Session 3 - Clay Dube, 9/24

[Ingrid Herskind]

After reading the Revolutionary Proclamation of 1907, I was struck by the concept of "China for Chinese" as it compares to the immigration debate that has been pushing the idea of populist nationalism in nations like Austria, Bulgaria, France, and Germany. Understanding the Chinese sentiment as they struggled to regain their rule from Manchuism. After our role-playing exercise, it seemed that all examples of "protest" i.e. self-strengtheners, reformers, and rebels, looked to created a nation for the Chinese without the imposition of power from outsiders. In the Chinese case, the outsiders were able to gain control and impose their laws and ideals on the people. Comparing this to the refugee crisis in Europe, the outsiders are not in positions of power, but are struggling for survival and rights. The populism in each case is unique, but also connects to the larger picture of nationalistic impulses.

[Ingrid Herskind]

I found our discussion the other night on the population issues in China to be fascinating and wanted to learn more about the impact that the One Child policy has had on Chinese demographics. I found this article from the New York Times Sinosphere dispatches to be interesting as it discusses that by 2020, China will have 30 million bachelors--bare branches. One Chinese economist suggests polyandry, allowing 1 woman to marry, in this case, 2 men. This economist suggests that this would be a good solution to the guanggun issue, but many Chinese think this idea is morally and traditionally outrageous. Many feminist and gay-rights advocates are also against this proposal.

It would be interesting to discuss this topic as it connects to the One Child policy that used to impact Chinese households. I could see this working in a statistics class or even in a World History or Human Geography class.

Pew Research stats on impact of the end of the One Child Policy:  http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/will-the-end-of-chinas-one-child-policy-shift-its-boy-girl-ratio/

 

 

[Reynaldo Mangabat]

I love the discussion of Geopolitics. I think it is very crucial to introduce our students to the important correlation between China's geography, and topography and how this influenced the demographical factors including miration and population movement. The professor also showed the how China used their enourmous lad area to their advantage and sometimes served to their disadvantage especially because of their topography, and their relation to their bordering neighbors. I was so fascinated with the statistics presented that night and it sparked an idea of using the same technique and challenging my students to look beyond the numbers and analyze the meaning, significance and implications to China's socio-political status. 

The activity of debating with between self-strenghtening, reformers and revolutianry groups will definitely challege students to dig deeper on a particular perspective of china's political spectrum and argue their case based on a chosen position. I wish I could implement this in my class cosnidering my type of students in moderate to severe population. I will have to scaffold this and devop more accomodations for them. 

[Christine Moguel]

As I look back on some of the class activities that we have participated in thus far, this has been my favorite!  I actually tried this in my theater class!  The idea that the class is split up into three groups and are asked to "become" these varying characters for a play/film we are working on in my theater class.  The film is about a conflict resolution strategy we are putting into place our school called peer mediation.  I had the students play- disputant #1, Disputant #2, the peer mediatiors the teacher.  They had to personify these characters as an activity and play around with how to communicate their feelings about the events in the script. 

Great class idea!  I also enjoyed the Strengther- role I played in class!  

[Lin Kuang]

Reviewed the article about Chinese Exclusion Act 1868-1882 provided by Dr. Dube, I felt so painful to accept the facts. THe first Chinese immigrations came to USA at teh GOLD RUSH time , alsoed cledd ' Gold Mountains" ( Jin Shan). Many Chinese landed here as " Bitter toils" ( Cooolies), they worked in a very harsh condition for manimum wages with unbelievable mistreatments from their lords with beards. They worked on the constructions of railraods and any other jibs Americans didn't eant to do. THeir hardworking, tolerance, patience, and kindnesss were insinterpretated , but many of them flought their own ways to survive and send money back to their family for fulfill their reaponsibility. WIth their hard workand  intellegence, many of them learned new industrial ways and went back to their countries, but many of them chose to stay here and develop themselves. The US government permitted free immigration for China. THey could come like other nations in 1968, which encouraged many Chinese to come and work at minimum- wage jobs. Later on, Japan and other nations. The Chinese Exclusion in 1882 suspended Chinese immegration, which reflecting the American immigration wave of PUSH -PULL purposes.

[Kim Leng]

The encounter debate/forum was great. I think students will greatly benefit from this activity.  One must know the materials in order to participate in the encounter activity.  As a teacher, you'll know who has put in the work or not and it's fun way for students to focus their research.  They select one role, but that one role also requires knowledge in other areas.  I was able to witness an encounter activity with a US history class. A selected students were the founding fathers of the US constitution.  These students had publicists in sitting behind them who introduced them and the teacher asked the students questions.  The rest of the students in the class were the press.  They were able to ask questions as well. In this way, the whole class were active participants. 

