[Sophia Kang]

In Japan's Nakahara case mentioned by Dr. Dube, the One Child Policy, as well as the "Hot Mum" article, a pattern that emerges is the manipulation of images, propaganda, to influence the role that mothers should play in their families. In the first two cases, the government, in their attempts to control the economy, attempt to control these women in the name of greater comfort levels for the entire country. Sometimes, the government goes to the extent of mutilating the bodies of these women to achieve their goals whereas in the "Hot Mum" article, women are used to companies' benefits to entice customers who want to fulfill a perfect motherhood. 

[Sophia Kang]

I found this story interesting as well because it serves as a parallel to the Western Biblical version of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac. The continuation of stories like these where unquestioning obedience to a higher authority can lead to a greater reward seems to be a timeless tale. I would be interested in finding how these are reflective of people's values or idealistic beliefs. 

[Sophia Kang]

Another idea that stood out to me was the family revolution and waning of familism during the Cultural Revolution--the rerooting of family ties and shifting them to government. I would think that stronger families equate to more robust societies in which there is increased social work according to Maslow’s Hierarchy. Family members would have stable basic and psychological needs. However, it’s interesting to think that the government might’ve provided for these needs instead through the use of propaganda and farming revolution.

[Sophia Kang]

Professor Yunxiang Yan started by defining the concept of zuoren and giving us biographical information about Ban Zhao. He explained the relevance of this simple concept to even today’s society where women, although no longer expected to play fixed roles, are still praised for their self-sacrifice to the family. What strikes me as ironic is that although over time, China has become a post-patriarchial society in the generational sense, but not so in the gender sense. Given the ways in which a woman in modern society should behave is constantly changing, whether through the concept of improvisation or even in the 1900’s through the One Child Policy, I can see how unclearly shifting ideals could cause something like a Psychoboom.

[Sophia Kang]

Hi all! My name is Sophia and teach 11th grade English at South East High in LA. I'm looking forward to engaging in discussions with all of you and sharing ideas about how to include the female Asian perspective in the classroom. 

[Sophia Kang]

Initially, I had come to this class with the intention of understanding the effects of colonialism on Asia. Through the East Asia Since 1800 Seminar, I came to recognize the complexities of this issue not only in terms of countries in East Asia committing acts of hostility against each other, but the many causes and categories of issues and divisions surfacing in times of hostility. The multi-faceted character of this class provides me with numerous opportunities to incorporate the attitudes, approaches, and materials to my eleventh grade American Literature class.

In my english class, we often write synthesis essays with articles presenting multiple perspectives and also look at a lot of graphics. Some essential questions that we extensively discuss are:

1. What does it mean to be an American?

2. How are groups of people affected by hysteria?

3. Is the American Dream still applicable to people today?

We also discuss mental health and immigrants’ narratives and have community builders centered on the importance of names; but most of all, we write essays in one form or another. Students often identify literary devices and discuss their effects on the meaning of literary texts.

 

The attitudes, approaches, and visual and literary texts gained from this USC Seminar can be incorporated among these segments of my class curriculum. For the first question, what does it mean to be an American, I can introduce it with the article from Session 5: Chinese Revolutions called “Things About America and Americans.” I found it engaging to read about how others who have grown up in different countries view ours. It is a catchy hook to the first essential question. I can also use the wartime diaries provided by Professor Miyake to humanize the historical event that separated Asian Americans from the rest of America. The internment camps have to do with how people are affected by the hysteria of communism and “foreign” threat. I would like students to understand the general picture of the Asian narrative, which is unified when we are in America, but is fragmented when we move out of America.

Since there are complex nuances to this narrative outside of America, I would also like to include snippets of the different perspectives during our community builders about names or smaller units about mental health. For the community builder, I think it would be interesting to use Dr. Jennifer Jung Kim’s short stories about forced name changes during the Japanese occupation. The articles Professor Dube provided about decreasing fertility rates and how some men cope with that--through creating fantasy worlds and playing video games--could be an engaging hook for the topic of mental health.

