Okay. So, um we are doing a special session of this class called Me the students. Now, um I've been overwhelmed by the positive response online on YouTube. So, thank you so much for uh watching this channel and leaving comments and subscribing. I I really appreciate it.
It's such positive feedback for the work I do. So, um there's been a lot of questions online about this class and who I am. So, I'm gonna do two separate videos. The first video is I'm going to introduce you to my students, Ekko, Amber, and City. And then in another video, I'm going to talk about myself.
Okay? But this video is really about um my students and their impressions of this class and how it has benefit benefited them. Um I I'm not I'm not free to tell uh people what the school is, okay? Because this is in China and um there are certain things I say in this are sensitive. So I do not want to get my school into trouble.
So we will not mention the school um in this video but uh my students will tell you about their impressions of taking this class. Okay. So um my first question is for SI. Now SI was my class not this year but last year. So last year uh there's a different uh version of this class where the first semester I taught the great books, second semester I taught geopolitics.
Okay. and city has an interesting background because you were in Germany for a few years, right? And your father is professor of Emanuel Pant at Chinua. So, so you've you've encountered um this sort of teaching before. Okay.
So, um u my first question to you is let's talk about the great books. U what what were your favorite great books and why were they such and why did you enjoy them so much? Um can you speak to the mic please? So um two of the most memorable books I can think of are the Iliad and Dantis Inferno. Um I really like the Iliad already before the class where I had uh read a simpler version u since it's a really popular book and um there's been many adaptations over the years but uh in this class was the first time I really um more in depth looked into the content of it.
Uh and I think that this class provided me a lot of new insights into um the book and the kind of different backgrounds especially also into um the culture of the time with the kings and small kingdoms and cities and things like that. I remember afterwards we had also looked taking a look at the Inyad. Uh the Inyad being of course um from the Roman period uh a very different period uh which also took inspiration from the Indiad. Uh and it was really interesting seeing the contrasting uh cultures of both the Greek and the Roman uh culture. Especially uh with in this class I I I had already encountered the Iniad as well before but in this class we also talked about how much the Inyad was taken as a propaganda piece uh at the time.
Uh so that was also really interesting to see. And with the Dantis Inferno um I had heard about it uh quite many times before but I never really had uh the chance to look into it. So I was really happy when we uh decided to start reading it and uh taking such an in-depth look into specific parts of the book uh was really really fun. Um so I want to ask you about these books how they change your understanding of yourself and your relationship with the world do you think? uh so a few key theories uh ideas that I remember from uh last year that the idea of game theory and the idea of imagination.
So in both of uh both the uh all three of these books um the idea of uh imagination uh is really important. For example, with the Ilia, I remember it was uh one of the first like big works of imagination that we really have. Uh where it developed imagination over the times afterwards a lot with um such a vivid description of a story. Uh it really um pushed people to the limits of what they could imagine and it really changed them. Uh so it was really interesting uh learning about that and uh it definitely changed uh my view on how uh people perceive the world around them and how we for ourselves for example have very different perceptions from everyone our around us.
Uh of course there's also the idea of game theory where um everyone does things u according to certain uh situations and conditions that uh they face and it really like helps you think about why certain people do something and uh why certain conditions exist. Yeah. Um, so is it fair to say that reading these books have made you more curious about the world and have made you more observant about the world around you? Um, yeah, I would definitely say that um it's made me more curious. Um, I've already initially had a big interest in uh literature and ancient history.
Um, so these books kind of respsparked this enthusiasm of learning more about it. Uh, I afterwards also looked a bit more uh these books uh myself and even looked into a bit uh surrounding uh books. Uh so it was really uh helpful in like expanding my horizon in this topic. Okay, thanks so much. So Ekko and Amber are in my class this year and this year we did something crazy and insane which is we just the entirety of human history, right?
We went from the ice age up to today which is the American Empire. So um um I want to ask you both. Okay, Ekko and Ember. The first question is, how do you feel about history now that we've covered all the major um episodes of human history? And second of all, how has learning history changed your understanding of the world we live in today?
Okay. So, these are two big questions. You can answer one or both. Um, yeah. For the first question, um, I think this has really um gave me a lot of insights on was like how there are things certain things that we take for granted that are kind of changed or challenged in this course.
