The business of golf

In my wildest dreams I could never imagine waking up in the early morning, getting on an airplane, travelling to a different country, being picked up by a driver from my own company and then taken to the most beautiful golf course I have ever seen and all for a game of golf!

I sometimes have to pinch myself to believe this is real. In Asia, before you do business, you must establish a relationship with your potential customers or partners either over a few meals (normally) or some other activity…like a golf game! In the interests of confidentiality, I will not say what country I am in now, but we are in the middle of negotiations to set up private schools in the whole country and are really working on a very big deal with some developers and other partners. I sat at a table this morning when they were discussing millions of dollars, joint-stock ventures, arbitration, amortization payments etc. I almost feel like I am Daniel. One of the partners told me that one of the key components of the deal was that I had to speak and win the confidence of the people around the table. No pressure, really. I speak English, I am white, and I have grey hair, (according to Sylvia anyway). In Canada, at least I have to say something worthwhile to be heard. Here all I have to do is say something.

I said to my boss the other day;“ when is my job going to begin” as we were at a cocktail party mingling with people at the Singapore embassy. This is your job, he said. Sounds good to me. Just waiting for a few minutes before I fly back to Bangkok. If I get in early enough, who knows, maybe I will play golf to-night. I threatened Daniel that he would have to play golf when he got off the plane. I think he assumed I was kidding.

Trains, Bikes and Buses

It is Sunday in Myanmar and like all Sundays, I always plan to do something different. Today, I was planning on visiting an orphanage run by a cousin of one of our teachers but the government still does not allow foreigners into the Irrawaddy Delta area so that put an end to that idea.I decided instead to take the train . Why? Because everyone from the Myanmar teacher to the bell boys told me it was crowded, dangerous and a horrible experience. How could I resist such a temptation?

I had the bellboy write in Myanmar that I wanted to travel on the circle line which essentially takes about two hours to circumnavigate Yangon. Great idea, I thought, but I either missed this train or it does not exist. However, there was a train going to the north west Yangon to a place called Insein (where the infamous jail is located). The jail, incidentally is in a rather nondescript area between two stalls of market stores and a little discreet sign saying ‘Yangon correctional institute.’ That is like calling the Gestapo an improvement facility.

When I went to buy my ticket I said Insein ( pronounced insane) and put my few kyats on the counter. Unlike everyone else, I was told I had to pay with American money. Who has American money in Myanmar? They do not even have banks or ATM machines. When I finally borrowed a dollar from another tourist (the only one of thousands of people in the train station), they thankfully took it and waved me to an office around the corner. When I got inside, the train officer asked to see my passport and asked me to write the purpose of my visit on an official looking piece of papter. He then proceeded to write the ticket in triplicate. You have to understand that everyone else simply got a stub and off they went. I do not even think there was a guard on the train to collect tickets!

The train live up to its’ billing by the way. It was crowded, hot and falling apart at the seams. The aisles were not only full of people but huge bags of produce, furniture people were bringing home, and various bits of equipment. Thankfully there were no animals on board. The floors were wooden, the ceilings chipping away and there with wooden slat benches on either side of the train. I had to literally twist my body to look out the window so I sat on the table in the middle of the isle. I later found out it belonged to one of the passengers who was too polite to ask me to get off of it. In fact, everyone offered me a seat and forced people to move or get up. I think it was because I was an’ honoured’ tourist (or maybe because of my age), but there sure appeared to be people much older.

At every station, sellers came on to sell drinks and other ‘stuff’ I could not recognize. Water was popular. The guy would have a round bucket filled with water with about two or three silver cups. When people ordered water, they were given the goblet to drink out of and then passed it on to the next customer. It actually reminded me of doing the same thing when I went to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow in the l970’s. Even though we all drank out of the same cup, I did not see anyone die on the train.

When I got to Insein, I got off the train and found one of the ubiquitous bike guys who gave me a tour of his town. There were the markets and so on, but he insisted on taking me to the pagodas. Since you can’t wear shoes or socks at these places, I just kept my socks in my pocket so I just had to take off my shoes. He also took me to the banks of the river where I saw how ‘real’ people live, in open air shacks. There were no windows, air conditioners or running water but everyone spent the day in each other’s house from what I could see and seemed to be having a grand old time. I took a picture of one of the houses and a guy came yelling out after me. I thought he was going to yell at me for taking a picture of his house, but instead wanted me to come inside and take more pictures.

