Genetically modified languages

Okay, so I was eavesdropping. But you really can’t blame me. The two young Vietnamese women sitting at the table behind me were twenty-something, fashionably dressed, presumably unmarried, and apparently employees at a local office. They nattered on loudly, unconcerned by my presence. We were the only people in the room, and after several minutes I gave up my fruitless efforts to read a book as I waited for my dinner, and instead indulged my inner snoop. Truth be told, their conversation was pretty dull: who’d done what to whom at the office, who was getting married, where and what to study, where to go shopping for this and that.

What was remarkable was the amount of English that littered their conversation. It seemed impossible for them to speak more than three sentences without inserting at least one English phrase. “Chị sẫn sàng settle down rồi.” “Cái đó rất là fix.” “Cậu ấy rất passive.” “Cái background của em ấy là gì?” “Chị ấy hơi hơi pessimistic.” “Phải có skill, chứ!” “Có lẽ em sẽ làm freelance.” “Lương của em sẽ performance based.” “Như vậy scale sẽ rất cao.” “Lớp em đang học boring lắm!” “Trường này rất nổi tiếng về teaching method.” “Em chưa give up.” This represents about half the phrases I managed to scribble on my serviette in the ten minutes before my food arrived.

Most of these are words for which there is an easy Vietnamese equivalent. This isn’t the case with an earlier generation of loan words. When I first arrived in Vietnam, I was happy to discover that the vocabulary for car and motorbike parts was largely borrowed from the French language I’d spent a good chunk of my adolescence studying. No surprise there: the Vietnamese language didn’t have much use for the word “bu gi” (spark plug) before the French showed up and brought the damn things with them. But why use pessimistic when you can use bi quan? Why use boring when you can use chán?

Nor is this the sort of use of the English language that causes me so much amusement when my longsuffering Japanese wife uses words she knows as “English” but that have been adapted to particular (and often peculiarly) Japanese usages. “Salaryman” is a well-known example: the words are at their base English but the meaning entirely Japanese. Or to quote a recent conversation with my wife, Arata: “Massa thinks Tomoyuki is cherryboy.” Me: “What’s cherryboy, honey?” Arata: “But it’s an English word.” Me: “Yes and no, honey. Could you explain how Japanese people use it?” Sadly, though, had I engaged in a conversation with the two young women behind me, it would have given rise to no such linguistic follies. “Give up” pretty much means exactly what you think it means, whether it’s used in America or in Vietnam.

Yes, these two young women were making a self-conscious display of their education, their sophistication, and their class. It’s worth noting that we were in a foreign restaurant (Japanese, if you must know), and their use of language was as much a marker of class as their choice of food. So you could just dismiss it as affectation, perhaps combined with an attempt to show off for the foreigner at the next table. But these women are not alone, and in fact they’re not even unusual: they may be at one end of the spectrum, but even at the other end of that spectrum I hear words like “OK” and “funny” creeping their way into common usage. Languages are constantly changing and evolving, I know. But sometimes I can’t help thinking that the speed and the direction of change in the Vietnamese language today makes the process look less like evolution and more like genetic engineering.

Got development?

There probably aren’t many people who would disagree with the notion that I come from a “developed” country (Canada) and that I live in a “developing” country (Vietnam). That’s certainly the consensus from the Vietnamese I meet in an ordinary day: when they find out where I’m from, they inevitably nod sagely and say “Yes, Canada. It’s a developed country.” I should note my underlying suspicion that their response would be the same even if I answered “East Belugastan,” but that’s neither here nor there. The underlying assumption is that the two nations (Canada - or even East Belugastan - and Vietnam) are fundamentally different, that one has somehow reached the end point of “development” (if not “history”) while the other one has a long way to go. But I’m not so sure, and my doubt stems from an epiphany I had while vacationing on an island in the gulf of Thailand.

I’ve been going to the same beach on Koh Phangan for almost ten years now. It’s a pretty idyllic place, really: a lovely little cove inside a National Park, difficult to access except by the daily water taxi, electricity for only a few hours in the evening when the bungalow operators turn on their generators so guests don’t have to eat their dinner in the dark. So there I was one morning, looking out over the Gulf of Thailand, sipping my cup of instant coffee. My eyes wandered over the Tetrapack of UHT milk provided for those of us who aren’t fond of undiluted instant coffee, and I noticed with a start that it was another quality product from the Foremost Friesland corporation. The same corporation that eventually purchased and then shut down the dairy cooperative that used to be one of the central features of the economy of my home town of Vernon, BC, Canada.

