Session 5 - April 14

[Tara Corral]

I was just thinking of this assignment for elementary students and challenging them to come up with materials from home. I think one of the biggest issues I might have is students just cutting big circles for their eyes and then looking up at the sun and being blinded. But it would be a great lesson to have students brainstorm and come up with a new design, one that can solve their problem and maybe then show the images of ancient sunglasses so that they can learn from them. 

[Tara Corral]

I have always wanted to learn Japanese, I plan on visiting one day and felt it was only right to know a little of the language to help get by as well as not be rude. I even had duolingo on my phone and was practicing with the first couple levels of Japanese Hiragana, but then it began introducing Katakana and it did get really confusing. It is interesting though to learn that it comes from Chinese Characters and slowly took on its own form as it began to be used by the women of court. 

I am really intrigued by the Tales of Genji and am eager to look it up and see if there are some translations in English to read. The stories from the court seem like a lot of fun, but it is a bit interesting to imagine that these were allowed. I know it was mentioned that they were purely fictional but I can't help imagining they have some root in truth. I believe it was Taylor who mentioned that it might be possible to pinpoint who was who in the story especially if these were being handed out on a weekly basis like a comic. 

There was a word that Morgan mentioned in the discussion about how the Japanese are kind focused on the fleeting moment of life and whether it was a continued thought into the mordern era to be depressed. And I feel like I see parts of that in stories of Anime's or even Japanese Shows. I feel like there is a lot of focus on life or what is life. So I'm curious to look up that word once I remember or someone else does and kinda see how it plays into current culture. 

[Deirdre Harris]

I must say I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the videos, and the lectures about Japanese Origins, and how their culture began.  There are so many interesting dichotomies, and wonderings that were shared with us, it is exciting to learn about cultures of the past.  From the Joman period, and wondering where they came up with such an ornately decorated container, with a rope-pattern, while also looking at the Pit house and realizing these were from the same time period.  While the container seemed ahead of it's time, the Pit house surely did not.  From the Dogu, clay figure that surprised us all in the slide, to when the professor told us to google  eye-gear of early inuit peoples, we were wowed by the fact that these people wore sun-glasses at all.  These early cultures found ways to adapt to their surroundings.  This would make a great lesson for my 4th graders, comparing how the 49'er's adapted with their clothing choices to the Gold Rush, during the harsh conditions they put up with to mine for gold back in 1849 and later.  The creation of Levi's to have stronger pants to wear, and wearing of bandanas to keep the dust out of their mouths, could be compared.  

I also found the Tomb Mound from the Kofun Period to be very interesting.  I would like to ask our visiting professor more questions about this, and how it relates to the Egyptian pyramid burial chambers.  I wonder what the details look like closer up in the mound, and whether the deceased was also buried with other objects.  In our study of fossils, and archelogy, we are teaching our students to always be looking for clues to the past through fossils, and what discoveries the earth reveals to us.  Just today, we were discussing the layer of clay with the metal iridium which many scientists feel came from an asteriod 65 million years ago, and how it reveals clues to how the dinosaurs disappeared. 

Japan's ancient age seems to be a period of radical and political change during which time it seems that the Japanese leaders were feeling pressure to create an empire based on the Chinese-style.  They were borrowing ideas from China.  Japan then moves into the Heian era and period, where artistic, creative literary creations, and architectural achievements then emerge.  It's all very focused on the fleeting philosoph of life, and it's diffuculties, with the Mappo idea underlying everything.  All so interesting.    I am very much looking forward to our next week's lecture.  Thank you.  

 

 

[Max Batres]

As I watched video 1, the first thing that I thought of was to use this information and bring it into my classroom as a fun art activity. The activity would be to try to recreate these artifacts while learning the history behind each one. I think it would be fun to put each artifact up and let the students inspect the picture to see what they think it is made out of, how it was made, and what was the purpose of making it. Students can collaborate with one another and try to predict before we learn about the artifact. Once we learn what each artifact is and it's purpose students can research to find what item in the current era resembles that artifact the most. Students can also write an opinion piece to explain why the item they have chosen resembles the artifact the most. I know that right now it would be difficult to actually try to recreate the item because of the online learning, however, students can make a plan of how they would make it if they did have a chance. Students could manufacture a list of materials they would use, what method they would use to make it, and even draw up a sketch of what their artifact would look like. To close out the activity students would then write a myth about their artifact like the Dogu referenced in the video.

