Wednesday, 8/1, morning session - Ken Brown, CSU Long Beach

[Jennifer Place]

1. Wonderful lectures!  When everything is becoming digitized, it was refreshing to focus on actual objects and the history behind them.  Our 6th graders learn a bit about Japanese history and culture during a WWII language arts/social studies unit.  The unit focuses on Hiroshima and the Japanese Internment.  The postcards will provide an opportunity to discover an interesting art form, identify and discuss the elements of art, and practice 'reading' art works to decipher meaning and message.  They will, of course, need to send and receive handmade postcards.  I believe the illustrated sheet music will be quite interesting to my middle school musicians and artists and will lend itself very nicely to the same unit.  I am hoping these additions will help the students have a better understanding of Japanese culture. 

[Jessica Rodarte]

During Prof. Brown's presentation I was struck by the way in which modernity and industrialization are directly connected to the creation of childhood.  In the modern, industrialized nation in which we live, it is very easy to imagine that the growing up process must look quite similar around the world.  For our students, this translates into the idea that their childhood experiences must parallel those of children around the globe.  The reality is that this is just not true.  The very notion of childhood is a construction of modernity and industrialization.  As Prof. Brown discussed the creation of childhood in Japan with the advent of modernity and industrialization, I was reminded of the very similar processes seen during the Industrial Revolutions of England and the United States.  This is an important comparison to make with students not just because it clearly shows one of the effects of industrialization, but also because it has the potential to increase empathy and cultural awareness while clarifying the importance of processes such as modernization and industrialization.  

[Kim Leng]

It’s close to midnight and I’m here sitting at my desk and thinking about postcards.  Other than Professor Brown and several others in our class today, how many other people right now are also thinking about how postcards helped modernize the whole nation of Japan? Postcards brought “visual and consumer culture” (Brown 47) to Japan.  People purchased postcards because by 1904, it was easily reproduced with new printing technologies. Companies also advertised on postcards and travel was encouraged. People would write on the postcards and use the post office.  The postcard supported tourism, consumerism, and business! The use of postcard also promoted education because people wrote and read the postcards.  According to Professor Brown, postcards “reveal the modern emphasis on education, which, by 1910, had produced nearly total literacy in Japan” (49).  That’s just amazing! 

As for connecting this in the classroom, I can see a mini country research project.  Have students select a country of their choice and they can write a travel postcard.  The postcard may include 3-4 fascinating facts about the country.

[Aileen Level]

I found this morning's lecture to be fascinating but at such a rapid-fire pace that I wish I could have recorded it to play it back again. It was interesting to learn about the small, daily use items that would have been seen and used by a wide spectrum of society and not simply by the elite classes. 

As others have mentioned above, I love the idea of having students examine these images and then create their own postcards as a part of their Japan unit. My focus would probably be some of the mixed-media options since it provides the opportunity to mix research using old photos with creative production of their own art.

It was also interesting but unsurprising to hear about the professor's interaction with Japanese museums and officials. When I was living in Japan, I visited the right-wing war museum that we saw in one of the photos today. It was shocking to see the way that it glorified the "East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" and completely left out the negative aspects of Japan's wartime actions. At the time (about 2002 -- thought I assume it's still the same) it displayed letters supposedly from grateful residents/officials/organizations in areas that Japan had conquered, thanking Japan for liberating them from European colonial powers and expressing appreciation for Japan's conquest of their nations. It also presented an explanation of the war with the US that completely left out Pearl Harbor but focused on the atomic bombs. While certainly many people in Japan don't feel this way about the war (I visited with a Japanese friend who was horrified), the ultra-right wing is powerful and exerts an important influence on the production of textbooks, for example. 

If you're interested in learning more about the museum and shrine, this article gives some info about it:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/stop-talking-about-yasukuni-the-real-problem-is-y-sh-kan/282757/

[Aileen Level]

I agree that having the students make their own postcards is a great idea. It ties in with the subject matter in a way that's hands-on and creative. Not to mention that they're small enough that it might cut down on the issue of some students spending huge amounts of time trying to perfect their artistic masterworks when I want them to focus on content. 

[Aileen Level]

You raise an important point. Since our telling of World War II tends to focus on Europe, many Americans don't realize the extent of Japanese militarism and conquest in East and Southeast Asia. A few years ago, one of my students talked about how his grandparents had been affected by the Japanese takeover of Singapore. Prior to that conversation, I didn't realize the Japanese had been there, much less that they had treated the population so brutally. We need to be aware of these issues as they relate to class dynamics and sensitivity during any study of Japan.

