Our spirit cannot travel as fast as our body. That’s how someone explained jet lag to me.
I just got back from San Francisco and my spirit is all over the place. Although I have been desperately trying to tie it to the cup of Ghirardelli coffee on my desk, my mind keeps replaying many of the conversations I heard last week in California.
One bit keeps coming back again and again.
Sir Ken Robinson, the innovation expert, was talking at IABC’s conference about the ability of human beings to learn foreign languages.
His take is pretty much that if you don’t learn a foreign language at an early age, your chance to be able to do it in your 20s is slim.
What a sad and elitist view…
And this coming from an otherwise inspiring speaker.
If Sir Ken is right, this would mean that only those children who have the fortune to travel or live abroad or grow up in a multicultural household, will be able to speak other languages and function in a multicultural setting.
Luckily, this is not how the world of tomorrow is likely to turn out.
Chinawill soon become the number one English speaking country in the world. I believe not all the Chinese who are studying English today have learned it from their parents or by travelling abroad.
The ability to develop a passion for communicating with other cultures and learning foreign languages is not a prerogative of the more fortunate and has never been.
Take the example of Billy Wilder who grew up in Austria-Hungary speaking German, had to escape first to France and then to America in the 1930s, learned French and English in his 20s and went on to write the screenplay of what is considered an icon of American film making.
In my current job, I upset those people who think that using Web 2.0 to talk with employees and journalists is the equivalent of turning the comms function into the online version of Animal House (…. I would still like the Toga Party though).
In a job I had years ago, it happened when I was trying to convince management of the importance of treating CSR as a core component of their message and not like a pet project.
Hearing Seth Godin speak at TED about the importance of challenging the status quo was immensely refreshing.
Like most writers, I get inspired by the people I observe and the stories I hear. Nothing strange there. This is what most writers do.
What spooks me is the way in which I seem to attract the people who tell me these stories.
I was at a social gathering the other day sitting next to a gentleman I had never met before. We were chatting and after a few minutes he began telling me about his childhood in post-war Vienna.
I could not believe my ears. How could he have known about my obsession with what went on in Vienna during that time?
I know this might have been nothing more than civilised pre-theatre chit-chat. But you have to admit…it is a little strange.
The gentleman kept talking and I began seeing him in my mind…I was there… following him through the streets of what looked like an endless repetition of a scene from The Third Man.
This English boy in short pants (were boys still wearing short pants in those days..?) was not afraid of the horrible destruction surrounding him… Every house in ruins contained unlimited potential for adventure (as a young girl, I was insanely drawn to deserted buildings).
The house in the centre of Vienna where the boy lived had a concierge whose husband had been badly traumatised by the war. At night, the poor man would run out and disappear into the night. The wife would run upstairs and beg the boy’s father (“the only can-do person in the building”) to help her look for him.
I could picture some of the horrible memories that were chasing the concierge’s husband though the darkness of gutted Vienna.
The gentleman sitting next to me read my mind: “Everybody had a story in those days…”.
Would I have had the courage to listen to those stories? I know from my years in Czechoslovakia just how difficult it is. You have to be able to marshal strength and compassion from the deepest corners of your character.
And would I have had the courage to write them down? For what purpose? I cannot stand war voyeurism. I would only have done it to help heal memories. But how do you heal memories?
I was back in the foyer of a London theatre…and could not wait for the performance to start….
The potential implications of this project are mindboggling.
In India, a computer scientist, Dr Sugata Mitra has come up with the idea to give internet access to the illiterate children living in a slum next door to his modern, air-conditioned office.
He placed high-speed computers in a wall separating his part of town from the slum. Within hours and without instructions, the children started to browse the web. They were quick to figure out how to point and click.
Dr. Mitra is convinced that computers can bring prosperity to the world’s poor. It was his Hole-in-the-Wall project to inspire Vikas Swarup, the author of Slumdog Millionaire, the book that became a multi-Oscar-winning movie.
Half of India’s population (1 billion) is illiterate. 350 million among them live on less than a dollar a day. We can only begin to image what would happen to India’s society (and to those of other emerging economies) if Dr. Mitra is right.
I went to see a live performance of my favourite comedian, Russell Peters.
Russell’s energy is amazing.
When I heard that he would be performing at the o2 Arena, I couldn’t picture him reaching out to 18,000 people and engaging them in his fuzzy embrace the way he does on tape with a much smaller audience.
But he did. There is something about him that makes you feel included in everything he says. Forget presentation skills training! You want to learn how to reach out to an audience and bond with them? Go and listen to Russell Peters.
