Session 3 - August 6, Lynne Miyake, Pomona College

[Monica Munguia]

From a psychological stand point, I believe women were constantly introduced into ways they were supposed to behave.  The section that stood out for me was the non-inclusion gender protrayals in theatre.  Women were not allowed to participate; yet, they are exposed to variations of their physical and mental behavior.  So, they were ideally protrayed as to what men desired.  Yet, actors took pride in protraying these women, but they did not immulate women at all because they did not want women to teach them.  So, if you had a woman actor protraying themselves, it would change the whole aspect of the theatre protrayal.  This is like watching yourself in other person's perspectives, and you must adhere to them.  This is mentally exhausting.

[Kimberly de Berzunza]

Professor Miyake was great and I learned a lot from this session. She is really engaging and interesting! So much of it correlates directly with what I teach in my Asia unit of World History. This session gave me more depth on what I've been teaching in terms of daily life during the Heian period and differences between men and women based on gender norms.  However, I realized I've been lumping all the art forms into the Heian period, and this is not correct. So I now need to think about a way, maybe a timeline, to put the different art forms in the context of different eras- maybe not focus too much on the specific eras themselves, but rather on the evolution of the different art forms over time, for example, from Tanka to Renga to Haiku- I don't have a lot of time to give it that much attention, but I think showing the change reflects changes in cultural and political priorities. Great instructional ideas of drawing, writing poetry, manga, etc will help engage a wider range of interests among my students, which I always appreciate.  For example, if my student creates a manga of samurai life, they will remember it forever, whereas they will not remember the questions they answered from the book.  I am excited to teach this! I just need to figure out how to readjust my pacing so I can fit it in.

[Kimberly de Berzunza]

Marcos, I now teach Japan before Europe, so we don't do that comparison until later- in any case, I am liking maybe comparing men's and women's roles in medieval Japan instead... I don't like looking at Japan through a Euro/Westerncentric lens any more than we already do.  Maybe another thought is comparing Japan to China, I do that a lot to try to get students to learn to see them as distict cultures that have influenced each other, yet held onto their own unique identities.

[Kimberly de Berzunza]

Eva, now we know you are a rebel! I also found this to be really interesting and you know my students will love that! I always enjoy bringing in what is non-standard, unexpected, created by "regular" people or using "regular" language. They will love that.

[Celeste Modster]

Lin, I too enjoyed Professor Lynn’s sharing of Japanese literature through poetry and pros. Today’s exercises sparked for me ideas for my art classroom especially looking at Manga. I enjoyed decoding the poetry to identify gender specific authors.

[Lin Kuang]

I really appreciated the fact Peffessor Lynn led us to look at the word choices of the Japanese poets amd proses to look at the gender of the poets to understand that male and female wrote quite differently in different perspective. Interesting to study further about the Japanese poems in Heian focusing on the beauty of  the natural. This is a great strategy for us to apply in our analysis of the characteristics of the any stories we study to understand any piece of literature. Especially, the peoms in ancient China and Japan, they poems are very structured with profound moral lessons and background info. Prefssor Lynn intentionally made acllssroom activities suggestions, which is really thoughtful and purposeful, and sheś constantly engaging us with her discussion about the topics she is exploring to help us go deeper about the classical gerneding in Japan.

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[Midori Sanchez]

I recently visited Japan and had a discussion with a graduate student about Japanese language and the use of hierarchy and gender differentiated language. For young people in Japan, there are several ways that you can address someone who you speak to which can be confusing and time consuming; it is the older generations that truly feel strongly about this system and most likely is here to stay. For example, a woman would say “watashi” and a boy would say “boku”. However, if a woman is speaking to someone who is her senior she would use “watakushi” and a man would say “ore” to show even more respect. Because I was in Japan and it was a business styled program, the coordinator used the highest level of speaking to speak to the students I was with; also because the students were unfamiliar to him. Another story I remembered regarding language was about my grandmother telling me how embarrassed she was when she went to japanese school. Her teacher told her that she “spoke like a man” since my grandmother learned japanese from spending time with her dad and her many brothers. 

In the lecture, she mentioned as well that there are even topics that were once “male dominant” such as venturing into the wilderness versus “female dominant” such as the ideas of longing and waiting since the men were the ones who were allowed to initiate the visits. This can be connected to the ideas in latino culture such as “machismo” where the men have control and are the breadwinners and the women are focused on bearing and raising children, and cooking and cleaning. It is interesting as well that activities such as sumi-e was once male-only; I myself have taken classes when I was in middle school and was not aware that by age and gender 700 years ago this wouldn’t be possible.
 

I am a high school teacher, so Romeo and Juliet is performed/analyzed with my 9th graders. We learn that Shakespeare’s plays also only allowed men to portray women but would use young boys. In Japan, especially during the Tokugawa period and connection to the shinto religion, they ensured that the portrayals were only men. We see in plays the portrayal of mad (jealous) women such as Ophelia as “mad” as well as in Dojoji we see the character maejite (dancer) also slowly losing her sanity. Ophelia we may not perceive as a powerful character since she is controlled by men by being able to pursue Hamlet and then by the death of her father, but the dancer could be seen as powerful as her anger transforms her into a serpent to punish the man who forsakes her. I would analyze the portrayal of women in Romeo and Juliet in addition to their age and then introduce the dojoji piece. We could find examples either in other countries or  in film and TV for a more contemporary portrayal such as with “Frozen” showing the one female character, Anna, being controlled by a man but breaking free of the trope of marrying the first person you meet and realizing that love/friendship and sisterhood is more important.

