Cultural Excursion: The Huntington Library

Name of the gallery/museum: the Huntington Library

Location: 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA

The opening times: Monday - Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday Closed

Entrance fee: Weekdays Weekends, Monday holidays
                      Adults           $15           $20
                     Students         $10           $10

Day/time of visit: 07-25-2010

Duration of visit: 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Describe the layout, content, special exhibitions, etc.

When I heard we would go to the Huntington "Library," I felt a little afraid. But when we arrived there, I found it played us a trick. Actually, it is a world park with many gardens of various styles, and many separate museums and art galleries.

There were many families with their children and many foreign visitors in the Huntington Library. And I found lots of Chinese visitors there, because I heard a lot of Chinese. Actually, the foreign visitors paid more attention on their professional traveling with their guides and were busy with taking photos, while the local visitors were more relaxed and usually just looked around, which was also why I said it was more like a park but not a museum or a library.

One of the art galleries in the Huntington Library was the Huntington Art Gallery, originally the house of Henry E. Huntington and his second wife, which displayed one of the most comprehensive collection of 18th- and 19th-century British and French art in the country, including the celebrated Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough and Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence.

And the most popular part in Huntington Art Gallery was the Thornton Portrait Gallery. There were dozens of people in the gallery room. In average, they spent over half an hour there, and the most time was spent on the most famous paintings of the Blue Boy and Pinkie. But I thought the Thornton Portrait Gallery was more popular just because of many couches there. And actually, most foreign visitors went there just for finding places to sit, while most local visitors more preferred to walk around and look at the paintings. That was a very interesting phenomena.

And Viet told me the Blue Boy was very famous because it often appeared on American textbooks. So I guessed the different reactions between the foreign and the local visitors was because the foreigns did not know much about the background of the paintings, but the citizens were more aware of their meanings.

And in the Botanical Gardens, there were more than a dozen specialized gardens arranged within a park-like landscape of rolling lawns. Among the most remarkable were the Desert Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Chinese garden.

The most interesting thing was, when we were in the Flowing Fragrance Garden of the Chinese garden, I stood in the pavilion, I thought I was in Beijing, not only because there were many Chinese visitors there, but also because the garden was so like the Summer Palace in Beijing. And until I saw Danielle's face, I realized it was just my daydream.

Interview with Partners

Ji Hae Park

Ji Hae has taught English grammar and reading comprehension in a Korean high school for 12 years. She thought her English speaking was not good enough, because her teaching was only focused on grammar and reading so that she had few opportunities to practice her oral English. (But I think her English speaking is very fluent. She may just need a little confidence.) She wants to set up her own private kindergarten in the future. I am so glad that one day, I will see she runs her own school, just like my father. And I believe her dream will definitely come true.

Danielle Nicklaus

Danielle's major is liberal arts, but she wants to switch to education. She said, the more she learned about education, the more interests she found. She wants to teach in the elementary school, not only for English, but also all kinds of subjects in the future. She plans to join the educational credential program in CSUSB. She wishes someday she can teach abroad, but she is also a little afraid to adapt another different culture. I know that feeling, but I believe someday when she really teaches abroad, she will find it is worth.

Language Education

Ji Hae told us, in Korea, high school students spend all the time preparing the university entrance exam, which does not include any content about English speaking, either, so most Korean students are poor in their oral English. In China, we have the similar situation, too, so I think it may be a common problem for Asian English teaching. But Danielle said that was very different from the language teaching in America. When she learned Spanish, her best part was Spanish speaking. So I think it may be because of the different characters between Asian and American: Asian people are more introverted, while American people are more extroverted.

Holidays

Ji Hae also shared with us about Korean holidays. She said one of the most important holidays in Korea is Korean Independent Day on August 15th. And Christmas and Thanksgiving Day are also legal holidays in Korea like in America because of lots of Christian population in Korea. That is very interesting. Because in China, only young people celebrate Christmas, because they regard it as a kind of fashion. Many young Chinese are very crazy about western cultures and life styles. And in Christmas, they will go to the club and spend all night with friends or colleagues drinking, dancing and singing karaoke.

Danielle also introduced Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, and Easter, which are all very important holidays in America. She said in Thanksgiving Day, American people will make Christmas tree, get together with families, and have turkey, pumpkin pie, and other traditional American holiday food.

And Ji Hae also introduced Korean New Year, which is very similar with Chinese New Year. During Korean New Year, Korean people will have traditional Korean rice cake soup, dress traditional Korean clothes, and visit their relatives and friends. And the only difference I found between Chinese New Year and Korean New Year is the food that, most Chinese eat dumplings, and the people in South China usually have new year rice cake and sweet dumpling soup.

Breakfast

Danielle said in America, people usually have cereals, beacons and scrambled eggs in the morning. But in Korea and China, both Ji Hae and I found, although people usually have milk and bread (actually in China, we prefer to have soy milk and a kind of long steamed bread), people can eat anything they like as breakfast, even though they usually eat as lunch or supper, such as noodles. And Danielle felt very interesting about that, because in America, there are some food people usually only have in the morning, but in Korea and China, we do not have that so-called breakfast food.

Hobbies

Ji Hae likes travelling, cooking and watching movies. And she went to Japan and Taiwan before. But she hasn't been to China, so I very hope and welcome her to visit my hometown, Dalian. Danielle said she has never went abroad. She very dreams that someday she can have the opportunity to look around the outside world. But she said, sometimes when she imagined she was standing on a land with a totally different culture from hers, she felt a little scared and then a little backed up. But Ji Hae and I told her, new culture is nothing scary, but only exciting!

And I found it was very amazing that Ji Hae can read the Chinese characters I wrote. And she told me that many Koreans have learned traditional Chinese characters. Wow! I cannot find anything cooler than sharing cultures with different people!