(no subject)

[robinturner]

One of the nice things about so-called "content-based instruction" is that as an English/academic skills teacher, I get to teach courses on just about anything I feel like, a privelege normally reserved for top-ranking professors. Having polished off "Technology, Consciousness and Society", I am now planning "An Introduction to Chinese Thought", which is my excuse for getting back into some Chinese philosophy. I can now sit around reading Laozi (Lao Tzu) or watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while claiming to be working. Seriously, I'm thinking of showing my students Crouching Tiger as it has so much implicit philosophy in it. I had this idea of starting with a film which exemplifies a Western view of Chinese culture (e.g. John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China), then show Crouching Tiger as more representative of a Chinese view, then finish by getting students to look at an American or European film in terms of one of the philosophies they've looked at (a Confucian view of Emma, a Daoist view of Leon - the possibilities are endless!).

Doing all this, I have a paradoxical feeling of getting back to my roots. I say "paradoxical" because my ancestry is English and Welsh, not Chinese, I've never been to China and I don't speak much Chinese (all I can remember from my year of Chinese elective is useless stock phrases like "women duo hen dao duanlian" - "We all do physical training very early"). Nevertheless, I've absorbed so much Chinese culture and philosophy (not to mention food and martial arts) over the years, that rereading the Dao De Jing really does feel like coming home. Home is where the heart is - now that's a pretty Chinese concept!

Comments

[solri.livejournal.com]

Groovy, babe!