Forwarded from 📡Guardians of Hong Kong
Japanese Universities Use Liu Xiaobo’s "Charter 08" as Chinese Teaching Material
In 2019, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong initiated a “professional consultancy service” for senior secondary curriculum Liberal Studies text books. The public raised doubts that the books were actually handed over for censorship. Recently, six publishers has published revised textbooks, in which components pertaining to political contents such as the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen incident were “river crabbed” (a euphemism for censorship in China).
On the other hand, Japanese universities have been adopting Liu Xiaobo’s written work "Charter 08" as a Chinese teaching material.
Nishinippon Shimbun reported that some universities in Japan have been using Charter 08, written by the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, as a Chinese teaching material. The teaching material, entitled Learning Quality Chinese through Charter 08, was published by a Japanese publisher last year on the 30th Anniversary of June 4th Tiananmen incident. The publication makes use of the full text of Charter 08 and includes a Japanese translation, grammar explanations, exercises and a brief description of the history of social movements in China.
Ken Suzuki, professor of law at Meiji University, has been using the book to teach since fall last year. He said, “Through studying constitutional law, students can learn standard Chinese syntax. Charter 08 is a critique on the present state of China, so it gives students an idea of China’s current condition too.” The report added that besides Meiji University, many universities in Kansai also used this book as a teaching material for Chinese language this year. Some of these universities initially planned to use books published in China, but changed to Charter 08 when the books could not be posted to Japan due to the epidemic.
Source: Stand News #Aug20
#Charter08 #LiuXiaobo #Meijiuniversity #Japan
#LiberalStudies #Textbook
In 2019, the Education Bureau of Hong Kong initiated a “professional consultancy service” for senior secondary curriculum Liberal Studies text books. The public raised doubts that the books were actually handed over for censorship. Recently, six publishers has published revised textbooks, in which components pertaining to political contents such as the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen incident were “river crabbed” (a euphemism for censorship in China).
On the other hand, Japanese universities have been adopting Liu Xiaobo’s written work "Charter 08" as a Chinese teaching material.
Nishinippon Shimbun reported that some universities in Japan have been using Charter 08, written by the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, as a Chinese teaching material. The teaching material, entitled Learning Quality Chinese through Charter 08, was published by a Japanese publisher last year on the 30th Anniversary of June 4th Tiananmen incident. The publication makes use of the full text of Charter 08 and includes a Japanese translation, grammar explanations, exercises and a brief description of the history of social movements in China.
Ken Suzuki, professor of law at Meiji University, has been using the book to teach since fall last year. He said, “Through studying constitutional law, students can learn standard Chinese syntax. Charter 08 is a critique on the present state of China, so it gives students an idea of China’s current condition too.” The report added that besides Meiji University, many universities in Kansai also used this book as a teaching material for Chinese language this year. Some of these universities initially planned to use books published in China, but changed to Charter 08 when the books could not be posted to Japan due to the epidemic.
Source: Stand News #Aug20
#Charter08 #LiuXiaobo #Meijiuniversity #Japan
#LiberalStudies #Textbook