Friday, December 30, 2011

Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education


A recent meeting with my old classmate Suresh Canagarajah brought back memories of my days at The University of Texas at Austin. After starting my doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Spring, 1986, I had transferred to UT at Austin in Fall, 1986. I enrolled at the Foreign Language Education Center (FLEC) and taught Freshman Writing at the English Department to support myself because FLEC had no financial aid.


FLEC had about 150 graduate students, at Masters and doctoral level. Only three full time staff members served this enormous student body. We went to other academic departments for coursework and to find members of our theses committees. Intellectually, FLEC was comatose. There was a student association, but it did little more than organize social events.


Being a foreign student, and not being Caucasian, I was a minority twice removed. Looking back, I realize that foreign students were expected to be seen and not heard, to quietly and obediently finish their degrees and go away. But, I was impatient. Teaching at the English Department and hobnobbing with the graduate students there, I saw how intellectually stimulating that department was. Something had to be done, so  I came up with the idea of a student journal.


I couldn't do this alone. So I gathered a group of friends, among them Suresh (a fellow Sri Lankan) and Lakshmi Gudipati, an Indian student who was my neighbor in Graduate Student Housing. I did not think that the leaders of the student association had the initiative to start a journal or the competence to run it, so I decided to form a Journal Committee. The first step was to find the money. Lynn Denton, who worked part-time for the Texas State Government, knew about fundraising and she and  I worked on a grant proposal. 


We met often in the Fall of 1987 and I worked the Committee members hard, leading one to stay away from meetings accusing me of being controlling. But, he came back. The student association mounted a virulent opposition to the Journal Committee, wanting the Committee to be part of the association. An open meeting was held, at which I was present, and various accusations were made against me. But I was stubborn and insisted on the Journal Committee's independence. The President of the student association was an old friend of FLEC's Director, so support from the professors became lukewarm.


I marvel at how daringly ambitious we were. Only I had any experience in academic publishing (and that too had been a book review), we knew little about word processing, none of us owned a personal computer, and were facing strong opposition from some classmates - the office bearers of the student association - and little if any support from our professors. What was I thinking?


On Lynn's advice, the funding proposal was sent to the RGK Foundation of Austin. We only asked for the first year's funding, and were overjoyed to receive $3,000 (a princely sum those days, especially to a group of students). We became doubly energized. I came up with a name for the journal. I wanted "Texas" and "Foreign Language Education" in the name and preferred not to make the journal intimidating to novice scholars (such as graduate students) who would be our authors and readers. So I inserted "Papers" into the title. The acronym, TPFLE, is awkward and I did not expect it to catch on, but it has.


We distributed a Call for Papers ("information for Contributors") and submissions trickled in. Lynn and I would co-edit the first two issues. We, mainly Suresh and I, reviewed the papers and got the authors to revise. We also included a book review. Taking turns, we used computer labs to word process the manuscripts. I did most of the work.  Expecting the Journal Committee to continue beyond our stay in Texas, I even wrote a constitution for the Committee.


Finally, the big day arrived. We scheduled a launch party and invited the authors of the first issue, classmates all of them, to attend. Suresh, who picked up the copies from the printer, told me that Professor John Bordie, the Director of FLEC, hugged him when he saw Suresh walk into FLEC with boxes filled with copies of the journal. (I had never seen Bordie hug anybody!). Most of our classmates turned-up to buy copies, duly autographed by the authors! (No one asked for my autograph!)


Later, Lynn and I visited the RGK Foundation with a few copies of the first issue. Mrs. Ronya Kozmetsky, a Director and the wife of the founder, seemed overjoyed to see the journal. She said that we had exceeded her expectations and that the copies would be displayed on the coffee table of the Foundation's reception area so that all visitors could admire them. 


I stayed on the Committee till the second issue in Fall, 1988. Suresh and Vicki Cobb co-edited Volume 2. As we graduated and moved on, Elizabeth Mitchell continued to edit and manage the journal for a few more years. Other, new students joined the Journal Committee and continued to bring issues out. Professors, too, began to publish in the journal and it began to attract submission from beyond UT at Austin. The journal has now gone online, and the Summer, 2011, issue could be seen at http://www.edb.utexas.edu/education/tpfle/


A student-run journal is quite challenging because the editors come and go, and they have no experience in the complex process of editing and publishing a journal, let alone publishing an article on their own. Without some form of supervision and encouragement from professors, continuation is hard to maintain. But, 23 years after it began, the journal is doing well.


