Marlon’s World

I am assuming that most people have already heard something about the shooting rampage that South Korean Cho Seung-Hui did in the Virginia Tech University in the US. It’s been THE news these past few days and I cannot help but marvel at how American media is spinning the story, as if the Korean guy (may he rest in peace) is the Evil Incarnate.

From interviewing his former roommates who described him as "weird," to talking to his teacher who thought of him "distant," to analyzing his "disturbing" plays, American media has done everything to caricature the fallen twenty-something as the villain of a soap opera of epic proportions. Cho’s profile has been scrutinized to the smallest detail, as if his green card would provide any clue on what the news reports labelled "a student-turned-sociopath."

An FBI agent who was asked what reasons Cho probably had for reacting the way he did, replied that knowing the cause was not important anymore since people like Cho — according to him — are led to commit such acts of violence after going through a series of difficult events in the past. Never mind that Cho’s letter spoke of the perpetual rich-versus-poor plot. He went on a killing spree and he’s a demented jerk.

From where I am standing, the whole story the media is trying to feed us has been exasperating, and even idiotic. While I do not wish to glorify Cho Seung-Hui, I neither would want to put the entire blame on him. All those people who were interviewed, those who said they have had a brush with Cho as a teacher or as a roommate or as a classmate, now assess the South Korean from hindsight. He’s always aloof, they said. He’s always strange.

But I ask now: did they even bother to look at the world from Cho’s perspective? Those who say that they have detected that something was going on with Cho, did they ever take any step to reach out to him? By reaching out I mean not just reporting him to the counseling office or saying an ephemeral hello, but instead trying to talk to him as a friend, as an equal. Did they even regard Cho as one of them, and not just an Asian who came to America to study English?

Two pieces of information struck me as odd. First, at the start of the reporting, no one seemed to know who the shooter was. Then, when it was reported that the he was Asian, everyone readily thought of Cho Seung-Hui as the perfect candidate that fits the profile.

This is how crass, unfeeling and anomic we have become. We identify people by the faults they make and not by their virtues. It is a tragedy of our times that we are taught to classify people, to look for divisions, to search for differences, to make sense of our frailties as human beings by analizing our defects. But it is even more tragic that by doing so, we come to segregate people who only wanted to belong and turn them to our own personal monsters whom we fear, loathe and do not care to understand at all.

Peace be to all the souls claimed by the tragedy. And peace be to Cho.          

Word is out that the Chinese government is requiring the people of Beijing to learn more English and improve the translation of public signs in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. An interesting move, really, considering that learning a new language in itself is already a difficult task. Multiply this scenario by a billion times and you’d understand the case of China, I’d suppose.

Nonetheless, the move could be channeled to the advantage of the Philippines, a proudly, self-proclaimed English-speaking nation in that part of Asia. For one, Philippine English is very accessible to beginners, as it does away with the elements that usually make English-language learning a nightmare among Asians (the British accent, the American twang, etc.) Also, it cannot be denied that learning English with a Filipino or in the Philippines is much cheaper than learning it in the US, Britain or Australia.

The question of efficiency, however, remains. That is, are Filipinos really competitive in teaching the language to non-English speakers? Do we know the English that other people want to learn? I have been thinking over these questions here in Spain because I have to admit that after two years of living with Spanish as my main tool for communication, my English has deteriorated significantly (16 vowels, be gone!). And to think that I used to work as a teacher of English! Added to this is fact that the Spaniards usually need to learn British English and, whether you like it or not, there are very different elements in these two varieties. Remember this Will and Grace episode?        

But over and above these superficial requirements, do we *really* know our English? And do we apply what we know whenever we have to use the language? Take some of these examples from the Friendster profile and blog of a Filipino teacher of English (who s/he was, I would not reveal):

• Struggle is just a butter of bread (wrong lexicalized expression),
• Amass your goals, then utilize it (wrong pronoun referent),
• People said, I’m intelligent and smart but, that’s just the outside characteristics of being me- based from my achievements (quoted speech and preposition use, among other things)
• We should have" esprit de corps" not "coup d’ etat". (I’ll put this one up as a bonus), ETC.

And the piece de resistance? In the "About Me" part, the author wrote that s/he is "Sedate, Thoughtful, Eloquent, Pleasant, Heedful, Amicable, Nifty, Innocuous, Extreme, Jovial, Inquisitive, Lively, Liable." Obviously, for the trained eye, the errors have just jumped out of the page.

Sedate, though it may mean calm and collected, gives the impression that the author was in previous state of shock and with the help of a tranquilizer, has achieved this new state of serenity. Innocuous, as far as I know, is better used in reference to things and not to people. After all, why proclaim that you’re harmless when in theory, all people should be like that? Extreme is vague and, when taken in the context of sports, can even mean dangerous. My personal favorite is liable, or for mortals like you and me, guilty. Did the author just admit that s/he is guilty? Of what, then?

Teaching English, or any language for that matter, does not depend on the amount of profound words one knows. Nay, it doesn’t even depend on the accent that one manages to produce. Remember that the main goal of learning a new language is to be able to communicate effectively with a native speaker.

The same applies to teaching language. If one goes as far as stretching the lexicon to lengths and heights so horrible that the resulting text becomes erroneous, probably there is a serious need to review and revive the curriculum and re-evaluate the performance of the teacher. Better yet and for the purposes of blogging, as the blogosphere is extremely far-reaching, why not try to write in the language that writer truly has mastered? After all, Filipino sounds as divine as any other language.