Teaching English has become one heck of a big industry around the globe (just check out www.daveseslcafe.com to see how big), but if you're not white and from Canada, America, England, Australia or New Zealand, you might have difficulty in getting a gig in developing countries like Cambodia.
I'm not sure it's racism. If it is, it's a kind of benign racism, if such a thing is possible. Meaning, for some reason that eludes, the thinking is: white skin = native speaker of English. The people who are acting racist don't actually know they're acting racist, if that makes sense. (Which I guess makes it even more racist, doesn't it.) If you're black, they might not hire you simply because they don't think you actually grew up speaking the language; again, the thinking is that white skin equals native speaker. Period. Being a black or African English teacher in this part of the world isn't impossible, no, but it ain't too easy, let me tell you.
Similiarly, if you're from a country like the Phillipines, they might decide not to hire you because English technically isn't a native language there, even though most Filipinos speak better English and can teach better English than half the Canadians I know.
A lot of this unconscious (?) predjudice has to do with accent. English language learners are paranoid that they have to learn from teachers who speak the Queen's English, and that if they learn the language from someone who doesn't speak exactly like the Queen Mum, then they're screwed, their linguistic future having been lost to the wind, their money burned to a black and pointless crisp.
Doesn't work that way.
The fact is, English is a global language, spoken with extremely different accents not only in every country, but usually in different parts of each country as well. (You ever heard a Nova Scotia or Newfoundland accent? Or an authentic Alabama one?)
If you learn English from someone with a slightly odd accent, it makes you listen harder. It forces you to listen closer. It engages you in a way that may not be easy at first, no, but it will actually improve your overall comprehension ability. And in a place like Cambodia, many students will eventually try to get a job at an international NGO, where the people speaking English will be from places like Sweden and Germany and Finland and Norway, and guess what? Their accents will be thick as molasses. If students aren't accustomed to hearing English in somewhat altered, even eccentric ways, they're in big trouble.
Language is a commodity that is bought, sold, traded and given away, free of charge. It does not belong to a particular national group, let alone race. It arises from a particular place and time, true, but once you learn it, it becomes your currency, and you will add to it your own shadings, nuances and pathways to its presentation. It becomes personal, individual and possessive. To limit the teaching of English to solely those individuals who were lucky enough to have been born into its daily use is to deny the willing learner of the essence of language itself -- namely, its magical, slightly mysterious ability to seize hold of the foreigner, the novice, the illiterate, and slowly, gradually make its powerful presence heard, then felt.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
THE FREAKY-LOOKING TEENAGE KID WHO BAGS YOUR GROCERIES
Right now I'm reading this book called The Koreans: Who they are, What they want, Where their future lies by a British journalist named Michael Breen, and it raises a couple of points that are a little bit interesting -- at least to me, hopefully to you:
1) Koreans don't allow non-Koreans to become Koreans (in a spiritual, nationalistic sense). This is a typical refrain that I've read in countless books about Japan, too -- that foreigners, even those who have lived in the country for decades, speak the language, are married to its citizens, are still not fully accepted into the patriotic brotherhood of the country.
I've never quite gotten the point of this point, because it's usually used to highlight how xenophobic Japan/Korea/insert country name here usually is. It seems to me that almost every single country in the world, with the possible exceptions of, I don't know, America and Canada, wouldn't accept a foreigner as one of its own. I don't find that racist or indicative of a 'closed' mentality at all; I find that to be human nature. It's like that new kid that joins your elementary school in Grade 4, after you've gone through the last five years of school with the same classmates. Sure, the new kid is part of the school, yeah, but he'll never be considered truly one of the boys. Most countries are freaking old, right, so how or why could a foreigner possibly be accepted, integrated, amalgamated? (New countries like the U.S. and Canada, being immigrant countries to begin with, are better at this sort of thing...although, I'm wondering by how much.)
2) It's a shame that most people can't read Korean, because they're literature is out of this world. This is a point that I wholeheartedly agree with, meaning, it is too bad that the majority of the people in the world can't read a certain country's language. There's so much nuance, texture and just plain coolness in foreign languages; if you don't know the language, entire artistic continents are, unfortunately, labelled off the map. (Certain of the arts, namely cinema and music, are still able to be enjoyed by the world's masses; others, like books, are forced to rely on the good graces and skills of translators, who do admirable jobs of capturing the essence of the work, but inevitably, something is lost -- that something being the musical cadence that makes language, well, language.)
The root of this book, and others like it, centres around identity. Who are these people, and why do they act the way that they do? Anytime you're in a foreign country, whether it's for days or weeks or months or years, you're going to be find yourself asking these questions.
And I'm not sure an answer is possible.
I'm not sure an answer is necessary.
The search is necessary. The questioning is necessary. It puts you more in touch with yourself and allows your curiosity and empathy about others to flourish.
The answer, though?
There is no answer to the who and the why. There's theories and observations. That's all. And yours are just as valid or crazy as the next guy's.
In the end, trying to pin down the actions, emotions, sensibility and transparency of an entire nation is a pointless task. It's hard enough to understand a single person, let alone a country or its people.
