From foreign correspondance

from the previous article..
http://www.spotalks.com/2011/03/lost-in-translation.html

I begin to write where I left the pen on the observations of an alien who have now matured into an official foreign correspondent. He has transformed from reading books about the country of his residence to practicing the real culture. He begins to examine the meaning of culture. He starts to wonder whether the major practicing religion has any influence on it. What about the fabled education system of a country, does it impact the culture of a country? How does weather influence behaviours of its people? How is the mosaic of culture made of? He finds the intriguing answers to his questions through introspection of his experiences and readings. A learned person would probably define culture as representative thought of people based on their beliefs, values, attitudes and taste. This multitude of definitions makes our foreigner busy to experience cultural pandora box.  He reckons the best way to understand a culture is always starting to debate on any topic and relate to the experience in his country.

As the economist claims even the paintings of a country would reveal the prolific performance of its economy, I kept wandering around the archived museums of my adopted country to paint the economic timeline. My wallet got emptied time and again to traverse the vast landscape of beautiful snow clad mountains, breezed beaches and its tranquil countryside. I deduce the mild romanticism of its people that I am not quite used to from their smile, gestures, dress and sexuality. I begin to find solace in my solitude through sensual relationship. Consequently, I observe my adopted country through prism of my partner. I understand the new found colour and creed of my world around me, eventually embracing its profound delicacies. I listen to the melodramatic description of its history that swallows the distress of war and disease. My intellect then turns to its tradition of music, cinema, literature and other forms of arts to comprehend the compelling thoughts of its elite.

I read voraciously country’s vox populi on the political newspapers and magazines. I debate details of the politics with natives. I indulge myself in the mastery of its traditional sports and dance. I begin to ape the natives in dressing and body language. I even cook the cuisine that everybody in the country eats regularly. The things I once fancied as a foreigner begins to become custodian to the very own customer. As a customer to this foreign land, I have literally amused myself. I explored, enjoyed and occasionally rejoiced of leaving my homeland to report about some alien place. Nevertheless, my love affair with this foreign land is almost complete; I broke the very fabric of my sensual relationship. However, I am convinced that myriad varieties of people around the world are ultimately united by this magical touch of humanity that boils down to simple show of sympathy and sincerity in any relationship. I, as a foreigner in this feigned part of the planet finally have to leave this beautiful paradise.

In dreams....

Solitude, rather a precious moment while often you are surrounded by army of lieutenants in this 21^st century that purported to have crossed 9 billion people. Hence, I decided to write something melodramatic about being alone although not so legendary as ‘Solitary Reaper’ by William Wordsworth. The story goes; I sat down on the empty benches along the river that streams across the city. The wrangling of the mind delves into the problems of custodian life. Why would anybody like to be born into this overcrowded and over competitive society? The picture of a poor boy in one of the poorest parts of the world conjures up in front of me. I ask a question myself, how difficult is it being a poor? Then, the arsenal of questions keeps bothering me that I wouldn’t like to answer. My consciousness starts to switch off, I transform to the character of poor. As a poor boy, I curse my parents for not giving the privilege to enjoy my childhood.

I toil every day at the factory made to stand for 9 hours a day and 6 days in a week while other rich kids same age as me get to enjoy themselves thoroughly. I get scolding, yelling, and even sometimes beating from seniors although I do my work properly. I do not know why is this happening to me? Why do people treat me with scant respect? Why did not my government provide free education? What is this English language? Why didn’t I get the same opportunities like others? When do I ever travel in air conditioned bus? When do I ever get to drive a car? When do I own my house? When do I shop freely? When do I sit on this glittering café shop near the factory and sip a coffee?  When do I dress neatly like others? When do I wear good shoes apart from safety shoes? Above all, when do I ever get married? My little happiness comes from my parents get a chance to eat because I send them money.

