Education About Asia: Online Archives

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Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Using the Lowy Institute Asia Power Index to Teach Social Science: A Plan for a Facilitated Discussion

by Paige Tan

The Lowy Institute, one of Australia’s most well-regarded think tanks, released its second annual Asia Power Index in May 2019 (available at https://power.lowyinstitute.org). High school and college educators can use this resource to get students doing hands-on explorations of Asian political, military, economic, and diplomatic power using data. Students can learn about Asia while enhancing their data literacy and critical-thinking skills. This essay provides a plan for an interactive discussi...

Resources, Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Food, Culture and Asia

by Judith S. Ames

ASIA, GENERAL The Rhythm of Rice Production URL: http://on.natgeo.com/rewF5U The National Geographic Society, in its Xpeditions section, provides this lesson plan for young elementary school students about the importance of rice in the economy and culture of Asia. A link to a handout is also available. Food Timeline: Asian-American Cuisine URL: http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodasian.html Short overviews of the history of Asian food in America are accompanied by reviews and quotes from p...

Feature Article

The Asian Soul of Transcendentalism

by Kent Bicknell, Todd Lewis

The treatment of Transcendentalism by twentieth-century teachers of literature and American history has followed a long tradition of focusing primarily on the European and American cultural influences on its major figures, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson and Louisa May Alcott. Their work is seen as fitting into various Western currents such as German Romanticism, Unitarian theology, neo-Platonism, and American utopian thought. In this framework, the...

Feature Article

Asia’s Turtle Crisis and Conservation: Environmental Education and Cultural Geography

by Bradley R. Reynolds, Thomas P. Wilson

By Bradley R. Reynolds and Thomas P. Wilson Turtles are heavily exploited in Asia, not only for the pet trade, but also as a food source and for use in traditional Asian folk medicines. Along with habitat destruction, increased urbanization, and pollution, such over-exploitation is driving what conservationists are calling the Asian turtle crisis, a precipitous decline in Asian turtle populations. Currently, over half of Asia’s ninety turtle species are classified as endangered or critically ...

Essay, Resources

Advice to Students Choosing a Foreign Language: Go Asian

by John F. Copper

Having been a college professor for more than three decades, I have come to expect that one or two students will ask—almost weekly—what language he or she should study in college and why. First, I tell my students that studying a foreign language requires a considerable commitment of time and energy, and it should be viewed as a lifetime endeavor; thus, the choice deserves careful consideration. Then I tell them that to answer the question, one must ask: What languages are going to be the...

Resources, Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: US, Asia, and the World: 1620–1914

by Judith S. Ames

Americans in Eastern Asia URL: http://tinyurl.com/3mqdsly The focus of this book, published in 1922, is on the relations between the United States and Korea, China, and Japan in the nineteenth century. The author relies greatly on Consular correspondence, but also refers to books and articles written in the last half of the nineteenth century. Trading Places URL: http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/trading/tradingplaces.html This is part of the British Library’s Learning Series. It ex...

Resources

Education About Asia: Table of Contents

by

FEATURES THE US FOUNDERS AND CHINA The Origins of Chinese Cultural Influence on the United States By Dave Wang THE ASIAN SOUL OF TRANSCENDENTALISM By Todd Lewis and Kent Bicknell AMBASSADORS OF EXCHANGE The 1860 Japanese Mission to the US By Benita Stambler AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN MISSIONARIES IN EAST ASIA An Interview with Professor Donald Clark DEAN WORCESTER’S PHOTOGRAPHS AND AMERICAN PERCEPTIONS OF THE PHILIPPINES By Mark Rice    ...

EAA Interview, Resources

Teaching Asia: Exploring Online Curriculum with Catherine Higbee Ishida

by Linda S. Wojtan

Interviewed by Linda S. Wojtan Editor’s Note: What follows is an interview with Cathy Ishida, who is earning an excellent national reputation for her stellar work with teachers. Cathy is on the staff of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Program for Teaching East Asia (TEA), where she has a number of professional development responsibilities. In addition to her work with the TEA program, Cathy played a major role in building the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Asia Com...

Resources, Web Gleanings

Web Gleanings: Teaching the Geographies of Asia

by Judith S. Ames

Asia URL: http://continents.pppst.com/asia.html One can keep busy for days simply exploring the links on this site. For the most part, these are links to PowerPoint presentations by teachers. Some presentations are more detailed than others. The links are grouped by geographic region in Asia: Southeast Asia, South Asia, East Asia, etc., and by Asian country. HowStuffWorks: Geography of Asia URL: http://geography.howstuffworks.com/asia/geography-of-asia.htm The Discovery Company p...

