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This student worksheet encourages you to explore the effects of change on communities as shown by the personal expression of observers and participants.

1 Cultural Change in a Community

In this activity you will write a short script of an interview about cultural or technological change in your community or in some other setting and perform it in class.

What To Do

1. Locate the following website in which you will find an eyewitness description of an Eskimo community's cultural response to modern technology, the article 'Eskimos Warm to the Digital Age'.
   http://www.niti.org/wireless.htm

2. What kinds of things have changed in the Eskimo community? What traditions or customs have been retained? Why has this happened?

3. Discuss the information with your group.

4. Develop a script of an interview with three members of a community (perhaps from different generations) talking about--or arguing about--the kinds of changes that have happened in the community. What have people chosen to change and what have they chosen to keep with the passing of time? Perform the interview in class.

2 Demands for Change in a Community (External or Internal)

Here you will write a short script about cultural or technological change in your community or in some other setting. What have people chosen to change and what have they chosen to keep with the passing of time?

What To Do

Choose one of the following topics.

A The International Monetary Fund and Change

1. Locate the article 'Cultural Changes Gnaw At Heels of Asian Tigers'. Read the responses by Asian people to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) demand for changes to deal with the present economic situation in Asia. The article tells how people in a community feel when a powerful outside or foreign organisation demands that they change.
   http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/regionalsecurity/pacnet2.html
2. Using ideas gained from this document, consider what would happen if some friends who own their own businesses get together for a meal and discuss their future in the light of the demands of the IMF on their country.

   What would they say to each other about how they feel about the IMF, the economic crisis, and their futures--especially in relation to their rights to run their own businesses and their country in the way they have always done?

1. Find the Oceania Newsletter 14, July 1994, containing articles about cultural change in Oceania.
   • 'Traditional health care, female health-care specialists and cultural change in the west Ayfat and Ayamaru area (Irian Jaya)'
     http://www.kun.nl/cps/14/nb14h.html
   • 'Changing pacific: a comparative research project of processes of cultural transformation in South Pacific societies'
     http://www.kun.nl/cps/14/nb14c.html
   • 'Changing religious experience and identity of women: research among the Ayfat of Irian Jaya'
     http://www.kun.nl/cps/14/nb14g.html

2. Skim-read these proposals made by students wishing to study cultural change in the communities of the Pacific. People in this region are apparently wishing to return to their old ways - but not all of their old ways. People are turning to tradition only to use specific parts of it to deal with new conditions.

3. Develop a dialogue between an elderly teacher of traditional ways and medicine and a group of young people. The young people only want to learn about the herbal medicine as a way of improving the health and lifestyle of their community and not about other traditional beliefs.

3 Searching the Internet for Asian Culture and Literature Information

Here you will develop a website guide to inform people about the availability of Asian culture and literature websites.

What To Do

1. Experiment with the search techniques given in the Resources section and record your results from different search words or criteria for future reference. Use lower case letters to maximise your search chances. Consult Search Help, if necessary.

2. Be sure to cover the following points when you are searching:
   • The target area for this guide is South Asia: Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka.
   • Search for and compile a list of ten well-known and respected contemporary male and female writers in the region.
   • For each person selected, note down basic biographical details (date of birth, place of birth and so on), the range of genres in which they have published work (type of literature, eg novels, poetry), the names of their most famous works, the language/s they write in, and where they currently live.

3. Write the results of your searches in your workbooks. Record:
   • Search words or criteria
   • Total number of websites located
   • Comments on features and usefulness

4. Rank the best websites located in order of usefulness, quality and relevance to your search. Make notes about why you found them useful.

5. Collect relevant information from the good websites you found and arrange the information in sections for each author, or other categories you think may be useful, such as countries.

   

6. Write down the name and URL of the five best websites and describe what made them relevant, useful, good quality and accessible. Develop a guide for people who may not have studied Asian texts before.

   In your guide:

   • List the five most useful websites.
   • Give a brief description of their content and value.
   • Give information about the ten authors you found.