[Brigette Wang]

Hello everyone!  My name is Brigitte Wang.  I am teaching Chinese at a charter school in Charlotte, NC.  I am very interested in learning about different cultures. In an age where cultures are increasingly interacting with each other, I think it is necessary to learn to appreciate and understand Asian and Chinese cultures from different perspectives in order to better present and introduce them to my students.

[Brigette Wang]

Many students often ask me a question about the relationship between Japan and China. I think we can see some changes in this relationship by exploring Japanese life in these two different eras. 

Japan in 700 was called the Nara Period and early Heian Period. In Professor Pitelka’s video, Todaiji was highlighted as the great temple has been a landmark building in Nara, the capital of Japan at that time. The construction of Todaiji Temple shows that Buddhism was actively promoted in the Nara period, two centuries after Buddhism was introduced to Japan from China and Korea.  In a wellknown story, the great Chinese monk and master Ganjin (Jianzhen) made efforts and finally came to Nara for propagating Buddhism.  Meanwhile, scholars were sent to China (Tang Dynasty) to study, among them, Abe Nakamaro stayed there and eventually served in the government. 

Just like Professor Pitelka shared the plan of Heian-kyo, Japan in 700 was strongly influenced by China’s Tang Dynasty. But after a thousand year, it totally changed. In 1700, Japan was in Tokugawa Period, completely closed off. Most foreign-related business was restricted, including exchanges with China.

 

[Brigette Wang]

Considering what the students have already learned, I will lead the students to focus on the Japanese imperial family and the Chinese emperor, their surnames and neighboring countries.

In the history, the wars of unification never stopped and took a few centuries in both countries. But, the Japanese imperial family has never been replaced for more than a thousand years while in China, dynasties had been replaced one after another until early twentieth century. In Japan, the imperial family is believed to be descended from the Sun Goddess, while in China, all emperors called themselves the Son of Heaven though they were from different families. The Japanese imperial family has no surname but Chinese emperors had and valued their surnames only. On the other hand, as an island nation, Japan was not conquered by its neighbors, while China was twice conquered and ruled by its northern neighbors, not to mention the countless invasions from the north, west and south. However, with successive victories, China's territory has been continuously expanded, which was what Japan once pursued, but ultimately failed. 

 

[Brigette Wang]

As part of my middle school and high school ancient Chinese studies, I had the opportunity to learn and recite a large number of classic sentences from masters like Confucius, Xunzi, and etc. As experience grows, I used to like Confucius, Mozi and Laozi respectively. Read it again today, marveled at the wisdom of our ancestors, and I have to say, I love them all.  No matter how they expressed it, they were actually talking about "balance" or "harmony" - individual, community or country.  Human society is by no means a blank slate. Instead, human societies have developed complex, multi-dimensional structures from different aspects and levels, wandering in the universe. Those philosophers and their thoughts are like strong ropes, pulling or binding each other, making up for each other's inaccessibility, thus maintaining the balance or harmony of human society more or less.  And in different historical periods or regions, one of their thoughts may be favored successively.

[Brigette Wang]

“My father” was a good father, but he did the wrong thing. I know, and so does he. What he did was wrong, there is no doubt about it, and it cannot be justified in any way. However, I am not qualified to judge him, but the will of the heaven. The heaven made the rules to maintain human social order, so everyone, including my father, understood what was right and what was wrong. I believe “my father” has been told that good is rewarded and evil is punished. If I can, I hope he has the courage to correct himself and do something according to the rules to make up for it. But if he chooses not to do any penance, we all have to accept the consequences, which is that he will be punished from the heaven.

 

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