Review on Class April 29th

1. How to sign up for tutorials

2. Points on Previous Blogs

3.Discussions
  a) Why would the textbooks write that Columbus was the first man to discover that the earth was round when it was so easy to prove he wasn't?
   
     Even if a lot of other sailers had known that the earth was round, there is no denying that Columbus's expedition itself did prove it. Also, the textbooks probably exaggerated a bit just because they wanted to make Columbus, the man who 'discovered' the great america, an even bigger heroic figure.
 
b) What culture do you think dominates yourself?
 
 This was a very interesting topic to discuss. I moved to the states when I was one years old and came back when I was just about to turn seven. Even though my stay there was not comparatively a long time, because I was at such a young age, my roots are rather American than Japanese. Sometimes I have trouble understanding the ways and culture of the Japanese society. However, if someone were to tell me that I would suddenly be moving to America for good, that would honestly intimidate me.  The tricky part of being a returnee is that we don't have a particular country that we feel is our home. We can love America but we will never be true Americans. We can live in Japan and also have a Japanese nationality but never love the country itself. My group members were talking about how there exists a returnee-culture. Returnees tend to have issues understanding their identities and never feel like they fit in. That kind of feeling and ways make up a whole new culture itself.

c) You cannot judge people based on the standards of today.

 If there were a segment on this blog that said quote of the day, this would be it. We cannot criticize people for having a biased opinion without putting some thought into what kind of age this person was living in. A great example of this would be a controversial topic that is being discussed still today; gay marriage. I remember the one time I asked my friend in Japan how she felt about it. She simply said that she thought it was disgusting. Now, I have no intentions on criticizing her for it was the way she was raised and the way the Japanese society is. However, 100 years from now (maybe 200), when hopefully gay marriage is legalized in every part of the world, people might criticize my friend for having such a view when in reality, it was completely normal at the time to think that way.
 All in all, we cannot think of every data as contemporary and need to dig a little deeper to understand each situation.