Reflection on Orientalism

Firstly, I'd like to preface this blog by apologizing for not having kept up with these throughout the course.  With that being said, I think that writing them throughout the next week (as opposed to having written them following classes) will not diminish the importance of the messages that I've taken from this class or lighten the impact that learning this material has made on me.  In fact, I think that it might make my blog entries more comprehensive and possibly more coherent now that the lessons that I've taken away from 334 have had time to sink in.

I'll begin my week of blogging by discussing how this course has impacted my thoughts about Orientalism.  To be honest, at the beginning of this course I didn't have all that many thoughts about Orientalism.  I had heard the term used prior to the first class, but I could not have defined it on my own.  Upon learning about the incidences of Orientalism, it surprised me to realize I had never really thought about it.  Sure, I understand the prevalence of stereotyping in our society.  But I had never dwelled specifically on Western attitudes and generalizations about the East.

I do believe Orientalism is definitely prevalent in our society today, mainly because we tend to think negatively of anyone who thinks or does differently than we do.  I think psychologically it must a result of some internal coping mechanism meant to steel us from the potential realization that others doing something differently than us could be doing it just as well, or perhaps better.  Whatever the cause, I think that this class has enlightened me as to the solution.

In order to cure ourselves from the effects of Orientalism, we simply have to keep an open mind to different approaches.  We have to start to realize that different does not equal bad. In the context of this course, that pertains to different Asian theaters.  But it doesn't stop there.  Over the past fifteen weeks I've learned that Eastern culture contains a wealth of wisdom and different approaches to theater and life in general. They may be externally different from our own, but internally they work to accomplish the same goals.  Unfortunately, as a result of Orientalism we're likely to miss out on them.

Thanks to 334, some of that wealth of knowledge has been passed onto me.  And lucky for those around me, as a result of the orality that I've become so comfortable with over the past semester- I'll be happy to pass it on.