August 2006
An enewsletter for CultureGrams™ and
World Conflicts Today™ subscribers
Our monthly Culture Matters enewsletter helps teachers, librarians, administrators, and students stay informed about the world's cultures, while providing classroom resources and giving tips for using CultureGrams™ and World Conflicts Today™. Check out our online archive for access to past issues.
Regional Focus
This month: East Asia
Next month: North America
In this issue:
- Notes for CultureGrams & World Conflicts Today Users
- Did You Know?
- Holiday Focus/Upcoming World Holidays
- Teaching Idea
- Quiz
- Featured Photo
- In the News
- Email Service Information & Newsletter Forwarding
1. Notes for CultureGrams & World Conflicts Today Users
Free Podcasts
Don’t miss this month’s CultureGrams podcast, focusing on our popular Data Tables and Graphs features. Learn how to make custom data tables, then turn them into useful graphs and charts using Microsoft Excel.
As you know, we offer large, Flash-authored training files for many of our K-12 solutions. Beginning this month, we’re proud to roll out a series of monthly video podcasts, along with smaller versions of our larger training files – all playable inside Apple's
iTunes.
Download your free copy of iTunes today, and subscribe to our
free video podcasts with a click of
your mouse.
Student Activities
New to CultureGrams Online is our Teaching Activities PDF, which contains 50 lesson plans teachers can use to better incorporate the CultureGrams World, Kids, and States editions in the classroom.
Organized by grade level and activity type, these activities will challenge students’ creativity and develop their research and critical thinking skills. Each activity is correlated to national curriculum standards, and if you wish to expand a lesson plan, most activities offer an extension component. The PDF is accessible from the bottom navigation throughout the CultureGrams web site.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to take a look, be sure to access this useful new feature today.
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2. Did You Know? Tidbits from CultureGrams
- While as many as 50,000 Chinese characters exist, only about 8,000 are currently in use. Chinese requires a knowledge of 1,500 to 2,000 characters for basic literacy.
- A common Korean greeting is Annyong haseyo? (literally, “Are you at peace?”).
- Japanese place great worth on nonverbal language and communication. One is often expected to sense another person's feelings on a subject without verbal communication.
- In the Korean form of wrestling, called ssrom, contestants hold on to pieces of cloth tied around their opponent's legs during their match.
- Rural Mongolians often live in a ger (or yurt), a tent with a four- or five-piece wooden lattice, a roof frame, and a door. The ger is covered with one or more layers of sheep-wool felt and a white cloth.
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3. World Holidays
Holiday Focus: Bon Festival in Japan
New Year, Golden Week (29 April–5 May), and Bon Festival are Japan’s three major holiday seasons. Bon Festival takes place over several days in mid-August, with dates varying by region. During this time, people take vacations and return to their ancestral homes. They clean their ancestors’ graves and welcome visiting ancestral spirits with bonfires. It is also common to float lanterns on rivers and lakes to guide the ancestors back to the world of spirits.
World Holidays Featured This Month
Macedonia – Ilinden – August 2
Marks the anniversary of the Ilinden Uprising, a famous Macedonian revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1903.
Niger – Independence Day – August 3
Nigeriens plant trees to combat increasing desertification.
Barbados – Kadooment Day – first Monday in August
The culmination of the Crop Over Festival (June–early August), which celebrates the end of the sugarcane harvest. On Kadooment Day, trucks broadcasting calypso and other music follow bands (groups of people in brightly colored costumes) parading and dancing through the streets. The festivities include costume and music contests, street vendors, and craft displays.
Namibia – Heroes’ Day – August 26
For Owambo people, this holiday marks the beginning of the armed resistance to South Africa. For Herero people, it honors ancestors killed by German colonizers.
Slovakia – Slovak National Uprising Day – August 29
Commemorates the 1944 rebellion against the Nazis.
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4. Teaching Idea: Doing Business in Japan
Grade Level(s):
6–8
Objective:
Students will understand the differences between business customs in Japan and North America.
Curriculum standards:
National Standards for Geography
Human Systems
- Standard 11: The geographically informed person knows and understands the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth's surface.
Developed by the National Council for Geographic Education
Time Requirement:
Preparation: 30 minutes
In-class: 1 hour and 30 minutes, less if students read selections at home
Materials:
Instructions:
- Introduce this activity by discussing Japan’s role as a major contributor to the world economy. Have students access the BBC to find an article related to the Japanese economy. (For example, they can type “Japan” and “economy” into the Search field.)
- Ask students to read the CultureGrams Japan report, focusing on the question “What would a North American need to know to make a good impression in Japan?” Have them pay particular attention to the Greetings and Gestures section.
- Ask students to create a bullet-point list of what they feel are the “top-ten” most important things a North American business traveler should know before going to Japan. Lead a discussion on what the consequences might be if a business traveler failed to follow these customs.
- Extension Activity
Have students access the web site for the Japan National Tourist Organization. Ask students to find recommendations for tourist sites a business traveler could visit while in Japan.
How do you use CultureGrams and World Conflicts Today in your school? Submit your teaching ideas to our editors today, and your activity might show up in a future issue of this newsletter!
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5. Quiz
- What nation situated between India and China is locally called the “land of the dragon”?
- What is the only country in the world with Hinduism as its official state religion?
- At the end of what war was the Korean Peninsula divided into administrative zones that became North Korea and South Korea?
- What nation’s population is the world's largest, with 1.3 billion people?
- What former British colony reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997?
Answers
1) Bhutan. 2) Nepal. 3) World War II. 4) China.
5) Hong Kong.
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6. Featured Photo
The CultureGrams Photo Gallery contains hundreds of photos from around the globe. Look for more than 25 new country collections in the coming months. Highlighted here is a photo from our new Mali collection.
Women at Market Day: Men and women from dozens of different ethnic groups travel hundreds of kilometers to arrive each Monday in Djenné, where they buy and sell goods in one of Mali's most thriving weekly markets. Rural Malian women wear long wraparound skirts, blouses, and sandals. Most women keep their hair covered. Neatness and modesty are valued throughout the country. (Djenné, Mali, January 2005)
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7. In the News: Koizumi’s Visits to Yasukuni Shrine
Japan’s prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is widely expected to visit Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni Shrine one more time before stepping down as prime minister in September. Built in 1869, Yasukuni Shrine honors more than 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted war criminals from World War II.
The prime minister’s annual visits to the shrine have been an ongoing source of tension with Japan’s wartime enemies China and South Korea, who argue the shrine glorifies Japanese aggression. Koizumi has visited the shine five times since he became prime minister in 2001.
For many Japanese, the shrine is an important symbol of patriotism, but two recent surveys revealed that more than half of Japanese do not want their prime minister to visit the shrine, a feeling believed to stem from people’s dissatisfaction with Japan’s poor relations with its neighbors.
China has also been angered by Japanese school textbooks that, according to China, fail to properly acknowledge Japan’s World War II aggression. Koizumi has met with Chinese leaders in an effort to reduce tensions between the two nations, but he has been unwilling to compromise on his visits to the shrine, which he says allow him to pray for peace.
To learn more about Japan, access the Japan report in the CultureGrams World Edition.
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8. Email Service Information & Forwarding Tool
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Your ProQuest & CultureGrams Teams
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