Vernon was a pretty idyllic place to grow up, really. It’s in the middle of British Columbia, at the center of three lakes (Kalamalka, Okanagan, and Swan), and ringed by mountains that include the 3000-meter Silver Star, where the Canadian National Cross Country Ski Team often trains. The region is blessed with a mild climate and ideally suited to agriculture such a fruit growing, apiaries, and dairies. When I was growing up, the local economy was still dominated by three cooperative institutions: the North Okanagan Creamery Association for the dairies, the Vernon Fruit Union for the fruit growers like my dad (we had an apple orchard), and the Vernon and District Credit Union founded by folks like my dad who refused to deal with the corporate banks from “back East.” These cooperative institutions functioned to ensure that credit, inputs, and expertise were available to all their members, and to make sure that farmers got a fair price for their produce. The Fruit Union even had the best and the cheapest grocery store in town, where my mom would go every Saturday morning to stock up on food for the week. I know I’m idealizing it a little, but all in all, it seemed to function pretty well.

But the neo-liberal revolution would take care of that. The wave of “structural reforms” that began in the 1970s did away with many of the laws that had made the cooperatives possible. At the same time, barriers that had limited international currency flows were eased, then erased, subjecting the local economy to unprecedented levels of direct foreign investment by both corporations and individuals. By the early 1980s the Fruit Union had closed its doors, too, a victim of a combination of international competition and lack of access to the radically altered systems of food distribution that had come to dominate the market. As for the Creamery Association, it was dismantled and its assets eventually purchased and stripped by the Foremost-Friesland Corporation.

Of course, there were gains as well as losses. We got our first shopping mall in the early 1980s, followed quickly by McDonalds, Burger King, and all the usual American chains and franchises. Strip malls spread along all the major arteries. With farming now unprofitable, orchards were transformed into luxury housing developments for an influx of foreigners (Germans, mainly) keen to retire or purchase second homes in what was, it had to be said, an area of spectacular natural beauty. Land prices skyrocketed, impoverishing those with lower incomes. Those areas that weren’t “developed” as housing were “developed” as golf courses. Both were environmental disasters in a semi-arid climate with limited water resources. Nor did anyone notice that the increased pollution from all the new developments was turning the shining emerald and sapphire hues of Kalamalka Lake – the name means “lake of many colors” – a sadly pedestrian blue. Today, the place where I spent the first 18 years of my life is only vaguely recognizable to me.

Let’s summarize the elements here: agricultural economy with collective institutions; collective institutions are dismantled, their assets privatized, and eventually sold to multinational corporations; increased foreign direct investment flows bring McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, property developments, and golf courses; the poor get poorer, and the environment is degraded. Sound familiar? True, Vernon has yet to get its 77-storey skyscraper, and Hanoi has yet to get its ski resort. Nor has the Canadian Communist Party ever played a leading role in much of anything. But if we put aside these divergences, and a roughly ten-year head-start, it sure looks to me like these stories of development were written by the same author. Especially when you remember that in Vietnam, Foremost Friesland brands itself as Dutch Lady. Whether I’m in Canada, Vietnam, or even Koh Phangan Thailand, I just can’t help noticing that the development in my morning cup of coffee tastes exactly the same.

Why I don't work for CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/business/2010/06/08/stevens.dnt.vietnam.growth.cnn?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/06/24/vietnam.cyberwall/index.html?iref=allsearch

CNN correspondent Andrew Stevens recently contributed two pieces from Ho Chi Minh City that encapsulate neatly the contradictions inherent in the neo-liberal paradigm (not the mention the idiocy of corporate mass media). The first is a celebratory look at the Vietnamese economy, peppered with references to 7% annual growth, 30% lower labor costs than China, and a quote from a German factory owner who, when asked what sort of downsides there were to operating in Vietnam replies “I haven’t found any yet.” A seasoned investigative reporter, Steven digs deeper (i.e. steps outside the factory doors) and identifies what is apparently the only weakness in what is otherwise a paradise of political stability and cheap labor: a creaking transportation infrastructure. On the whole, though, Steven and the fund managers he interviews (gosh, I’m sure they’ve got no interest in touting Vietnam as a destination for investment) come off sounding like shills for the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning. The piece ends with a shot of apparently docile Vietnamese workers, all in identical lime green factory t-shirts, lined up to punch their timesheets (and, we hope, eventually get their 30% smaller salaries).

