Session 7 - August 8, Robin Wang, LMU

[Marcos Garrido]

Virtue, talent and beauty. Those are three complex elements that would take a full college course to explain, but in simple words I would say that a beautiful Chinese woman is that who contributes. The yang yin idea explains the balance between men and women, and how much both sides need each other. I honestly think that our contemporary society looks for very similar principles that seemed “attractive” back then, although our society has changed so much in different aspects. Confucianism values have placed so much responsibility on women in China, and have tied them mostly to household duties. I found interesting that beauty was not seen as something attractive, but instead hygiene seemed to be more important. I am saying this because I thought foot binding had to do with looking more attractive. Anyway, this lecture from Professor Wang helped me better understand cultural aspects of gender roles in the Chinese household.    

[Zoey McKinney]

I thought Professor Wang’s point that “biology is destiny” in Chinese culture was really interesting. The idea is that being born biologically male or female determines what a person’s role is in life from the time they are a baby. She contrasted this with “giving women’s nature free play” in Western culture, where women are allowed more freedom to break traditional gender roles. For example, women who choose not to marry or have children face much less social stigma here. Biology of course still influences destiny in the U.S. - we do have clearly defined gender roles, even though we might be more tolerant of people who do not adhere to them. This is an interesting idea when applied to transgender people, whose destiny might be said to go directly against their biology. Professor Wang touched on the stigma against homosexuality in China, and I wonder how visible transgender people are. As Professor Wang mentioned, gender is performative, not natural. Although men and women have different biologies, gender roles are not in themselves biological, but rather are socially constructed. I have had conversations with my students about gender roles in the past as applied to other cultures and the people of the past. They are always fascinated with the fact that gender roles can be so different from what they are familiar with. By demonstrating the fact that gender roles can and have changed depending on time and place, I can explain how gender roles are not "natural fact."

 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

Lin,

Thanks for posting the question we discussed in the morning today. Remember we both tried to translate Professor Wang's title slide "What Makes a Chinese Women Beautiful? (什么构造中国女性之美？) into Chinese this morning? 

I agree that the qualifications of a beautiful woman are virtue, talent and beauty. Specifically a beautiful woman educates her child and helps her husband (相夫教子); she keeps the family life in harmony with her witty words and ways of handling situations; and she makes herself and family members look good and neat. I also agree that nowadays women in China are still deeply influenced by the three qualifications. In addition, I can’t agree more that a beautiful woman should have a career, which means she should be financially independent, so independence is another qualification for a beautiful woman.

 

Like you, I am also impressed with the picture on one of Professor Wang's slides with these words " Man is for relying on, so he should be liable; woman is for love, so she should be lovable!” How heart-warming it is!

 

---Xiaowei 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

Joy,

Thanks for narrating the story. I am clearer about what happened in the 孟母三迁story now. Your students are hilarious with their questions. I think that story was so ancient that a new version of 孟母三迁should be written. It occurs to me that we may ask our students to rewrite the story, change where Mencius and his mother live, change all three places the mother and the son move to and given reasons. Guess what? We might get our students very creative. Just a thought about what we can do in our classroom with what we learn here. 

---Xiaowei 

[Diana Corey]

I love this idea, Xiaowei! I have been thinking all week about incorporating lots of things we have been reading and learning into my lessons about family. This is a story I plan to introduce in my beginner class this year. I am going to use your idea to have students rewrite the story! Thanks for sharing!

[Anthony Pollard]

     Thank you Professor Wang for a wonderful lecture. First of all, maybe it was not intentional, but there was a conversation that will be told over and over again. Maybe, it isn't exactly the way it happened, but this is the way it was heard: "...that movie Crazy Asians?" reply was "Crazy Rich Asians" comment "Oh, I forgot about the rich part." This dispels some stereotypes heard amongst our students.

     Lesson planning for American Literature, it is reality and image. There are several units about individuality and women's voices, so regularly, current events pertain to women's movements, and students like to have discussions about it. Professor Wang provided the three main characteristics for a Chinese woman's beauty, which can actually apply to other women too. Researching literature related to the corresponding time periods will be the challenge, unless someone reading this post would like to help (17th century to the present will work.)

 

     

[Gerlinde Goschi]

In this session Prof. Wang has clarified for me the relationship between Yin and Yang and the beauty of its interdependence and the complementation of one another. Prof. Wang identifies the problem of yingyang gender identification as the thought and belief that the yin and yang can be defined or pinpointed.  Instead it should be looked at as a change depending on the context. It should be thought of as it being fluid and in constant flux. It is not even necessarily a balance between the two but rather a coexisting of the two. My favorite quote of the morning:

“In public … be a Confucian.

At home …  be a Daoist.

