Generalizations

29 Nov
We have touched upon a very broad range of subjects, almost literally from soup (ramen in Tampopo) to nuts (? Hong Xiuquan of Taiping fame?), and your projects raise a pretty wide range of other topics. We've picked up and put down a lot of threads that are part of the tapestry of 'Anthropology of East Asia', but all we can hope to do with such a vast subject is to sketch and sample, and now we come down to the question that can be summarized as
SO WHAT?
...or, in a more constructive sense, enlarged to
  1. what generalizations can we make as a result of the bits of information we have glimpsed?
    and
  2. what's been left out that we NEED, to do something we should have done, or should be doing?
ANY course should provoke analogous questions, and so should any period of study of an issue or a subject. But it's pretty rare to leave time for a reflection... a final exam could be that sort of experience, or foster that sort of activity in the learner, but that's not what actually happens.

What I'd like to think I've done is to provide

All of these aspire to some degree of broadening influence on how you will approach what you encounter in the future.

But has it worked? And how would we know?

Personally, I dislike the idea that a course should consist of the delivery of a neat package of truths which can be gobbled down (consumed) and forever after the student knows the content. That model (which everybody encounters plenty of at all levels of education) does have the advantage of being 'testable', but the challenge is mostly to the student's memory. There probably are subjects for which it's an effective and efficient way to proceed (Organic Chemistry might be one), but the approach doesn't result in the student thinking differently about anything beyond the subject matter itself. I want more out of the experience of teaching, and it seems to me that you should at least have the opportunity to more actively pursue your own Education.

Do you remember the first image I showed you? ...this one...
what did showing it accomplish? what else that we've talked about in the intervening 10+ weeks connects with that image somehow? And what DON'T we know, what questions do you NOW have about the image?
As I recall, my main purpose in showing the image was to open a discussion of information finding, centered on books and the uses of Annie, and to provoke you into beginning to think about how one could be interested in anything...

And what was next? Seems to me it was basic Web pages and a brief self-introductory page. As I remember it, only 3 or 4 people had ever made Web pages before.

has your experience of the last 3 months made you think differently about the Web? Do you use the Web differently yourself now?
Now think back to infanticide: what did we do with this topic? Look back at your own response to the assignment... what did you and your classmates actually do in responding? (Caroline and Jaime had especially articulate summaries). Most of the Web coverage is centered on the human rights aspects of the issue --so we looked at demographic perspectives, at cities and their hinterlands, at family strategy, at family ideology, at filial piety (and the Confucian Analects that articulate the virtue), at the historical evolution of family systems, at social stratification in 'traditional' Chinese society... We looked at material written on family by Freedman and Skinner and Ebrey for details
what generalizations could we make about the family in Chinese society? What questions do we wish we knew the answers to?
The next block of material centered on Rashomon. What was the story really about? What do you remember most clearly now? (It's interesting to re-read your responses under 'In-class writing'). What do you think about literature (fiction, stories, plays, movies, etc.) as a means to approach the study of culture? What are the advantages, and the drawbacks? What questions did Amélie Nothomb's characterization of the forces acting upon the lives of Japanese women raise? (Look over your responses)

I see a set of digressions next: 'face', etymology, Kurosawa's Ran, stereotypes, ethnicities...

and then a chunk that was basically spatial --fundamental East Asian geography, mapping ethnicity, exposing you to GIS technology and data manipulation in the ArcView environment, and a section on food and contemporary China

...and food took us to Tampopo and thus to aesthetics --joinery, wrapping 5 eggs... and I should have introduced you to koans and mentioned printing (who 'invented' moveable type?)

Chushingura came next, and led to some discussion of Japanese history and technology (Tokugawa politics, sumptuary laws, and the Opening of Japan... and the matter of honor, and the difficulties of translation

Then a shift to 19th century China, from resplendent dynasty to domination and collapse, tea and opium and Taiping 'Christianity' and rebellion --what don't we know about, and how could you find out?

And finally to 20th century China, via the vehicle of Cui Jian and popular music. What got left out? (see quotations at the bottom of this page for some hints)

The Big Question: WHY do people do what they do?
Sometimes we may be able to develop an understanding --thus, we have some idea of what motivates Lord Kira, Lord, Asano, the Chairman... and Cui Jian ...and Hong Xiuquan, and at the very least you have an expanded palette of ways of thinking. It's an enormous challenge to "look at things from the Chinese [or Japanese or Korean] perspective". Is it clear what one has to do to be able to adopt another's perspective?

Back to the image with which we began... see tattoos, and Olivia Vlahos for what may be a useful perspective.