Since I was anxious to get back to Yangon…it seemed like it was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I declined. The thought of the pool at the hotel held a certain allure at this time of day. I thought it would sort of be romantic to take the bus back but the romance quickly disappeared as people crowded in and inevitably found space where no space appeared to be had. Eventually I had to get off to breath for a bit, but eventually took another bigger bus and arrived downtown, sort of safe and sound. When I got home I washed my hands and the sink turned black from holding the railings of the bus and train, I suppose.

I am glad I went. When I told one of the teachers on Monday what I did, he said; “you mean, there are trains in Myanmar?”

The people you meet along the way!

As I have said so often, the great thing about living and working overseas is the people you meet along the way. We are doing some business in Vietnam and our partners are very interesting characters. They were both born in Vietnam around 1969 so if you know anything about modern history, this should give you an idea about their backgrounds. One of the partners happens to be exuberant, talkative and outgoing. The other one is quiet and pensive.

The other night they started to talk about themselves over dinner and I heard the following story. The quiet one was born in the south, the site of heavy fighting in the Vietnam War or, as is commonly known in Vietnam, the American War. This man’s father broke from his own family and became a Vietcong and runner between the north and south. His father’s sister, who he seldom speaks to to-day, sided with the Americans. As is so often the case in a war where a country fights against itself, like the American Civil War as an example, families divide with wounds that never quite heal.

Unfortunately this man’s father often had to leave his wife and young son behind, as he trekked back and forth between the north and south and eventually the boy and his mother were arrested and jailed. Over the course of a week his mother was beaten, tortured and eventually killed. An American journalist somehow covered the story and miraculously his own life was spared. He later went on to become a successful business person and now very much wants to give back to his family and country as the only child of this couple by getting involved in education and improving the quality of life in his homeland.

There are so many parts to this story that resonate for me. His father went on to become a very high ranking officer in the Vietnam secret service, which in itself, is quite interesting as he described his relationship with his father. He is determined to meet the journalist that saved his life which hopefully I can help him with, and it is not too hard to see how his character was shaped so early in life.He was three years old when his mother was killed.

It is so clear to me that a person’s personality, once developed before the age of five, never changes. When I think back to my own children or myself, for that matter, I might be using bigger words now or thinking about fancier concepts, but the character I exhibit is still the same crazy person, to put it as politiely as I can, as I was over 60 years ago. Character, it seems to me, does not change. As for the nature versus nurture argument, it seems to be somewhat of a red herring, but as I learn more and more about this man, I am sure it will become more and more obvious to me how and why his character developed as it did.

Talking about personalities, can’t wait to catch up with Daniel and Alana who are visiting next week.

Gringorten's Do Bangkok

Gerry and Eva are now gone and Doren and Hilary leave tomorrow. Showing the Gringorten’s around town was admittedly a lot of fun. I had no idea the grandchildren were coming, so I quickly had to change direction and figure out what kids might like in Bangkok, quite the challenge in the City of Angels or Kuntep!

The first day, in spite of the kids, we did what every tourist must do .. ride down the Chao Phraya River to Ratanakosin island and explore the Grand Palace. It was even more magnificent than I remember it from last year. I think the reason why is that I have since visited Wats or Temples in three different countries and all over Thailand and I see how truly amazing this one is in terms of its architectural wonder, the gleaming colours in the burning sun, the mosaic encrusted pillars and the rich marble and gold everywere (hey, maybe I should write for the Thailand tourist board).

I couldn’t believe the food Doron ,Hilary and the kids were eating. I wouldn’t even look at the street food they seemed to gorging on and enjoying, I might add. They apparently did not get sick so it must be all right, I suppose. Maybe I will start eating some of it, if I can get up the nerve! Eva was incredible and did not seem to be affected in any way by jet lag and seemed to be carrying on at the same pace as everyone else, even though she just came in at midnight and started touring with everyone else the next day at 6 am.

