Wu Zetian

As I read about the role of woman in Han China, and their role in the household according to Confucius teachings. I always laugh and think of just how rebellious of traditionalism in China Wu Zetian was. There seems to be no aspect of Chinese history she does not counter with her tale. She did everything a woman in China was not supposed to do to include being the 1st and last female emperor of China. The story of course told best in Wu Zhao by N. Harry Rothschild was a fascinating true story of the rise of Wu Zetian through the ranks of Chinese government. from concubine to Empress of China, almost a counter culture tale and one that feels impossible to be true considering the times of her reign.

Though the reference and tale does not really go with the course topic it is the existence of Zu Wetian and her rebellion against Chinese traditionalism that ties it in.

There is one part of her rise to reign in which might tie in better with the course readings. her usage of her husband and son first to put herself in the position to become emperor lets us see just how difficult it was for even the most capable woman to attain power. She needed to be in the right position because of a man in order to seize power.

Women’s role in society is always a topic I find interesting because of its parallels across almost every culture and society that has existed through time. There are slight differences between cultures but they always fall in to the same hierarchy based off Gender.

The Bridegroom: Alive

As I saw someone else comment in a blog, I really enjoy reading the stories in The Bridegroom. I find them interesting and easy to understand. The story “Alive” had some intriguing (and somewhat sad) twists and turns throughout the short plot. The main character, Guhan, was very hardworking as well as loyal to his job at the cannery which ended up costing him a lot more than he ever thought it ever could I imagine. That loyalty is a way of life that is very important in the Chinese culture which we talked about in class and saw in a section of the reader that told the story about the assassin, Yu Jang. Yu Jang risked everything in order to avenge the death of his superior Chih Po because he felt Chih Po understood him as a man. Even after everything that had happened to Guhan through his confusing journey when he returned and the cannery could no longer employ him, he didn’t seem to be angry or blame them for the lost time and trauma. I mean they still accommodated him some through supporting he and his wife with pension, but I would still have a difficult time letting the ordeal go. But, this could also be a difference in culture once again and Guhan’s beliefs and lifestyle may allow him to let go and move on easier than I would being raised in America.

Readings and Video for class 10/1/19

For today’s readings and video that we were assigned, I found a common theme: the dislike/mistreatment of women. In both the stories of “Bridegroom” and “Broken” along with the documentary, there were several comments made about women including saying things about their appearance, sexuality, and their basic self-worth. During the documentary, a woman talked about how all girls were good for was taking food and that they were not real children because they were going to be married off into a different family, but boys were good because they were going to stay around. During the story of “Broken”, the female in the story was incredibly mistreated after her affair, even though the male that she slept with was the one that was the one that was an adulterer. And lastly, the daughter in “Bridegroom” was called names by her own adoptive father. I feel as if it is a very common theme that is showing throughout some of the material that women are looked down upon and are treated much worse compared to the men in the material. I have known about the one-child policy where girls that were born were often times abandoned or even killed because it was a girl. I had no idea about how deeply embedded it was in the culture.

Marriage Reading

After reading, “Alive” I felt confused. He loses his family and gains a new one. He seems to have bonded with his new wife and her son and he wants to have a baby with her. Then when he regains his memory, he leaves to go back to his old life. He devastated two families.
In “Broken” we see how sexual activity is monitored and not a private matter. We see suicide and a man scared for his political position. Here in America suicide and political scandal is not foreign.
The Bridegroom talks about homosexuality and remaining faithful to your husband. We can deduct that China is against homosexuality and wants women to stay with their husband even if they are unfaithful.
After reading these stories I personally think that women are thought to be pure because we see that women get more in trouble for being sexually active and unfaithful then men. We also see that the Chinese is against homosexuality, while the US is more accepting.

“Good” Music—Culturally and Personally

I’m a senior music ed major, and in the last 3 years I’ve spent a lot of time developing my personal philosophy for music education. Something that’s become really important to me is cross-cultural and cross-curricular teaching—basically, using music to connect to other subjects and other cultures. Music is a unique and powerful tool in learning about other humans. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of this class since our class discussion earlier this semester about “good” music and music from other cultures. I’m in a class right now about the history and philosophy of music education, and we have a lot of discussions and readings on what makes “good” music. It could be the complexity of the composition. It could be the ability to easily pick up on it and sing along. It could be the rich history from its origin. It could be how well the rhythm section grooves. It could be the tonality it’s built on, like the scales and harmonies used. In short, it could be a lot of different musical aspects—so how do we determine what’s good?

