Holcombe Topics

 It is hard to believe that we are half way through the semester this week. Only seven more weeks to go and I will be going to Taiwan! Although we have been focusing on the text for our class Holcombe: A History of East Asia since the beginning of the semester, I feel like I am just starting to wrap my head around the information now. One of the things I was most surprised by in this class is the scope of history that one needs to be versed in just to comprehend the basis of East Asian Civilization.
      The information that has stuck out most to me from Holcombe is that of the dynasties, particularly the Qin and Tang Dynasties. I have attached a timeline below that resembles the one in the book. I liked this photo because it represents the dynasty timeline colorfully and pictorially.

      

      Holcombe refers to the Tang dynasty as the Italian Renaissance of the western world. It is represented in the text as a colorful period of enlightenment and as a golden age. I was able to see some remnants of this dynasty's spirit when we went to the Carnegie last weekend. The pottery from the era was colorful, glazed, and beautiful. This era occurred from 600 to 900 B.C which is about one-hundred years longer than the European Renaissance lasted.    

   







      The dynasty that I found most captivating in Holcombe was the Qin. We learned very early on in our class of how unpopular the Qin emperor was in China. However, I find it fascinating that an empire that lasted only about eighty years could imprint onto China some of the extraordinary world wonders that it did. As a westerner one of the first things that come to my mind when I think of China is The Great Wall and the Terra-cotta army of soldiers. Ironically, both byproducts of the extremely short lived Qin Dynasty.

Taiwan through Film

      I first saw The Life of Pi about two months ago during my Christmas break. While I found the plot line to be a little far fetched that a human and a tiger could survive in a lifeboat together for months on end, I still found the story to be visually and emotionally captivating.  I am an aspiring film designer, so I find interest in not only American movies, but also films from other cultures. I knew that The Life of Pi had been filmed in a studio as well as some remote area, but I had no idea that it was filmed in Taichung Taiwan! My East Asian Studies professor, Dr. Kingsbury, sent our class a link to an insightful article on the film's director Ang Lee, why he chose to film in Taiwan, and interesting things that the cast and crew did while they were there. http://www.taiwaninsights.com/tag/3d-water-studio/ 
      one of the interesting parallels that I drew in the article was between Taichung and Pittsburgh as locations for films. Over the last several years Pittsburgh has been a hub for filmmaking due to the tax credits that films can get for shooting here. Therefore, we have had many big movies that have filmed here such as Batman, The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, and The Promised Land. The article intrigued me to find out more about Taichung's relation to the film industry in Taiwan and if other films have been shot in this particular city. Also, the article mentions the state of the art wave pool studio that was built for The Life of Pi. In addition to this studio I was wondering if the film makers used any outdoor locations in Taiwan, particularly near the city of Taichung.    

East Asian Artifacts at the Carnegie

Over the past weekend I took a trip with my East Asian Studies class to the Carnegie Museum. The Carnegie is in Oakland; a neighborhood of Pittsburgh where many of Pittsburgh's college universities are located. The Carnegie Museum has a wide assortment of artwork and historical pieces. The East Asian artifacts are in a gallery mixed with artifacts from other ancient cultures such as Greek, Roman, and Egyptian. One of the things that was the most astonishing to me about the pieces was their intricacy despite their age.
       The first glass encasement that we looked at contained artifacts predominantly from the Zhou dynasty. It is amazing to think that some of these articles were made more than 1,000 years B.C.. Before Western culture became fully developed, China was already a sprawling empire.

                   
      

                   
As we made our way through the exhibit the next pieces that really caught my eye were from the Ming Dynasty, approximately from 1279 to 1644 A.D. I was perplexed by how much one of the bowls reminded me of western culture, particularly art nouveaux. The colors on the bowl were glazed and the flower design was captivating. Although very beautiful, compared to the other ceramic pieces I saw this one seemed more casual, informal, and perhaps even modern.  I would be interested to know if the phenomenon of Parisian art nouveaux was a later result of Ming Dynasty ceramics. What do you think? 


 

My Identity in Pittsburgh

      As a senior in my last semester of college, I have spent my time at Chatham University majoring in interior architecture and minoring in French. I am originally from a small town called Elizabeth that is about an hour from Pittsburgh. It has always been a dream of mine to use my degree to work in the film industry as a production designer. In other words, I want to design sets for movies. In the fall of 2013 I applied to The American Film institute as well as New York University to further pursue a career in production design. In addition to my love of art and design I am also a musician. In my free time I enjoy singing, playing guitar, drawing, and horseback riding. Fun fact, I have two dogs named bear and Chloe whom I love dearly!

      

      Pittsburgh is a lively city in South Western Pennsylvania. It rests at the point between two rivers, the Allegheny River to the North, and the Monogahela River to the South. In the photo above I am sitting on the bank of the Allegheny River. The geography around Pittsburgh is very beautiful with the rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains and lush vegetation in the summertime. 

     Each of the neighborhoods in Pittsburgh have their own distinct personalities. One of my favorite places is the neighborhood of East Liberty. East Liberty was recently revitalized and there are now many retail spaces, shops, and restaurants there. My favorite restaurant in East Liberty is called Paris 66. It is a little bistro where I can get French food. I like it because It reminds me of the time I spent in Paris studying French, and you can get great desserts there!