Mitchell said 12/9/09

If you get this twice Ms. Separ Im sorry i wanted to make sure you got it so we dont have a problem like melhman did


Its been a while since the last blog, so Im gonna so my best for this. Today, we took notes on art of the 1450s-1750s. we went through many different regions starting with China. We depicted that the man in the photo was about a high class writer philosopher. We then saw about Japan and the Forbidden city. NIck asked why it was called forbidden. Tyler came back with a remark such as as if the name wasnt obvious enough. we then proceeded to hear about the different types of eunichs that were in the forbidden city. At that point all you heard from the right side of the room was groans and ows. We quickly move off this topic to Louis the 16th and the palace of Versailles. Ms. Separ pointed out how the Japanese and French had the same ruling styles, in that they kept th enobles close to watch and maitain power. Africa was the next style we looked at and saw a woman ruler. The queen of Angolia was show in a portrait and then shown in a warrior pose which is much similar to her natural pose and in her idea of what had to happen to avoid overtaking by the Portugese. Lastly we say about Peter the Great and him on his high horse in front of a large battle much like David said he would like to be portrayed when we started the day by saying how we would like to be painted to be rembered. SO staying with the theme Ill pick david to go next for the blog.

Suleyman

There are two readings and a question for each:

A. An account of Busbecq, an envoy from Charles V to the Sultan’s court:
"Suleiman's daily life in his palace, from levee to couchee, followed a ritual comparable in its detailed precision to that of the French kings at Versailles. When the Sultan rose from his couch in the morning he would be clothed by select members of his household in a caftan, a robe which he would wear only once, with twenty gold ducats in one pocket and a thousand pieces of silver in the other -both robe and unspent cash becoming the perquisites of his chamberlain at the end of the day. His three daily meals were brought to him by long train of pages, to be eaten alone from fine porcelain and silver dishes on a low silver table, with sweetened and perfumed water (seldom wine) to drink, and a doctor standing by his side as a precaution against possible poisoning."
Q. How did the Europeans view Suleiman?



B. An account of a member of Suleiman’s court:
"In all that great assembly no single man owed his dignity to anything but his personal merits and bravery; no one is distinguished from the rest by his birth, and honor is paid to each man according to the nature of the duty and offices which he discharges. There is no struggle for precedence, every man having his place assigned to him by virtue of the function which he performs. The Sultan himself assigns to all their duties and offices, and in doing so pays no attention to wealth or the empty claims of rank, and takes no account of any influence or popularity which a candidate may possess: he only considers merit and scrutinizes the character, natural ability and disposition of each. Thus each man is rewarded according to his deserts, and offices are filled by men capable of performing them."
Q. How did people of his own country view Suleiman? What does this tell us about the government of the Ottomans? How will this give them a strong government?

Melhman says 11/23

So today we most likely began class with a Connelly rant about turkeys (why?, I
have no idea) at which point I told him to stop talking and that nobody cares
which is always incredibly true. After Connelly's nonsense we began comparing
Ming China to Tokugawa Japan we had some type of big idea type question about
global impacts or something of that sort and we talk about it for a few minutes.
Then Ms. Separ decided to divide us into groups of two by counting of in threes;
this failed miserably (as mathematically it should). Ms. Separ then decided two
count of in elevens (even though their nineteen people in class and nineteen
divided by eleven is approximately 2.7272727272….. but somehow everyone was
split up evenly so whatever. In our groups of 2.72 we received a printed out
PowerPoint in oh so rare and captivating color which Connelly asked if he could
keep (he would), along with these slips of paper that had big ideas on them. We
had to match each slip of paper to the slide it best fitted. This took about 14π
√5 seconds (but who's counting). After this we were to take notes on each of the
slides. The slides were about plantation systems, sea based empires,
guns/gunpowder, global trade, and absolutism. We then compared Japan and China
in each category. We left off with the comparative essay question "Are there
more similarities or differences between Ming China and Tokugawa Japan?" the
general consensus being that there were more similarities than difference. The
homework was to write a thesis for the essay question. The bell then rang with
the clock reading 12:43 and we all left. Blog #1 down (SWEEEEEEET!). next is
going to be MiTcHeLl

