Persceptives
The Majiang Tea House website is designed upon the principle of intercultural thematic reading in which a variety of texts are regarded as part of a cultural ‘sign system’. This includes principles of intercultural communication and multiplicity of interpretation, perspective and voice embodied in a new ‘reading practice’. This ‘reading practice’ is not just a matter of different content, or an expanded repertoire of sources, but a matter of integrating cultural awareness and language learning in a form of pedagogy that is derived from an appreciation of a non-Chinese learner’s needs and perspectives.
Gallery
An example of intercultural exchange
Trevor Hay and I (Catherine Wang) went back to my home town, a remote city in the South-western part of China. During a memorable night in which vigorous ‘cultural interchange’ took place with our hosts singing arias from the Red Lantern, and Trevor reciprocating with Scottish folksongs; we walked out onto the balcony overlooking an ancient garden. Trevor gasped in astonishment at the sight of a dilapidated Ming Dynasty pagoda. As for me, although I have lived most of my life in Guiyang, I was unaware of this pagoda which is now used as some kind of multi-storied dump for unwanted furniture and bric-a-brac including pinball machines! In any case, even if I had seen it before, I think I would only have seen an old run-down building - but because I saw it not through my own eyes, but through Trevor’s astonishment, I saw it differently. It was transformed into a treasure not because I saw it as an insider, but because I saw it through the eyes of an outsider.
Share some of our experiences by viewing the Majiang Tea House picture gallery.