Class Discussion: Culture, Identity, and Perception
July 17, 2002
The following is the program design:
1. General Introduction - theme of the case study and discussions, framework of questions, program rundown
2. Split the students into 2 groups, each with a balanced composition of US and Chinese students
3. Card games
a)
1. Each student will be given 3 cards. Every student will be asked to draw a simple picture on each of the cards which will resemble his or her own perception of US, Mainland China and Hong Kong and/or the people.
2. Cards will be collected and will be randomly delivered to the students.
3. Students will be asked to guess whether the cards in their hands are drawn by US, China or HK students and why they think so. Discussions follow.
b)
Similar design as (a) except that students will be asked, instead of drawing pictures, to use 3 adjectives ONLY to describe their own perceptions of US, Mainland China and HK and/or the people.
4. Situational questions
Students will assume that they are now in a situation, and will be asked to put themselves in the role of the people of a nationality different from their own, i.e. Chinese students as US students and vice versa. We have now come up with two scenarios:
1. Suppose there are now 5 government officials who are suspected of corruption in the same administrative branch in your hometown (If you are Chinese, suppose you are an American; and vice versa). What would you do?
2. Suppose one day you happen to witness a Falun Gong street demonstration, blocking the main street, disturbing normal traffic and making false claims, and that you happen to be a non-believer of the sect, what would be your reaction?
5. After 3 and 4, we hope to have some discussions on cultural identity, with reflections on three different levels: individual, community and nation/nation-state. Questions like "Do you consider yourself an American/Chinese? What makes you think so? Do you think it is important to have a cultural identity? What shapes cultural identity? What shapes culture?" will be raised.
6. After the above activities, we believe that each group will have come up with some ideas on culture, cultural identity and perceptions. Then we will have a little summing-up, and we will then regroup the 2 sub-groups into a larger one. Discussion follows, incorporating readings from the TILIP Reader. At the end we will have another summing-up of the points and arguments raised in the discussion and draw some conclusions.
Prepared by students and partners: Patrick Lai and Lindsay Spiegelberg