Day 7- Claire

On day 7 of the Asia and Asian culture J-Term, we began the day with some videos. We watched a total of three videos, all about Chinese food. The first video was about all the different types of food that are made within China, and how the location affects the food. The videos were very interesting and helped us to understand how much location affects culture. The second video was about yin and yang and how you need to have an equal amount of both kinds of food to feel balanced. We discussed the different types of yin and yang foods, an example of a yin food would be apples or honey, and yang foods would be beef or alcohol. The third video was about the stereotype that the Chinese eat dogs. In the video, a few people of different ages were interviewed about their views of Chinese people and dog meat. There were questions about what they thought of people eating dog meat, and what they thought about how westerners react to the stereotype. After we reflected as a class about what we thought of the video, for example, we saw how the older man from the video had different views on the consumption of dog meat than the younger people.

Our second activity of the day was going to a Buddhist temple where we participated in meditation. We did three different mediations one standing up and moving our arms, one walking and then the final one sitting. All three of the meditations were very peaceful and relaxing. At the temple, we also learned about Buddhism and Buddhas three bodies, the Dharmakāya (ultimate reality), the Saṃbhogakāya (divine incarnation of Buddha), and the Nirmāṇakāya (physical incarnation of Buddha). After that, we watched a video about Buddha's life and his enlightenment, and how he thought of everyone as equal no matter what you do or how much money you had. We ended our temple visit by touring the garden outside of the temple. 

Then we went to lunch. We ate lunch as a group at Golden Dim Sum. Everyone shared the food and everything was delicious. After lunch, we stayed in the general area of the restaurant and did a Chinatown scavenger hunt. We split into 3 groups and we searched around in two strip malls, we looked for things like bubble tea houses and a dance school. We also had to find the most recent newspaper and translate the title, then bring it back to school. My group ended up getting second place. It was overall really fun and trying to find and take photos of the different places was quite engaging. We ended the day by heading back to the school where we reflected on the previous events.