Corey 11/17-11/18

Hi Ms. Separ! I'm supposed to be blogging tonight, so I might as well. Tuesday we started on Japan and it's relationship with Western Europe. We were given a packet with pictures and a set of lines next to it. The first picture was titled "The Edo Period (aka The Pax Tokugawa)." Ms. Separ gave a lecture on how the Pax Tokugawa happened. The Shogun family Tokugawa unifies Japan when daimyos were fighting each other for power. The second picture was a pyrimid with three layers: Samurai, Farmers, and Craftspeople and Traders. We learned about the social classes and really began to notice that the traders were at the at the bottom of the pyrimid while in most of the time traders were at least higher in social class than farmers (well at least that's what I noticed). Then we saw a reading about a trip that the daimyos take, and it was to stay at the shogun's palace for some time. The small reading showed three things: a securing of power for the shogun over daimyos (daimyos lost wealth going on trip, and money could bring you power), movements and trading was always monitered, and that there was trade, but they did cancel it. The fourth and fifth picture was the same, but it was an eyewitness account from a native Japanese person watching Europeans showing off a rifle or musket. The account never said "Europeans" though, he/she used the terms "barbarian" and "strange" to describe them. Ms. Separ went on about the fact that Japan stopped trading around 1620 because Japan was losing it's prized heritage due to European influence. The best example was the sixth picture, a map full of crosses. The map showed the alarming rate Chirstianity became popular at. Christanity was a big factor why trade stopped with the Japanese and Western Europe. When trade was disallowed, the first thing the Japanese government did was decapitate all of the Christians. also, any big trading or any influence of foregin ideas was punishable by death. That was it for Tuesday. Wensday was simply review of this and a discussion of averages and how we can get 5 points on a quiz by spending 8 dollars. NEXT TO BLOG IS THE INFAMOUS, THE SPECTACULAR, THE AMAZING TYLER MEHLMAN!!!!! not really...


PS---By the way on Wednesday we did do readings that discussed the degree to which Japan was isolated. AND it is not spending 8 dollars, it is donating 8 dollars!
Ms. Separ

Eddie says...11/13 &11/16

Alright Mrs. Separ, its Eddie Lopez, and I'm gonna do my best to give a recap of the lesson from friday and monday.
So the past two days, we have been talking about the items traded throughout the wolrd; fur, tea and indigo. These items impacted many societys social and economically. So fur was my group, and the producer of fur was in the area of Canada and the northeast region of the americas. Fur was a good desired by the europeans, espically the british, and some areas of russia. Fur was vauled for warmth as the hash winter seasons became very cold. As the british obtained the fur, they used a good portion for themselves, and sold back fur to the americas with a european flare and design to it. The russians also set up posts in alaska to obtain fur for trade and use for there own people.
The next product was tea was a product that was moved and traded to many different regions. Tea was produced in china and was a drink that was wanted in many areas, espically europe. the tea they desired with hand in hand with the sugar they desired and they became infatuated with it. Tea was then sold to the americas from the europeans, as they mad a profit from the british colonies. again, a main theme that is seen is that these world wide items that were being sold to, ended up in europe. the europeans didnt ship out much, but obtained many goods traded world wide.
Lastley, the final good traded was indigo. This good is a purpleish dye that gave color to many fabrics. this item was desired because it showed loyalty wealth and power. It was produce in many places like the americas and africa, but once again was moved to europe. Lastly, indigo could be traded back to the colonies from europe for a profit. The indigo switched up the bland black and grey colors of fabric, and thats why it was wanted.
hope i did a good job. the next person is corey.

Nick says...11/12/09

Class today started off a little strange as Conelly came into class singing a song about candy or something. Of coarse, him and Mehlman argued for a little and then class got started. Once everything was settled we focused on the topic for the day which was the Ming Dynasty. We broke up into groups and did a reading on the Ming. The reading explained the major events of the Ming and focused on the founder of the Ming, Hongwu, and his self consciousness plus violent thinking. Also, it mentioned the government structure of the Ming. Hongwu set up a Confucian based government, but also had an extremely powerful military to defend against the Mongol invasions that were taking place. Because of Hongwu's former peasanthood, if that's a word, he made life easier for the peasants in his empire. He lowered the land tax and stocked up the granary. He also changed the currency. At first, paper money was being used. But because Hongwu didn't understand that him giving out money would cause inflation, the had to switch to copper coins, but that didn't work either because they were easy to counterfeit. So the finally ended up using coins processed in the mints of every provence with some lead added to measure value.
The Ming were also the only dynasty to implement oceanic exploration. They used routes to trade between Japan and southern Asia. The only famous Chinese explorer, Zheng He, went on several journeys starting in 1405. The farthest he got was the east coast of Africa. China was way more advanced than any other civilization at the time, and if exploration hadn't been outlawed, they would have probably reached the west coast of Africa and dicovered the Americas way before the Europeans would.
Even with the improvements and changes that the Ming Dynasty implemented, they would still eventually fall. The Ming would fall due to internal power struggles and alliances of the people against the government. That forced young children to become rulers before they were able to gain any experience or maturity which ended up being what cost the Ming the Mandate of Heaven.
I hope this helped everyone with understanding today if it was hard. The next person to blog is going to be..........MITCHELL!!!!!!!!