After the Grand Palace we got back on the river (on a boat of course) and went to the wholesale flower market. Because it was only about 4 pm nothing much was happening
(it really is all about night market) and as always happens, a nice university student told us the night market was not going to get underway for an hour or two so we should take a canal tour through the Thonburi side of the river and see where the flowers came from . He negotiated for us with the longboat driver and as usual, this turned out to be the highlight of the trip for Doron and Hilary, I would think. In terms of sightseeing, you have to have a direction and general plan, but you have to be open to adventure and be willing to be flexible.

Since the kids were so amazing, I decided to give them a treat the next day and spend a kids day! We went to the Sampan zoo and animal farm and tramped around looking at the crocodiles and elephants and saw the invariable shows. I must say watching elephants play football disturbed me more than a little, but is it any worse, I wonder, than the men dressed up as warriors re-enacting a historical battle scene? At least the warriors have a choice to prostitute themselves, the animals don’t. Similarly with the crocodiles being subjected to the poking and prodding of the keepers who eventually stuck their heads in their mouths. It’s show business for sure but somehow very disturbing, although I just turned on the television and saw a news item that Siamese crocodiles are almost declared extinct and they seemed to have hundreds of them at this zoo. Every zoo keeper in the world says that they are doing a good job of preservation and who knows, maybe they are , but elephants playing football?

The Rose Garden was next store and we only had time essentially to eat there. Sylvia, you are right …the food was excellent. It is only 60 kilometers from Bangkok but about two hours by car because of the horrific traffic. Don’t quite know who is more exhausted by all this adventure!

Nakhom Pathom

I can talk briefly about Natkon Pathom, a district to the west of Bangkok, but what I really want to talk about is our new "reader" for those following this blog. I saw her reading the newspaper in the office and I asked the manager, who is bilingual, to ask her how she feels about her new reading abilities. The manager asked her and she said: “it was as if I was blind all my life and now I can see”

Enough said. I decided to go to the Rose Garden today in Nakon Pathom because I have not been yet and Sylvia said it was quite nice when she went with the Harris’ last year. As usual, I never got there. Since this is the 2,500 anniversary of Buddhism, the Thais have really done a nice a nice job with commemorations. The taxi driver took me, he said, to the most beautiful street in Thailand and it may well have been. About an hour west of Bangkok we went past Uttayan where I took the picture of the bronze Buddha while soaking my feet in mud, I might add. (They even water the grass here!). There were beautiful ponds, scriptures on stones written in Thai and lovely art work as you can see from the pictures. Mandalay has something similar in what they call the biggest book in the world, but it is written in Sanskrit I believe. Here, these huge slabs were written in Thai so at least people, who are literate, can read Buddhist teachings, I assume.

On the way to the gardens, we naturally had to sample the best restaurant around ( why not, I was paying) and then visit two wats. The wats, interestingly enough, both had markets all around them ( as they all do) as well as schools attached to the premises. As I have said in earlier blogs, I am sure it is similar to Biblical days where Jesus took such exception to trading near a religious site the Temple) but Buddhism seems to have a different understanding of spirituality anyway. I do not want to try to explain it, because I can’t, but the hordes of people that visit specific Temples take the whole “package” and visit specific Wats if they want to pray for good health, or wealth, or love or whatever it is they are looking for. There is a wat for everything. Once they are there, why not pick up the week’s shopping and have a good lunch. They spend the whole day at the Wat anyway, sitting on the floor, meditating, attending lectures or adorning the Buddhas with gold leaf. Quite a different concept then the Judeao-Christian service.

Tomorrow, I have to play golf. Enough of siteseeing. I need a rest!

Sawadee Pie Mie Jin

And Happy Chinese New Year to you too! The clacking sound of my keyboard, magnified about a million times is what I hear every morning now starting at about 5 am and continuing long into the night. The firecrackers seem to be on a string and they light them from the bottom up creating a hell of a racket and lots of smoke!

Chinese New Year has seemed to go on forever, even though it does not start officially until tomorrow. The epicenter is obviously in China Town or Yaowarat where I went yesterday. It seems like a combination of New Year, New York style, combined with Chinese superstition and Thai culture. It certainly makes for interesting people watching and/or anthropological study if you are so inclined.

