[Jane Shen]

Hi Stella,

I just want to share with you the information I know about the Black Arm band. I heard that this custom started from England, while when a nobleman passed away, people supposed to wear in black while some servants cannot afford black suits so they just wear black armband to mourn for the loss. Then this culture had been spread out around including China.

In China, when parents passed away, children should wear blackband for 30 days. Lost Father on left arm, mother on right arm. As for grandparents, they add extra red or white short fabric on the whole blackband. So by the armband they wear, people could know who passed away and show their condelesence to them.

But is a Emporer passed away, his people are required to wear the black armband for 90 days . That's what the Chinese do for Mao when he passed away.

[Jane Shen]

Hi Ruth,

Thank you so much to post the teacher's guide to the movie " To Live". This movie as one of my favorite one, has been always played to my students in my classroom. The movie was so rich in the historical background for the contemporty Chinese. It also shows the Chinese culture and family values.

With your guide, I think I could discuss more with my students.

Thanks so much

[Jane Shen]

While comparing the Korean Culture center and the Chinese Meuseum, and also combine with some previous seminars held in the Korean Culture center, I felt like the Korean government is really supportive in oversea broadcast of the Korean Culture, not only finacially but also by sending well trained staffs to guide the field trips like ours.

The field trip is well organized, a video clip to show was made by professionals to show the best of South Korean culture. And the downstais exhibition was made foreign visitor friendly.

While the Chinese Meuseum seems to be more like a private funded. Many of the exhibited items were from family collections. The exhibit show no clues of Chinese government support at all. Still I was amazed that few people funded and preserved the meuseum in memory of the early Chinese immigrants.

[Jane Shen]

Hi Jacqueline, I am also touched by the same caroon picture you mentioned here. I am attaching the photo here. The title of this picture is " Anti-Chinese Wall" It says the American Wall Goes up as the Chinese Original Goes Down.

I also post an review of the same picture here since as a Mandarin teacher, I think the Anti-Chinese wall is still existing. President Donal Trump's government had recently raised the duties to more than 50 billion Chinese import merchandise and by the end of this August, there will be a hearing to discuss raising the duties to  another 200 bilion Chinese goods. This will reflect the same wall showed in the picture more than 100 years ago.

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[Jane Shen]

I heard that Chinese first came to San Fransico during the Gold Rush, so up to now in Chinese, San Francisco " 旧金山“ means " Old Gold Mountain". After the gold rush, many of them moved south to Southern California with their farming skills. They grew Asparagus and vegetables and selling them by carrying them on shoulder pole. The Chinese Meuseum had a photo of a man with a carrying pole ( see attachment)

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[Jane Shen]

In the Chinese American Museum, my eyes was caught by a cartoon named: " The Anti-Chinese Wall: The American Wall Goes Up as the Chinese Original Goes Down". ( Attached)

The picture reflects the immigration situation during the late Qing dynasty. In one side ( far in the end, we can see many Chinese with Queue which was the specific hair style officially requried in the last emporer of China-The Qing Dynasty. Those Chinese were supervised by an government official shown in the pictures who was sitting under an unbrella. The laboring men were working hard to break the walls which build to keep the foreigner away from China. Through the broken wall, we can see that there were many foreigners landing with boat on China. Behind we can see the Chinse typical buildings. This means that in the late Qing, Chinese government started to welcome the westerners to their countries.

However, in the closer part of the picture, we can see there are many westerners, black and white, are building walls with bricks of Competiont, Fear, Jeolousy, Anti Low Wages. While there is a offcial looked man is examining the bricks carefully and applying cement to secure the bricks to build the wall. The caption says that the American Wall goes up while the Chinese Original goes down.

Reflect to what happenned to now, as China has openned up for Western trade and culture, President Donald Trump is building walls against Chinese. So the same Anti-Chinese wall are still existing across the time line.

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[Jane Shen]

I am in the middle with mint green shirt wearing sunglasses.

