February 24, 2009

It's been a while since I have written. Since I have blogged I have managed to get two boxes of Chinese cultural items shipping off to the states -- I hope they make it back. The last time I mailed boxes from Nanning, in Southern China, to Nanjing, a beautiful shawl was missing from one of the packages. It is a frustrating thought that I may not have everything stateside that I sent.

Yesterday I began teaching again. Two of the three classes were those of students I have taught before -- and I was quite happy to see them again. The third class are sophomores who I have not taught over the last three quarters, it is a bit strange to be starting with a new group of students now that I am near the end of my time here.

The classrooms are of course not heated and are so spartan as not to even have a hook for the teacher's coat. I have to lay it on the desks in the front row of the class.

I went in to the lessons for the first day back to classes (8:00 a.m. class -- the very first one after winter break!) with only a loose idea of what we would accomplish. I knew that my students would not have spoken English during the break and would need time to connect brain and tongue again and being to form a foreign language in words and sentences. They all did admirably well in their endeavors....I am concerned about what will happen over the summer because during their junior and senior years they do not have Oral English. I have suggested that they tutor their families and friends in English to keep their skills fresh. This was not met with much enthusiasm.

Our discussions ranged from questions about how long it took to get home and how they got home -- most went by train, a few by bus and at least one by plane; to who was the first person they saw when they got to the train or bus station or to their home. We also discussed if they were warm at home. One student asked for clarification about did this mean was it warm outside at home or were they warm in their houses/apartments. This led further to the realization that if a climate is fairly warm during the winter and t-shirts can be worn outside there is unlikely to be any kind of heating inside and a person can end up needing to wear a coat in the home. On the other hand, if the climate is fiercely chilling then the homes are likely to have good central heating and while wearing coats outside, one can wear a t-shirt inside.

In one of the classes I was asked during the first hour so many questions about my trip to the Philippines and Japan that the second hour I canned the plan to have the students write and share how they celebrated Spring Festival (Chinese Lunar New Year) and instead I sat down with them and we had a question and answer period. I had been having the students write their experiences with SF because I've decided that instead of buying books about Chinese poetry and stories, I will collect those things from my students. They tell the stories in particular beautifully.

There were many good and persceptive questions asked. The one in particular that I am going to present here as a topic of: on the one hand (otoh) -- on the other hand (otoh)....is this: Is a lack of courtesy in a culture due to a lack of religions values or due to a lack of development, i.e. if a country is a third world developing country are the people less likely to be courteous and respectful to one another and foreigners.

Japan is a developed first world country and my experience there was that people were very respectful and polite. But Japan is not only developed it also has a religous heritage of Buddhism and to a degree of Christianity AND the code of ethics that is inherent in the Confucian tradition.

The Philippines is a third world developing country and I found people there to be polite as well, for the most part. The Philippines has a very large majority of Roman Catholics, a smaller minority of Christians, and relatively few people who do not observe a religion.

China is a third world (?) developing country and in my observation has a gaping hole when it comes to spiritual values which include those of respect and humility. I will continue myself to contemplate these observations and as I continue to visit/live in other parts of the world I will have a growing base of knowledge in evaluating this. Is it development or is it religion? Is it have increased contact with other cultures (development) and industrialization or is it having a belief that something outside of oneself has value and deserves courtesy and care?

I hope that for those who may read this blog that these questions will be useful in your own formulations of what is what and who is who.

February 14, 2009

Preferential Treatment and Preferential Option for the Poor:

These two very different ways of being in the world; of different worldviews; of different pairs of lenses through which to see the world have become more real to me this week here in China. This is not only because of my being in China, it also has to do with my travel in other parts of the world. This includes my very recent trips to both Japan and the Philippines.

I am reminded of the book Church in the Round by Letty Russell. I read this book for a seminary class at Fuller Theological Seminary. This was for Systematic Theology Three -- The Holy Spirit, and was thus focused on the church. We had a Baptist teacher who was most certainly something of a feminist. She helped to open our eyes to many things. In the book Letty Russell spoke of herself as a white, middle class, well educated woman and said that even while she desired to be a part of the solution to poverty and to be a part of God's preferential option for the poor, even so she knew that she was benefitting from the labor of the poor. This last week that concept has become more real to me as I have seen how I am a person who benefits from preferential treatment of someone from the United States; of someone with a good education; of someone who is white and a speaker of English. I benefit because I come from a country who has colonized other countries.

