Day 2: Religion in China

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 interesting learning about their views and beliefs. There was also a beautiful landscape with all kinds of really neat statues of buddhas. We took some cool photos.

Next we had lunch at a really good Sezchuan restaurant and got to practice using chopsticks, While we were eating Mr. Zhou told us some Chinese manners, like letting the hosts sit at the seats that face the door, and to never leave chopsticks sticking up in a bowl.

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Day 4: Kabuki Theater and Beijing Opera

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...

Day 7: The Chinatown Scavenger Hunt

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...

Day 3: Dumplings and TaiChi

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 ...

China, The Chinese People, and Chinese Culture POHS 2020

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