Why worry about it?

[clay dube]

So now we're supposed to be teaching about East Asia. Don't we already have enough to try to accomplish with our students? Why should we work to incorporate East Asia into our crowded curriculum?

[Anonymous]

Well, East Asia is part of our curriculum. It is part of 6th and 7th grade social studies where we cover East Asia in great detail. It is also past of us. We see East Asia all around us from Asian restaurants to Asian action films and Asian students in our classrooms.

[Anonymous]

A direction that I'm going to take is connecting Asian philosophies to American philosophies--connecting East and West. For example, I want students to see Transcendentalism wasn't exactly a new concept, an American innovation, in the time of Thoreau and Emerson...The ideals present in Transcendentalism also exist in the Chinese philosophy of many centuries ago. Also, we might, as Westerners, might view foot binding in China as barbaric, but UC Riverside Professor Ye, during his lecture, mentioned that if Americans object to footbinding, consider the corsets that women wore during the Civil War...body "manipulation" is present in all cultures. So even though I teach an American literature course, I can show the connection of our culture to others.

[Anonymous]

Nice of you to present cultural connections, I am sure that the students will benefit.

One thing that I would like to posit is that you be wary of what Jeffrey Broughton calls the "rereading of the East". Because of the dangers in translation by Western writers of Eastern thought, much of what we in the West consider to be Eastern is in fact a Westernized lens applied to the East.

I am currently researching an early Western account of Buddhism with Dr. Broughton, and what emerges again and again is the christianization of Buddhism (deliberate capitalization). Broadly, yes...you have a fine idea, yet contemporary scholarship indicates that we must be wary of reading into the Eastern beliefs. [Edit by="kokoro on Nov 18, 7:41:28 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

This seems to be a constant problem with America and Great Britain -- this Westernizing of other cultures. I teach a Native American Literature unit and we see a great deal of this in early Native American stories and books. One of my first lessons is taking a transcribed story and the written version (by an American author) and comparing them. The students are always amazed at how different the stories are and how much of a "fairy tale" treatment it gets when rewritten by the American author.

[Anonymous]

I appreciate what you're saying--we can't help but look at Eastern philosophies with a Western eye. So I will be careful of this; also, it can become part of the discussion in my classroom. In fact, I do something along this line when reading early American literature. In this case, my students discuss not their cultural bias, but their bias as a modern reader. I remind students that we are reading this literature with a 21st century eye, and that affects our interpretation. We can't assume that people writing 100-200 years ago have the same attitudes as we do--this becomes particularly relevant when we're discussing women's literature in colonial times, for example. What I like about some of the literature that I'm looking to use, though, is that the Western perspective is acknowledged as a Western one. For example, in Bound Feet and Western Dress, the granddaughter tells us her Chinese grandmother's perspective of a certain event in the grandmother's life, and then, presents her Western interpretaion of it. I know, even her retelling of her grandmother's story might have a Western spin, but at least she discusses her troubles in reconciling her grandmother's attitudes with her own. At any rate, being aware of a Western bias is important--isn't that the point of studying World Philosophies/Literature in the first place?

[Anonymous]

As Master Wu said more than once to the English Imperialists, "You are wrong".

We CAN help but look at Eastern philosophies with a Western eye!

FYI, here is a nice document containing a brief history of the Western 'unveiling' of the East:

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma6/indiabudd.html

It should fit well with Clay's upcoming lecture. Ah, the East Indian Trade Company!

BTW, does Prince Hal say:

"I will screw up so much that people won't notice me"?

NO HE DOES NOT!!!

Yet a contemporary paraphrasing would suggest this. Be wary of translators! [Edit by="kokoro on Nov 20, 8:41:49 AM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

To kokoro:
I believe that Bound Feet and Western Dress was originally written in English since it was written by a Chinese American author--and the point I was making was that she was acknowledging her Western bias in describing her Eastern grandmother. I also did not say that Daoism was borrowing from Transcendentalism; I am aware that Daoism precedes the western philosophy. I was simply acknowledging that there is a connection, a similarity between the philosophies. I also don't think that I need to speak Japanese or Chinese to see that connection, though I am aware that some things are lost in translation. [Edit by="tsprague on Nov 22, 6:55:06 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

真相無法被發現沒有知識[Edit by="kokoro on Nov 24, 8:44:56 AM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

One of the challenges for all of us is to understand how we know what we know. In fact, when we are discussing early Asian thought, we need to be conscious of the fact that contemporary Asian readers may be able to recognize and assign meaning to all the words in a passage does not mean that their understanding is necessarily what the thinkers hoped to convey. Language is a challenge, even for those fluent in one or more Asian languages. The fact that commentary after commentary was and is produced in Asia for many of the teachings indicates that the ideas were not necessarily obvious to readers even shortly after the period in which the readings were produced. Few of us are likely to have the time or the inclination to become specialists in a particular teaching, so we must seek to latch on to the big ideas and recognize that the fullest possible understanding may elude us.

This is not unusual. As teachers, we must constantly work with generalizations about the human past, even that portion of it that may be recent and geographically near. The best teachers focus on coming up with ways to bring fair representations of ourselves and others to our students and to encourage them to grapple with those representations and how they came into being.

[Anonymous]

'Nuff said. That's why YOU THE MAN, CLAY!

[Anonymous]

Although we already have a full curriculum, I think that bringing other cultures into the curriculum is a great way to innovate lessons. I really think that there is a lot to be said about weaving multi-cultural issues, art, history and literature into any curriculum. It's wonderful to live in a "melting pot" type culture and the only way to learn about this "American" culture is to understand all the unique people that make up this one culture. I have found that students are very open to learning about the peolple around them and find it meaningful to their lives. As a teacher in the Torrance Unified School District, Asian cultures are are quite prominent, so icluding this culture into my curriculum is a must. Hopefully by teaching meaningful lessons that shed light on any culture will bring students tolerance and the ability to celebrate differences.

[Anonymous]

I was thinking about this question yesterday, and had the opportunity to share some thoughts about the "melting pot culture" in America with one of my friends. She and I have shared a similar experience in trying to fit into the American culture, and the efferct that this often has on one's native culture. We both shared the experience of losing a great deal of ethnicity (especially the celebration of language) in our quest to fit in. It's funny that I was pondering all of this so deeply, because after the conversation, I was flipping through Time Magazine and ran across a great article titled, "Between Two Worlds: Born in the U.S.A to Asian parents, a generation of immigrants' kids forges a new identity." This article explores the lives and cultural experiences of several Asian-American people. They ranged in age from about 20 to 30, and had all grown up in suburban towns all around the country. It was really interesting to listen to the comparisons of their experiences, their struggle to find their identity, and their passion to bring back a culture that was pehaps lost in the shuffle of assimilation. The best part of the article, and in fact, my reason for this post is that these Asian-Americans who struggled between two cultures to find their identity have finally found an answer. Their answer to their identity is to embrace and celebrate both cultures. They now have the pure gratification of seeing their children embrace the very culture they tried so hard to escape. I see Asian-American students everyday who are proud to share their heritage, language and culture with others. Thinking about the struggle their parents went through to get these children to a place where their identity can be defined by more than one culture, answers the question "why worry about it?".

[Anonymous]

I went and posted at Tracy's classroom and it worked. I think I finally have gotten it to work on mine. I have a love/hate relationship with this machine. It is the bain of my existence; but I do not know what I would do without it. Will get to work on those last two Korea tapes.
Thanks for the help.

[Author]

Posts