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Katherine OhI also think Professor Katada's lecture on the role in society made perfect sense for the 1940's. The fact that she is also a Japanese woman with a successful career made me think about how her influence and life might've been different if she stayed in Japan. I wonder if people, esepcially women, try to leave Japan to fullfil their dreams and aspirations because they don't see themselves getting married, having children, and establishing themselves and settling down. I mentioned this before in another post, but I really don't know if I would've been willing to sacrifice so much for the well being of my family. I can see myself taking time to go on maternity leave and spend time raising a family one day, but I don't know if I would be willing to go the far distance like these Japanses women in the 1940s. I commend them and respect them so much for their dedication and willingness to put their needs aside despite their own wishes.
Katherine OhThese replies made me realize that maybe the reason for the lack of young people, especially women, getting married earlier than 30 is because of the huge impact it would have to a woman's life. Many women try to attend university so they can get a good paying job in a company after graduation. Many of them even learn English and try to study abroad to make themselves better candidates in the work force. But to have it all thrown out after having a husband and becoming pregant seems not worth it. As a newly married woman without any kids, I can begin to imagine what my life would be like after sacrificing my entire educational career as well as my professional career because of societal limits. In the US, women are being highlighted and praised for becoming CEOs and business leaders, but at the same time shamed for having a full time job while raising kids. I am sure that is one reason why women in Japan choose not to pursue a career, because they do not want to receive the critisim for neglecting their family and kids.
Katherine OhDennis, your post about the diaries of regular people reminded me of the impact that the Diary of Ann Frank has today. We read this book with our kids in schools all the time and the impact of this book has lead to Holocaust Museums, dedications, and memorials to honor the Frank Family. I wonder if the books that Professor Yamashita wrote from the diaries of the lay poeple in Japan will have just the same impact in our history or in the history of Japan one day. I find the idea of teaching how to write diaries to our kids important and engaging! I would share some of the diary entries from Professor Yamashita's book to show students how kids their age were able to express and write about how they felt and how they were impacted by what was happening in their country. I want to use this to help students express their thoughts about our government and state of our country in terms of how they treat immigrants, women, and even gun violence in schools.
Katherine OhI believe that this lesson on different perspectives can be included in any lesson we teach our kids from history. In this particular battle in Pearl Harbor, we see the importance of understanding the reasons behind certain decisions before we judge the outcome or the effects of the decisions. I could imagine the impact this had on the regular civilians back at home, after putting so many lives, resources, and money at stake. Even thinking about the parents of Japanese soliders who were willing to be Kamikaze pilots hearing the news that despite their sons efforts to fight, Japan still lost...
I feel that as teachers, we have the duty and responsibility to present ideas and history with as many perspectives and points of view as possible. Even though I am teaching elementary students, I still feel the need to tell students the truth of some aspects of our history so that our students will grow up knowing all different points of views and ideas from different sides.
Katherine OhI grew up learning about this topic from my parents because of their own experiences and their parents experiences during and after the Japanese occupation. I personally learned alot about it from watching Korean Historical Dramas and how the Koreans had such strong resentment towards the Japanese who came to occupy the land. I empathized with them because they were no longer allowed to make executive government decisions, they were not allowed to use or speak the native Korean Language, and they were required to wear something to symbolize their identity like the Jewish poeple had to wear The Star of David during the Holocaust.
I once heard a story about how my dad met the olympic champion, Sohn Kee Chung, in Koreatown Los Angeles and he told me how the Korean athlete had to represent Japan when he won the medal. He even had to register using a Japanese name because his career was during the Japanese occupation and I understand why in the book it was highlighted how someone had to go back and change the names in the newspapers. There were reports how Sohn Kee Chung was ashamed to run representing Japan and did not recognize the Japanese National Anthem during the awards assembly. It was significant when I learned about it as a kid, and it still holds the same amount of significance to me as a young adult.
