Ian Swenson .com

This is a little belated, since I visited the other two classes I’m taking last Thursday. But I didn’t feel about writing then, and I do now–so there!

My first of the two is a history class: East Asian Societies. It’s essentially a compressed history of China, Japan, and Korea from prehistory to the magical date of 1600 (what happened then, I do not know).

This is the class I believe I am going to have the most trouble with. First of all, it’s a 100 level class (109 specifically), and as such should carry 100 level work. It does not. The professor has assigned 25 dense textbook pages and 40+ primary source pages with appropriate commentary for the next class, tomorrow. In my limited experience in such matters, this feels like 200 to 300 level classwork. He seems to be asking for the same amount of insight, analysis and depth that a 300 level class demands.

When I signed up for this class, I did not know who the professor would be. This was a big mistake. The previous professor got a job as an ambassador to China or some such and I was told that this class (with him) was great. So I signed up. I found out a week or two ago that they had finally hired a visiting professor, one Wenqing Kang, to teach the class.

A little googling determined that he was a first-year professor who had just finished his dissertation on “Male Same-Sex Relations in Twentieth-Century China.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with his topic of choice nor the implications with which that leads, I just don’t like the first-year professor part. Admittedly, he did teach undergraduates while he was a graduate student.

First-year teachers don’t know what to expect. They base everything on their own experience as a student. Thus they tend to set the bar a little high–since they were doctoral students, their acumen in educational pursuits was quite lofty–and don’t understand why their students can’t match their expectations.

I took this as one of my “easy” and “fun” classes. A 100 level to balance my two 300 level classes and my frickin’ Latin class (even though that’s a 100 level, foreign language classes require much work and memorization). I don’t think this is going to be either easy (described above) or fun (described next).

My second issue with professor Kang is partially no fault of his own, and partially his teaching style. He is obviously Chinese and with that comes the English as a second language problems. He’s a bit difficult to understand when he is speaking. He does have some humorous mispronunciations (like switching “w” and “v” sounds), but I like to think of myself as being above ridiculing him because of his speech (I’m not really though).

My real issue is that he rambles and goes on tangents far too often. He will be talking about a subject, say the language groups of prehistoric China. Then he will quickly delve into something only slightly related, like Japan and Korea borrowing written Chinese. Then he quickly moves into something else only slightly related to that, for example when the Japanese developed their own written language. Again, then to something else, the Japanese idolized Chinese culture. Then they didn’t. Then on and on to something else and different, all in the same subject material but unconnected to the original topic which he finally returns to five minutes later.

This is a nightmare for note-taking, and coupled with his speech patterns make it a class that is going to be very difficult to sit through. Plus, he seems the type who will grade tough and give hard tests. Bleh.

My other class is much more to my tastes. It’s a political science class: International Relations. It’s with a professor I had last semester and really enjoyed, so there should be no difficulties there. The work level and expectations seem appropriate and I like the classmates I know. My only slight grief is that it’s once a week for three and a half hours. That’s a long, long class.

We watched a documentary titled, Why We Fight, our first day in the class. Funny, we could watch a 90-minute movie and still have more than half the class remaining. The documentary was a radical outlook on contemporary American international policy in the wake of 9/11. It focused heavily on the influence of the military-industrial complex and its stranglehold on foreign affairs.

It reminded me quite vividly of George Orwell’s 1984. Here is an extrapolation: America is at war with Iraq because it has to be at war. Without war there is no survival for the upper echelon of the American political actors. Their success is inextricably linked with (A) propaganda and (B) military spending. In Bush’s mind his purpose is to make war. With anyone, really, but Iraq is a plum target due to it’s petroleum resources, an identifiable “Bad Guy” in Sadaam, and recent bad form with Kuwait. Without this war, Bush would not be able to ask congress for billions, secure his and his families futures with oil, and help his friends’ companies when he spends those billions. All the while, Bush and others attempt to manipulate and use the American and world public with propaganda shaping current events and rewriting history. Orwellian indeed.

Anywho, the documentary brought that to mind. This is far too long a post, I best cease it here.