Just imagine if you could understand, truly understand, in all his contradictory human complexity, the freaky-looking teenage kid who bags your groceries at the supermarket, the kid with the tattoo of you're-not-sure-what on the base of his neck.
That would be a book worth reading, I think.
1) Koreans don't allow non-Koreans to become Koreans (in a spiritual, nationalistic sense). This is a typical refrain that I've read in countless books about Japan, too -- that foreigners, even those who have lived in the country for decades, speak the language, are married to its citizens, are still not fully accepted into the patriotic brotherhood of the country.
I've never quite gotten the point of this point, because it's usually used to highlight how xenophobic Japan/Korea/insert country name here usually is. It seems to me that almost every single country in the world, with the possible exceptions of, I don't know, America and Canada, wouldn't accept a foreigner as one of its own. I don't find that racist or indicative of a 'closed' mentality at all; I find that to be human nature. It's like that new kid that joins your elementary school in Grade 4, after you've gone through the last five years of school with the same classmates. Sure, the new kid is part of the school, yeah, but he'll never be considered truly one of the boys. Most countries are freaking old, right, so how or why could a foreigner possibly be accepted, integrated, amalgamated? (New countries like the U.S. and Canada, being immigrant countries to begin with, are better at this sort of thing...although, I'm wondering by how much.)
2) It's a shame that most people can't read Korean, because they're literature is out of this world. This is a point that I wholeheartedly agree with, meaning, it is too bad that the majority of the people in the world can't read a certain country's language. There's so much nuance, texture and just plain coolness in foreign languages; if you don't know the language, entire artistic continents are, unfortunately, labelled off the map. (Certain of the arts, namely cinema and music, are still able to be enjoyed by the world's masses; others, like books, are forced to rely on the good graces and skills of translators, who do admirable jobs of capturing the essence of the work, but inevitably, something is lost -- that something being the musical cadence that makes language, well, language.)
The root of this book, and others like it, centres around identity. Who are these people, and why do they act the way that they do? Anytime you're in a foreign country, whether it's for days or weeks or months or years, you're going to be find yourself asking these questions.
And I'm not sure an answer is possible.
I'm not sure an answer is necessary.
The search is necessary. The questioning is necessary. It puts you more in touch with yourself and allows your curiosity and empathy about others to flourish.
The answer, though?
There is no answer to the who and the why. There's theories and observations. That's all. And yours are just as valid or crazy as the next guy's.
In the end, trying to pin down the actions, emotions, sensibility and transparency of an entire nation is a pointless task. It's hard enough to understand a single person, let alone a country or its people.
Just imagine if you could understand, truly understand, in all his contradictory human complexity, the freaky-looking teenage kid who bags your groceries at the supermarket, the kid with the tattoo of you're-not-sure-what on the base of his neck.
That would be a book worth reading, I think.
Monday, January 03, 2005
THE TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREE
An old Canadian co-worker of mine here in Cambodia wrote his masters thesis centred around the idea of internationalizing the curriculum in Canadian universities -- only to be met with a resounding lack of interest which sounds typical of a problem that I think infects far too many Canadian schools, both secondary and post-secondary (or did when I was student, anyways.)
What did I learn about the world in high school? I'm not talking about the world of literature, or the world of science, or the world of dodgeball. I'm talking about the real world, the one that exists beyond the boundaries of the Canadian border.
Very little, I'm afraid. I vaguely remember some South African lady coming into my geography class to talk about apartheid...and that's about it. I swear. Even our history classes were concerned almost soley with WWII, and the geography lessons made use of film reel strips that dated from the seventies (and looked it).
Maybe times have changed. Maybe the Canadian curriculum, thanks to the rise of the Internet, has become a bastion of internationalism.
I kind of doubt it.
So why is this relevant?
I think it has to do with the issue of dreams, the notion of belief, the concept of reaching out beyond your usual boundaries.
Very few Canadians travel to foreign countries outside of the U.S. Our knowledge of the world is pretty limited. There are terrible, atrocious events happening halfway around the world, yes, we know that, but what time does Seinfeld start again? Is it the one with the 'contest'?
Part of this lack of awareness (or interest) in the world comes from our schooling. Canada was voted by the UN as the best place to live in the world for two years in a row. The magnitude of that had never even occurred to me before I lived in a place like Cambodia.
What that means is, there is no other way of life on the face of the planet that is better than the suburban lives most of us grew up in. This is it, the top of the human food chain, the cream of the crop of human existence.
(And if you're thinking: If suburbia is as good as it gets in the world, I might as well kill myself, well, I hate to say it, but you're wrong. It is as good as it gets. Wander around some of the villages over here and you'll find it hard to moan about the 'cultural wasteland' of the suburbs. We should be kissing the grass on our weekly-cut lawns on a daily basis just to have such a wasteland to grow disillusioned with.)
Given that our place in the world is so high, I think Canadians have a responsibility to at least consider the rest of the world for even a moment, because guess what? The rest of the world is considering us, big time, and the amount of immigrants coming to Canada does not seem to be stopping. My old co-worker here is a Somali whose sister lives in Canada, and who wants to become a Canadian citizen himself.
Why?