I think there’s a cultural element to this. I remember talking in class about hearing music and knowing what it culture it sounds like it’s from, based on certain musical elements like the tonality, the instruments used, the roles of these instruments, etc. Cultures sometimes gravitate toward patterns and create a lot of music in the same vein. I think there is a cultural element to what fits in these boxes, what is perceived as “good”, and it continues as generation after generation of musicians are raised in the same culture.

But there is also a personal element to determining “good” music. It’s your taste. Everyone has different musical taste, and no one is right or wrong. In my field, teachers determine “good” repertoire, that they believe has educational value, and teach it based on their own set of qualifications. The same basic musical elements are present in all different songs and types of music—you just decide in what order they’re important to you.

I’m also in a very cool class right now called Music in Global Contexts, where the professor has talked about the danger in the cliché “music is the universal language”. My professor points out that music is not a universal language, but a universal practice—it is present in cultures all around the world and all throughout history, but in many different contexts and for many different purposes. You don’t automatically understand the music of different cultures, in the way the words “universal language” would imply. The term “world music” is also kind of problematic, as it separates music not created in the Western tradition as inherently some type of “Other”. So I think teaching about other cultures through music is important and effective, but it has to be done thoughtfully and sensitively.

The Smithsonian Folkways website is one of my favorite resources for learning about how to teach music from cultures around the world. It can be tough to introduce students to music of other cultures without reinforcing stereotypes or otherwise putting them into the boxes we’re familiar with, but I think the resources here generally do a pretty good job. Here is a really cool elementary general music lesson plan about the music of China, if you’re interested in checking it out!

This became a lot wordier than I anticipated, so maybe I’ll save my thoughts on this lesson plan for another time. But this is what I’m really excited about, so let me know if you want to talk about music/music education in multicultural contexts more in the future!

Selections From Chuang Tzu

One selection in particular that I leaned towards was, “J.” The big picture on this section revolved around “happiness,” and what exactly is it/what we all say it is? Happiness is a goal everyone strives to achieve, not just for a second, but the point in life where you reach full perfect happiness. If you were to ask people what makes them happy/where do they find it, common answers would be: family, friends, money, relationships, career, etc. Society pursues for a long life, wealth, and a good name. The general subjects that make people feel happy, but is that what it really is and why? more importantly, when do we finally achieve this. After briefly mentioning happiness in class, I wondered myself why is it that we all desire the same subjects and what truly is happiness. Although, happiness is a very hard subject to get a “right” answer but this article was a really good reading on many theories and the psychology around happiness, and the importance as it relates to everyone. Moreover, in selection “J” it states, “…perfect happiness knows no happiness, perfect praise knows no praise. The world can’t decide what is right and is wrong.” This statement is not wrong, we never really know what exactly is right or wrong, and whether perfect happiness means having happiness at all. This possibly means maybe it doesn’t exist and chasing your perfect happiness will bring no happiness. How someone saying that their happiness is the right way and others say it is wrong. So, is this another word we created for people to have the desire for some destiny/journey to reaching “happiness”? Or is it just a way for people to have the will to stay alive and that they may reach “perfect happiness” in their life?

Flame

In the short reading, “Flame,” in the beginning Nimei’s mother kept pushing her to marry this one man. However, Nimei was in love with another man named Hsu Peng, her mother explained she couldn’t marry that man and begged her to marry the man her mother picked (arranged marriage). Plus, her mother added how she never knew her husband before she married him. Moreover, when I read how her mother kept telling her she can’t marry the other man made me think of the old Shakespeare novel, “Romeo and Juliet.” Everyone knows the story of forbidden and this made me think of that. Nimei and Hsu Peng were so in love but Nimei’s mother declined saying she had to be with another man named Jiang Bing. Even though, no one died in “Flame,” made me think of this similar conflict of two people pursuing their love. Furthermore, this relates to today’s society, there is still arranged marriages, and disapproval of desired love partners from parents taking place in numerous countries. This made me think of a movie I watched recently called “Crazy Rich Asians,” the main characters, Rachel Chu, Chinese-American, is dating Nick Young, who happens to be in the richest family in Singapore, China. When Nick had to bring Rachel to meet his family, Nick’s mother disapproved of Rachel because she wasn’t rich or 100% Chinese. Nick’s mother kept pushing Nick to marry his ex-girlfriend who was rich, Chinese, and a woman she approved of. The parental disapproval in this film connects to Nimei’s Mother on how she didn’t see the love they had and that her daughter would be better off with someone she chose. Also, is her mother making her marry a man she chose, because it happened to her? It’s honestly crazy to think that this still happens today! How could you marry someone you have never met AND that your parents chose out of list? All because your parents like them based on what they look like or how much money they have…

