What's Fascinating About SEA?

"How could you spend five weeks studying South East Asia," I've been asked since I've been home.

It's a good question, really.

Those ten (or eleven, depending on how you count them; different post) seemingly insignificant countries on the way other side of the earth wouldn't appear to affect us much here in the US.

In order for me to make sense of it all myself, I deconstructed everything I learned at the National Endowment of the Humanities' Institute (on Oahu). Oh, we had experts--speakers flown in from Indonesia, from Wake Forest and other east coast universities, from California, from the midwest. We were learning about things as they were happening. It was crazy.

Then, I reorganized all that information according to discipline, and analyzed it for a so...what? Where does it all lead?

Here's what you might find interesting:

The islands and mainlands are diverse in many more ways than they are unified: by geography, outside influence (including that of South and East Asia, Europe, and the US), religion, political authority, culture, and the 1,000 languages among them.

Japan bombed Pearl Harbor for access to SEA's rubber, oil, tin, iron; and to prevent US access to it.

The concepts of time (minutes, hours, days) and printing emerged with Buddhism in the region.

Indonesia is the world's fourth largest country. (And is the largest per-capita Facebook-using nation!)

While globally, the birthrate is declining, in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, it is spiking.

This region shares the same issues as the US: our relationships with China, terrorism, trade, the environment). Our citizens also strive for human, labor, and women's rights.

It comes down to the dollar; 6 of the 10 or 11 nations rank in the top half of world economies, some of which have catapulted themselves from the bottom within the last several years.

Is it clear--the economic power here?

That's one of the places all this goes.

I found the bottom line with SEA film scholar Wimal Dissanayake, a bright, lovely man, who said pointedly: "While SEA is a rapidly expanding region, it is severely understudied."

This area is sure to keep rising, in wealth, in population growth, with technology.

And???

Do you know how the US will be affected by that?

By trade, sure.

But also in our higher education systems. We'll be competing for the earth's top potential innovators. Within the next 20 to 40 years, our classrooms are likely to be filled with the greatest thinkers on the planet.

And, since 4 out of 5 foreign scholars end up staying in the US when they complete their programs, we'll be competing for jobs, too.

What do you think? Is that good or bad?

Will more and more university slots go to Jakartans, Manileños, taking up seats from Americans who "deserve" them?

Or will the ambition of these academics add to our melting pot, spawn our creativity, help us stay a super power?

IS YA Getting Darker?

You HAVE to read this New York Times debate between Ship Breaker author Paolo Bacigalupi, who claims that teens seek and deserve truth; Shiver author Maggie Stiefvater, who writes that teens flock to darkness because they'll never actually experience it; and Uglies mastermind Scott Westerfeld, who argues that dark YA grants teens freedom, privacy, and independence.

What do you think?

Making A Masterpiece

Inspired by Van Gogh's "Starry Night" over the weekend, I've been wondering if we writers can paint our craft.

Can we add texture--thin in places, sparse in others--evoking an idea, a question, a feeling?
Can we make the story shine--the blues, the golds--in contrasting, then in blended elements?
Can we combine techniques that have been used before us, adding our own layer to the depth?
Will each detail, like brush strokes, add to the whole concept?
Can we reach wide appeal, but speak intimately to our reader? And when she finishes the last word, will she be breathless?
Will our work be remembered?

Between What Rocks and A Soft Place -- Part I

I'm applying for two fellowships: to examine the history and nature of American consumerism at Bard Graduate College in New York City this July, and to the University of Hawaii for an interdisciplinary curriculum approach to integrating Southeast Asian cultures.

I mean, I think I'm applying. I'm collecting letters of recommendation, working with my department head to refine my scope of study. Dave even took off the whole month of July from the fire department, and in my dreams, my family comes out to wherever I am for the last couple weeks and flies me home.

But while I'm forming the research questions--How have the effects of material culture shaped the American class system, and how it has been/will be emulated globally? versus How have the collaboration and conflict of Southeast Asian cultures influenced/been influenced by America?--I'm watching Dominic color a map of the Great Lakes, and I'm asking a different question.

Should I even go?

My boy is thirteen, growing up every single day. What if I miss something really great when I'm gone? What if I miss something terrible?

Is this a selfish thing, going away to study, to stretch? Does it make me a bad mom? Or is it an opportunity I have to try to take? To show my kids that learning is important? Will I be better mom because of it?

Outside Shot

So, I have a reputation for being a bad sports mom.

I don't wear the jersey and go to every game, clanging a cowbell.

But I'm trying.

The deal was that if Dominic (13) didn't play football this year, I'd step it up as a basketball mama. I would go to more games. I wouldn't bring any papers to grade there. I would pay attention, and at the end, I would know whether Dominic's team won or lost.

