Education About Asia: Online Archives

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Teaching Resources Essay

Empathy, Memory, and Teaching East Asia’s World War II

by Emily Matson

Historical memory is a socially based reconstruction of the past that prioritizes the needs of the present over the veracity of the past.4 Originating in the 1920s, the field of memory studies grew increasingly prominent in the 1980s and became closely linked with memories of the Holocaust. Since then, it has spanned “any imaginable historical topic, from the tragic to the mundane, from genocide and war to Mickey Mouse and landscape.”5 In the case of studying historical memory of World War I...

Book Review Essay

Sijo: Korea’s Poetry Form

by Hannah Lim (Reviewer)

Sijo: Korea’s Poetry Form provides a comprehensive overview of sijo—a three-line Korean vernacular poetry form that was originally sung—and how to teach this style of poetry writing. Sijo poems follow a simple form of the first line introducing the theme, the second line developing that theme, and the third line opening with a “twist, a change in perspective, direction, or thought” that concludes the poem

Teaching Resources Essay

Graphic Novels about Japanese Imperialism in East Asia: Shigeru Mizuki’s Showa (vols. 1-4) and Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s Grass

by Peter Braden

Shigeru Mizuki’s sweeping manga history and personal memoir of the reign of the Shōwa Emperor (1926–1989) could be a valuable addition to high school and college classroom discussions of Japanese imperialism before and during the Pacific War, and of the country’s turbulent postwar economic and cultural transformation.

EAA Interview

An EAA Interview with the 2022 Franklin R. Buchanan Prizewinners: Anne Prescott, Yurika Kurakata, and John Frank for Walking the Tokaido: A Multi-Disciplinary Experience in History and Culture

by Lucien Ellington

This is our twenty-sixth consecutive interview with the winners of the Franklin R. Buchanan Prize, awarded annually to recognize an outstanding pedagogical, instructional, or curriculum publication on Asia designed for K–12 and college undergraduate instructors and students. This year’s winners are Anne Prescott, Yurika Kurakata, John Frank, and Arlene Kowal for Walking the Tōkaidō: A Multi-Disciplinary Experience in History and Culture (https://tinyurl.com/y3cc5nr3).

Resources

Walking the Tokaido Road with my Students

by Andrew Glasier

In the summer of 2021 I was lucky enough to join a unique professional development opportunity through Five College Center for East Asia Studies. The opportunity was to virtually walk the Tōkaidō Road of pre-modern Japan, while also reading, researching, watching videos, and discussing with other participants along the way at several “stops” that the center had created.

Teaching Resources Essay

Teaching Japanese Popular Culture Online

by Yasue Kuwahara

I started teaching Japanese popular culture in the 1990s when there was an increased interest in Japan due to the country’s economic expansion in the US and the world. I taught it in person first and then shifted to online, using different textbooks, other learning materials and activities. In the essay that follows, I focus on the online format and explain what I teach and how I do it in detail to help others develop their courses. The same format can be used to teach the popular cultures of ...

Book Review

Tsunami Girl

by Rebecca Byrd

The remarkable novel Tsunami Girl is the story of fifteen-year-old Yuki, who lives in the United Kingdom and had just arrived in Japan for a visit with her grandfather in the fictional town of Osoma when the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, 2011. The narrative is an account of Yuki’s survival and emotional recovery from the trauma of that day. The part-story, part-manga weaves together elements of Japanese folklore, including shape-shifters and ghosts, with the story...

Teaching Resources Essay

Lessons From Teaching East Asia: Korea and Korean American History

by Mary Connor

Teaching East Asia: Korea and Korean American History is a welcome resource for teachers wishing to include more breadth to their curriculum on East Asia by including Korea. Offering lessons and background material for all subjects, the resource is available not only in print, but also as a downloadable e-book at no charge by accessing the National Korean Studies Seminar website: www.koreanseminar.org. The following lessons on “Korea and Confucianism” and the “Four Famous Koreans” fro...

Book Review

While I Was Away

by Molly DeDona (Reviewer)

While I Was Away’s prose is almost identical to a young adult novel, but is instead a memoir based on the author’s own life experience. Waka Brown tells the story of five months in summer 1984 where she lived in Japan, torn from all that is familiar in her rural Kansas home. Waka, whose parents emigrated from Japan to America before she was born, has only visited Japan a handful of times with her family before this fateful trip. The earnestness of Brown’s younger voice resonates well throu...