Katherine OhAndrew, I agree with you as well. I also felt that the relationships between China, Korea, and Japan are very interesting due to the history of their relationships with one another. I was also surprised that the influence of Christianity is so different in Korea compared to its influence in China and Japan. Japan has a very strong Buddism and Shinto background and Korea also has been influenced by its surrounding neighbors in terms of religion. But I can see why Koreans may have been more accepting to Christianity's message and the influx of western missionaries that continued to spread in South Korea till this day.
Katherine OhOne of my friends started a clothing company called Unification and the mission and vision behind their company is “to rekindle the dying dream of a reunified Korea. They are a movement promoting peace, and moreover, a movement to make the reunification of North and South Korea a higher priority on the global agenda. Unification pursues the dream of two separated nations standing together in harmony once again. We rally our supporters to take part in this dream that has been lost in our generation, and is being reborn through this movement. The movement for Unification.” According to their website, the see the dividing line between North and South Korea an important symbol that represents the relationship of North and South. The border was intended to be temporary, it later became cemented into the land as well as Korea’s history. Despite the Korean Armistice Agreement (cease-fire) of July 27, 1953, there was no peace treaty signed; meaning that the state of war between North and South Korea still officially exists. There is a growing hostility between the separated nation which endangers its own citizens and jeopardizes the rest of the world to this very day. I hope that in my lifetime there will be a unification of the two koreas and I will be able to see the reunification of separated families and governments.
Katherine OhI was reminded of the level of air pollution in China today and how much it has gotten worse over the last few decades. I had the opportunity to go to Yanji, China in 2017 and one of the first things we did to protect ourselves was get masks and try our best to stay indoors while we were traveling around China. I realized how much smog we have here in LA and if people who come to visit us feel when they fly into LAX. For the amount of land China encompasses, I was surprised to see how much pollution is in the air as well as the water.
I would use this topic to address our own need to think about how we pollute our water and air here in Los Angeles and how we can prevent Global Warming and hurting our environment in practical ways.
Katherine OhHi Dennis, thanks for your response. As a kid growing up, I often looked at the pictures of my own 100th birthday celebrations and 1 year birthday celebrations and I realized that my parents spent alot of money because it was almost like it was a wedding for their first child's first birthday. Now, children's birthday parties are very famboyant and alot of money gets put to hosting and throwing a big party. Sometimes, the guest list can go up to 200 people and there are decorations, food, and even party favors that are given to the guests. There are usally many photo opportunities and even a professional photographer is hired to capture all the hightlights from the celebration.
I would also ask my students to see the way birthday celebrations have changed for Korean Americans in 2019 vs. Koreans from 1940. It would be interesting to discuss how different they are now.
Katherine OhI found your response very interesting and I agree with you Kurt. It is such a different culture when it comes to rights pertaining to Japanese immigrants. I spent a summer there in 2015 and also got to go visit this past summer for my honeymoon and I observed such a lack of diversity in the culture. For such a heavily populated country, it was very interesting to find out that 2.7 million people are underrepresented. Japan is changing and modernizing very quickly and English is now being spoken by many people in the urban areas. During my time there in 2015, I taught English to people who were living there and I realized that many people spend time overseas to learn English. They often study there for an extended period of time and I wonder if they would feel offended if they were treated the same way Japanese treat immigrants in another country.
Katherine OhAfter attending this seminar as well as my previous experience with the National Korean Studies Seminar, I feel more aware and connected to my own culture and heritage. I appreciated the opportunity to hear from different professors and historians throughout the weeks and learn about their life long study of different countries. I am thankful that I was able to learn from their sharing and their research. I was also personally inspired by those in the class who have traveled to different East Asian countries and how their traveling experiences have led them to this seminar. As a Korean American, I felt that I was lacking an experience that helped me connect to my own culture because I have not been able to visit South Korea yet. But I learned alot from the different seminars and especially the lectures by Jennifer Jung Kim. It helped me learn more about my parents and grandparents' experiences living in Korea during the world wars.
