Asian Education

Namaste,

A Chinese university student said, “It’s the old ones you have to watch out for. Some of them have no heart, let me tell you. I feel for them knowing many of them survived the ten year Cultural Revolution when intellectuals and teachers were killed or sent to the countryside for Re-education and Reform.

"It was more of a Giant Leap Backward if you ask me. Our history books gloss it over. What a terrible time that was for many of my teachers. My parents never talk about it but I know they suffered a great deal.

“This is why many of the Chinese teachers take bribes to pass students as a way to supplement their income or get things they want. They casually mention something they desire, like, ‘you know I really like such-and-such wine,’ or subtly mention money. Students know how the system works. Pay as you go. It’s an insidious problem from primary through university. Ha!

“In my opinion this university is an extension of high school and a retirement home for older Chinese teachers. Maybe you’d call it a nursing home in a rough translation. This system is about product, exams, not process, not how to learn. It’s about driving yourself into the ground to pass exams. It’s all about getting the marks so your parents won’t kill you. My social life is next to zero in this quasi-prison.

“The foreigner teachers, on the other hand, are friendly and outgoing. But, they are resented by the other teachers and many students. Why? Because they expect students to do the work, to learn or they fail them. And they get three times the Chinese teacher’s salary and teach fewer hours."

“What’s the standard?”

“We’ve become good at text and theory with our Chinese teachers doing the mechanical tedious book drilling, drilling, drilling, method but remain poor at analysis. It’s obvious when we have foreign teachers for business courses.

"Our textbook rote memorization conditioning is a real liability when it comes down to critical thinking, the foreigners say. Independent critical thinking may as well be an indecipherable alien cultural reality for the majority of students here."

“It’s fair to say the Chinese education system emphasis is on practice and mastery, whereas in the West it’s about self expression and curiosity.”

“I agree. It’s a double bind. How can personal desires and national demands be reconciled? Our generation faces huge problems, but, like I said, it’s a business school, so the International Trade, Marketing, Finance and Business classes give us new perspectives on global international development. It’s an opportunity but I’ll be more than ready to graduate this June.”

“What are your plans?”

“I will go to Shanghai and apply with multinational companies as an international translator and business negotiator using my English skills. Perhaps something in Sales and Marketing. I need work experience and know it’s going to be tough but I have the confidence. If I can survive in this place four years I know I can make it anywhere.”

“You struggle to survive in a dystopian environment. Save face.”

Metta.

 

Twins

Namaste, 

In the street life of Bhaktapur is Pottery Square. 250 people from immediate families make clay, create pots, piggy banks, animals, bowls, living art, dolls, bells, oil lamp bases, and cooking containers. They dry them in the sun. They slow fire them using straw fuel in large kilns. 

"We live here as a family," said a girl, 12 with her twin sister. "My father makes piggy banks. My mother moves them into the sunlight." A potter uses a heavy staff to get his wheel turning, rotating faster and faster until it is a blur. He shapes a pot. 

Finished products are sold locally, throughout the Kathmandu valley and exported faster than light.

Metta.

a German woman

Namaste,

Yes, said the eighty-two year old woman in impeccable hard, stone cold German to her Nepalese guide across the dinner table after she sent the green glassed bottle of beer back because it wasn't cold enough for her aristocratic standards as her arthritic silver haired myopic husband stared vacant with his docile gleaming owl ears hearing her reminiscent warble, Our Further had it right. We missed our golden opportunity to achieve greatness.

She sighed and stabbed her salad.

She ran a death camp. She signed documents in blood. She was cold, efficient and pure ideology. She escaped to hide in Argentina from Nazi hunters. She changed her name, her hair style, her accent. She prospered. She returned to Vienna and opened a bakery selling stale crumbs.

Fake pearls glistening in the glow of a candle strangled her. Wax dripped into her melancholic debris. She adjusted her mask and stabilized her husband out into the long dark cold night.

Local dogs howled at her smell.

Metta.

Silk road

Greetings,

The Secrets of the Silk Road...NYT...read more...

2,000 years ago. 4,000 miles connecting China and the West. Raw materials, goods, inventions, religions, languages, cultures, ideas.

The Penn Museum has a fine exhibit with maps, stories and images. Explore. Penn Museum...

Metta.

Kalapuya

Children watched everything from a council bluff where Native American tribes of their nation gathered for a Ghost Dance ceremony. They shared a spirit vision of a Northwest tribe called the Kalapuya.

A hunting gathering people speaking Pentian, they numbered 3000 in 1780. They believed in nature spirits, vision quests and guardian spirits. Their shamans, called, amp a lak ya taught them how seeking, finding and following one’s spirit or dream power and singing their song was essential in their community.

An ancestor spoke to the tribes. “I speak in tongues, in ancient dialects about love. Dialects of ancestors who lived here for 8,000 years before where you are now. In the forest near the river all animal spirits welcome you with their love. They are manifestations of your being.

“I am blessed to welcome you here. You have walked along many paths of love to reach me.

“My dirt path is narrow and smooth in places, rocky in others. I am the soil under your feet. I feel your weight, your balance, your weakness and your strength. I hear your heart beating as my ancestors pounded their ceremonial drums. I feel the tremendous surging force of your breath extend into my forest. Wind accepts your breath. 

“I am everything you see, smell, taste, touch and hear. I am the oak, the fir and pine trees spread like dreams upon your outer landscape. I am your inner landscape. I see you stand silent in the forest hearing trees nudge each other. ‘Look,’ they say, “Someone has returned.’

“I love the way you absorb the song of brown body thrush collecting moss for a nest. I am the small brown bird saying hello. I am the sweet throated song you hear without listening. At night two owls sing their distant song and their music fills your ears with mystery and love.

“I am warm spring sun on your face filtered through leaves of time. I am the spider’s web dancing with diamond points of light. I am the rough fragile texture of bark you gently remove before connecting the edge of an axe with wood. You carry me through my forest, your flame creates heat of love. I am the taste of pitch on your lips, the odor of forest in your nostrils, filling your lungs. It is sweet. 

“I am the cold rain and wet snow and hot sun and four seasons. I am the yellow, purple, red, blue, orange flowers out of brown earth. 

“I am an old dialect of Kalapuya tribes. I respect the spirit energies. I hear with my eyes and see with my ears. I understand your love for the spirit power guardian. I am the ancestor speaking 300 languages from our history. Now only 150 dialects remain. Language cannot be separated from who you are and where you live. 

“I say this so you will remember everything in this forest. I took care of this place and now your love has the responsibility.”