Geographic Gateways to Seeing and Understanding Korea
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RESOURCES ESSAYS 4. Susan Hanley, Everyday Things in Premodern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 51–76. Geographic Gateways to seeing 5. See Mikiso Hane, Premodern Japan: A Histor- by David Nemeth ical Survey (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), and Understanding Korea 52–54, 74–82, and W. Scott Morton, Japan: Its History and Culture, 3rd Ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 36–37, 61–63, for an introduction to important Buddhist sects that came to Japan during the Heian and Kamakura his article introduces what I call a Whose margin fades periods. “Gateways” approach to teaching For ever and for ever when I move. 6. See Martin Collcutt, Marius Jansen, and Isao about places, and uses Korea as its Tennyson’s “arches” are enticements to Kumakura, Cultural Atlas of Japan (New example. I developed the Gateways discovery; Gateways through which a York: Facts on File, 1988), 105, for a useful T approach around the assumption that popular teacher can lead a room full of curious stu- map of these attacks. 7. John Keay, The Honourable Company: A His- support for geography in the schools is, and dents toward vicarious and participatory tory of the English East India Company (New always has been, rooted in its ability to repro- experiences in imaginary places. The York: MacMillan, 1991), 52–60. duce in the classroom the vicarious experi- teacher’s challenge is to offer to take stu- 8. David L. Howell, Capitalism from Within: ence of geographical exploration. I take the dents somewhere interesting—for example, Economy, Society, and the State in a Japanese mainstays of the popularity of geographical to the Korean peninsula—and to facilitate a Fishery (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 28. exploration to be a combination of human classroom conversation that can keep them 9. Amino Yoshihiko, Rereading Japanese Histo- curiosity and mobility. On this basis, I sug- moving on the momentum of their own sus- ry, Alan Christy, trans. (Ann Arbor: University gest that teaching geography in the classroom tained curiosity. of Michigan, 1996), 1–22. might try to be more of a “moving” experi- Since humans are naturally curious, the 10. Howell, 35. ence as it seeks to increase its popularity and potential already exists to get the class moti- 11. Howell, 45. effectiveness among contemporary students. vated, that is, moving. To do this, the 12. Kayano Shigeru, Our Land Was a Forest: An My model for the Gateways approach to teacher need not tell the student that he or Ainu Memoir, Kyoko Selden and Lili Selden, trans. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), 60. teaching is a hypertext environment, for she is entering a strangers’ world, for that See also Oswald Iten, “Japan’s Injustice to the example, that complex hypertext world creat- might cool their curiosity by triggering their Ainu,” Swiss Review of World Affairs, Febru- ed by tens of thousands of people with home unwanted and unnecessary caution and hesi- ary 1996, 15–20, for more information on the pages on the Internet. The Internet has moti- tation. One reason that exploration on the Ainu. vated curious students everywhere to enter Internet is so enticing to students is that it 13. Shigeru, 23–36. 14. See, for example, Shim sh¬ k¬t¬ chizu. (Tokyo: into those infinitely digressive explorations creates a romantic illusion that they them- Teikoku Shoin, 1995), 85, and Global Access. we term “surfing the web,” and it is this type selves are the strangers; invisible strangers Tokyo (Shobunsha, 1996), 29. Japan considers of journey through hypertext-like Gateways moving from place to place. This illusion Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai that I explore in this article. advantages a sense of anonymity and immu- islands as “Japan’s Northern Territories.” See Of all the senses that can be exploited by a nity that empowers Internet users to enjoy a Jacquelyn Johnson and Lynn Parisi, Faces of Japan II (Lakewood, Colorado: Pacific Moun- teacher during a class on place geography, more enriching journey in cyberspace. How- tain Network, 1990), 23–24. The maps on these the most underrated and underutilized may ever, using the Internet is not the same as pages clarify the Japan Ministry of Foreign be the sense of movement itself—the kinetic learning from the Internet. Affairs’ position on the sovereignty of these sense. The Gateways approach to teaching islands. about places, therefore, is characterized best Gateways empower 15. See Kären Wigen, The Making of a Japanese teachers in classrooms Periphery, 1750–1920 (Berkeley: University of by its attempt to annihilate as much as possi- The classroom has something important that California Press, 1995), for a thorough histori- ble the distance between the student in the the Internet still lacks as a learning environ- cal geography of the Ina Valley in southern classroom and another place. The Gateways ment—the teacher. Adapting the hypertext Nagano Prefecture. approach to teaching about places creates an environment to a classroom situation is a 16. See E. Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women illusion that a student can not only experi- real challenge and opportunity for geogra- in the Thread Mills of Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), for a com- ence another place firsthand without leaving phy teachers. This is because the traditional plete study of treatment against workers. the classroom, but that the student is also in classroom, though it persists as the standard 17. Wigen, 151. control of the experience as it unfolds. institutional learning environment, is being 18. See Hardwick and Holtgrieve, Geography for Educators, 314–321, for more good ideas about What is thetennyson’s Gateways approach, arches and how teaching the geography of Japan. Glenn T. Tre- does it create this illusion? For an inspira- wartha, Japan: A Geography (Madison: Uni- DAVID “Jim” NEMETH teaches “Geography versity of Wisconsin Press, 1965), includes tional insight into the idea behind the of Asia” in the Department of Geography many useful tables that teachers can compare method, we can turn to that great poetic ode and Planning, University of Toledo. He is a with current data, such as those found in the to exploration, “Ulysses,” by Alfred Lord cultural geographer whose teaching and Keizai Koho Center’s booklet, Japan: An Inter- Tennyson (1809–92), in which he writes: research interests in Korea began with Peace national Comparison (Tokyo,1997). Corps service on Cheju Island during the For all experience is an arch early 1970s. He is the author of The Architec- where through ture of Ideology: New-Confucian Imprinting on Gleams the untravell’d world Cheju Island, Korea (1987). 47 RESOURCES ESSAYS elaborating (with fore- the classroom “journey” proceeds, Gateway KOREA thought, or ad hoc) on by Gateway. Now I will turn to the Korean student experiences dur- example to demonstrate how the Gateways GATEWAYS IN THE LANDSCAPE (Moving northward from Halla Mountain ing their journeys approach works. to Paekdu Mountain) through Gateways to other places. The Gatewaysa place approach liKe is Korea humbly inquisi- 1. Halla Mountain In particular, the Gate- tive to the extent that it assumes any place ways approach offers like the Korean Peninsula is not a complete, 2. an ancestral tomb 13 teachers and students the knowable entity, but a mysterious “black opportunity to learn to box” about which interesting stories can be 3. a walking tractor understand and appreci- told. This does not mean that Korea— ate a place “conditional- though long stereotyped by outsiders as a 4. a pigsty-privy ly” as well as “with cer- “Hermit Kingdom”—is any more or less tainty.” This opportunity mysterious or scrutable than other places. 5. a diving woman to enrich teaching Rather, it implies that any place is approach- 12 through the Gateways able through myriad Gateways as a mysteri- 6. the old 11 approach as an interpre- ous and exciting exploration. In each case star-gazing Pavilion 10 tive art as well as an the teacher “enters” the black box through explanatory science is selected Gateways of his or her own choos- 7. magpies 9 appropriate to the spirit ing, enticing the students in the classroom to of infinitely digressive follow “as if” on a journey, and to make 8. kimch’i pots explorations. It gives comments and ask questions along the way. 8 geography teachers more My own choices of Gateways to seeing and 9. Seoul City’s creative flexibility than understanding Korea are inspired by my 7 condominium towers if they preoccupied studies of and experiences in Korea over a 6 themselves mainly with period of three decades. 10. the DMZ teaching “the geography In my example, I have created thirteen of a place” using more Gateways—thirteen peepholes and creep- 11. P’y`ongyang City traditional and straight- holes in the black box called “Korea”—in forward approaches (for order to entice students to look inside and 12. Tan’gun’s shrine example, rote memoriza- wander about and discuss. These Gateways 5 tion). reveal and advantage my own long-term 13. Paekdu Mountain interests, experiences, and research proclivi- 1 2 3 4 Gateways ties as a student of Korean geography. How- empower ever, teaching about Korean geography by stUdents Figure 1. Thirteen selected Gateways for seeing and The Gateway approach is an especially entering through Gateways facilitates understanding Korea. timely and effective teaching tool in a multi- digressions into conditions and issues that cultural classroom because it aims at educat- most traditional systematic or topical geo- ing through empowering students. The graphies of Korea also cover, e.g. physical, rapidly reshaped by social and technological worst of geography classroom lectures, no social, economic, cultural, political, environ- change—as are the role and autonomy of the matter how profusely illustrated with media mental, and so on.