[Gerlinde Goschi]

Midori, thank you, I love the idea of creating your own postcard. I can definitely work it into my units with my own class.  It would look great for BTSN!  I have done gallery walks in the past and students love it.  Since many of the postcards presented by Dr. Brown reflect changes in Japan's lifestyles and attitudes over the years, I would show the class as many different postcards first to introduce the genre and discuss it. Then, we would focus on maybe two or three and analyze it in depth.  Students would then create their own postcard.  I work at an International Charter School with students from all over the world, many from China, Korea, and Japan.  I am very excited about this lesson!  It should be fun to teach!

[Donna Jamshidnejad]

Thanks for the Austria sources! Maybe this lesson can be expanded to include even more perspectives. If I can find excerpts from historians or maybe textbooks from more countries, I can create a larger assignment and students jigsaw each region in groups. For example, the Nanking Massacre from the Japanese, Chinese, U.S., and German textbooks. Similarly, nazi activities depicted in U.S., German, Austrian, Japanese, Polish etc. textbooks. The reason I would prefer textbooks is that I notice students are much more fascinated when looking at what other students are reading, and it also reflects what a government is setting as the standards for history in a country. 

[Jess Meyer]

I would love to have sets of postcards from the same time and a variety of societies -- China, Japan, the United States, Mexico , etc -- and have students do a comparative activitiy about modernization.  It would also be easy to do a change-over-time activitiy -- have two sets of postcards 50 years apart and have students discuss how / why things have changed and what has stayed the same.  Since postcards are so accessible to kids it would be easy to also do themed postcards -- architecture, women's roles, etc.

[Mayra Brady]

Professor Brown was a vibrant speaker with a lot of wealth of information. He made me look and distinguish art pieces in different ways. It was interesting to learn how the government can play a role in different pieces of art in museums.   

 I also like the postcards idea and I too will have my students make their own postcards and do a gallery walk. I know my students like to walk around the class and check out other student's work. 

[Midori Sanchez]

I think it's also interesting to look at the ways that we, in the United States, also have chosen to omit or "sugarcoat" the mistakes that we have made in history. I cannot honestly say that I knew anything about the Korean War growing up in SoCal or higher ed classes prior to taking this course; I always heard about the Vietnam War. Also, we focused on learning about the Holocaust and reading Anne Frank's Diary in 8th grade, but really didn't learn about the concentration camps of Japanese Amerians during WWII on our own turf. The only way I knew about the camps was through my family's and friend's families' experience teaching in the camps and being placed in the camps. 

[Anthony Pollard]

I had the fortunate opportunity to sit with Dr. Brown's exchange student from Japan. She is studying to become a Japanese renown and noted informational curator about Japanese art. She explained there are thousands of art pieces throughout Japan which deserve recognization. Additionally, because postcards are something used in the past, they are not considered as much for their artist value. 

     So, as we listened to Dr. Brown's lecture, we actually learned the postcards created and used, had purposes to further social thought. For example, in America, we complained and rallied about the affects of cigarette usage. The cunning packaging and designs used to persuade individuals to buy and use cigarettes (one of the uses was the Camel brand of cigarettes, using there cool designed camel and camel man depicting having a suave cool classy nature.) Well, for the Japanese brands of cigarette, there were some very prominent Japanese artists, commissioned to create intricate designs for their cigarette packs. Individuals were using this product a lot, so, the designs on these cigarette packs promoted themes associated with nationalism and service. I wondered how to ask the exchange student a question about that idea, but it seemed she was learning just as I was at that moment (plus, I think it was an older idea.) 

     Dr. Brown explained that postcards and art deco were a means of public discourse and literacy. Amazing! Intricate designs and art deco  were reduced in size, in order to fit on a postcard to be displayed and sent around, thereby causing a mass dissemination of its content and Japanese value. Japanese culture seemed to share the idea of using art to spread nationalist idealism. But, Japan history seemed to comprised in these art deco exhibits too. This is similar to what we learned about the art used in the Chinese idealism to share nationalism.

     As I think of the use of postcards in America, they are used primarily to inform other people of someplace someone visited. However, the idea of sending postcards, with intricate design and art, to spread an idea, is a great idea. For class studies, students will create a postcard, based on a unit of study, and then record the feedback of their peers, to ascertain the effect of their postcard idea. Students will be introduced to the idea that this was a long honored practice in east Asian countries, particularly Japan, as exposed by Dr. Brown during this seminar. 

