law school deferment year

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2009-02-03T16:28:00.003+08:00

South Korea: Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Joint Security Area (JSA): Tourist Info

2008-11-25T09:02:00.000+08:00

I had a friend who, perhaps some time in 2005, had the opportunity to go with a delegation of what I understood to be Korean diplomats to Korea for a week after showing them around Washington, DC for a week. During this visit, he had the opportunity to go to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, including the Joint Security Area (JSA) where the accord establishing the zone was signed and where visitors can actually cross into North Korea.

Until my arrival in Seoul, I did not know that this was something that any tourist can actually do. But I also did not know that it requires more advanced planning than the five days or so that my friend and I had when we arrived. Although visits to the DMZ are pretty easy to arrange through various companies – not only heading up to the zone but also visiting one of the underground tunnels built apparently to effect a surprise attack upon Seoul by the North – but arranging a visit to include the JSA is a bit more difficult. The main reason seems to be that this part of the border can only accept a certain number of visitors on any one day, and once it reaches the limit for visitors the area is shut down for further visitors until another day where the quota is not reached. This is true for any booking agency because it is a top-down decision, so it does not matter which agency you call or harass: once the number is reached, no one else can book travel up there.

Although the tunnel and rest of the DMZ certainly would have made for an interesting visit, my friend and I decided to forego the visit if we would be unable to also go to the JSA.

As for what we learned which will make you all the wiser about visiting the JSA: The USO runs tours to the region which can probably be booked online. We met a Canadian national who’d booked a tour through the USO which included the JSA, and he had booked about a month or two months earlier. So if planning a trip to Seoul, be sure to build this booking into your pre-trip planning to ensure that you have a chance to head up to the JSA. Also, the USO tour seems to be the best one in terms of price: with a cost around US$ 44 (or about 70,000 won at this point) this is a great deal. Other tours than run to the JSA cost about 80,000 won just for the JSA, and then to do a full-day combined tour (including one of the surprise attack tunnels) the cost jumps to around 130,000 won (about US$ 100). The USO tour does all of these at the lower price.

Besides the DMZ, I’ll probably also say a few words here about the whole situation between North and South Korea. Arriving in Korea I really did not have any idea about the nature of the North/South conflict, what caused it, what resulted, and how the relationship was between the two countries. But having visited the memorials and museums, a pretty clear picture has emerged. My overarching comment is that the Korean War, taking place mostly in the early 1950s, is really a product of a combination of economic, military, international relations, historical, wartime (WWII) and political forces. All of these together seemed to create, exacerbate and abate the conflict at various points, which underscores for me the importance of really having a good knowledge of all of these fields and their interaction when studying this conflict and probably any conflict. I was not aware of this previously. In a nutshell from what I can remember, Japan occupied Korea prior to the Korean War and I think during the time of World War II. After the Japanese were defeated, Korea was split between the USSR and the United States in order to maintain order and prepare the country for self-governance after its liberation. One question that I had when learning this and the aftermath is, how could the large powers have ever thought that, by developing such different systems between North and South Korea by the division, they could have easily unified Korea in the end rather than causing two Koreas to come about at the end of the occupations? Hopefully we will learn from history and try to avoid this situation in the future. During the Soviet and US occupations, very different systems of government arose: communism in the North and capitalism in the South (roughly). When election were eventually due, the North and South and the occupying countries could not agree to terms, and I think it was the South which first held democratic elections for its leaders, followed by the North. At this point, there were effectively two governments, and the country was effectively divided into two at the 37th parallel. After the occupying countries pulled out, the North one morning broke through the 37th parallel and attacked the South. Seeing the pre-war statistics, the North truly had most of the infrastructure (energy, development, industry, military capacity) needed to carry out and sustain a war, while I had the impression that the South was much more agriculturally-oriented and did not have the self-capacity to wage a war. Partially as a result of this I think, the North was able to quickly gain control of most of the country within a couple months of fighting, until the UN forces were dispatched and fought back. Beyond regaining control through the 37th parallel, the UN forces were pushing the North into an equally small part of land way up near Russia, when the Chinese decided to act and to join forces with the North Koreans. At this point, the conflict centered mostly back around the 37th parallel, and the bodycount kept increasing with both sides more or less at a stalemate. After one failed negotiation, another negotiation resulted in the creation of the DMZ in order to stop the war. However, since then, North Korea is suspected – or proven? – to have made attempts at the lives of the South Korean leaders both within the country and also during trips abroad. Such events have continued as recently as a major incident in 1997 which is recorded in the war museum.

It would be interesting to hear the North Korean side of the story. We gleaned a small part of it from the aforementioned Canadian, as he had been to North Korea twice before this visit to South Korea. He noted several things. One, that going to the JSA from the North Korean side is not nearly as strict as it is from the South Korean side (where there is a dress code and strict passport controls before going there). Second, he said that the North Korean war museums mostly recount the progress of the war in the same way as the South (he visited the same war museum that we’d gone to), with the difference being that the North claims that it was the South which first crossed over the 37th parallel in an attack on the North.

I’m not sure how I would feel about living in South Korea or in Seoul, a city in a country where the northern counterpart clearly still would like to lay claims on your life and lands and makes attempts every once in a while to make this happen. And recent history proves even more terrifying, that the North Koreans claim that they have developed nuclear weapons capability. Having just visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this is a terrifying prospect. What more effective way to bring a country to its knees, causing a massive number of people to burn in a fire probably comparable to that of Hell and forcing a country to come under your control? The prospect is truly horrifying and this makes me understand why the United States and the international community have taken such a hard line against allowing North Korea to develop its nuclear capability. With a “rogue” nation which arguably – and historically – has had very few scruples when confronting obstacles to its goals, and no exercisable popular controls on its political decisions, the prospect of using those nuclear weapons against South Korea is terrifying indeed. I do think that I would like to go to North Korea some day to see the differences with the South.

再见 Shanghai!

2008-11-15T20:00:00.001+08:00

November 14, 2008 was my last day studying in Shanghai and I hope to offer a quick word or two on how the experience ended, my thoughts on progress in Mandarin, and also some thoughts inspired by my visits to date of Beijing, Korea, and Japan and thoughts on whether my strategy of learning Mandarin prior to travel in Asia was a good one.

First, words on language acquisition. After seven weeks of intensively studying Mandarin in Shanghai, I think that I have reached a solid understanding of basic Mandarin and that I have the tools to both remember and build upon what I know about the language. I’m trying to figure out how to best go about not forgetting what I’ve learned, and I feel that a very important tool will be all of the notes that I took down while in Shanghai. Not only are they filled with new words, but idiomatic phrases that offer further insights into the language and which are best “internally” understood – i.e. to be understood as being within the Mandarin language and not just through translation. In addition, my notebooks are also filled with Chinese characters and musings upon the characters: playing around with them, repeatedly writing them, “studying” the different parts and proportions, and taking notes on similar characters. All of this work being encoded in written form gives me hope that even just a simple review of the notes will, in the future, quickly bring me up to speed to where I was in learning the language if I am ever able to take up further formal studies of Mandarin.

After leaving Shanghai, I went first to Beijing by train (in a hard-seater carriage, where I sat for thirteen hours without getting up until we had arrived at the capital!). On the train I tried to pull out my notes for continued studying, particulary of characters, but I quickly found that the limited space around me was not too suitable to take the notes that I wished to take, and also I saw that as soon as I brought out the materials several people around me were interested in conversation. Some of the conversation I could follow and other parts were very difficult. As in any country, the manner in which Mandarin is spoken varies widely by geographic location, education and class, and situation, among other factors. Whereas I had grown very accustomed to my Mandarin teachers’ spoken variety, the streets of Shanghai were filled both with Shanghainese and also the Shanghai accent of the Mandarin language. On the train, I was suddenly exposed to the Beijing accent where, to be bluntly honest, it sounds as if every spoken word is immediately eaten up somewhere in the middle to the back of the mouth of the speaker, making it quite difficult to understand what is spoken. It is this Mandarin that you will come across mostly with cab drivers, on the street with food sellers, with shopkeepers, etc. As such, therefore, it is necessary to become accustomed to it, although outside those very interactions it is difficult to come across these types of difficult accents because both on television and in the classroom, it is standard Mandarin which you hear and study.

In any case, arriving in Korea I realized just how much of Mandarin I had learned. I had immediate and instinctive responses as to what to say in most or all situations – be it in interactions with shopkeepers, in restaurants, on the street – where anywhere in China I could have easily used Mandarin but in Korea we were mainly left quite … silent. It was both frustrating and encouraging at the same time – frustrating because I suddenly could not communicate with those around me, but encouraging because it left me to realize exactly how much I had learned while in China. In addition, in Korea there are some Chinese-derived characters in use, although mostly in historical or very official contexts it seemed.

Having now arrived in Japan, there are many more Chinese-derived characters in use (kanji) but they are difficult to decipher for several reasons: (1) they are often or always intermixed with phonetic Japanese characters; (2) they appear to often or always be of the traditional Chinese variety; and (3) it seems that the meaning of some of the characters is not exactly that as used within Chinese. But despite these, my eye does tend to be drawn to them and sometimes it helps to recognize some of the characters on products or menus to at least begin to get a sense of what’s there. As a result, I’m again happy with my choice of studying Mandarin first – and spending time with the characters – and then traveling through East Asia.

The remaining tests will be Taiwan and Singapore. In Taiwan, Mandarin is spoken but traditional characters are used, so I will be very happy to be able to use my Mandarin once again. I will probably also resume studying my notebook of words and some phrases to continue increasing my spoken vocabulary, and hopefully I will remember the structures that I learned while studying in Shanghai.

And to finish off this entry, just a couple words on what I did my last day or two. On Friday, November 14, one of my classmates from France, Brigitte, had the idea to head to Shanghai’s art district (sort of like Beijing’s 798) and have a look around and grab some lunch. This turned out pretty great – the area is rather compact, free to get in everywhere, and the café we chose had food that was great and well-priced. The sculptures – contemporary for the most part – were stimulating and interesting. There were several studios we stepped in as well. I posted photos from this visit onto my Facebook account.

That same Friday evening we also did our traditional meal at the hotpot restaurant, returning to the Nanjing Lu location. Armed again with our translations and also memories of the previous week’s successful and not-so-successful orderings, we had a great time for even less money than before, or about 35 RMB per person (or under US $6). With plenty of left over, a smaller group then continued on to one of what seemed to be a popular ex-pat bar, not far from Nanjing Xi Lu but the name escapes me. We were able to get in a couple beers and also Sebastian, one of my classmates, and Ben, a roommate, encouraged us to try flaming up some Sambuca shots in our mouths.

Here’s a brief explanation of that process: You buy a shot of Sambuca. Don’t light it in the shotglass too much or the alcohol may be burned away and not leave enough for the cool part. Then, in a quick succession of movements, do the following: (1) dip a finger into the shot, (2) pour the shot into your mouth as someone simultaneously lights your finger on fire, (3) poke your finger into your Sambuca-filled mouth (as your head is tipped backwards so that the flames don’t burn your upper lip or nose), lighting the Sambuca inside, (4) put out the fire on your finger, which will begin to burn a little by this point and has probably singed off any hair you had on your finger. (Doing this on your own might be hard, so just have a friend “spot” you and help you put out your finger-fire.) Having done all of this, you don’t really feel the flame rising out of your mouth, and you can hold it there for a while I think.

* A serious word of caution, though: Do NOT blow the Sambuca out of your mouth, because everything it hits might potentially catch on fire. All you need to do to put out the flame is close your mouth – which shuts off the oxygen supply to the flame and promptly and safely puts it out. If you spit anything out, you might burn your face and have anything else onto which the alcohol lands catch on fire. Just to illustrate an angle of this, when I had one of my Sambuca shots lit on fire, as I picked it up, it spilled a little bit onto the table and my jeans – spilling not only the sticky liquid but also a blue flame. Quick action put it all out, though.

So that was my last night in Shanghai. The next morning and throughout the day I was able to post my belongings out back home which saved on space and weight in my suitcase to prepare for my next phases of travel. I also had a bunch of errands to run, including setting up finances and all of that to last the rest of my trip. This being done, I bought some snacks for the long train to Beijing, and headed off in the early evening after enjoying some dumplings with my flatmates.

Mandarin House Shanghai Program - Accommodations Comments

2008-11-03T17:47:00.004+08:00

This is for anyone who is Googling the Mandarin House Shanghai program in an effort to get current student reviews and comments. While I do have a rather glowing review for the program as a whole -- which I intend to write a full entry for later -- I feel that it would be helpful to provide would-be Mandarin House attendees with the following information.

If you are going for the language program plus accommodation, find out where exactly they plan on putting you up during your stay. If it's at the GuangXi Bei Lu address, then ask what floor. If the 20th floor, then be adamant about not being put into Room C of that apartment. Apparently there is some problem with the plumbing within the bathroom in Room C, and as a consequence the entire room stinks. Opening the door will at times also lead the rest of the apartment to stink.

The school has known about the problem for at least two weeks now, but the problem has not yet been fixed. The current resident in the room indicates that he will be put up at a nearby hotel (although the school wanted to put him up at a hotel 30 minutes away) for perhaps three days while the school arranges for someone to fix the problem.

Again, this is not reflective of my general opinion regarding the Mandarin House program in Shanghai, but it is only a caveat emptor warning for future students so that no one has to be stuck in a smelly room during their stay in Shanghai.

I hope that in the near future I can post an update to say that the problem in the room has been fixed.

------

(Коротке слово по-український: Курс китайської мови, який я слухаю в Шанґгай, під назвою схожу на "Мандаринська Хата". Чомусь, одна з наших кімнат смердить. Я про це тут говор'ю, щоб майбутні студенти пізнали ситуацію і щоб Школа щось нам зробила за сморід.)

Read Before November 4

2008-10-31T14:42:00.003+08:00

The Wall Street Journal has recently come out with what I consider to be quite lucid opinion pieces regarding the upcoming election. Please give them a read when you have a chance:

Obama's 'Redistribution' Constitution
The courts are poised for a takeover by the judicial left.
By STEVEN G. CALABRESI
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122515067227674187.html

Obama and the Politics of Crowds
The masses greeting the candidate on the trail are a sign of great unease.
By FOUAD AJAMI
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122533157015082889.html

Defenses Against Foreigner-Targeters

2008-10-13T17:34:00.005+08:00

In China, it’s all about “saving face.” While you may want to tell off the persistent salespeople and foreigner-targeting beggars in the street, or perhaps ignore those university students in the park, this might backfire in that the Chinese people around you when it happens may just deepen any disdain they already had for foreigners, and so you’re doing damage both to yourself and also to any future tourists.

Best to avoid that situation. Here’s how I figure that from now on I will handle all these people in the street that I don’t want to talk to:

For the guy on the street who persistently tries to sell you “watches, DVDs, lady massage”:

••• O, nǐ hǎo! Nǐ yǒu shǒuzhuābǐng ma? [He looks bewildered and confused.] Nǐ méi yòu? O, wǒ biéde dōngxi bú mǎi. Xièxie, zàijiàn.

[Hello! Do you have any “shouzhuabing”? (This is basically a Chinese street-crêpe.) Oh, you don’t have any? Well, I don’t buy other things. Thanks, see you later!]

I’m positive that the above will work, but if you prefer being less cutesy and more to the point, you can try the following, which worked very well for me this afternoon. It also puts into practice a very useful grammatical construction:

••• Nǐ hǎo. Wǒ shénme dōngxi dōu bú mǎi. Xièxie.

[Hello. Whatever things you have, I’m not going to buy them. Thanks.]

For the beggar who asks money only from you even when four well-off businesspersons just passed her by on the street:

••• O, nǐ hǎo! Wǒ shì xuésheng, suǒyǐ wǒ méiyǒu qián. Duìbuqǐ, zàijiàn!

[Oh, hello! I’m a student, so I don’t have any money. Sorry about that, see you later!]

And if they look and point at the food you just bought in the street, clearly using cash, I would probably say:

Xìnyòng kǎ. Zàijiàn!

[Credit card. Bye!]

For the university students in the park who invariably call out “Hihellowhereyoufrom?” when you’re walking through the park (but only if you don’t want to talk to them, as this might be a good way for you to practice your Chinese):

••• O, nǐ hǎo! Wǒ shì [insert real or made-up nationality here]-rén. Dànshì, wǒ xiànzài méiyǒu kòng (or “kòngr” if in Beijing). Duìbuqǐ, zàijiàn!

[Hello! I’m a/n (insert real or fake nationality here). However, I don’t have any free time right now. Sorry, see you later!]

-----

В Китаю, легко бачити, хто іноземний або турист. Якщо маєш "золоте волосся" і "великий ніс", тяжко часом позбутися тих людей, які питають гроші, або продають речі на вулиці, або студентів які кажуть, що вічно хочуть "практикувати" англійську мову. Ось я написав кілька слів про кілька непоганих речень, що можна вживати/говорити, позбутися тих людей.