I live in a shanty house with some 10 people, located on the outskirts of city’s slum. Everybody who shares the house with me works from dawn to dusk has similar frustrations with life. To escape the daily vagaries of life, I spend my entire Sunday on entertainment. I play football with my colleagues from work. I adore romantic movies mainly because I don’t get a chance to romance in my real life. I wonder how the hero lives his life. I spend my Sunday sleep fantasizing about the escapist things of my life. Suddenly, I woke up from the slumber and realize I’m no poor boy in a poor country. I come to conclusion that solitude teaches many lessons and sometimes makes us, as a writer because we are no more bounded by constraints to imagine. We find answers to difficult questions of our life when we are alone. The debates start to ramble in our minds when we walk on the streets, listening to music mildly, lying on the beach and taking a nap. I did write this piece of blog when I was alone hence it is also reminiscent of my solitary mind. 

Asian Parable through Indian lens

Right now, the world is definitely getting scared of the “Dragon and Tiger” hence it is the perfect time to explore the vast countries through different perceptive. Companies could understand the different dynamics of its people and markets to better structure its strategy. Exploring these countries would be like muddling through the largest river filled with silt that eventually ends in ferocious Ocean. Chinese are as complicated as their language; their culture is as intriguing as Mandarin’s script. I admire something about China that India will find it very difficult to build in the next decades to come for which it to develop socially and economically. That something is being “Chinese”. It’s the only largest country on the earth which has similar culture, understand the same language across the length and breadth of the country. People take immense pride in being Chinese to defend their language, culture and cuisine. On the other hand, India is the only country on the planet that is very diverse with so many languages, many religions, cuisines, etc.

 

Although India and China has been in logger heads over the border issue for several years, there are quite a lot of cultural similarities between India and China. It was India which exported the Buddhist religion and principles to China. Although currently India is majority Hindu, Buddhist values are still alive, for instance the India’s national flag bores the symbol of “Asoka Chakra” that describes 24 principles of human life. Some common values of Chinese and Indian people are respecting elders, parents, and teachers and placing high premium on education. Relationships in both countries are very personal and strong, people tend to compromise something to keep the relationship. Chinese people tend to respect “erudition” because it is also one of the principles of Confucianism likewise Indians. Hence education system in China and India is more or less the same. There is a humungous focus on rote learning to excel in some of the most gruelling entrance examinations.  The creativity in Chinese and Indian system has been suppressed for sometime but it is being revitalised by the influence of American soft power. We can’t presume everything to be similar in Chinese and Indian culture.

Chinese cuisine is completely different from Indian cuisine; almost all the Chinese like to eat meat and fish but most of the Indians are vegetarians. One of the most striking differences is in governance, Indian system is democratic but Chinese chose to be communist with a single party rule. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen says in his book “The Argumentative Indian” only democracy in India is the natural way to govern because of immense plurality in the society but in the case of Chinese they tend to accept the rule of concentrated elites with market based economy.  This fundamental difference in governance can be witnessed among majority Chinese being “collective” and Indians being “consensual” respectively. There are subtle differences in terms of nationalism, language pride and openness to foreign cultures. Historians agree that India is always a land of immigrants hence anything foreign looks superior to Indians that’s also the consequences of “Colonial Hangover”. China was never totally under foreign rule, so there is a pride of being Chinese hence they may not very much open to foreign culture and language. Chinese tend to place larger premium on creating wealth that’s why wishing prosperity takes over wishing happy New Year on Chinese New Year. In general, Indians might be placing higher premium on happiness over wealth but it is certainly changing in the society that is purely creating wealth through entrepreneurship. These cultural differences are creating totally different dynamism in Chinese and Indian economy.

China and India used to be one of the largest and richest economies in the world before the advent of colonialism.  History might repeat itself if these Asian giants once start to download those necessary applications that west has installed in the past. Those applications are modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society and the work ethics. In all of those applications, Chinese and Indians tend to differ in the way they are downloading and also in the way they are implementing it. In terms of installing modern science, Chinese are much faster than Indians; they have built fabulous infrastructure and great universities for research. Although India has one of the greatest elite universities that are on par with ivy leagues, majority of Indian citizens still lack the basic literacy skills. It is the failure of Indian democracy that is rotten with inefficiency but Chinese got those priorities right by educating 94% of its masses. So, future is bleak for Indian economy that has the youngest demographics in the world if it fails to educate its young population then the demographic dividend would turn into demographic disaster.

