PROMPT 1: The Evolution, Migration, and Diversification of Human Cultures

Reading: Alfred Crosby, “Pangaea Revisited”

1. What was Pangaea? When did it exist? What was special about it (in Crosby 's story)? When did it begin to break apart? Why should we care?

2. What does Crosby say about human evolution? Specifically, when did hominids first appear? When did our species first appear? What sets humans apart from other animals (this has something to do with question three as well)?

3. What does the term "culture" mean to Crosby ? Why is culture so significant?

4. When did people move into Europe and Asia ? Australia ? The Americas (in Crosby 's view)? 

5. How were the peoples in the Americas isolated?

6. What was the Neolithic Revolution -- by definition? That is, when did it start, when did it end?

7. What happened during the Neolithic Revolution?

PROMPT 2: Debating Cultural Differences: The Last 13,000 Years

Reading: Jared Diamond, “Why Did Human History Unfold Differently on Different Continents for the Last 13,000 Years?” and J.M. Blaut, “Environmentalism and Eurocentrism”

Jared Diamond's interpretation of world history has become increasingly popular over the last decade. His book Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 1998, and he now has a popular PBS television series to boot. There are, however, a number of historians and social scientists who view Diamond's environmental explanations as little more than window-dressing for the traditional story of the "Rise of the West" and European exceptionalism.

What do you think about Diamond's work? As you reflect on it, answer the following questions.

1. What are Diamond's principal arguments?

2. What does he believe the ultimate and proximate factors driving world history have been?

3. How does J.M. Blaut criticize Diamond's argument?

4. After reading Diamond and Blaut, what conclusions can you make?

PROMPT 3:  Understanding Cultural Interactions

Culture touches and alters all dimensions of our lives. It effects our personality, how we express ourselves (showing emotion, communication, etc), the problems we see and don't see, the way problems are solved, how cities are planned, how transportation systems function, what economic and governmental systems we construct, and countless other matters.

1. What is a culture? What is the relationship between culture and other demarcations of humans such as nations/races/ethnic groups/languages? (e.g., does “American culture” mean the same thing as “the USA ”? Is Chinese culture only in the People's Republic of China ?)

2. How do you know if a belief or practice is really cultural, or simply common at the present time?

3. How do cultures and their beliefs and practices change? Can we speak of "development" or "progress" within a culture? What does it mean to say that a culture has “progressed”? Is this a valid way of talking?

4. Some people believe that the planet earth is moving toward a global culture, one which is not specifically Japanese, Chinese, Western, etc…but one which is genuinely “global.” Do you agree with this? Should we have a "global culture”? What would be lost/gained if we did?

5. What skills would you include in a list of cross cultural competencies, abilities that would make a person better able to accept and function harmoniously with persons of different cultures?

PROMPT 4: Analyzing Cultural Interactions

Select one of the intercultural interactions in your binder. Analyze each of the possible explanations given at the end of the example and take a position on which is the best explanation for what happened. Defend your view and show how the other explanations have flaws or inadequacies.

PROMPT 5: Early Hawaiians and Hawaiian Identity Sites Fieldtrip to Heiaus

Reading: "Hawaiian Religious Beliefs and Practices" and "The Arrival of the Missionaries"

Fieldtrip: Nauuanu Pali Lookout, Pali Heiau, Missionary Houses

The interactions between religious beliefs are always an important part of the conflict of cultures. Consider the three most important components of Hawaiian religion: the priest (kahuna), the heiau, and the rituals. How did this system interlock to negotiate the passages of human life and in what ways do you think that the Westerners (specifically the Americans) found this system to be alien? Were there any overlapping features of common ground between the system of Christian belief and practice brought by the Americans and those of the native Hawaiian belief system?

PROMPT 6: The Polynesian Culture Center

Readging: Terry Webb, "Highly Structured Tourist Art: Form and Meaning of the Polynesian Cultural Center."
Fieldtrip: Polynesian Culture Center

Relying on your reading of Terry Webb, "Highly Structured Tourist Art: Form and Meaning of the Polynesian Cultural Center ," offer an account of the ways in which we read cultures through our own lens. Which of the following terms do you think best portrays what happens at the Polynesian Cultural Center and why do you choose the concept(s) you do: distort, revise, portray, extend, interpret, modify. Use examples of what you see, hear, and experience at the Center to support your position.

PROMPT 7: Captain James Cook and Hawaii

Listening: Tony Horowitz, Blue Latitudes: Going Boldly Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before .
Reading: Clifford Geertz, “Culture War,” New York Review of Books, Vol. 42, Nm. 19 ( November 30, 1995). 

