east meets west

I have been very curious about Ost-Asian education for a very long time. Recently, my friends gave me an opportunity to analyse not one, not two, but three schools all claiming to be the locus of of east meeting west. I am being overwhelmed by generous people. I have had a look at all three. They make me interested because there is very strong Hokkien influence in all three. It is curious, all three claim to be Chinese. One claims to be Chinese of a high order. One claims to be Catholic as well as Chinese. And one claims to be English and Chinese, which was the earlier claim of the second. It is all very confusing.

But what is funny is that in a small neighbouring country, I see that some charity has suffered a bad governance. It seems that the CEO of that charity did not tell the board he was taking on too many privileges and not actually serving the unfortunate. Suddenly, everyone in that small country thinks their bosses are also like that. In particular, teachers talking about their principals. It is all strange, quaint, maybe also Asian. Or Hokkien.

At least one of those three schools has the same problem, I hear. My friends there say that they have been exposed to bad governance which is defensive with extreme prejudice (ah, this phrase, I picked it up from American movies). They have sacked people for honestly commenting, and also threatened students with lawsuits and humiliation. It is all beyond me how in an age like this, people are still so primitive. I am glad my ancestors decided to become modern and give women the vote. Did you know the Danish were the first in Europe to let women vote? We are proud of that. We have long tradition of Protestantism, and also of civil liberty. The two are not incompatible.

inspiration

I am being inspired. Today my science-Hokkien friend pointed me to this article on digging a hole for ourselves. It is funny but my science-Hokkien friend sounds a lot like this old humanities-English person. Especially when he quotes English poets; the most funny part is that he likes Matthew Arnold and this English IBO person also likes Arnold. I can shake my head only.

yam seng

I have learned more Hokkien language. Tonight we ate something crispy and stodgy combined, called 'yam basket'. I said, "Is this the same yam as yam seng?" and they had to teach me more Hokkien language so that I would know the difference and not embarrass myself again at a Hokkien dinner.

I must say to brother Bjorn and all at home, our shrimp are nothing compared to their prawns. We had huge prawns. In some kind of spicy sauce. I could not believe it. The fish here is good too. Not like our salmon or cod (but that is not so good these days), but tasty fish like garoupa and red herring. Or red snapper. Well red anyway.

I am learning a lot of good things about this Hokkien culture.

return

Hello. I am back. I was having a holiday in the south of the world, the austral segment. It is warm there. There are summer flies. It is almost like Sweden in summer. Ha ha sorry that is just me being anti-Swedish as all Danes are supposed to be.

malaria

Today was a bad-bitter day. It was very cold and there was a typhoon warning. I have learned that 'typhoon' means 'big wind' around here. It was a big wind indeed. Actually, I thought that it was 'taifeng', but I have been disabused of that idea while being abused with this.

I was made to take anti-malarial tablets. Now this sounds very innocent. But it is said that chloroquine which is already bitter is no use these days. So they feed us artemisinin, which is some bitter chinese herb extract. The rumour has it that all the artemisinin out of China is adulterated, so it will not work anyway.

The malaria germ is actually a parasite. It ruptures your red blood cells and then eats up the bits to make a living and to make more of its own kind. If the French is malaise, the Italian is malaria ('bad air' in English). Not Malaya, which is where I am in right now. Further discourse maybe is considered seditious here. So I will say no more. Think your own thoughts.