In the Korean Culture Center, I found the model of an Korean Wife's room is very interesting. According to the descriptions, Men's quarter in a house is called " Sarangbang" means " the love room", and the " Anbang" is the name for the women's quarter meaning " Inner ( private) room". Affected by the Chinese culture-Confutious values, it required that the living spaces of men and women to be strictly divided. So the Sarangbang is for men meeting visitors while teh Anbang is for wife's as well as the bedroom for the couple. Noble women were educated at an early age the virtues of women as defined by confucian principles. Women were responsible for all the housework and well skilled in cooking, sewing and weaving.

As for the furniture in Anbang, we can see an elegant designed wardrobe chest and cabinets. There is also a fire iron in the Anbang as well. 

This indicates the passive waiting as a wife to her husband's visit while doing the heavy house work at the same time.

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[Jane Shen]

These 5 days (10 sections)  of Exploring East Asian Visual Culture seminar held by US-China Institute has no doubt enriched my knowledge of the history of the three countries in Asia: China, Korea and Japan.

            Born in China as a 4^th generation Korean, I am familiar with Chinese history, knowing some Korean history, however my knowledge about Japanese history is very limited.

Through this seminar, I had a fresh look at the Chinese history by Dr. Dube’s teaching, also had a deeper understanding of Korean history, art works, and Kpops, and also feeling so much achieved for learning more about Japan.

            Continued from  Spring section in 2017, this Fall section in 2018, this summer break section  focused more on the three countries history since late 18th century to the current issue through visual culture, such as pictures, posters, movies, postcards and so on. In this section, the biggest Aha moment is the collection of  Professor Dube’s posters about the Chinese Culture Revolution and the early years during Mao’s leadership. Born in China during that era, I grew up with all these movements but have very dim memories since back then I was still too little. I could not understand some of them even though I can read what was printed on the posters. Through Professor Dube’s rich resources teaching, I could have clearer picture of the history that I had been experienced.

            Besides the intense schedule of this seminar especially during the hot summer, I enjoyed the field trip to both the Korean Culture Center and the Chinese Museum in down town. The field trip is something new in this seminar and the Chinese cuisine lunch was really appreciated by the hosting staffs. This seminar definitely deserve the effort.

 

[Jane Shen]

In professor Coats lecture today, he explained that in traditional Japanish Kabuki shows, male actors played women roles to avoid after show sex requirements by the audiences. 

In Chinese history, men also took all the women roles in Peking Opera and all other local stage performances as well. But the reason was different with Japan's. For my understanding is Chinese culture rooted deeply in Confucious believes that " Woman should not have any physical contact with man, and should not show in public".  Even though the reason for women were not allowed in the public stage for the " sexual entertain" reason, but " sexu workers" do exist in Chinese history.

I don't know how to address this contents in my high school classroom, however as a teacher it is very interesting for me to see the different reasons under the same phenominum.

[Jane Shen]

I remembered I could not wait to watch the movie Rob Marshall's directed d in 2005 " Memoirs of a Geisha". The reason that I was eager to watch this movie was not because of the love to the Japanese culture of "Geisha", but because this movie was casted by three of Chinese top actress. It has been still a question for me why the director used Chinese actress for the Japanese Geisha roles, however, Zhang Ziyi who became world wide popular by " Croaching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Michelle Yeoh who was famous as a "James Bond girl", and Gongli who earned so many international acting awards, these three big names had definately attracted a large group of Chinese audiences including me.

Honestly, by watching this movie, I had a pick of how a "Geisha" was trained since little, but through today's lecture, when I recall this movie, I think I had a much better understanding of its back ground Japanese "geisha" culture-a well packaged highend " sex worker" in Japan's history.

