Blackmail, Chinese University Style

So I get a text message from a clerk flunky early this week, saying they have enough teachers at my university so they won’t be hiring me again this fall. Reminds me of the breaking-up-by-text-phenomenae explored in the film Up in the Air (with George Clooney). Lame, lame, lame. Considering they only have three foreign teachers here, and one of my colleagues has announced he is leaving, I started smelling something rotten after this text message.

Moon’em I thought, and sent out a few letters of interest that night. My prospects are bright away from this place. Only thing is I love it here, and hoped to guide my 2nd-year students through their 3rd-year literature curricula.

Tonight I heard from a 3rd-year student, that the administration is actually asking students to comment on whether I should be retained. So if I could kindly refrain from assigning homework, hint hint, maybe I could stay here.

Now that’s just bollocks. Blackmailing a teacher to not give homework, so that he can return next year only to teach another class where he ought not to ever prescribe homework ever again. No wonder China has never won a Nobel Prize; they are discouraging students from actually learning anything in their universities.

I’m supportive of student-centered learning, but student-directed slacking is for pussy teachers. So, while I will miss guiding my hard-working younger students next year, I will not let the hardly-working older students blackmail me.

Homework is necessary for cognition. The classroom is where guidance and exposure to information take place, but the real intellectual heavy lifting is with reading, re-reading, writing, and thinking that come with homework tasks.

Death of the Salesmen

From Saul Alinsky’s Rules for radicals: A pragmatic primer for realistic radicals (1971):
“There’s another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families – more than seventy million people – whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don’t encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let’s not let it happen by default.”

The Summer ’09 health care debate in the USA has the blue collar and hard hats prevailing over the liberal elites. Had the Democratic senators studied Saul Alinsky as their leader B. Hussein Obama has, they would accept that their defeat is because they failed to communicate with the middle class. The party-of-the-jackass’s tendency to talk down to, rather than seek buy-in from, the middle class ensures the movement to the right that pollsters are noticing in the States. This same rightward shift was predicted from the quote above.

In the world of salesmanship, prospects are buttered up. Their fears are validated, not necessarily agreed to, and empathy is shown. Then the salesman demonstrates how his goods or services match the needs of the potential customer. Saul Alinsky thought like a salesman. Congress didn’t. That’s why the ignorant middle class is moving to the right.

Health care reform is being killed by the condescension of liberalism, not by the ignorance of the mainstream. It is a sublime case of bad salesmanship.

When will those on the left stop letting liberals run the show?

2×2 Matrices

From Chetan Bhagat’s One Night @ the Call Center (2005):
“‘Maybe I can explain this to you with the help of a 2×2 matrix,’ Bakshi said and bent down to write ‘High‘ and ‘Low‘ along the boxes. I had to stop him.“

The dirty little secret for all you potential intermulticultural hucksters out there is to simply articulate your scheme into a 2×2 matrix that is easily penetrable into the managerial brain. It’s that easy.

The Cultural Perversity Agenda

From M.R. Hammer’s The Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI): An Approach for Assessing and Building Intercultural Competence, in M.A. Moodian (Ed.), Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence: Understanding and Utilizing Cultural Diversity to Build Successful Organizations (in press) :
“Individuals at the Acceptance level are typically curious and interested in cultural differences and committed to the cultural diversity agenda.“

An infamous charlatan on the intercultural scene, who uncannily bears a resemblance to Dr. Monroe on The Simpsons, makes much talk about aligning the global workforce to the “cultural diversity agenda”. The presence of a definite article directly implies that we should all understand what this agenda is, and indirectly implies that we should accept it as a good thing. He’s even got 2×2 matrices to hammer these implications in, no pun intended.

Now, before we take the sage’s regimen of psychometric tests and debriefing sessions, and weaken our resolve until we no longer question, let’s take time to ask:

What exactly is this cultural diversity agenda, anyway?

Intercultural Weasel Advice

From Scott Adams’s Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel (2002):
“Weasels are always eager to give unsolicited advice on topics as diverse as romance, work, and advanced satellite telemetry. But it’s not because weasels like to help. It’s because when you give advice, it makes you feel wise even if you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

An upstart intercultural consultant at one of the world’s largest software companies recently told me that when we say to someone:

“You’re lying!”

the judgment is too personalized because it interprets the action of the addressee. So, if we truly want to resolve conflict, it is a better practice to focus on our own actions, perhaps by saying:

“I think that you’re lying.”

I tried that with my wife, who’s from a much different culture than mine, that same night. Wrong move!

After three nights sleeping on the couch, I learned a valuable lesson: Beware of intercultural weasel advice.

D.I.E., D.I.E, D.I.E!!!

From M.R. Hammer’s Solving Problems and Resolving Conflicts Across the Cultural Divide: The Intercultural Conflict Style (ICS) Inventory Workshop (2007):
“Reframing is initiated through conscious application of the D.I.E. . . .move parties down the D.I.E. ladder from evaluation to description.”

One of the intercultural conflict resolution methodologies passed down to communication coaches at one of the world’s largest software companies is memorized by a spooky acronym, D.I.E.:

1. Describe
2. Interpret
3. Evaluate

We’ll look at the particulars later, but think for a moment about what might happen if we coach our students to D.I.E. Is it culturally appropriate to remind our students of death?

