session #8 readings (dube, 10/16)

[clay dube]

In our 10/16 session we'll do the following:

1. Cover the last half of the 19th century, detailing a) foreign incursions and b) internal troubles and discussing responses to these problems.

2. Our "Save the Empire?" three-sided discussion (see session #7 for the discussion guidelines)

3. Cover the early 20th century, focusing on the 1911 revolution (and the LA link) and the warlord era

The most important readings for this session are in the session#7 thread. There are some readings, however, for the early 20th century. Please review them.

One of the readings here is entirely optional, but quite interesting. It is by John Russell Young, who travelled with former President Ulysses S. Grant when he visited China and Japan (and many other places). I've attached a 37 page selection. It is breezy. Read about banquets, about Grant's meeting with Prince Gong (Kung, 1838-1898), the second most powerful person in China (Cixi was the most powerful), and with Li Hongzhang. 

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[Amir Osterweil]

I am grateful for this primary source resource. Sun Yatsen's Three Principals of the people are mentioned in my textbook but but not suffieciently explained. I will have my students read this text and paraphrase each goal and/or answer text specific questions. I try to incorporate primary sources in every unit that I teach. I found it intersesting that he claims that nationalism and democracy are both rooted in the Chinese tradition. He was seems to have populist ideals since he emphaizes the importance of the people over that of the monarch. Furthermore, this reading resonated with last week's lesson since he refers to the Qing dynasty as "Manchu invaders" suggesting that he never accepted the legitamacy of the dynasty's 260 year reign. He is also influenced by the western ideal by the separation of powers which will be an excellent segway back to Enlightenment ideals. I will help students make this connection. I also found it interesting that he states, that the "principal of state owenership is most profound" in his studies of western governments. Did he have communist/socialist sympathies? A good question to ask students would be what side they think Sun would have taken in the Civil War.

[Gerlinde Goschi]

I enjoyed reading this article comparing the America of 1918 to China, and the description of the different technologies during this era.  We are exploring a unit in my class presently entitled "Where We are in Time and Place?"  comparing schools, transportation, and technology from today to those from a long time ago.  I am very excited, after reading this article, to directly apply to my unit right now.  I would read parts of it to my class and discuss the technology of the 1918-1920 time period.  Vending Machines?  I would ask my students to guess when they were around the first time? I would do the same with the stamp vending machine.  We would then discuss the evolution of the vending machine with the aid of pictures and images.  This would be a fun lesson to teach.

The author of the article, Xu Zhengkeng, a student at Cornell University, offers great perspectives on American attitudes and priorities.  He posits that the invention of technology such as the vending machine was motivated by the American "worship of money."  He is impressed by the cleverness of it, and the innovative ideas in America.  He concludes his article with something very telling and true.  He says: "What I most respect are your nation, are the university professors, who are able to devote their whole lives to scholarship when their salaries are the lowest of any occupation.  This is, in fact, the foundation on which your country stands and the source of its power and prosperity. "  Perhaps the salaries of university professors today may not be the lowest of any occupation, but, I feel the rest of this quote is still true today.  

 

[Jasmine Wang]

I really appreciate this reading because it defines America in a different way.  In all of my classes, I have students question the normalcy in ways we think, what we think, and how we think.  It is interesting to see how colonization, Americanization, and assimilation is embodied in my students and myself when they respond to and question this idea.  

I think this is an article I can use in my IB, US, and World History course.  I would really like students to focus on the spread of imperialism and capitalism.  Students could look at how industrialization, capitalism, and imperialism affect "Western"  countries in comparison to "Eastern" countries.  How are the norms in other countries (we could read text that were covered in the seminar about Japan, Korea, and China) different or similar to those seen in the US?  How are norms in the US seen as "modern," and how does it affect other countries to follow?  To what extent are Zu's observations of the US similar to today's US?  How are they different? 

Definitely an insightful reading to question the norms and actions of the West.... AND one should always question the values and limitations of the text... along with the purpose and origin of the author. 

[Rick Steil]

Things about America and Americans, is an interesting look at American people through the eyes of Xu Zhengkeng who was visiting the United States around 1920.

I love how the article starts by stating that: They have a proverb that time is gold. This sums up the article as Xu goes on to point out the American obsession with making money and having conveniences at the touch of a button. Many things that we take for granted as being available to all people such as vending machines were revolutionary to Xu. It is really funny how Xu talks about birth control, female independence and the child’s place in society. We look back and think that children and women were tnot reated very well at this time. The lack of voting, children working in factories and lack of equality when compared to men all seem apparent to us. But Xu believes that we are in excess of the norm when he views these people in America. It would be a good assignment to have students look at today and attempt to forecast the changes of norms in the next 25 years while looking at the changes that have happened since Xu visited America and today. How much will we change for the better or for the worse. 

[Michelle Levy]

I’m really curious about China between the 12th and 20th centuries. How can no improvement or change have been made within the “peasant” class? My question is the length of time... 800 years. Then, development increases and growth is barely going up. Of the development per laborer, the output is higher. Professor Dube did a great job making the analogy of our teaching jobs to production in China. It helped me understand a bit more about production and economic demand of the era. It actually still applies today.