"Big-nosed, Golden-haired Foreigners": Photos of Shanghai

2008-10-12T23:30:00.010+08:00

Most of these shots were taken over the past week.

First up is a photo of an impromptu singing session in the park. But first some cultural commentary. The guy in the back came off as somewhat pushy, approaching me mainly to get me to shake the things he's holding. I politely had to decline ... about five times. Funny though, he didn't approach anyone else from the crowd gathered to watch, and my friends and I were the only foreigners. Very often do I find that, as a non-Chinese person, I'm often singled out for both the good and the bad attention. Beggars always go for the lao wai first, and it's hard for a foreigner to shake these people. Those selling fake Rolexes, bootlegged DVDs, and "lady massage" in the street rarely if ever approach Asians, but I literally cannot cross the street to the food mart without hearing "Hi Hello, Lady Massage?". Both my Mandarin profs and also students in the street confirm that everyone learns about the "big-nosed, golden-haired foreigner", and it seems as though the Chinese are strongly encouraged to approach random foreigners in order to practice their English. It is somewhat annoying to think that the locals are literally taught from youth to think of you as a big-nosed, golden-haired English-speaking automaton, but if you have a little free time it also makes it quite easy to have some random Mandarin practice in the park or at a tourist site. Back to the picture of the singers:

The Happy Lemon:

A neat shot of the evil-looking building with a bright moon behind it. This is actually the JW Marriott Hotel Shanghai at Tomorrow Square:

The lights atop the building on the right rotate colors through the evening:

A neatly-lit building:

Ancient design in the foreground, modernity behind it:

View from a pedestrian overpass:

A park south of People's Park, and very close to where you have the best shou zhua bing that I've found so far in Shanghai. The blue guy is the mascot for the upcoming Shanghai World Expo 2010:

Here I am in front of the Pu Dong skyline:

Pu Dong skyline catching some of the last moments of sunlight of that day:

... and I leave you with a neat macro shot of Donald Duck:

Insect Market, Shanghai

2008-10-12T23:20:00.004+08:00

Over the weekend, while strolling around Shanghai, after hunting down the elusive shou zhua bing for brunch, two of my flatmates and I headed into Shanghai's Insect Market. They don't only sell insects: there are also quite a few turtles for sale, birds, and some fish. Here are some photos.

This is my favorite little buddy from the Insect Market. A couple of shots:

Some worms struggling to exit what I assume to be cocoons (but if it's a cocoon, why are they still coming out as worms rather than moths or butterflies or some other fun creature?):

These guys are 5 RMB apiece. That's less than a buck. A friend of mine had a couple of these in college. Apparently they never actually grew much larger than 6 or 7 centimeters:

And some smaller turtles for sale. Not sure of the price on these:

Now, the question remains, why is there an entire marketplace where the Chinese can buy insects? One of my flatmates suggested that they are given to other families as good luck. I did see potential buyers for types of insects not pictured above poking and prodding the insects as if to test them out and see if they were good enough to purchase.

Beyond asking why these may be given as gifts, the next question is, what does the recipient do with a monstrously huge grasshopper or cricket?

Street Food in Shanghai

2008-10-12T23:06:00.004+08:00

Below, find a tribute to a tiny selection of the type of street food available in Shanghai. I will likely update this post with more food as I come across new tasty creations:

Jiaozi, or Shui Jiao I think. Dumplings filled with meat and then cooked over either oil or some sort of broth. As you may know, you have to be very careful eating these because while cooking, I think that the fat from the meat gets very hot and melts inside, and you have to carefully draw the hot liquid out of a small hole bitten into the jiaozi before you chomp into the whole thing. Otherwise, you squirt either yourself or your neighbor with hot fat. Not cool.

The making of the jiaozi at the Shanghai First Food Store on Nanjing Xi Lu, which runs east of People's Park:

Here is how the jiaozi are cooked:

Prepared dumplings that were bought frozen in a supermarket. Very similar to the pierogies my mom makes:

A steamed dumpling from Dong Jia Du Lu, not far from St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church:

Amazingly, three of these things cost me only 2.40 RMB. Can anyone tell what kind of meat this is? When I was asking the lady if she had pork, beef, or chicken dumplings, she replied by saying that she had meat-filled ones but without specifying the type of meat ... "rou de" ... although I suppose that the default meat in China is pork?

I bought this from a street bakery not knowing that there was a tasty surprise inside:

Hot Pot at Xiao Fei Yang

2008-10-12T22:49:00.005+08:00

This past weekend my fellow Mandarin House classmates/apartment-mates gathered together to go for Hot Pot in Shanghai. The restaurant is called "Xiao Fei Yang" -- translated by the restaurant as "Little Sheep". Check out the location by clicking here and going to Google Maps.

Here are some photos of the experience.

Greetings from the Little Sheep! (Who is about to get eaten!)

Some peanuts to hold us over until the main food came:

The guy who brought the peanuts and cherry tomatoes:

Ordering the hot pot:

Further negotiation:

Here's the centerpiece, and half-hot and half-not hot pot. This may be more precisely a "Mongolian Hot Pot". Order it by saying yi ban la, yi ban bu-la. Then grab the menu and point at whatever else you want to throw into the hot pot ...

Check out the piles of meat that arrived. And there was more on a cart next to the table:

That evening, we learned the striking difference between an uncooked and a cooked shrimp:

In addition to all the food, we probably ordered 15 or more large bottles of Tsingtao beer. Price tag: 65 RMB/person for the entire meal. Not bad at all ... enjoy!

Shanghai Apartment

2008-10-12T22:07:00.006+08:00

For anyone who's curious, here are some photos of my shared apartment in Shanghai.

Where I sleep:

Where I study, and the balcony:

Since we don't have a dryer to go with the washing machine, the office workers across the street can watch my clothes dry, if they want:

The above-mentioned washing machine. Only Chinese characters allowed!

Our "range". Also, Chinese characters only! But someone was nice enough to tape translations onto the controls:

The TV. Most channels are Chinese-only, and there's often some sort of variety show available to watch. Once in a while there's an English transmission, usually the news. Also, everything has Chinese characters to go along with any narration:

Kitchen area:

Our ai-yi:

The entrance to the apartment:

Relaxing on the couches:

Yes, even my toilet:

... and finally, the water heater and shower:

Thanks for visiting!

So What Am I Doing This Year, Anyway?

2008-10-12T15:48:00.006+08:00

Short Outline

1. Legal Assistant with Skadden, Arps in New York City
2. Option to Work Abroad with Skadden
3. Law School Applications
4. Thoughts About a Probable Timeline of Education, Work, and Living
5. Further Thoughts on Options for a Year Off
6. Request for Deferment from UC Berkeley School of Law
* 7. The Plan for the Deferment Year
   a. Parents’ New House
   b. Mandarin and Arabic: Substantive Study Experiences
   c. International Travel
8. Unexpected Returns

1. Legal Assistant with Skadden, Arps in New York City

After graduating from Cornell in May 2006, I decided to take a job as a Legal Assistant with the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in New York City. The experience opened my eyes to the world of practicing law, particularly corporate law. But it also opened my eyes to the possibilities available to those who have earned a J.D. degree, most notably the ability to perform pro bono work, seek work as in-house counsel, be able to pursue international work with issues such as human rights, and notably to use the skills of critical thought, analysis, and argument to make the world a better place.

And so I decided to forge ahead with my plans to attend law school.

2. Option to Work Abroad with Skadden

About a year into my employment with Skadden, I began to think back to some of the goals that I’d had around the time of graduation. Back in early 2006, while I did want to pursue work abroad as soon as possible, discussions with my parents convinced me to stay within the domestic workforce.

By January 2008, I’d already received acceptances to several law schools and was planning visits. My first school visit would have been Georgetown Law, and I knew that one of my attorneys in Skadden’s Antitrust group was a graduate. And so, after dropping off some binders like any other day, I asked him for a couple quick words about Georgetown and what he thought about law practice, as he was a new associate. The conversation headed to what he had done prior to going to Georgetown: he had worked in Paris for a couple of years, including some experience at investment banks abroad.

This single conversation was probably the seed that has grown to lead me to the point where I am now. I soon began to think about what I was doing and questioning whether, by going immediately to law school, I was missing a chance to do … something spectacular, at least from my point of view. Something for me, something that I had wanted to do for as long as I can remember. I thought back to what I wanted to do after school – move abroad and have some fun while in my mid-twenties – and then I thought about how I had been somewhat limited to explore myself personally and socially given the demands of the work at Skadden.

Before continuing, I do want to plainly state that I did greatly enjoy my work. I do, however, think that I was lucky both with the practice group and the attorneys to whom I had been assigned. Because of the luck of the draw, I do not necessarily think that everyone at Skadden ends up having as rewarding a time as I did, and I speak only for myself when I say that I leave Skadden feeling very fulfilled, at least professionally. However, truth be told, work did in some sense consume my life. And I have admitted for quite some time now that that state of affairs is a result of the atmosphere of Skadden’s New York office, combined with my own personality and the way in which I have a tendency to focus fully on my main task, whatever that may be. With so much to focus on at Skadden, I do feel I was constrained in my ability to simply enjoy living in New York City. That was also a main non-academic reason why I chose a law school outside of New York, because (whether warranted or not) I felt that given my personality and tendencies, mixed with the general culture of New York, would have made it somewhat frustrating to study law there.

In any event, thinking back to my somewhat-neglected core interests of languages and travel and exotic new experiences, I had a couple of weeks of distress and mental turmoil. Depression set in to some degree as I also began to think negatively about some personal issues. “Where have I gone off track?” I repeatedly thought to myself. This turned into somewhat of a personal crisis, which in hindsight was probably a necessary but difficult step in the path that followed.

At this point, my first thoughts turned to trying to arrange for a year-long job abroad with a bank or hedge fund or consultancy firm. I FedEx’d some cover letters and resumes to firms in Paris and London, only to receive polite replies that declined hiring me for an entry-level position abroad. I saw that many banking job applications had already expired about a month earlier, particularly for domestic positions, but I knew that I needed to keep my eye on my main goal of international experience.

In the end, I returned my thoughts to Skadden, an international firm with over twenty offices all over the world, and asked my managers what types of opportunities there might be within the Firm. In a contrast to the negative replies from financial firms, Skadden’s reply was that I would most likely be able to move to an office either in Asia or perhaps in Paris, if I switched from litigation to corporate practice. This sounded great to me, and I began to research the Hong Kong, Singapore, and Paris offices.

But after a little bit of time, my mind turned to the possible downsides of staying as a Legal Assistant at Skadden, even if going abroad. I would have chosen to work at the Hong Kong office, and after some correspondence with one of the office’s Legal Assistants it seemed like there was a real risk that my life would continue somewhat as it had been in New York: real possibility of very long hours, daily overtime, weekend work depending on deals, and the like. I initially thought that perhaps I could enroll in a language course and take long weekends to explore parts of Asia, but I was concerned that neither of those plans would come to fruition if the work was anywhere near as demanding as it had been in New York.

And so I eased off the idea of working for a third year with Skadden as a Legal Assistant in an office abroad.

3. Law School Applications

Around the same time in early 2008, I started to look closer at the admissions materials from various schools. In particular, I read as much as I could about the financial aid packages and the loans process for law school. I knew that I had gradually been growing my savings account, by what came to be both the blessing and the curse of working so much at Skadden: while I was earning at an overtime rate at work, I was not out spending my earnings by going out all the time in New York. Back to the student loans, it looked like the most sensible option, were I to enter law school in the fall of 2008, would have been to pay off as much of the first year’s tuition as I could with my savings so as to avoid paying much more in accrued interest after graduation. Indeed, all the financial aid packages assumed this to be the case, and it disheartened me greatly to think about those savings completely dissipating without really having enjoyed them.

4. Thoughts About a Probable Timeline of Education, Work, and Living

Perhaps around March or April 2008, when I was thinking about my core interests and also thinking about the imminent dissipation of my savings, my friends started to ask me for how long I would be away from New York after leaving for school. This signaled the beginning of my thoughts on a realistic timeline for the coming years. By this point I had chosen Berkeley as the law school I would most likely attend, and so I thought about the three years I would spend in California as a law student. During the summers, I would hope to first work abroad for specialized legal projects involving human rights, and then work at a law firm as a summer associate. During the shorter breaks and holidays I would most likely return to spend time with my parents in upstate New York, leaving limited time to spend with friends, in New York and elsewhere. Soon after graduating and taking the bar exam, I would most likely choose to continue living in the San Francisco area and work with a Bay Area law firm. The reason for this, related to my main reason for choosing Berkeley over another school to study law, was that my target law practice would involve a mix of high-technology Silicon Valley companies, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs in science and technology. I would expect to work at least three years in the Bay Area, for the two main reasons of gaining necessary experience and also significantly paying down my loans. With a tight financial situation, I would also have limited time to take substantive breaks from work and pursue my core interests full-time.

My thoughts also turned to my parents, who have been building a house in upstate New York since July 2006. By early 2008 I knew of the types of problems that they were encountering – mainly some very troubling contractor issues, such as poor workmanship and inability to bring tasks to completion on schedule. The consistently poor quality of contractors in the Southern Tier and northern Pennsylvania left me anxious to help my parents with building the house as much as I could so that they could move into the new house and begin to enjoy it and its beautiful surroundings as soon as possible.

5. Further Thoughts on Options for a Year Off

And so I thought more about my options after completing my two years at Skadden. Very helpful to me was focusing on the precise, and somewhat subtle, reasons why continuing with Skadden for another year would have been inadequate for me personally: inability to focus on language study, unclear and possibly limited opportunity for international travel, and a tight timeframe between work and school where I would have been unable to help my parents with their house.

In taking a Mandarin course at NYU in the spring of 2007, I had found that for whatever reason I do simply enjoy studying foreign languages. I found both the Chinese spoken language and the characters fascinating, but I always felt constrained in my ability to really gain an in-depth knowledge of the language. For example, I often came across characters with multiple parts that usually had some interesting history. Discovering this history usually involved looking up the characters on a Chinese-language-learning website such as http://www.zhongwen.com, where one has the opportunity to “regress” into the character’s history by looking closer at its parts. Unfortunately I felt as though I did not have enough time to both master new vocabulary but also pursue these auxiliary avenues of interest, because of the demands of my work as a legal assistant. I often thought to myself how great it would be to have an opportunity to study a language full-time, and further how much better it would be to do so within a country where the target language is used.

And so I did a little math, thought about my savings and my two-year bonus, considered that I would have plenty of opportunity to work overtime until my resignation date in July 2008, and decided that it would be best to request a year of deferment from law school and put together a plan where I could truly pursue some of these core interests of mine.

In particular, the idea of deepening my knowledge of Mandarin while spending time in Asia was very appealing. I had also never been to a country where Arabic is spoken. With both the Iraq war and rapid Middle East development, Arabic appealed to me as a language that I could simply enjoy studying while also opening new professional opportunities for the future. Notwithstanding the professional aspects, I also had the thought that any international traveling that I would do would be greatly enhanced if I had the opportunity to study both Mandarin and Arabic before traveling in a region where each language is used widely.

And so my plan slowly started to materialize: I would spend eight to ten weeks at a time studying Mandarin and then later Arabic, and after familiarizing myself with the language to an elementary level of spoken and written proficiency, I would travel in the region where knowledge of those languages was widespread.

It seemed that with this plan, I had really solved all of the issues that had constrained me previously. I could build in the time to assist my parents with their house. I could then devote my full attention for significant periods of time to the study of foreign languages. Finally I could travel wherever I wanted, with the added bonus of better appreciating foreign cultures through direct communication and participation.

And of course, I am very grateful that the two years I spent at Skadden in several ways went a long way to bring this plan both through conception and to fruition.

6. Request for Deferment from UC Berkeley School of Law

While some schools – Columbia Law School in particular comes to mind – have very liberal deferment policies, it seemed like UC Berkeley required a more concrete plan when requesting deferment. I was initially worried since when I was requesting deferment I did not know precise details about what I would be doing, although I had a very good idea of my motivations. Perhaps this showed through, or perhaps my general ideas were precise enough. In any case, the Law School admissions office granted my deferment request.

7. The Plan for the Deferment Year

As intimated above, in a nutshell my plan for the deferment year is to (a) help my parents build their new home; (b) study Mandarin and Arabic full-time; and (c) travel.

a. Parents’ New House

From early August through mid-September, I was able to help my parents with their house. While I wish I could have stayed longer in upstate New York to have helped and done more, I think that this part of my plan worked out rather successfully. In particular:

We were able to complete significant landscaping work, starting from scratch in early August and seeing a fledgling lawn grow by mid-September. I hear that it’s even been recently mowed. The plot of land where the house is being built, though mostly flat, was still in need of a significant amount of work. We wanted to shape the land so that water would consistently flow away from and around the house and not form large puddles. We also wanted to extend the yard and decrease the slope of the land nearer the house by using dirt from another part of the plot. To do this, we rented a bulldozer for about two weeks and bulldozed away.

[Picture of me operating the bulldozer.]

