Dr. Scary & Mrs. Marbles

Tell me a storybook about Burma. Your first time was in 2013. How long were you there?

All fucking day.

No. Really is an adverb.

Five weeks. I was the first teacher in and the first one out. They bled teachers after I left.

Why did you go?

To grow. To experience a Montessori learning environment at an expensive private school in Mandalay. See how things worked. On the ground. Wander around. Scribble words. Make images. Meet kind, curious, smiling people.

(Alarm bells clang)

A private school sounds dangerous. I spell uh I smell money. Cash for kids.

Education is a busine$$. Profit before people.

Didn't you learn this lesson in 2008 for a year at St. Laurensia near Jakarta when you helped 4th graders develop social and moral character with humor and curiosity?

Private school, parents rule fool.

Yes, however I needed to see Burma for myself, analyze the management and system. Connect with smiling people. Learn, laugh, grow, glow and flow with the go.

Trust and verify. That's what I say.

And you say it with clear pronunciation.

Make it new day by day make it new.

The school had 700 kids from Montessori (3-6 years young) through grade 9.

That's big money. It's a numbers game.

Yes it is. Don't ask me how much. Big.

Bigger than the infinite sky?

Almost. The financial bean counters wore out abacuses. Click-click. They'll raise tuition next year. The Burmese Managing Director lived happily ever after.

I love fairy tales and fragments. It’s all I trust.

He hired Dr. Scary Snobson as principal two years ago to open the facility. He had a Ph.D in Reports and Updates. He loved organization, management, forms, protocol, procedures, paper and administrative drone head duties.

He recruited former Peace Corpse teachers to get foreign faces and mouths in front of spoiled rich kids and parents. Marketing 101. He practiced Hathaway yoga and invested his princely salary in offshore rice paddy accounts near Burmese refugee camps bordering Thailand and Bangladesh. He was thrilling and running scared.

Did he run for fun?

He ran in the tropical sun for sums. Kids in = count cash. Numbers numbed wealthy Burmese wallets. Pay here. Drop kid at classroom ABC. Minders/babysitters/Burmese educators in training will take care of them until you pick them up at 3. If you're late we sell them to China. A boy is worth $3500 in a one-child Orwellian culture.

I have two boys, said a Burmese parent. Do I get a discount?

It depends on their passing a physical with Nurse Dull, said Dr. Scary. Let me ask my passive Xaimen wife. She's very proud of her green card. She talks like her mouth's full of marbles. She believes in acquiescence.

You mean the sad-eyed, lights on-no one home, space cadet reactive one wearing the cheap floppy Chinese hat, Gloria Swanson sunglasses and magic slippers inherited from her grandmother outside the gate-less gate standing lost and forlorn Monday-Friday mornings as horrendous traffic spewed noxious hydrocarbons into faces of emotionally deprived children and struggling nanny slaves dragging children’s suitcases of books and carrying cheap bright plastic baskets of food while parents, wearing diamond and imperial green jade jewelry necklaces yakked on imported cell phones walking their kids to classrooms in the tall gleaming metropolis of a school?

Yes. Her marble mouth machine droned her official mandatory sequence.  Park here. Drop off here. Parents ignored her.

That's her. She's his baby. Her attention span was shorter than an apology to Burmese parents of neglected children about the hidden cost of grandiose theoretical classless plans. Read the fine print. You paid suckers.

Sounds like the blind leading the blind. Where did they meet, these educational super heroes?

They mated at the Day Grow Country School in Manila. She was head babysitter. He ran a doctoral marathon between Tainan and Rota.

What does she do in this improbable profitable scheme?

Yeah-Yeah is the bureaucratic stone face of the Macaroni Monti Sorry Money Story program.

She hired thirty female Myanmar university graduates for the Monti Sorry program. They signed a five-year - no option out contract - same as teachers were required in China. She and the good Doctor sold the Burmese Managing Director great expectations of wealth. The school paid a discounted rate of $3,500 for each teacher's training and certification program. Sublime slavery. Yeah-Yeah took her cut.

Is she a certified Monti Sorry trainer?

No. She learned the methodology in Havana ten years ago. She's not certified for anything. She’s a little fish out of water.

For three months the local teachers have been training from scratch. Yeah-Yeah goes through the motions. School started on May 20th. Now it's on the job training, learning and laughing plus six tedious hours on Saturday. They watch videos featuring an OCD state side teacher, create materials and practice lessons. They "graduate" next year after being certified by a real Monti Sorry woman in the states of confusion.

Smells like a shell game.

Teachers make $200 a month. The average Burmese makes $804 a year. A SIM card costs $300. One percent of the population has Internet. 26% are unemployed. 16% do not have electricity. If local teachers are late thumbing a fingerprint after 8 a.m. at the admin office the school charges them 25 cents. Live and learn fear school.

She and Dr. Scary run and mismanage (if intimidation, fear and stupidity is management) the Great Educational Scam Machine. She reminded me of Chinese teachers in Fujian schools screaming, Just blend in. I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears! 

