I realize I've written about this before, but it occurred to me again today just how totally brilliant Sesame Street is.
Two of their specials, and ones that were permanent fixtures in my childhood, are Big Bird in China and Big Bird in Japan. It would be so easy to do cheesy hokey tour guide stories where characters visit important and famous landmarks and just exclaim "wow! this is beautiful!" at every turn. Maybe there are a few comparisons to how Americans do things, a little bit of explaining to put it in a context that Americans can understand and handle, but it's always positive and exciting. But not Sesame Street.
Sesame Street isn't afraid to present a more realistic experience. Big Bird (and Barkley) are of course excited to be in this new country but then immediately upon arriving are confused, disoriented and frustrated. In Japan he gets separated from his tour group with very little money, no concept of the alphabet or language and sings about being homesick. In China he has a goal (find the locations that appear on a scroll) but he doesn't have any idea where to start and, again, doesn't know how to ask anyone for help. In both, he makes a native friend who help him find his way around and teach him a few words of the language.
In each country he visits a preschool to show kids (just like you!) at play and in class, how they learn, what they learn, and that there are kids everywhere doing things that very much like the things you do.
Ultimately he completes whatever goal he sets out to achieve but here's my favorite thing, both incorporate a big piece of the culture's folklore. In China he has to find all the locations on the scroll before the sand runs out (of an hourglass that Barkley wears around his neck) and at each location he gets a clue from the Monkey King that will lead him to the Phoenix bird of China. He hears the legend of the Phoenix from a storyteller and upon finally meeting her asks her to sing the song from her legend.
Plus this is the most adorable.
In Japan the friend he makes is a mysterious woman who appears and disappears suddenly and who often stares off into space looking sad. Big Bird comes to learn that she too is leaving Japan when he is because she's actually Kaguya-Hime, the Moon Princess, whose story Big Bird watches performed at the preschool he visits.
So now the kids watching this video have a sense of what China and Japan look like, what some of the people are like, what the languages sound like, and a little of what it might be like to live there. If they were to go to these countries or meet people from these countries, they'd have some understanding of their culture. It's like someone coming to America and having heard the stories of Santa or the Tooth Fairy (Note: I say this with an incredible ignorance of what stories I know that are uniquely American. I know that Santa's story has roots in other culture's stories and other manifestations in different traditions. But you get the idea.)
I don't pretend that these videos completely explain the Chinese or Japanese experience, but since their target audience is the under 6 crowd, to have kids that age have a deeper understanding, more than just facts to parrot back, of a different culture is such a great way to get their brains thinking about people who aren't in America, especially in these dangerously xenophobic times.
So big ups, Sesame Street. And here's an unrelated but still Sesame Street classic that still gets me.
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