Like for instance, I remember the very first class that we did was on like how humanity transitioned from like uh hunter gatherer to a an agricultural society. And so that idea of the agricultural society being more stable is like kind of modern view this issue that we often take for granted. But like what we learned from this class is that religion actually has a lot of influence on this transition like how setting down was like um really beneficial for practicing religions and rituals and as a huge factor that shaped this transition. So I think my understanding of history has been challenged quite a lot of ways in this course in terms of It challenges me to think deeper into the things that we view from a modern society or like a view that we take for granted. Great.
Thanks. So, thank you. Thank you. Okay. My turn.
Um I think for the first question, what is uh the history that we learned from this class? I think firstly is that uh for for for the education except for like middle school or something else. um history is more like about what happened before and simply uh the events the time the person and but I think in this course it's more like an intersectionality between the politics economic and u uh civilization culture stuff like this and uh actually when you see the complexity of the civilization and also uh what I want to also credit to echo was saying is that a very very important insight from this history class is uh the power of religion or saying that's not maybe particular a religion with ritual with uh doctrine but more like how belief is impact to to the people to the community to the society and also uh to talking about what changed my mind I think a very important part is that history is not linear sometimes is that not being like always being improved and actually more about uh people's will belief their choice situation and uh and let me think about like especially I want to talk about your uh like u I think significant class is about the empire is that you mentioned about like uh we learn from the death we learn from the past we learn from the mistakes we have made so I think from from this point point of view, I'm more thinking about like history is like a book about making mistake and we learn from the experience instead of to say that history has always been grand excellence and great thank you. Thank you so much. Okay.
So, um, great. Thank you so much. My next question is, um, I want you to reflect and think back to this course, this one year, okay? And tell me at one po at what point um, what did I say or what did I teach you that was like most shocking to you? And when you heard it, you were like you were kind of stunned or shocked.
And this is Do do you have a moment like this during this course when I said something you're like this is just completely shocking and to me okay how you echo yeah like for me um that goes back to the class where we talk about religion um one idea that you mentioned was like people are like all human beings are fundamentally religious and that was like quite shocking because like for me I I I kind of like I don't personally believe in any religion and I I kind of um reflecting on like my own life, religion seems like pretty far away and like it's quite um quite being denied by our society right now. And like by learning about the history of like the the Greeks and like the Romans and all that kind of stuff, like what I realized is that um the most creative societies were those that praised the poets and all those like theaters the most. And and that's like um how the great celebrated um Homer and like um that that's really the part that makes us human. And so going back to the idea of being religious, that idea is kind of denied in this modern society which values rationality over these fundamental aspects that makes us human. And so like we read part of the the poems and like literatures and that really makes me that like resonates with me in terms of like after such a long time in history but that connection and emotion that we share as human beings are just um irreplaceable.
Great. Thank you so much uh Amber. Um I like very agree with what Echo said because religion religious belief is very important have lots of percentage in our course and uh one argument is very insightful for me during the classes uh that people actually sometimes want to live in the dream instead of to face the reality. I think this actually explains a lot of uh my like confused to like my confusion to to to the past forcing to to my life in other aspects. And also uh like another another point is that when you talk about lots of like celebrity in the history, you think you will state that there are sometimes their logic is to make them become the gods.
This is also a kind of like a very very new way to interpret these people's and strategies because as EO said we are live in China we don't have like a very united religious belief so these stuff are usually being like far from our life but from such kind of like a lecture I think it actually let me know more about um even though we seemingly to transform to like modern society we're actually still using a lot of uh the experience from the past we are still credits or respect to the history even sometimes we're not Yeah. So um you said something really important. Okay. I want to paraphrase what you said, but the idea that you present is maybe in China we are too utilitarian and so that prevents us from achieving greatness. But if you look at all the uh people we've studied before like Napoleon um they achieve greatness because they want to be they want to like be God.
They they had faith in themselves and they they they they were achieving these grand visions. And maybe in China we we lack these sort of people. We lack that sort of spirit. Okay. Um so what I can directly think of when thinking of shocking ideas is that uh when we were reading the inad um through through the whole reading of it, I actually thought it was quite a nice book.
