Midterm Exam Planning & Film Papers Prompt

Film Papers

For this course, there will be two 1000-word reflection papers on films of your choice from a list of important Asian films. Your response/reflection paper should make specific connections between our readings and the film.

The due dates are 2/28 (for a film set before major European advances into Asia) and 4/24 (films set in the period following). Please use MLA format.

Part I Films (examples):

• Confucius (2010)
• Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
• Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937)

Part II Films (examples):

• To Live
• 1947: Earth
• Kung Fu Hustle (not easy to connect to course readings)
• Monsoon Wedding
• Eat Drink Man Woman

Midterm Exam 

Our midterm exam is on Friday, 3/6. It will be a take home exam, due before midnight, on TurnItIn (via the Moodle).

Please answer in outline or bulleted list format the following question:

How do India, China, and Southeast Asia relate and connect to each other?

Details to follow.

Ming & Early Qing China; Tokugawa Japan

Chapter 11 (China's Ming and Early Qing Dynasties)

1. Why did so many rebel groups adopt a non-Confucian religion?
2. In what ways did the Ming modify the Chinese administrative system?
3. Why did the Ming court decide to end its maritime voyages after China had asserted its dominance over the Asian seas?
4. What were the characteristics of Ming elite culture? How did Ming elite culture differ from that of the Song era?
5. What are the benefits and deficiencies of the rigid examination system implemented by the Ming?
6. Describe the Chinese economy in Ming times. Some have argued that there were ample foundations for capitalist development, especially in the late Ming era. What is the evidence to support such a characterization? What restrained its further development?
7. How can it be argued that, although the Ming tried to centralize their authority and standardize Chinese culture, Chinese civilization was still substantially decentralized? How is this specifically demonstrated in the development of Chinese popular culture?
8. What explains the tripling of China's population under the Qing?
9. What factors shaped relations between Manchu and Hang in the Qing times?
10. How do the reigns of Kangxi and Qianlong contribute to and demonstrate China's stability in the late eighteenth century?

Chapter 12 (Tokugawa Japan)

1. How did the Tokugawa political system that was based in family alliances differ from Chinese bureaucratic rule during the Ming and Qing? How did these different systems affect economic and political development?
2. Was Japan really "closed" in the Tokugawa period? What were the effects of the Tokugawa restrictions on interactions with the outside world?
3. In what ways did the Tokugawa shogunate develop Japan's political, social, economic, and educational infrastructures--the foundations for Japan's rapid modernization after 1869?
4. How did Japanese move from their prior feudal order to a more mobile society?

Central Asia and Mughal India

Reminder: Your first film paper is due on Friday, 2/28. You might consider watching the film Jodhaa Akbar in conjunction with reading this chapter.

Chapter 10 (Central Asia and Mughal India)

1. In what ways were the Mughals connected to Iran and the CentralAsia? How similar and different were China's and India's historic connections with Central Asia?
2. How did the differing administrative styles and values of Akbar and Aurangzeb have different political results?
3. How did the rule of the Mughals reflect their Central Asian roots? How was this both an advantage and disadvantage in India? How was this specifically demonstrated in repeated Mughal succession crises and their consequences?
4. In what ways did Mughal architecture reflect a merging of native Indian and Persian cultures, along with the influence of Islam?
5. Why were the Rajputs, Sikhs, and Marathas effective against Aurangzeb?
6. How did commerce at the Mughal port of Surat reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the Asian economic system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

China's Golden Age; Early Japan & Korea

Chapter 8 (China: A Golden Age)

1. In what ways did the Sui recapitulate the Qin as they reasserted dynastic control over China?
2. How do the Du Fu and Li Bai poetry selections reflect Tang-era society and culture? Is there a difference between these selections and that of the Song poet Su Shi and the Yuan-era selections that appear later in the chapter? How do these poems reflect either Confucian or Buddhist ideas as well as the differing concerns of Chinese literati during each of these eras?
3. The Tang era is portrayed as China's "cosmopolitan age." How did life at the Tang capital of Chang'an support this characterization? What was the impact of Tang achievement on the future of China?
4. During the Tang dynasty, China's rulers repeatedly tried to address the proper relationship between Buddhism and Confucianism. What are some examples of the fortunes of Buddhism under the various Tang rulers? Why was Buddhism perceived as a threat to the traditional Chineses political order? In what ways did Buddhism ultimately change Chinese culture, including its impact on what became known as Neo-Confucianism?
5. Some cite the Song dynasty as the prime example of misguided Chinese leadership. Others regard it as China's golden age. What evidence does either side use in support of their argument? How does this debate focus on inconsistencies--or even a bipolarity--in the administration of the Chinese dynastic system? Why do some argue that had Song rule continued, especially under the Southern Song, China could have had its own industrial revolution?
6. How did Mongol/Yuan rule of China have a lasting impact on Chinese civilization?
7. What were the changing Chinese relationships with international trade under the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties?

Chapter 9 (Early Japan and Korea)

1. How have mountains had an impact on the historical development of both Korea and Japan?
2. How do the Kojiki and Nihongi reflect early Japanese society and culture?
3. What did Chinese civilization offer to Japan, as Prince Shōtoku began to innovate at the Japanese court? How does Japan's localization of the Chinese tradition differ from Chinese practice?
4. How may the power of Buddhist temples be linked to the move of the Japanese court from Nara to Heian (Kyoto)? How did Buddhism develop in Japan thereafter, and what was its impact ion Japanese culture?
5. How do the writings of Lady Murasaki reflect both the best and the worst of early Japanese court culture? How does  what she descries relate to the development of shōen and the collapse if the Heian order?
6. When were connections among Korea, Japan, and China strongest? Why did they strengthen and waken when they did?
7. Why did the Koreans try to reproduce Chinese culture so faithfully? How did their efforts compare with those of their Japanese neighbors? How were they also selective in their localizations of the Chinese system?