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IE 3 ICC Seminar: Lesson 2

4/14/2015

12 Comments

 
Hi everyone,

We had another busy 90 minutes this morning! I sure wish we had more time.

Reflection Journals:
At the start of class, you exchanged your reflection journals with your partner and discussed last week's topic. Your partner kept your journal this week, and will write his/her comments on your Topic #1 and his/her Topic #2. Remember to bring it to class next week.

Elements of Culture:
For today's lecture, we looked at the elements of culture: (a) symbols; (b) rituals; (c) values; and (d) heroes. We focused on Japanese culture since you need to know your own culture first before you can compare and contrast it to other cultures. Also, when you know your own culture, it can help you understand why you might cultural misunderstandings with those who are not from your culture.

Were you surprised to learn why there are so few trees in Tokyo? 

Homework:

1.  Reflection Topic #2
2.  Blog Posting #2
3. Reading, chapter 2, pp. 37-57

Reflection Topic #2:

Culture has four elements:  (1) symbols; (2) rituals; (3) values; and (4) heroes.  

Choose one culture.  Describe a symbol, a ritual, a value and a hero from this culture.  

If possible, try to include your personal experience when describing these elements (especially rituals and values).  
  • Remember to write one page of comments on your partner's entry about Topic #1; write two pages on this week's topic.
  • Plagiarism (e.g. copying from wikipedia, etc.) will result in a failing grade.

Blog Question #2:

What is your impression of developing countries? How are they similar and/or different to Japan?

*Write 8-10 sentences.
*Use capitalization, punctuation & spelling correctly.
*Submit by Monday, April 20 by 6:00pm.

Next Week's Project
We will start a very special project in next week's lesson, so it is important that you don't miss our lesson. If you have to miss the lesson, you need to contact me by Monday, April 20 by 6:00pm. You will have to arrange a time to meet me later that week to get the project guidelines so that you can complete the first part of the project for the next lesson on Tuesday, April 28.

12 Comments
IE3S-Yumi
4/15/2015 06:23:17 pm

When I think of developing countries like Africa, it brings me such impressions as countries which have small populations,and people living there are not able to get enough money to make their living. They also can't get enough food,which causes their undernourishment. I have seen some books and TV shows that showed us people suffering from their lives in some developing countries. Those made me think like why we are living so differently although each person has to be equal. I think life in developing country is very different from life in Japan. We have enough food to eat or even food to throw away. We have money to make our lives, to buy things we want and to enjoy spare time. We are so free and peaceful that we don't even recognize that we are greatly blessed.

Reply
IE3S-Sayaka
4/16/2015 04:49:51 pm

Developing countries such as Cambodia, Iraq, and Egypt are countries that have impression of not having enough education system for me. There was a TV program that encourages rich people to buy beautiful paintings painted by famous TV entertainers. All of that profits were to contribute to Cambodia to build a school. According to that program, schools in Cambodia are very dingy, and textbooks are given only by third year in the elementary school because of the nation's poverty. I haven't seen its actual state, so I thought that program was very interesting.
Japan is known as the nation that has one of the best education system, so I think it is the biggest point of very different to Japan.
I think we need to see the actual state of the developing country not only through the media but also by your own eyes to know the "world".

Reply
IE3S-Kentaro
4/17/2015 05:54:30 pm


Whenever I hear the words "developing countries," I tend to imagine just negative aspects caused by their poverty such as diseases, poor education, water crisis and things like that. Yeah, they are surely true in a sense, and most people including me are apt to think that they are completely different from developed countries like Japan. However, seeing from a different perspective, I can find how superficial this idea was, and that there is at least a similarity between developing countries and developed ones. In my opinion, both of them are common in that they are rich in their cultures. I mean, all the countries, cities and even small villages have their own cultures regardless of how economically poor they are. Taking this into consideration, I can say with certainty that we will save their cultures as well as the countries themselves when we try to help developing countries through any actions such as donating money, building schools, sending doctors -- that is, "doctors without borders," and so on. I believe every single action is extremely meaningful, and that it will definitely help developing countries preserve their precious cultures for good.

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IE3S-Manami
4/18/2015 11:16:50 am

I think each developing country has their own unique culture. For example, there are more native people than there are in Japan and they have very unique traditional outfits. I also think they have more distinctive rules and customs.
Some countries in Asia have been developing so fast and they are almost as good as developed countries. However some Asian countries and countries in Africa are not so developed yet. Children in those countries can not have the best education like we do in Japan but they are so eager to learn. I think we should be more thankful about what we have now.

