China’s Magical Creatures Third Reflection

• Lauren B
• 0
• on Dec 07, 2022

At the beginning of the semester I never thought I would be where I am now, learning about topics that would wow my family members and creating something that is actually going to be used by students next year. I never knew what I was getting myself into, learning about dragons and foxes but I’m glad I did. This was the first class where I truly got exposed to higher level reading articles and that challenged me a lot. At first I would try to read the first few pages but I would get frustrated and end up depending on the in-class review to help me understand the content but as time passed I got used to them. At first it was dividing up the pages and reading a certain amount every day before the class but that still wasn’t working for me, I had lost the idea of earlier sections I had read. In the end I decided to start reading the article all at once, early in the morning, before I even touched my phone. This way I could hone in on the article in the quiet of the morning and truly focus on the content, this led to me remembering way more and meant I could participate more in class. At the beginning of the year I was making more surface level comments and connections. Always looking at what I was learning through my own Western perspective when I really shouldn’t have been. Over the course of the semester I’ve gotten better at detaching myself from my base perspective and letting what I’ve learned in the class and in the current reading guide my train of thought. Using past information to serve as the background that I can compare and contrast new information with. It also gives me a greater understanding of Chinese practices and culture far more than I did before. When we first started learning about oracle bones and divination as a whole, so much importance was placed on your ancestors and I didn’t get it at first but now, having learned about grave digging I do. Chinese culture prides itself on remembering the past and honoring the dead, a theme present throughout all of their learning. Due to this I get to look at everything we learn through a somewhat educated lens, an education that without this class I never would have received. In the future I want to take this open-mindness with me, it’s something that can be applied in every single class no matter the subject because it enhances everything you learn and can help you understand something in a different way than you would expect. Five years from now I want to be able to tell people about the absolute wonder that is China’s Magical Creatures. I want to tell how freeing it was to learn about a topic that I had no background knowledge on without fear of failure. Learning where all I had to do was learn instead of worrying if I got something right. When we learned about divination, something I had no experience with and didn’t believe in whatsoever I had no idea how to keep everything we learned straight. I was confused over the differences between divination, oracles, and omens and there was so much of me that simply couldn’t understand how this practice became such a large deal but eventually I did because that’s what this course is all about, growth and understanding. I didn’t have to master a topic immediately, I could use future lessons to help me understand divination. There was no part of me that had to be worried about a quiz or test, I could learn without consequences. A few weeks later when we started to learn more about the afterlife and gravedigging, I realized how important it was to honor your ancestors and those that came before you. That to help them would be a way to help yourself. I would tell my interviewer that China’s Magical Creatures was a place where though learning about magical creatures was at the forefront it served as a greater place for me to explore new topics safely with no worries, I could learn freely and still be confused because it wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. In class I could come in confused and come out understanding more than I before, the only focus is growth rather than grades.