The second piece shows, as it were, the dark side of the workers’ paradise: oh no, the Vietnamese state places limits on freedom of expression! Steven interviews Nguyễn Ngọc Như Quỳnh (you should hear poor Steven try to pronounce that one), a blogger who has faced arrest and other forms of harassment when she published blogs critical of China and apparent Vietnamese concessions to its powerful neighbor. Chị Quỳnh, who, viewers are told, evaded police surveillance to be interviewed, is moved to tears as she makes an impassioned plea for freedom of expression. The camera cuts to Steven, his expression grim, but obviously moved. What viewer could fail to be touched by chị Quỳnh’s plight?

This is in no way meant to disparage chị Quỳnh or the dozens like her who have suffered for their willingness to criticize the Party-State. It is, however, to suggest that lauding Vietnam as an investor’s paradise while simultaneously criticizing an authoritarian state is just a smidge disingenuous. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that political stability and a cheap and pliable labor force come at the cost of certain limitations on freedom of expression, association, and organization. But these are dots that Steven doesn’t feel comfortable connecting. So a State that limits freedom of expression and religion becomes the subject of hard-hitting, if clichéd journalism, while a State that has effectively outlawed strikes and fails to enforce its own already lax labor and environmental laws is lauded as the “one” in any investor’s “China plus one” strategy. A handful of middle-class bloggers like chị Quỳnh are given a name and a voice, while millions of Vietnamese workers and farmers struggling to support their families on a few dollars a day remained unnamed and unheard, little more than a backdrop for stories of 7% growth. And we smugly criticize the Vietnamese Party-State for harassing courageous freedom fighters while we marvel at the low price of our latest consumer product. Made in Vietnam, of course.

Những chương trình “nâng cao” học bằng tiếng Anh có phải là giải pháp cho những vấn đề giáo dục đại học?

Trong vòng 10 năm vừa qua, nhiều trường đại học đã thành lập những chương trình học bằng tiếng Anh, và tư cuối năm 2005 Bộ GDĐT đã đẩy mạnh việc này bằng các chương trình “nâng cao” hợp tác với các trường ĐH ở nước ngoài. Chỉ nói riêng ở Hà Nội, theo tôi được biết, các ĐH Hà Nội, Khoa học Tự nhiên, Kinh tế Quốc dân, Bách Khoa, Nông nghiệp, Thủy Lợi, Giao thông Vận tải, Ngoại thương, và Kiến trúc đã có những khoa và chương trình học hoàn toàn bằng tiếng Anh. Người ta nghĩ rằng học bằng tiếng nước ngoài là cách hiệu quả nhất để có giáo trình mới, phương pháp giảng dạy mới, và tạo rá một thế hệ SV mới, giỏi cả chuyên môn và tiếng Anh nữa. Thế nhưng câu hỏi đặt ra là, kết quả của các chương trình này thực sự là gì?

Vấn đề 1. Các giáo viên được chọn vì giỏi tiếng Anh không phải vì giỏi chuyên môn. Tôi vừa mới gặp một chủ nhiệm Khoa Quốc tế học giỏi tiếng Anh, rất nhiệt tình và có tinh thần trách nghiệm, đã có bằng tiến sĩ… văn học Anh. Ngoài những trường hợp như vậy, đa số GV đang giảng dạy cho những chương trình nâng cao chỉ có bằng thạc sĩ, bao gồm nhiều bằng MBA hay thạc sĩ có thể lấy sau chỉ một hay hai năm học ở nước ngoài. Tôi biết vì tôi đã có bằng thạc sĩ như vậy: dù nó là của một ĐH rất có tiếng tăm (ĐH Cambridge tại Anh), nhưng tôi biết rằng sau khi tốt nghiệp rồi, tôi không thể giảng dạy cho ai cả. Ý tôi muốn nói là để có thể giảng dạy tốt, chuyên môn và bằng tiến sĩ là quan trọng hơn tiếng Anh.

