Session 7 - August 8, Robin Wang, LMU

[Amy Chen]

I remember vividly visting Taiwan and seeing a commercial for skin whitening cream. Physical beauty there is different than American beauty where tan skin is considered attractive. The readings cover Mencius and his single mother. She moved three times to ensure that Mencius lived in an ideal environment. Not only does she provide a home and clothing for him, she also nurtures his intellect and well-being. Confucian women are expected to devote their lives as wives and mothers. Professor Wang tells us in lecture that Chinese women older than 30 who are not married are called "leftover women". As times have changed, women are getting married later and putting their own interests of finding a job before starting a family. In the Dao de Jing, feminity is natural and not a social construct. Being a mom or wife is a social duty. There are subtle differences in the major Chinese philosophies in terms of defining a woman.

[Midori Sanchez]

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[Joy Chao]

This is one of the stories that I share with my students when teaching about Confucianism and related stories. Mencius, a famous scholar and philosopher and often refereed to as the “second sage” of Confucianism. Long story short, he was only 3 when his dad died so he was raised by his mom. When Mencius was little he takes a like to imitate others’ behaviors around him. Next to his house there was a

cemetery where there’re people perform funeral ceremonies, so Mencius starts to perform the same ritual at home, his mom stops him by moving to another town. This time there’s a market nearby, so Mencius starts to act like merchants that peddling on the street. This angers his mom again so she decides to move next to a school and finally she sees what she wants to see - Mencius goes to school and study and of course, eventually became a scholar just like what the mom wished him to be. This story touches up a few aspects we can point out; a woman’s role in the society, a mother’s devotion to her child’s education, and the child being filial by fulfilling his mother’s wish. Some of my students wonder what the mom would do if the school shuts down, how many more time she would be willing to move throughout her life time, and if the mom eventually died of neurasthenia – just some funny questions that students raised for a laugh 🙂

[Joy Chao]

“The battle hymn of tiger mom” by Amy Chua was a sensation when it came out in 2011. It quickly became a hot topic of discussion about the Chinese and Western way of raising children. I use excerpts of this book and videos of Chua, as well as interview clips with Chua’s daughter for my AP Chinese class for the topic of education, and it always strikes up deep and reflective discussions from my students. Here’s the link if you want to know more about this book http://battlehymnofthetigermother.com/

[Kathrin Simmons]

So there are women , who choose not to have children, becoming Kundao's, by commiting themselves to daoism as poets and philosphers.

As being kundao, a woman can pursue her faith, freedom and self-realization.

[Nira Sun]

In Prof’s Wang’s lecture, she mentioned that in the “I Ching #37 hexagram (易經)”, the great appropriateness of heaven and earth was described as women belonged to the inside of house and men belonged to the outside of house.  You’d be surprised how this perspective got to spread and internalized in Chinese cultural values. Nowadays, there is still a quite popular saying in China that is always mentioned whenever male and female relationship is involved in a conversation. The saying is 男主外，女主内 which is literally translated as “men’s work centers around outside and women’s work centers around the home”. What is promoted here is that men are the breadwinners and women are the homemakers.

The typical role of women has changed a lot in modern China which led to some of the newly invented terms such as “女汉子”. “女” as in female and “汉子” is an informal way to refer to strong and courageous man. As you can guess, 女汉子 is to describe the type of women who are capable of dealing with heavy lifting or physical labors as men without seeking help from men. More interestingly, most of the 女汉子 will normally end up being 剩女 as in leftover women. This is due to their extremely independent characteristics in terms of financially and mentally.

From my friends’ perspectives, they see me as a 女汉子. You may wonder if it’s a commendatory term or a derogatory term. Well, it all depends on your perspective. Younger generation merely treat it as a simple label that doesn’t really define the person. In workplaces, 女汉子 demonstrates with strong work ethics and insightful opinions. In personal life, 女汉子 enjoys being surrounded by friends as well as being alone. They usually build personal interests in wide variety of activities. In terms of love life, they are usually seen as failure due to the long-term single status. In my personal opinion, as a female, the most important thing is to know your needs and be able to fulfill the needs with or without external helps. Sometimes our needs change as life develops into a different phrase. At that time, self-awareness will assist us to become adaptive to changes and new environment.   

 

[Frederic Vial]

The Kundao explained certainly offers a different viewpoint specifically as it relates to female empowerment.  The dichotomy and paradox that exists however between public perception and social pressures women faced who chose the Kundao way of life is contradictory in nature to other viewpoints on gender in China.  The separation between the two is interesting, as if almost two different mentalities, cultures, countries exist.  

[Jennifer Chang]

Thanks for sharing! This is going to my second year teaching Ancient China, and I have been looking for resources to better teach Confucianism with my 6th graders. I will definitely be using the Mencius' story as a reference when teaching Confucianism this upcoming school year. Maybe as an introduction and hook, I will have the students analyze the pictures without telling them the stories first, and see what they come up with. Then we can analyze the stories and have them come up with the values that are shown in the story. 

[Jennifer Chang]

Wang mentions that an ideal women through Confucius teachings can be described through virtue, talent, and beauty. She argues that women have not been “victims of patriarchy”, but rather are seen with a rather important and prestigious role as a mother, wife, and daughter. Wang’s interpretation of the role of women in Confucius ideals were very interesting. She describes that women’s capabilities through Liu Xiang’s examples and stories are celebrated rather than undermined. While she describes all these perfect examples of virtuous, talented, and beautiful women, I can also see the amount of pressure and expectations it puts on the women!