Uh uh and contrary to what uh I ended up on um throughout the book, it seemed uh pretty normal for me. But at the very uh in the very last lesson about I remember that um you told us about how it's actually a piece of propaganda from the Romans to uh implant these ideas of um duty and uh things like that into the uh readers minds or the audience's minds and right there and then I like realized a lot of the things are truly were happening throughout the entire book where for example uh the main character uh just has this motivation of for the greater good instead of for himself which loses him his personality in this uh in his pursuit of these goals and I think it's really important of uh these things where we um in the beginning don't don't see past like certain ways of propaganda if you would say so uh and I think uh it really was a very shocking moment for me where I realized like throughout this entire period of reading this book it was right in front of our eyes but because it was so well hidden it was just so hard to notice so it was a really really big part that I still remember today Okay, great. Thank you so much. So, um, as a teacher, um, I just feel so gratified that you've enjoyed this course and but also I can see that it's changed all of you for the better. It's made you more curious.
It's made you more observant. It's made you more critical. Uh, it's it's and you're able to take these ideas and reflect back on on your society around on society around you and question it further. Okay, which is which was my objective to begin with. So I feel extremely gratified.
Thank you so much. Okay. Now another question is there's lots of people online who are just curious. You guys are turning students. You're actually training students.
Uh city is going to Germany for university. Amber and Echo are going to America. So um people people want want to hear you are the future of China. What are your plans? What do you want to study university?
What what what what do you want to do after university? How do you see your career trajectory and your life trajectory? Okay. So maybe maybe we'll start with Echo. like I'm I'm going to cos college at the United States.
So if you're card say hi. Okay. Yeah. Like um and this is September and um I applied as like an undecided major because I want to explore more especially like history, sociology and like maybe psychology and all kinds of areas because like especially in this class what I think it's really is that you took multiple perspectives in like viewing um history as a whole like how geopolitics impact like um this historical development and like um some of the psychological aspects as well as a lot of like interconnected disciplines. So I really wanted to um explore more about them.
So I I not sure what my major would be. Poor cancer. Poor cancer. Um I'm going to New York University for liberal studies. So say hi to say hi to New York City.
Um so so liberal uh the program I apply is basically about the all about liberal arts and humanitiz. So I have already like registered for courses about like antiquity and uh writing and also history and politics. So this class is actually preparation for Yes. Definitely. for college.
Yeah. And for for for future plan um actually I don't know because I haven't participated to the college yet. So but definitely um I will still want to do something for my hometown and society and whatever because I'm uh besides uh like a fan of history I'm also like a feminist and they all know that. So I might might do something like for feminism like gender studies and also uh with like history and humanitiz. I think this is the part that we are currently not very valuable or encouraged in Chinese society and I hope it can be light again.
Great. Thank you. Um so I'm um thinking of going back to Germany. Um well since applications aren't uh finished yet I'm not quite sure where I'll be going but it's probably in the state of uh button woodenburg um I am planning on either studying history or philosophy. Um I I think I'm going to likely pursue it as far as I can maybe into a PhD.
Um and uh for future plans I am it's it's going to be a long time still so I'm not that sure yet but um I am hoping that uh since culture and uh education is very different from China uh to Europe and especially Germany. Um and I think it's important to have a combination of cultures um to be able to see things from very different perspectives. So I possibly will return to China uh with like the knowledge I've gained in Europe. And it's not more it's not really about imposing western ideas on Chinese society but rather a combination of it. And maybe it will help with um having more different views on uh society and different issues.
Okay, great. So fantastic. Okay. Um I mean just hearing your answers I know all three of three of you will be very successful in university and you will achieve all that you aim for. You guys are smart um observant um hardworking you guys are going to be very successful in life.
All right so I have complete faith in all three of you. Okay. Um my last question okay and um it's a hard question and feel free you don't have to answer it. Okay. But I want to ask you this question.
Um because I think a lot of people online are just curious. Um how do you see the state of the world and society today? And you you you talk about the world in general, you talk about America, you talk about China. Okay. But what are some issues and concerns that you have about what's happening in what what's happening in China?
What's happening in the world? What's happening in United States? Okay. So you don't have to answer this question because I and it's a hard question but does anyone want to um try? Sure.
