Moon’s Day, February 25: Enter the Dragon

EQ: How and why are China’s language and Buddhism different from the West’s?

  • Welcome! Gather pen/pencil, paper, wits!
  • Freewrite: Breakfast
  • Lecture/Presentation: Enter The Dragon
  • Facts, Stats, BRIC
  • Language and Writing
  • Buddhism and gōngfu
  • CLOZE: Intro to China
  • Freewrite: gōngfu and you

ELACC12RI3: Analyze and explain how individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop

ELACC12W6: Use technology to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing

ELACC12W9: Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis

ELACC12W10: Write routinely over extended and shorter time frames

ELACC12SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions

ELACC12L4: Determine/clarify meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases

ELACC12L6: Acquire and use general academic and domain-specific words and phrases

Freewrite (20 words):

What did you eat for breakfast this morning?

  • Oh – you have to write the words in columns, top to bottom.
  • And the columns have to run right to left.
  • Like this:

forWhat

breakfastdid

thisyou

morning?eat

China: The World’s Biggest Country?

  • #1 in population: 1,300,000,000 (1.3 billion)
  • US is #3: 312,000,000 (312 million, ¼ as many)
  • #2 in land area: 3.7million square miles
  • US is #3: 3.5million square miles
  • #2 economy: GDP $6,000,000,000,000 (6 trillion)
  • US is #1: GDP $15,000,000,000,000 (15 trillion)

BRICEconomies (Brazil, Russia, India, China): Fastest Growing Economies in the World

REMEMBER: Indo-European languages spread from Mesopotamia 5000 years ago – north and west to Europe, east to India.

Why did Indo-European not come to China?

The cultures and languages of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and the rest of the “Far East” share a common root that is NOT Indo-European because Indo-Europeans did not cross the Himilayas!

Chinese writing consists not of letters but of characterswhich combine to form words.

These Chinese Characters, translated into English, mean “Chinese Characters.”

I know this is true because Wikipedia said so ….

Traditional Chinese Modern Chinese

Try drawing the character at top right.

That’s the simplified, “modern” Chinese character for the word “Chinese.”

Educated Chinese must memorize about 4,000 characters.

Chinese schoolchildren spend many long hours mastering the art of writing.

Chinese characters are written in columns whichare read top to bottom.

The columns on a page are written and read from left to right, and pages in a book run (to Western eyes) from back to front.

It looks and sounds different because Indo-European did not cross the Himalayas.

Indo-European did not cross the Himalayas – but Buddhism did!

According to Chinese Buddhist tradition, Buddhists from Afghanistan arrived

in central Chinaabout 2,000 years ago.

Or else the Emperor Ming had a dream about Buddha.

Accounts differ.

Emperor Ming established the White Horse Temple in about the year 68 C. E.

It was the first Buddhist temple in China.

Gōngfuand the Buddha

The Shaolin Monastery, a Buddhist temple founded in 5th Century China, is the birthplace of gōngfu.

Here Buddhist monks practice combat techniques as a form of meditation.

You may have seen this monastery, or one like it, in martial arts movies.

The word gōngfu – often, in America,“kung fu” – combines two Chinese characters meaning "achievement" and "man.”

So gōngfuliterallymeans "human achievement”.

A person can have kung fu in cooking or music or anything, just as much as in fighting.

Someone with kung fu has great skill in something because s/he has worked very hard with intense discipline to develop skill. (It’s NEVER “natural awesomeness”.)

Someone without kung fuis just too lazy to work.

Someone practicing kung fu works with a Master, who considers student as a soul early in karma cycle; namesstudentfor a low creature (e.g. “Grasshopper”)

This is the point of having Bruce Lee “Enter [as] The Dragon.” He was WAAAAY far along on his karmic journey.

WorldLitComp CLOZE: Introduction to China

  1. Among the world’s countries China is # ____ in population, with about ____ times as many people as the United States. It is # ____ in land area and G __ __, a measure of the size of its ______.
  2. B______, R______, I______, and C______are the countries which make up the so-called “BRIC” Economies.
  3. Why are they important?
  4. The cultures and languages of the “Far East” are not ______-______because that language and culture did not ______.
  5. Chinese writing consists not of letters but of ______which are combined to form words.
  6. Do your best to draw the word “Chinese” in Chinese:
  1. Educated Chinese must memorize about ______of these characters.
  2. Chinese characters are written in columns, which are read from ______to ______. The columns on a page are read from ______to ______, and the pages in a book are read from what we in the West would call ______to ______.
  3. What did Buddhism do that Indo-European languages did not do?
  1. Tradition says that Buddhists from ______arrived in China about ______years ago.
  2. Emperor ______became Buddhist by talking to them, or because he had a ______.
  3. Emperor ______established the ______Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China, in about the year ______C.E.
  4. The ______Monastary, a ______temple,is considered the birthplace of ______, which for years in America has been written as “______.”
  5. This practice involves using ______techniques as a form of ______.
  6. The word gōngfu combines Chinese words meaning “______.”
  7. Besides fighting, a person can have gōngfu in ______if s/he has ______very hard with intense ______to develop ______.
  8. The fact that Bruce Lee’s movie is called Enter the ______implies what about his karmic journey?

Remember that gōngfu

means

human achievement. Someone with gongfuhas great skill in some area becaues s/he has worked very hard with intense discipline to develop it.

Freewrite 50 words:

At what do you have gongfu?

From Geoffrey York, “Battling Clichés in Birthplace of Kung Fu,” in The London Globe and Mail Nov. 3, 2005.

Shi Yongzhi serves oolong tea to his visitors in a traditional ceremony. Then he practices calligraphy, propelling his ink brush across the paper with short, powerful movements.

"When I am doing calligraphy, I am actually practicing martial arts," says Mr. Shi, one of the temple's most senior monks. "And when I am drinking tea with you, this too is part of martial arts. You have to understand what kinds of tea leaves to use, what kind of water, the temperature of the water and how many seconds to immerse the tea leaves. The timing is very important. You have to practice it every day to understand it. The same is true of calligraphy and martial arts."

He gives his visitors a paper he has written on the relationship between tea ceremonies, calligraphy and martial arts. "The water pouring into the tea cups is like the smooth and integrated movements of Shaolin martial arts -- to attack like the release of a strong tiger and to withdraw like a swift cat," he writes in the paper.

"Many people have a misconception that martial arts is about fighting and killing," he says. "It's actually about improving your wisdom and intelligence."