 Indian system will prevail in the long term in installing “rule of law” because the institutions are accountable to the people but China will face challenges in the future to implement fair system. India is still classified as high risk for diseases by CIA for travellers but China is not that reflects the installation of modern medicine and its implementation. India has a long way to go forward in terms of achieving high health standard. Chinese and Indian consumers are becoming as dynamic as any developed western consumers hence both countries are already reaping the benefits of this downloaded application. Although the work ethics in both countries are respected but the productivity level is one of the lowest. It is one of the reasons of their products is being considered inferior to western brands. It is definitely going to change in the near future once majority of their people start to plug and play with the globalized world.

 As an optimist, the next generation of growth, newer ideas and businesses would definitely germinate from “East” mainly from China and India since they are starting to install those essential applications. The suggestion of cooperation between these two resurgent civilizations could sound preposterous but it is indeed essential for peaceful and prosperous Asian continent. The cooperation between these two Asian giants is very integral to the 21^st century and humanity on the whole because the history has never seen so many people moving from poverty to prosperity.  This massive migration of people to prosperity would create large scale economic opportunities to companies and countries to tap. Subsequently, this so called wealth amassing also creates the superficial ethical standard of “greed is good”.

Although China and India has different political system but they have the same problem of intolerant levels of corruption in public distribution system, land reforms, and business regulation and in any kind of administrative red tapes. In China, state owned companies are creating wealth and also mess by not allowing other companies to become competitive. In general, foreigners could assume that the entire nation is run by the bureaucrats not by entrepreneurs. On the other hand in India, both private and public sector is involving in rampant corruption. Entrepreneurs are the only ones who are milking the benefits of economic boom and there is no trickle-down effect to the bottom of the pyramid. As a matter of fact, both countries particularly India has a long way to go before it becomes as competitive as Europe or USA.  World particularly the developed world of Europe and USA has something to offer to China and India and also get something in return.  

Europe could leverage the growth of China and India to keep its society prosperous. It is not a zero sum game moreover increasing prosperity would definitely create opportunities for trade across the border. The Companies could continue to build capacities in these countries to sell their products. They can also recruit some Asians in the management to inject differences in the ideas. Companies would indeed find it harder to do business in both China and India although it has huge market. In China for instance, companies would be much wary of intellectual property loses. In India, it would be frustrated by the red tapes in the bureaucracy. Hence understanding the observations of similarities, differences and needs of these two countries would definitely give a better scope for refined business strategy. This can be purportedly achieved through very diverse work culture that companies has beginning to launch.

Lost in translation!!!

It feels good and audaciously challenging to experience something new in life. Every second of your life emotes to feel home. Actually, it is being foreigner gives you an unique existence. You figure out the quintessential local that even locals are not aware of; you learn the nuances of language that only their linguistics can comprehend. You walk the life with the heavy shoulder of two faces, the one mired with the lingering home and the other blossoming to be local.

In the beginning, it is like you are utterly lost in the dark woods and you don't know the way to escape the vagaries of ferocious animals. But then, you try to understand rhythms of forest life and learn tricks of survival. Indeed, it is the survival of fittest that would integrate totally with the daily chores of the country. The process to be the fittest is the most fascinating part of experience.That experience include getting to know traffic rules, procedure to apply for any administrative work and value system of the society.

Even traffic rules and driving in the country would say something to you about the culture of the country. Your observation of  new country and picture of home certainly contemplate the mind map. This map in your mind is much powerful and stronger than Google map that you might hold on to. This map has the emotions, noise and dynamism of the country. It speaks about the status of current economy and passion of their people. Inevitably, your learning of their language would read the complexity of people's mind and also paints the picture of their thought process. That thought process makes you feel that your now a qualified "foreign correspondence"

To be continued....