“Flame” and Our Society Today

Overall, I thought “Flame” was an interesting story with similarities and differences to our society today. In both the story and our society, we tend to want to present ourselves in a better light. This is seen through social media and pop culture. People use photoshop on both their social media and in pictures of celebrities and also dress nicer or in different outfits for different situations. In “Flame”, Nimei wanted to present herself and her family as doing better than they were actually doing through planning for her husband to get a promotion that was influenced by the director, who was also her patient, decorating her house, and losing weight before Hsu Peng, her former “flame” had come to visit. “Flame” is different from our society today because in the United States it is not common for people to be involved in arranged marriages. Nimei had originally wanted to marry Hsu Peng, but her mother had told her no because he could not support their family. Nimei’s mother and father we apart of an arranged marriage and she had thought that Nimei should be in a relationship that could support the two of them after Nimei’s father had died. Today in the United States, arranged marriages are not common. Although we do not have arranged marriages, we do have blind dates and online dating. Both of which two people go into a situation where they do not necessarily know everything about the other person, but they are not required to marry this person, or even go on a second date with them. Overall, I enjoyed reading this story and I could understand how revenge, or the desire for revenge could build over a long period of time, even in a different culture, as there are not many differences between the setting of “Flame” and our society today. 

Helping at Nur-Allah

Today, Anna P., Lauren B., and I went to do our first official service day at the Nur-Allah Mosque. On Sunday’s, we will be helping out with the Sunday school program. The Sunday school program has about ten children enrolled and on Sunday’s the children will learn about Islam, they will pray, and they will also learn different languages and a range of different subjects. But, today we were helping clean at Nur-Allah and were introduced to what we were doing. After helping out for a while, we sat down and talked to two of the sister’s of Nur-Allah that run the program. We first talked about the details of what we will be doing, and then we just started talking about the children that will be attending. Sister Carol and Caroline began talking about how Nur-Allah is a space for the children to learn about their religion and feel safe doing so. They told a story about the day after Trump is elected, some of the children came home crying because they thought they were going to arrested for their faith, and that is why they are so passionate about helping the children grow and feel confident in their faith. I am very excited to continue to do service and Nur-Allah and to meet and teach the children.

Are people innately good or innately bad?

Looking back on Tuesday’s class, I continued to wonder whether or not we are innately good, or innately bad. I found an article that talks about a study done at Yale University. In this experiment, the researchers were trying to get a better idea of whether or not humans are innately good though a study with babies. This study used a “puppet show” that had brightly colored shapes as the characters. One of the shapes was struggling to go up a hill, the other two shapes either helped or hindered the first shape from going up the hill. Then after the show, the babies were given the choice to reach for either the shape that helped or the shape that hindered the original shape going up the hill. The researchers found that the babies were more likely to reach for the shape that helped. The next part of the study was done as part two of the puppet show. The shape that was struggling to go up the hill either went to the shaped that helped or the shape that hindered. The study found that the babies were more likely to look longer, showing their surprise when the shape who struggled to go up the hill went to the shape that had not helped. Overall, this study helped to show that babies, who have minimal cultural influence have expectations of how people should act. I had found it interesting that the study used babies as I would have expected using babies would have been harder to gather the data that is needed, and parents would be less likely to give consent for researchers to use their child. I do think that we are born innately good and are then influenced by society and culture to change our beliefs on what is “good and bad”. Overall, I think that this study is a good representation of how children, and we as people are born innately good.