making merit

The last discussion about globalization brought some interesting comments. A couple of students mentioned that globalization has made the world "flat," a term made popular by Thomas Friedman's famous book: This means that globalization has made the world equal in some ways. You can find kids in the poorest hill tribe villages with a Facebook or Twitter account. You can go to a rural African village and everyone has a mobile phone and wifi. More people are connected globally and more people have access to information than ever before.

But when they get connected, how do they communicate? By the accidents of history, English has emerged as the supreme international language. Now people around the world invest a lot of time and money to learn English, or at least a little English, so they can gain more benefits from globalization.

We all know what Thai dance is. We know what German sausage is. We also know about Indian dress, Chinese opera, and French wine. These cultures are famous for their identities, and much of this is shaped by language: Thai language, German language, Hindi, Chinese, and French...

So, what is an international language? Who owns it? Who does it belong to? Who decides the rules and proper ways to use it? What culture defines it? We know that Thai dance belongs to Thai culture. To what culture does an international language belong?

Many will say that native English speakers are the "owners." If the world is flat and equal because of globalization, then do cultures around the world have the equal right to take English and adapt it and use it in their own cultural way? After all, English is an international language... Or is it the language of the native speakers, people like me, who are invited by many countries to travel abroad to teach their citizens how to speak English... like me.

As advanced learners of English, describe your relationship to this language. Do your English skills belong to you? Or do you follow the language rules from somewhere else? How do you play the game?

Aj. M

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

Globalization... Internationalism... Nationalism... And Culture?

We're back to class and back to the book. For the first half of the semester, we have focussed on Who and Why am I. We have tried to study and learn about how our culture helps us to construct our identity: what we think, what we believe, what we hope for, and how we communicate it to other people.

For the rest of the semester, we are going to think and study about the effects of other cultures on us: We are now experiencing a more global and interconnected world because of many reasons such as business, technology, politics, war, and the environment. Cross cultural communication is more important now than ever before in history.

We will study about some cultural issues that we are facing everyday. What is globalization? Internationalization? Nationalism? And what does that mean for Culture?

Globalization is a popular word these days, and I always hear people say it. However, no one can ever really explain what it means. For this week, I am interested to know what you think. Make your best try at defining this word: globalization. Good luck. Aj. M

“We must take care that globalization does not become something people become afraid of.” Gerhard Schroeder

Who and Why am I? Thoughts and Reflections

Welcome back and happy new year.

This week, you will present a topic about Who and Why am I? You will present for two days. If after the first day, your group finds that there were some mistakes, problems, or improvements to be made, you can adjust for the second-day presentation.

While you are presenting this week, please share your thoughts and reflections of your exhibition. Are people discovering things about culture that they never knew before? Does your topic help people to show how our cultural identity deeply affects our way of communication? This is our objective. The exhibition is our way to make our knowledge public and open to other people and not just to us in our class.

On this week's blog, please share your experience, comments from teachers, or any difficulties you are having. Good luck with your presentations. I'm looking forward to it. Aj. M

"The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand." Frank Herbert

CCC Exhibition

This is just a short blog announcement for the CCC Exhibition next week.

I want to remind you to remind your guest teachers about the exhibiton. You will present two days. You must have one teacher for each day.

Section 3: Please remember that your exhibition days are Thursday (10-12) and Friday (1100-1300).

Everyone must participate equally during the exhibition. Some groups have not met with me about their exhibition topics, so I am worried about them. I hope they are ready.

This exhibition is 20% of your final grade.

Good luck to everyone. I hope this will be an enjoyable experience for you. Aj. M

Happy 2010!

The first decade of the new millenium is already finished. I remember at this time 10 years ago, we were all preparing for Y2K, backing up our computers and getting extra water and food in the house, because we were all afraid that the power would shut down and the world would end.

But it didn't. And we are here.