[Jennifer Macchiarella]

I was most fascinated with the discussion of cherry blossoms and how their brief appearance is a celebration of life.  I live near Seattle and we have lots of cherry trees, most famously on the University of Washington campus.  We also have some on our high school campus, and I think I will take my students on a field trip next spring, assuming we are in person.  The lecture helped me realize that cherry blossoms aren't just something for tourists, but something deep in the culture, that their brief appearance is a reason to celebrate the fleeting elements of life.

From the video series I enjoyed the discussion of urban planning - how cities were layed out, especially in comparison to Roman cities, which we study in world history.  The idea of designing a city like Kyoto to minimize Buddhist temples and reduce the influence of Buddhism on politics makes me thinks about modern American cities. What do we hold in the center? What do we try to marginalize.

[Anastasia Brown]

I found the videos contained a lot of information that I had learned from previous NCTA seminars, and information that I didn't know. Especially that women were educated, especially women in the upper classes which was different from women in the upper and aristocratic classes of Europe. But the restrictions on the women in Japan seem to be more extreme, that they couldn' t be out in society and closed up in the house. As well as the influence of China on most aspects of Japanese society, writing, urban planning and the Korean influence with Buddhism. But that women of Japanese society became writers in their own right and influencial with their books: The Tales of Genji and the Pillow Book. are two such writings that are still read today. That they were literate in the japanese from of writing kana. 

[Sarah Evert]

The importance of poetry for social relations and courtship amoung courtiers and the importance of it regarding communication, not just producing art is very interesting as far as understanding the social relationships among the elite. The pitfalls of courtly life in the "Tale of Genji" and the way patriarchal leaders/princes were glorified but also flawed really shows the complexities of court life but also the questionable paternity that even though it is fiction, likely occurred as well. I think the comparison to the "me too" movement with the "Tale of Genji" is also interesting because it demonstrates the diffulties women faced and the influence of Confucian patriarchy. With the "me too" comparison" I also recently taught my classes about the "comfort women" of the Imperial Japanese Army, and the recent controversy regarding Harvard professor J. Mark Ramseyer's claim that they were all voluntary sex workers at that time. I think it relates to the "me too" movement" as well because these women still have a professor at an Ivy League University denying their experience and their history. So that brings me back to why it is extremely interesting that the noble women of classical Japan were also literate and communicated their experiences as well, although not directly with their names attributed to it. 

[Melina Melgoza]

There was much to gain from this week's content, particularly I enjoyed the focus on Japanese and Chinese poetry, learning about Kana development, learning about artistic styles/periods; however, I also began to wonder why I am 25, a teacher, and this is my first time I focus and learn about Japanese and Chinese art.

Unfortunately, most of my education was very white-centric/Euro-centric and I never really got a taste for the arts in other parts of the world. I visited Japan in 2016 to teach English for a few months, and I am now realizing I did not visit a single museum or art installation (maybe I saw some. but I don't remember). I think there is a lot of Eurocentrism yet to unpack and deconstruct in our classrooms and our education system, starting with who we center when we teach about the arts (particularly poetry and art).

I took an AP Art History course in high school, and I remember memorizing "DIC" Doric-Ionic-Corinthian columns. I remember memorizing all the Greek Art periods, but never did we ever give more than an hour or two (in an entire school year) to anything other than Egyptian and Greek/Roman art. The excuse was "well the AP tests focuses on ____________," so, I have to wonder then, how do we revamp tests to be more inclusive and center less on specific groups of people/cultures.

In addition to art, I think it would have been very beneficial for our study of systems of oppression in our K-12 years to include poetry from other parts of the world to give light to issues that affect all of us. (i.e. patriarchy in society)

[Bin He]

Before Murasaki's death, empress Mingshi wrote: "everything is like autumn dew, not long in the wind.". Who said that the perishable, only grass edge frost? I think this poem just interprets another aesthetics embodied in the tale of Genji -- the beauty of impermanence. Impermanence is originally a Buddhist term. I don't know much about it and don't make any false statement about it. However, the main idea is that the law of all things and all actions in the world will eventually mutate and have no permanent existence [3]. There are some familiar verses in the Vajra Sutra, which are just the verses describing "impermanence": all actions, such as dreams, bubbles, dew and electricity, should be observed in this way. Genji's story has a very obvious mark of being influenced by Buddhism: when the characters (especially women) in the book are unhappy in their lives, most of them break away from the world, escape from reality, convert to Buddhism and die. There are also some related parts of their deeds in the middle of the year, such as offering sacrifices to Buddha and preaching scriptures. Perhaps because of the influence of religion, Genji's story reveals the acceptance and appreciation of the impermanence of the world.

