China, The Chinese People, and Chinese Culture POHS 2020

Oliver Erdmann Mr. Zhou The Chinese History, People, and Culture 20 January, 2020 Day 9: The Great Debate            On the last day of the China J-Term, we had our debate on wether China would rule or fail in the future. In the beginning of the day, we had an hour to gather our last research, finalize our slides, and practice our presentations. After that hour we had our great debate. Once both sides had presented we debated about the information and, in the end, there wasn't a verbal recognition of what side won but most of us were agreeing that China would fail. After that we had lunch at school and then worked on our J-Term presentation. Everybody was in charge of making a slide and most people were speaking in the presentation. After we had finished making the slides, we practiced it and timed it to see if we met the standards. Once done with that, it was the end of the day and the end of a fun filled J-Term.

John Mazziotti Mr. Zhou The Chinese History, People, and Culture J-Term January 16th, 2020 Day 8      On the 8th day of the Chinese J-Term, we continued our research for our "China Rule or Fail" presentations. These points of view from 2 separate sides of our class fabricate an argument whether China is to "Rule or Fail" in the near/far future. Jorge, Elliott, and Cidette working on their presentation.       After our short morning work session, we boarded our transport to the Chinese Community Center to witness performances done by various members and groups of the center. This performance is directed by Master Frank(He is on the right), he is the Tai Chi teacher at the Chinese Community Center. These 2 gentlemen are depicting a sword fight. These are 2 Chinese Vocalists This is the Community Center's dance group dancing to traditional music.      After the performances finis...

Today, several students had prepared a presentation for the 8th graders of The Post Oak Middle School introducing the high school Chinese language class, Chinese J-Term and China A-Term. The presentation included information about the history of the Chinese language, our personal experiences with learning Chinese, the cultural learning opportunities that are offered even if you don't take the language class and writing and pronunciation tips for learning Mandarin Chinese. We applied their knowledge to an exercise by giving them worksheets so they would have a taste of our homework. Not a lot of students had experience with or even much exposure to the Chinese language. The presentation was aimed towards informing students of the choices they have and how learning Chinese isn't as complicated and difficult as they might think it is. Then we wrapped up our individual research presentations on Suzhou, Beijing, Houston's Chinatown and international Chinatowns. We headed out f...

Elliott Conely Mr. Zhou Chinese Culture J-Term 1/14/2019 Day #6 Today we presented some of our individual city research projects and began work on a group debate on whether China will rule or fail. It has been really cool learning from other students. So far we have given presentations on Chinese history, major cities, and China towns. I have learned a lot from these research projects, not only from doing my own research but also from seeing others present. Today's presentations on China towns were particularly eye opening because we were able to learn about the often dark history of US China towns and I look forward to visiting Houston's China town later in the week. In the afternoon we watched the movie Aftershock which is a Chinese film about the terrible 1976 Tangshan earthquake (Many of us are going to Tangshan in March). The film was very sad as it was about people losing their homes and loved ones, but it was interesting to see the city where we are going.  ...

Today we started with an introduction to our second research project. The topics we chose from were: the places we are going to in China, Chinatowns in the US, international Chinatowns, or to give a presentation to the middle schoolers on how Chinese classes are taught in our high school. It is important to know the places we are going to visit in our China A-Term and how Chinese culture has been implemented in the world. I chose to be part of the presentation given to middle schoolers. This is the only group presentation. The other presentations were individual ones. My group decided to talk about some of the misconceptions of the Chinese language, some basic terminology in Chinese, and the China J and A-Term. After this, we went to a kung fu workshop, which everyone was very excited to attend. The kung fu master told us how he learned kung fu and how kung fu is not just about strength but it is also about the mind and having the right mindset. Then we had to get warmed up so we did...

Today we started the school day by walking to the Asia Society Texas Center to learn more about traditional Beijing opera, a category of Japanese opera called Kabuki. We started our tour at the Asia Society Center by listening to a presentation on the similarities and differences in between Kabuki and Beijing opera. Here's a Venn diagram that about sums the presentation up. After the presentation, we toured the Kabuki-based exhibit that featured many amazing 1900s based Japanese print work that all focused in the souvenir department of Kabuki Theater. The artistic style of Kabuki was evident in all the works of art. Many of the display cases showed aspects of Kabuki Theater combined with pop-culture, such as a artistic rendition of a New Orleans' Saints mural spray-painted on a 5 feet by 9 feet canvas. The center piece of this canvas was a large samurai-like character, and he stared at the viewer, creating a strong air of intimidation. In addition to this painting, there we...

So Today we started off presenting our China History Research Projects. For this project, each student was asked to choose one of the following topics: The Opium Wars, Sino-Japanese Wars, The Civil Wars The great Leap Forward, The Cultural Revolution, History of Taiwan, History of Hong Kong, US and China Relations, Religion in China, and Bejing and Kabuki opera. I thought it was interesting learning about the history of China. All of the presentations were very interesting and informative. My favorite presentations were about Bejing Opera and Kabuki and Religions in China. Bejing Opera and Kabuki were explaining what both of the Opera stiles are preformed, and Religion in China was telling how Buddhism came to China and other religions are also in China and have a large number of people following them. After this, we went to the Chinese Community Center, where we had a Dumpling workshop and a TaiChi Workshop. it was really fun to make dumplings and then eat what you made. I was a ...

       In the morning we had a presenter, Mr. Liu, come and speak to us about the Chinese government and freedom of religion in China. Mr. Liu is a devout Catholic whose from China and he shared a lot of valuable and interesting insight in the cultural regards of  religion (specifically Christianity and Catholicism) in China. He also told us about the Human rights activism being done in China and some well known Chinese activists. He emphasized the importance of us as the next generation to learn about the world and global issues in order to have to knowledge to change the world.          After our talk with Mr. Liu, we went to a Buddhist Temple. We went inside the temple and we did a mental excercise. Some nice people there told us about some of the groundworks of Buddhism like the 8 fold paths and the 8 noble truths. It was really neat to get to learn about a religion I don't really hear a lot about in the mainstream, and it was inte...

Today we prepared for our immersion into Chinese culture by discussing how to respect the world's differing belief systems, and empathize with others. We began the J-Term by sharing stories about winter holidays, and reviewing our busy, yet exiting schedule. After this, we read about the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and outcomes associated with intercultural competence, and discussed how this relates to our upcoming outings. For example, it is important for people to be aware about their identities because family backgrounds, upbringings, challenges, and relationships strongly influence people's views of the world, and their resulting ideologies. Also, I found it interesting that a person's ability to perceive cultural relativism does not develop after a single experience, instead it takes a lifetime.  Following this, we read an article about an American teen who wore a qipao dress to prom, and the variations of backlash and support she received. It was intriguing to lea...