Because Canada is seen as someplace good, honest, fundamentally better than other countries.
That's a reputation, is what it is.
And that reputation has to be validated by the people who are left with the responsibility of holding it up.
To cut to the chase, I don't think students are given the sense of power that they should have, the sense that they can go out and affect the world and, possibly, even change it. I know I sure as hell didn't have any teachers that were telling me that kind of stuff. Good, kind people, yes, but not inspiring, not lighting the flames under the asses of energetic teenagers who have not yet allowed the cynic inside of them to take full flight.
Abnormal success is caused by abnormal people, I read recently, and 'abnormal' does not have to mean deranged. It can mean different from the norm, parallel to the norm.
Canada is abnormal compared to the rest of the world. It is filled with abnormal people, ones who actually have qualified doctors to go to, clean water to drink, lawns to water. If there is a problem, you can go to the police. You can't do that over here. The police don't care.
I think it's time that Canada lost its provincial, small-minded ways, its relentless, ultimately pointless inferiority complex that causes it to constantly compare itself to the States.
Maybe the new influx of immigrants and refugees will bring the stories and legacies of their homelands to the rest of Canada, and together a new Canada can be built, one composed of third and fourth generation Canadians and first generation Canadians working together to integrate Canada more fully and completely with the rest of the (developing) world. All of the Chinese and Indian and Pakistani and Somali young people (soon to be Canadian citizens themselves) that are increasingly filling Canadian classrooms can somehow help the rest of us whitebread Canucks create a new kind of patriotism rooted in a true global consciousness.
That's only going to happen through education. That's only going to happen when Canadians who have lived abroad and have a grasp of international issues are brought into the education system and allowed to create learning systems that reflect their overseas experience. That's only going to happen when young black and white and Asian and African Canadians are reminded again and again that they are a strong, resilient, powerful, abnormal people who live in a place that millions are trying to reach, and that they, themselves, have the obligation to sustain and transform. That's only going to happen when they utilize their potential and capacity to bring themselves up and out of their tiny world and into a state of being much larger than themselves.
What did I learn about the world in high school? I'm not talking about the world of literature, or the world of science, or the world of dodgeball. I'm talking about the real world, the one that exists beyond the boundaries of the Canadian border.
Very little, I'm afraid. I vaguely remember some South African lady coming into my geography class to talk about apartheid...and that's about it. I swear. Even our history classes were concerned almost soley with WWII, and the geography lessons made use of film reel strips that dated from the seventies (and looked it).
Maybe times have changed. Maybe the Canadian curriculum, thanks to the rise of the Internet, has become a bastion of internationalism.
I kind of doubt it.
So why is this relevant?
I think it has to do with the issue of dreams, the notion of belief, the concept of reaching out beyond your usual boundaries.
Very few Canadians travel to foreign countries outside of the U.S. Our knowledge of the world is pretty limited. There are terrible, atrocious events happening halfway around the world, yes, we know that, but what time does Seinfeld start again? Is it the one with the 'contest'?
Part of this lack of awareness (or interest) in the world comes from our schooling. Canada was voted by the UN as the best place to live in the world for two years in a row. The magnitude of that had never even occurred to me before I lived in a place like Cambodia.
What that means is, there is no other way of life on the face of the planet that is better than the suburban lives most of us grew up in. This is it, the top of the human food chain, the cream of the crop of human existence.
(And if you're thinking: If suburbia is as good as it gets in the world, I might as well kill myself, well, I hate to say it, but you're wrong. It is as good as it gets. Wander around some of the villages over here and you'll find it hard to moan about the 'cultural wasteland' of the suburbs. We should be kissing the grass on our weekly-cut lawns on a daily basis just to have such a wasteland to grow disillusioned with.)
Given that our place in the world is so high, I think Canadians have a responsibility to at least consider the rest of the world for even a moment, because guess what? The rest of the world is considering us, big time, and the amount of immigrants coming to Canada does not seem to be stopping. My old co-worker here is a Somali whose sister lives in Canada, and who wants to become a Canadian citizen himself.
Why?
Because Canada is seen as someplace good, honest, fundamentally better than other countries.
That's a reputation, is what it is.
And that reputation has to be validated by the people who are left with the responsibility of holding it up.
To cut to the chase, I don't think students are given the sense of power that they should have, the sense that they can go out and affect the world and, possibly, even change it. I know I sure as hell didn't have any teachers that were telling me that kind of stuff. Good, kind people, yes, but not inspiring, not lighting the flames under the asses of energetic teenagers who have not yet allowed the cynic inside of them to take full flight.
Abnormal success is caused by abnormal people, I read recently, and 'abnormal' does not have to mean deranged. It can mean different from the norm, parallel to the norm.
Canada is abnormal compared to the rest of the world. It is filled with abnormal people, ones who actually have qualified doctors to go to, clean water to drink, lawns to water. If there is a problem, you can go to the police. You can't do that over here. The police don't care.
I think it's time that Canada lost its provincial, small-minded ways, its relentless, ultimately pointless inferiority complex that causes it to constantly compare itself to the States.
