书城文学在鹰眼的那些记忆
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第17章 Finding out Chinese in American Study

To finish the course entirely and get a final score for American study needs you to study for three trimesters in all.The big thick text- book is involved with the history from Columbus discovering North America to the year which George W.Bush was on presidency.The book is detailed as much as possible and added with some of the world history affecting the United States under a certain situation.Among them。China was a coumtry,with certain interactions with the United States.For more than once,Chinese history was mentioned in class,in-cluding the revolutionary war,the foundation of the whole nation andthe relation with Soviet Union and Vietnam during cold war.Every time China was introduced in class,we Chinese students were always asked by Mr。Gross to talk about how we learnt about the events in China and how we thought of it as a Chinese.Although I couldn’t explain some of the sophisticated circumstances clearly,I thought they did listen care-fully with respects.After all,China is a big country with a rich culture attracting considerable pubic attention all over the world.

Mao tsu tong,as the text translates as,is a great hero also in American people’s mind.I heard people saying that certain amount ofbooks keep discussing this character over the recent years.The premier Zhou Fand at the time was also well known by American people.Notuntil I got to take Ameriean study did I realize that Chinese history was quite a central topic in the world today.In my point of view,the phe-no wenon of keeping commenting on this is not necessarily a symboliza-tion of so called critics or praises.It is just a common focus on China from the worth today.Commenting on things they think necessary is an important part of AmeI’icans learning history there.Abilities to read and comment acquired through American study enables students to get ex-posure to a broader room for speculation.That is how American social study differs from what we do in Chinese hi story which more singularlyemphasizes the incidents that had taken place but not how we would view it today.American study is a course which not only offers plat-forms for students to enhance understanding of the past but also eapa-bilities to compose and express.Each way of teaching has its different intention.Nevertheless,Americans seem more interested in inspiring students to cogitate about hi story.What Chinese more intentionally fo-eus on is the procedure of making students understand how history was preceded to form.I believe that all these distinctive educational con-cepts are the results of cultural and historical difierences.