Tag Archives: asian-pacific history

The Weekly Text, 2 May 2025, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Karma

May, as the cognoscenti are aware, is Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island Heritage Month, which, for the purposes of blog post headers of reasonable length, has been shortened to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month for this website.

Let’s begin this blog’s observation this year with this reading on karma with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. Karma is, of course, an important concept in Indian religions.

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.

Places in Asian American Pacific Islander History: Doyers Street, Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City

The Weekly Text, 14 March 2025, Women’s History Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Benazir Bhutto

For the second Friday of Women’s History Month 2025, the Weekly Text from Mark’s Text Terminal is this reading on Benazir Bhutto along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. You may recall, if you are of a certain age, that she served twice as Prime Minister of Pakistan, from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996.

She was, alas, assassinated in 2007.

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.

Matsuo Basho Evokes Time, Place, and Season

“On a withered branch

A crow has settled—

Autumn nightfall.”

Matsuo Basho, Poem (translation by Harold G. Henderson)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Cultural Literacy: Sumatra

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Sumatra. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences–the second of them is a fairly long compound which might need editing for emergent or struggling readers.

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.

Tenzing Norgay

“Tenzing Norgay: (1914-1986) Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer, born in Solo Khumbu, he served on numerous expeditions before joining Edmund Hillary as sirdar, or organizer of porters. In 1963, he and Hillary became the first two people to reach the summit of Mount Everest. A devout Buddhist, he left an offering of food at Everest’s summit.”

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

Cultural Literacy: Zen

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Zen. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of three longish sentences and three comprehension questions. When you open this, I wonder if you’ll find, like I did, that things are a bit crammed together and crowded in this document. It may need some work–perhaps like turning it into a one-page affair.

Of course I would be interested in hearing what you think.

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.

Northern Wei Sculpture

“Northern Wei sculpture: Chinese sculpture, dominated by simple images of the Buddha, dating from the eral of the Northern Wei dynasty (AD 386-534/535). The art represents the first major influence of Buddhism on China, and may be divided into two major periods. The first style (c.452-494), an amalgam of foreign influences traceable to the Buddhist art of India, is characterized by heavy stylization of blocky volumes. The second style (c.494-535) clothes the Buddha in the costume of the Chinese scholar and emphasizes a sinuous cascade of drapery falling over an increasingly flattened figure.”

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

The Weekly Text, 31 May 2024, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month Week V: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Genghis Khan

OK! For the final Friday of Asian American Pacific Island Heritage Month Week, here is a reading on Genghis Khan with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I think it’s safe to assume that I need not belabor the importance of this conqueror and empire builder.

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.

Hong-Yee Chiu Coins the Term Quasar

“So far, the clumsily long name ‘quasi-stellar radio sources’ is used to describe these objects…. For convenience, the abbreviated term ‘quasar’ will be used throughout this paper.”

Hong-Yee Chiu, Physics Today May 1964

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.