SGH
2015/11/06
SGH The Second Session of Asian Studies with Asia Pacific University
“Asian Studies” of the JB course is collaborated with Asia Pacific University(APU). We invite a professor from the university and he or she teaches a lesson for 2 hours at our school. One or two weeks later we have a satellite class with the university for 2 hours.
The teacher of the second collaborated class in this school year was professor Sasagawa of Asia Pacific Studies at APU. His research field is “Area studies of South East Asia” and his research area is Cambodia. He approaches from a cultural perspective. We asked him to teach our students one of the methods used in area study.
Lesson content————————————
3rd and 4th period on Oct. 16th
National holidays (18 kinds of holidays) in Cambodia are divided
into “Politics and History” and “Religion and Culture”. Prof. Sasagawa
taught us that we can see the relationship between Cambodia and other
countries through the background of these national holidays. Especially,
he told us, from his real experience, that “we can see the political
relationship at archaeological sites and renovation sites.” Since we
couldn’t imagine “Cultural Assets and Politics” have a connection, we
listened to his story with great interest.
Professor Sasagawa gave an assignment to students and it was to
check the national holidays of the assigned country (Vietnam, Thailand
and Malaysia) based on their theme (politics and history or religion
and culture) and make a presentation about what they learned.
3rd and 4th period on Oct. 30th
Our students made a presentation during these periods. They were
divided in 6 groups and each group made a 10 minutes presentation. They
made a Power Point and a document.
Vietnam 1 Politics and History : The Vietnam War
Vietnam 2 Culture and Religion : Cultural Assets and Christianity
Thailand 1 Politics and History : Royalism and Coup Detat
Thailand 2 Culture and Religion : Buddhism and Life of Thai
Malaysia 1 Culture and Religion (Muslim) : Bumiputraism
Malaysia 2 Culture and Religion (Chinese and Indian) : Life of China-Malay and Indo Malay
(Professor Sasagawa answered all the questions from various fields about these 3 countries and our students were surprised at his abundant knowledge.)
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Our students acknowledged they can learn many things about politics, history, religion, and culture of a country from national holidays which are recognized just a holiday. Some students took an interest in what kind of other perspectives there are for area research. Learning at university is self-motivating learning. Our students can enhance them interest through this collaborated class intensively.