 

[Jane Shen]

Teaching Mandarin in public high school, I shoe some famous Chinese movies in my teaching, such as " To Live" to explain the Chinese historical transition for the last 100 years, " Earthquake" to show family values , " Hero" for Chinese revenge phylosopies. My intention is to help my students understand Chinese customs and culure. Every time when I showed my classes these Chinese movies, I was amazed to see that my students were quite into the movie . I had never thought of the " Soft Power" which these teaching would make to my students lives.

ThroughProfessor Rosen's lecture today, I had a better idea of the Chinese "Soft Power" to the western world, I would definately include in my teaching more variety of visual medias to enrich my classroom.

 

[Jane Shen]

In today's lecture, Professor Brown showed a variety of Japanese artworks such as postcards, cigarette covers, sculptures, music sheets and so on. And many of the art works and the famous artists are based on the Great Japanese Militarism, the ambitious will to ruin the Asia.

Compare to the propaganda movies or posters we were introducted in previous days, I found that the Japanese artworks are more base on their own ambition, more implicit. I did not see any images that put down the Korean or Chinese Manchu besides the mark of the map of their territories.

However, the Chinese and N.Korean movie or posters were much more bolder. They stererotyped the Japanese soldiers into cold blooded figures which could raise the national anger against Japanese.

Compare and contrast, the invader's posters vs. the victim countries' ones, it seems to me that Japanese ones are more focused on their Spirit, while the Chinese/N Korean went bolder to fight back.

[Jane Shen]

Professor Dube,

Yes, the link is to the popular song with lyrics. 

Here are another link from Selection of Unhasu Orchestra's concert Celebrating 2010.3.8 international women's day which was presented by the NK top singer Suh, Eun Hyang: https://youtu.be/5Q4-a8Uu37U ( Unhasu Orchestra is North Korean top government organization where the current first lady served as a singer as well. https://youtu.be/xsAUBG1KADM)

And the same song was used by Korean Chinese in YanBian, the Korean Autonomous Region located in the North East China, here is the link: https://youtu.be/yVxfMKW9Btc

[Jane Shen]

 Since I read Chinese, so it is quite easy for me to understand the message of the poster is " Exercise for Revolution".

In the poster, we can see that several teenagers running with firm facial commitment instead of big smiles in other posters. I guess it is trying to convey their commitment to" Revolution". So the characters are excercising for a better body for the country's political goals instead of benefit themselves.

Other than the big "Trinity"-the soldier, the peasant, and the worker which was popularily seen in other posters, in this poster, there are three bigger images of teenagers, two of them have the " Red Guard" arm band on indicating they are high school students. The girl in the middle looks a little younger, she is wearing the "Red Young Pioneer" scarf indicating that she is a primary school or middle school student. Followed by them are three more younger kids who also has red scarfs. 

The background of the poster is TianAnMen Square, and there are many red flags and many more people in red. This just give me a hint of the "Culture Revolution" period in China. So I would like to guess that this poster should be in late 60s or early 70s.

 

[Jane Shen]

While watching the movies made in 70s made in North Korea, China, South Korea, and Japan, I noticed the common anti-American messages, however I also noticed the differences between N.Korean and Chinese vs. South Korean and Japanese.

In 60s, all these four countries were involved in the Korean war. N.Korean allies with China vs. American and South Korea and Japan. And after the war even until now, the America soldiers are residing in South Korea and  Japan.

Due to this historical moment, in Chinese and NK movies, the anti-American messages were supported by both sides governments and presented as national hatres and anger. While in S.Korean and Japanse movies, the anti-American was not supported by their governments, and the movies tend to send the messages through some individual family stories to present themselves as the victim of the war, such as family seperations due to the military movements, tragedy lifes of the children born between the local woman and the American soldiers, and in Japan also there were many victms from the American atom bomb.

I don't think I would teach this content in my classroom since I am teaching Mandarin as a foreign language teacher, I am suppposed to teach the language and some Asian traditions and customs, not the history part. But definated with this knowlege I am ready to satiisfy my students' curiosity in their History learning.

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