Robbie said...11/10/09

In class on Monday and Tuesday we talked about silver and trading posts. These two topics were the two main ideas of each class, as we watched the video on global trade. We learned that silver caused the birth of global trade to occur. There was a tremendous demand for it in China, after China shifted from its paper currency to having silver as the common medium. The major exporters of silver were Japan and Spanish America, and China was the dominant consumer. In Spanish America, Potosi was the largest city, and contained great mines. Thousands of Indians labored there and played a significant role in the Mita System; a system of labor in which the Indians would work in the mines and extract silver. Going back to China, taxes and salaries were now to be paid in silver, as well as any transactions that occured. Although the ratio of the silver in China to Spain was once 2:1, China was known as the world's "silver sink", and eventually accumulated so much silver that the value of silver decreased, causing inflation.
As we take a look at the trading post empires, we see that the Portuguese had established them because they had the earliest desire. They set up more than fifty between West Africa and East Asia, mostly in the Indian Ocean Basin, by pushing their way into already-established ports and by the use of the heavy artillery they had. By the late 1500s, we see a great shift, as both the English and Dutch began to gain power and control of trade. We see this shift because the English and Dutch saw the Portuguese becoming powerful even though Portugal was such a small country, and started to pick up the pace themselves with faster, cheaper, more powerful ships. They had the joint stock companies backing them which gave them an advantage over the Portuguese, because the Portuguese had their government backing them and didn't have the joint stock companies like the English and Dutch. Again, this control of trade took place in the Indian Ocean Basin.
When we look at European Conquest in Southeast Asia, we see that Europeans had trouble forcing their will on the Asian people. This is so because they weren't powerful enough to take over the already established empires set up there, such as the Ming Dynasty, and Mughal and Ottoman empires. However, there were two exceptions; the Europeans were able to force their will on both the Philippines and Indonesia. There was no established central authority in the Philippines, which made it easy for the Spanish military to come in and take over. They conquered them in 1565, and then, in 1571, set up Manilla, an influential city in terms of global trade. They also spread Christianity, set up schools, and tried to "Europeanize" the Filipinos. It was the Dutch who set up major trading posts in Indonesia, such as Batavia and Java, and were interested in nothing but TRADING CONTROL. They did not care about Christianity, expansion, colonization, etc. as long as they were making money. The only political control they had was in Batavia, but other than that, they're sole purpose was to engage in trade.


Hope this helps everyone out!
Hope you're all having a great Veterans Day!
Robbie
Next up...Nick Salerno

Tiffany says 11/6/09

Hi Ms. Separ!! I'm not sure if this is exactly what you wanted, but i triedd =] Friday, November 6, 2009 - Today was a very interesting day in Mrs. Separ’s seventh period WHAP class. As usual, Connelly complained about his grades, and as usual, Mrs. Separ shut him up with witty remarks that he could not think of comebacks for. Our homework, which I’m sure we all did marvelously on, was collected and is now on Mrs. Separ’s desk with everything else she has to grade. We got a homework assignment that we are being quizzed on this Monday; hopefully Cory has time in his schedule to take notes for it. Most importantly, we learned about the Atlantic Slave trade. We went over documents from the packet we had gotten on Thursday, and got the big ideas. The Portuguese at first were too weak to take over the people of the Kongo, so they set up trading posts along the coast. They were friendly to the Africans and traded goods and slaves with them, but then started going against the rules the Africans had set up. The Portuguese started taking some of the Kongolese free men, and even some of the nobles and important people in society. The African king, Afonso, writes the Portuguese ruler a letter as a “brother” asking to end the trade, but the Portuguese refuse. This is the start of the inhumane slave trade. The next blog post will be done by . . . drumroll please . . . Bob Rosen.

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