Introduction to Asian Studies

Mr. Reed

Watch carefully

Hanoi Traffic

• Type I: In five lines minimum describe what you saw in this short but informative video.

Value Differences

East and West

Potential Answers

• Chaos

• Lawlessness

• Noisy

• Dangerous

• Fluid

• Where are the lights?

• How come no one gets hurt?

Traffic as metaphor

• There are a few cultural differences between Asia and the West. We are seriously generalizing here but I think it does what I want it to do.

Type I:

• Why should we study Asia in AHS?

• (This doesn’t mean “Why do you want to study Asia?”)

• 5 Lines minimum

Why? So you don’t end up like this…

Why Asia?

• Economic Reasons

• China and India are becoming more important

• US Population: 300 million

• China’s pop: 1,300,000,000

• 1/5th of world’s population is Chinese

• 1/3rd of pop. is either Chinese or Indian

Economic Influences

• China, India, Japan, Taiwan all play a part in our future.

• Outsourcing of jobs

• Multi-National Corporations

Up and Coming Nations

• Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore are up and coming.

Potential Problems

• Afghanistan and the Taliban Rebels• North Korea and nuclear arms• Pakistan and India: Kashmir• Myanmar (Burma) and the dictatorship• Indonesia and the rise of international terrorism• China and India as economic powerhouses• China and Taiwan’s future• Tibet

Just plain interesting stuff

• Cambodia’s War Crimes tribunal (2007)

• Japan’s culture in general

• The future of China’s communist government.

• Burma in general

• The politics of the world

• World Religions

Hanoi Traffic

• We study Asia to understand their traffic.

• If we only think of things from our point of view we are going to be in trouble.

• Asian traffic makes total sense to Asians!

Type I

• Why do you want to study Asia?

• This is from a personal level. Why did you sign up for this course?

• Five lines minimum