We also completed a significant portion of the wood framing and molding work. This involved a great deal of time and labor in steel-wooling and sanding; filling nail holes with putty; re-staining parts of the molding that had previously been done improperly by the contractor; and applying a final coat of varnish to all of the woodwork as necessary. By the time I left, we had managed to complete the inside of my bedroom, the office, and the guestroom. Nearing completion were my sister’s bedroom and the hallways. I also managed to stain the staircase leading into the attic mostly on my own, from the sanding phase to pre-treatment conditioning, staining, sealing, re-sanding, and applying two coats of varnish.

On the day before my flight to Shanghai, we also managed to move the computer desk and computer with accessories into the office of the new house.

b. Mandarin and Arabic: Substantive Study Experiences

From mid-September to mid-November, I will be living in Shanghai and studying Mandarin full-time. One of the weeks, there will be no classes due to the National Day holiday, so I am left with seven weeks of full-time language work.

From early March to early May 2009, I plan to study Arabic in Cairo full-time for ten weeks.

c. International Travel

Following my time in Shanghai, in mid-November I will travel to Seoul, then tour Japan with a group, and finally I will spend a week in Taiwan before returning to the United States for my birthday and Christmas.

I will return to Asia at the end of December. Between the New Year and early March, I will be taking an organized tour of Southeast Asia and also of Indonesia – from Jakarta to Bali – before flying to the Middle East. Between the tours I will have time to explore Malaysia and Singapore. From Bali I will fly to the United Arab Emirates to visit Abu Dhabi and Dubai for about a week, and I am particularly excited to see the Burj Dubai skyscraper currently under construction.

Following the study experience in Cairo, I hope to travel within the Middle East, take a tour in Morocco, explore Brazil and Ecuador, and finally do an organized tour from Peru, through Bolivia, and into Argentina with some time in the Amazon and at Machu Picchu.

At the very end of July I will return to the United States to prepare for the mid-August move to Berkeley.

8. Unexpected Returns

Beyond the excitement of seeing these plans start to come to life, I have also been pleasantly surprised by some unexpected returns of this year-long experience.

Being free to devote as much or as little time per day as I need to language study, I have found it very liberating and enlightening to be able to spend time reading and researching topics such as politics, economics, science and technology, social issues, and other areas. Of particular interest have been the November Presidential election and also the unfolding of the financial crisis around the globe.

I am also happy to finally join the blogging world. Not only is it a great way to keep a type of journal throughout this experience, but I have finally found a suitable outlet for my own opinions on issues that are important to me that where I can now have an informed opinion following the ability to read and research the news.

More than just keeping a personal blog, a larger unexpected profit of this deferment year is that I am able to contribute to the organized and accessible collection of human knowledge. With a blog that is searchable by Google, not only can others find a journal of someone’s travels but perhaps they will also hit upon information that is useful to them. For instance, before I left the U.S., I was able to find information about the new Vietnamese Consulate in Shanghai by reading discussion boards of expats in Shanghai. I took that information and put a point indicating the approximate consulate location on Google Maps which anyone can find by doing a simple search of Google Maps. After going to the consulate for a visa, I updated that Google Map point with a more precise, experience-based description of the consulate location, and I also added a photo so that future visitors can have that helpful reference. More generally, I am very happy to think that, once I have done the legwork in finding something – be it a physical place or perhaps a new argument or thought – then others have an opportunity to take that discovery for their own use without having to duplicate work already done.

- - -

Thank you for reading through, and be sure to leave any questions, tips, or any other reactions as Comments.

Thomas Friedman Op-Ed: "Palin's Kind of Patriotism"

2008-10-08T15:21:00.005+08:00

Here is a link to the offending opinion piece in the New York Times on October 8:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08friedman.html

And here was my comment for the New York Times:

"I am embarrassed that I have to point out that Sarah Palin did not say "Americans who pay taxes should not be considered patriotic." Her statement was very clear: that for Americans to buckle down and accept higher taxes as proposed by the government is not an act of patriotism as Joe Biden suggested. There is a critical difference between encouraging everyone to pay their taxes and being active in making sure that the government is not abusing its tax revenues by overspending and by the use of inefficient bureaucracy.

"In my opinion, questioning why we are asked to pay the taxes that are required of us is one of the most patriotic acts that we can do as citizens. It is only by holding our government accountable for its actions and spending that we can improve our nation.

"This author is not simply guilty of twisting words or taking them out of context; he is propagating a bold-faced lie.

"The New York Times should be ashamed of this author."

Shanghai Dream Food: The Egg McMao / 手抓饼 / Shǒu Zhuā Bǐng

2008-10-07T21:12:00.005+08:00

In my search for a good "jian bing" in Shanghai (these are much more popular in Beijing, I gather) I had a classmate describe for me something that she calls the Egg McMao. A Google search reveals that this term has been in use for quite some time, and so I became obsessed with finding the Shanghai Egg McMao. And find it I did.

Describing what the Egg McMao exactly is is a little difficult, but here's a go. Basically, there is a dough-pancake acting as a wrap for the inside ingredients which ends up deliciously tasting as though it's been deep-fried in butter. On top of this is an egg, and you can add things like meat slices, cheese, chopped up green things, and some sauce that reminded me of ketchup. I paid 7 RMB for mine -- a premium over the Beijing Jian Bings that I've had in the past, but worth every bit of it.

I've posted the location of the place on one of my Google Maps. When you go to http://maps.google.com, type in the search "shanghai egg mcmao" and you should get one result. This will show you the location of the Egg McMao that's the tastiest one I've come across so far. (Or click here.)

Otherwise, follow these directions. Coming from the east, anywhere east of People's Square, get onto Huai Hai Lu and continue walking west. Turn left at Song Shan Lu, which is located just before you see the above-road passageway between buildings on opposite sides of the street. Continue down this road, probably past a good number of parked bicycles, until you reach the corner. Just a couple of steps from the corner is a small hole-in-the-wall place which makes the Egg McMao.

And of course the name of the thing isn't "Egg McMao." A day or two after I made my trek, my Mandarin teacher was able to figure out what we were talking about. It's a "手抓饼 / Shǒu Zhuā Bǐng". I suppose that means it's a relative of the Jian Bing but it isn't exactly the same thing.

Here are some photos that should tickle your tastebuds:

Here's the place at the corner of Song Shan Lu and Tai Cang Lu which serves these things up.

The beginnings of a shou zhua bing:

Filling choices at this place. This guy had a very impressive assortment. I've found one shou zhua bing place that's much closer to my apartment, but they don't have any of the green items (although they apparently serve up "Hawaiian" and "Banana/Cheese" shou zhua bing):

Shou Zhua Bing in-progress:

And even more progress:

Looks like a beautiful, tasty rose, doesn't it?

Enjoy!

Letter to Congressmen

2008-10-07T18:43:00.002+08:00

Here is an e-mail letter which I sent, visa www.Congress.org, to my Congresspersons Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and Maurice Hinchey. If you have time, please compose your own letter or send a copy of mine:

I write to demand that a Congressional Hearing take place to examine who of the executives at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Countrywide committed errors in judgment that led us so dangerously close to economic collapse. These individuals in particular must be questioned by Congress and held accountable:

Franklin D. Raines
J. Timothy Howard
Donald H. Mudd
Angelo R. Mozilo

If applicable, these former executives' compensation and bonus packages must be reviewed in light of the financial disaster, and they must be criminally charged if the Congress finds criminal misconduct.

I join other Americans in demanding full accountability from these individuals. If Congress fails to act in this way, other executives will feel that they have free reign over our financial system, with no risk to their compensation packages, bonuses, or criminal records. As an American taxpayer I am very concerned that my investment in the U.S. Government be used for the present and future benefit of this great nation, and at this time what this nation needs is to bring these executives to whatever justice is due them. Only this will incite other executives to move forward in an ethical manner.

If we fail to take this action, the repercussions for the future of America will be severe.

Inquiring About Failure: Congressional Hearings

2008-10-07T17:50:00.008+08:00

Although this list is sadly deficient, my capabilities to scour the Internet and gather information is hampered by a slow Internet connection (particularly as it deals with politics, it seems ...)

But here is a list of some Congressional Hearings that I read had been scheduled relating to the financial mess and mismanagement. But the list of scheduled hearings doesn't even touch the executives at Fannie, Freddie, and Countrywide -- which I think should be central to any investigation into what happened to our financial system, who's to blame, who should have their bonuses revoked, and who should go to jail.

Monday, October 6, 2008
Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers CEO

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Robert Willumstad, Martin Sullivan, Hank Greenberg (Former AIG Chief Executives)

October 16, 2008
George Soros, Philip Falcone, and 3 other hedge fund managers (who collectively earned more than $1bn in 2007)

October 22, 2008
Credit rating agencies

[Date Unknown]
Upcoming Hearing on Regulatory Failures

Whom We Still Need Before Congress:

Be sure to contact your members of Congress (head to http://www.congress.org) and demand that they bring the following individuals to Capitol Hill for a Congressional Hearing to examine what if any penalties these individuals should face for their hand in this mess:

Franklin D. Raines (Former CEO, Fannie Mae) - Credited with taking Fannie from the brink of bankruptcy about 28 years ago, around 1980. Received about $90 million between 1998 and 2004. Resigned in 2004 due to accounting fraud. (Question: What type of severance package did he get?)

J. Timothy Howard (Former CFO under Mr. Raines, Fannie Mae) - Paid about $30.8 million along with Mr. Raines. (Question: What type of severance package did he get?)

Donald H. Mudd (Former CEO, Fannie Mae) - Collected over $10 million in his first four years at Fannie Mae, but lost millions as the company stock declined and his severance was revoked after Fannie was seized by the government.

Angelo R. Mozilo (Head of Countrywide Financial, nation's largest mortgage lender) - Forced Fannie Mae into buying Countrywide's riskier loans.

Senator Jack Reed Pressued Mr. Mudd to take on riskier loans, saying "Fannie and Freddie can do more, a lot more."

Sources:

Kirchgaessner, Stephanie. "Lehman chief to face music on Capitol Hill." FT.com. October 5, 2008.

Duhigg, Charles. "Pressued to Take More Risk, Fannie Hit a Tipping Point." nytimes.com. October 5, 2008

Thanksgiving Omelette

2008-10-06T18:57:00.005+08:00

Finally, I get to share my masterpiece with the world!

I think that these photos are from Thanksgiving 2007. I am actually really bummed that I have to miss Thanksgiving this year, but it will make Thanksgiving Omelette 2009 taste all the better. Here's the recipe:

Thanksgiving Omelette

Gather up your ingredients:

Diced up turkey, onions, diced ham, and diced stuffing...

... garlic, peppers, a schlop of butter, diced yams, corn, two eggs ...

... cheese ...

... cranberry sauce, and your spices: cayenne pepper, pepper, salt, and garlic salt/powder.

Now, I use a fork to mix up the two eggs with the salt, pepper, etc.:

Next, saute the filling ingredients:

... then make your omelette (I use what I call the "Modified JB Method", see below).

And voilà! Amazingness:

----------------------

The "Modified JB Method":

Melt a chunk of butter in the frying pan, and let the pan heat up until it's hot enough to almost instantly cook a small layer of egg once the egg is poured onto the hot surface.

Pour the prepared egg onto the pan. Wait a couple of seconds, then use a spoon to "draw in" the edges of the omelette towards the middle -- exposing the nonstick surface of the pan -- and then hold the pan and swirl around the still-liquid egg such that it covers the exposed part of the pan. Repeat this all around the pan until there is very little liquid egg left to swirl around.

Now sprinkle the cheese onto the entire egg surface, followed by your omelette filling. Let the omelette heat up and cook further, until it is slightly browned on the bottom or however you like it cooked. Fold the omelette in half when you transfer it to the serving plate by first allowing half the omelette escape onto the plate, then using the pan to flip and fold over the second half.

To Andrew Sullivan: Obama Was Not "Prescient"

2008-10-06T16:39:00.004+08:00

A friend recently sent me this link to an Andrew Sullivan blog post:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/dear-chairman-b.html#more

Here was my response:

I think this is the second time I've come across Andrew Sullivan over the past couple days -- but unfortunately I'm left very unimpressed and he is clearly only paying attention to half of what's going on. In this entry, he says that Obama was "prescient" by sending this letter to Bernanke in 2007.

However, what did we have happen in 2006? McCain signed onto the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act with this statement:

"I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole." (From http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190, but PolitiFact also had this to say about recent political spin: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/757/)

Between him and Obama, I give McCain the kudos on this one. He managed to see the situation not from the limited viewpoint of homeowners, but from the damage that the situation could cause -- and ended up causing exactly -- to the entire economy. Not sure how this fact could have gone unnoticed on Andrew Sullivan's watch, but I think it's a pretty telltale omission.

My other comment is that the tenor of Obama's letter suggests that his number one priority is to let as many people as possible keep their homes, which they got from this broken system in the first place and in my view kept it broken. (In thinking about it, extending credit to people who couldn't afford it for housing artificially inflated the housing market by increasing demand, so everyone had to pay higher than true, well-functioning economy market value for their homes.) McCain's support of the bill offers a different view, not at the level of the homeowner who arguably overextended his financial obligations because of unethical lending practices, but from the view of a failing economy. I think that that much more precisely pinpointed where, and why, the system was broken and what should be done to fix it.

I also think it's revealing to recognize that Obama, despite only being in the Senate for 2 years, was the second highest recipient in total contributions from Freddie and Fannie since 1989. Since 1989! That means that the rate at which he was receiving contributions from the two blundering institutions was phenomenally higher than anyone else in the Senate. Of course he'd write a letter to Bernanke to make sure that they make it a priority to keep extending low-cost credit to underprivileged homeowners: he profited grandly from this broken system and, the way I see it, stood to gain a whole lot more. (http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html)

I also note that Andrew Sullivan's site isn't open for comments and responses. Unfortunate, because he could learn a lot from his readers.

............................................

In other news, however, it looks like the US dollar has reached its highest point against the Euro in over a year: http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=EUR&amt=1&t=1y. I selfishly hope that this effect trickles through the global economy and into China so that I can take advantage ...

Sunday: Musings on Church, the Economy, and the U.S. Government

2008-10-05T17:04:00.007+08:00

Walked to Church today (St. Francis Xavier, down in the SE part of the city). Was late probably by 20-30 minutes because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to walk. Turns out it took about an hour, maybe slightly more, although I may have taken a long-ish route.

It’s very interesting to think about where people might come from when they’re not Chinese and they’re in China. In front of me, it looked like there were maybe two families but which were close and almost like one family, and they were all non-Chinese except for a young boy who was definitely Chinese among them. The younger members of the family, one pre-teen boy and some teen girls and two sets of parents, were sort of passing the boy around. I wonder if he was adopted? Did the families move to Shanghai, did their non-Chinese kids grow up there and did they speak fluent Chinese? Were they just visiting for a little bit if they were adopting the boy? Who knows.

The singing in the church was rather good, and I enjoyed the Mass even though I arrived so late. It wasn’t as fancy on the interior as the Xujiahui church that I visited last week, but at least at this one I could understand everything. I’m hoping that towards the end of my stay I can return to the other church and hopefully understand a little bit more of the Chinese, and read some of the characters on the screens.

But on the way back I did find a place that makes those small fried dumplines, you could buy four (although the people there said “liang ge” despite the fact that you get four) for one kuai less than in the Shanghai No. 1 Food Store, i.e. for 3.50 yuan. I also bought a deep-fried dough thing, not knowing that it had a little tasty surprise inside. Took a photo for the blog.

(Street dumplings! Yummy yummy yummy!)

(Let's call it a Chinese beignet. Also very yummy.)

Found the foreign language bookstore on Fuzhou and stopped in today. The prices were somewhat high so I figured I’d just browse and maybe get some ideas. Then I went to get a coffee, and had an idea about US welfare: Is American poverty closely tied to an overuse of “political correctness” in America? In a way I strongly feel that “being PC” in the U.S. may be a euphemism for being ignorant of the real facts and real causes of a social problem, and as such people expend lots of money and time and other resources in trying to figure out a solution to a “PC problem” when the real problem, not-so-PC, is not getting anywhere close to being solved by their efforts. In a way, I feel like our government has become one to blame this on because it seems to encourage this type of thinking. It’s unfortunate, and it also makes me want to take the government to task in a very public way to be accountable for how it uses the money that the taxpayers entrust to it.