Last night, Dave and I drove an hour and a half to Klamath Falls to watch our boy on the court. From under the basket, he waved at me enthusiastically. I love that kid.

By the third quarter (44-24, Klamath Falls), I got a little antsy, though. A grandma sitting near me was scribbling down her shopping list, and I was coveting, obsessing over that notepad.

Eyes on the game, I couldn't stop thinking. What if education drew the same support that sports did?

What if parents drove an hour and a half twice a week for Brain Bowls, Odysseys of the Mind, Spelling Bees, music recitals? And what if half the school showed up to watch?

What if teacher to student ratios were 1:6?

What if money used on transportation for coaches' stipends and team transportation were matched in school libraries?

What if the learning process used the team concept, where students shared a common goal and worked together for months to achieve it?

What if academic school pride matched that of the athletic kind?

What if hordes of parents got together to cheer on students with math?

What if kids practiced reading and writing for two hours every day after school?

What if the arts were as valued as baseball?

What if weeklong celebrations like homecoming revolved around science instead of football?

The bottom line is that athletics are great. They keep kids fit, involved, and out of trouble. I played soccer forever, was on swim team, joined college intramurals. I married a two-sport college athlete; together, we made us some sporty babies. I know the stats, too: higher SATs, lower drug use.

But, from the bleachers, I can't help wondering why if a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of these young athletes will go on to use their talents professionally, what is happening with the much larger number of them who won't?

Fabulous Fiction

My friend Karlee and I have this little debate sometimes about which is better: fiction or non-fiction.

And tonight, when Dave and I watched the quirky comedy The Invention of Lying, I really thought about the real differences between the two genres.

Non-fiction is straightforward, clean. It tells us what to believe. There's no wrong, no mess, no controversy.

Fiction, on the other hand, uses the higher-order thinking skills that Benjamin Bloom defined and categorized over 70 years ago: interpretation, evaluation, analysis. With fiction, we are pushed to wonder, to question. We react emotionally. We feel. We make it personal.

Fiction is created. It takes imagination and some serious hard work to produce.

It is exaggerative, enhanced with stylistic devices like metaphor, hyperbole, and setting. It welcomes ownership and debate; promotes thought; and fills the human need to study, to understand.

To me, this is what reading is all about--when the actual reading itself is secondary to the interpretation and emotion and discussion that comes from it. To not have truth all spelled out, but to find it for myself.

Drain, Watergate, & Plantar Fasciitis

"What was the Vietnam War about?" Daney, 11, asked as we hit the California border, fourteen miles from home.

Already, I was thinking about my Work-In-Progress, Drain.

"Did we win that war?" Rees, 8, asked.

"Most people would probably say we didn't," I told them. "I'm thinking about my book, though."

"Why didn't we win it?" Dominic, 12, pressed. "Didn't we have better weapons?"

And so my W-I-P was shoved aside so I could talk to the kids about the war, which then turned into a discussion about the Peace Movement, which somehow turned to Watergate.

"So Nixon got in trouble because he lied?" Daney said. "But all the presidents lie now. So he wouldn't get in trouble now, right?"

After 20 miles, I told the kids that if they wanted to know any more about Nixon, they could ask their Poppa when we got to his house.

There were a few quiet miles, two and a half maybe. I was just starting to get back into thinking about Drain. Until Daney asked why the achilles tendon is such a tender part of the human body.

"Achilles. The god," I answered.

Of course that wasn't enough. It just opened this huge discussion on Greek folklore and whether one of the gods was responsible for the plantar fasciitis I had suffered from three years ago, and what is plantar fasciitis, anyway, and why exactly did it hurt.

We were in Redding by then.

The kids wanted In & Out. So until Anderson, they were busy chewing their double-doubles-plus-pickles-minus-onion. Which bought me some thinking time.

"So can I tell you guys this new ending I might try in Drain?" I asked them.

"We're tired of talking," they all said, turning on their iPods and Game Boys.

When Delivery Trumps Plot

What if everything you were fighting for was a lie?

That's the essence of "The Green Zone," a movie in which a US soldier questions the existence of the weapons of mass destruction he's supposed to be finding in Iraq.

Believe it or not, the film reminded me of the book Abundance, a novel about Marie Antoinette.

In both cases, going in to the stories, the audience knows what's going to happen: that no WMD exist, that Antoinette is beheaded. What we don't know is how the plot will get us there.

In both cases, the story is personal. It's credible, compelling, twisty. There's an angle, a question.

Will Saddam's top man meet up with our soldier? Will Antoinette maintain her composure?

What do the characters think? Feel? HOW do they get to their end?

"Titanic" is another good example of predictable conclusion. We know it sinks. What we don't know is when, or why, or how. Or if the two lovers live or die together.

I respect stories that take an audience's common knowledge and add depth and dimension. It can't be easy to pull off. But it sure is fascinating to think about.