Teaching Resources Essay

Thinking Geographically about Asia: Online Case Studies and Collaborative Projects for High School and Undergraduate Students

by Michael Solem, Waverly C. Ray

By Michael Solem and Waverly C. Ray Improving Geographical Understanding of Asia: A Crucial Educational Challenge America’s future in virtually every sense is tied inextricably to Asia’s. As a continent with subregions encompassing a stunning array of industrial activities, technological innovations, economic inequities, political systems, and environmental habitats, Asia provides a seemingly endless supply of opportunity, worry, mystery, and possibility. Also, Asia is a source of enormous...

Resources

Education About Asia: Spring 2011 Table of Contents

by

FEATURES EAST ASIA AND THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY STANDARDS 5 By Ronald G. Knapp THE RISE OF EASTERN CHINA: FROM HOE CULTURE TO FACTORY CULTURE 12 Understanding China’s New Geographies By Robert W. McColl ENTRY INTO CHINA AND MARKET INTELLIGENCE 17 Machine Tool Exporters as a Case Study in Human Geography By Dawn M. Drake and Ronald Kalafsky...

Book Review, Columns

Taiwan: Nation State or Province

by Hans Stockton

John F. Copper’s Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? remains as insightful, instructive, and relevant in its fifth edition as it was in its first printing in 1990. While the question posed in the title continues to be prone to political “spin,” Copper presents an objective narrative that paints an accurate, rich, and multi-faceted view of Taiwan’s development that has largely been separate from that of mainland China for more than a century. This new edition includes events up to about 200...

Feature Article

The Twentieth Century: Asia Returns to the Sea

by James R. Holmes

While the history of human experiences at sea has always elicited a certain amount of interest, it has grown into a discipline in its own right. The first step for newcomers is to conceive of maritime history as a distinct field of inquiry and endeavor, and to do so without oversimplifying. This is harder than it might seem. It is commonplace, even among those well versed in oceanic affairs, to reduce maritime history to a chronicle of naval derring-do, and understandably so. Sea warriors have ...

Book Review, Columns

A Buddhist in the Classroom

by Joe Gawrys

In the Theravada Buddhist tradition of Southeast Asia, the Buddha was not a god or a savior, but a teacher. Sid Brown, who has a background as a Buddhist nun and now teaches Asian Studies at Sewanee: The University of the South, asked herself the question, “How does Buddhism influence the way I teach in twenty-first century America?” Her thoughts on that topic became the delightful book A Buddhist in the Classroom....

Feature Article

Jack London and the Yellow Peril

by Daniel A. Métraux

The term “The Yellow Peril” has long since passed out of fashion, but it was a widely used expression in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The nightmare of wild oriental hordes swarming from the East and engulfing the “civilized” societies of the West was a popular theme in literature and journalism of the time. Yellow Peril supposedly derives from a remark made by German Kaiser Wilhelm II following Japan’s defeat of China in 1895 in the first Sino-Japanese War. The ex...

Columns, EAA Interview

Understanding East Asia’s Economic “Miracles”: A Brief Interview with KIAS Author Zhiqun Zhu

by Zhiqun Zhu

Key Issues in Asian Studies (KIAS) booklets complement Education About Asia and are practical teaching resources for college, university, and senior high school teachers and students. Zhiqun Zhu is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair in East Asian Politics and an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. His recent publications include US-China Relations in the 21st Century: Power Transition and Peace (London and New York: ...

Columns, Essay

International Teaching Jobs: Focus upon Asia

by Merwin McCoy

Without a doubt, teaching in American and international schools overseas for seven years provided the most rewarding personal and professional experiences of my life. I answered a newspaper ad and obtained my first position, but now, international teacher and administrator recruitment is more sophisticated and competitive. In the essay that follows, a number of job-hunting tips and helpful resources are provided for those who seek international elementary and secondary positions. Although a subs...

Book Review Essay, Columns

Sources of East Asian Tradition:, Volume 1: Premodern Asia; Sources of East Asian Tradition, Volume 2: The Modern Period

by Ronnie Littlejohn

Professors, high school teachers, and students who study East Asian history, philosophy, politics, education, and religion will welcome this new two volume collection representing one more stage in Ted de Bary’s project, begun in 1958, to make primary materials on East Asia available in English. In Sources of East Asian Tradition, de Bary offers two volumes of primary material representing selections of readings culled from earlier published volumes, Sources of Chinese Tradition, Sources of Ko...

Book Review Essay, Resources

When Asia Was the World

by Gwen R. Johnson

BY STEWART GORDON CAMBRIDGE, MA: DA CAPO PRESS, 2007 240 PAGES, ISBN: 978-0306815560, HARDCOVER Reviewed by Gwen R. Johnson Stewart Gordon’s, When Asia Was the World, promises to be an important source for both high school teachers and undergraduate instructors in World History and Asian Studies. Having meticulously researched original historic texts and memoirs of the explorers and travelers who traversed Asia from 500 to 1500 CE, Gordon provides a unique multiple perspective lens from wh...

New to EAA?

Before viewing the full archives, view Editor’s Choice Articles, handpicked by EAA Editor, Lucien Ellington, which provide a good overview of EAA and introduction for new readers.

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