In his book, Blue Latitudes, Tony Horowitz discusses the story of Captain James Cook and his impact on Hawaii.

1. Who was James Cook and what was so special about the three voyages he took to the Pacific?

2. Why are Cook and Hawaii closely linked in the historical record?

3. What do you make of Horowitz's story about Gary, New England Churchmen, and Rev. Sheldon Dibble? (discussed in the audio file: 24:13 - 31:18)

a. Who was Gary and what did Horowitz's party initially think of him?
b. What was Gary really doing?
c. What were Gary 's feelings about Cook?
d. How did Gary 's feelings mirror those of New England Churchmen and Rev. Sheldon Dibble?
e. What was Horowitz's point in telling this story?

4. What do you make of the debate between anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Gananath Obeyesekere (discussed in the audio file at 32:14 – 37:48 and in Clifford Geertz's essay, “Culture War”).

a. What are Sahlins's main points of argument?
b. What are Obeyesekere's main points of argument?
c. Who do you find more convincing and why?

5. Finally, how does Horowitz describe the events of February 14, 1779 ? What ironies does he find? What “strange circumstances” complicate the historical record? ( discussed in the audio file at 59:46 – 1:10:50 )

PROMPT 8: American Missions and Businesses in Native Hawaii

Reading: “Rise of Sugar,” “Sugar and Pineapple,” “Plantation Life,” “Labor Struggles,” “Sanford Dole,” “James Dole,” “Lorrin Thurston,” and “Overthrow of Monarchy”

Fieldtrip: Dole Plantation | Haleiwa town | Waimea Falls | Sunset Beach

1. When did sugar production begin in Hawaii ?
2. How did sugar and pineapple production lead to increased immigration to Hawaii ?
3. Who came to Hawaii to work on sugar and pineapple plantations? How were workers treated?
4. What did Sanford Dole's father do?
5. What political ideas did Sandford Dole advocate?
6. What was the "Bayonet Constitution"?
7. Who was Lorrin Thurston?
8. What was the Committee of Safety?
9. When did Sandford Dole become President of the Republic of Hawai'i ?
11. When was Hawaii annexed and by which president?
12. What was Sandford Dole's position under the new Territory of Hawaii ?
13. How as James Dole related to Sandford Dole?
14. Who bought the island of Lana'i and converted it into a pineapple plantation?
15. What was the relationship between missions, business, and the Americanization of Hawaii?

PROMPT 9: The Japanese and Hawaii: The Family Game

View Film: The Family Game ( Kazoku Game ) 1983.

Film Information: The Family Game ( Kazoku Game ) 1983. Directed by Yoshimitsu Morita. Circle Films. Characters: Shigeyuki Numata--the unmotivated teen; Yohimoto--the tutor; Shinichi--brother at Seibu High School; Father--Shigeyuki's father; Mother--Shigeyuki's mother

1. How do you think the movie portrays the Japanese family and what do you think is the purpose of the movie? How is getting an education portrayed in this movie? How is self-image and worth in Japan related to where one is educated and how one is doing in school?

2. When Shinichi talks about Shigeyuki's bad relationship with a classmate he says, "They know each other's weak points." Can you detect this interpersonal strategy operating in other interpersonal dynamics portrayed in the film?

3. What purpose was served by the young wife who lived in the apartment building and came to visit Shigeyuki's mother?

4. What is the meaning of the end of the film?

PROMPT 10: The Japanese and Hawaii: Rhapsody in August

View Film: Rhapsody in August (Hachi-gatsu no kyôshikyoku) . 1991. Directed by Akira Kurosawa.

The film undertakes to reveal Japanese attitudes over three generations with regard to an important event: the Nagasaki bombing.

1. How would you characterize the understanding of the Japanese with respect to American sensibilities about Nagaskai?

2. Are the Japanese views the same for all three of the generations portrayed?

3. Based on what “they” think about how “we” feel, what extrapolations and interpretations would you make about how “they” feel about Pearl Harbor ?

PROMPT 11: Perspectives on the Pacific War

View Film: Prelude to War
Reading: “Public History and Globalization: Ethnography at the USS Arizona Memorial,” "Taking Liberties," and "Patterns of a Race War"
Fieldtrip: U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

Based on your reading and your visit to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial answer the following questions.

1. Why did John Dower call the Pacific War a race war?

2. What is the primary story you encounted at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial? Be as specific and descriptive as you can.

