[Sophia Kang]

This seminar utilizing the gender and generation lens in East Asia helped me to start considering the complexity of the government and media’s involvement in issues revolving this topic. To start off, the most eye opening was the “One Child Nation” documentary by Nanfu Wang. Studying this issue through a woman’s lens was vital to raising questions about freedom, independence, and social obligations such as the essential questions I am using for my lesson plans—

• To what extent do we have freedom over ourselves? How does the government control the family as an institution and use it to its advantage?
• How is propaganda used to control families? 
• In an increasingly globalizing world, how are the roles of women merging across cultures?

I have often considered this topic of gender because I am a woman myself, but I had never considered it in relationship to the economy and the fact that a population number can be controlled by an institution in the name of benefiting all. The deinstitutionalization of family in the modern society and its relationship to money and education is also a topic I hope to explore in the future.

Since the class that I teach is American Literature, the main method to incorporate what I’ve learned from this seminar is using essential questions that I’ve formulated and then taking a comparative approach to East Asian and America. I would like to use Professor Brian Bernards’ materials—Folding Beijing and Wandering Earth—to discuss climate change, especially since China is already involved in the discussion of that topic. Since declining marriage is global trend, I would like to discuss the changing family dynamics and its possible effects on the economy.

Furthermore, I would like to use the article about the Escape the Corset movement to discuss what true independence looks like for a woman, and to also compare makeover shows in each country to explore ideal standards of these countries. For example, shows like “Queen Eye” in America, “Ten Years Younger” in the UK, and “Let Me In” in Korea.

The topics of beauty, freedom and independence in today’s age versus back then is relevant to American Literature because a prominent theme in American anthology is freedom. What does freedom mean for different identities? And does achieving that desired freedom mean losing that identity?

 

[Sophia Kang]

Thank you for sharing this! I agree with you in that teaching Latinx and Asian experience especially when discussing gender and generation tension is important because many students from immigrant families struggle with the idea of individuality while also embracing familial values. I would also like to explore more of the relationship between mom/daughter vs. father/daughter, mom/son, father/son. 

[Sophia Kang]

The yinyang gender dynamics and the Kundao way of life were most fascinating to me. Professor Wang discussed that in yin and yang, dependence is what creates and shapes each other and the two are always in flux to balance each other. However, the Kundao way of life seems to be about women taking a leap of faith and defying societal roles in order to pursue faith, freedom, and self-realization. In a way, isn't that creating independence rather than dependence? To what extent can independence or dependence (two polar opposites) become detrimental to society?

[Sophia Kang]

I might use the excerpt strategy as well to start a Tea Party, where students quote and play a character role from literature. Maybe have opposing sides argue against each other about these ideals?

[Sophia Kang]

One thing that stood out to me from the lecture was the suggestion that men were using examples of women as metaphor for the weakness of China, as a result, bringing about a gendered interpretation.  However, I would've liked to hear more of the professor's argument that women were used to improve China's position against foreign powers. This idea raises awareness to what we do for Black History Month, or Asian American Month, or Women's Month. Schools often create corners to focus on these perspectives for only a month. As an English teacher, it's important to include as many perspectives as possible in the texts I choose not only during these specified months, but throughout the school year.

 

[Sophia Kang]

Folding Beijing is a captivating story about the more detrimental effect of the environment to those of lowest economic status. In You Jin's stories as well as this novel, economic hardship is a repeating theme. What I found shocking was that poor parents in the Third Space without money might be unable to guarantee spots for their children's education even after waiting 40 hours in line. I might use this detail to connect to the more severe impact that environmental and economic degradation has on especially lower-income students in current events suvh as economic recessions. 

[Sophia Kang]

I also found You Jin's short stories to be relevant to my classroom in that they are about three types of challnges in the classroom--apathy, rebellion, and a mature child who shows inconsistency from his normal behavior. A running theme in all these stories was teacher as the savior, and parent as the antagonist who is irresponsible and harmful to the child. The children often call their parents something along the lines of "parasites" and teachers in the stories blame the parents as being bad influencers in the students' lives. I liked the teachers approach to becoming more curious about her students, but I felt to a certain extent, it was one-sided.

