Antidote to Burnout

Cultural compass

2008-06-11T19:51:26+07:00

There is a wonderful article in today's (11 June 2008) New York Times by Michael Slackman entitled "Don't Leave Home Without a Cultural Compass". Here are a few quotations that I respond to:

Navigating Egypt can be a challenge of understanding, and not just language but also culture, values, norms. A pile of trash may look like litter to a foreigner, but it is a commodity to poor people who recycle and reuse almost everything. In Egypt, it is routine, absolutely routine, to get the wrong directions.

That is not because people are mischievous, but because if you ask for help, they feel obligated to try to help — even if they send you off in the wrong direction.

I am not going to say that the same applies to Việt Nam as a cultural norm, but this has certainly been my experience here in southern Vietnam. I have learned to triangulate between several different sets of directions given. The article goes on:

“Here, even if someone sends you in the wrong direction, he still feels that he did what he was supposed to do,” said Hamdi Taha, head of a charity, Karam al-Islam, and a professor of communications at Al Azhar University. “He doesn’t think he misguided you. He helped. Right and wrong is a relative thing.”

The point of the article is that we, and especially our current president and State Department, have lost our ability to be sensitive to the small cultural differences that contribute to understanding of larger issues between us.

It is those kinds of assumptions — that the citizens of foreign countries want to be liberated by America and live like Americans — that can really get under people’s skin. Egyptians may give out wrong directions — but only when they are asked for directions.

Sorry....false alarm

2008-04-23T08:56:58+07:00

Every time I think about writing about the weather, I tell myself this is a topic I know not much about, and should stay away from posting opinions. But I can't resist posting about the change of seasons. This year, I got caught.

On 17 April when I last posted, the winds had made their annual change of opposite direction, or so it seemed. I am fascinated by the physics of this phenomenon -- it the winds make such a sudden and consistent change, then the seasons should change along with it.

Over the past two years, twice a year, when the wind changed (and it changes almost instantaneously), it stayed changed, and the seasons changed accordingly. This year, it stalled out and changed back. There were very light winds for a couple of days after the 17th, so it seems like the wind never regained its change in direction.

So we remain in the dry season at this point (there are always occasional thunderstorms even in the dry season), and the winds remain out of the east. Sometime over the next month, though, it will change and stay changed, bringing the rainy season.

Meanwhile, it looks like Kevin's shedding dog theory has the upper hand in credibility at this point.

Change of seasons in HCMC

2008-04-17T09:57:16+07:00

The winds shifted two days ago to now be out of the southwest, the direction of the annual monsoon winds. For the past six months, the winds have been from the east.

The shift this year is occurring 21 days earlier than last year, so we are going to get an early start on the rainy season this year.

French architect wins 2008 Pritzker Prize

2008-03-31T10:51:09+07:00

A little diversion from Vietnam...
I am pleased to see today that the French architect Jean Nouvel has been named the Pritzker Laureate in Architecture for 2008. This prize is the equivalent to the Nobel prizes applied to architecture.

He has produced modernist designs that are very tailored to sites and circumstances, along with structural flair. Here is an example from Lucerne (Luzern), Switzerland -- the KKL Culture and Convention Center, or Modern Art Museum.

When I took these photographs in 2003, I couldn't get over how knife-thin the edge of the cantilevered roof was.

The exterior enclosing walls or screens have the layers of material that I think is becoming the hallmark of a new architecture of the information age.