In the end, I did receive some recognition for all my hard work. The student association of FLEC now conducts an annual conference, and, in 2006, I was a keynote speaker. Prof. Elaine Horwitz, who had been my academic advisor as well as a faculty member on the original Journal Committee, recalled my work glowingly when she introduced me.


What of the Journal Committee members? Lynn Denton, my co-editor, became a Pro-Vice Chancellor of Texas Tech University, and now works for an NGO in Switzerland. Michael Baldzikowski teaches in Germany. Suresh Cangarajah became the editor of the best known journal in applied linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, and is now an endowed Professor at Pennsylvania State University. Victoria (Vicky) Cobb, now Westacott, is the Director of the Writing Center at Alfred University in upstate New York. Lakshmi Gudipati teaches at a Community College in Philadelphia. Elizabeth Mitchell is at ETS (Educational Testing Services) in New Jersey. I have not been able to trace David Edwards.


I spent three years on my doctoral studies at UT at Austin. In the first year, as the President of the Sri Lanka Students Association, I revived the Association, making links with the wider community, conducting numerous social and sporting events, keeping the peace between Sinhala and Tamil students, and raising funds to establish four scholarships for Sri Lankan students. In the second year, I worked on TPFLE. In the third and final year, I my completed my research, wrote the dissertation, and graduated. I was still taking courses in Summer, 1989, my last semester. And, all this time, I was teaching Freshmen English and  tutoring athletes to make a living. It was hard, but much harder on Fawzia and Roy.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Orangutans, steam railway & white water rafting - A visit too Kota Kinabalu

Why Kota Kinabalu (KK)? Two reasons. Mount Kinabalu and orangutans. Mount Kinabalu is the highest peak in South East Asia at 13,450 feet. I wanted to climb it. I also wanted to see orangutans. Because I described that in the previous blog entry, I won't go into it here.


So I booked a 9-day trip to KK, setting aside 3 days for Mount Kinabalu. But the more I read about it, the more difficult the climb seemed. I also saw a documentary on NHK in which a group of Japanese climbers, taking a circuitous route, took 5 days to reach the top. Not being in the best of health, I began to have doubts. Diabetics were advised on various websites not to attempt the climb, and I chickened out. But, at the back of my mind, I want to go back and make an attempt.


Hong Kong is cool at this time of the year and KK is hot and humid, averaging 33 degrees during the day. The Le Meridien Hotel, where I stayed for 5 nights, turned out to be conveniently located downtown. Because I had a Club room with a sea view, the calm sea spread before me, a hazy blue in the morning turning a deep blue as the day wore on. A deep blue sea spread before me! What a treat!


Down below, across the street, was a bustling market. This was the view from my 10th floor room. The photo of the sunset was taken from the Club Lounge, where i went for breakfast, and, in the afternoon, for snacks and drinks.  





I had read about the North Borneo Steam Railway that ran from KK. Back in 1959-60, in Sri Lanka, my brother and I traveled to school on a steam railway. (I blogged about this in 2008.) The unmistakable sound of a steam train - "shush, shush, shush"- with a rising crescendo, the piercing steam whistle, the clatter of the rails, the sooty engine, the smoke streaming past the carriages, the coal dust that got into our eyes when we popped our heads out of the window, the stops for taking in water for the engine. The nostalgia for steam trains fills my heart. No way was I going to miss a trip on the North Borneo train.


So there I was, standing beside the gleaming carriage, made in Japan in 1970, being pulled by an engine made in Britain in 1896. The engine is powered by firewood, not coal. Smartly dressed attendants in crisp uniforms and pith helmets welcomed and guided the guests to their seats.


The journey itself was uneventful. Despite Malaysia's rising prosperity (the roads are cluttered with cars), many people live in poverty, and numerous stilt houses built on what looked like mosquito filled swamps could be seen from the train. We also passed through a forest reserve. Two stops at small towns - Putatan and Kinarut were probably uncalled for. They had rustic wooden buildings and a slower paced lifestyle, and may have appealed to a Western traveler, but not to me. Almost all the traders at these towns were Chinese immigrants. At Papar, our destination 38 kms from KK, I glimpsed a Chinese herbalist in his "pharmacy", weighing herbs for some patients. What made him stay back in this small town, eking out a living, when he could have returned to a prospering China?

















