Why Bamboo Grove?

I agonized over what to call this blog for the course that i'm going to teach this semester. I started out with "SSCHS Asian Studies" but trying to search for it on Google meant that the blog had to compete for attention with the thousand-and-one sites relating to asian studies (all of them too academic for a teacher like me). All i wanted was a title that would be distinctly asian and yet not too academic-sounding. If there's one thing that i wanted to avoid its making the title sound too academic, limiting the scope of its potential audience.

Here's a list of some titles i considered:

Oriental Express
Orient Excess
Our Asia
SSCHS Asian Studies
Asia ini! (This is asia!)
Asiablog
Bamboo Grove
Asia: are you?

After a night's sleep, i knew that i wanted this blog to have a title that would immediately say "asian" to any reader. I narrowed it down to things that are asian and consequently found myself with the word "bamboo", something which almost immediately makes one think of asia.

I chose "Bamboo Grove" not only for its distinct asian flavor but also for it's significance in relation to asia as a community of nations. Each clump of bamboo having its own unique character but part of a larger bamboo grove. Each asian nation and civilization has its unique character but all inextricably linked in some way: history, culture, traditions, world-view.

Exploring the bamboo grove to understand how we are different but so related is the journey for us this semester.