When I graduated my bachelor degree in 2001, I taught high school in Canada for a short time, and then decided to move to Thailand to try teaching English. I fell in love with Thailand, and instantly felt changed by the people and the culture. I went back to Canada to study my Master degree, and many of my old friends and family noticed that I was different after Thailand. After finishing my MA and moving to India for a while, I came back to Thailand almost two years ago. When I arrived back here, in a strange way, I felt like I was home again. This is a feeling that is difficult to describe. These 10 years has really been the 'decade of Thailand' for me.

When I was in Canada, I was homesick for Chiang Rai. Now I'm homesick for Vancouver. I'm always homesick for "home," wherever that is. Home is an imaginary place.

The CCC blog will take a break for a couple of weeks, and we will start again when we come back to class in the new year. For this blog, feel free to share your experiences of the last decade (2000-2010), and comment about how you have changed, or how your culture has changed, and what are your expectations for the future. I think this is an exciting time to be alive.

I wish you all a very happy new year and my best for you and your life in 2010. Aj. M

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice." T. S. Eliot

Reading the Body

When we see people, we try to "read" them. I mean, we try to understand what we are seeing. If we see someone familiar to us, we may think that they are similar to us: have a similar culture, similar beliefs, similar ways of communicating. If we see someone dissimilar to us, we will assume that they are different from us in most ways. We are always ethnocentric. We all believe that we live in the right way... why wouldn't we believe that?

But when we "read" race, we can often "read" wrong. As the world becomes more connected, and people from different places and different faces mix together, live together, and have babies together, racial stereotypes become more and more meaningless.

Race has no meaning. We are human... this is all. There is no biological difference between the people of the world.

Stereotypes do have meaning. As we now know about stereotypes, they never represent the truth of everyone in a group.

Stereotypes based on race affect our communication, and it can often be positive or negative, harmless or harmful, passive or violent. We learn these stereotypes from our culture, and we read these scripts on the body. We learn our own race by what other people "read" when they see us. This is how race and culture are linked.

What do you "read" on other people? What do other people "read" on you? When you read racial features, does it affect your communication? Or... what have other people "read" on your body? Did their stereotypes affect their communication with you? Aj. M

"Our greatest strength as a human race is our ability to acknowledge our differences, our greatest weakness is our failure to embrace them." Judith Henderson

Gender and Communication

Last Summer, Caster Semenia, an 18 year old runner from South Africa, won the gold medal at the World Championships in Germany. Actually, she didn't just win... she won easily. After the race, people started to ask questions about her. There were some drug tests, but there were no drugs in her body. However, they discovered something else. She had some male parts inside of her. Outside she is a female, but inside, she had male testicles, no uterus, and high testosterone: she is a hermaphrodite. A hermaphrodite is a person that has mixed male and female biology. It is rare, but still there are many people born like this.

Nobody knows what to do about poor Caster Semenia. She isn't cheating. Her masculine biology is too strong and fast for her to compete with women. Her feminine biology is not strong enough for her to compete with men. She is somewhere in the middle.

Gender is important for us to know before we communicate. I'm not sure why it is so important, but it is. If you're a lady, I should speak to you in a particular way. If you are a man, there is another way for me to speak to you. If you are gay/lesbian, this may affect my communication with you.

More than just gender, why do we need to know someone's private sexuality in order to communicate, or on the other hand, why is it important for other's to make public their sexuality to feel comfortable. I have had many close friends come out to me that they were gay... after that, they always said something like "they feel free." I understand why they feel like that, but I do not understand why it is important in society and culture to feel like that. Zimmerman and Geist-Martin also ask this question.

You may not be gay or lesbian or transgender or other... but maybe you have friends that are. Does it affect your communication with them? Or, did you ever feel between identities? Are you a girl that likes "boy's things," or the other way around; are you a boy that likes "girl's things?" Does it matter? These are many questions, but gender is a confusing and complicated subject.

I'm interested to know what you think. Thailand has one of the most open sexual cultures that I have ever experienced. Maybe you agree with me... maybe not. Aj. M

"My sexuality has never been a problem to me but I think has been for other people." Dusty Springfield