In Japan the very first thing that struck me was that the taxi drivers (yes, someone poor could not afford a taxi) drove on the "wrong" side of the road. They drove on "the other side of the road", they drove, for goodness sake!, on the British side of the road! I thought Japan was a closer friend of the United States than of Britain, so when did this error come in to practice!!!???? Japan is an interesting country. "She" was soundly defeated in World War II and yet has been both a colonizer herself (China will NEVER forget this it seems) and also is most definitely a First World Country.

I stayed in a guest room in a guest compound for a church in Tokyo. The interesting thing to me about this compound was that it is now in a neighborhood of great wealth. It is surrounded by a famous block that has designer clothing and designer chocolate! Originally however it was a modest neighborhood. This was for me a first hand illustration of how neighborhoods can change right around the churches that were originally built to serve them. What then becomes the new mission field for the church? Well, I digress....

I was so thankful for a very effective wall mounted heater in my room at the guest house. The heaters South of the Yangtze in China are not effective. This may be a matter of supply as much as of economics. I was told however that there are indeed places in Tokyo where people cannot afford adequate heating, though I did not see those places first hand. I did, however, visit the Asian Research Institute (ARI) in the countryside outside of Tokyo and there I saw conditions a bit more in line with the poverty I see in China and saw in the Philippines. The ARI is a working/teaching organic farm where people from different vocations in life go to learn about/experience and do organic farming. The key to this particular educational program, in my opinion, is that what they are really farming is the knowledge of how to work with and communicate with people of other cultures. It is an international community in a living farm setting.

In the Philippines I learned about English as a tool for oppression. Just as European colonizers forced the English language upon the native population of North America in what is now the United States -- so too did first Spain force Spanish upon the Filipinos, and later America forced English upon them. They were not allowed to speak or to learn in their own language. The Filipinos now do speak in Filipino and I found it to be a lovely, lyrical language. Most of the Filipinos with whom I had contact also spoke English. But I gained an awareness of what I call the Language of the Elite. In China this would for centuries have been Mandarin. There were the dialects that the peasants spoke, but the written and spoken language of the courts, of the elite, was Mandarin. In ancient times in Greece, the marketplace language was Koine Greek, but the Language of the Elite was Attic Greek. And today in many countries the Lanaguage of the Elite is English. This means that if someone does not have the means to receive an education a huge part of the life of their country is beyond their reach. This is some of what is meant by Preferential Treatment and Preferential Option for the Poor. How can one's own language become a barrier to quality of life in one's own country?

On the plane trip from Manila to Nanjing via Hong Kong I read a newspaper article which said that Spanish is going to be re-introduced to the schools in the Philippines, but only available for those students who have already mastered English. It is being re-introduced because of the importance of having as many languages as possible in the world of today -- multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-, multi-....

I was introduced to Metro in Nanjing this week. It is like a Chinese Costso. I admit it was wonderful. My enthusiasm was dampened a bit when I realized that my card was free but Chinese have to pay for theirs. However what this did was give me an opportunity to reflect on Preferential Treatment and what it means to be a person of privilege, apparently whether I want to be or not.

1. I have more options for medical treatment in China than do most Chinese. Most of them must wait in a crowded waiting room to see the doctor for a minute or two, usually with at least one other person present in the room -- because doctors work at least two to a room. I have done this, next week I will be using my privilege to go to a Western style clinic here in Nanjing because I have medical insurance that will cover this except for a $15. co-pay. That will be expensive with my Chinese yuen salary, but I have things to take care of that cannot be done in a Chinese clinic. Like immunizations and vaccinations for Sudan.

2. At checkpoints between Israel and Palestine and within Palestine itself because I was an American I was often waved through. This was so totally humiliating considering the harrassment that many of my Palestine brothers and sisters endured in getting through -- or NOT getting through those checkpoints. But America is a friend of Israel, is she not?

3. And on and on.

My prayer is that I become more aware of these issues and not less aware. I desire to learn more about language as a tool of oppression and I suspect that this may indeed be some of what I will learn about in Sudan when I relocate there next fall. The British were the colonizers in Sudan. It amazes me that even though the British and the Americans took advantage of the natural resources of China, it is the Japanese and the Rape of Nanjing that is remembered so vividly in the collective memory of China.

The world is my school and I intend to learn from my classroom and my students. My prayer is that I am able to give back as much or more than I learn.