Vấn đề 2: Mặc dù một GV nào đó rất giỏi về tiếng Anh, nhưng GV này sẽ luôn có thể giảng dạy sâu sắc hơn bằng tiếng bản xứ. Tôi có một người bạn, đã học tiến sĩ Nhân học tại Úc về. Cô ấy là một trong những bạn người Viêt giỏi nhất tiếng Anh của tôi: cực giỏi luôn. Cách đây mấy năm, tôi mời cô ấy dạy các học trò người Mỹ tham gia chương trình tôi đang phụ trách tại Hà Nội. Nhưng sau một học kỳ, cô ngừng việc, giải thích lý do là cô không thể hài lòng với khả năng giải thích, thảo luân, để SV Mỹ có thể thực sự hiểu ý của cô. Bây giờ, cô ấy đang tham gia giảng dạy cho các SV cao học người Việt, và bằng tiếng Việt. Cô ấy cảm thấy thích thú truyền đạt hơn và học sinh cũng học một cách thích thú. Tôi rất tiếc cô ấy không giảng dạy nữa cho các học trò của tôi, nhưng tôi tôn trọng quyết định của cô. Và nếu cô ấy, mặc dù rất giỏi tiếng Anh nhưng vẫn ngại dạy bằng tiếng Anh, thì các GV khác thì sao?

Vấn đề 3: Vì nhiều GV chưa có chuyên môn, chưa giỏi tiếng Anh, nên phương pháp giảng dạy bi ảnh hưởng nhiều. Đôi khi, nhiều lớp học dùng giáo trình rất tùy tiện, đã hết đát ở nước ngoài, và không thường xuyên cập nhật các tài liệu mới nhất từ các nền giáo dục tiên tiến trên thế giới. Và bởi cả GV và SV đều thiếu khả năng tiếng Anh, dó đó trong lớp các GV phụ thuộc nhiều vào Powerpoint và các SV chỉ chép lại. Như vậy, giáo trình và phương pháp giảng dạy mới lại rất giống… phương pháp cũ.

Vấn đề 4: Quan trọng nhất là khả năng tiếng Anh của các SV. Lúc nào tôi vào một lớp học nâng cao giảng dạy, tôi biết ngay rằng mặc dù tôi nói chậm, phát âm rất chuẩn, và dùng từ vựng đơn giản hơn bình thường, chỉ có một phần ba SV theo được. Một phần ba hiểu một nửa, còn lại... Và nếu các SV đã khó hiểu lời của thầy, thì ai sẽ có đủ khả năng và tự tin để hỏi thầy, tham gia vào các thảo luận trong lớp, và ứng dụng những kiến thức học được vào thực tế cuộc sống? Chúng ta cũng phải công nhận rằng các SV giỏi và khá sẽ có thể đạt điểm cao chính là bởi họ giỏi tiếng Anh, không phải bởi họ giỏi chuyên môn. Trong thực tế, kết quả tốt nhất có thể có được từ những chương trình này là một những SV rất rất bình thường: không chỉ bình thường về tiếng Anh và chuyên môn, mà đôi khi về tiếng Việt nữa.

Tôi không muốn nói rằng SV Việt Nam không nên học tiếng nước ngoài. Khi tôi học đại học, tôi rất vui mừng có cơ họi học ba thứ tiếng Pháp, Đức, và Tây Ban Nha, và các SV Việt Nam cũng nên học tiếng nước ngoài: càng nhiều càng tốt. Ai có tài về ngôn ngữ hay định theo một nghề nghiệp mà tiếng nước ngoài là cần thiết, thì nên học nhiều hơn để đạt được trính độ nâng cao. Nhưng các chuyên môn nên học bằng tiếng Việt. Các GV sẽ có thể giảng dạy tốt hơn, các SV sẽ có thể học tốt hơn. Nếu chúng ta thực sự muốn tạo ra một thể hệ SV mới, giỏi về chuyên môn và sãn sàng xây dựng đất nước ta, thì tiếng ta hơn tiếng Tây.

Tôi xin chân thành cảm ơn bạn Phạm Quỳnh Phương và bạn Phạm Thị Phương Liên vì sự giúp đỡ và những đóng góp xác đáng cho bài viết này.

Why is the Vietnamese translation of The Communist Manifesto so boring?

Last semester, a friend of mine invited me to give a lecture on the Industrial Revolution in her class on “World Civilizations,” at Hanoi University’s Faculty of International Studies. I’m not sure if she knew what she or her students were in for. In addition to questioning how she was teaching “World Civilizations” as a story of the ineluctable and natural rise of the “West,” and deconstructing the conventional depiction of the Industrial Revolution as flowing from the combination of technology and free markets (i.e. why the “West” is so great and everyone else sucks), I also had her students read that great theorist of the Industrial Revolution, Karl Marx. Blame my twisted sense of humor, but I do find it curious that Vietnamese university students, who’ve spent hundreds of hours learning about Marxism and Scientific Socialism, have almost never read anything written by Marx himself. So I chose some excerpts from the Communist Manifesto, printed them in both English and Vietnamese, and gave them to the students (both versions available from www.marxists.org).