Maybe the new influx of immigrants and refugees will bring the stories and legacies of their homelands to the rest of Canada, and together a new Canada can be built, one composed of third and fourth generation Canadians and first generation Canadians working together to integrate Canada more fully and completely with the rest of the (developing) world. All of the Chinese and Indian and Pakistani and Somali young people (soon to be Canadian citizens themselves) that are increasingly filling Canadian classrooms can somehow help the rest of us whitebread Canucks create a new kind of patriotism rooted in a true global consciousness.
That's only going to happen through education. That's only going to happen when Canadians who have lived abroad and have a grasp of international issues are brought into the education system and allowed to create learning systems that reflect their overseas experience. That's only going to happen when young black and white and Asian and African Canadians are reminded again and again that they are a strong, resilient, powerful, abnormal people who live in a place that millions are trying to reach, and that they, themselves, have the obligation to sustain and transform. That's only going to happen when they utilize their potential and capacity to bring themselves up and out of their tiny world and into a state of being much larger than themselves.
MY VERSION OF ROGER EBERT
Recent movies watched and books read under the heat of the December sun, if you're interested. (If you're not interested, go to www.rogerebert.com. He writes better than me, anyways. And he's skinny now, too, which is in and of itself a miracle worthy of your attention.)
MOVIES WATCHED:
HOTEL RWANDA -- Involving flick about the massacres in Rwanda ten years ago. Similar to SCHINDLER'S LIST in some ways. A great central performance by Don Cheadle. Quite moving and powerful, mostly in the leisurely, gradual way that the story develops, the insidious way that horror and corruption go hand in hand. I saw a powerful documentary at the Toronto Film Festival that profiled Romeo Daillaire, who was the Canadian UN general in Rwanda at the time. (In this movie, Nick Nolte plays a character based on Daillaire; does Nolte pull off being a Canadian? I think he does. He has a Canadian flag on his uniform, so that's half the battle right there, right?)
Watching this, though, and other stories of heroism and survival in the midst of war, reminded me of a quote Stanley Kubrick's screenwriter on EYES WIDE SHUT made. He was talking to Kubrick (a Jew) about SCHINDLER'S LIST. Kubrick said something like:
"You think SCHINDLER'S LIST was about the holocaust? That movie was about six thousand Jews that lived. The holocaust was about six million Jews that died."
MADADAYO -- The legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's last film, a long and simple story about a retired professor and his decades-long relationships with his students. In its visual composition, pacing, script and overall theme, it is quintessentially Japanese. It is lengthy and slow and not much happens and it includes everything that American films would leave out. See it to see why Asian films are so much more better than western ones. (A blanket statement, but I think it's true.)
THE JOURNEY HOME -- This is by Zhang Yimou (sp?), the brilliant Chinese director, and it's a simple story, beautifully told. (As was MADADAYO, come to think of it.) Upon the death of his father, a Chinese urbanite returns to his rural village for his father's burial, prompting the story of how his parents being met to be told. The present-day sequences are in crisp, grim black and white, while the idealized narrative of his parents' courtship is in glorious colour. Another excellent Asian flick.
INFERNAL AFFAIRS III -- The first chapter of this Chinese trilogy was just released back in America, and it's going to be remade by Martin Scorsese, starring Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. You should see this orginal flick first, if you can find it. A Hong Kong action series, it focuses on betrayal and loyalty in the police force. This is a fitting end to the series -- entertaining, dramatic, suprising, and a worthy coda to the trilogy that, I suppose, is worth watching on its own, but it has added bits of resonance if you've seen (and remember) the first two flicks. On the whole, I'd say the first film is the strongest -- isn't that usually the case? The second film is a prequel, and the third film jumps back in time from before the first film until the present day. Got that? A convoluted but suspenseful trilogy that deals with poweful themes of memory, forgiveness, revenge and redemption. If foreign films scare you, check out these movies.
BOOKS READ:
CAMBODIA CONFOUNDS THE PEACEMAKERS -- A somewhat clunky title, and a bit of a boring read, but it highlights the long and winding road Cambodia took to achieving even a semblance of democracy after the Vietnamese rule ended in the early nineties. Very informative and exhaustive, illustrating how legal, circular and messy negotiations can become at the end of a genocidal regime that is longing for a semblance of normalcy. Not a fun read, no, but if you're interested in the Cambodian legal system and present-day society, worth checking out.
TWILIGHT OVER BURMA: MY LIFE AS A SHAN PRINCESS -- A memoir of an Austrian woman who, while studying in America, met a Burmese man, married him, and just happened to find out, upon arriving in the country (Myanmar/Burma) that he was a genuine prince of a Shan province. (Uh, sorry honey, he says. Forgot to mention that point.) Simply written, notable mostly for its first-hand details of life in a Burmese province circa 1950. A first-hand portrait of how an Austrian woman becomes a princess, raises a family, and then reacts and responds to ten years in an independently run province of Burma. The personal trauma she experiences when the military regime overpowers the country and her husband serves as a quiet testimony to the dreadful, basic unfairness of so much of Southeast Asian politics and life.
YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS -- This is the autobiography of John Mcenroe. I always liked Mcenroe, probably because he's left-handed, and probably because I remember that when I was in high school he made his final, desperate stab at a Wimbledon singles title at the impossibly late age of thirty-two, which is only three years older than I am now, which makes me feel freakin' old. I can remember reading a British biography of Mcenroe while waiting for a pizza at Pete's Pizza in the plaza near my house. (Is that place still there, I wonder?) Now I'm getting sentimental...
Strange thing is, the British edition, the one I read, is titled 'Serious'. Its cover features Mcenroe in a suit and tie. The American edition's cover shows the famous shot of Mcenroe circa the mid-eighties, strolling through Times Square in a lengthy black overcoat, looking cool. Maybe the publishers thought British readers wanted a little more depth, and the Americans a little more flash?
In any event, if you're a tennis fan, it highlights all the highlights you'd want from Mcenroe's career, but it's more than that. The title -- taken from one of Mcenroe's legendary rants to court officials -- is also kind of a lament for his own immaturity. It's a self-portrait of a guy who is trying to learn how to move away from being a selfish brat now that he has six kids, a wife, and a little bit of a loony ex-wife. How to balance the real world with the illusionary world that tennis players live in. ("Tennis players are not well-rounded people," he says. "There's nothing in the lifestyle whatsoever that requires us to be.")
Mcenroe is a true character, and he tells it like it is; the book pulls no punches on himself or other people. Read if you like or hate Mcenroe. It will probably confirm your opinion of him either way.
LIVING FAITH -- This is Jimmy Carter's memoir about his life as a Christian and how it's affected his career(s), politics and life. Reading this, you wish that Bush were this articulate and broad-minded about his religious beliefs. Carter is remarkably progressive in his beliefs, while never denying the central truths he holds dear. He is not heavy-handed or 'preachy'; he's showing what Christianity has meant to his life through specific examples that are usually poignant and sometimes funny. He's not afraid to criticize his own religion, and he's honest about his changing views. Carter was a pretty lousy president his first time around, I guess, but given all the great work he's done since then, is he still able to have another shot at it? The world needs more leaders like this guy.
MOVIES WATCHED:
HOTEL RWANDA -- Involving flick about the massacres in Rwanda ten years ago. Similar to SCHINDLER'S LIST in some ways. A great central performance by Don Cheadle. Quite moving and powerful, mostly in the leisurely, gradual way that the story develops, the insidious way that horror and corruption go hand in hand. I saw a powerful documentary at the Toronto Film Festival that profiled Romeo Daillaire, who was the Canadian UN general in Rwanda at the time. (In this movie, Nick Nolte plays a character based on Daillaire; does Nolte pull off being a Canadian? I think he does. He has a Canadian flag on his uniform, so that's half the battle right there, right?)
Watching this, though, and other stories of heroism and survival in the midst of war, reminded me of a quote Stanley Kubrick's screenwriter on EYES WIDE SHUT made. He was talking to Kubrick (a Jew) about SCHINDLER'S LIST. Kubrick said something like:
"You think SCHINDLER'S LIST was about the holocaust? That movie was about six thousand Jews that lived. The holocaust was about six million Jews that died."
MADADAYO -- The legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's last film, a long and simple story about a retired professor and his decades-long relationships with his students. In its visual composition, pacing, script and overall theme, it is quintessentially Japanese. It is lengthy and slow and not much happens and it includes everything that American films would leave out. See it to see why Asian films are so much more better than western ones. (A blanket statement, but I think it's true.)
THE JOURNEY HOME -- This is by Zhang Yimou (sp?), the brilliant Chinese director, and it's a simple story, beautifully told. (As was MADADAYO, come to think of it.) Upon the death of his father, a Chinese urbanite returns to his rural village for his father's burial, prompting the story of how his parents being met to be told. The present-day sequences are in crisp, grim black and white, while the idealized narrative of his parents' courtship is in glorious colour. Another excellent Asian flick.
INFERNAL AFFAIRS III -- The first chapter of this Chinese trilogy was just released back in America, and it's going to be remade by Martin Scorsese, starring Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. You should see this orginal flick first, if you can find it. A Hong Kong action series, it focuses on betrayal and loyalty in the police force. This is a fitting end to the series -- entertaining, dramatic, suprising, and a worthy coda to the trilogy that, I suppose, is worth watching on its own, but it has added bits of resonance if you've seen (and remember) the first two flicks. On the whole, I'd say the first film is the strongest -- isn't that usually the case? The second film is a prequel, and the third film jumps back in time from before the first film until the present day. Got that? A convoluted but suspenseful trilogy that deals with poweful themes of memory, forgiveness, revenge and redemption. If foreign films scare you, check out these movies.
BOOKS READ:
CAMBODIA CONFOUNDS THE PEACEMAKERS -- A somewhat clunky title, and a bit of a boring read, but it highlights the long and winding road Cambodia took to achieving even a semblance of democracy after the Vietnamese rule ended in the early nineties. Very informative and exhaustive, illustrating how legal, circular and messy negotiations can become at the end of a genocidal regime that is longing for a semblance of normalcy. Not a fun read, no, but if you're interested in the Cambodian legal system and present-day society, worth checking out.