[Stella Castro]

The morning’s session was titled.”Postcards as Modern Japan, presented by Professor Kendall H. Brown from the cal state University Long Beach, (CSULB. Mr. Brown’s presentation consisted of him showing us, (the students), different post cards from Japan and some sheet music. Mr. Brown told us that he is a collector of these types of post c cards, and sheet music as well. Mr. Brown gave us some background information about historical facts about Japan. For instance, that the Emperor at the time of the Meiji Enlightened Rule 1868-1912 was Mutsuhito, During the Taisho. ”Great Virtue’ period 1912-1926 the emperor was Yoshihito.  Mr. Brown mentioned a great fire and a 7.0 earthquake that destroyed many towns, lots of land was lost and that there was also massacres.  Then Japan invades Manchuria.  There is a second Sino war, (1937-1945).  However, technology was now introduced into the world of printing, which helps offset the dot matrix type of printing.  Mr. Brown elaborated on paying attention the drawings on the post cards, as many depicted of the things that were happening, for instance many post cards had/pictures/drawings of the soldiers, the military or of a fun time such as eating at an outdoor restaurant. Mr. Brown had many mentions of sheet music, ad some samples thereof, but no actual music was played for us to listen to.  It would have been really nice to listen to some of the music that was written on the pieces of sheet music, so that we as an audience could and would appreciate the importance of this sheet music, and also so that we would be able to hear and listen to what was being played in terms of music in those times.

From this lecture I can teach my students how to make a post card how to write a message on the post card, how to mail the post card. We can go on a walking field trip in our/the community to the local post office. I can teach them about traffic signals, and community signs. We can research post cards on the internet so that they could see what they looked like back then, and from this we can do a compare/contrast type of art project on making their postcards.

[Stella Castro]

The afternoon session was presented by Mr. Stanley Rosen. His lecture was on the topic of movie clips from China. This was a fun experience as we got to see several small clips of movies/trailers. Mr. Rosen mentioned that the movie,” The Great Wall”, was supposed to be a great hit for China, that it was supposed to be a breakthrough for them, instead it was a big flop. Mr. Rosen mentioned that the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden dragon is the number one film of all time. Mr. Rosen had a list of the top 30 movies that were big hits. The topic of Soft Power”, was talked about, because it ws stated that here in the United States, soft power is not linked to the government, whereas in china, the government plays a prominent role in Soft power. Mr. Rosen also had a list of the top companies according to Forbes magazine, and Apple was at number one. In the top six all companies w ere in technology. It was also mentioned that soft power was created with the U.S. in mind and that China will never have a high soft power ranking.  However it is estimated that china will be the number one in the film market by the year 2020.

The subject matter from this session would seem a bit difficult to teach my students, as I think they would have a hard time in trying to grasp the definition of Soft Power. But we can research famous movies and find who directed these movies. We can look for several different film directors and or movie producers and make a graph of who directed the most films then have the students arrange the movies in alphabetical order or sequence the movies by the year they were released. We can also make a graph of how much money these films, brought in. Or we can simply watch a movie and have the students write a summary of it. So I guess there are things that I can teach my students from this lecture/session

[Jacqueline Mercado]

Professor Brown's presentation on Japanese postcards has broadened my view of the humble postcard!  Some of the images included in his presentation were visually stunning and some were challenging due to their graphic documentation of historical events, but all were engaging and telling of the Japanese culture and history through different time periods.  I was struck by how an everyday artifact such as the postcard offers a lense into the Japanese culture and history and can be a useful tool for use in the classroom in the teaching of world history.  As a medium of documenting everyday life, postcards are a visual primary text that can help students examine historical details and let them arrive at their own conclusions about historical events.  As a visual text, a postcard can be specifically useful to help students look at images and how these can be manipulated to promote a particular view, shifts in culture across time and so on.  I was also impressed at how the simple postcard at the time was the means through which private discourse becomes public.  Because the postcard was inexpensive and easily transported, it facilitated people communicating with each other from far away places.  In this manner, it became an essential promoter of people communicating publicly and connecting with each other, pointing to a modern way of communication, an essential part of modern life in Japan.   Finally, I was enlightened to see the different functions or roles of Art as seen through postcards.  Art, as the postcard, documents shifts in time from the old and traditional to the new, in the culture and it can be used to propogate a sense of nationalism of a nation. 

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