TEACHING GUIDE Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project A Film by Barre Fong Teaching Guide by Christopher B. Lowman Trailer: https://vimeo.com/326082052 Full-length film: https://cangdong.stanford.edu/documentary-film This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. Table of Contents 1. Using the Teaching Guide in Undergraduate Classes .......................................1 2. About the Film ............................................................................................ 2 3. Cangdong Village: Historical Background ..................................................... 4 4. Summary of Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project ........................................... 7 5. Discussion Topics and Class Activities .......................................................... 13 Part I. General Interest ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������14 Part II. Archaeology Methods and Interpretation ......................................... 20 6. Sample Curriculum: Chinese Diaspora Archaeology .....................................24 7. Key Terms and Ideas ....................................................................................28 8. Further Reading and Resources ....................................................................30 1. Using the Teaching Guide in Undergraduate Classes This study guide will help instructors plan discussions and activities using Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project. The guide is designed for use in undergraduate teaching and focuses on content in the social sciences. The guide includes a short section about the film and filmmaker, historical background for instructors or students to read prior to the film, a film summary for instructor preparation, a section devoted to discussion exercises and classroom activities, and a sample curriculum unit on Chinese diaspora archaeology. The discussion questions and activities contribute to learning objectives commonly listed for classes such as Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Material Culture Studies, and Introduction to Asian American Studies. Instructors are encouraged to focus on those discussion exercises and classroom activities most relevant to their course. Both Making Ties and the affiliated website, https://cangdong.stanford.edu/, are fully bilingual in English and Chinese (simplified), making them useful resources for courses with students with Chinese language backgrounds. Making Ties can be taught as a stand-alone class session. For one-hour classes, students can be assigned to watch the film in advance, with class time reserved for discussion and activities. For 90-minute and two-hour class meetings (or, two one-hour class meetings), the 55-minute film can be shown at the beginning, with the remaining time used for discussion and activities. Field resesarchers at Cangdong Village 1 2. About the Film Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project documents a collaborative research program studying the home villages of Chinese migrants. The project exemplifies the possibilities of transnational and interdisciplinary research, involving historians, architectural historians, archaeologists, folklife specialists, botanists, and zoologists from the United States and China as well as members of the Cangdong Village community today. Incorporating interviews, historical photographs, satellite imagery, and footage from fieldwork, laboratory, and archival research, the film records the research process of an archaeological project. This process begins with the collaborative development of research questions, continues with survey and excavation methods, and concludes with the analysis of recovered materials and the integration of this new information into narratives about the past. The film’s combination of historical information and documentation of research and field practices make it an ideal classroom teaching tool for undergraduate-level introductory courses in multiple disciplines within the social sciences. Filmmaker Barre Fong is a fourth generation Chinese-American and San Francisco native. Barre’s activities as a filmmaker and community activist is an embodiment of his grandfather’s dream of preserving his own experience as a turn-of-the-century Chinese immigrant. He previously served as the President of the Board of Directors for the Chinese Historical Society of America and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Lick-Wilmerding High School. He has produced and directed short films about the Asian American experience since 2013, including Digging to Chinatown (2016) and Finding the Virgo (2018). 2 2. About the Film Film Access Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs liscense. This means you are free to distribute the film for any non-commercial purpose, including teaching. Making Ties can be streamed from two web locations: https://cangdong.stanford.edu/documentary-film https://vimeo.com/325737738 To download the film, go to: https://vimeo.com/325737738. Below the film streaming window towards the right, click on “download.” Vimeo.com will ask you to select the desired file size. Closed Captions Making Ties is closed captioned in both Chinese and English. To view the captions, click on the closed captioning (“CC”) logo on the bottom right of the video frame. You will be able to select from “English (United States) CC,” “中文（简体中文）,” or “None.” 3 3. Cangdong Village: Historical Background The Cangdong Village Project investigates the material practices of Cangdong Village residents during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a time when many Chinese people migrated from their homeland and created new communities around the world. Nineteenth-century Chinese Migration During the mid-nineteenth century, a combination of European imperialist interests, internal political unrest, and natural disasters caused widespread conflicts and displacement in southern China. This pushed many residents of the region to consider seeking new ways to support themselves and their families by moving abroad. Southern China’s large port cities, including Guangzhou (then called Canton), Macao, and Hong Kong, gave the people of that region means to seek economic opportunities in other countries. Over the course of the nineteenth century, more than 2.5 million people left China to live and work abroad in places like the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. This migration resulted in the formation of the Chinese diaspora. In nineteenth-century North America, Chinese migrants worked in a variety of industries, including railroad construction, mining, logging, fishing, and agriculture. Many Chinese migrants established businesses. Often described in historical records as “merchants,” these entrepreneurs developed a wide range of enterprises that included labor contracting, manufacturing, handcraft production, and import/export companies as well as mercantile stores. The majority of nineteenth-century migrants were young men, due to both gender roles in China as well as laws restricting Chinese women from immigrating to countries like the United States. However, some Chinese women did emigrate, and their experiences and contribution are an important focus of current research. Many Chinese migrants formed split households that included migrants living abroad (usually young men) and parents, wives, and children living in their home village in China. Clan, district, and business organizations also connected migrants living abroad with communities in China. 4 3. Cangdong Village: Historical Background These transnational ties, which often persisted for generations, forged deep family and social connections between Chinese living abroad and home villages in the Pearl River Delta. Chinese living abroad also sent remittances—a transfer of money by a foreign worker to individuals in their home country—which provided economic support to those who remained in China. Qiaoxiang: Chinese Migrants’ Home Villages The flow of remittances and foreign cultural influences led to major changes in the economy, architecture, and social structures of villages in the Pearl River Delta. These became known as qiaoxiang (侨乡), home villages transformed through migrants’ support. The distinctive culture and architecture of qiaoxiang, especially the tall watchtowers (diaolou 碉楼), is recognized through designation of the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages UNESCO World Heritage Site (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1112). Star Anise architectural motif at Cangdong Village 5 3. Cangdong Village: Historical Background Cangdong Village Project Cangdong Village is a rural qiaoxiang located in the Pearl River Delta Region within Kaiping County in Guangdong Province. At the time of the residents’ first migrations to the United States in the 1850s, it was home to over 400 people, predominantly members of the Xie clan. Today, the village has about 50 residents, and continues to be a place for Xie clan members to visit in order to honor their ancestors and connect with their heritage. Village residents established the Cangdong Heritage Education Center to preserve and celebrate qiaoxiang culture and heritage. In 2014, researchers at the Guangdong