This was the first time I’d read a translation of Marx in Vietnamese, and I was struck by how bland it was. Granted, the English version wasn’t written by Marx himself, but it was translated with the help of Engels, so I have to assume it captures the flavor of Marx’s original German. And for me, at least, that flavor is pretty damn good, combining powerful images with incisive critique in prose that verges on poetry. I mean, how can you not be struck by something like “All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” But compare it with the Vietnamese. “Tất cả những quan hệ xã hội cứng đờ và hoen rỉ, với cả tràng những quan niệm và tư tưởng vốn được tôn sùng từ nghìn năm đi kèm những quan hệ ấy, đều đang tiêu tan; những quan hệ xã hội thay thế những quan hệ đó chưa kịp cứng lại thì đã già cỗi ngay. Tất cả những gì mang tính đẳng cấp và trí tuệ đều tiêu tan như mây khói; tất cả những gì là thiêng liêng đều bị ô uế, và rốt cuộc, mỗi người đều buộc phải nhìn những điều kiện sinh hoạt của họ và những quan hệ giữa họ với nhau bằng con mắt tỉnh táo.” Call me crazy, but I don’t hear the music anymore.

It’s not just me: the students agreed that while the Vietnamese version was ho-hum, the English version was, well, surprisingly cool, and surprisingly relevant to their own experience of “Development.” Why is this? Is it really impossible to translate the meaning and the poetry at the same time? Or does somebody out there want to put Vietnamese to sleep before they can begin to understand the power of Marx’s ideas? I don’t know, but I can only conclude that the first generation of Vietnamese Communists was reading their Marx in French, German, or Russian. Because if they were reading it in Vietnamese, they would have dozed right through the Revolution.

I heart Bangkok’s metro system!

Okay, so maybe it only covers a small part of the sprawling city, and maybe it does little to alleviate the notorious traffic jams, but I heart Bangkok’s metro system. Where else can you get such a seamless advertising experience? It’s not the fact that virtually all the vertical space in the stations and cars is covered with billboards. No, that’s become such a part of life that only a Martian would think it even the slightest bit remarkable. Nor is it the flatscreen TVs sprinkled throughout the platforms playing an endlessly looped series of advertisements. Or the fact that the same advertising program is playing on giant screen TVs that are actually outside the platform, directly opposite the space where waiting commuters are required to queue. It’s not even that once you finally get in the car, six more flatscreen TVs are playing the same program. No, what distinguishes Bangkok from sadly amateurish efforts in places like Tokyo or Seoul, is the way all of the spaces of Bangkok’s metro system, from the platform to the car, are equipped with Bose speaker systems so that the advertisements are not just visual, but also aural. Perhaps it’s just a generous effort to make sure even Bangkok’s sight-challenged commuters can participate equally in our consumer lifestyle, but the result is that there’s really no way to take the metro in Bangkok without being subjected to a continuous stream of advertising. Nothing, that is, short of closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears, and screaming over and over again “It’s NOT 1984, it’s NOT 1984.” But that would be silly. On several levels.

McAsian cuisine

I hereby give the world notice that I am trademarking the terms “McAsian cuisine” and “McAsian food.” Hell, I'll just take all of "McAsia" and "McAsian" for good measure. Anyone, anywhere who uses that term from now on has to pay me a glass of bia hơi each time they use it. Except if you’re in Somalia. I suspect not even Walt Disney's trademark department could enforce this in Somalia.

Seriously, I know that the second you read the header, you went “SNAP!” You knew exactly what I meant, even though you’d never thought about it that way. It’s that strangely generic “Asian” food that has populated food courts and airport waiting areas from Singapore to Seattle and is now even making its way into places like – the horror, the horror – the American Midwest. It’s a cuisine that takes a couple typical dishes from every country in Asia, dumbs them down and sweetens them up, and if at all possible, deep fries them for good measure. You’ve got your “Cantonese” fried rice, your “Singapore” fried noodles, some “Vietnamese” spring rolls, a Pad “Thai”… Just top it off with some shockingly bad sushi, and your McAsian menu is complete.

Now that the term is out there, it’s going to be pretty much impossible not to use it. “Hey, wanna go grab some McAsian food?” “What do you feel like tonight? – How about McAsian?” “I know this great little place that serves the best McAsian in the whole Tristate area.” Just remember, each time, that’s one more glass of bia hơi for me. And who knows, I just might have to order some real Vietnamese food to go along with all that bia hơi.