February 12, 2009

One of the things I remember most vividly from Japan was a scene during an extremely busy rush hour after work (in the evening) on the subway. The crowd in the subway was literally a crush. I had to move my backpack from back to front to create more room for others and could barely move. Then the door on the other side from me opened. I could hardly believe what ensued. The Japanese carefully and efficiently moved as one unit, as if in a ballet. They moved towards and out of the door as one person, no one screaming, no one being hurt, they just moved together. They moved with grace as one.

I did not use a subway in the Philippines. What struck me there was the riot of color everywhere. On the people, in nature, in the food. The people were mostly polite, to the point where I began to wonder if it was courtesty or a remnant of colonialization. Some of the young ones were rude, but I think that had to do with their frustration at being in poverty. One kid gave me the finger when I wouldn't turn over my newly purchased slice of pineapple to him. I got so sick of being called ma'am. It felt like either I was being patronized or I was patronizing.

February 11, 2009

More of what I learned in the Philippines had to do with the issues of human trafficking and the lack of choices/options that women have in hierarchical situations in the midst of poverty. There were many older white males who were in the company of young Filipino women in Dumaguete. I was told that many of them are European pensioners who have made deals with the families of the young women. The families benefit financially and the men benefit in the ways that men benefit from such arrangements. A woman cannot benefit equally because she is not equal in power, voice, or say. If the girls/women are of legal age the men may marry them.

I was taken to a resort on the sea one of the days I was with my friends in Dumaguete. It was an uncomfortable visit with me as it was clear that it was an exclusive and elite resort -- certainly one that the majority of Filipinos could not afford to enter and spend time at. There were white people being waited on by young Filipino women. I tired quickly at the resort, and in the totality of my stay in the Philippines, of being called ma'am. I began to wonder if it was an address of respect or submission. I wanted to say: "Don't call me that! We are equals!" but I knew that it was part of the culture and I did not want to be disrespectful of that.

I learned at the resort from a mutal friend of the friend who I was staying with that the approach to economic growth in the Philippines currently consists of people being encouraged to leave the country and send money home. I noted in a newspaper article flying back to Nanjing via Hong Kong that the current Filipino President was recently in a Middle Eastern country promoting the use of Filipinos as salespeople. This reminds me of the situation on the US/Mexican border. However with the current US economic crisis I think that many people are having to make hard decisions on whether or not to return to Mexico -- if they can't have a job in the US or Mexico, at least they can be with their families in Mexico.

I continue to contemplate my journey to Japan and the Philippines and I continue to learn more and have more revealed to me through revisitng what was said and what I saw.

Continuing to Process: February 10, 2009

One of the things that I talked with my Filipino friends at length about was the colonization of the Philippines by first the Spanish and then the Americans and Japanese. This was a contrast to Japan because Japan was the aggressor in its history -- occupying China, Korea and also the Philippines.

In my travels to Korea and the Philippines I could see the evidence of American influence in many ways. Korea is very clean and modern. The parts I saw of the country could have been right out of the states.

In the Philippines the influence is different. Filipinos are now speaking their own language, which is a mixture of other languages, and I found it to be very lyrical and pleasant to the ear. English is the language of oppression. Just as European colonists forced the natives of America to speak English and leave behind their Indian languages and dialects, so too did America force the Filipinos to learn English and not their own language. This was one way that the Philippines was molded as a colony of the United States. I had not realized the power of language so clearly until I spent time with my friends in the university town of Dumaguete on an island in the Philippines. It is of course pleasant for me, as a native English speaker, to have other people groups speak English. But I am learning slowly to look at history and geography. What countries would naturally have English as a first language, and what countries have English as a language at all because of colonization? This was a shock to me when I learned that English is the official language of India. Why? I asked. I was told that it was because Great Britain had colonized India. Of course, this makes sense.

I learned more on this trip to Japan and the Philippines about the consequences of colonization. The Republic of the Philippines is experiencing a "brain drain" where people are being encouraged to leave the islands as an answer to the economic crisis that the Republic is facing. I read an article that talked about a visit that the current President paid to a Middle East country. She suggested that this country needed more Filipino salesclerks. In discussions during the time I was in Dumaguete I was told that this is what is being touted as the solution to the crisis -- instead of developing industry and infrastructure within the Philippines, people are being encouraged to immigrate to other countries.