Now, read the quote above and think about the framer of this acronym; his recommendation is actually to evaluate, then interpret, then describe the actions of those who you are in conflict with. In other words, the actual sequence is E.I.D., yet the catchy acronym D.I.E. is used to market this particular intercultural conflict resolution strategy.

Personally, I think we’d be a lot better off if our opponents would DIE; it would save us thousands of dollars in fees to intercultural charlatans like Dr. Hammer.

Bangkok: Gateway to the Turd World

Hardwired at a backpackers hostel in the capitol of military-controlled Thailand; my 802.11 card has crapped out so the Aussie proprietor kindly let me jack in to his internet cafe router. Took a walk this morning to catch some early morning fresh air. Got some rank odors wafting about this ‘hood, I tell you what! Turns out early morning is when the hawkers set up their stalls, street cleaners hose down the blood and piss from the night before, and dogwalkers let their mutts go ballistic on sidewalks that are literally crumbling apart from neglect. Janice was slightly feverish, possibly from getting zapped by a mosquito in the lady’s shower, so we didn’t chitchat as we normally do when we walk. Later she commented that the streets in Ermita, Manila smell like a rose compared to the cesspool that is Thong Lo Soi. I must admit I won’t be able to stomach Thai food for a long time, which is a shame because I used to love it. Our favorite restaurant was a Malaysian joint called Kopi Tiam, which reinforces my conviction that we need more Malay restaurants in the United States.

July 5, 2007

Bickle’s Adventure Begins: Exiled by Homeland Insecurity

Some folks choose the expatriate life. I was forced into this choice. United States immigration policy prohibits me from bringing my foreign wife home.  Seems there is an economic means test that us spouses have to pass before we can bring our families to our native America. Meanwhile, any Mexican who can sneak through the fence is likely to gain amnesty someday, despite their economic means. I hope and pray that we still have a great country to come home to; at this point the Republicans in charge have adopted liberal policies that are sending us into hell in a handbasket. My prediction is that the USA will become a mentally ill liberal fascist state, and that my promise to bring my wife to the greatest country in the world will no longer be possible to keep. As this blog begins, I’m scared of what will come, but rising to the occasion. Never let your government keep your family apart!

The journey begins with a long-ass trip to Butuan, in Agusan del Sur, from the biggest little city in the world, Reno, Nevada. This entailed a week of packing, filling 5 dumpsters with so much shit that the Reno garbageman has put out a contract on me, and losing some precious things like my late father’s gold wedding ring. Hint: don’t wear rings while shuffling packing boxes to and from Public Storage. After a long and excruciating journey, which almost meant an overnight delay in Lost Wages airport, I made it through Philippines immigration with only a one-way ticket. That means I’m truly stamped out of my homeland, whacked out from travel, and excited to reunite with my lovely wife.

Unbelievably, I am on an airplane right now. It’s been a hectic week, but the adventure has finally begun.

This adventure has a primary goal, to bring my Philippines wife to my home country of the United States. secondary goals are to gain overseas teaching experience, to see some of the world together, to bring perspective back to U.S. American classrooms, and to make a baby or two.

Now I’m starting the longest leg of the journey from Reno, Nevada, my home for the last 4 years, to the Mindanao barangay where my wife grew up. Vancouver to Manila is about 13 hours in the air, yet this particular flight is surprisingly comfortable considering it’s only Fiesta Class (economy) on Philippine Airlines. I’m at the end of a 4-seat row, and guy named Gary from Knoxville sits the other end. In short, we each have two seats to spread out in. In this case, high fuel prices are a godsend.

Well, my late dinner is here, after a day (a week, really) of hiblood. I hope to write more later, whether I share the details of the past week or just focus on The Now and The Future. The latter is more likely, as the hi-blood needs to drop.

By 2am of this flight, time shifts. Saturday never comes when you jump across the International Date Line. Time shift is one of the perks of Asian travel, and a perk that I enjoy.

A few catnaps and I’m less weary. This week has been rough: dropping heavy things on my feet repeatedly, aggravating my torn rotator cuff, pissing off the garbage man by filling 7 dumpsters, listening to my Turkish neighbor talk incessantly, calming my worried mom who questions incessantly, losing my late father’s wedding ring by sweating so much packing box picked it off, and abandoning so many possessions that were dear to me.  At least when we return, we’ll have less to move.

So now my earphones play English and Pilipino love songs, while i drink black coffee and review my notes/texts on Bisayan Cebuano, the poorly-documented mother-tongue of my wife’s family. Since I’m not laying over in the capitol, there is no need to review Pilipino notes this trip. I’m focused on acquiring Bisayan, by immersion into their culture.

After the barangay, we’ll live in Cebu City for a few weeks, primarily to take care of.dental and medical checkups, then we’re off to the northern Borneo cities of Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. We hope there is such a thing as a beach in Singapore for our anniversary of 6/28. Wife wants to see Bangkok, so the month of June will end in Thailand. I’ll be hunting or teaching jobs as we go, and we’ll both be assessing each country to see if it’s worth expatriating too.

To paraphrase an old hobbit, “We’re off on an adventure.”

May 25, 2007