“Learning History through Names, Songs, Movies and Speeches in Our Daily Life”by Dr. Fred Hok-ming CHEUNG

History Department

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

In “How to enhance students’ learning motivation:

History and Daily Life (3)” (New)

June 5, 2014

CDI020140500

• References:

• Powell, Barry. Classical Myth.

• Safire, William. Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History.

• Names in our daily life:

• Mars (Roman god of War) – a planet of the solar system (Ares [Greek]), and the name of a month (March) of the calendar (the first month of the year in ancient Roman calendar, that is why October, December, …), Mardi in French = Tuesday, name of a chocolate bar, …

• Mercury: (Roman messenger of the gods) – a planet of the solar system ( = Hermes [Greek], name of a famous French bag) , and a kind of metal, “mercurial”, …

• Venus: (Roman goddess of love & beauty [“Golden Apple”]) – a planet of the solar system ( = Aphrodite [Greek])

• Nike: (Greek goddess of victory, = Victoria [Roman])

-- a brand’s name of sportswear

Muses: (Greek goddess of music/culture) – music, museum,

Clio = goddess of history, (Name of the Historical Journal in Peking University, Clio at Beida),

Xanadu = goddess of dancing

• Xanadu one of the 9 muses

• [goddess of dancing] • Xanadu (Olivia Newton-John)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHZaD5RCzMI

movie trailer:• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNcUv1q2JAs

•  • Titan: (the Greek giants in the Greek myths of

creation) – Titanic

• Cupid: (Roman name for Eros, the Greek god of love. Erotic, …)

• Psyche: (a Greek goddess) – means soul and also butterfly (metamorphosis) in Greek; and of course, Psychology …

• “without trust, there is no love”

• Achilles’ heel: (from Homer’s Iliad) – the fatal point (medical: Achilles tendon), …

• *Troy (Homer)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf4IoxEUmHM

• Thursday, the day named after the Norse god Thor, = Torsdag. Roman = dies Jovis (after Jove or Jupiter [ = Greek Zeus])

• Myths (the “Golden Apple”, the “Wooden Horse”)

• All these names are important and meaningful in our daily life

• What is Myth?• Why does myth continue to fascinate us?• Why has myth persisted for centuries?

• Bierlein, J.F. Parallel Myths. New York: Ballantine, 1994.

• “Myth is the first attempt to explain how things happen – the ancestor of science.”

• “It is also the attempt to explain why things happen, the sphere of religion and philosophy.”

• “It is a history of prehistory, telling us what might have happened before written history.”

• “It is the earliest form of literature, often an oral literature. It told ancient people who they were and the right way to live (& survive).”

• “Myths were strikingly similar between cultures vastly separated by geography.” (probably, it is because we share something with all other peoples in all other times).

• + understanding the values of the people and the social/political/economic history of the time*

• Samson and Delilah (The Bible) (1:22:)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpGpo171Qro

• (2:50)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUokmy3Sct4

• Delilah (sung by Tom Jones)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icTSPpyub4g

• The Exodus Song (by Pat Boone)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0FLzUKphw

• Pandora’s box• A lovely girl • A jar or box, which was sealed• Her instruction was to give it to a god without

opening it• BUT

• Curiosity • All the diseases and miseries that would plague

human beings forever after• Pandora (finally/fortunately?) closed the box but

only one creature was left inside = hope

• Psychology:• Sigmund Freud

• & Carl Jung

• Oedipus Complex (from Oedipus Rex)

• Tantalus (tantalizing, tantalized, …)[Tantalum*, a medical device/machine for the diabetic patient by the Medical Faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong]

• Narcissus (Echo)

• Aesop’s Fables:• Aesop & the CEO: Powerful Business

Insights from Aesop’s Ancient Fables.• Resurrecting Aesop: Fables Lawyers

Should Remember• “A bird in hand is worth two in the bush”• “Sour Grapes”• “Crying Wolf Too Often”• “Slowly but Surely”• “A friend in need is a friend indeed”• “A deer near the pond”

• Greek Philosophy:• Socrates & Plato

• Plato, The Republic

• Athenian Democracy executed Socrates

• Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies. Volume 1: The Spell of Plato

• Songs and Movies:“The Impossible Dream” (Man of La Mancha) Don Quixote’s the Quest• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow

• To dream ... the impossible dream ...• To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...• To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...• To run ... where the brave dare not go ...• To right ... the unrightable wrong ...• To love ... pure and chaste from afar ...• To try ... when your arms are too weary ...• To reach ... the unreachable star ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow

“The Longest Day”•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpaTwpWt8BQ

•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff4ci4-tY_0&feature=fvwrel

Filled with “blood and sweat and tears”•“The Longest Day” was a war film in 1962 about the D-Day, June 6, 1944 when the Allies fought back and landed on Normandy during the Second World War.

