns home to "Goose Village" once a year to see his wife, Shuyu. Shuyu represents the traditional Chinese wife; she has bound feet which mark her as backward, and a loveless, arranged marriage.

Every year Lin Kong goes to the courthouse to try and unsuccessfully petition for divorce. His mistriss, Manna, also works in Muji City. The couple must hide their affair (unconsumated) from the authorities and others in the city. According to state law, after 18 years a divorce can be granted even if one party refuses. The book's narrative follows Lin's life from the time of his marriage to Shuyu, until the main characters are in their late middle ages.

The book does a great job of illustrating some of the more human problems of the Cultural Revolution, while allowing the reader to experience both the rural and urban, traditional and modern China. I was totally captivated by the story and will be recommending it to some of my more mature high school students. I think girls especially would find the story touching as it deals with unrequited love and unfufilled desires. The text is very accessible to grade-level readers. The narrative is straight-forward and easy to follow. There is some semi-graphic sexual content and a touch of foul language. The book has many episodes which reinforce classroom study of China's Cultural Revolution.

The author, Ha Jin, was born in China and served for a time in the People's Liberation Army. He came to the U.S. in 1985, earned a Ph.D. at Brandeis University, and now teaches at Emory. I will definitely be reading some of Jin's other novels and short story collections.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata: Like Waiting, Snow Country is also about forbidden love, this time between a city gentleman and a geisha. The book is beautifully written, like Haiku in book form. Unfortunately, I think that this would be difficult reading for my high school students unless they were in honors. The book does offer glimpses into Japanese traditions but in a more abstract, surreal form. I enjoyed the book immensely, and I even enjoyed the emptiness I felt at the books end.

The author, Yasunari Kawabata, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. He committed suicide in 1972.
[Edit by="cowen on Oct 14, 3:27:51 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

When I saw the title, Chinese Cinderella, I thought it was a fairytale version of the story of Cinderella. After reading the post, I've become intrigued and would like to read it sometime in the future. On another note, I have used the various forms of Cinderella to expose students to how different cultures can still manage to say a similar message and yet be so different. A lot of my students prefer the story of the Korean and Japanese Cinderella -- what they thought was fascinating was the different time periods as well as the attire.

[Anonymous]

Ma and Lue are two young intellectual men
Under Mao’s decree, intellectuals from the city are sent to the farms to work along peasants in a program called “reeducation”
Ma and Lue have to adapt to the peasant life for a certain amount of time, working the fields, carrying heavy loads, walking long distances, and working with humus fertilizer
Both meet The Little Seamstress, the granddaughter of one very loved old man in their village and the one that taught her to sew.
She cannot read
The 2 young men decide to take her out of her ignorance
They learned that in the village there is another young man that is hiding books that otherwise could have been burned by the government
They decide to steel the books and read them to The Little Seamstress
Throughout the movie they show scenes of mountains, the river, the lake, the homes.
The movie shows people using folk medicine, using unorthodox forms of healing, there is one scene in which they need to help a general with a tooth or they could face a big problem because he heard them telling revolutionary stories
At the end both are in love with her, and she had been changing a lot

Her major changes:

- got sexually involved with one of the young men, against tradition
- got a clandestine abortion to save his life and her honor
- started voicing her opinions, specially about the books that were being read to her, she claimed that Balzac changed her
- got a hair cut
- decided to leave the village
- decided to leave the grandfather
- did not expect the boy to marry her

I think I will show this film to my Chinese Culture Club. We can talk about tradition, obedience, the power of knowledge, female liberation, and the difficulty to adapt to a life in a different social status, etc. I would just have to fast-forward away the scenes at the lake, although there is not nudity, the sexual act is implied and is easier if we skip, even if I have parent signatures allowing us to see the film.

[Anonymous]

One of my favorite stories of classical Chinese literature is: Journey to the West , the story of Sun Wukong or the Monkey King, The novel is a fictionalized account of the myths and legends concerning the Buddhist monk Xuánzàng's pilgrimage to India during the Táng dynasty in order to obtain sūtras: Buddhist religious texts. On another note, I was extremely disappointed with Jet Li’s film representation of the story. The story could be as epic on film as “The Lord of the Rings”.

[Author]

Posts