[Evelyn Mendoza]

During the late 19th century, population growth was matched by economic growth. However, standard of living was not improving; due to lack of development. I found it interesting that the lack of Chinese development was, in part, due to peasant and farmer competitiveness. As we learned in this session, Chinese development didn’t begin until about the 20^th century. I’m curious to learn how development was finally made possible… what happened to the farmers and peasants that lowered their competitiveness? The farmers were obviously very hardworking, they continuously intensified their household production to meet their own growing needs, but what changed to make development possible?

[Cindy Nguyen]

I like the idea of using "Things about America and Americans" because it gives students a different perspective on things in their lives.  Many of us never really think why things are they way they're or how it became like that.  With this article, students will be able to connect the two terms colonization and assimilation to their own lives.  Being an immigrant myself, I can help students understand the pressure of having to choose between two identities.  Hopefully my students will be able to use their own experiences to relate to the material more and become more intrigued with the lesson.

[Amir Osterweil]

I was surprised by how much the Xu admired the American system and values. I was expecting the article to be critical of the US. Instead, Xu praises the US system of education, availability of consumer goods, and family life. He aptly emphasizes the American prioritization of money. Which, I expected to be critical, but he seems to admire it and lauds men such as Rockerfeller. It made sense to me that he would admire the education since he studied at Cornell. However, he does offer some criticism in that professors are some of the lowest paid in the nation. It would be interested to read what he thought of China in the same categories. The most interesting observation I thought was his criticism of American superstitions since we are usually critical of Chinese supersitions i.e. ivory.

[Michelle Levy]

According to China, 1839 is the official start of modern China. 1839-1949 is the century of National humiliation. This was not a good time for China. Foreign countries abused China. It began with the Opium War. Torture was an official way for China to gain information from traitors. Yuanmingyuan is in the Northwestern part of Beijing and is the enormous place that the Manchus liked to frequent. It was destroyed October 18-19, 1860. Foot binding was frowned upon by other nations. Began around the year 1000. Meant to look attractive to be like the empress. Happened primarily in rich and northern families, but not by the Manchus, nor the Mongols. This foot binding is fascinating to me.  I think my students would enjoy this fact in history, and we could do an art integration project to draw an empress with small feet. It’s also noteworthy that it continued even through the 19th century. This can be taught with woman’s rights or racial segregation or even the right to vote. But I promise not to make a lesson plan with this!

[Jane Shen]

The feet binding culture started from Song dynestry lasted to Yuan and Qing Dynasty. Girls at age of 5, started to bid their feet to meet into a 3 inches feet of beauty standards. The binding made the growing feet folded to the bottom of the feet. Girls suffered so much at that time.

And according to Professor Dube, that only the rich families whose children do not need to walk around to work could afford the feet binding. Ane woman will big feet could not marry to another rich family.

Even though the feet binding was banned in the China, growing up in China, I still experienced that people apreciated smaller feet for woman. Those girls who had bigger feet were considred not educated.

 

[Cindy Nguyen]

I like how you mentioned Sun Yatsen's Three Principals and how the Enlightenment ideas influenced his principles.  At this moment, I am discussing in my class the influences of Enlightenment ideas and how it effected the development of Western governments.  It's hard for me to mention Asia in this unit because of the time constraints and the massive amount of information that I need to present to my students.  With Sun Yatsen's Three Principals and his ideas of separation of power and his belief of the importance of the people over the monarch is a perfect way introduce China into the unit.  I want students to realize that it was not only Westerners who was influenced by Enlightenment thinkers and ideas.

[Evelyn Mendoza]

The Encounters activity was a very effective learning strategy. This activity improves engagement and critical thinking. By grading students based on authenticity, students are forced to dig deeper in to the character they are representing in this activity. I will definitely look for a way to incorporate this in to my lesson plans, including the one I will be designing for this program. 

[Christine Xu]

The footbinding is a major symbol of China’s backwardness. I still can vividly remember that it was funny and horrified when I saw my great-grand mother and grand mother’s tightly bound feet at my early ages. They could not walk steadily. 

The fabled “golden lily feet” were decorative and all about male sexual satisfaction. Foot biding also demonstrated male economic power at the old time and it showed that male want to confine women physically and prevent their movement.   Mothers of girls from poor families bound their daughters’ feet in the hope of attracting a wealthy man who could raise their offspring from the desperate poverty.  This practice was banned nearly a century ago by the Chinese government. It took years to die out. Even nowadays in China, few of its victims, most age 80 or older, san still be found.

 

[Erin Tanguay]

I wanted to let all of you know that CNNTen.com had a great clip today on the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Today, October 18th, the Communist Party's Congress of over 2,200 members are meeting to go over the direction of China in what is expected to be the direction of China under the leadership of Xi Jinping's 2nd term of office. The clip on CNNTen is only 5 minutes in length and discusses the importance of the meeting and the unveiling of future Congressional members and Xi Jingping's two stage plan "socialist modernization" for China. Also, the program discusses some of the challenges that Xi Jinping faces, such as, North Korea and Donald Trump. I thought this might be useful espeically after our discussion on Monday, October 16th regarding currrent events in East Asia. 

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