In Sri Lanka, the steam engines had been named after former British Governors when the country was a colony. Ten years after independence, the engines still carried a plaque with those names: Sir Fredrick North, Sir Edward Barnes, Sir Hercules Robinson ... This helped us to tell the engines apart. 


One day, the engine driver allowed us to board the engine, marvel at the gauges of the controls, and peer into the furnace where the coal was burned. It was hot and the fireman worked bare bodied, sweat streaming down his body, shoveling coal from the tender to the furnace, non-stop. I saw a similar furnace in the North Borneo engine. Instead of coal, stacks of wood were piled in the tender.























Much hype was made of the "tiffin" lunch. Tiffin is a colonial term for the lunch that was brought from home to office workers. The office worker's lunch would be collected from his home by a cyclist who would deliver it to the worker at his office. It's still used in India and to some extent in Sri Lanka. The tiffin lunch on the train came in a stack of stacked tin bowls. A mixture of cuisines, although, at the price I paid, a la carte lunch would have been better.





Running a train, especially a tourist train on a steam engine operating twice a week, is expensive. I understand that the North Borneo railway was reborn ten years ago as a joint venture between a tourist resort and the Sabah State Railway. Thanks to them, I enjoyed a journey down memory lane.


An added bonus for staying at the Le Meridien was the nearby Warisan Square, a haven for "spas", really massage places. I love a good massage, so I visited four of these places. The Rafflseia, which employed Balinese masseurs to provide Balinese massage, was easily the best. I also visited Le Borneo, Blue Lagoon, and Helen's. Some of these places employed Filipinos. 


When I felt like eating out, I went to Secret Recipe,  a chain restaurant which served authentic South east Asian fare as well as Western food. I had Vietnamese beef noodles, Malaysian satay, Thai Tom Yung soup, Singaporean laksa, and Australian beef tenderloin, all equally good. They even had sugar free chocolate cake!



On a Sunday, I walked to the Sunday Market. People had set up what appeared to be hundreds of stalls, selling everything from handicrafts, food, jewellery, pets, clothing. The aisles were crowded, the atmosphere was festive.





A few years ago, I visited Hong Kong's Ocean ark with some visitors from Sri Lanka. I am not fond of roller coasters, but I took a number of rides because I wanted to experience them at least once in my life. The excitement and exhilaration of those rides were brought back when I took a white water rafting trip down Kiulu River. This trip was not on my agenda because I don't enjoy being on the water. I can't swim, and I have heard or read about too many drownings to, in fact, fear water. 


So, I went with some trepidation. The company I went with, Riverbug, turned out to be very safety conscious. The guide on the raft, Adam, was skilled, and knew the river well. It was a Grade I/II river, at beginner level, and there were families on other rafts with young children. Because the river was high that day, we rafted for 15 kms, often on fast flowing but calm water, but sometimes on rapids. I became so confident that, on Adam's urging, I jumped int the water and floated downstream, what they call "body rafting". Of course, the ample life jacket kept me safe, although I got nervous when i began to drift downstream faster than the boat. The orangutans were nice, but this was the high point of my trip to KK. I want to return for a Grade III/IV trip down another river.




For the sake of variety, I stayed four nights at the Shangri La, Tanjung Aru. An overpriced hotel with a smallish room. Even the beach appeared to be man made. The above view was from my 6th floor room.



I went for a walk just outside the hotel, and found this deserted beach. Miles of walking and I got sunburned. Would have been nice in the evening but I wasn't sure how safe it would be.


Shangri La's Rasa Ria resort, where I went to see orangutans at their "rehabilitation place", I saw a real beach. The photo at the bottom was also taken at Rasa Ria.