TWILIGHT OVER BURMA: MY LIFE AS A SHAN PRINCESS -- A memoir of an Austrian woman who, while studying in America, met a Burmese man, married him, and just happened to find out, upon arriving in the country (Myanmar/Burma) that he was a genuine prince of a Shan province. (Uh, sorry honey, he says. Forgot to mention that point.) Simply written, notable mostly for its first-hand details of life in a Burmese province circa 1950. A first-hand portrait of how an Austrian woman becomes a princess, raises a family, and then reacts and responds to ten years in an independently run province of Burma. The personal trauma she experiences when the military regime overpowers the country and her husband serves as a quiet testimony to the dreadful, basic unfairness of so much of Southeast Asian politics and life.
YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS -- This is the autobiography of John Mcenroe. I always liked Mcenroe, probably because he's left-handed, and probably because I remember that when I was in high school he made his final, desperate stab at a Wimbledon singles title at the impossibly late age of thirty-two, which is only three years older than I am now, which makes me feel freakin' old. I can remember reading a British biography of Mcenroe while waiting for a pizza at Pete's Pizza in the plaza near my house. (Is that place still there, I wonder?) Now I'm getting sentimental...
Strange thing is, the British edition, the one I read, is titled 'Serious'. Its cover features Mcenroe in a suit and tie. The American edition's cover shows the famous shot of Mcenroe circa the mid-eighties, strolling through Times Square in a lengthy black overcoat, looking cool. Maybe the publishers thought British readers wanted a little more depth, and the Americans a little more flash?
In any event, if you're a tennis fan, it highlights all the highlights you'd want from Mcenroe's career, but it's more than that. The title -- taken from one of Mcenroe's legendary rants to court officials -- is also kind of a lament for his own immaturity. It's a self-portrait of a guy who is trying to learn how to move away from being a selfish brat now that he has six kids, a wife, and a little bit of a loony ex-wife. How to balance the real world with the illusionary world that tennis players live in. ("Tennis players are not well-rounded people," he says. "There's nothing in the lifestyle whatsoever that requires us to be.")
Mcenroe is a true character, and he tells it like it is; the book pulls no punches on himself or other people. Read if you like or hate Mcenroe. It will probably confirm your opinion of him either way.
LIVING FAITH -- This is Jimmy Carter's memoir about his life as a Christian and how it's affected his career(s), politics and life. Reading this, you wish that Bush were this articulate and broad-minded about his religious beliefs. Carter is remarkably progressive in his beliefs, while never denying the central truths he holds dear. He is not heavy-handed or 'preachy'; he's showing what Christianity has meant to his life through specific examples that are usually poignant and sometimes funny. He's not afraid to criticize his own religion, and he's honest about his changing views. Carter was a pretty lousy president his first time around, I guess, but given all the great work he's done since then, is he still able to have another shot at it? The world needs more leaders like this guy.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
HOW IT WORKS IN JUNIOR HIGH
I was leaving work one day during my first few months in Japan, casually waving good-bye to my manager, probably fumbling in my wallet, looking for my train pass, when I first learned about cultural miscommunication.
I waved good-bye, see.
She waved good-bye back.
So I thought.
Only she wasn't waving good-bye. In Japan, when you do that little 'bye-bye' wave that children do, that doesn't mean see you later, alligator -- it means get your ass over here, I need to talk to you, now.
Which didn't put me in my manager's good books, me walking away and all.
Another, Cambodian example:
I noticed that two of the assignments I received from my students at the University of Cambodia (www.uc.edu.kh) were the same. Identically. Precisely. (This was before I knew that Cambodian students really, really, reaaalllllllllly like to cheat, plagairize, copy, if given the chance; I think it might be mandatory here, actually, in the Constitution and everything.)
I gathered the offenders after class. I held the papers in front of their faces to indicate the seriousness of their offence. I then proceeded to rip the assignments in half, to let them know that I would not, could not tolerate an offence of this magnitude.
At which point they smiled and then laughed.
(And I went: Hmmm. Something's not working here. I'm obviously not as intimidating as I want to be. Not exactly Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me...)
The thing is, when Cambodians get nervous, they smile and laugh and get that aw-shucks grin on their faces. That's just the way they react to events that are somewhat troubling. (Or how they react to foreigners in that situation, anyways.)
Some may accuse me of cultural stereotyping, to which I can only respond by saying that anyone thinking that must never have travelled in a foreign country. I've slowly realized that specific countries and cultures do have common physical, social characteristics. Most Japanese are shy and nervous around strangers; most Canadians are a little modest, not willing to reveal too much of themselves right away, while many Americans are boisterous and aggressive and confident and arrogant.
Notice I said 'most'. The distinction to be made, of course, is that people are people and individ-uals will always be individuals. I've met Japanese more zany than Jerry Lewis, and Americans that are modest and reticent and define the word 'wallflower'.
But you can't deny that the culture you're raised in shapes you, molds you, and conditions, to a certain extent, youre way of thinking. The only way to recognize this fact is to exit, stage right, your bubble of comfort, and see what the new land (where ever it may be) offers.