 

[Kimberly de Berzunza]

Thank you!

[Joel Jimenez]

Daoism is a very interesting philisophical religious tradition.  I am very familiar with Buddhism and the practices of Buddhism.  However, I was not familiar with Daoism.  Daoism also has parallels to Confucianism, and relies heavily on the concept of balance of YinYang.  What I wasn't aware of is how YinYang is an energy source that is ever evolving, that although a woman can be a yin and a man can be a yang, YinYang is interchangeable and depending on a life even or situation both genders can be the yin or the yang.

What I also found interesting was how Daoist monks in China have surpassed several gender roles.  While there are some female Daoist monks who live full time in a Daoist temple and dedicate their lives to their philosophy, arts and sense of community, there are other female Daoist monks who attend the temple during the day, just as if it were a job, and then return home to their husband and family.  With changing times and more progressive ways of thinking, China is adapting to the 21st century philisophical and cultural norms.

[Joel Jimenez]

Nice analysis on what makes a beautiful woman.  Yes, while physical attributes are attractive on a woman and throughout historyl physically beautiful women have enjoyed great benefits, I truly believe it is the inner qualities along with intelligence, skill and big heart that makes a woman beautiful.  Given communism in China and the social, economical and cultural consequences of The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, it is very hopeful to see that women in China have taken up differnet gender roles and are cutting the way for future generations of women to pave their own path in life, not to just rely on the male.

[Nira Sun]

Talent, one of the necessary womanhood promoted by Liu Xiang, reminded me of another saying in Chinese “女子无才便是德” which is translated to “a woman’s virtue is to be ignorant”. I was wondering if it’s a contradiction or a development of theory. I got the chance to have this discussion with Prof. Wang during the break. I would like to share the information I got from her with everyone:

In 列女传 written by Liu Xiang, he complied a list of ideal womanhood, hence the word “列”. Being talent was highly promoted during the Xi Han Dynasty. Women has built strong and powerful images throughout the Tang and Song Dynasties which somehow threatened males’ authority. During Ming and Qing Dynasties, the society felt the need of suppress the growing of women power. Hence the prevalence of demoting women to be intelligent. Although there are different interpretations in terms of the intention of女子无才便是德, the most popular and influential interpretation is that there is no need for women to become knowledgeable and educated. Growing up in China, you would constantly hear comments on how women supposed to behavior, whereas, not so much of rules and restrictions for men. I am sure this is not uncommon in other cultural values either. 

I remember my mom used that phrase quite a few times. When I heard some teachers mentioned how Asian parents “forced” their children to participate in multiple extra curriculum activities, such as painting, dancing, playing musical instruments, and etc, I realized that I was never put in that position at all. I never gotten the chance to ask my mom her intention of not making me as multi-talented as other kids. However, she did implicitly mention how insignificant it was to push me to go beyond my ability like how other Asian moms did.  Ironically, on both my mom and dad’s sides, among 20 something of my other cousins, I was the first and only one who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and then advanced to receiving my Master degree. Now my job is to educate younger children. One thing I do appreciate my mom was that she never really intervened with my decisions on choosing majors and colleges.

 

[Kimberly de Berzunza]

The readings and lecture helped me reframe my thinking around the place of women in Chinese culture and perspective. As in other parts of the world, women in China have been traditionally thought to be oppressed, controlled, and limited in opportunities for choice in their own lives. However, I appreciated the examples of influence and agency reflected in, for example, the story of Mencius' mother, in the role of education in a woman's life, and in Daoism and the balance of yin/yang and the opportunity to live an independent life as a Daoist, rather than the tradionally expected life of wife and mother.

I try to present this to my students when teaching History already. For example, many think Islam oppresses women, yet many Muslim women would debate this. An example they might give is that the Q'uran, not just secular law, allows women to divorce for basically no cause.  Similarly, the American colonial period could be seen as oppressive to women- they couldn't vote in most cases, be lawyers or judges, etc. However, colonial American women were responsible for running the home and often large plantations or businesses, while husbands were away at war, working in politics, or working in other jobs such as lawyers and judges. So I saw a lot of parallels today in opportunity for agency and influence among traditional Chinese women and those of others.

I particularly found the conversation on Daoism to be enlightening, and yin/yang as equal parts of a whole, rather than separate entities.  This really helps me think about the value of the yin and of traditionally feminine attributes in connection to China as a counterbalance to the male yang.  I guess I could use this to push back on the tendency to automatically judge Chinese culture as oppressive to women.

[Joy Chao]

Prof. Wang use the picture of a pair of chopsticks and another picture of fork and knife to explain the relationship between men (Yang) and women (Yin). The Chopsticks is to represent “complement” as you need to make the two sticks work together in order to pick up food. Unlike the chopsticks, a fork and a knife work “against” each other in order to cut up a piece of food before one can eat it. I thought this is a rather interesting way to explain the relationship between yin and yang. On another note, chopsticks are a symbol of the Chinese culture, not only are they used as a eating utensil, they also have many symbolistic meanings to the Chinese. Here’s a YouTube video with English sub and maybe it can be of use if you were to use “chopsticks” to introduce a Chinese symbol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlqGAn9vVmk

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