Asia and Asian Culture Study Blog

Today we got to go to a Kung Fu workshop. Our workshop was run by a 34th-generation Shaolin Monk named Master Feng. He led us through several warm-up drills including skips, roles, and cartwheels. Here are some photographs.  After doing our warm ups Mast Feng talked to us about how to bow, and what it meant. He said that to put your fist and hand together was to represent power, but also discipline.  Later that we learned how to punch. we started with the straight punch and then tried out the hook, and upper punches.  At the end of our exercises, Master Feng talked to us about some of the American cultural perceptions of marital arts like the one-inch punch, and the Whooshi finger hold from Kungfu Panda. He explained how even though some of these moves seem impossible, they are actually deeply rooted in very old martial arts practices based around control, and discipline.  Master Feng also told about his life experience as a monk at the Shaolin temple. He told us that every day he used

Day 3 Written by Gia Sood      Our J-term group began the day by coming together to discuss the book we are currently reading as a group. Before we broke off for winter break, Mr. Zhou gave each and every one of us a book titled “Lion City”, educating all of us on the history and upbringing of Singapore. We had all read a few chapters in preparation for this morning’s seminar, and everyone was able to give lots of input into the discussion, collectively talking about the rich history of Singapore. After an hour of discussion, we all took a ten minute break to rest our minds and get ready for the next activity. After we all returned from our break, we sat down and talked through what we would expect for the Singapore trip in March. We went through the itinerary for the entire trip, and talked through what to expect with pricing, travel, clothing, and more. We cleared through everyone’s questions regarding the trip, and moved on to the next activity.  We were all very excited for the nex

Today was an eventful day. The day started when our group headed over to Asia Society where they were surprised to see our resident Singapore organizer Jeremy Chen standing in front of the Asia Society building along with Phuong, the Education & Outreach Program manager. We headed over to the admin area of the building and into a conference room where Jeremy proceeded to do a presentation on his life experiences in Singapore. It was an incredibly informative presentation that showed the average experience that a Singaporean student would have while also discussing the unique education system of Singapore. After the presentation, Phuong told us more about the future activities and systems that Asia Society was implementing in order to better educate people visiting the building. We then scanned a QR code that took us to a google drive that had Asian cultural comics that our group read and then gave comments on. This was a surprisingly fun activity for the morning and it continued ov

 Tuesday 1/10  Tuesday, January 10th was a bit of a "rest day" for the Asian Culture Studies J term, since we stayed on campus all day. We started off the day today by participating in a seminar discussing  Lion City  chapters 6-10, which lead to multiple in-depth and abundant conversations regarding Eastern education vs North American education and the effects of educational standards on children and society. Students shared their personal experiences with education and compared statistics from different countries's schooling systems. Mr. Zhou also brought up the interesting topic of totalitarianism being more common in Asian countries and if that method could be beneficial in any form. For the rest of our morning, we watched the 2020 film Minari , an Asian-American immigrant story directed by Lee Isaac Chung. The film was a beautifully touching and emotional film telling the story of a Korean family of 5 trying to make it in the farmlands of Arkansas, and is loosely bas

             The first day of our second week was full of exciting activities. We started the day by driving to BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple in Stafford. This architectural marvel is completely hand-carved out of Italian marble, and no steel or glass was used in its construction, not even a nail! We were given a guided tour that gifted us insight into the vast world of the Hindu religion and one of its denominations. We learned about the unique ceremonies and habits that are practiced day to day, and the devoted lives of the Hindu monks. The ornate carving inside the building was truly marvelous and took around 1,000,000 hours to complete. Celestial beings, animals, and religious symbols were all immortalized in the marble. After the tour, we were led underneath the temple to view two videos that went in depth on Hinduism and the Swaminarayan denomination. Unfortunately, photos are prohibited everywhere but the grounds before the temple, so you must admire its beauty

  Today was an absolute blast. Not only were the activities fun and super interesting, but it was also Yazzie’s birthday! We started off our day taking a bus from school to the Chung Mei Buddhist Temple in Stafford. The venerable Master Miao Han told us all about the history of the temple and the history of Chung Mei, and how their temples have spread from Taiwan to all 5 continents. We also got a special lesson on Buddhist Ideas on Karma, and Rebirth. We finished off our time in Stafford with a tour of the Temples grounds, we were able to see all the beautiful architecture of the building and the zen gardens surrounding the temple. They had many bunny decorations up to celebrate the coming lunar new year and we got a chance to take some photos with some of the bunnies. After finishing up at the temple we went on to a delicious chinese dim sum lunch at Oceans Palace. We got to try lots of delicious dishes like stir fried noodles, fried rice, Pork Baos, soup dumplings, turnip cake, and