Look, foreign countries are all just bigger versions of junior high. They really are. You're not sure where you're going, the place is large and seemingly, windingly endless, and there's all these posters and banners for organizations that seem to be cool and interesting if you only could understand what they're all about, and everybody else, the veterans and the novices like yourself, seem to have a better grasp on everything than you do. That's just how it works in the beginning.
All you have to do is stay and wander around for a bit. If you do, you will begin to figure things out, or some things, anyway, and you will be witness to your own personality, thoughts, impressions; you will be an observer to your own reactions. Your old, culturally bred thoughts may not have much relevance in this strange and distant land. The cultural communication and shorthand you once relied upon for connections just doesn't work any more. You may have thought it kind of odd, if not disturbing, that in the final few seasons of Different Strokes Arnold and Willis and Kimberly (r.i.p.) suddenly had a new little red-headed stepbrother shoved into the family, probably because Gary Coleman was losing his 'cuteness' quotient, but you ain't going to find many people to argue that point with in Japan or Cambodia. (Come to think of it, maybe nobody would argue that point back home, either. I still think it's an issue worth at least discussing, if not resolving, but that's just me, maybe...)
The point is, I'm not trying to get all Socraticish or Dr.Philish here. But if you allow your mind to be opened, if you go to that new restaurant or walk down that odd street or hop on the Tuesday night red-eye to Belgium, you will find your mind and personality and self adapting to the world around you, and marvelling at the way that same world bends and sways with the force of your own intent.
I waved good-bye, see.
She waved good-bye back.
So I thought.
Only she wasn't waving good-bye. In Japan, when you do that little 'bye-bye' wave that children do, that doesn't mean see you later, alligator -- it means get your ass over here, I need to talk to you, now.
Which didn't put me in my manager's good books, me walking away and all.
Another, Cambodian example:
I noticed that two of the assignments I received from my students at the University of Cambodia (www.uc.edu.kh) were the same. Identically. Precisely. (This was before I knew that Cambodian students really, really, reaaalllllllllly like to cheat, plagairize, copy, if given the chance; I think it might be mandatory here, actually, in the Constitution and everything.)
I gathered the offenders after class. I held the papers in front of their faces to indicate the seriousness of their offence. I then proceeded to rip the assignments in half, to let them know that I would not, could not tolerate an offence of this magnitude.
At which point they smiled and then laughed.
(And I went: Hmmm. Something's not working here. I'm obviously not as intimidating as I want to be. Not exactly Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me...)
The thing is, when Cambodians get nervous, they smile and laugh and get that aw-shucks grin on their faces. That's just the way they react to events that are somewhat troubling. (Or how they react to foreigners in that situation, anyways.)
Some may accuse me of cultural stereotyping, to which I can only respond by saying that anyone thinking that must never have travelled in a foreign country. I've slowly realized that specific countries and cultures do have common physical, social characteristics. Most Japanese are shy and nervous around strangers; most Canadians are a little modest, not willing to reveal too much of themselves right away, while many Americans are boisterous and aggressive and confident and arrogant.
Notice I said 'most'. The distinction to be made, of course, is that people are people and individ-uals will always be individuals. I've met Japanese more zany than Jerry Lewis, and Americans that are modest and reticent and define the word 'wallflower'.
But you can't deny that the culture you're raised in shapes you, molds you, and conditions, to a certain extent, youre way of thinking. The only way to recognize this fact is to exit, stage right, your bubble of comfort, and see what the new land (where ever it may be) offers.
Look, foreign countries are all just bigger versions of junior high. They really are. You're not sure where you're going, the place is large and seemingly, windingly endless, and there's all these posters and banners for organizations that seem to be cool and interesting if you only could understand what they're all about, and everybody else, the veterans and the novices like yourself, seem to have a better grasp on everything than you do. That's just how it works in the beginning.
All you have to do is stay and wander around for a bit. If you do, you will begin to figure things out, or some things, anyway, and you will be witness to your own personality, thoughts, impressions; you will be an observer to your own reactions. Your old, culturally bred thoughts may not have much relevance in this strange and distant land. The cultural communication and shorthand you once relied upon for connections just doesn't work any more. You may have thought it kind of odd, if not disturbing, that in the final few seasons of Different Strokes Arnold and Willis and Kimberly (r.i.p.) suddenly had a new little red-headed stepbrother shoved into the family, probably because Gary Coleman was losing his 'cuteness' quotient, but you ain't going to find many people to argue that point with in Japan or Cambodia. (Come to think of it, maybe nobody would argue that point back home, either. I still think it's an issue worth at least discussing, if not resolving, but that's just me, maybe...)
The point is, I'm not trying to get all Socraticish or Dr.Philish here. But if you allow your mind to be opened, if you go to that new restaurant or walk down that odd street or hop on the Tuesday night red-eye to Belgium, you will find your mind and personality and self adapting to the world around you, and marvelling at the way that same world bends and sways with the force of your own intent.
Friday, December 31, 2004
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Happy New Year to all friends and family (and strangers, too...)!
Here's hoping that 2005 gives you everything you need, and a little of what you want.
"Life is either a daily adventure or nothing."
