Saturday, February 28, 2009 - Just a few thoughts….

A few thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head since Korea….
I have always known the desire of many overseas to learn English and study in the US. It was true in Brasil in 1965. It was certainly true among my students and virtually everyone in Africa in the late ‘80s. But I have never before been made quite so much aware of the nearly obsessive (and I don’t use that term loosely) degree to which people seem to want to learn English here in Asia. One might be tempted to think that people would rather want to learn Chinese as this seems to be the century of China. But English seems to be perceived as the key to future prosperity. Taken together with the focus on prestige and success….it becomes the trump card in almost every educational plan.
Earlier in my blog I commented on how much I’ve noticed the diversity of Christian higher education. At the same time I’ve become aware over the past three weeks of the near homogeneity of culture. In a way it’s a sad thing to move through more than 13 countries so far and to feel that every looks and feels pretty much the same. Is this me? Am I just blind to differences? Oh, of course I notice the differences in language, the difference in neatness and cleanliness, the differences in which side of the road is used to drive…..but somehow, despite it all, they all begin to look alike. Every major city has large department stores…maybe different names but in most ways they look alike. All cities have overpasses, all airports look alike or try to look alike. The cars are all mostly the same…despite the HUGE number of bikes in parking lots in Holland and the HUGE number of motorbikes in parking lots here in Taiwan. Yes the souvenir stores have somewhat different wares. And I’m sure that in rural areas things differ more….tho even there, as I’ve travelled by train through both Holland and Korea, the differences are not as large as one might expect. I told someone yesterday….the variations seem so small as to make the world “boring.” Now that’s a pretty jaded statement to make…and obviously hyperbolic. But there is a sense in which it is sad to see the disappearance of distinctive cultures……and even distinctive smells. I have noticed no significant differences in the smell of Coimbatore, Vienna, Seoul, Taipei, or even Santa Cruz. That’s REALLY amazing. Some of my strongest memories of Sao Paulo Brasil in 1963 are SMELLS! Oh well..maybe I’m wrong about this….isolated in air travel and jumping from nation to nation in 24-48 hours. But it’s been a perception.
Also fairly high on the scale of cultural generalizations….I thought you’d be interested to know that I noticed that Korean bath towels are decidedly smaller than everywhere else. Though this is also probably an anomaly based on the fact that my overnights in Korea were ALL in dormitories, while elsewhere I’ve stayed in hotels…the fact is that I never had a bath towel larger than a hand towel in Korea. Now that’s really interesting right?