Monday, December 26, 2011

Orangutans

Orangutans fascinate me. In Malay, "orang" means man and "utan" means forest. Man of the forest, and nothing could be more apt for this lovable creature. They can walk upright, are gentle and peaceful, and appear to have no enemies except man. And man has been cruel. Rampant deforestation in Sumatra and Borneo and the killing of mothers to steal the babies (who are then sold as pets) have decimated their numbers. While I was in KK, I read a newspaper report of orangutan being kept in small, filthy cages, like the bears kept in captivity in China for their bile. According to one estimate, only 22,000 forest-dwelling orangutans are left in Borneo and a mere 5,000 in the vast island of Sumatra. 


One aim of my trip to Kota Kinabalu was to see orangutans. But they are hard to see in the wild. In Sri Lanka, wild elephants congregate near waterholes, especially during the dry season, so can be observed in hundreds. This isn't the case with orangutans. A guide in Kota Kinabalu told me that in seven visits to the forest, she had only spotted two orangutans. So, I had to visit a rehabilitation center and a wildlife park.


The Shangri La Rasa Ria Hotel has a Nature Reserve, where, in their own words, "you'll meet our famous Orangutans, rescued animals who stay with us for a few years so they can return to the wild and thrive." It's 64 acres in extent.


I paid MR65 to visit the reserve and there were about 20 visitors that morning. As I was walking up to the observation platform, and even before I had my camera ready, I saw an orangutan hanging to the trunk of a tree within touching distance of the visitors. We were told that she was Ulan, a 3-year old female who had been rescued from a home where she was kept as a pet.



Soon, another orangutan, a females, appeared, but she kept her distance from the visitors. After about 10 minutes, she disappeared into the forest, leaving Ulan to entertain us. And entertain she did.


Ulan climbed trees, rocked dangerously on feeble looking (dead) branches, tore off handfuls of leaves (although she ate only a few of them), and, at least five times, attempted to mingle with the visitors. When she was stopped by the rangers, she lay down and banged her head on the platform floor. I found this behavior startling. I've seen children do this (a "temper tantrum") or it could also be the result of stress or severe frustration. Or, Ulan may have learned this from a human child. The behavior was distressing and I wondered whether she could be rehabilitated to the wild. 


Two sets of visitors are admitted to the reserve, about 20 in the morning and the same number in the afternoon, around feeding time. If Ulan is to be rehabilitated, she needs to be as far away from people as possible. I am no expert on orangutans, but I have enough common sense to realize that Ulan's yearning for human company will not help her to assimilate to forest life. Is Shangri La being unethical here, aiming only for profit? Why do they promote their orangutans so much?





























Towards the end of our visit, Ulan sat on the platform and began to spread leaves around her. Was she playing at building a nest?



I don't like zoos because the animals are caged and, for the most part, lead miserable lives. Some zoos masquerade as "wildlife parks", so I wasn't sure what awaited me at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.  went there by taxi and paid MR100 for the driver to wait 2 hours. The entrance fee was only MR20. The park also sheltered elephants, bears, monkeys, two Malayan tigers, deer, birds, and reptiles. I was happy to see some barking deer and observe them at leisure. Over the past 15 years, I may have spotted them perhaps five times around Sai Kung, but they are shy and disappear quickly.

Among Asian countries, the best zoo is undoubtedly Singapore's, where animals have ample space to range freely. For many Asians, animals are either to be eaten or feared as dangerous, wild beasts, to be kept in cages, taunted, and treated badly. But, at Lok Kawi, not all animals were in cages.

All the photos below are from Lok Kawi.

 

The orangutan enclosure had five animals. We sat on a bench and spent more than an hour watching them. I thought the biggest one was the alpha male, but he turned out to be a female and the only baby's mother. The baby not sure if a male or female), after much somersaulting and rolling around, went to the mother and persuaded her to give him/her a ride on her back. As the mother climbed a pole, she reached back to make sure that the baby was firmly on her back. This was a tender, very human gesture.


The other orangutans appeared to be bored, mostly lying around in the sun.  Occasionally, one would pick himself up to swing from a rope. Of course, had there been trees, they would have been more active. But, at Rasa Ria, I saw the quantity of leaves an orangutan could tear off, so the trees would not have lasted long.





 



Monday, December 12, 2011

Who remembers "Sai Kung District Link"?