-- Helen Keller
Here's hoping that 2005 gives you everything you need, and a little of what you want.
"Life is either a daily adventure or nothing."
-- Helen Keller
ONCE A WEEK
Have you ever seen a dead body? Up close and on the ground?
I went twenty-eight years without seeing one, and then here in Cambodia I saw two within a month.
I was on the back of a moto with a friend heading home late one night, and the moto driver motioned towards the river.
"Dead body there," he said. "Dead body. You go see?"
So we kind of shrugged and said sure, why not. We thought we were going to see the place where the guy died, not the guy himself.
We wrong. A small crowd had gathered by the side of the road, as Cambodians are known to do. As we slowly drove past, we could see somebody on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding his head. He wasn't moving. He was dead.
Okay, fine, that's enough, back home, had a blast, go, now.
And that was that. Five, six seconds was all it was. But enough time to recognize that most human of conditions, the one we all instictively shy away from and are drawn towards, almost against are will. We don't want to think about death, or so we say, but the bootleg videos of those kidnapped hostages in Iraq getting their heads chopped off are doing big business here in Phnom Penh.
Did I want to see a dead guy by the side of the road? I guess I did.
A few weeks later I was out for a run, jogging past the Cal-Tex gas station when I saw, surprise surprise, another small crowd gathering. I slowed my run to a shuffle, and then to a stop. I poked my head through the cluster of moto drivers and mothers.
How old was he? Eight years old. Maybe nine. His body splayed out in a weird, contorted tangle -- left arm up here, right arm down there. His eyes were closed, giving him the gentle look of children who have somehow got themselves all bunched up in their sleep.
Only this kid wasn't waking up. His skin was dirty, his clothes shoddy, his hair a mess. Most likely one of those street kids that always ask me for money when I go to Star Mart, the variety store located next to the gas pumps. Had I met this one before?
Hard to say.
A car must have struck him, but there was no car in sight, no concerned, weeping driver begging for forgiveness. (Did he drive away fast? Did he feel the thump? Did he even glance over his shoulder, or into the rear view mirror?)
I guess it's a cliche to state that life over here is cheap, fragile, blunt.
Shootings happen back home, and kids are hit by cars, and the world moves on.
The thing is, most cliches have at least a sliver of truth to them. Death seems to loom larger here than elsewhere. Life itself here seems to be more, I don't know, susceptible. To what? To everything. If you're shot, guess what? Not many hospitals to take you in. If you're a street kid hit by a car, now what? Not many people are going to pick you up and haul you off for medical care. You're not on your own here, no, but the social structures we take for granted are somewhat...distant.
It's been awhile since I've seen those bodies -- five months, maybe six?
I probably think about them once a week.
I went twenty-eight years without seeing one, and then here in Cambodia I saw two within a month.
I was on the back of a moto with a friend heading home late one night, and the moto driver motioned towards the river.
"Dead body there," he said. "Dead body. You go see?"
So we kind of shrugged and said sure, why not. We thought we were going to see the place where the guy died, not the guy himself.
We wrong. A small crowd had gathered by the side of the road, as Cambodians are known to do. As we slowly drove past, we could see somebody on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding his head. He wasn't moving. He was dead.
Okay, fine, that's enough, back home, had a blast, go, now.
And that was that. Five, six seconds was all it was. But enough time to recognize that most human of conditions, the one we all instictively shy away from and are drawn towards, almost against are will. We don't want to think about death, or so we say, but the bootleg videos of those kidnapped hostages in Iraq getting their heads chopped off are doing big business here in Phnom Penh.
Did I want to see a dead guy by the side of the road? I guess I did.
A few weeks later I was out for a run, jogging past the Cal-Tex gas station when I saw, surprise surprise, another small crowd gathering. I slowed my run to a shuffle, and then to a stop. I poked my head through the cluster of moto drivers and mothers.
How old was he? Eight years old. Maybe nine. His body splayed out in a weird, contorted tangle -- left arm up here, right arm down there. His eyes were closed, giving him the gentle look of children who have somehow got themselves all bunched up in their sleep.
Only this kid wasn't waking up. His skin was dirty, his clothes shoddy, his hair a mess. Most likely one of those street kids that always ask me for money when I go to Star Mart, the variety store located next to the gas pumps. Had I met this one before?
Hard to say.
A car must have struck him, but there was no car in sight, no concerned, weeping driver begging for forgiveness. (Did he drive away fast? Did he feel the thump? Did he even glance over his shoulder, or into the rear view mirror?)
I guess it's a cliche to state that life over here is cheap, fragile, blunt.
Shootings happen back home, and kids are hit by cars, and the world moves on.
The thing is, most cliches have at least a sliver of truth to them. Death seems to loom larger here than elsewhere. Life itself here seems to be more, I don't know, susceptible. To what? To everything. If you're shot, guess what? Not many hospitals to take you in. If you're a street kid hit by a car, now what? Not many people are going to pick you up and haul you off for medical care. You're not on your own here, no, but the social structures we take for granted are somewhat...distant.
It's been awhile since I've seen those bodies -- five months, maybe six?
I probably think about them once a week.
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