Tag: Margaret Mead

Fools ignore facts

In all my stops in London, Zurich, Cote D’Ivoire, Monrovia, Ghana, Hong Kong, Manila, Mexico, Montreal, I formed good impressions of each locality and people. When I came back to Vietnam in 2000 and on subsequent trips, I did the same even in the worst of scenes e.g. how could that guy without legs drag himself on the street selling lottery tickets!

But this kind of lens Joel Brinkley did not wear on his trip to Vietnam last month (I was still there then). He came back, and wrote that Vietnamese ate anything that moved “birds and domesticated animals are rarities on city streets” and that he saw one lady in Da Nang sell field rats..” this rich in protein diet drove the Vietnamese to attack peaceful neighbors e.g. Cambodian whose diet had less meat.”

Now he made me paranoid! With the same observation, his steady Big-Mac diet could turn out to be a threat to his journalist students at Standford (who could be 100 per cent sure what’s in the “rich in protein” fast foods).

Our Canadian neighbors to the North love eating quails. French, horsemeat. Even in IKEA products.

Regionally, people responded to scarcity and starvation differently. If he had read Guns, Germs and Steel, he would have known that it’s the lack of anti-bodies (against invaders’ germs) in the native population that killed them more than all the aggressors’ guns put together.

I know what Vietnamese drinkers do and look for. They call it “moi”. It could be appetizers such as roasted peanuts or fried tofu, from escargo (French) to eel (Korean). Vietnam explores and incorporates many strands of culture and cuisine (recent article showed wider adoption of wine, but still not the cheese – due to lactose intolerance).

On the day Joel Brinkley published his opinion piece on the Tribune Media site, by a stroke of luck, the editorial oversight was asleep at the wheel. I was saying goodbye to a friend over a beer (E European) and fish. Luckily, the joint did not serve dog food, or else I wouldn’t be writing this piece of cultural defense in good conscience.

I helped circulate Mr Brinkley’s piece to a network of friends, but did not sign the petition as many did (petition for his removal from post). It said he should have practiced what he preached i.e. fack checking before forming an opinion, observe before conclude, and learn the difference between cause and correlation.

People in Korea, China, Vietnam country side did eat field rats in hard times. Perhaps they want to go back in times (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) bonding over beers (therapeutic more than ritualistic). I once shared a meal with Filipinos over the weekend. We ate without utensils, the native way. It’s their “letting the hair down” time, away from the monotonous rhythm of the Western style cafeteria. And I was glad to be included. Felt like Margaret-Mead then.

I would not fall into a trap to argue that, yes, I saw rats and heard birds in the city while I was there. It would not be cool if I am pressed about where (in the alley, because I took a short cut to shield myself from the scorching sun).

But for someone who wrote a scholarly piece on Cambodia, then to make a 10-day stop in Vietnam, all the while living in a group-think bubble (expat cocoon riddled with colonial jargons) just to write-up a piece that stirred up controversy and resentment, was uncalled for. I remember my Communication professors at Penn State. They earned their stripes and their respects. Joel has to earn the prizes he had already received. In the beginning, was the Word. Noble and enabling word, that builds up not tears down. He probably is tasting a spoon full of his own medicine these days, and wishing he did not make those comments. Teachable moments for both prof and students. Just as we thought we could put Vietnam to rest. BTW, a friend in Ghana who took me to his home offered me foods full of tomatoes and hot chillies. And their dark skin was quite shiny and healthy. I don’t think Ghanaian attack any of their neighbors either. Most wars I read about involved McDonald eaters. Or hit and run  Or drive-by shooting. Want me to open the box? P.S. In Talk Vietnam, there is a parody in which the author took a tour in the US and couldn’t find any livestock here either. All eaten!

On being a foreigner

Train, plane or automobile, we all try to get somewhere, point A to point B.

Far enough to be looked at as “foreigner”.

The Economist has a piece on this subject to highlight the decade of globalization.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15108690&source=hptextfeature

I was surprised to find Vietnam, especially in HCMC and Hanoi, to be very cosmopolitan i.e. a large body of expats and international tourists. Meanwhile, young Vietnamese themselves travel overseas for educational and occupational opportunities.

Recent news showed violent incidents among the Vietnamese expat workers in Eastern Europe and Vietnamese students in Taiwan.

This is a withdrawal syndrome of a minority group (cocoon) when facing the “threat” of a larger majority, the Others.

And while regrouping, they turn onto each other, love or hate. It happened in Paris with the Russian immigrants, Little Italy in the US etc..

In the 1920’s, Americans found Paris, its cuisine and culture (as Parisians perhaps now discovering Big Mac and small Mickey) fascinating. Hemingway and Maugham all had memorable recollection on this era.

Something about greeting the New Year in a foreign land, far away from home.

The balloons, the balls and booze are the same, yet in the company of strangers, one experiences “lonely crowd” syndrome.

And everybody is aware that while it is New Year there, it’s not yet New Year else where (a testimony to our globalized world) e.g. Russian New Year lands on the 13th, Chinese a month later etc….

The Greek have two different words to express this sense of time: kairos and chronos.

Kairos is the fullness of time, while chronos is just the ticking of time (like 60 minutes on CBS, or 24 hours with Jack Bauer). In Kairos, one can greet the New Year with a sense of awe and anxiety e.g. a decade ago with the Y2K scare. Kairos brings about convergence of chances and choices. Cultivation and harvest time.

Other time zones will have to endure the chonos, to take their turn at counting down. Ten, nine, ….

Everybody sings Abba’s “Happy New Year“. Cheap champagne was passed around. Balloons were popped. Kessler described this experience of Russian celebrating their expat New Year in lowly quarter of Paris (The Night of the Emperors).

It is only to show that we have no control over the passing of time, and the changing of places.

More and more cities are being transformed to accommodate population growth. And real estate are in demand, driving the poor to the outer edges. Dark side of change.

The hard part is to get pass that denial: the more things stay the same, the more they have to change.

Thatcher was found to be utterly against the influx of Boat People into former British Hong Kong.

And look at where things are now . The economy in Asia is resilient, just as its people.

In this 21st century, the real foreigness perhaps lies within ourselves: that ardent refusal to admit that the world had moved on, and that it will be easier to be Margaret Mead than Margaret Thatcher. Not with the broadband penetration, not with the mobility of smart phones, and not with supersonic boom in E commerce and global commerce. If Made-In-China is no longer foreign, then nothing is foreign today. Just a hop on the plane, you will be from point A getting to point B.

Global shuttle and reshuffling of the card deck. An illness or blessing? All in the eyes of the beholder. But no longer a foreigner in 20th-century sense. Not with I-pod, I-phone and I-nternet.