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IE3S-Kotomi
4/18/2015 11:20:37 pm

I thought of concrete countries first:China, India, Thai and Vietnam and so on. I remember that a high school teacher taught developing countries had grown up in the field of economy more drastically than developed countries. I also heard that China was in trouble because of severe air pollution and water pollution. So I have a impression that developing countries have many factories, many workers, and many environmental problems. Compared with them, Japan has much numbers of old people instead of young people who can work harder. Japanese economic growth has stopped since 20th century, and I think one of the reason is a lack of hands. But Japanese environmental problems aren't more serious than developing countries' . I can't come up with any similar points between developing countries and Japan.

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IE3S-Misato
4/19/2015 03:17:37 am

When I hear the words “developing countries”, I have both a negative impressions and good impressions. We often get information from newspaper and TV shows saying how they suffer from their poverty, civil war, lack of medical facilities and many other reasons. From the perspective of technology, we, people from developed countries tend to think that their life are not convenient. However, I also think that many people in developing countries are content with their lives and hopeful compared to Japanese.
I think students’ attitudes towards education and study are different. I used to think that going to school is very usual. However there are many young people fighting for their rights to get education. I should be more thankful for what we have and remember those children who are suffering now.

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IE3S-Yuma
4/19/2015 01:27:56 pm

When I hear the word "developing countries ",I think of Southeast Asia and Africa.I think some of the examples of such countries are Cambodia,Indonesia and Republic of Ghana.In these countries, the development of economic and others are lower than developed countries.For instance, the standard of income and infrastructure.There are some countries which cannot supply electricity and water even in capital city. The number of working people decreased because of the civil war and disasters.It is a really serious problem.On the other hand,in some countries,increasing of the people who can't get the job is also issue because population increases so rapidly.

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IE3S-Jumpei
4/19/2015 03:06:06 pm

When I hear "developing country", I associate with countries around Africa or the middle east. My impression is that although there are slight differences, basically these countries have a great number of financial dependence to other countries. For example, exporting coffee beans, cocoa, oil or whatsoever to stabilize their country, or to feed their country. In addition to this, I consider these countries as a war inevitable country. Developed countries like Japan, or the US had the civil war as a process of turning in to a better country. And recently, Iraq, Iran , Egypt, has been going through civil wars. I believe this is just one of the procedure too. I don't know if China would be classified as a developing country, but if it is, I could also say that developing countries , although there is a limitation, are condoned in many faces like air pollution. On the other hand, developed countries like Japan has a strict line we have to keep in many faces, like air pollution. What's more, we even have a goal to reduce the pollution rate.

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IE3S-Takahiro
4/19/2015 03:15:03 pm

My impression on developing countries is that they have financial troubles in their economies and many of them have been living in poverty. And in the worst case, for example in Africa they don't even have enough food to live. Therefore, they need more or less aid by developed countries, and they have done that. The most famous one would be ODA. But, ironically most of them might have been caused by developed countries. And, now in our world, it seems to me that the more developed they are, the richer they can be, and the less developed they are, the less they have the chance to be rich. Fortunately, in Japan we are so blessed that most of us don't have to worry about our daily life, and therefore we might have possibilities to help them. I think that we have to reconsider ourselves, how we should be and what we can do for them. For all belong to our world before their nations.

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IE3S-Kohei
4/19/2015 03:40:07 pm

Usually developing countries have very poor education system. And also these countries have financial problems and public health problems. They have very low literacy rate so that it is really difficult for people in such countries to get a job. These situations are different to Japan. We tend to think we should donate money for their foods. However, in my opinion, this won't help them in the long run. The most important thing we have to do is to assist their education. I think most of problem will be solved if they improve their educational environment.

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IE3S-Keiko
4/19/2015 06:14:54 pm

Developing country and Japan have differences and similarities. A leader is needed in both of them. It is necessary to have a attractive and powerful person as a leader, because he/she could be a symbol of that country. One of the differences is about attitude for government. People in developing country are interested in politics. They have a hope to make their country better. However, Japanese people have less interest about it. In my opinion, the reason is that people think Japan has already developed.

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IE3S-Saya
4/19/2015 06:19:41 pm

When I think about the developing countries, I think about more of the negative things than the positive things. In developing countries, people have difficult times living because of poverty, financial problems, environmental problems and so on. Poverty is a big problem. It can cause lack of food. In some countries, there are a lot of people but they don't have enough food for everyone. I think this point is different from Japan because Japan is almost the opposite.
Also, financial problems are really important. A lot of the people in developing countries are poor and they can't afford to get education. In Japan, all children go to schools whether it is public or private. I think it's a big problem because not having education can have negative effects on them and possibility their future children.

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