Welcome to my nightmare, said Yeah-Yeah.

She invested her princess sums in offshore rice paddy accounts near Burmese refugee camps bothering Thailand.

Why did you leave?

I'd witnessed enough of the dystopian Kafkaesque-like suffering. The teachers' apartments resembled prison cells. I've more useful things to do with my time, energy, love and compassion.

Give me a urine sample.

Yeah-Yeah in her infinite wisdom minus kindness and compassion expected me to write a lesson plan for the Kindergarten experience in the library.

You're joking.

It was Friday, June 8th, 2013 at 1:17 p.m.

I'd taken the geniuses to the bibliotheca for thirty minutes. They found books, sat reading, looking at pictures and sharing with friends. She wandered in and sat down.

I see you brought the kids to the library.

You are very observant.

Where's your lesson plan for the library?

You're kidding.

At 3:10 p.m. I gave seven-days notice to Dr. Scary. Here's my lesson plan. Probation is a 2-way street.

Good for you.

Yes. Life is too short for this nonsense. I shredded the truth with kids. I helped you. We helped each other grow. We walked slowly. We danced. We sang. We discovered sharing. We meditated. We had fun. Now it's time to ride my elephant through jungles back to Cambodia.

I left a sewing machine and umbrella on an operating table in the teachers' cellblock. I departed Burma without delay. It was a close shave.

That's another story about creativity, independent thinking and free choice.

Yes it is.

Weaving A Life (V1)

a Century is Nothing - backstory

In 2007, while living and teaching English in China he self-published A Century is Nothing, a literary memoir.

This after receiving fifty rejection letters from literary agents, "No thanks...doesn't meet our needs...it's not mainstream for the general reader...too many characters...too long..."

The first thing a literary agent considers when reading a query, synopsis and the first five pages is, "Can I make 15% on this?"

Traditional publishing is a casino. A crap shoot. 50 Shades of Gravy is a perfect example.

After research he selected iUniverse, a print-on-demand company in the United States of Amnesia.

Print-on-demand offfered publishing packages and he figured, "What the hell. Release the monster." He paid. 

They sent him an eighteen-page critique and structural suggestions. He implemented some and ignored others. He line edited the beast. He submitted a cover image and selected the design.

Six months later he received a hard copy in Turkey where he taught English. He opened the bulky brown envelope. The book slid onto the table. Thump!

The young Chinese girl's curious eyes stared at him from the cover. He'd made the image at a nursery school in a Fujian village. Her eyes said hello, I made it.

He felt grateful and elated. He turned pages, smelling paper, scanning ink. Wow, this is amazing. He also felt detached, knowing it was a deep letting go. It didn't belong to him now. It lived in the world. It was free.

The production company sent his friend in Amnesia 40 copies as part of the publishing agreement. He sent them to friends so they could read adventures. The POD had served its purpose. 

In 2007, about a thousand years ago in the world of technology, E-book publishing was in its infancy. Now it's a viable alternative to POD and traditional publishers.

He canceled the agreement with iUniverse this fall and took control of the book. He printed it. He pulled out a red pen and slashed it. Into pieces.

In the process he created a smaller, lo-fat, slim version entitled, Subject to Change, his original working title. After revising (the party) he printed it, edited it again and published it on Amazon and Smashwords. Wa La.

He turned his attention to A Century is Nothing and repeated the process. Writing is re-writing or polishing.

He created a 2nd Edition with a new cover image and bought ISBNs from Bowker. He published it on Amazon and Smashwords as a paperback and E-book at a reasonable price. It ain't about the money. It's about the journey.

No editor or POD is going to drink champange from his skull. 

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Now you know the process. 

If it meets your read needs review it on Amazon (good, bad, ugly) and drop him a line. Sharing is caring. Thanks!

Happy reading!

Buy the ticket, take the ride

We've all heard various people say over the course of their life, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." Free. As in no cost, gratis, gratuitous, complimentary, costless. Cost nothing.

The other day I invited Nga to visit the Bookworm, an excellent well stocked bookstore in Ha Noi.

We found a couple of books. She loves politics and history and picked up one by Obama. My choice was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. He'd been on my list and a used copy had just arrived.

Outside as we were leaving Nga spotted a a box of books on a table. "What's this?" she asked. The owner said, "They are free."

"Really! May I take them all? My school library needs more English books."

"Yes."

A heavy thunderstorm had saturated the books. I was loading them into plastic bags and spotted a dog eared paint splattered thin bent spine rag of a book near the bottom of the pile. I picked it up and the cover stuck to my hand because of the water damage. It was an abstract paint job with black and yellow smeared with white. Pure Jackson Pollack.

I could make out part of the title, "Fear and Loath.... by Hunter S. Thom...."I smiled. An excellent find. Perfect renewal of wild rambling Rolling Stone adventures.

As Hunter said, "True Gonzo reporting needs the talent of a master journalist, the eye of an artist/photographer, and the heavy balls of an actor." He established the style and standard. Often parodied, never duplicated.

A gratis spirit.

Metta.