 

[Jennifer Macchiarella]

This reminded me of parent who objected to a Joyce Carol Oates short story because of the violent images.  What the parent didn't like was the story from the Bible alluded to in the story, not the story itself...

Do you incorporate parts of the Tale of Genji into your class?  I teach a 10th grade world lit/world history class and we are always looking for more Asian texts.  We have a difficult time finding selections that appeal and are understandable. 

[Miguel Diaz]

I spent just a little bit over seven months living in Osaka, Japan many years ago. I was working as a public-school middle teacher at the time. To overcome the claustrophobia associated with living in a tiny, windowless apartment with a total space not large enough to hold a bonsai tree, I read several contemporary Japanese novelists. I remember reading “Snow Country” by Yasunari Kawabata. Somewhere around that time, while browsing in a bookstore, I read that the best early prose in Japan was written by women. While the men, the scholars, of the Heian period we’re busy copying and poorly imitating the works of the Tang dynasty – the women were writing exquisite, unguarded, and original prose (and poetry).  Some of the greatest classics of early Japanese literature – such as “The Tale and Genji”, “The Pillow Book” and “The Sharashina Diary” were written by women.

Sonja Arntzen, in her introduction to “The Sharashina Diary”, wrote, “During this period, women writers had the domain of prose writing almost to themselves, and they produced numerous works of sophisticated ‘self-writing’ as well as fiction. Indeed, the surviving works by women in the mid-Heian period compromise the earliest substantial body of women’s writing in the world.”

I believe that this was possible because the women were not constrained by the boundaries of what were considered acceptable and rigid literary forms, which in turn, allowed them to write in a more creative manner.

[Guadalupe Moreno]

During the video there was one a sction focusing on Dogu, clay figurines. One of the figurines is wearing glasses, that I have known as Inuit snow glasses to prevent the glare of the light hitting the snow blind them. I founded it very intriguing that they managed to either the glasses phyisically traveled to Japan or the technology of making them travled there. I think this would be a great lesson for students to see the importance of art in history. Without these clay figurines, we might have not known how far this technology traveled. After learning how shared trade has traveled and improved others lifes, it would be great to then connect it to the making of dogu figurines. Students can think of what item/techonogical advancment/etc they would want to travel the world and change the coummunities it lands in. 

[Guadalupe Moreno]

There is an importance in diversifying art and history. Curriculum tends to be Euro-centric and it is not untill college where you have the opportunity to learn about different cultures artwork and history. Being able to introduce other cutural history and art is essetianl to create a more comprehnsive and open generation. Further, it allows for students of that ethnicity to identify with the culture and see the importance and relevance they have in history. 

[Guadalupe Moreno]

I loved learning about the body of literature produced by a small civilian aristocracy that inspired many generations. Some of the most notable literary classics have been translated into many languages. What I found most intresting is that some are now counted among the masterpieces of world literature yet all I have really ever heard of or learned about are literary master pieces of Englishmen. Perhaps it was just my high school but it would be great to diversify the curriculum. 

[Todd Rutley]

Professor Pitelka described the Sea of Japan as being like "the Mediterranean of East Asia".  The jpg files attached below rotate the Sea of Japan and East Asia map so you can see this idea better. The second JPG map is based on historian Amino Yoshihiko's view, as quoted in Mark Ravina's "To Stand With the Nations of the World".   

Viewing the Japanese archipelago in these ways suggests a close physical connection to the East Asian continent.  In contrast, the traditional way of depicting Japan both physically and historically has been to see Japan as apart from Asia...not an integral part of Asia.  Lots of politics behind this today as the Japan nationalists want to dispute importance of the historical connection with Asia.    

Wikipedia says about the Sea of Japan:

"Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific Ocean. This isolation also affects faunal diversity and salinity, both of which are lower than in the open ocean. The sea has no large islands, bays or capes. Its water balance is mostly determined by the inflow and outflow through the straits connecting it to the neighboring seas and the Pacific Ocean. Few rivers discharge into the sea and their total contribution to the water exchange is within 1%. The seawater has an elevated concentration of dissolved oxygen that results in high biological productivity. Therefore, fishing is the dominant economic activity in the region."

Also attached is the Kyoto city plan shown in the video.  Kyoto was modeled after Chang'an (Perpetual Peace) that was repeatedly used by Chinese rulers. Beijing followed the same plan.

 

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Author]

Posts