At death … be a Buddhist.”

 

[Celeste Modster]

Professor Wang presented a very comprehensive and fun to follow lecture discussing Confucianism and Daoism. I believe I can iwill develop a unit on Self Esteem using the discussion of critereon for beauty, comparing multipule cultural perspectives. I'd be using Ideal Woman and Yinyang Gender Dynamics as resource articles as spring boards for the conversation. I beleive these lessons will be both interesting and revealing. It would provide an opportunity for students to compare and contrast perspectives of beauty while exploring their own since of beauty and worth. I appreciate opportunities to share common threads through culture.

[Celeste Modster]

Hey there Marcos,

I remember you saying that this year you will be teaching 1st grade. It might be fun to share some Chinese tradition based on Confucian and Daoist ideology through story telling and sharing. It would be great to ask the children to define beauty and maybe even to illustrate beauty. As they share their descriptions, you could share with them some of the basic ideologies from both schools of thought. I could see making the lesson simply focus on virtue and mindfulness and the lesson would definitely be interesting to all students.  I believe that children enjoy being able to explore and identify common threads between what is relevant in their lives and the lives of cultural neighbors.

Sharing Beauty with China!

 

[Jonathan Tam]

When I initially read the stories, I felt as though my mind immediately made the connection between the Chinese stories on virtue and some stories that are told in western culture - because it felt as though China emerged with a very similar idea to stories in the west: that a woman's role is to be a vessel for men from boyhood to manhood. It was Mencius' mother who took the role of his moral center - just as how it was Elizabeth's role to soften the heart of Mr. Darcy and Lady Macbeth's role to push Macbeth to take the thrown. It seems as though this theme is all too common throughout the world and just as how exemplars of filial piety were developed - something that struck me as a great lesson idea was to re-write what makes a culturally virtuous person in today's world.

[Eva Morales]

Yes, I felt like the statements created binaries in saying men are one way and women are the opposite. This same idea exists in terms of the Latinx culture. In regards to my family, the men provide for the family and the women stay at home. My uncles work in construction. They may have between two and seven children, and like the Chinese culture the mother are responsible for the education of their children. In contrast, the first generation Mexican-Americans follow different paths, from getting pregnant and married at a young age to go to college and financially supporting themselves. With this next generation, I feel we are somewhat breaking the cycles of oppression. In my perspective having these binaries are oppressive, because it does not allow people to be who they want to be.

I also agree with the statement you made about self-awareness and meeting our own needs without external validation. I feel that we don't need others to validate our existence. We are enough as a single person. Our value does not come from others, but we are taught that it does. Everyday, I strive to teach my students that value comes from within and not from others. Society has taught them that they need others to "complete" them, but that is not true. I believe that by showing my students that I travel and I am living life on my own terms will give them a different perspective of how life can be. Ultimately, students need to be shown different perspectives of life, so they can choose what they want for their lives.

[Amy Chen]

Your first unit sounds so interesting. I want to also include a project about immigration in my class. I like how you include gender and generation this way. Amy Tan is the perfect author for this unit.

[Scott Craig]

I have five daughters and seven sisters and I would not want to impose (or have anyone else impose) those rules on them. A woman should be able to chose what her role should be. For some women, the traditional role may be what they want, and so for them, that's what they should do. Others may want something completely different. By "forcing" women into certain roles, not only do we limit their personal growth, but we deprive society as a whole of the contributions they could make. 

[Scott Craig]

I found the argument that women are not "victims of patriarchy" but have arather important and prestigious role interesting and definitely a different perspective than I've thought about before. It does point out that no matter what role we have in society, we make a valuable contribution to society. I still feel though, that each person should be able to determine for themselves what that role would be. I'd also argue that "virtue, talent, and beauty" are qualities ALL humans should have, male and female.

[Eva Morales]

I found the work of Sun Buer fascinating, because she “advocates for concentrating one’s heart/mind on Laozi’s concept of emptiness and quietness.” Her work was explained in terms of the role that women played in Daoism, but it can also be taken out of that context and applied in people’s current life. During my credential the concept of mindfulness was introduced, and due to the high turnover rate of teachers.This is due to the high levels of stress teachers experience with creating lesson plans and dealing with classroom management. Mindfulness emphasizes the importance of self-care, through doing activities we enjoy as well as through meditation. Meditation is similar to Laozi’s concept of emptiness and quietness. Meditation emphasizes the importance of self-awareness through learning how to breathe to de escalate the levels of stress or emotions. Meditation aims to put the mind at ease, which emphasizes emptiness in thought and quietness of one’s mind. I practice meditation daily and it has changed my life. Meditating daily has helped me be a better version of me, for myself and to service others.

[Author]

Posts