This brings me to a connection which I would like to make with another continent. The continent of Africa has been discussed at length in a book that I recently read, The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs. The colonization of Africa by Great Britain, France, Portugal, the United States and other countries has decimated Africa as a continent leaving her dependent and lacking initiative to create a vision for improving the standard of living, health, education, etc., for the people of Africa. This connects with yet another book that I read titled Tomorrow will be better, written by a woman from Eastern Europe who discussed the concept and reality of occupation in vivid terms. She said that an occupying country seeks the natural resources of the occupied country, seizing those resources and taking them to the occupying country. The raw materials are turned into useable products and then returned to the occupied country to be purchased by the people whose lands were seized and raped by the occupiers. In the case of this woman her country was occupied again and again by different countries after World War II. She watched as resources were marched in and out of the country.

Much of what the above information boils down to is that dependency is created by the occupying power: In the Sudan, for instance, this would have been Great Britain; in the Philippines it is America; in the country in Eastern Europe it would have been Germany or Russia. The occupying power creates this dependency in order to maintain control over the occupants of the resource rich country that is being occupied.

In the Philippines the consequences of this dependency, even when occupation has ended, are felt in terms of a lack of opportunity for education, a lack of dental and health care, a lack of hope for any kind of a future -- whether a personal future or a future for the country.

In the case of Africa the book The End of Poverty discussed the fact that the way to help the continent of Africa regain what was lost before occupations by varying countries would be to pump enough money into the infrastructures (or creating infrastructures) to bring Africa up to a level where it is realistic for self-sustainance to become a lived reality.

Africa and the Philippines are both third world countries/continents. One of the many things that I learned in Dumaguete is that there are indeed levels of development. I struggle with understanding what is meant by "access to clean water." Japan has water that can be consumed from the tap. China does not. The Philippines does not. Africa presumably does not. But the water can be consumed either by boiling or by purchasing purified water. So I imagine that when a country's lack of development is specified in terms of a lack of access to clean water perhaps what is being conveyed is that there is not even sufficient fuel to boil water in order to render it safe to consume.

Clearly there are countries that are more developed than others in terms of access to education, health care, a voice at the international table, etc. I was told that there is a check list that gives a measure for what country is at what degree of development. So, even though Africa and the Philippines are both considered third world/developing countries and continents, clearly the Philippines is more developed in some ways.

Quick Note So I Don't Forget....

China time: February 9, 2009.

In Japan one of the issues that is faced is that of the status of immigrants, even, for instance, Koreans whose families have been in Japan for several generations. They are not allowed to become citizens and therefore do not have the rights of citizens.

In the Philippines people CAN become citizens, but to hold public office a person must be born in the Philippines.

Corruption in the Philippines is rampant. On the plane back to Hong Kong from Manila I read an article on a paper that implicated even the First Gentleman in corruption -- it reaches to the very top.

Just Beginning to Reflect on Japan and the Philippines

I am writing for the first time in a while on February 8, 2009 -- China time. What an incredible adventure, cultural submersion, time of connecting with friends on a deeper level, spiritual experience, etc., this past two weeks has been.

I will be processing things over time, it isn't going to happen all in this one blog. The journey began in Tokyo. I missed the women's conference that I was planning to attend because I had been so engrossed in President Barack Obama's inaugeration stateside that I forgot to turn my inner clocks back to China time and I missed my plane -- literally. Fortunately I missed only the week-end and was able to get into Tokyo on Sunday the 25th of January.

Tokyo was a culture shock. Everything was orderly. I had no problem claiming my baggage, getting a ticket on an airport shuttle and reaching my destination of the ANA Continental Hotel. From there a Japanese man helped me flag a taxi. The next shock was the taxi and the traffic. The taxi had a Global Positioning System. The driver was able to precisely locate where I was going and once we arrived he was kind enough to make sure I got to the correct gate -- I kind of felt like his daughter for a few seconds. Traffic was amazing -- people stopped at the red lights and did not create lanes. It was not traumatic -- I knew that I would survive. When I arrived at the guest house and my room for the next few days I was so excited -- it was clean, there was no peeling paint -- the bathroom was a pre-fab unit and was very nicely put together. Not fancy, but clean and inviting. There was a heating unit on the wall and that had me really worried (my heating units in China don't do much heating) -- but this little tiger had the apartment warmed up in no time. It was very cozy -- I even had a little kitchen with burner and frig.

More to come....