A short documentary that can be screened on youtube for free that follows a young Ondekoza percussionist. It discusses the Soga Kuron, a philosophy that combines music and running, and how taiko drumming went from being performed as a part of a festival to staged performance art.
A video of Noh music that can be screened in class as an example of Japanese drama music. It can be used with the Forms of Japanese Drama article to help create a class discussion.
A brief article outlining the different forms of Japanese dramas and what makes them distinct, along with their origins. The website also provides ideas for a student exercise that include performing a drama, and how to do it with a larger or smaller group.
A brief, youth-friendly article that covers the history of Gagaku, different styles of Gagaku, and the instruments that accompany Gagaku. This can be used as a beginning reference for further research or assigned as a reading to Elementary grade levels 1-5.
An online resource that highlights art and events in different eras in Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, SE Asia, and South Asia, with a timeline that links to different resources that cover historical events and museum collections that provide information about pieces from different eras. It can be used as a basic timeline to begin research into periods of history, used to provide background information for historical periods, such as the Kofun period in Japan, or to find artifacts that can be used in class discussions.
An online library containing over 2,500 woodblock prints, including featured artists such as Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Sadahide, and Yoshiiku. The prints featured range from the 17th century to the 20th century and include depictions of daily life, landscapes, actors, women, scenes from Japanese literature, and foreigners. The large variety of prints available in the library provides an opportunity for students to explore and analyze different woodblock prints and their contents.
This fantastic collection of lesson plans from the East Asian Studies Center at The Ohio State University uses ukiyo-e (“Pictures of the Floating World,” or Japanese Woodblock Prints) to explore culture and travel along feudal Japan’s famous Tokaido Road connecting the imperial capital of Kyoto and the Shogun’s administrative capital of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Students use the classic collection “The Fifty Three Stations of the Tokaido” to learn historical skills, explore the relationship between culture and environment, and explore change over time. The included link features a wide-range of lesson plans, from Elementary Grades 1 – 3 all the way to high school.
This lesson plans highlights letters from Gen Z protesters participating the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) in Burma, as well as an original story from a Bamar girl’s perspective that follows the past and present of Burma. These letters were gathered by the students who joined the movement and founded the non-government media-platform People’s Radio Myanmar, then developed the letters into a lesson plan that covers history, social studies, and language arts. It provides different ideas for class activities, including readings with writing exercises that can be done in a group or individually.
This informational website created by the Imperial War Museums provides a brief history of the decolonization process of countries in South and Southeast Asia. This information complements the other sources as it completes the history of colonization in Southeast Asia, in particular, how each country was able to gain its independence. The website is well-suited for teachers planning world history units at an upper level course.
This educational website is provided by Pacific Atrocities Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness about the human rights violations and war crimes committed in the Asia-Pacific Theatre of World War II by the Japanese Imperial Army. It provides a brief but informative historical overview of Japan’s takeover of Southeast Asian countries during WWII and is great for middle and high school teachers as it provides related pictures, YouTube clips, and reference readings that can be used in class. [A continuation of the previous article with additional pictures, videos and readings provided.]
This educational website is provided by Pacific Atrocities Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness about the human rights violations and war crimes committed in the Asia-Pacific Theatre of World War II by the Japanese Imperial Army. It provides a brief but informative historical overview of Japan’s takeover of Southeast Asian countries during WWII and is great for middle and high school teachers as it provides related pictures, YouTube clips, and reference readings that can be used in class.
This page collects propaganda posters produced during the Second Sino-Japanese War (following Japan’s invasion of China in 1937). The bulk of the posters are produced by the Chinese Nationalist Party and focus on the need to continue defending China despite heavy losses (the Nationalist party of GMD was doing most of the fighting while the communists were camped in rural China). Some posters produced by Japan (or the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo) used anti-communist sentiments or praised the Japanese army . This source provides several posters with historical context that can be compared and contrasted for discussion purposes.