3. Who visits the memorial? What are the ages and ethnicities of the people you saw?

4. Why do you think the people you saw were visiting the memorial?

5. From your reading, what stories were not told at the memorial?

PROMPT 12: Japanese Religious Sites

Reading: "Japanese Aesthetics," "Understanding Japanese Interpersonal Values," and "The Japanese in Hawai'i"
Fieldtrip: Japanese Shinto Temple, Byodo-In Temple, Japanese Garden

1. In what ways are Japanese aesthetic sensibilities inseparable from religious ones?

2. What experiences and observations did you make at our field sites that support your position?

3. What differences in religious understandings between the predominating Japanese traditions and Western (i.e., specifically, American) Christianity are suggested by this interrelationship?

PROMPT 13: Japanese Culture and Aesthetics

Considering the Haiku poems in your reading, respond to these questions.

1. How can “nobody” be a name and also mean “no body” as in “no thing”?

2. What is the double meaning of the boy's hand turning white and of the falling snow?

3. How are these Haiku representative of the core values of Japanese aesthetics?

PROMPT 14: Confucianism and the Shaping of Chinese Culture

View Film: To Live (Huozhe) 1994.

Film Information: To Live (Huozhe) 1994. Directed by Zhang Yimou. Winner Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor, 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Samuel Goldwyn/Era International/Shanghai Film Studios. Characters: Fugui--the puppet master; Jiazhen--Fugui's wife; Fengxia--Fugui's and Jiazhen's daughter; Youquing--Fugui's and Jiazhen's son; Chunsheng--Fugui's war-time friend; Long-er--Fugui's gambling opponent who wins the Xu home; Wan Erxi--Fengxia's crippled husband; Mr. Niu--the communist cadre leader.

1. How does the movie portray traditional Chinese moral values as you understand them (e.g., filial piety, harmony, face, diligence and hard work, self-cultivation)?

2. How is there a Chinese philosophy of life reflected in this film and its title?

3. What is this philosophy of life?

4. Is it related to the idea of yin/yang or the correlative movement of life?

5. How is it related to the way the family lives through the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution?

PROMPT 15: Excursion to Chinatown

Fieldtrip: Chinatown, Honolulu

Honolulu 's Chinatown is bounded by N. Nimitz Highway, AALA Triangle Park, Vineyard Blvd., and Bethel Street.

1. On your excursion into Chinatown, locate on a map of your own making the following places: Oahu Market, Cultural Plaza, Foster Gardens, Chinatown Gateway Plaza, Mr. C's Chinatown Garage Fill Up & Go Bar, Ming's Antiques, Sun-Yat Sen statue, Guan Yin Temple and Fook Sou Tong.

2. Find and identify on your map at least one of each of the following: a restaurant, a flower shop, a pharmacy, a barber shop, a beauty shop, and arts and gifts shops on Nuuanu, a grocery store, a bank.

3. For your blog, reflect on how Chinatown was a self-contained community, a sort of culture within a culture. Why was this necessary, if it was? What did (does) it contribute to cultural identity, if anything? What were the implications of such a phenomenon in American history? How has this dynamic changed if it has? Use your field experiences in your response.

4. For example, what sort of people did you see in Chinatown, what were they doing, what they were speaking, what they were reading. Visit one of the traditional medicine and acupuncture shops. Inquire of the pharmacist about a couple of ailments and ask what might be good to take (be responsible and mature in this inquiry). Or, ask whether he/she has an acupuncture chart available. There are shops on Maunakea Street, Nuuanu, Beretania, and King. Consider how this experience is alike and different from a mainstream American pharmacy.

PROMPT 16: Food and Meals as a Cultural Experience

Fieldtrip: Chinatown, Honolulu

We will go to a restaurant in Chinatown which serves traditional Chinese dishes in the Chinese manner. Provide an account of how eating and taking a meal is itself a cultural experience. Consider whether the menu is in English or another language (or if there are two menus available), how the food is prepared, what kind of food there is, how much food there is, how it is served, how the meal is eaten and with what kinds of utensils, the order in which things are served, and the whole view of the meal and eating process itself and its role in daily human life. Compare what you find out with the way in which your own culture thinks of these same issues.

PROMPT 17: Yellow Girls

View Film: Yellow Girls

Begin your reflection with two generalizations that express what you feel to be the basic lessons we can gain from the short essays by the yell-oh girls. Then, explain how and why you think these generalizations are the best way to think of what they have to say about their experience as cross cultural women. Make references to the specific accounts as appropriate.

PROMPT 18: America and Globalization

1. Look over the reading which gives a brief overview of China on Human Rights in the U.S. What was your general impression of the points the Chinese make about American society? What historical and political principles underlie the features of American society that the Chinese believe actually restrict human rights and undermine a peaceful society? What features of Chinese society minimize the appearance of the sorts of socio-political problems they see in American society?

2. Hawaii Experience, Michael Jordan, Global Capitalism