Russell is the most downloaded comedian ever. He owes his success to the power of the internet.
And it’s that power I felt the moment I entered the o2 Arena. I couldn’t believe that all those people were there just because they had seen one of his routines that began circulating on the web 5 or 6 years ago. It was so overwhelming….
I was also overwhelmed by the fact that, for some strange reason, I felt close to the other people there… Do we all identify with Russell’s jokes because we live abroad and at some point someone made fun of us? Is Russell’s humour a way to exorcise these experiences?
Who knows?!? I certainly love his routines. I know so many by heart. On Saturday, I even got the T-shirt that says $ 34.50 in Chinese-like characters. And I am going to wear it to the gym (yes…I will blog about the reactions…).
We went backstage and met Russell (in the photo with me and my husband Doug).
And look at us! Don’t we look related? As he says, it’s because his parents come from the Italian part of India…. Calcutta!!
I have been having many conversations lately about the future of the web and their impact on human behaviour.
Everybody is so desperate to escape the post-subprime gloom…. that we would read anything able to project our mind into the future.
So, I was very happy to pick up the Scientific American the other day. I lost myself in an article about the different ways in which homo sapiens could evolve:
“Stasis. We largely stay as we are now, with minor tweaks, mainly as races merge.
Speciation. A new human species evolves on either this planet or another,
Symbiosis with machines. Integration of machines and human brains produces a collective intelligence that may or may not retain the qualities we now recognize as human.”
I am not sure which one I would prefer. Probably the second…
I was still reflecting on these choices (are they??) when my friend Ben came to stay with me from Prague and suggested that we watch Idiocracy, a cult dark comedy about the future of mankind.
This is probably the most off-the-wall movie I’ve ever watched….
I think I’ve changed my mind…. may be the “symbiosis with machines” option is what we should go for…
Barack Obama has offered the position of US Surgeon General to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent for CNN.
This shows how important it is, these days, to turn your particular way of practicing your profession into a brand.
On top of hosting CNN’s weekend program “House Call with Dr. Sanjay Gupta”, Dr. Gupta has had appearances on CBS Evening News and writes columns for Time magazine. In 2007, he published a book on the search for immortality.
As you can see from this clip of the Daily Show, Dr. Gupta’s appointment is already making waves and entering pop culture.
The US Surgeon General is the country’s doctor, a face people will need to trust and listen to. Dr. Gupta comes with a loyal public. No wonder Obama went for him.
Or it might be my cold. I have been spending the past few days under layers of blankets trying to shake it off.
So, last night I watched it again…for the 5th time!
I have already seen it 4 times on transatlantic flights (at this point, you might be starting to doubt my sanity …I have been taking a lot of cold medicine…).
My friend Daneeta, the producer of Tokyo Cowboys, is leaving London for New Orleans.
I will miss her and I am looking forward to visiting her there.
I had a wonderful time in New Orleans last year, in spite of all the sadness in the aftermath of Katrina.
The city feels so surreal.
It might be the river with its strong presence.
The Mississippi feels like a father figure.
I sat down on a terrace overlooking the river to eat lunch one day and it was as if my grandfather, who passed away many years ago, had joined me. We were sitting there in silence eating our sushi in the Louisiana afternoon heat, lulled by the comfortable boredom felt only by those who are always there for each other, through the years and through the vagaries of history.
Daneeta has been working on the script for another movie about New Orleans and her family. I can’t wait to see it.
My friend Daneeta’s feature documentary Tokyo Cowboys is about to premiere at the Japan Film Festival in Los Angeles.
I am so excited!
Tokyo Cowboys tells the stories of a group of westerners who gave up their jobs, homes and countries to pursue their dreams in the cut throat world of Tokyo. The film’s delicate and humorous portrait illuminates the price some pay for a taste of Tokyo’s success. It follows the trial and errors of its heroes’ quest for opportunity on this post-modern urban frontier.
The documentary reminds me so much of my years in Eastern Europe.
Some of its characters are like the confused expats I used to meet at parties in Prague and Bratislava.
It was all so surreal. History had just turned a major corner and we were not sure of the role we were going to play in it, if any.
Watching Tokyo Cowboys brought back to me that old feeling of being suspended in time.
So intriguing….so liberating.
The documentary will be shown at the Japan Film Festival in Los Angeles on April 14th. It is the only film in the festival directed by a non-Asian and the only documentary to deal with the subject of gaijin experience in Japan.
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