It also makes me interested in what the system is like in a place like China. What is Chinese social welfare? Does the government even have such programs in place, and if so, how effective are they? What is the unemployment rate in China, or if that figure is not reliable, for how long have poor people been unable to find any work that will sustain them? In the U.S., it seems tenable to me that some people may have disincentives to work and support themselves financially without governmental assistance because the responsibility for ensuring social welfare has been shifted from the people to the government. And my fear is that American liberals subscribe to this shift fully and are ready and willing to entrench it even deeper in our national consciousness and national obligations, meaning that perhaps the liberals will get the votes and win the presidency come November 2008, but the reality for the country is that, in a decade or two, this country will really be much worse off than it already is: the taxpayers will feel like they are getting nothing (compared to other countries such as Europe) for their taxpayer dollar, and this will erode confidence in the government and the country will undergo a social crisis of sorts, perhaps even a very real stratification of the population into those who are resentfully forced to give (by the government and tax codes) and those who are waiting to receive free resources. Of course, when you give something away for free, people flock to it if it is helpful to them; that is economics. I think that, besides corporate greed and governmental stupidity, it is this fact of economics that partially led to the implosion of the financial system. Clearly when you assure home ownership for those who in reality cannot afford to own a home, everyone will flock to the lender and take out a mortgage and buy a house that they cannot afford. And then who has a right to go crying to the government and say, “Don’t let the bank foreclose on my house! It’s the American dream for everyone to have a house.” Of course, the real problem may not lie in foreclosure but rather in the repercussions of the housing bubble (I take this from a NYT article that I read, annotated, and then distributed among friends today) in that the houses that were bought with loaned money were overinflated in price, and since the bursting of the housing bubble, that money can never be recouped, and so everyone loses except the sellers. Was the housing bubble a product of the mortgage mess, i.e. when demand went up for certain types of housing due to the availability of loans to the riskiest borrowers, it drove up home prices in an unsustainable way, thus creating a bubble which eventually burst? A real chicken-and-egg problem, I suppose. But shouldn’t the message, at least in this little corner of the financial system, be clear? Don’t promise a home to those who are unable to afford a home. Everyone will lose out in the end.

Of course I don’t mean to sound heartless. I just aim to be realistic in my critique of government action and inaction which has lead to this financial disease that grips us lately. Nothing in my argument states that it is impossible for everyone in the United States to actually own a home. But is does argue that it is impossible to expect a well-functioning economy when everyone who cannot afford a home is given one, particularly those not motivated enough in and of themselves to earn the money necessary to own one. If government does its job correctly, then we can be left with a vibrant economy where all people are motivated to work hard enough to afford whatever house they want: the government need not directly interfere by giving these houses away essentially for free to people who cannot repay – at times because they have no incentive to do so since it seems the government will do anything it can to avoid taking that house away.

My view is that government is supposed to be like a good, progressive manager for employees: your job is to be supportive, not to be overbearing. Use your position such that you make your employees as productive as they can be; in a way, it is almost as if you are performing a service to your employees in this managerial role, because it is your job to facilitate their work. This is an interesting model, where employees create the needs and the managerial role is to fill those needs. But right now I think that the government is stuck in a very bad model of “management,” where rather than facilitating a rise in productivity of the American people, the government is taking it upon itself to do the work for them. This is unsustainable and runs against what I think are the basic tenets of a market economy: that the economy works when incentives line up in such a way that people are motivated to look after themselves and make the best decisions for them. It is not up to the government to make those decisions for people; the government’s job is to align the incentives and ensure that the incentives – which is not synonymous with the resources – are fairly and squarely distributed.

I must end, though, with a crack at anticipating the beginnings of one potential counterargument: the theoretical possibility that any society ends up with most of its wealth in the hands of the few. I read this in an article somewhere and once I remember where I will post it or a reference of where to locate it. (It seems that researchers had developed a computer model of a society and, when they ran it under different starting conditions and tolerances, the model usually returned a society with most of the wealth concentrated in the hands of the few.) While I have some thoughts as to why this might indeed be the case – and from experience why it might be true – I still do not think that this “rule of economics” – which might explain a certain concentration of wealth – would also have as a necessary result in the need for mass redistribution of wealth in order to bring the living standards of the vast majority up above the line of poverty.

Pomegranate Mojito

2008-10-05T14:35:00.001+08:00

Just thought this might be a little fun (recipe is from WikiHow). Can't wait to try to make one:

How to Make a Pomegranate Mojito

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

This is an excellent rum based drink for a Halloween setting or party. Here is how to make a pomegranate mojito.

Ingredients

2.1 fl oz (60 ml) of pomegranate juice
2.1 fl oz (60 ml) of white rum
4.2 fl oz (120 ml) of club soda
1/2 of a lime (chopped)
2 teaspoons of pomegranate seeds
crushed ice
1 teaspoon of sugar
mint leaves
mint sprig

Steps

Combine the lime pieces, mint leaves, and sugar in a glass. Crush and mix them together with your pestle.
Fill your glass halfway with ice cubes.
Pour the rum, pomegranate juice, seeds, and soda water into the glass.
Stir everything together with a spoon/stirrer.

Tips

Making this cocktail uses the "building" technique, as you are adding or "building" ingredients on top of another. Building does not include using a cocktail shaker, but just stirring the ingredients together at the end if called for.

Things You'll Need

tall glass
spoon
wooden pestle

Related wikiHows

Sources and Citations

VideoJug - Original source of information, shared with permission

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make a Pomegranate Mojito. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Vietnamese Consulate, Shanghai, China

2008-09-29T21:46:00.003+08:00

On Monday of last week, I went to the Vietnamese Consulate in Shanghai. You can see where it is located within the city by heading to http://maps.google.com and typing in the search "vietnamese consulate, shanghai". This will bring up my user-created place with the address of the consulate.

Compared with my other experiences obtaining visas, obtaining the visa at the Vietnamese Consulate in Shanghai was a very pleasant experience. I must have arrived around 2:00pm in the afternoon to submit my paperwork. While they did not accept a form that I had printed which is used by the Vietnam Embassy in the US, the Shanghai Consulate form requests exactly the same information and looks more or less the same.

Upon submitting my paperwork, the officer looked at my proposed dates of travel and did question me why I was applying for a visa so early. I told him that I would be traveling and that this was one of my few chances to obtain the visa. Submitting my paperwork was not a problem.

The fee for US citizens applying through Shanghai for a Vietnamese tourist visa is 380 RMB. I didn't have enough cash on hand, so I headed across the street to an ATM and pulled out the rest of what I needed. I did notice that Chinese nationals obtaining a Vietnamese tourist visa are requested to pay 760 RMB.

It takes four working days for the visa to be ready without paying an expedite fee. I returned to the consulate between 4:00pm and 5:00pm on Friday and had no trouble retrieving my passport with visa by handing in my receipt.

Here's what the building looks like in Pudong which houses the Vietnamese Consulate in Shanghai:

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will try to respond.

Strange Ant Behavior

2008-09-29T17:31:00.003+08:00

Sitting in a small park in south-western Shanghai yesterday eating an orange, one or two ants happened to be walking around my feet. They were of medium size, about 7-8 mm long and black. One of them happened to keep walking around my foot, and I didn't want to step on it so I just tried to make it disinterested in my foot, but eventually it got too close and I closed down on it.

Several minutes later, the other ant of the same type happened upon the body of the dead ant. I was wondering what its reaction would be to a dead comrade, and I saw some interesting things. The second ant seemed a little agitated as it walked around the dead ant's body; it seemed to be using its feelers to inspect the body, and it also violently drove away smaller, brown ants of a different species that tried to approach the body. It looked like it was defending the dead ant's body from the smaller ants.

Then this second ant started to climb on top of the dead ant, starting at the head and then going down to the abdomen. I couldn't really see what it was doing except that it was progressing down the length of the body. Then I saw the second ant busily doing something with its head and face at the intersection of the thorax and abdomen (second and third parts of an insect). About a minute later, I saw the second ant pick up the large, whitish abdomen of the dead ant and it quickly carried it away under the leaves.

At that point I left, so I'm not sure whether it returned for the head and thorax of the dead ant.

Anyone have any idea why the live ant would so meticulously disassemble its fallen comrade?

Ideas on Secondary Language Acquisition and Beyond

2008-09-29T13:32:00.006+08:00

Outline

A. Difficult Question to Answer

B. Elements of Successful Language Acquisition and Use

C. Thesis: It Is Not Necessarily a Biological Barrier Which Prevents Adults from Learning a Language to Child-like Fluency

D. How a Child Learns Language

E. Contrast with the Adult Situation

F. Conclusions about Language Learning for Adults

G. My Prospects for Mandarin Chinese

A. Difficult Question to Answer

One of the most difficult questions that I come across from other people is “How many languages do you know?” No, I’m not getting into this topic to stroke my own ego and years of hard work at improving my knowledge of various languages, but rather I think that from my experience one might draw a framework from which to look at the general capacity of people to learn second, third, and more languages into adulthood.

1. Mandarin

First up: by anyone’s standards, my Mandarin is not good. At the moment, I can stammer out a few phrases in the street, maybe I can say numbers and end up negotiating a price for some good or service, but I usually hesitate to say anything because chances are that I will not be able to understand the response. So, at the moment my conversations turn out to be quite one-sided. Similarly with reading, my knowledge of characters is severely limited, although I’m beefing up on the radicals and hopefully with time, exposure, study, and practice I’ll be able to have some sort of functioning knowledge. Probably not popular-newspaper-readability in these seven coming weeks, but hopefully something.

2. Spanish

Next up to bat is Spanish. When I was done with high school, my reading was rather good and my pronunciation was very good, according to locals (even in Barcelona). As a small point of pride, I have specific anecdotes for each of French, Spanish, Mandarin, and German where I’ve been told by someone either native (for the first three) or very knowledgeable but not native (for the German) that my pronunciation is very good. Apparently my Mandarin is even close to how the Shanghainese speak it, versus the Beijing accent that I thought I was trying to model back in Beijing. In any case, I think that on certain topics my Spanish syntax and vocabulary are pretty good, and that I have an ability to “talk my way around” topics pretty well, i.e. get a point across without necessarily holding all the vocabulary that a native person would command when speaking about that same topic. In terms of listening and understanding, however, I think this part of my knowledge of Spanish is somewhat rusty and underdeveloped. Sort of similar to Mandarin, I can say quite a bit but I will not necessarily understand the response. Usually, though, when I’m in an environment filled with natively-spoken Spanish for about two days (as in a trip to Barcelona with my sister during the spring of 2005), I’ve noticed that my comprehension improves significantly and I can have conversations.

3. Ukrainian

Then we move to Ukrainian. Having grown up in a bilingual environment – Ukrainian at home and English at school – generally I would say that I’m fluent in spoken Ukrainian. However, this does depend on the topic of conversation and with whom I’m speaking. If with my parents, of course we understand each other to a degree of about 99% because they taught me Ukrainian. Why not 100%? Well, there’s a two-way answer to this. One is that my parents both grew up differently from the suburban environment where my sister and I grew up, so they for example have much better developed vocabulary for this like tending to a farm or other things that they did as children but which my sister and I never did. So sometimes they will use a word that I’ve never heard before, and so I have to ask what it means. In the other direction, since the Ukrainian that I learned growing up is a hybrid of one that had been exported from an area where daily life and business was conducted in living Ukrainian in the early part of the 20th century, there is a lag between the Ukrainian that I was taught by my parents and that of modern-day Ukraine which may tend to borrow more from Russian, at least to my ears, whereas the Ukrainian that I learned borrows, in relative terms, much more from Polish (both in terms of vocabulary, pronunciation, and syntax). I have, however, studied Ukrainian in L’viv in western Ukraine for six weeks, plus I lived in Kyiv for almost three months in 2005 working for the State Department, and thus I was exposed to a modern-day Ukrainian which contrasts with what I learned as an American child. Thus, I will have vocabulary or pronunciation that is different from how my parents speak, and sometimes they will have to ask me what I meant. Other times, I notice that an object or idea that previously would have taken me several words in a phrase to explain actually has a single word associated with it, and many times my parents are aware of that word but we just never used it at home. As a final note, I would remark that I am familiar with a great deal of Ukrainian words in that I know generally what they are about and what sort of connotation they have, but if pressed to translate them into a word into English I would be unable to do so even though a dictionary would be unequivocal in providing a translation. Mainly I’ve noticed that this is the case with religious-related terms, probably because rather than being an active part of my everyday life they are instead things or concepts that I actively do not need to refer to or read about and thus I have only a superficial knowledge of them. As for written Ukrainian, my fluency is basic although I can make my way around. I remember the days when my sister and I both had real trouble with reading written Ukrainian, just because we never needed to know how to read and write because all written materials around us were in English. But after the summer course in L’viv (through the University of Alberta, with Dr. Oleh Ilnytskyj) and concerted efforts on my own to read BBC Ukrainian articles and hunt down the meanings of new words, I have a pretty decent working knowledge of written Ukrainian, of course depending on the topic. But very importantly, I also have at my disposal more than enough of a framework in Ukrainian to independently expand and learn my knowledge of the language when in an environment that uses it exclusively, either an article written in Ukrainian or when out in the streets of Kyiv. I think that this is a critical point to make when discussing adult foreign language acquisition (I do not pretend to tackle the issues of innate ability to learn language nor Universal Grammar, though please feel free to comment on the topics after this post). Going back to Spanish, I also think that I have enough of a framework to independently advance my knowledge of that language through direct interaction with the Spanish-speaking world.

4. French

And now we arrive at French. I started taking French my junior year of high school, concurrently with mid-to-higher-intermediate Spanish, and then I continued taking it throughout undergrad including a spring spent studying abroad in Paris. Although there were certainly spoken and listening components to the standardized exam I took in high school, and also taking intermediate through advanced French as an undergrad, I would still say that my knowledge of French is rooted in the written word. Indeed, I would almost say that in terms of the speaking skills and the reading skills, my abilities in Ukrainian and in French are inverted: in Ukrainian, I will understand, or at least be able to pick apart words, that are spoken to me, but if asked to read a text out loud I would probably not sound like someone reading an oratory. As for French, I could probably deliver a great speech but when conversing informally with a native French speaker I might have difficulty picking apart some of the “fluidic” elements of the language that sit between the major words used that I would recognize immediately. In any event, practice in both languages and in both fronts makes perfect, and through time, exposure, and need I think that all of these elements together do improve.

5. English

And how about English? It’s strange to think that my first language is not my dominant language, and that my de facto second language English has taken over the top linguistic spot in my brain. But I think that, as with any of the other languages that I’ve studied, fluency in English can also always use some improvement. Perhaps most obviously this would occur in the area of broadening vocabulary, but I think that questions of connotation, style, and creative usage are all very important fronts that can be advanced when improving fluency in any language.

6. Remarks

So where does this detailed description leave us? I think that it serves to delineate in an important way both my abilities and my potential limitations in any given language at the current time. And having such a detailed awareness of not just ability in a language generally but rather being able to pick apart what skills and in which languages are stronger or weaker leaves one more empowered to improve upon his or her linguistic situation.

B. Elements of Successful Language Acquisition and Use

Also from the above discussion, I would tease out the following elements which form a critical part of Part II of this discussion, that of my thoughts and ideas on adult secondary language acquisition.

The first element is the mention of what I will call “fluidic” pieces of any language, those bits and pieces of sounds and phrases that do not necessarily carry a great deal of meaning in context but which make up perhaps around half of what is actually said in spoken language. The fluidic elements are those which lubricate the main elements; they connect them, surround them, give them context and connotation. Perhaps due to their frequency, the fluidic elements are also some of the most difficult to pick out and learn because they are so common that they often become abbreviated or shortened when used by native speakers, and thus no matter how good one’s listening is they can be objectively incomprehensible to the language learner without the aid of a native speaker who recognizes the difficulty.

The second element is that of a basic structure or framework that allows a speaker or learner of a language to independently progress within a given language. I might even suggest that having at one’s disposal this basic framework is a sign of basic fluency in a given language. And I might also argue that to a large extent, this basic framework is composed of the totality of the fluidic elements of a language and that the two together allow a secondary language learner to upgrade his or her fluency simply by being immersed within an environment that uses that language exclusively (rather than the initial situation of requiring external stimuli and explanations in one of that learner’s other languages, as a teacher in a beginner language course might do).

C. Thesis: It Is Not Necessarily a Biological Barrier Which Prevents Adults from Learning a Language to Child-like Fluency

I will start with my thesis. I believe that the best and most robust way to learn a language is how a child learns it. I also happen to think that anyone in the right situation and with the right resources can learn a language to near-fluency by learning it as a child learns it. I argue that any adult can learn a language to the fluency that a child would learn it, if they learn it as a child. I attempt to explain what are the significant elements that describe how a child uses language, in order to suggest how adults might approximate the conditions and indeed to present my own efforts to learn, and what I need to do to increase my chances for success in learning, both Mandarin and Arabic during this deferment year. I think that it is a myth to say that adults are neurologically incapable of learning a language to child-like fluency: I simply think that this impression is a reflection of the fact that few if any adults, for important reasons, are capable to achieving child-like fluency because they are unable to study the language under the same conditions as a child would learn that language. However, I will not attempt a detailed discussion of whether or not the challenges I discuss below can be overcome; while I believe it theoretically possible for an adult to gain child-like fluency, I am not sure whether socioeconomic conditions and responsibilities of many or any today can allow that type of learning. However, to be sure, I do not subscribe to the idea that it is a biological barrier which prevents the full acquisition of a secondary language.