Unique for British and American films produced in the 1960s (during the Cold War between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.).

• General Eisenhower (then, later the President of the U.S.A.) led the Allies to fight back and eventually the Allies defeated the German army (even though it was a bitter [“Pyrrhic”] victory with many casualties).

• Some historians believe that landing on Yugoslavia in Eastern Europe should be better: 1) the main force of the German Nazi was not there, thus, less casualties, and 2) the Allies might reach Berlin before General Molotov of the Red Army (Soviet Union), [who captured the best Jewish German scientists in Berlin, etc.]

• Edelweiss (from the Sound of Music)• [Hitler annexed Austria and an Austrian family fled]• Edelweiss, Edelweiss

• Every morning you greet me

• Small and white clean and bright

• You look happy to meet me

• Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow

• Bloom and grow forever

• Edelweiss, Edelweiss

• Bless my homeland forever. 

(CHORUS) Small and white clean and bright

• You look happy to meet me

• Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow

• Bloom and grow forever

• Edelweiss, Edelweiss

• Bless my homeland forever.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFHujvkacNY

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rMkbSO0ZSc&feature=related

• “Edelweisss” is a song from the musical “The Sound of Music” (by Rodgers and Hammerstein). It is named after the edelweiss, a white flower found high in the Alps. It is sung by Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp and his family during the concert near the end of Act II as a defiant statement of Austrian patriotism in the face of the pressure put on him to join Nazi Germany.

•  • The song provides a metaphor of the edelweiss

flower, as a symbol of Austria that Captain von Trapp, Maria, and the children would have in their hearts despite the Nazi annexation of their homeland.

• 19319.18 (September 18) [Mukden] Incident [General Zhang Xueliang]: excuse used by the Japanese to invade Manchuria

• On Songhua Jiang (River)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdXhxY2D5_w&feature=related

• Dec. 12, 1936: Sian Incident, Chiang Kai-shek, kidnapped by General Zhang Xueliang, forced to cooperate with CCP to fight against Japanese invasion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Fx9RA4_gc&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5kaMseiJUs&feature=related

*Song for General Chang Hsueh-liang (Karaoke version):

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0M9CGPB1hU

• Anti-Japanese War Songs:

• Huang He (Yellow River)• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emI05SbwIvg&feature=related

• 1938 (shortly before the 2nd World War) in North Africa:

• *Casablanca (German National Anthem versus French National Anthem: La Marseillaise):

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-E2H1ChJM&feature=related

• “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (battle between Japan and Britain)

• movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PskoqCtRFD4• *Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSB27WZFYXs• Cf. “The Longest Day”

• The Vietnam War • *“House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpWEv9Q0XQ4

• *“Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones:• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZljDoYrmM

• Anti-Vietnam War Songs by Peter, Paul & Mary:

• *The Cruel War

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvFq6VvFxjo • *Blowing in the Wind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t4g_1VoGw4

• Speeches:

Pericles, 495 - 429 B.C., Pericles saw what a polis might do for her citizens, and what the citizens might do for their polis.

President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Speech, January 1961

• “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” (12:26)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmiOEk59n8

“United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do.”

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

• Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.:• “We Shall Overcome”• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=130J-FdZDtY

• (also a folk song sung by Joan Baez):• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkNsEH1GD7Q&feature=fvwrel

• “I have a Dream”:• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFcbpGK9_aw

• Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy’s eulogy for the late Senator Robert (Bobby) Kennedy: ([1:00]1:20)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkhqTlL2pP0&feature=related

“Some men see things as they are and say why …… I dream things that never were and say why not.”

• “What the World Needs Now is Love” (edited by

Tom Clay)• On President John F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther

King, Jr., and Senator Robert (Bobby) Kennedy• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uqNLnEzDLA

• Back to Greek mythology:

• Orpheus• (Don’t look back)

•Cupid and Psyche• “without trust, there is no love”

• Singing conclusion:• Fairy Tale/Myths (karaoke web link):• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0x3OGBC0_U

• + “A Small Town Story”