[Sophia Kang]

I as  the rebel, Qiu Jin, suggest that although we are currently a weak nation, we think about our ancestral roots. Although our population is diverse and vastly separated geographically, we have been unified as a nation. Now is the time to strengthen our identity! These foreginers absurdly support this idea of liberty, but I would much rather call it the debating society! They eat each other up, each individual believing that he possesses this liberty with which he can take advantage of his brothers and sisters. This will lead to madness where every individual is concerned about feeding his own pockets! Look at us! We have a system set in place to establish relationships between a father and son, teacher and student, governor and citizen. We must continue to cherish loyalty and unite ourselves with the imperial dignity and power that bonded us together in the past. If we must die for our nation, so be it! I would rather die a liberated woman than to see a nation that has forgotten its identity.

[Christine Moguel]

Loved this activity for so many reasons.  As I sit here and reflect on the premise for the activity, I cant help but want to create a lesson that encompasses the ideas of role play for just about any lesson.  As a drama theater for special education students and English Learners, role play is one of the most imprtant strategies to effectively teach students the content at the table- vocabulary, living skills, career exploration, social skills, geography, culture, art, and language.  No matter the subject- role play is a way to understand different points of view in one lesson.  If I had to think of a lesson to do with my students - using East Asia as the subject and role play as the strategy, I think I would have the students choose an east asian country and a particular city within the country.  I would have them dress for the weather/climate/enviroment/region they chose and talk about where their city and the climate.  I might even select a country and have them create a special dish /food from that country and talk about why its so delicous and unique to that particular country.

[Sophia Kang]

This reminds me of the distinction between "race consciousness" and "racial theory" discussed in one of writings about Sun Yatsen. This author states that the "race consciousness" that Sun Yatsen supports is not a racial thory, but "is for the purpose of nation building based on the reason that China was oppressed ethnically, politically, and economically and that while the Western nations were expanding, China was static. It's interesting to think that in an ever globalizing world, nationalism is somewhat seen as antagonistic and racist towards minority groups, whereas it was meant to create a spirited, safe space for people during war.

[Lindsay Reiss]

I feel like many young people are unaware of the Chinese Exclusion Act. This was something that I only learned about in college. I think it is important to talk about the discrimination that occurred then and even draw parallels to current events. Students are often engaged when comparing and contrasting history with current situations. 

[Kathryn Sutherland]

I was surprised to learn how skewed the sex ratio at birth is in China as compared to the world.  I had naiively assumed that a one child policy meant there would be a 50-50 chance that it was a girl or a boy!  I did not factor in selective births, and the fact that there is a slight natural skew towards male births.  

What's more, in the Pew research article, it states that China's birthrate was likely to decline without the one-child policy (it had already been declining for yeras), as this is the trend as a country industrializes and grows economically.  It seems like this reactive policy didn't actually address the issue that it was supposed to--overpopulation--and instead had some unintended consequences of skewing the population makeup.  With the relaxing of this policy, experts think that in the short term, birth preference will still skew towards boys and women will probably continue to have one child, but in the long term, the ratios might even out. 

[Kathryn Sutherland]

Growing up in the San Francisco bay area, I was fortunate enough to learn about the Chinese Exclusion Act at a young age on our field trip to Angel Island. We learned that Angel Island was sort of like Ellis Island in New York, but with an ugly history of racism against Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian immigrants to California.  Getting to go to Angel Island and learn about its history, warts and all, at a young age (I think I went in elementary school) was an experience I am truly grateful for.  There's nothing like learning through seeing, exploring, and experiencing.  

I love the idea of learning about the Chinese Exclusion Act by comparing it to what's going on now.  I agree that students are more engaged when they can draw parallels between history and current events.  

[Reynaldo Mangabat]

Its amazing how China managed to emerged as a superpower and overcome most challenges in history considering it borders 14 countries which can be very hard to protect its territorial integrity. Their large and diverse population was also another challenge in term of sustaining their needs vis-a-vis the food resource and services that they need to distribute. They've gone to the gruesome extent of implemting a policy of selective abotion which was seemed justified by their leaders at that time. 

[Reynaldo Mangabat]

Kathryn, I read an interesting account about the Chinese Exclusion Act from Ronald takaki's A Diffeent Mirror in which he said that the horror of this racist law was somewhat ironically changed by natural calamity like the big earthquake in San Francisco. This devastated all records and chinese men claimed that they were born here and there were no records to probe otherewise so they became citizens despite this act. 

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