D. How a Child Learns Language

i. Motivation to improve, including constant error correction. Essentially it is a young child’s parents, and when they enter school also their teachers and peers, who are the child’s language teachers. Significantly, the child does not need to pay his parents for the instruction; indeed, the parents have familial and personal incentives to teach their child how to properly use a language and thus even when the child resists overt efforts at instruction, it is the potential criticism of peers and ability or inability to fully communicate with one’s environment and cause it to work exactly as expected that are significant motivators for any child to learn a primary language.

ii. Full-time tutors. A child also does not have recourse to any other language that is already fully developed when she cannot express an idea in her primary language. (I happen to be of the opinion that ideas and concepts in the brain can exist extra-linguistically, and that it is the function of language to instantiating these abstract, extra-linguistic ideas into verbal communications.) Every communication that the child makes must be some sort of combination of the language that she has already learned up to that time, and also the physical movements or indications that can assist with the communication of the idea that is seeking expression. And from the moment that a child strings her first words together, she is assisted by her full-time language tutors, i.e. parents, in finding the word that fits a particular situation and usage, and in this way builds little by little on what she already knew how to use before the new instruction.

iii. Recursion. Indeed, among the first things that a child learns in her primary language is how to learn more about that language, in that language. Not only does the child not have recourse to any pre-existing language if she cannot express an idea in the target language, but she must also use what she already knows in order to know more. This state of affairs is a type of recursive learning: it reaches back across everything that has already been learned within a particular language in order to learn more, and the more that is learned is then fed back into the realm of possibility within that language and is fed back into the brain’s language-learning algorithm when even more must be learned. In its most basic form, the child is able to ask questions about what she already knows in a language, and she is able to ask the same questions and make the same observations about what she has not yet learned, but is about to learn.

iv. Context. And indeed, everything that a child does in her childhood involves the primary language. Even when studying mathematics from a textbook, the instructions and the types of questions and responses that are possible when discussing that topic all serve to reinforce the learning of language. Over and over again and over the course of many years, the child hears the same or similar phrases, intonations, etc. that are used within her native language, particularly the fluidic elements that are very basic but that serve to smoothly move forward and interlock the words specific to a particular topic being discussed and also the disposition of the speaker which informs the context of a given situation. Since this is all that she knows, she mimics this when she speaks herself, and she recognizes that others are using the same fluidic elements even when they are not enunciated clearly, which such phrases rarely are due to their frequency. They are often cut up or abbreviated, or spoken informally; however, the child is able to recognize what the phrase is and also what it means in some part because of sound, and in large part due purely to the context of the situation in which it is used.

E. Contrast with the Adult Situation

i. Full-time tutors. The adult who wishes to have a full time tutor must face the prospect of paying a full-time language tutor to sit with him throughout days and evenings and to help look for the correct word for all of the situations that one might encounter in any given day. While the price tag for children is minimal, except perhaps to perform chores and do homework to keep parents happy, the price tag for adults is exhorbitant. Parents as full-time tutors of their children have their child’s future happiness and success as a primary motivator in making sure that their child correctly learns a new language. Tutors for adults, however, may indeed have as a motivation the desire to teach others a new language but they could not survive spending so many hours a week with just one or two people without being compensated, for otherwise they could not afford food, housing, or transportation. Keeping foreign-language-speaking friends nearby as near-approximations for full-time tutor-parents is one potential solution, but friends also cannot for free divert the necessary resources to tackle the task full-time.

ii. Error correction and context. Children are inquisitive because they have much to learn about the world. Adults know that children are limited in their knowledge, and I view it as one of the rites of passage from childhood into adulthood when a person can finally take a firm and informed stand on issues important to them. In terms of knowledge, children are not learned from by adults: it is the adults who teach the children. And so, when a child makes an error in her native language, it is her parents, friends, and teachers who can point out the error directly and offer a correction. Adults who are learning a new language, however, are seen not as subjugated persons but as independent individuals. It is difficult for them to have access to the same type of constant correction and incremental improvement that children enjoy when learning a language. When an American adult incorrectly stutters some sentence in the streets of Shanghai, he is not immediately corrected or offered additional advice regarding the utterance as would be a child: instead, his audience will react to the utterance as they can best interpret it, perhaps finding it a little funny, but they do not go out of their way to offer a correction or alternative way of communicating the idea. Thus the adult is deprived of an opportunity to learn outright the correct way to get a waiter’s attention at a restaurant, or to ask whether large bills can be changed into smaller ones, because once the point is communicated it no longer really matters which words exactly were used. Thus the adult will have to use the same, incorrect utterance again in the future, because he was not offered an alternative the first time he used the utterance. Worse is that he risks not recognizing the proper utterance issued by native speakers because he does not possess all of the fluidic elements of a target language to understand fully both the context of someone else engaging in a similar transaction, nor will he fully be able to make out what was said by the native speaker without already knowing what will be said, and to compound this the native speakers will in all likelihood not enunciate clearly whatever fluidic statements they are employing, thus making it next to impossible for a non-native speaker to figure out what exactly was said in that parallel situation among native speakers.

iii. Recursion. An adult language-learner will very often not be in a position to draw recursively upon existing knowledge in order to further his study of a secondary language. Instead, he will be strongly tempted to have recourse to his native language in which he is already familiar with the structures required to advance knowledge of a language. Said another way, the adult language learner would have a very difficult time to process all linguistic information about a secondary language in the secondary language, both because he lacks the fluidic elements described above but also because it is much easier and more efficient to switch back to a native language in order to ask questions about new vocabulary or to probe grammatical syntax about a secondary language. It is possible that this ability relates to the common-usage phrase “learning to think in another language,” because we tend to associate thought with being conducted within the confines of a particular language, usually a native language of a speaker.

iv. Motivation. In terms of the motivations of a secondary language learner, it cannot be said that there are no strong motivations for the acquisition of a new language: social situations in a foreign country may require knowledge of a secondary language, as might a career and the prospect of a pay grade with increased linguistic abilities. Personal satisfaction is a huge motivator as well. However, I do not think that any of these can easily overcome the type of motivation that is involved in learning a primary language: that of the ability to use, understand, and manipulate as much of one’s environment as possible through command of a language. The secondary language learner can always rely on his primary language for that type of understanding and manipulation, but the primary language learner cannot.

F. Conclusions about Language Learning for Adults

From the above analysis, I would draw on the following principles which may be helpful for language learners to be familiar with in order to maximize their abilities in a target secondary language.

i. Full-time tutors. It is necessary to not only encourage others to offer improvement suggestions about your utterances but also for you to be actively listening and asking questions about what others are saying. It may help to develop an excellent rapport with a native speaker, either a teacher or a friend, who can over the long term recognize what you did or did not understand, and to analyze their own speech for fluidic and other elements and present them clearly to you when they are used.

ii. Motivations for improvement and error correction. Perhaps this is the most difficult element to grab hold of when learning a secondary language. Motivation is highly mental and thus depends on something different from person to person, so a language learner may have to actively renew their motivations in order to stick to a regime of avoiding recourse to a native language and of constantly being active in listening to and watching the interactions between native speakers. Constant correction of usage of a secondary language is a very difficult thing to achieve as well, both due to the number of errors committed by secondary language learners and also because society, both in an effort to be polite and to achieve efficiency, tends to move forward without offering corrections to the errors in a given utterance once the intent and meaning of the utterance are understood.

iii. Recursion. One should strive to achieve recursion also in a target secondary language. One way to begin to do this is to always use the target language be it in class or on the street, even in situations where the full vocabulary and usage is not necessarily known, because it forces thought in the target language and opens an opportunity for improvement and immediate correction, and also allows the chance of receiving and trying to understand a response (which may or may not succeed). Questions in the classroom should always be in the target language, because their form is probably often quite the same and the response will likely be in the target language as well, which will build upon and reinforce existing knowledge.

G. My Prospects for Mandarin Chinese

My goal was to try to approximate some of these elements as well as I could, and here are some of my predictions as to the quality of my approximation over the course of this deferment year.

i. Full-time tutors and error correction. With classes running almost four hours for five days per week, this is an excellent opportunity to engage with a native-speaker teacher whose sole task is to impart knowledge and promote practice. Of course, this is nowhere near the amount of tutoring available from a source such as parents. Out on the street, I find that it is difficult to recruit strangers to fulfill a tutor-like role in discreet instances because it seems that native speakers are not as focused on delivering clear, concise, and simple messages which may require them to modify what they would normally say in a given situation, as well as how they would deliver the utterance. However, I do see that those whom I see on a daily or near-daily basis do end up modifying how they speak, to my benefit: the receptionists at the language school use Mandarin whenever possible and slow down or repeat what they say so that I can understand them in Mandarin; and also our cleaning lady now seems to say less when speaking to me, and she slows her speech a little, so that I have a better chance at grasping what she is trying to say. However, as I sit in the apartment or move about the city, I am not sure how I might constantly be able to engage with attuned native speakers.

ii. Recursion and context. In class there is certainly the opportunity to be recursive in speech and thought; I expect this aspect of the language learning experience to further improve once I am able to take one-on-one lessons with a language teacher with whom I can discover and learn what utterances native Mandarin speakers use as fluidic elements and how they use them on a daily basis so that my own basic framework of the language improves, bringing me one step closer to a linguistic state where I can independently move about the language and push the boundaries of my knowledge of it.

"Les missions catholiques au Tonkin": final dossier

2008-09-29T13:21:00.004+08:00

For my final course dossier on June 7, 2005 (Université de Paris course 54 HI 120 F: Péninsule indochinoise, taught by Alain FOREST). My apologies for errors in the French; I don't quite remember the editing history of the paper and to what extent I had native French speakers read it, but I think that the points do come across. In any event, I passed the course:

Qu’est que c’est que la religion, et comment fonctionne-t-elle par rapport à des nouveaux peuples ? Qui se passe-t-il quand une nouvelle religion se heurt contre des vieux croyances, et pourquoi mettrait-on sa vie en jeu pour « sauver les âmes » de ceux que l’on considère infidèles ? Ce sont toutes des questions qui lient l’histoire des produits des pensées de l’homme à celle du monde. À travers un survol des missions catholiques au Tonkin, on relèvera quelques points essentiels de cette histoire de la religion enracinée dans la civilisation, ou plutôt l’essaie de l’enfoncer dans une région où se trouvent un peuple et une culture qui ont déjà un système de croyances qui marche pour ce peuple et cette culture.

Quels sont les problèmes, donc, d’essayer de semer ces nouvelles idées dans un nouveau contexte ? Comment se sont-ils « résolus » dans le cas présent ? Dans certains cas, la réponse à ces problèmes n’était-elle une contradiction qui a empêché de la part des missionnaires de ne jamais trouver une réponse satisfaisante contre leurs vœux et leurs désirs ? Après avoir brièvement examiné la situation de l’Église au XVII° siècle relative à la découverte de nouveaux mondes où l’on pouvait évangéliser, on passera à un survol des endroits (villes, ports, etc.) les plus importants dans cette histoire, afin de mieux se situer dans l’analyse des questions et des problèmes auxquels les missionnaires du XVII° et XVIII° siècles se sont confrontés.

L’Eglise catholique située à Rome, après s’être installée parmi les populations d’Europe, se trouva confronté à l’ouverture de divers pays dans les quatre coins du monde. Elle se trouva également sans les moyens de répandre toute seule la foi chrétienne dans tous ces nouveaux endroits, et donc elle exerça son pouvoir en Europe pour que la foi chrétienne travers les océans avec les voyageurs étant déjà envoyés par les royaumes occidentaux. Les rois et les princes des royaumes européens, tel le Portugal dans la période étudiée, convaincus ou presque que leur pouvoir leur était accordé par Dieu même, furent donc liés à « l’œuvre de l’évangélisation ».[1] Il y avait quand même une sorte de subordination de l’Eglise au roi, mais ce fait ne gênait personne car « à l’époque tous reconnaissaient au souverain une part d’autorité spirituelle »[2], et donc une obligation d’évangéliser.

Cette histoire, théoriquement viable, se montra dans le XVII° siècle néanmoins liée aux caprices de l’histoire, car elle supposait que le pouvoir ne changerait pas, lorsque il ne reste pas stable au cours des siècles. Aussi l’Eglise commença-t-elle à reprendre ce pouvoir dans les années où les missions au Tonkin furent entreprises, ce qui va porter sur le déroulement de l’histoire de la chrétienté en Indochine aux XVII° et XVIII° siècles. Comme le dit Chappoulie, « le glas de la puissance portugaise sonnait aux Indes orientales »[3], et, ayant perdu cette base de pouvoir sur laquelle l’Eglise pouvait compter pour répandre la foi chrétienne, elle devait trouver d’autres moyens pour continuer l’évangélisation de ce coin du monde nouvellement connu par les Occidentaux.

Aussi fonde-t-elle la Propagande en 1622, l’entité à travers laquelle l’Eglise allait assumer encore « le charge de promouvoir la foi catholique aussi bien parmi les païens que parmi les hérétiques »[4], car la puissance du Portugal fut en train de décliner, laissant un trou de pouvoir que l’Eglise remplit en donnant la tâche de l’évangélisation directe à la Congrégation de la Propagande.[5] « La première tâche, dit Chappoulie, de la nouvelle congrégation serait de mettre sous son autorité le personnel missionnaire qui à peu près tout entier dépendait des patronats espagnols ou portugais »[6].

On verra que cette nouvelle dynamique va traduire une concurrence entre les groupes différents de religieux dans au Tonkin, et va prévoir les plusieurs sortes de tensions qui existeront entre eux.

Avant d’aborder les divers questions des conflits et désaccords qui se déroulent au cours des missions au Tonkin, voici quelques repères chronologiques :

En 1614, la mission mondiale catholique subit une catastrophe au Japon, à savoir le bannissement de tous les missionnaires, suivi par la mort de 61 personnes liées à la mission, considérées martyrs pour leur foi. Suite à cette expulsion du Japon les missionnaires dans la région cherchent un nouvel endroit pour continuer leur évangélisation, et trouvent la côte de la péninsule indochinoise. Une première messe est célébrée au port de Tourane en Cochinchine en 1615 par les deux religieux Buzomi et Carvalho.[7]

En 1666 arrive au Tonkin le premier missionnaire français, M. Deydier.

On reprendra les dates importantes du reste du XVII° siècle et le début du XVIII° lors d’une discussion des difficultés face aux missionnaires au Tonkin, mais pour finir les repères on ajoute 1737 où on peut situer définitivement la dissolution du lien entre Thang-long (Hanoï) et les campagnes, suite à des révoltes et le début d’une période dure pour la seigneurie du Tonkin face à des mobilisations autour du moine Nguyên Duong Hung.[8] Tandis que la seigneurie tonkinoise continue à tâcher de s’occuper de ce qu’elle aperçoit comme les problèmes d’avoir dans le pays les missionnaires chrétiens, vu en gros le vrai danger ne se trouve plus chez les activités des missionnaires mais plutôt dans le cœur et dans les fondations du Viêtnam.

Etant situé un peu dans l’histoire des missions au Tonkin aux XVII° et XVIII° siècles, on va ensuite regarder les problèmes que les missionnaires ont subis pendant leur évangélisation au Tonkin. On verra aussi que quelques contradictions surfacent également. Avant d’aborder ces question, il est nécessaire de dire qu’il est difficile d’extraire nettement les problèmes qui restaient internes aux groupes de missionnaires de ceux qui touchaient la vie du viêtnamien quotidienne, et autant des problèmes qui se présentèrent face aux autorités viêtnamiennes. Cependant, en les classant ainsi on a tâché de choisir l’élément le plus saillant plus classer un événement, mais une faiblesse de cette analyse est que l’on ne voit plus le contexte historique clair (comme dans toutes les sources consultées) qui a entraîné ces événements particuliers. Néanmoins, la valeur d’une telle analyse est qu’elle tâche de tracer la distinction entre les différentes sortes de problèmes, ce qui permet de discerner les champs d’interaction différents qui les ont produits.

D’abord il y a les problèmes « internes » aux groupes de missionnaires. Comme les jésuites étaient les premiers à célébrer la Messe au Viêtnam, ils avaient déjà converti beaucoup d’indigènes avant l’arrivée les missionnaires nationaux. Il y avait, donc, un conflit immédiat entre les vicaires apostoliques, dirigés par la Propagande à Rome, et les autorités portugaises. Un témoignage nous en fait part : « Deux choses empêchent la propagation de la foi : d’abord la discorde qui chaque jour va croissant entre évêques et religieux, entre réguliers et jésuites ; puis la cupidité de nombreux missionnaires qui ne cherchent qu’à amasser des richesses et à les emporter en Europe »[9]. L’animosité donc entre les deux groupes de religieux et éventuellement entre les gens convertis respectivement par chaque groupe vont jouer un rôle important dans l’histoire des missions au Tonkin.

