Reacting to The Documentaries

The 301 class watched the two documentaries with their homeroom teacher revolving around the themes of being a minority in Han Chinese society, discrimination and identity. Its been challenging to try and find a suitable time in our schedules to have a live, joint interaction with the class from Beijing. It couldn't happen, sadly the timing is terrible,  and this is 301's graduating week.

Last week we tried filming 301's response, which was hardly a success; they were uncomfortable and shy in front of the camera. They did answer in writing, Jocelyn's 3 questions she said she would ask her students, I changed the 2nd one a little. Fortunately, I had one student (Sharon from B class) sit down with me and discuss what she wrote. My students answers were focused on Jocelyn's film, Nowhere to Call Home.

I. After Video Join Discussions

Some of the questions Jocelyn is discussing with her class are:

1. Which stereotypes, perceptions or attitudes contributed to conflict and why?

2. How did perceptions or attitudes contributed to resolving a problem, and why?

3. What could various characters have done to defuse conflict (make the situation less tense)? 

There are some common themes in all of 301's ideas about conflict resolution for Han discrimination against Tibetans:

 Foremost is a call for the Chinese government to legislate anti-discrimination laws to protect minorities, (which included giving Tibetans ID cards) and for the foreign media to expose such blatant racism. Both of those solutions seem to be influenced by my kids taking for granted living in a democratic society. Other popular answers were using NGOs, educating Chinese kids on treasuring minority cultures and teaching empathy. There were a few suggestions that Tibet declare independence, and again, I think my students don't know much background history on Chinese-Tibetan relations. I'm not so sure how easy it would be to convince Beijing of any of 301's solutions. Also from their unit on Colonialism, no one seemed to remember that looking at Natives as inferior and backward was part of the narrative that condoned the land grabs of the Americas, Africa and SE Asia by Europeans.

Since 301 and Jocelyn's class watched the recent racist Chinese laundry ad that went viral a few weeks ago, Jocelyn's students filmed their reactions and reviews, which I know that we over the Strait are deadly curious to hear (download here). 

With my class, I'd like to discuss a recent article about Tsai Ingwen using aboriginals to make her case of Taiwanese identity being separate from the mainland (NPR's June 11 report). Here are two timelines of Chinese-Tibetan relations one from the BBC, the other from Free Tibet that would be useful for my class.