Everything is decked out in red as you can see from the pictures and of course there is lot of smoke from the firecrackers. In addition, people are very conscience of auspicious events for the New Year and are having their fortune’s told ( even though I did not witness that),but I did see lots of scribes writing good fortune messages in calligraphy which I assume they will put up in their homes. They also buy lots of gifts. The gold shops seem to be having a field day, even though I do not really understand how they survive since they all look exactly the same, have the same merchandise and seem to have the same price depending on the price of gold that day (even though they obviously bought the gold long before)

As you can see, the wats are jammed with people lighting incense, holding it up high, and parading through the various buildings of the temple area and then leaving their incense in front of the Buddha. It is sort of reminiscent of the lulav and etrog ceremony.At every street corner people are pouring money into firey canisters to ease the path for their ancestors. It is surprising the whole street does not go up in flames as you can see the fire gets quite high in some of the cans.

Yesterday was just the prelude to the main festivities of the lunar New year so I may go back today to see the streets closed off, food stalls everywhere and of course the racket. Mai Mi ben ha. No sweat. I will just bring a good pair of walking shoes and ear plugs.

I actually work

However hard it is to believe, I do actually work… sometimes. I have spent the last two weeks in “radio silence” for two reasons. One, it is incredibly difficult to communicate from Myanmar and secondly I have been too busy working. It is actually kind of fun. In week one I was in Mandalay giving full day workshops on assessment and evaluation as well as cooperative learning. I remember I used to be in awe of presenters with their powerpoint presentations, their management of large groups and their expertise. Now, it seems, I am one of those guys. If I can do it believe me, it can’t be that hard. The trick is, don’t try to accomplish too much in one session and only focus on a little bit at a time. It is easy to be an expert in one little area, sort of, depending on what you consider an expert.

This week I spent every day evaluating teachers in Yangon to get some baseline data on next steps for growth. I created a four page rubric and one page of open text where I could write what their strengths were and their next steps for growth. I spent at least 8 hours with each teacher seeing all of their classes during the day and then generally had supper with them each night to discuss my findings. They were incredibly open and forthcoming. I do realize that change takes a lot of time and just measuring something does not make it better. For example, one teacher spoke to a class of ten kids as if there was a hundred people in the room his voice was so loud, which he acknowledged when I pointed it out to him. When I went into the class the next day, guess what, no change whatsoever which should have been relatively easy to correct one would think. Their paradigm of teaching, of course, is far more difficult to change and that takes time and continual renewal and discussion. In fact, I probably could never get them to change their style of teaching from what they experienced as a student.

I have also been working on an online component of my work with teachers. I now have compiled courses in fundamentals of pedagogy, cooperative learning and mentoring. I intend to create courses in assessment and evaluation, action research, leadership, and a number of other courses but at the moment, I just have to take teachers where they are and believe me, they are not there yet .What is interesting is that the Myanmar programmer promised me that the site would be up about two months ago and I will be lucky if it gets up today. By the time you read this hopefully you can have a look if you want. Let me know if you want to get into the bits and pieces and I will get you a guest user name and password. The site is http://www.rvi-institute.com/



As an aside, maybe the most important thing I have ever done in my life is help someone learn to read. I discovered that the lady that cleans my apartment could not read in English or Thai. Imagine going through life not be able to read? Before I left for Myanmar, I paid the manager of the building to give her one hour of lessons every day and when I pass edby the office, I can’t believe how hard they were working. Both were getting great pleasure out of the exercise, for sure and little do they know that I am getting the most pleasure, especially when I offered to buy something for them the day I left from the corner stand and asked the cleaning woman to write it down for me so I would bring back the right food. Wow…it took her about ten minutes with her book of letters to write one word, but what a word!!!! She did it, the corner lady could read it and she got her som tam.. I jumped for joy.



I remember Temi teaching some illiterates how to read years ago and now I know the pleasure she must have derived from this. What a different life for this woman as she takes the subway home and can read the stations as opposed to counting her stops, or understand the headlines in a newspaper or reads a note from a customer asking her to do something in the apartment. I think I gave her the greatest gift of all. In fact, I can’t wait to get home today to see what progress she made and find out if she studied diligently the last few weeks.