Tag Archives: asian-pacific history

Cultural Literacy: Siberia

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Siberia, that vast area of the Eurasian, or Asian, continent, depending on how you parse these things.

This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and four comprehension questions. Let me extend the usual warning about the reading: these are long, complicated compound sentences that really will need to be separated and made simpler for emergent or struggling readers. There is a clause about the metaphor “sent to Siberia” as a form of punishment by isolation that could be omitted–or not, if you are interested in assisting your students make connections between the concrete and the abstract.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Sikkim

“Sikkim: Eastern Himalayas, northeastern India, Mt. Kanchenjunga, third-highest peak in the world, forms its western border. It has an area of 2,744 square miles (7,107 square kilometers); the capital, Gangtok, is the only urban center. As an independent country, it fought prolonged wars in the 18th and 19th centuries with Bhutan and Nepal. It first came under British influence in 1817, though it remained an independent buffer between British India and Tibet. In 1950 it became an Indian protectorate, and in 1975, a state of India. One of India’s smallest states, it exports agricultural products and is one of the world’s main producers of cardamom. Its mineral resources include copper, lead, zinc, coal, iron ore, and garnets.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Suharto

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Suharto who bears that name alone because, according to his Wikipedia page, “In this Indonesian name, there is no family name or patronymic.” This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of three sentences and four questions.

And here, I suppose, is another item that surely has vanishingly little currency in classrooms in the United States, despite this nation’s meddling in Indonesian affairs, including support for Suharto, whose dictatorship was one of the most corrupt and brutal in the bloody twentieth century.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Persian Language or Farsi Language

“Persian language or Farsi Language: Iranian language spoken by more than 25 million people as a first language, and by millions more as a second. Modern Persian is a koine developed from southwestern dialects in the 7th-9th centuries, after the introduction of Islam brought a massive infusion of loanwords from Arabic. Its standardization and literary cultivation took place in northeastern Persia and Central Asia in the 11th-12th centuries. Polities outside Persia itself (e.g. Mughal India, Ottoman Turkey) have at times been major literary centers. Its status in those countries led to a very strong Persian influence on Urdu and Ottoman Turkish. Other Turkic and Indo-Aryan languages, Caucasian languages, and Iranian languages have also borrowed heavily from Persian. Like other Modern Iranian languages, Persian shows marked changes in sound structure from Old Iranian, as well as a drastic reduction in the repertoire of verbal forms and complete loss of case inflections for nouns and adjectives. It is written in a slightly modified form of the Arabic alphabet.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

The Weekly Text, 9 May 2025, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Deng Xiaopeng

For the second week of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month 2025, Mark’s Text Terminal offers as its Weekly Text this reading on Deng Xiaoping along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

I cannot imagine that there will be much, if any, demand for these materials; but when I taught at a school near Chinatown in New York City, there were enough kids interested in the topic of Chinese Communist Party succession (and therefore Deng Xiaoping) that I prepared this worksheet to accompany the reading from The Intellectual Devotional series.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Assassins

“Assassins: A small Islamic sect. For two hundred years,  it terrified Europe with its secret murders. It was founded by Hassan-i-Sabbah near the end of the 11th century. From the impregnable mountain stronghold of Alamut in Persia and later from the Syrian stronghold of Masyad, the Assassins harried the Crusaders and their rival Islamic sects, remaining unbroken in power even by the great Saladin. They were finally destroyed in the 13th century by the Tatar prince Hulagu and, somewhat later, in Syria, by the Egyptian Sultan Baybars.

The name Assassins is derived from hashish, a drug made from hemp, with which, according to tradition, the victorious Assassins were rewarded upon their return from successful depredations. The secret of their long reign of terror was the absolute obedience that the young men of the sect were required to give to their leaders. The name of the sect soon came into the language of Europe as a synonym for murder.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Cultural Literacy: Tokyo

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Tokyo. This is a full-page worksheet with a reading of four sentences and five comprehension questions. The first sentence in the reading is a compound separated by a semicolon–in other words, ready-made to be edited for any striving readers you may serve.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Shah Wali Allah

“Shah Wali Allah: (1702/3-1762) Indian Islamic theologian. He received a traditional Islamic education, and after a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1732 he remained in the Hejaz to study theology. Living in a time of disillusionment following the death of Aurangzeb, he believed that Muslim polity could be restored only though religious reform that would harmonize Islam with Indian’s changing social and economic conditions. He was steadfastly monotheistic but otherwise much more liberal than most Islamic theologians that had preceded him. His best-known work is The Secrets of Belief. His synthesis of theology, philosophy, and mysticism so reinvigorated Islam that it became prevalent among Islamic scholars in India until the 20th century.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Cultural Literacy: Teheran

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Teheran. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two compound sentences, both of which are quite long and should absolutely be edited or adapted for striving readers, and two comprehension questions.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Agastya

“Agastya: In Hindu mythology, the legendary sage and pioneer in the epic age of the Aryanization of south India. Supposed to have been born in a jar, Agastya is also known as Kumbhayoni, or ‘jar-born.’ Legend says that he presented to his pupil Ram the invincible bow and inexhaustible quiver of Vishnu. According to another legend, as he was walking one day with Vishnu, the insolent ocean asked the god who the pygmy (the ‘jar-born’ dwarf) was that strutted by his side. When Vishnu replied that it was the patriarch Agastya, who would restore earth to its true balance, the ocean contemptuously spat its spray in Agastya’s face. Agastya, in revenge, drank it dry.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.