Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 1
HY1101E: Asia and the Modern World
This module takes an extremely broad approach to Asian history: it spans from ancient times (yes, we’re talking about 2000 BC here) to the modern era, with a focus on China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia. The content was neatly divided into East Asia and South + Southeast Asia, taught by two different lecturers— both of whom interestingly (or like duh) hails from the respective region they were in charge of.
Despite her accent, the lecturer for East Asia was well-organized and clear in her lectures. Through the use of proper headings, she broke the truckload of content down into easy-to-understand, chronological chunks of information. This made studying a lot easier.
On the contrary, the lecturer for South Asia + SEA conducted lessons in a rather haphazard and random way. He didn’t do a very good job of organizing the lecture content— the headings didn’t make much sense, and he tended to dwell on introductions, leaving him with little time and no choice but to bulldoze through the important parts. He also liked to talk about ‘broad trends’, but neglected to go into in-depth explanations of them.
If you’re thinking that having a background in H2 History would help you to ace this module, think again. JC content only comes in for a select few topics, such as SEA nationalism and Cold War. Much of the material is completely new, especially for Chinese and Indian history.
Assessment:
20%: online tutorial participation (4 sessions, 5% each)
50%: 2 lecture tests, 25% each
30%: finals
The online tutorial sessions were a pain in the neck (I have to restrain myself from using the alternative, more vulgar form of the phrase). Students were placed into online tutorial groups of ten— you can choose to join with your friends, or join a random one with strangers, whichever suits you. For each session, we were given a history source to analyze and answer 2 or 3 questions on the online forum. We were supposed to engage in active discussion, so it involves responding to others’ posts as well.
Unfortunately, what initially seemed to be a simple tutorial activity turned into an essay writing competition. People became pressured to write more, especially after seeing the long model posts (or should I say essays). Longer posts also meant that points were exhausted and those who joined the discussion later had nothing more to say. We also had to check back continually to see if anyone else had replied, and as a result, a lot of time was spent on this.
My advice for this is to play nice and to write just 2-3 good posts. You can craft a longer response, but please leave some points for others to talk about and don’t hog the entire discussion.
The lecture tests and finals are of the same format: 1 section for identification of terms and 1 essay. For the ID, you’re expected to provide information on the term (a historical event, ideology etc— it could actually be anything) and explain its relevance to Asian history. The latter requirement is iffy and I never knew how to explain it (neither did the lecturers explain it to us, not really). Your best bet is to feign intelligence and link the term to some broad idea/thingy.
For the essays, I got the impression that the lecturers don’t want you to write a long answer. For the lecture tests, they actually limit your answer to 2 sides of a blank A4 paper. As such, I don’t think there is any need to memorize copious amounts of nitty-gritty historical information for this module. You should know the major historical events like the back of your hand, but what’s more important is to be able to draw connections and properly link your ideas/argument to the question.
Workload:
The workload for this module is rather heavy, thanks mainly to the online tutorials. For the tests and finals, it would be best to start studying early so that you won’t be overwhelmed by the content at the last minute.
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