Joe says:
I'm in the third week of classes for my mid-career masters in international public policy and I'm quite easily the least experienced bloke in terms of actual international experience.
At a gathering lunch of my colleagues hosted by the Dean everybody stood up to describe their backgrounds. A network news producer, a high level Chinese diplomat, a UN worker who has spent the last year living in a tent in the Sudan, an Israeli army infantry brigadier general who until a few weeks ago was in the Gaza, a West Point Army major who spent a few years in Iraq, a JAG lawyer who handles Guantanamo detainee cases, a VP at J.P. Morgan, an Indonesian journalist, an Aussie diplomat who specializes in conflicts in war torn places, a Lebanese aid worker. The experiences are staggering.
Uh. And then there's me.
Here's the depth of my international experience:
1. I've heard of many of these foreign places.
2. I'm familiar with the wines and beers that originate from many of these foreign places.
The seminars are enlivened by the experiences of these other folks. I love to listen to and engage in the debates that go on between some of the international students and our U.S. military students. You might be surprised at the degree of commonality between their views. But unfortunately there is a tendency to suspiciously peg individuals as residing in one camp or the other. As in leftie or rightie camps. That's where recent public discourse has led us: the abandonment of the middle ground. That's often the lonely place that I find myself sitting. I've always found it hard to choose sides and stick with one. So I content myself with watching the volleys that get launched from the polar camps.
There's plenty to learn, obviously, from my international colleagues. I appreciate their directness. Perhaps there's something, too, that I can teach. About drinking, maybe, at the happy hour tonight.
Here are a couple of my favorite conversation snippets from my first weeks:
I was discussing the history of relations between Pakistan and India with one of my colleagues from India when she asked me whether I'd be able to travel to South Asia soon and I replied: "Boy, I don't know when I can away, but I'd like..."
"I'm a girl."
"What's that?" I said.
"I'm not a boy. I am a girl. A woman." She laughed.
I laughed, too and I explained that we stupid Americans preface many of our phrases with Man or Boy or God or Jeez. It's just a space holder before we figure out what really want to say. I said I really could've confused her if I called her "Jeez."
Do I haveta stop saying "Boy"? I guess maybe I haveta if I want to win over our international friends.
Oh, boy.
Yesterday I was in a hurry to get to the library along with a small crowd waiting on the elevator. There was a large gathering in the building lobby with students eating cookies and drinking coffee or tea. Not sure why.
When we piled into the elevator and the doors closed, one tall young American fellow asked, "Does anybody know what that was all about?"
I loved the Asian woman in the elevator and her sweetly direct reply:
"It's cookies and coffee and tea."
No other explanation required.
I had a similar experience when I took an executive level seminar at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. The classes were on understanding and being sensitive to Chinese and Japanese cultures. I was easily the youngest there, and it could have been intimidating, but I kept reminding myself that regardless of age and experience I was responsible for the contracts of our entire Asia-Pacific region and had to deal with these issues on a daily basis.
Posted by: Julie | September 20, 2006 at 08:30 AM
But are they as impressive as your cohorts your FIRST time around in graduate school? Now THERE was an intellectual bunch -- as you would expect of a group of people going for a Masters in Gilligan.
Posted by: Bob | September 20, 2006 at 09:08 AM