Un cas particulier illustre ce point. Il y avait un certain Paul de Abada, considéré un « principal » de la chrétienté tonkinoise,[10] qui au temps de l’arrivée du prêtre Deydier au Tonkin, tente de faire de sa fille une concubine au chua régnant.[11] Bien que ce premier fît des bonnes choses pour l’Eglise peut-être parmi les viêtnamiens comme indigène converti par les jésuites, sa manière de vivre n’était pas en accord avec les leçons de la Parole de Dieu, comprise par les religieux tel Deydier et bien évidemment Rome.

On trouve aussi des désaccords entre les instructions données aux indigènes par les jésuites et les opinions donc des nouveaux missionnaires. « Une chose dont je fus surpris, écrit Deydier, est que personne ne savait parler portugais ni connaître nos lettres ; ils me disaient que les Pères jésuites le leur défendaient » : là encore un obstacle à surmonter provenant des premiers enseignements des jésuites sur les terres viêtnamiennes.

Alors une rupture se présente aux cours de ces deux siècles « entre missionnaires français et jésuites et, plus encore, entre chrétientés fidèles aux premiers et aux seconds »[12]. Il semble que cette animosité ne soit pas limitée aux pratiques et manières de vivre chrétiennes, mais qu’il y avait même des intentions de tuer les chrétiens de l’affiliation opposante : après un dîner chez un chrétien du « parti jésuite », deux prêtres tombent malade et meurent éventuellement, le chrétien soupçonné de les avoir empoisonnés.[13]

Des autres désaccords, toujours internes aux limites des étrangers mais cette fois ci entre les chrétiens et les Hollandais, se révèlent. Toujours dans le jeu du commerce dans cette région, les Hollandais fondèrent la ville de Batavia en 1619, « dont la richesse et le prestige surpasseraient vite Goa », la ville important portugaise dont la splendeur est également attestée.[14] La brutalité des Hollandais envers les religieux, pour autant, était bien connue, ce qu’Alexandre de Rhodes a vu lui-même quand les Hollandais commirent un « sacrilège » avec des choses religieuses devant ses yeux.[15] Lui aussi était conduit en prison après avoir dit une messe à Batavia[16] ce qui ne permet pas de tenir une image des athées Hollandais comme complaisants envers les religieux.

Cependant, les Hollandais jouaient un rôle important dans quelques aspects de la vie des missionnaires au Tonkin. La voie de Batavia était considérée par les missionnaires « toujours … comme la première et la plus prompte pour les échanges avec l’Occident. C’est aussi par Batavia que doivent désormais transiter l’essentiel du courrier, du ravitaillement et la plupart des hommes entre le Tonkin et le Siam ou Manille »[17] . En outre, la fiabilité des navires hollandais était bien connue.[18]

On passe maintenant aux questions relevées par les relations dans le contexte religieux entre les missionnaires et les indigènes viêtnamiens.

Quant au traitement des missionnaires envers les pratiques rituelles déjà installées chez les indigènes, la Congrégation de la Propagande donna ces paroles :

« Ne mettez aucun zèle, n’avancez aucun argument pour convaincre ces peuples de changer leurs rites, leurs coutumes et leurs mœurs, à moins qu’elles ne soient évidemment contraires à la religion et à la morale. Quoi de plus absurde que de transporter chez les Chinois la France, l’Espagne, l’Italie ou quelque autre pays d’Europe ? [noter dans la liste l’absence d’une mention du Portugal] N’introduisez pas chez eux nos pays, mais la foi, cette foi qui ne repousse ni ne blesse les rites ni les usages d’aucun peuple, pourvu qu’ils ne soient pas détestables, mais, bien au contraire, veut qu’on les garde et les protège. »[19]

Voilà la deuxième des tâches principales données aux missionnaires par cette Congrégation, dont la première est de « créer un clergé autochtone » et la troisième de « ne prendre aucune décision importante sans en référer à Rome, et surtout ne procéder à aucun sacre d’évêque sans avoir reçu mandat de la Congrégation »[20]. Cette insistance sur les mœurs est intéressante car elle représente une des questions les plus importantes pour les missionnaires en gagnant les âmes pour la foi chrétienne. Comment savoir si une coutume locale nuirait aux principes inhérents à la foi chrétienne ? Pourtant, les missionnaires ne pouvaient – ou au moins pas tout de suite – interdite toute coutume du pays, car les paysans n’écouteraient pas le message apporté. Toutefois, cette question demeurera importante au cours des missions au Viêtnam.

Puisque le peuple du Viêtnam, situé près de la Chine, se trouve sous l’influence de ses voisins chinois et donc des mœurs et coutumes chinois, on trouve des tensions quand l’action des missionnaires s’appuie sur les autres religions importante dans l’état viêtnamien. La vue d’un missionnaire du confucianisme le décrie comme tendant « manifestement à l’athéisme et ouvr[ant] la porte à toutes sortes de vices, ne laissant qu’une vaine image et que l’ombre ou l’apparence de la vertu. » Pour compliquer davantage la situation, Cadière écrit que « la magie [dans la religions des Annamites], avec ses pratiques barbares ou ridicules, se mêle aux actes religieux les plus nobles »[21]. Que ces pratiques ressemblent à des actes nobles et barbares à la fois laisse une question difficile à résoudre : de permettre aux viêtnamiens ou pas de continuer les pratiques socioreligieuses auxquelles ils se sont accoutumés ?

En plus, le courant à l’époque quant au confucianisme était de le renforcer officiellement par des décrets « rappelant les principes éthiques néo-confucéens », des principes qui, à l’égard des missionnaires, n’harmonisaient pas avec la chrétienté.

Une constatation encore pire sur le Lao-tse, « la pire de toutes, comme étant la plus attachée au service du diable »[22].

Quant aux défunts, les paysans et les lettrés mêmes étaient toujours attachés au culte des ancêtres que les missionnaires voulaient qu’ils laissent. Mais cesser de « soulager et d’honorer les âmes de leurs parents trépassés » se présentera encore comme une pratique difficile à y renoncer. Et quand les nouveaux chrétiens essayèrent de suivre les conseils des missionnaires, ils étaient aussitôt punis,[23] ce qui aurait dû affaiblir les arguments des chrétiens.

Il semble cependant que la situation avec les pratiques rituelles des indigènes ne soit pas sans tout espoir. De Bourges, tenant compte des difficultés similaires mais pas tout à fait les pareilles confrontées en Chine quant aux cultes et pratiques déjà en rigueur, produit une liste des différences entre les pratiques au Viêtnam et dans la Chine. Celle-ci est reproduite ci-dessous pour montrer les particularités des questions auxquelles nos missionnaires étaient confrontés :

1. La cartouche de Kinh Tiên [la tablette avec les caractères « Respect au Ciel », semble-t-il proposée à la vénération des fidèles dans certaines missions de Chine] est inconnu dans cette mission ;

2. Aucun Tokinois, chrétien ou infidèle, ne se sert des mots de deus, de Tiên [Ciel] ou de Xang ti [L’Empereur d’en haut] pour signifier la divinité ;

3. On ne fait pas dans ce royaume les sacrifices en l’honneur de Confucius et des morts, qui se pratiquent à la Chine au printemps et à l’automne ;

4. Les chrétiens du Tonkin ne gardent aucune tablette en l’honneur des défunts ;

5. Aucun chrétien n’enseigne ici la philosophie des Chinois, ni aucun livre qui traite des idolâtries et de l’athéisme ;

6. On se conforme ici indifféremment aux deux décrets d’Innocent X et d’Alexandre VII selon les exigences des cas et des faits qui paraissent certains.[24]

Il est intéressant de remarquer que cette liste n’analyse les pratiques des viêtnamiens qu’à partir des pratiques déjà connues en Chine ; autrement dit, elle ne traite pas des coutumes particulières aux Viêtnamiens qui pourraient courir contre les lois chrétiennes.

Malgré ces différences, les missionnaires ont quand même bénéficié d’autres coutumes particulières aux viêtnamiens. Des achats de terre dits vente-engagements étaient « une importante source de subsistance des missionnaires et prêtres »[25]. Egalement, similarités avec le bouddhisme aidèrent les missionnaires à apprendre aux viêtnamiens certains rites chrétiens : « De même sont-ils [les Viêtnamiens] spécialisés dans la récitation de prières auprès des malades et des mourants pour les exorciser et les guérir, comme le font les moines bouddhiques et les taoïstes ; et la famille du malade leur offre, ensuite, repas et boissons »[26]. Aussi la situation n’était-elle pas complètement mauvaise pour les missionnaires vu les circonstances avec les coutumes et rites des indigènes, mais à la fin du compte les difficultés semblent dépasser les facilités.

L’établissement d’un clergé national était une idée beaucoup discutée parmi les missionnaires et leur supérieurs à Rome, mais en fin de compte ceci n’était plus une possibilité et l’idée était laissée.

Encore dans le texte de la Congrégation, les missionnaires sont chargés de « créer un clergé autochtone »[27]. En effet, le passage « capital » selon Guennou disait que « La principale raison qui a déterminé la Sacrée Congrégation de la Propagande à vous envoyer comme évêques dans ces région a été que, par tous les moyens et méthodiquement, vous vous efforciez d’instruire les jeunes gens pour les rendre aptes au sacerdoce, que vous leur confériez les saints Ordres, que vous les établissiez, en ces vastes région avec mission d’y servir le christianisme de tout leur cœur, sous votre direction »[28]. Le projet, alors, était établit.

L’établissement d’un clergé indigène était une des remèdes proposées pour améliorer les défauts dans les missions dans le Viêtnam, les Cochinchinois et les Tonkinois cités comme des gens qui « peuvent donner des sujets parfaitement aptes au sacerdoce »[29]. Et pourquoi s’y intéressait ? « L’indigène connaît mieux la langue, les mœurs, le caractère de sa nation » constate un récit.[30] En plus on argumentait avec les chiffres, et on renvoyait au sujet de l’échec au Japon :

« Rhodes exposait aux cardinaux de la Propagande qu’une chrétienté de 300.000 fidèles et qui s’accroît d’environ 15.000 âmes chaque année exigerait de l’Europe 300 prêtres au minimum. Où les trouver ? Où trouver l’argent de leur voyage, 500 écus par tête ? Où trouver la place sur les navires ? Ce n’est même pas 300 missionnaires, mais bien 400 qui devraient s’embarquer, tant il faut redouter de morts en route. Une fois en Annam, les souverains indigènes tolèreront-ils pareille abondance d’étrangers, eux qui ne souffrent qu’à grand peine la présence momentanée de quelques rares prêtres à l’entrée de leurs territoires ? Ce serait courir au devant d’une persécution comme celle qui désole l’Eglise du Japon. La chrétienté japonaise meurt de n’avoir pas fait en temps voulu un clergé japonais. »[31]

Aussi pouvait-on suivre les histoires des nominations parmi les autochtones pour devenir prêtres destinés à être évêques dans ses terres natales, en plus de cause des difficultés du travail des missionnaires européens qui ne pouvaient pas de déplacer avec la même facilité que le pourrait faire un évêque indigène.[32]

Mais ces idées étaient destinées à échouer. Dans une opinion typiquement critique, « L’expérience ne prouve que trop malheureusement que les prêtres tonkinois qui ne sont point visités [par les missionnaires français] font plus de mal que de bien »[33], dit M. Le Roy. Blandin d’ailleurs est étonné de découvrir que certains de ces prêtres « permettaient et conseillaient même aux chrétiens des choses clairement opposées au premier précepte du Décalogue qui défend les superstitions et toute coopération aux superstitions ».[34] On peut relever donc que les prêtres autochtones ne renonceraient qu’avec difficulté à leurs habitudes mieux connues dès leur naissance que les nouvelles idées apportées des pays lointains par les missionnaires.

La difficulté pour ces derniers était de trouver une manière de surveiller tout ce qu’enseignaient les catéchistes et les prêtres autochtones, une tâche vraiment impossible vu les circonstances politiques dans lesquelles les missionnaires se trouvaient-ils au Viêtnam. Déjà mentionné est l’idée que l’on ne pouvait cacher tant de religieux que nécessaire prendre la place d’un clergé autochtone nécessaire, mais réellement impossible. Pourquoi ? Il faut considérer les interactions entre les missionnaires et leurs hôtes, les membres de la seigneurie viêtnamienne.

Les relations avec le chua et avec ceux qui l’entourent dans la cour sont toujours susceptibles au va-et-vient des sentiments du roi tonkinois envers les missionnaires, visiteurs étrangers. On peut imaginer autant de semblable dans la Cochinchine. Tantôt le chua reçut bien les missionnaires, même en offrant à travers un de ses mandarins « une maison fort commode en laquelle il le fit conduire en pompe, monté sur le plus beau de ses éléphants »[35] Tantôt le gouverneur d’une province va ordonner une perquisition chez un missionnaire, ce qui termine par la décapitation d’un pauvre catéchiste qui devient sans l’avoir voulu le premier martyr au Tonkin en 1644.[36]

Intéressant de remarquer ici le commentaire relevé par Chappoulie d’un rencontre avec un missionnaire et le chua régnant. Le missionnaires lui donna « un beau livre de mathématiques fort bien doré, imprimé en lettres chinoises »[37] – citation du récit d’un missionnaire. Dans cet exemple on trouve non seulement un choix aléatoire de cadeau qui est beau quand même, mais plutôt on relève les stratégies des missionnaires, voire leurs connaissances de l’histoire du Viêtnam pour évoquer une bonne réaction de la part du chua. Un livre de mathématique, c’est un domaine qui intéressait les pouvoirs des cultures orientales et qui prédisposait ces derniers à bien recevoir les missionnaires, qui avaient l’habitude d’être fort éduqués dans les sciences et les maths. Un phénomène qui exploitait la même sensibilité aux sciences des Occidentaux tint lieu durant le règne de Trinh Trang, qui, ayant été montré la science d’un missionnaire lorsqu’une éclipse de lune apparut, « inclina de nouveau vers lui »[38]. Un livre imprimé en lettres chinoises ne peut que renvoyer à l’importance de la culture chinoise dans la haute culture du Viêtnam, ce qui est une reconnaissance nuancée de la part des missionnaires et bien utilisée dans le choix de cadeau pour être bien reçu par le chua.

Même si les missionnaires voulaient renoncer à tout contact avec les membres de la seigneurie pour éviter les conséquences désastreuses, ceci n’était pas possible étant donné le degré auquel les gouverneurs suivaient néanmoins les mouvements des missionnaires. Pour empêcher aux gouverneurs et aux juges de rien faire contre les missionnaires, il fallait donc commencer au plus haut du système de pouvoir au Tonkin, à savoir avec la cour du chua. Par exemple, on lis dans les textes des missionnaires la conversion d’une dame de la cour qui accepte la foi nouvelle, un « gain précieux » donc qui fait des conversions dans son entourage, qui coïncidait à celui du souverain.[39]

Dans cet entourage sont aussi les eunuques, peut-être les lettrés les plus proches du souverain « dont l’infirmité, accidentelle ou voulue, exprime cette fidélité même [au souverain] »[40] et qui avaient, donc, pas mal d’influence sur lui. Comme lettrés, et comme nous l’avons vu, les lettrés connaissaient par définition le mieux les principes du confucianisme et donc pouvaient être les plus menacés par les « dangers » de cette foi qui se répandait dans leurs territoires.

Résultat de ces pressions internes : plusieurs résurgences de répression contre les chrétiens, européens ou viêtnamiens, tous les plusieurs années au cours du XVII° siècle[41] et une forte répression en 1712 où un nouvel édit ordonna « la destruction de la religion des Portugais »[42].

Deux mondes se sont heurtés au cours des missions catholiques au Tonkin des XVII° et XVIII° siècles. Le résultat de ces rencontres peut bien être une sorte de lent échec quant à la mission elle-même au Tonkin, même si l’évangélisation entraîne forcément des empêchements graves. Du point de vue historique, en revanche, on peut relever des nouvelles données sur les deux mondes concernés, dans ce cas le monde occidental chrétien et le monde oriental non chrétien. La rencontre de ces deux nous a donc permis d’analyser plus profondément les réactions des croyants de religions telles le confucianisme, le taoïsme, même le bouddhisme, et aussi les dynamiques socioculturelles résultant des besoins des pouvoirs orientales vis-à-vis leurs sujets et les nouvelles influences occidentales.

[1] Henri CHAPPOULIE, Aux origins d’une église : Rome et les missions d’Indochine au XVIIe siècle (Paris : Bloud et Gay, 1943). 48.

[2] Chappoulie, 49.

[3] Ibid., 65.

[4] Ibid., XVII.

[5] Ibid., 68.

[6] Ibid., 72.

[7] Chappoulie, 22.

[8] Alain FOREST, Les missionnaires français au Tonkin et au Siam, XVIIe – XVIIIe siècles. Analyse comparée d’un relatif succès et d’un total échec. Livre II, Histoires du Tonkin (Paris : Éditions L’Harmattan, 1998). 87.

[9] Chappoulie, 76.

[10] Forest, 133.

[11] Ibid., 133.

[12] Ibid., 136.

[13] Ibid., 153.

[14] Chappoulie, 57.

[15] Ibid., 66.

[16] Ibid., 66.

