Jackard wrote:Tonkyhonk wrote:give a simple account of western history from Rome to Revolution or even know the names and order of the planets in the solar system,
ouch again
Out of curiosity, what would be the equivalent of this for Eastern universities? Do they prefer india/china over rome for their ancient civilizations?
mind you, i can only speak of one in my own country, and im sure it shall be different elsewhere.
not quite sure to call what im going to write here as "the equivalent", since universities do expect all (or most) students to have learned basic western history, from ancient Greece to, lets say, Industrial revolution. however, i hope it is okay to say that it would be considered more important for us to know Chinese history here.
there exists a (parody) song to memorize the
Chinese Dynasties in a correct order, from Shang (could be changed to Xia lately) to Qing, and we all are expected (and forced
) to learn them well. not only the names of those dynasties of course, but also some major emperors, wars, events, and historical geography as well.
it is so important to know Chinese history and its timeline because it is also about our own hisotry in a way. our history is very connected that we cannot take them apart. it is also important when we learn our own literature, and our Japanese classes contain some ancient chinese texts partly, such as
Four Books and Five Classics/四書五経 (mainly Confucius books including poetry), some other ancient chinese philosophy books such as
Laozi,
Zhuangzi,
Han Feizi, your favorite Sun Tzu, and some ancient history books as well. (no, we dont read them all, we only pick bits and pieces from each and learn general ideas. moreover, learning those doesnt make us speak/write neither ancient nor modern Chinese at all.)
on the other hand, we do not learn much about India or any other asian countries except for Korea. (well, Mongolia too, but mostly when it ruled China, as a part of Chinese history.) Ancient India was very important for our people in ancient days, but it was rather regarded as a heaven or utopia, and it was studied all through chinese/korean eyes with their translations. (back in old days, a very few managed to actually visit ancient India/Nepal for pilgrimage, like your people visit Jerusalem)
one important thing to note here, however, is many japanese students dont learn enough to know the difference even between Confucius and Sun Tzu, even though most recognize (they know they have heard of) all those names.
tbt, i, too, had no idea how different they were when i was a low-teen, only tried to learn whatever needed for exams and wasted time.
