Author: Jiahao Yang

The study of Chinese ethnic culture is the main topic this week.
Look for a book about Chinese history and culture at the library(Ge,2018).The path of Chinese history may be understood as the history of the growth of Confucianism.. Confucianism developed as a cultural doctrine adored by the emperors starting in the Han Dynasty, and Confucian culture is inextricably linked to many historical allusions.

Similar to a national creed, the Chinese culture has a philosophy of “Dao” that is simply the role of “carrying the Dao, knowing the Dao, and preaching the Dao” for the spread of ideas and the upbuilding of society.The ideological makeup of an individual and the relevance of education are given more weight in Chinese culture.

And viewing multiple Chinese animated movies makes this concept more clear. The characters in Chinese animation have the ideologies of “the world is one” and “benevolence and love,” regardless of the differences in our positions relative to the adversary, the discrepancy between the affluent and the poor, or the inequality of force.

I’ve been studying academic objectivity in mythology history this week and seeing a few animated movies with a mythical theme.

These animated movies are based on the customs of various nations or nations. Characterization, attire, and behaviour are historically accurate and serve as a useful reference.

However, I also saw another issue as a result of this: narrative encompasses much more than just history. The characters are given a lot of attention in the movie, with descriptions of the challenges they face, how they overcome them, and how they ultimately change.

We must be aware that the difficult issues that arise throughout the growth of a civilisation cannot be resolved by one individual or a small group, but rather by group collaboration and solidarity. Focusing on one or more specific persons can improve the spectacle of the movie from a creative standpoint, but from the perspective of education, it has a negative impact on young people (those who have not established sound values).Teenagers may emulate the protagonist in the storyline and believe that they just lack “success” experience since the protagonist is fundamentally a character with a character fault who develops into a protagonist with excellent character as the novel goes. They could even act like the play’s protagonist because they believe they simply lack “success” experiences.

In class this week, the professor divided us into 6 groups for an advanced discussion with the professor.

I begin by describing the general direction of my thesis：

Through the use of animation, I want to merge the histories and cultures of other nations and peoples.Promoting each nation’s rich cultural heritage is the goal. I think that animation, one of the most well-liked forms of communication among young people, has the power to capture their interest through its quick spread. Teenagers nowadays are negatively impacted by the dry text in books, but when they are exposed to graphics and words that have sound, their attention is intensely concentrated.

After hearing the content of my paper, the panelists made a few suggestions：

1.The thesis’s topic is too wide, therefore I was encouraged to focus on a specific nation or country and do a thorough analysis and study of its history and culture.

2.Many contemporary animated films are inspired by mythological histories from different cultures, including Celtic mythology, Japanese ghost stories, Chinese Liaozhai, and the British King Arthur legend. This is because the ambiguity of mythological history gives creators more room for imagination and speeds up the creative process while avoiding many issues with historical objectivity. They believed that the distinction between legendary history and actual history was the topic I should address in my thesis.

3.Consider Hollywood movies: although heavily referencing the history and culture of other nations in their production, they nonetheless have an overtly American-centric hero-centric storyline that doesn’t precisely fit with the background material. I should consider how to approach this issue in my upcoming exploration.

These three crucial inquiries will be covered by me in the coming weeks. After giving it some thought, I decided to focus my studies in China since I am Chinese and also because the country has a rich history and culture, but there aren’t many animation works there and there’s a lot of potential for growth.

The authenticity of a documentary is ‘deeply linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images are linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images bear evidence of events that actually happened, by virtue of the indexical relationship between image and reality’

Horness Roe. A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

I think the author wants to make a point that the authenticity of documentaries is strongly linked to realism, that the images and sounds of documentaries carry the actual happenings as a testament to real life. However the images of the documentary must be authentic and valid, because the authenticity of the documentary needs to be corroborated by the images as well, and therefore the validity of the images must be proven.