[Sophia Kang]

I've only seen a book cover picture of a book titled "Picture Bride," but until the museum visit, I didn't know what it was. Our guide told us about the story of his mom, who, while pregnant with him had just walked out to the snow, eventually passing out from hypothermia, and then getting rescued by a passerby. He tried to make us think about the psychological effects of the war and different people's ways of processing their experiences. An idea that stood out to me was the sudden isolation of a group of people in moments of hysteria regardless of their citizenship. I can see this fitting into my Crucible unit on hysteria. 

[Sophia Kang]

I thought the idea of commercializing KPop and culture from Professor Jennifer Kim's readings were apparent in the field trip to the Korean Cultural Center. The discussion with our guide and the KPop center seemed to be a huge disjunction from the artifacts that we saw in the downstairs gallery. A probing question that this visit left me with was, "What changed so drastically between this before and after-divided Korea? What effect did the division have on the new characterizing of a country?"

[Sophia Kang]

I appreciated the last film that Professor Yasar ended with by Naomi Kawase. I might use films by her if I were to do an inclusive study of films by filmmakers of color. I think the study of Ozu's film angles and techniques are some good strategies after covering a Critical Media Literacy unit on how the supporters and policymakers have an impact on how film gets produced. For example, some questions I might ask are: How did the government and the postwar reform impact the characters and their portrayal? Similarly, in the films that we watch today, how do institutions impact our films?

[Sophia Kang]

I also agree: The smile throughout all the scenes made for some awkward and unsettling tension as if there was more underlying their thoughts. The smile seemed to be Noriko's way of avoiding the discomfort of her blunt commentaries' effects on other characters. What was all the more shocking was the dad's friend, who talks about himself pathetically saying, "I've really done the filthy thing" and laughs. It seems to play on his sense of hopelessness.

[Sophia Kang]

The Cosmetic Surgery article raises many adverse reactions and attempts to negatively view the country's values, but I think it's all the more important to be inquistive and curious about how these standards came about. If I were to use this article in my classroom, rather than using the article purely for shock value and ranking the values of one culture as superior to another, I would use the questions raised as a springboard for more inquiry. If beauty is a form of cultural citizenship and social capital, I would like my students to explore how that looks in various cultures through international airline commercials.. where women are often used as capital, and in some cases bikini clad women are used to entice travelers in choosing their destinations.

[Sophia Kang]

Many of the readings can fit into my lesson plans while raising some intriguing questions about the #MeToo movement. Although I would not bring up this topic lightheartedly in a classroom, I think it is useful for attempting to understand how a set of beliefs affects a society at its roots. The "Escape the Corset" article had some quotes for discussions of gender:

• “Traditionally, she says, Korean women are taught that beauty is their biggest asset. By getting married, they can exchange that asset for social and economic status. Even today, such views affect women's options and choices related to careers, marriage and motherhood. Rejecting beauty standards leads some women to rebel against an entire social structure, she says, and that means boycotting romance, marriage, sex and childbirth.”
• “But she says her escape from the corset has brought mixed results. On the one hand, she has found that men now treat her as an equal. They give her access to social circles and information previously forbidden to her.”

 

The second quote suggests that when one breaks away from social standards, she is excused from her gender responsibilities, and is accepted into the oppressor's circle.

[Sophia Kang]

Thank you for sharing this! This reminds me of a time I heard a poem written about economic status read from two different perspectives--the rich and t he poor. I'd like to hear two different students at opposite ends of the classroom read a poem on the same topic to reveal how the male and female perspectives, let's say on the topic of "money" differ.

[Sophia Kang]

Seeing the gendering of female and male roles in Japanese theatre, I would like to have my students study men playing female roles in various theatrical formats such as Shakespeare, Japanese theatre, and drag--how there seems to be a clear definition of how women act and talk in all three types of plays. Learning female mannerisms as a new language also seems to be a lens to study how the standard female language becomes defined. 

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