 

[Nichole Morales]

I liked how Professor Miyake displayed male and female writings alongside each other and had us look for clues about the gender of the author and discuss the implications. It’s an interesting way to learn about early writing in Heian and Kamajura periods and about the gendered roles of men and women. And there’s so many ways to go with instruction. I’d like to use this strategy in my English class. Right now, students at the high school level are interested in discussing gender issues.

[Kathrin Simmons]

I have enjoyed Professor Miakey's lecture and esspecially the poem readings. She offered great suggestions towards using the presented material in the classroom. Thinking of my Physical Education curriculum, Japanese literature, theater, and music can be used to teach Physical Education Standards of dance and rhythm throughout the grades. I would like to use Profressor Miyake's suggestion of writing a ballad or rap from a segment of a Heike, since they were originally sung by monks. Using a segment of a Heike to develop, practice and perform as a rap dance could be part of a dance unit with my secondary students in Adapted Physical Education class.

[Joy Chao]

I did a bit of research on Kabuki and realized that it was first performed by a woman named Okuni. But the sensuous character of the dances (and the prostitution of the actors) proved to be "too disruptive for the government," in 1629 banned women from performing. It was at that time that young boys are chosen to dress as women for the performance and the tradition continued on until now. Kabuki has over 400 years of history and still gains popularity in present day Japan. Nowadays a new wave of street fashion focused on the androgynous look of boys (and girls) that make them appear to be nicer and more feminine. It is interesting to think that, is Kabuki an old way to display that androgynous look in the old times? While most people stereotype Japanese men being chauvinist and women being submissive, what drives the men to take on the role of playing women more than women can, according to Prof. Miyake? It is fascinating for me to think about the historic and modern aspects of how Japanese culture views androgyny and the blurriness between two genders.

[Joel Jimenez]

Japanese Literature and poetry developed as a direct result of the emperors and different time periods in Japanese history.  What I found interesting were the periods of Muromachi and Tokugawa.  While the Muromachi period lasted only less than 50 years, this period was the most war-torn period.  Conversely this time period also saw the construction of many stone temples and statues as well as the rise of theatrical performances, popularity of white/black paintings, and tea ceremonies.  The Tokugawa period saw a great population growth and a unification of the country under the Tokugawa Shogunate.  Part of the literature was also tied to the samaruai culture which was very present during the Tokugawa period.  I personally am very interested the effect that the samuai had on Japanese history and the different time periods and the literature of the same time.

[Nichole Morales]

I found this point fascintating too. It sharpens the idea about the extent of the male-focused art.

[Nira Sun]

Prof. Miyake presented rich information in 3-hour lecture. It was fascinating to learn how societies in different countries were in similar pace even though the communication among the countries were not as developed as nowadays.

One of the topics that was mentioned was androgyny in Asian countries. As described by the professor, this phenomenon wasn’t solely existing in Japan. If you are a fan of Asian dramas or pop culture, you will notice the change in men’s appearance in recent years. The trend is mainly demonstrated as male actors having smooth and clear facial skin and pink-ish thin lips. A lot of these changes were done by minor plastic surgeries. My mom used to say “Why do they look so famine and similar to each other?”. From her traditional perspective, this soft masculinity is definitely not acceptable. China definitely follows the trend as well which leads to our screens filled with young soft looking men who are around 18-20 years old.

In addition to androgynous appearance, the popularity of soft masculinity images also reflected on major traits/characteristics that are promoted in modern China society. One major trait is called “暖男” which is literally translated to “warm man”. To qualify as an ideal warm man, one must be sensitive to women’s material needs as well as willing to accommodate with women’s emotional needs. The best way to present and promote such image was through drama series which always produce the so-called “national husband” or “ideal boyfriend”. Young female audiences tend to admire the lifestyle presented in the drama in hopes of encountering similar lovers or partners in real life. I honestly don’t know how many love-themed dramas were produced each year in China. What I do know is whenever I look for interesting TV series to watch, it’s nearly impossible to avoid seeing them on streaming sites or social media.

As contrary to the growing of strong and sharp images of modern women, the masculinity of men image is decreasing. I am curious of how this trend will develop in 5 or 10 years.

 

[Joel Jimenez]

What types of literature do you use currently in your English classes?  You teach in an stp resource class yes?  Also, of the literature works that you use in your class, which ones do students find most meaningful and engaging in?  For our 9th grade curriculum, our English teachers use Romeo and Juliet, House on Mango Street.  These works display very unique gender roles and heroic stories of females.  It's interesting that in ancient Japan and China, women had prominent roles in writing poetry and other literary works.

[Xiaowei Hunt]

I really did not know anything about 《源氏物语》(The Tale of Genji) until this seminar. I was even annoyed by an AP Chinese student of mine who did drawing of the characters and scenes from “The tale of Genji” in front of me while I was teaching AP Chinese. After Professor Miyake introduced this first Japanese novel in class today, I found out The Tale of Genji is worth reading because first of all it was based on true stories; secondly, the love stories involved with the main characters were intriguing and thrilling; thirdly it has been translated into so many different languages such as Chinese, English, French and Spanish, etc. 

While writing the above paragraph, a great Chinese novel named Dream of the Red Chamber came to my mind, and as a Chinese language teacher, I could actually do a comparative literature study of the two masterpieces from the two countries, and comparison of The Tale of Genji and Dream of the Red Chamber would be just a great comparison. 

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