As an elementary school teacher teaching 2-3rd graders, I found a lot of difficulty applying the knowledge I gained from the lectures into my classroom. One thing I did realize was that I will be able to share about my own culture and allow students gain a better understanding of myself as I share more about South Korea. I plan to use different holidays like Korean thanksgiving, Korean New Year traditions, as well as Korean Independence Day to share more about South Korea.
I will recommend this seminar to my colleagues, especially since we have a growing population of students from Asian backgrounds and cultures in our school. I think it is important to have a culturally responsive curriculum and these lectures and resources have helped me get started of building my own confidence in teaching about my own hertiage. The last few years I have been teaching my students korean conversational norms and words at the end of the school year. I hope to go more in depth about Japan, Korea, and China and teach different conversational words in Japanese and Chinese as well during Asian Pacific Heritage Month!
Katherine OhTo make up session 10, I went to the KCCLA. I had the opportunity to take my class on a field trip to go visit the museum during the 2018 Winter Olympics held in PyeongChang. The museum had a great exhibit that showed the history of South Korea, a current gallery of student made art, as well as a curling exhibit. I got a chance to visit again recently and saw the All of the Above art exhibit. The exhibit highlighted artist Robert Rhee and most of his pieces were scupltures that showed his interests in gestural qualities of shared use and negotiation. The gallery space is a shared space to display his art as well as a language classroom. Doing further research, he was awarded the KAFA (Korea Arts Foundation of America) 30th Anniversary award that gives artists a $15,000 grant to visual artists every 2 years. I found out that the previous recipents of this award have their art displayed all over Los Angeles, including LACMA.
I thought that this foundation is important to aspiring Korean American Artists and the community. It highlights the importance of showcasing art from Korean American artists as well as providing the funding for them to pursue their careers.
Katherine OhBy Elaine Yu and Russell Goldman
Photographs by Lam Yik Fei
November 18, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-university.html
I found this comment made by the President of China (posted below) particularly interesting and disturbing because these protestors, who started out peaceful 6 months ago are now considered violent criminals. I will be focusing on bringing awareness of the power of activism in my classroom with my 2nd/3rd graders. I plan to highlight the protestes in Hong Kong to show how students from high school and college level have stood up to fight the injustice previous generations have put as a foundation of their government. I also plan to talk about how the patterns of the communism, colonialism and fight for democracy cannot be changed unless there is action. It has been interesting how these protests have evolved since the start of our class a few months ago and how it has progressed so much. There are alot of deeper issues and it seems almost impossible to resolve and I am curious to see how the actions of these protestors will change history for the future generations of Hong Kong.
"Last Thursday, President Xi Jinping of China made his toughest comments so far about the protests. According to a People’s Daily report of a speech Mr. Xi gave in Brazil, he said China “staunchly supports the Hong Kong police in sternly enforcing the law, and the Hong Kong judicial authorities in punishing violent criminals.”"
Katherine OhIris, I wanted to respond to your comment about how older males having to bring women from other countries to marry them. A lot of times, these women come to South Korea for find work for example house keeping. And in order to stay in Korea, they find husbands in order to keep their visas and live in Korea. I wonder if these women come to Korea to find refuge and somehow realized that the easiest way to get a visa is by marrying Korean older males. I remember there were several dramas showing this happening in Korean society where these women, who have darker skin and bigger eyes, live in korean households and serve the family and it leads to affairs and etc. Anyways just wanted to share some things to add on to what Professor Jung mentioned tonight.
Katherine OhAs a Korean American who grew up celebrating important traditions, I want to bring to light an imporant celebration that was brought up due to the low infant mortalty rates that spread across East Asia during this time. If a child in South Korea ever stayed alive for more than 100 days, the family threw a huge party and invited family members to celebrate. The parents made it a big deal because it was believed that if a baby made it past it's 100th day of survival, he/she will survive the difficult circumstances ahead. Here in the states, the first birthday is very important, but in Korea, the 100th day was even more important because so many children didn't surivive. I was fortunate enough to have my own 100 day celebration, but my circumstances involved health care, vaccinations, and a safe environment.