Even before I bought a house in Sai Kung, I would visit to have a meal friends, and pick up the latest issue of Sai Kung District Link around town. It was a small magazine, about 6 x 20 cms, and stated prominently on the cover  that it was "Sponsored by the Sai Kung District Council for the English Speaking Community". A District Council actually spending money on the Gweilo community? What a surprise. Sai Kung must be a friendly place where Hong Kong Chinese people actually cared to speak English.


The District Link that I feature here, Issue No. 51, was put out by a group of volunteers led by Sonja Walker. The contents page lists an Editorial, Christmas Quiz, Moneys in our Midst, Year of the Monkey,  (it was the Year of the Monkey), Art Classes, Local Profile (a much slimmer Wayne Parfitt, the owner of Pepperonis, Jaspas, etc), Restaurant Review (of The Steal Expert, now long gone), District Link Directory (listing everything from Alternative Therapy to Wine, running to 16 pages), a street map of Sai Kung, District Notebook (announcements by the District Council), Beads Galore, Sai Kung Pre-School Group, Explore Sai Kung, Walk ("to burn off some of those festive excesses", Gardening Society, and Useful Numbers (of the Police, Fire Services, etc). Scattered across the pages were small black & white photographs. I used the list almost every week, and photocopied the map for friends who were meeting me in Sai Kung for a meal.


The District Link ceased to exist when Explore Sai Kung, a worthy replacement came along. Explore Sai Kung is also gone now, unable to meet the relentless commercialism of Sai Kung magazine, edited by people who don't live in Sai Kung. This is one magazine I no longer read.























Who remembers the store on Chan Man Street that sold artifacts from New Zealand? Or the dispensary on the same street? Or the replica furniture store and the spa that eventually replaced the dispensary? Or the store at the corner of Man Nin & Yi Chun, which sold clothes? Or the gambling grannies (opposite Jaspas)? Already, I feel like a relic from the past.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

A quick visit to Wong Chuk Yeung village

With corrupt developers on its heels and the story making front page banner headlines, I thought another visit to Wong Chuk Yeung was overdue. I last blogged about this in April, to which a few former villagers or descendants had responded. (I only saw these comments last evening). My last visit to the village was in early June when I saw clear signs of the developer's activity. No houses had been pulled down but the surrounding shrub had been cleared and evidence of 4-wheel drive vehicles was everywhere. 

I went with some trepidation. What if the developer has taken over and a "Private Property - No Entry" sign barred my way? What if there were fierce guard dogs, like those found on fish farms and building sites? 


I need not have worried. The village looked even more deserted. The lone mailbox was overflowing, as usual, and the two wild-looking dogs that are companions to the lone survivor Mr. Lee slunk away after a few half-hearted barks. For the first time, I observed some graffiti, in English, scratched prominently at the entrance to the village. This may be the work of the "war games" nuts, who, according to a newspaper report, invade the village on weekends. In fact, the 4-wheel drive tracks may have been caused by the same people.


Mr. Li's doorstep was littered with trash, as always, and a few clothes were drying on the bushes close to an outdoor tap. Another heap of trash could be seen a few yards away. Wild flowers were blooming and the path that led to the abandoned fields nearby was choked with weeds. No one appears to have walked that way in months. I could not see any sign of developer activity.


So, to Keith, danfan and others who left comments on my blog entry of April 10, all I can say is that your old village is still intact, but could it be the calm before the storm? Hong Kong developers are vultures and, despite the newspaper reports, they could be lurking and working behind the scenes to take over the village.




























I have to pass this mysterious gate on the way to Wong Chuk Yeung. The gate has been freshly painted and a small white car, which I have observed driving up every morning towards the village, was parked in front. On my way back, the car was gone and, peering through the mailbox slit, I saw a well-kept village house within the compound. The new paint bothers me. Is this the developer's first step towards acquiring the village? Is this a so called "agricultural land" which is actually a hoax that developers use for their land grabs at ridiculously low prices? Or am  becoming paranoid?


For Wong Chuk Yeung, I believe the best solution is for the government to buy and preserve it as a remnant of old Hong Kong, so that the younger Hong Kongers could see for themselves the hardships that previous generations endured without cell phones, a bus or train service, and not a convenience store within miles. The Sheung Yiu Museum in Pak Tam Chung, meant to showcase a bygone lifestyle in the New Territories, is nothing when compared to Wong Chuk Yeung.