[17] Forest, 15.

[18] Ibid., 14.

[19] Jean GUENNOU, Missions étrangères de Paris (Le Sarment Fayard, 1984). 75.

[20] Ibid., 74.

[21] Chappoulie, 16.

[22] Ibid., 16.

[23] Forest, 137.

[24] Forest, 174.

[25] Ibid., 60.

[26] Ibid., 141.

[27] Guennou, 74.

[28] Ibid., 74.

[29] Chappoulie, 78.

[30] Ibid., 92.

[31] Ibid., 103.

[32] Forest, 170.

[33] Ibid., 246.

[34] Forest, 246.

[35] Chappoulie, 23.

[36] Ibid., 29.

[37] Ibid., 33.

[38] Chappoulie, 36.

[39] Ibid., 24.

[40] Forest, 31.

[41] Ibid., 126.

[42] Ibid., 180.

Attending Catholic Mass in Shanghai

2008-09-29T12:43:00.008+08:00

Yesterday being Sunday, I researched online whether/where there were Catholic churches in and around Shanghai. I found several, but one was particularly convenient from my apartment next to People's Square, at the Xujiahui metro stop. This was the St. Ignatius Cathedral of Shanghai. Here's a photo of the front of the church:

You can actually find my contribution to Google Maps that pinpoints the location of this church by searching on maps.google.com for "xujiahui catholic church puxi road, shanghai" (if there's an option, be sure to include User-Created content which will search my travel places).

I would have been on time but I was a little lost after exiting the metro stop at Xujiahui, so I had to backtrack a little before coming across the church. With the high number of tall and wide buildings throughout Shanghai, it's difficult to just arrive somewhere and know where your destination is, even if it is a famous landmark.

The 10:00am Mass yesterday was celebrated in Mandarin. It seems that St. Ignatius does not offer weekly services conducted in English, although a church in the south-east part of the city does do so. I will try to go there next week, if I can find the right bus to take in the morning.

As for St. Ignatius, although the Mass was conducted in Mandarin, there was an opportunity for English-speakers to follow along some parts. The readings appeared on TV screens throughout the cathedral, which in a split-screen presented both the Mandarin that was read and also the English translation. However, the homily did not have any translation, so I had to do the best that I could with the Mandarin that I have. From a purely linguistic standpoint, I think that going to Mass here would be an excellent way to reinforce my Mandarin studies because not only is the speech and oratory delivered as clearly as possible, but there is the possibility of following along with the characters on the screens. I was even able to sing a teeny, tiny bit in Mandarin because all the song lyrics appeared on-screen as well, and I exited the church armed with some new characters and words to look up as soon as I arrived back home.

Now, how does Christianity or Catholicism proliferate in a country such as China?

When I was researching churches online, I came across one comment that warned would-be Mass-goers to bring their passport along with them, ostensibly because only foreigners could practice a religion such as Catholicism within China. I did bring my passport but no one checked it when I visited St. Ignatius. Inside the church, I noted that the Mass was being predominantly celebrated by the Chinese. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether these are ex-patriots from other countries or if they are native Chinese citizens, but I did not sense any restrictions or threat of restrictions on the celebration of the Catholic Mass. The only aspect of the visit that was slightly anomalous was that there was no photography permitted of the outside of the church. I did sneak in a couple photos, and of course no one can regulate photography from a long ways away, but to not be able to photograph the church from inside the gate was a little strange and I'm not sure why this was the case.

Inside, I did find clues as to how the Catholic church may employ a type of strategy to connect to the decidedly different belief system not only of China, but of Asia in general. Please read this small explanatory note which appears under each stained glass window of the cathedral:

Here is the type of stained glass window that might appear throughout St. Ignatius Cathedral:

And so I also took details from the elements that the small explanatory text described. Here is the narrated Biblical scene:

Along with some text:

... and finally, up top, a connected symbol from traditional Chinese art:

(My apologies that all of these are not necessarily from the same window, but are provided to be illustrative only.)

The model of connecting the Christian church with Chinese tradition is interesting and I wonder to what degree (and with what success) there has been an intentional effort, and for how long, of integrating elements of Christianity to the constant cultural education that the Chinese receive as they grow up, live and work within China. I also wonder what new understanding is brought to the Christian narratives in the mind of a Chinese person through the connection with traditional imagery, and whether this dilutes or strengthens the original message as interpreted by Rome (in the case of Catholicism). And, more interestingly, if the Christian narrative and Chinese traditional imagery are tightly correlated, what does this say about the role of religion and culture in society?

This does remind me a little bit of a paper that I wrote in French in the spring of 2005 while studying in Paris. The course dealt with the history of Southeast Asia and my paper, "Les missions Catholiques au Tonkin," treated the theme of how (and perhaps why) a religious mission can or would access the people of a completely foreign culture. I'll post the paper separately for anyone interested; I myself am reminded that I should read it before my trip to Vietnam in January!

The Impressive Buildings of Shanghai

2008-09-29T12:08:00.003+08:00

When I visited Shanghai in June 2008 with friends, the weather was quite rainy and I don't remember that we ever really had clear air with which to reliably view the skyline and buildings. Yesterday, however, was a perfect day in Shanghai so I walked around, armed with a camera, and tried to find some good shots for the Shanghai landmark buildings.

First, my Shanghai babies. These are some of the awesomest buildings that I know of: the Jinmao Tower (left) and the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC; right).

A year ago before I left Shanghai, I stopped in Pudong where the buildings and, essentially, the famous Shanghai skyline are located and I travelled up to the 88th floor of the Jinmao Tower to have a cocktail. According to Wikipedia, as of 2007 it was 70 RMB to go to the 88th floor observation deck of Jinmao, but I found another way to enjoy the top of the tower: head to the cocktail lounge on the 87th. Instead of using the express elevators, head to the hotel entrance and take the elevator up to the Grand Hyatt lobby where, incidentally, you'll have a great view from the bottom of the famous 30+ story lobby that rises through the inside of the skyscraper. The cocktail I had at the top was about 90 RMB a year ago -- roughly $15, probably the same as one would spend for a cocktail at an upscale place in Manhattan.

As for the SWFC, from what I gathered yesterday you have at least three (tourist-priced) options of getting a good view. You can choose to go to the 94th floor (perhaps 50 RMB), or the 97th floor (100 RMB), or to the 100th floor (150 RMB). I may or may not decide to splurge and head to the top, which opened just at the end of August and seems to house the world's highest observation deck at 474 meters. But I wonder if there's a free way to get almost to the top ...

A view up the straight side of the SWFC:

Here's a view as the sun heads far to the west:

And here's a view with the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the buildings to the north-east of it:

Review: GoodSync File Synchronization Software

2008-09-29T02:00:00.003+08:00

So I have my laptop - traveling many thousands of miles with me and to three/four countries during this leg of my travels - and I figure that anything can happen to my data. Computer might be lost or stolen, or maybe the hard drive will come loose and destroy itself like it did with my last computer.

Before leaving home I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to put some of my most critical files on a USB drive. However, thinking ahead, what if I ended up changing or adding files on my own to the laptop, or alternatively when I'm out and about and maybe using a friend's computer or an Internet cafe and need to add some files, how to keep them up to date?

So I tried to hunt down some file synchronization software -- free, of course. GoodSync was one of the first that I came across. The interface was very comprehensive and it gave lots of information about the sync (including free vs. required space on the "destination" or secondary, in my case, drive). I guess this spoiled me, because when I looked at other software to see if anything was even more "free". (GoodSync allows free unlimited use only for a month; afterwards, the website warns that you're limited to syncing 100 documents "routinely". Not sure yet what that means. Pro version costs $30.) However, other programs just didn't have all the features I would need.

For instance, I keep all of my documents -- basically from middle school on -- in a folder with my name under "My Documents". Of course, while I'm traveling, I'm probably not updating my 7th grade Literature papers, nor do I need to keep a close eye on whether I've saved any new programs to my computer. So these should be excluded in the backup, whereas all the other files should be synced up.

The software does have its bugs, but I found workarounds.

The first issue I noticed is that when you permanently Exclude a file or folder from the list of files to be analyzed (compared between the two locations), GoodSync doesn't update the required disk space on the secondary drive: if you simply Exclude a 1.0 GB folder, the software doesn't decrease the required disk space by a gigabyte. The workaround I found is just to make sure that, before you Exclude, you click on the "Do Not Sync" option for that file or folder (in this software, it's the green circle between the two arrows that show in which direction a file would be synced). When you select that option, the software updates the required space, and then you can choose that file or folder and Exclude it from the analysis and sync.

The second problem was that the program doesn't seem to know how to re-Include files or folders that had previously been included. I had to work around this problem simply by creating a new job from scratch, being careful not to Exclude anything that I would want back into my list of files to sync.

As for next steps, I wonder how well this software would be when you want to create backups of files onto writable CD or DVD media. I also wonder whether the post-30-day restriction applies when you're just starting a new job. But that's a discussion for another day!

你好！

2008-09-27T14:55:00.005+08:00

(my Facebook post -- I am trying to keep everything here at Blogspot)

So it's been a week since I took off from New York en route to Shanghai, and it's been an interesting and busy week. I had been hoping to do some posts on my blog, tarasmc.wordpress.com, but it's hard to access and update it from China so I guess it will have to stagnate for the time being. (But you can check out my travel map which I posted to one of the latest entries.)

In any event, I hope to keep a pseudo-blog here!

To start things off, some photos from outside my apartment balcony in downtown Shanghai:

View across People's Square (人民广场). An exquisitely evil-looking building towering high above the park. I'll post a comment when I figure out what the building is.

Like in midtown Manhattan, when you're looking across the city from one tall building, all you can see is .... other tall buildings!

A rooftop garden or walking area with a water fountain.

The Travel Map

2008-09-27T14:54:00.002+08:00

My apologies for the delay to all friends and colleagues who have been patiently waiting. Here’s a link to a PDF that more or less shows where I hope to go over the next year. (Red dotted lines mean mostly overland travel, and blue dashed lines indicate flights.)

Countries on the list:

China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina

The Family's Goodbye

2008-09-21T18:00:00.000+08:00

Facebook seems to be taking forever to load, just seeing if Blogger is any faster. Here's a photo of my parents and sister, waving "Bye!" over breakfast at the JetBlue terminal at JFK airport on 9/20:

The Financial Stupidity

2008-09-19T23:01:00.001+08:00

An email I was compelled to write to a friend:

“As an entrepreneur-minded business and finance man, would you at least agree with me that there’s something fundamentally wrong when the heads of major organizations and corporations are rewarded millions upon millions of dollars over many years after running their companies aground and putting the entire country, nay the global financial system, at risk? They should all be investigated, fined, and jailed to send a message across the board that such criminality will not be tolerated by the American people or by any people, thereby giving an incentive to other CEOs to shape up and be accountable because they will finally learn that their asses are on the line if they mess up. I thought that capitalism is supposed to reward good, hard work that leads to success. And in seeing my many immigrant relatives rise in this country using that exact formula after arriving with nothing but the clothes on their back — not even knowing the language — when they walked off a boat or a plane, that’s how I understand “the American dream.” It’s not that you sit on your ass, neglect your duties, make all the wrong choices, and still walk away with millions upon millions of other people’s money. That’s absolutely, indisputably criminal. “

To anyone who says that “Politics isn’t for me,” “I hate arguing about politics,” or “There are people out there more qualified than me to make decisions on these things,” I want you to think about the following. People should care about politics not because they think it’s fun — indeed, that’s the worst reason for anyone to want to get involved. You need to dig your hands into this dirty business because it affects you. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but in ten years, in thirty years — what happens to your 401(k) because of either brilliant people or idiots in Washington will decide whether you are living a luxurious retirement in the Hamptons or a subsistent existence in a cardboard box over an exhaust vent. And it will decide what your kids and grandkids are faced with when they grow up and enter The Real World.

Our government just undertook massive amounts of debt and fiscal obligation that it had no right to do. Congress, through its inability to act and unwillingness to make the tough choices to do the right thing, is literally creating money that doesn’t exist and never will exist. Our government — all branches of it — is failing to hold anyone in a powerful governmental or corporate position accountable for their failures to meet their obligations and duties.

Our future as a country and as individuals within it depends not on the partisan outcome of this coming election, but on the resolve of whichever candidate ends up in office to do the right thing. The path it looks like we’re heading down is unsustainable. What does it say that I nor anyone I know thinks we will see a penny of money from Social Security or Medicare? How sad and hopeless is that type of pessimism, which in essence is a restatement of the opinion that we have no faith or trust in our elected officials to see past their paychecks and kickbacks and the “good boy network” and actually face the damage that is being done to this country? Through threats of higher taxation combined with evidence of criminal negligence of duty and obligations on the part of our government, we are eroding the incentives for people to work and earn money which is the backbone of our economy. And when everyone becomes so poor that they no longer pay any taxes, government is by definition bankrupt and is powerless to perform even its most basic and necessary duties.

We need to stand up and say that enough is enough, Washington.

Life-Poker-Monopoly

2008-09-14T15:54:00.002+08:00

Last Thursday I flew down to Huntsville, Alabama with my mom. I hadn’t seen my grandmother in a couple of years, not to mention my young cousins and also my aunt and uncle. It didn’t work out for us to do a whole family trip with my sister Sonia and my dad (who had a fishing trip scheduled in the 1000 Islands this same weekend) prior to my departure for China, so we initially thought that we would do a family trip around Christmas. However, since I was hoping to start a tour of Southeast Asia after Christmas and there were ideal trips starting around 12/27 and 12/29 (run by Intrepid Travel and departing from Bangkok), it really didn’t seem like I could squeeze a trip to Huntsville into the time I would be back in the U.S. following the time in China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

As a family we usually drive the trip down to Huntsville, which takes about 16.5 hours, or longer in a motorhome. The rare times we flew in the past, we would take three-leg flights from Binghamton that stopped in Pittsburgh/Philadelphia and Charlotte before landing in Huntsville. This was usually the option presented when my dad made reservations using his Dividend miles over the phone. However, I thought that maybe we could buy pretty cheap tickets by looking around, and the research paid off. Syracuse is only an hour north of Binghamton, a pretty easy drive, and I was able to find fares even cheaper than flights from NYC down to Huntsville by going from Syracuse instead. And they made only one stop at Washington-Reagan.

Now to Life-Poker-Monopoly. Both my cousins, Orest who just started ninth grade and Oksana who just started sixth grade, are quite bright and quick learners. So after playing Life, Poker, and Monopoly separately, we decided that a fun grand finale would be to combine all the games. For those of you looking for a new twist on old family fun, here’s how we did it, with the modifications we eventually came up with.

Playing with Monopoly money, we distributed somewhat more money than one usually starts with Monopoly; however, you can probably just start with the same amount because with everything together it is much easier to earn money in the hybrid game, faster.

We played a round of poker to determine the order we would start the game. Then, every property for sale that we landed on, rather than giving the player the option to buy it outright or give it up for auction, we left it to a hand of poker. The ante for all players interested in obtaining the property was equal to the price of the property, meaning the cost was divided between us. Then we played out the hand of poker and the winner received both the bet money and the property.

After discovering that Oksana had an uncanny ability to win poker hands, we eventually (but too late) instituted a new rule that if a player is behind the others in property ownership (perhaps say that any one player has over 5 fewer properties than the player with the next-least number of properties, then that player would get a buy option on any property landed by any player in the game. Obviously in Monopoly it is crucial to own property to stay viable in the game, so to keep the game competitive for all players this rule worked out rather well.

“Free Parking” money, non-standard in Monopoly play but I think a common phenomenon, would also be decided by a poker hand when any player landed on the space.

Be sure to also integrate poker when you want to exchange properties or other cards (see Life integration instructions, below), since it adds to the excitement of the game. And leads to compulsive gambling Better sell a Monopoly title deed than your actual house!

Integrating Life into the picture was a little more complicated but fun nonetheless. The first way we thought of doing this was having each player pick a career out of three cards, and then pick a salary card, also choosing three like in Life. The salary chosen would be added to the normal $200 salary after passing Go, but divided by 1,000. (For instance, a player with a Life salary of $80,000 would get $280 Monopoly whenever they passed Go.)

However, since in the game of Life there are opportunities to switch salary cards, we also came up with the following. If a player rolls a pair of 6’s then they could take one of two options. They could switch their salary with another player, or they could keep their current salary but choose a new salary card and keep whichever they wished from those two choices. This was a good way to try to get that $100,000 salary card into play. The reason we chose the pair of 6’s for this honor relates to how we dealt with stocks (below). And although we didn’t quite get there, we figured that the graduated income tax level shown on the salary cards could be tied into the Monopoly income tax amount, meaning that the highest-earning players also pay the highest amount of money in taxes. (For related discussion, see section on the career cards.)

