[Xiaowei Hunt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEwYNapmHrM

Last school year for my AP Chinese and Language & Cultural class, I played " Our Shining Days", a Chinese movie with bilingual subtitle in Chinese and English. The movie aroused my students' interest in learning more Chinese language and the culture instilled in it. They asked me to show it again and again. Other levels of my Chinese classes also wanted to watch it. I am here highly recommending it to any K-12 educators.

"Our Shining Days" (闪光少女) is set in a school of music in China with about half of its students learning playing western musical instruments (the piano, the violin, the cello...) while another half learning playing traditional Chinese musical instruments such as Guzheng, Pipai, Erhu or Suona. The main characters Chen Jing and li You are in the traditional Chinese musical instrument group while Wang Wen, Xiaomai and Beibei are in the western musical instrument group. In this school, playing western musical instruments was deemed more promising, hopeful and prominent than playing traditional Chinese musical instruments from top down---from the administrators to students. Chen Jing happens to fall in love with Wang Wen(the handsome pianist), but Wang Wen despises Chen Jing because in his mind the western musical instruments (piano in his case) are obviously more superior than traditional Chinese musical instruments (Yang Qin, in Chen Jing’s case), and he looks down on Chen Jing, a Yang Qin player. Challenged by Wang Wen, Chen Jing and Li You form a band by earning the support of members of dorm 52, headed by Xiao Mai (nicknamed Qian Zhi Daren). The traditional Chinese musical instrument group won in a musical instrument playing battle between traditional Chinese musical instruments and western musical instruments. This is youth inspirational film, about how a group of high school students tries to revive Chinese orchestra ensemble. They face many challenges along the way to compete nationally, including a rivalry with the more popular Western orchestra club.

I highly recommend this movie as it is school age-appropriate with no need to cut any scenes, and the use of language in the movie is also appropriate for school-age kids, especially for secondary students. Its significance is easily felt and made clear: Beautiful music has no boundaries. Musical instruments from any country are eqaully good and should be highly valued. You may even ask your students to conduct a Q&AS either orally or in writing  about the movie to ensure total participation. 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

At USC in summer 2019 I first encountered the word androgyny. My dictionary tells me that androgyny is the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics into an ambiguous form. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual identity. Dr. Miyake showed us a picture of such group whose gender I can’t really tell because the group looks either male or female depending on the angles from which you look at them. I went online and found a few such Japanese musician groups or individual such as HOOPERS, a group known as "seven girls dressed as beautiful boys", Takarazuka Venue, an all-female Japanese theatre troupe who perform the male roles in low voices and Ryuchell who prefers to be genderless or androgynous.

 

I wonder why this became trendy in Japan. According to Jennifer Robertson in her “Exploring Japan’s genderless subculture”, “Ryuchell  and his cohort have -- whether consciously or not -- separated sex (the biological body) from gender (the accessorized body). For them, a male body need not conform to a stereotypical manly appearance.” It is a way to express freedom of presenting oneself, an indicator of Japanese open-mindedness. 

References:

 

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/genderless-kei-fashion-japan/index.html

[Xiaowei Hunt]

I really did not know anything about 《源氏物语》(The Tale of Genji) until this seminar. I was even annoyed by an AP Chinese student of mine who did drawing of the characters and scenes from “The tale of Genji” in front of me while I was teaching AP Chinese. After Professor Miyake introduced this first Japanese novel in class today, I found out The Tale of Genji is worth reading because first of all it was based on true stories; secondly, the love stories involved with the main characters were intriguing and thrilling; thirdly it has been translated into so many different languages such as Chinese, English, French and Spanish, etc. 

While writing the above paragraph, a great Chinese novel named Dream of the Red Chamber came to my mind, and as a Chinese language teacher, I could actually do a comparative literature study of the two masterpieces from the two countries, and comparison of The Tale of Genji and Dream of the Red Chamber would be just a great comparison. 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

Today in Dr. Yan's class, I asked a question about possibility of remaining single for a woman with  "What if a girl/daughter remained unmarried?" The answer was stunning. In ancient China a girl/daughter has to get married; otherwise she would not be considered a person. In parents’ eyes, a daughter is not a family member because she will sooner or later become a man's wife’ thus, become a person in another household. Once she is married she is like water poured out on ground and you (parent) would not be able to get her back to your household. In feudal China, a daughter who is married is considered spilled water. She has no value to her own family; hence totally worthless. Fortunately women in China nowadays can choose to be either single or get married. 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

After reading "Classic of Filial Piety (Han Dynasty)", I learned that filial piety began with respecting and taking care of one's parents, and this resonated with Han Wendi tasting/testing his mother's prescription before feeding it to his mother plus waiting on her for full three years without grumbling and resenting the toil and tedium. Filial piety applied to every part of life where rulers showing no arrogance to common people who in return followed the laws of nature to utilize the earth to their best advantage; scholars served their mother as they served their father as well as demonstrated loyalty to their rulers. This was part of Confucianism that aimed at building a harmonious society, I think.

Question: In the article, it states, "The Master says, "There are three thousand offences subject to the five punishments, but of these none of is greater than lack of filial piety." What are the five punishments? I could not find them within the article. 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

 

The title of this documentary: Small Happiness (1984, rural north China) caught my attention. What wasconsidered "small happiness" in rural north China in 1984? Giving birth to a baby girl!!! Then what was "big happiness"? According to the documentary, it is giving birth to a baby boy. This was simply treating woman as inferior to men (so feudal). I was born as an urban girl in China with one older brother and two older sisters.  My parents did not look up to or look down upon any of their male and female children. They gave every child same treatment. I never knew the so-called “small happiness” and “big happiness” in therural area about gender of a newborn baby. The documentary opened my eyes to see another side of China in term of gender difference in the 1980s. 

[Xiaowei Hunt]

 

Before this seminar I did not know who Ban Zhao was even though I was born and brought up in China. In school we were not taught about Ban Zhao at all probably because curriculum writers/designer for K-12 in China a few decades ago did not think Ban Zhao made a positive impact on women with her "Lessons for Women". I looked up information about Ban Zhao online and found out she was indeed a controversial historic figure in Chinese history. I admire her being a hard-working scholar, a detailed historian and a great mother; however, I do not want to go by her lessons about standards of good women asking for humility, implicit obedience and speaking cautiously.  

[Xiaowei Hunt]

 

My name is Xiaowei Hunt. I teach high school Chinese 1, 2, 3 and AP Chinese Language & Culture at Ed W. Clark High School. I feel fortunate to have the PD opportunity to do some research and discussion with all involved in the 2019 summer seminar. My principal and my supervisor are both very supportive with me learning and implementing lesson plans from this seminar. I look forward to a great week at USC U.S.-China Institute. 

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