Teaching Resources Essay

Teaching How Do You Live? in Middle School Classrooms

by Nancy Neff (Reviewer)

In 1937, Genzaburō Yoshino wrote a charming coming of age story in his young adult novel How Do You Live? The reader learns much about life in Tokyo and its neighborhoods in pre-World War II Japan. However, it is so much more than a simple tale of a teenage boy, his friends, and their adventures; this work encompasses science, philosophy, history, geography, physics, economics, and more. It is a moving, engrossing narrative that is at times deceptively straightforward but also complicated and ...

Book Review

Finding Junie Kim

by Charles Newell (Reviewer)

How do you engage middle-grade students on issues of racism, political division, and immigration while also discussing the oft-overlooked Korean War and the importance of family connections? In her novel Finding Junie Kim, Ellen Oh attempts to do all these things. Oh has written other novels for middle-grade readers; she is best-known for two book series: The Dragon King Chronicles and The Spirit Hunters. These books fall into the horror or fantasy genre with young, multicultural protagonists ba...

Feature Article

Japan Meets Russia

by Viktor Shmagin

Japanese, Ainu and Russians, 1702–1792 Most people today think of the Russo–Japanese War (1904–1905) as the first time Russians and Japanese came into conflict in Asia. Yet in fact, by 1904 they had been viewing each other as imperial rivals for over a century. Edo Period (1600–1868) Japan was keenly interested in the world beyond its borders. Indeed, despite the persistence of the sakoku (closed country) narrative in the popular imagination, Japan was anything but secluded during this ...

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Back to School Special: “The Top Ten Most Viewed” and More

by EAA Editorial Office

As a teenager, I was interested in lists of the top ten most popular songs and for most of my life, various top ten lists of books have always garnered my attention. Having a top ten “most viewed” EAA archived articles list is a never-ending source of personal interest. Digest readers are cordially invited to check out our "most viewed" EAA archives list (see the right side of the main EAA archives page) and speculate on what trends our list might indicate. Your feedback is of great inter...

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Teaching Asia through Literature: China, Japan, Korea

by EAA Editorial Office

Teaching Asia through Literature: China, Japan, Korea [caption id="attachment_18783" align="alignleft" width="200"] Book cover for My Borther's Keeper by Julie Lee[/caption] Contemporary education at almost every level, through its seeming obsession with "Objectives," "Learning Outcomes," and intensely political ideologies, seems to be minimizing the pleasure, varying emotions, and truth that literature conveys about the human condition. EAA readers and subscribers familiar with Asia wil...

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Armed Conflict in Asia

by EAA Editorial Office

Learning about the profound multiple causes and effects of armed conflicts on past, present, and possible future generations is a critical component of a liberal education and an imperative part of reflective democratic citizenship, including, and especially, electing executive and legislative leaders.

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Asian Prosperity and Entrepreneurs

by EAA Editorial Office

The dramatic rise in prosperity for many millions of East Asians can, unlike miracles, be explained at its most basic level in two words: incentives and entrepreneurs. Governments in East Asia, beginning with Japan, understood and consistently provided incentives that created opportunities for large numbers of people to feed their families and otherwise prosper. Entrepreneurs—individuals with the talent, prescience, and audacity to take financial risks that resulted in successful national and ...

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Japanese, Americans, and Europeans: Consequential Intercultural Contacts

by EAA Editorial Office

Japanese, Americans, and Europeans: Consequential Intercultural Contacts [caption id="attachment_18751" align="alignleft" width="401"] Honda Sōichirō. Source: The "About Us" page of the Honda Motor Company, Ltd. website at https://www.honda.com/about.[/caption] Three themes are hopefully evident in the recommended EAA teaching resources that follow. Individuals can exercise profound cultural international influence, be changed by other cultures, and teacher and student understanding of...

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Asia and the World: “Travelers’ Tales”

by EAA Editorial Office

International travel is still a dicey prospect for most of us because of the pandemic, but almost all Digest readers probably love travel at some level. The following entries could be vicarious travel for imaginative readers, but each recommended EAA article or essay, in my opinion, helps students and instructors better understand the often profound effects of literal and figurative travelers and ideas impacting different parts of Asia and the world in a variety of ways.

EAA Digest Exclusive, Resources, Teaching Resources Essay

Teaching Resources: World War II: Focus on Asia

by

This month marks the end of World War II. The following archives on this topic constitute only a sample of EAA published articles, but represent multiple perspectives and individuals who in these turbulent years had substantial impact on other people's lives.

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.

The AAS Secretariat is closed on Monday, May 29 in observance of the Memorial Day holiday