We liked the idea of Life stocks. We decided that we could buy stocks for $100 (but only one per turn) and then we would receive $20 each time a player rolled that number. For the “1” stock card, the payout occurred upon rolling 11. We didn’t have any stock number associated with rolling 12, so we chose that number for the salary-switch privilege. Note that using this method, the “7” stock card was the best deal because there are 6 of 36 ways to roll it. Next best are the 6 and 8 cards, and so forth. The worst stock to own, of course, is the number 2. (Of course, all of these can be traded by a mutually agreed-upon hand of poker.)

Going back to the career cards, we liked the idea that each career came with its perks. For instance, what we ended up doing was that the Accountant would receive the taxes that any other player would have to pay. The computer technician would receive a set amount of money if any die would land off or on the edge of the board when thrown. The police officer received a payment whenever someone rolled a 10 (“speeding”).

In terms of receiving little “LIFE” blocks, we decided that whenever someone landed on a Chance or Community Chest space and received any cash from the card, then they would also receive a “LIFE” block to tally up later (or to trade in a poker hand).

I think there would be plenty of other creative ways to tie together Life with Monopoly. Maybe buying homeowner insurance would reduce the cost of repairs (making it worthwhile to make the insurance investment whenever a player started developing multiple properties). Perhaps taking a college loan, and repaying it with interest, would allow limits to which players could have which careers and salaries, or maybe taken in the middle of the game it could increase the salary of a player by a certain percentage. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to play the games together.

Of course, with so many modifications, some caveats are in order. The game can get pretty busy and it’s challenging (and fun!) to keep track of what’s going on as each player rolls the dice and takes his or her turn. Also, adding in all these modified payment transfers should be done carefully so that any one player doesn’t get a huge advantage over the others (the “tax goes to the accountant” rule comes to mind, because this happens pretty often whereas other modifications might not). In the end, though, we found that the amount of money that flows into the game is generally pretty high compared with regular Monopoly (where each player passing Go infuses just $200 into the total wealth available in the game), and this can make for quicker play. While this may be a rule in regular Monopoly, we found it pretty help to limit house-building to one house per turn so that no one player goes from riches to bankruptcy just by being behind on building. Maybe provisions could also be make to force players who have the holdout card for a color group to put it up for a hand of poker so that another player can develop the property (if other negotiations fail).

All in all, this was a ton of fun! And my sister has a challenge to learn all the above rules when she comes to visit my cousins while I’m away overseas. I would love to read your comments, suggestions, and stories as comments to this post.

Unborn Babies and Human Rights? That’s “Above My Pay Grade”

2008-08-27T16:56:00.000+08:00

Here is a second Rockpile Analysis which politicizes and, I think, interestingly expands the topic of when babies should receive protection as people beyond the boundaries within which it is usually discussed. At the Saddleback debate, Barack Obama had this exchange with Rick Warren:

WARREN: … [A]t what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.

(Click here for a link to the video and a transcript. The video portion of this answer appears in Part 4 of the link, at 03:20 of 10:58.)

Obama does continue to give a well-reasoned response to the general issue of abortion, why it is such a contested issue, and he sets forth some policy goals which I think that many people would very much agree with, for example in terms of reducing the number of abortions performed, looking deeper at the issue and discovering why we perform as many abortions as we do, and how abortion supporters and opponents can find common ground on the issue.

However, this general discussion is still eclipsed by the fact that at the outset, Obama deflected the core question. Here are my views on this deflection and what I see to be its perhaps non-obvious consequences both for the country and for the prospects of an Obama presidency.

Answering the question “at what point does a baby get human rights?” bears on much more than just the highly divisive abortion issue, which of course is the first thing that comes to mind. As Obama mentions, it does touch heavily on morality, ethics, and spirituality and many subjective and emotional issues.

However, it also touches on topics that many people don’t necessarily discuss when they discuss the value of life.

Answering this question has important legal and criminal implications. As one important example, we have Public Law 108-212, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which sets for a federal standard by which unborn children are considered crime victims. In addition to federal law, 34 states recognize that the fetus or “unborn child” is a crime victim, at least in homicide cases. (See this Wikipedia primer.) I think that supporting this law would be inconsistent with also believing that unborn children do not have a right against being murdered or aborted. It would be interesting to see a direct interaction between this Act and the opinions in and subsequent to Roe v. Wade. Can Scott Peterson appeal his double-life sentence on the grounds that he is improperly punished because the fetus is not seen as a person in other bodies of law, most notably in abortion law? What would it mean if he won or lost on this argument? In what ways is or should the law be nuanced to account for the following possibilities: What if the woman didn’t even know she was pregnant, and this fact was revealed by an autopsy? Would her murdered be charged with one or two murders? Does it make a difference whether the woman had just conceived or if she was in her third trimester? Should the length or amount of punishment and penalties be graduated as a percentage based on how far along the pregnancy has progressed?

A point to make here is that with this federal legislation and also the legislation in 34 states that makes killing an unborn child murder, it becomes immediately clear that there are many people who did not take lightly the question of “at what point does a baby get human rights?” when it arose over the course of their duties. In other words, they did not say that answering this question was “above my pay grade.” They answered the question and proceeded on that answer. Before George Bush as president answered this question when he signed into law the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, many senators and representatives had made this same type of decision both at the state and the federal level. What does this suggest, then, about a presidential hopeful who says that answering the same question is “above my pay grade”?

I would also think that answering this question has various insurance policy implications. How does an insurance company – perhaps an HMO, or a life insurance policy company paid by employers – decide how much to dole out in the event of, say, an accident that requires medical care for both a woman and her unborn child? Certainly, I cannot see any hospital saying that care is only being provided for one person, but rather for two. There would be two invoices to pay off, and the medical care would be more expensive for a pregnant woman than for a non-pregnant woman. Does the insurance company increase its premiums when it insures woman who become pregnant? At what point? Do they add a second, full premium to be taken nine months before the birth of a child? Or does it gradually increase the premiums as the fetus gestates? Should an insurance company ever have the option to deny policy benefits to an unborn child? Does the couple having a child have to choose between life insurance that covers an accident involving the unborn child? What are the different plans that are available to pregnant women, and do we already have an optimum array of choices? Is everyone who should be protected actually protected?

There are financial implications to the answer to this question. Let’s extend the discussion of insurance companies. Whether they cover unborn children through higher premiums directly translates into the companies’ revenues and funds available for investment. As one of the major categories of institutional investors, insurance companies which have more funds can usually invest more, which can improve or stabilize the economy. However, what happens when the legal system that surrounds whether or not unborn children receive medical and life protection is unclear? What if a couple that is denied full medical benefits for an unborn child injured in an accident decides to sue their insurance company, arguing that their unborn baby should get full benefits as they themselves would? Then the insurance company might argue that, no, the unborn child does not receive full protection based on other legal precedents. How would a judge decide between the different claims, and what effect would this have both on the industry and on the body of law? Perhaps insurance companies would have to increase their premiums to cover potential litigation costs, thereby making insurance less accessible? This may also have an impact on investment. Tightening the financial belt due to legal inconsistency and a lack of transparency might reduce institutional investment and worsen the economy.

This is all reason for me to become nervous when I hear a presidential candidate take the stance that answering a basic and important question is “above my pay grade” in front of a national audience. I’m nervous that this candidate will take the same attitude to other issues: “Deciding whether Iran and Russia are real threats to international peace and to U.S. sovereignty is a question that historians and academics still argue about and it’s above my pay grade”; “Deciding whether taxing the rich more than we do now will strengthen or weaken the economy is a question for economists and it’s above my pay grade”. This type of attitude in areas beyond unborn babies would have disastrous national effects. The point is that these are all real issues with real consequences, and I am nervous to hear someone who may potentially land at the helm of the free world suggesting that he does not want to take a stand and voice an opinion on very important issues. Deflecting and redirecting questions of national import in my opinion is not something that the American Presidency is all about.

"The Right to Choose"

2008-08-27T11:32:00.000+08:00

While picking up and moving rockpiles at my parents’ new house for hours on end yesterday, my mind went to certain topics that have come to mind recently as a result of political events. Here is one of my Rockpile Analyses.

Suppose that saying that “a woman has a right to choose with her body” is like saying that “an investor has a right to choose what he does with his investments”. (This is not to assume that all or even most investors are male, but stylistically I wish to balance the density of female pronouns in this entry.) I think that this is a fair comparison which clearly illustrates some important points.

An investor has the option of doing with his investments as he chooses. An investor can choose to walk into a savings bank and deposit his money into interest-accruing accounts. That’s two choices right there. Of course, if he’s a good investor, he will realize that playing it safe might be costly to him; in order to increase his chances of earning more money from his investments, he will have to choose to make riskier investments. He might choose to invest in a mutual fund; he might choose to invest in a self-chosen portfolio of stocks; or he might choose to take all of his money and invest in what he considers to be an undervalued, promising company which he is sure to increase the value of his investment. That’s another critical choice that he is making.

If the investor chooses to limit his investing to an interest-bearing savings account or other safe investment, then he does this with the knowledge that there’s really no potential to earn a whole lot of money. So he might choose to invest in a mutual fund, where he’s fairly confident that over a long period of time his investment will grow more than they would with a safer investment. Of course, there’s a risk, albeit small, that the investment will lose much or all of its value. When he chooses his own portfolio, there’s the added risk that he doesn’t have quite the financial finesse and investment know-how as a professional money manager, and perhaps there is more risk that he will lose on his investment. As for pouring all of his money into a single stock, if that company takes off then the investor is a very rich man. If the company tanks, he loses all of it.

The point is that through these choices, the investor must live with the consequences. Specifically, if he chooses to invest all of his money into a single stock which subsequently tanks, he loses his investment. Period.

Now what if the investor, after losing all of his money, says “But I have a right to choose what I do with my investments, and I don’t want to lose my money. So no one should be able to forcibly take from me the money that I lost after making certain investment choices; I will therefore keep my money and not let anyone take it. Government cannot make me give up my money if I don’t want to.” This would be a ridiculous argument. The immediate response is, well, the investor made the choices that he made knowing the risks involved. He played a game of Russian roulette with his money and either lost or won. If he lost, then that’s a consequence of his choices. And that’s the end of it.

(Of course, perhaps in some instances such as what I understand to be the bailouts of lenders such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the government did step in to bail out these investors because the consequences for the economy would have been even worse than they were/are. But I do not think that anyone would agree that on an individual level the government should bail out every investor who loses his money but doesn’t want to give up his cash.)

Take this to the issue of a woman’s “right to choose what I do with my body.” I think that one can argue analogously. Some women might choose to limit their interaction with men to social settings and remain single. Here there is no risk of pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, emotional pain and hurt due to breakups, etc. Perhaps other women will choose to look for mates through friends, meet men at bars and clubs, and engage in intimate activity that does not include sex. Again, there is no risk of pregnancy, but perhaps there is a risk of communicable diseases through kissing or touching. It’s a risk that the woman is willing to take because she values that type of company and also perhaps the prospect of meeting a long-term partner, and maybe getting married some day. Other women will choose at some point to have sex with men. Clearly, having sex required to become pregnant, and both men and women can choose to have sex. Of course, sex and the different ways in which people can have sex carry with them the definite chance, or risk, of resulting either in STDs or in pregnancy.

Receiving a sexually-transmitted disease is not a choice that a woman makes as to what to do with her body. It is the consequence of having made a particular series of individual choices and, in some cases, this particular consequence cannot be reversed. For instance, receiving HIV/AIDS cannot be reversed, and if someone wants good, long-term quality-of-life then his only option is to undergo expensive treatment. Pregnancy is also a consequence of having made a particular series of choices. Just the possibility of reversing this particular consequence does not necessarily lead one to say that we should, for anyone who so desires and at any time, reverse the consequence of those choices that lead to becoming pregnant, i.e. receive an abortion.

Of course rape is necessarily left out of this discussion because my points here deal with those situations where a woman will have made many choices of what she did with her body prior to getting pregnant. In the case of rape there is certainly a restriction on the choices that a woman can make with her body, and this case would have to be discussed separately from the argument above.

As with any entry on this blog, I zealously solicit from you any supporting and/or dissenting comments: angles or connections that I’ve missed, further considerations, or anything that would advance the topic discussion in a collaborative way.

Skyscraper Museum – New York, NY

2008-08-13T23:45:00.000+08:00

With this entry I hope to highlight another intended use of this blog [to come: an entry describing the intended uses!]: to share information about places and events with family, friends, colleagues. In this instance, I describe a museum that I happened to come across while walking around downtown Manhattan and which I found to be fascinating. I don’t think many people would really know about it unless they heard it from a friend or acquaintance; I think this would be interesting for anyone.

I love skyscrapers. No idea why. The taller the building, the cooler-looking it is, I’m simply all over it. It feels a little like my obsession with the largest commercial jets. I can’t wait to see Chicago’s Spire when it’s finished (although I lament the design changes to make it fatter and more like London’s pickle rather than a slender spiral going upwards [http://www.thechicagospire.com/, with an early design at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chicago_Spire_early_project.jpg). The Freedom Tower too will be interesting once it’s built, although again the design changes render it a little less dramatic-looking [original: http://www.felixsalmon.com/000311.html, one of the very few I could find; revision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Freedom_Tower_New.jpg]. There’s also a massive construction project underway in Dubai to build the Burj Dubai, a building of over 200 stories [http://www.burjdubai.com/]. And many years off there’s a development planned for Riyadh where they would like to build a mile-high skyscraper [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-550548/Mile-high-tower-Saudi-prince-promises-5bn-desert-spire-TWICE-tall-nearest-rival-built.html].

I’d also wondered about the design of the World Trade Center towers A and B that fell during the September 11 attacks. Completed in 1973, why did they look so staid, plain, boring?

The answer would come soon. Walking around downtown Manhattan one day a couple of weeks ago after taking a ferry trip to/from Staten Island (just so I could see the Statue of Liberty for free and see if there was anything interesting to do on SI), I walked around Battery Park and ended up on its western edge. Then I followed the curve of Battery Place and happened to look to my right at precisely the right moment to catch an unassuming door with the following etched on it: “Skyscraper Museum.” Being the middle of the day, I reached for the door but it wouldn’t budge – glancing to the side, I saw that this museum was closed Monday and Tuesday. The day I stopped by was Monday.

When I finally made it in on Wednesday after meeting my friend Lance downtown for some frozen drinks (and a walk around the Trinity Church graveyard), I headed over and spend probably two to three hours at the Museum. It’s really quite small, just one floor, but it’s packed with what look like permanent exhibits and also a seasonal exhibit. The seasonal exhibit when I visited centered around Hong Kong, as a city that approached, met, then surpassed many characteristics of Manhattan city living and construction. There is a fierce skyscraper rivalry that exists between the two cities, and Hong Kong in its densest districts is more heavily populated than any other city (if I remember correctly, around 90,000 people per square mile, versus Manhattan/New York where it’s around 70,000). Simply amazing.

The Museum has its share of nifty models, including wind-tunnel testing models for the Burj Dubai and also the World Trade Center. There’s also a scale model of the original design to the Freedom Tower, with tiny details and miniscule plastic persons, going about their daily business.

In the end, I probably spent 2.5 or three hours at the museum, reading every label and explanation.

Almost forgot to mention: admission is only $5, and for students the price is $2.50. For skyscraper enthusiasts who live in or visit New York, this place hits the spot. And as for the design of the Twin Towers, you’ll have to visit the Museum to find out …

Anyone know of similar museums around the world?

AOL's Identity Verification System Is Horrible

2007-12-26T12:37:00.003+08:00

I've never typed out a blog before, hence this is my first. It really took something important to get me into the blogosphere, but when I realized that it could also be a forum to do harm to a company that disservices its clients in the way that I've been disserviced, I had to put this in writing and submit it online where those with similar problems and complaints can Google it and we can all have a voice against this mindless corporate machine.

AOL frustrates me to no end. Their identity verification system is absolutely idiotic. When a user repeatedly tries to verify their own identity to no avail, that is an absolute sign that the system does not work.

The question that's got me stumped is "What is the name of your school?" Well, I've attended or gotten credit from at least 6 or 7 academic institutions, so already this question is too broad. Then we have to go through iterations of common abbreviates and apostrophes -- the school I probably used is named after a Catholic saint -- and so there is a multitude of different ways to put in this information. "St." or "Saint"? Period or no? Upper- or lower-case? "Stanislaus" or "Stan's"? Or "Stans"?

Now, I've certainly come across good systems which automatically go through these iterations without counting each as a strike against you -- like AOL does. Three strikes, you're out, buddy! Gotta wait until 24 hours before another futile attempt to access your own account. How stupid is that? AOL, I hope you're listening! We have this problem for months, maybe over a year now! Busy people do not have time for this technologically inept stupidity which you mistakenly name "account security." A drunken squirrel, I'm positive, has a better chance of typing out the next Harry Potter book than AOL does of successfully identifying its own users using its current "Identify Mis-Identification" security system.

So this is where I'm left now. Tomorrow I hope to call Customer Service and see how many brick walls I must punch through before I can get to a human being who can understand that this is a problem.

And if the person at the end of those brick walls still doesn't get it, AOL is losing my business. And I hope it does not stop with mine if this message gets out and others have the same problem.