So um looking at current politics uh which is uh very complex at the moment uh but I feel like there's a lot of um similarities to what has happened in the past. I haven't taken this year's um class, but I'm uh it's I feel like it's similar to what I've heard uh where history teaches a lesson about uh things to us. And I think that um for example, right now there's a lot of similarities to what has happened previously in the buildup to certain uh conflicts in the world. Uh and I think that it is important for us to be able to recognize these patterns of where conflict is on the horizon and to either decide to change things a bit to prevent these or to approach these conflicts in a better way because um for example with the u politics currently in the US uh or the politics over here in Asia um there's a lot of power relationships that are uh similar to uh both the start of World War I and World War and the conditions during the cold war uh which of course have been in the past century uh but it's still the same uh different political ide kind of similar political ideologies uh allying with each other and kind of having this rivalry on a global stage with each other. So I think it's really important to recognize these patterns being surf surfacing again and with the increase in conflicts globally I think it's really important that we uh as a society watch out to what is happening right now.
Um so um one thing I taught you uh last year that you've internalized is the idea that there are there are structures and forces to the movement of politics geopolitics and if we study these structural forces we have a better understanding of what's happening but also we can better influence what's happening. So so thank you. Okay. Um do you any of you also want to comment um how you read the world? Yeah.
Like what are issues that you're that concern you about the world today or in the society today? Because you talk about feminism. So um what is about about China you think that you're concerned about and you want to focus more about in in the future society and the world. Um I think one thing I actually observed from this course is also a side that more brutal than I thought before. So um but also also as we have mentioned in the class I think civilization is a cycle.
It's like we are I think there's no need to be too worried about uh the world or the politics because we are always in a like a point of the natural cycle we uh we're in the process and I think we definitely can learn something for saying that ask for from the past from history. So that's I think the also the meaning of continue learning and uh talking about feminism um I I curious about such topic more from my family and actually not about the lots of like big picture. So uh I think for for the world is sometimes I should firstly focus on individual focus on my own heart and I find the answer of myself and then to interact with the world and to um as and also as for China I think the social issue I think is we are firstly we are lack of a belief maybe not particularly about the religion but I feel sometimes people are very lost and the second one is that I think uh we still want to live in the queen so how to let the people more trying to wake up and face the reality. I think it's a quite like difficult mission that we need to explore in the future. Okay.
So, uh Ember, I want to thank you because I've heard two things. Okay. Um the first thing is by taking this course, um even though history is depressing, you still feel empowered because you feel like the answers lie in history. If we can study history deep enough, we can understand the present. We can impact the present positively.
So, so even though a lot of things we discussed in this class are extremely pessimistic and depressing, you still have it still gave you a power a sense of like individual empowerment and agency. Okay, I mean that's the first thing. Second thing is um I think taking this course um and maybe some other factors as well but you feel as though that you as an individual can have a positive impact on society if you engage in a process of deep learning for yourself and then a process of educating others. So so so that's what I heard. Okay.
But but but thank you. Okay. Uh Echo. Yeah. Like for me um one of the problems or like issues that I that I am personally pretty concerned with is education and China because like currently we live in a highly um rational and eilitarian society.
And so like especially in like international schools as well as um traditional high schools in China, people like take a lot of tests and like do a lot of like um recite a lot of stuff and things like that and and that kind of um diminish the part where people feel that connection with the reality. And so what I've learned from this course is that when we um discuss a unit about the Vikanian society so One thing that I uh that's pretty impressive to me is that the Vikings spent like a third of their wealth on like a funeral. And so what does what does that mean is that like they value their society values a lot about stories that they pass from generation to generations. And that emotional part was kind of diminished by the utilitarianism in our current world. So I think um especially for my personal experience courses like um like like this one and and like study of history has been kind of um devalued in this um especially when technologies and like science like the dominant trend and I'm not saying that this is bad or anything but it's like it kind of makes us internalize that there are certain problems that we really want to look into and people don't really realize especially um yeah okay so um echo I think no matter what you do in life you're going to be a very passionate educator and it could be a professor it could be a researcher it could be a teacher doesn't matter okay but I think like just hearing you speak your students are going to um love love you and you're going to have a huge impact on your students okay so so thank you all right So um for me this was a fantastic conversation because this is actually the first time this year I've had a chance to talk to students get some feedback.
So I feel extremely gratified. I thank all all three of you and I hope that we can stay in touch and I think that for um uh my YouTube audience this was actually extremely enlightening because now for the first time they can see uh my students and they can see uh what Chinese students are like and and and I and I think people on YouTube are will be very impressed by all three of you and I hope that we can stay in touch and maybe we can do a follow-up session a year from now or two years from now when we're back in Beijing together and have a chance to ask you about your university experience and how this course has prepared for you for university. So, thanks so much uh and we'll stay in touch. Okay. Okay.