Personally, there is so much more that I would like to learn about this topic, especially Japan’s Business Successes and Challenges as presented by Dr. Schaedne. As an educator, the countless resources accessible through this program will make it easier for me to incorporate a narrative and topic that is often left out of classrooms that are not heavily Asian in demographics. Regardless, Asia is a growing interest among my students in this globalized society, and I hope to be a resource for my students as well.

 

[Sophia Kang]

Wow! This is a great way to teach inverted process with students. I am curious about whether the artist's work is united by a common theme, or what unites the artworks together? When I visited this site, I also stumbled upon a Virtual Reality (VR) exhibition using "contemporary scenery" and "classical works of the east and west." The artist uses a screen that was used in Asian homes back then and inserts digital screens into an eightfold screen. He places landscapes from the east and west side by side to blend the two as well as the past and present. According to the website that Ingrid mentioned, they look seamless when they are placed next to each other. 

[Sophia Kang]

Thank you for sharing your website and your lesson ideas! (This inspires me to become a language teacher!) It would also be exciting to teach kids a unit on what makes KPop a global phenomenon and marketing jackpot? Would this same type of phenomenon succeed in America? I would even compare to popular artists like Justin Bieber to maybe do a poetry unit on dissecting poetry. What makes certain lyrics stand out over others? 

[Sophia Kang]

The "Other Lesson Plans" subtitle in this site also provides access to resources such as National Geographic which could be used for ethnic studies or classes focused on Anthropology. This site refers you to other outside sources, some of which are lesson plans created by students studying in that particular region.

[Sophia Kang]

What stood out to me from Professor Scchaede's lecture was the sense of identity through the lack of specialization:

• Although the industrial system gave disproportionate benefit to the powerful, no one complained because the lower class were taken care of by… sense of identity as in no specialization (individual comes first then group; identification with company as family resulted in long work hours--ie. “I am Toyota. Not, I am an engineer at Toyota”), no worrying about employment, subsidies

• Lower levels of anxieties and depression through social and job

 

Although post-war Japan was struggling to recover and there was overt poverty, there was a sense of the company people were representing becoming their family, which allowed for increased production.

[Sophia Kang]

This reminded me of an article (https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/5967/9780195204605_ch05.pdf?sequence=6)

in that it discusses the effects of development on the core culture. Although this article focuses more on population growth that shakes up cultures, it made me wonder how China has been structuring their educational system with such a rapid growth. It seems that countries become shaky in their national identity during these times when there is less reflection on their past and more focus on speedily building up systems. 

[Sophia Kang]

I was inspired by your thoughtful questions! I would like to use Barefoot Gen as well to discuss perspectives in my class along with the film that Dr. Miyake introduced, "Grave of the Fireflies." The artistic discretion of the author and film director of both works to portray the perspectives of children struggling to survive or a family struggling to assert their opinion taps into the nuances that are not told in history books. It would also be interesting to start an activity in which students draw/write the story that has an opposite perspective of what they have just read, leading into a discussion about what are governments' goals in banning books? 

[Sophia Kang]

I also enjoyed Professor Yamashita's holistic perspective of the events leading to the war that we know so well in America. I had not considered the strong relationships between profit and territoriality. The question you asked--"Could it be that the west will use their "civilized" viewpoints when it profits them to do so?" might be an essential question I would like to address to my class, or even extend it to "Could it be that oppressors will use their "civilized" viewpoints when it profits them to do so? and what factors determine if a person is civilized or not. How does this have an impact on other oppressed groups as well? It would be an interesting topic for an ethnic studies class to discuss the effects that the oppressed have on other oppressors. 

[Sophia Kang]

This topic of aging population and housing reminded me of the housing problem in Japan. The decreasing population is leading to an increased number of vacant houses. Since the younger generation is flocking to Tokyo, there are even less people occupying the rural areas, which could have an effect on their agricultural produce as well. As a result, many houses are being given away for free! See the article below: 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/05/asia/japan-vacant-akiya-ghost-homes/index.html

[Sophia Kang]

Wow, I am so inspired and charged by your response to the student's comment! I think this is also relevant when talking about college with students. Some of my kids think it's useless because all you're doing is reading and writing more, but I would like to show them charts that show the effects of development versus growth on not only their own education but also their careers. 

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