If At First You Don’t Succeed

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In the spirit of America’s Independence week, I present to you this citizenship test.  Write down these ten questions from the U.S. citizenship test and answer them before you click on the answers.

In order to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, a person must correctly answer six of 10 randomly selected questions. Can you pass the test?

1. What are the colors of our flag?

2. How many stripes are there in the flag?

3. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?

4. What are the three branches of our government?

5. Can you name the original thirteen states?

6. What are the 49th and 50th states of the Union?

7. Who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner?”

8. Who signs bills into law?

9. What are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called?

10. In what month do we vote for the president?

How did you do?

If you didn’t do that well, you are not alone.  It seems many Americans are not too aware of our history, much less our current government leaders.  Consider this quote:

However, the names of some of our current leaders slipped the minds of a few, for example, the leader of the executive branch (President Barack Obama) and his second-in-command (Vice President Joe Biden) seemed even harder for some.

Not to worry, however.  These types of press reports regularly appear to remind us of our ignorance.  They perpetuate the stereotype that Americans are either (a) oblivious to what’s going on in the world and at home or (b) oblivious to what’s going on in the world and at home.  (The choices are the same on purpose.)  While it is true that many Americans may miss a lot of these basic questions, I don’t believe that we should jump to the most negative of conclusions.  After all, it’s hard to keep up with the knowledge that Barack Obama is the leader of the executive branch of government and Joe Biden is his second-in-command when we have to keep up with the Joneses and the Kardashians. (Yes, that is the sound of sar hitting casm.)

Question: Why do I still love America?

Answer: Our potential.

Happy Independence Day

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Today is the 4th of July (Fourth of July), a national holiday in the United States that commemorates America’s independence from Great Britain.  The Fourth of July is associated with traditional American food fare like hot dogs, hamburgers, and potato salad, outdoor grilling, baseball, picnics, fireworks, and parades.  The date coincides with the Continental Congress’ signing of the Declaration of Independence.  We associate this day with the only two future presidents to sign the document, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both of whom died on July 4th, 1826.  I guess you could say that was their independence day too!

John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail and declared his hopes for the national holiday:

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Well, we may not be quite as religious about the holiday.  We’re more apt to shoot off fireworks and eat too much. Nevertheless, watch this highlight from the annual Capitol Fourth celebration in Washington, DC and tell me you don’t feel a little fired up.  I’ve been to several of these celebrations in Washington, since I lived in the nation’s capital for nine years.  This patriotic music can get my blood circulating and my skin full of goosebumps. Performed by country singer, Reba McIntire.

I make no apologies for loving my country.  It’s that love for country that makes me criticize it so often.  I believe we can always do better.  I am reminded of the words of one of my mentors, J. William Fulbright, who said, “In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.”  He wrote one of the most important critiques of the Vietnam War in his book, The Arrogance of Power, on which my book, The Arrogance of American Power, is based.

If America has a service to perform in the world, and I believe it has, it is in large part the service of its own example. In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries, we are not only living off our assets and denying our own people the proper enjoyment of their resources; we are also denying the world the example of a free society enjoying its freedom to the fullest. This is regrettable indeed for a nation that aspires to teach democracy to other nations, because, as Burke said, “Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”

Andy Griffith: America’s Favorite

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Where do I start with the life of Andy Griffith?  He defined American culture for decades.  He was the Hollywood star that everyone liked, the man we hoped to meet someday on a trip North Carolina, where he made his home.  He was “our” Andy, a quintessential American TV and film star who never let his fame go to his head.  And boy did he define the character of America with “The Andy Griffith Show” (1960-1968).  The show featured Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor and included a cast of characters that we all could identify with as part of our own family or home towns.  We all know someone like the bumbling, can’t shoot straight Barney Fife.  We all have an Aunt Bee in our life, or wish we did.  Who doesn’t know a sweet little boy like Opie, played by the now famous Hollywood director, Ron Howard.  The show, shot in Hollywood, was set in the fictional Mayberry, North Carolina, small-town USA, modeled on Andy Griffith’s home town of Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Why did a show that featured two police officers in a town with practically no crime win America’s hearts?  Griffith said on CNN in 2003: “The basic theme of our show was love.  All the characters loved each other. And all the actors loved each other, too.”  You can see this love in the many YouTube episodes, including one of my favorites, Aunt Bee’s kerosene pickles.

In looking back at the shows, critics today say that the cast was too white (true), overly sentimental, and not reflective of the times.  Television has always functioned as an escape hatch for the American psyche, just as it also at times serves as a mirror to reflect our lesser selves onto us (Roots, All in the Family.)

Griffith represented an America we thought might never change.  He was the American we all wanted to be: good-humored, friendly, optimistic, decisive, a problem-solver with a can-do spirit.  Mayberry, North Carolina took us away from all the changes in the 1960s, the battles over race, the war in Vietnam, the rise of Rock and Roll and protest songs.  Sometimes we wanted to forget about the way things really were and take a trip to a small town where problems got solved in less than 30 minutes.  The New York Times‘ obituary on Andy Griffith is a great tribute.  Read some of the comments posted by the readers.  You’ll see why we are going to miss him.  For us Baby Boomer types, we all know Andy Griffith’s entire career and can whistle “The Andy Griffith Show” theme song.

Griffith would star in another show, “Matlock,” where once again he scored a big hit in the 1980s and 1990s, this time as a clever Atlanta-based lawyer who always got the bad guy and always seemed to wear the same suit.  Andy Griffith as Matlock reminds me of my mom and dad sitting in their side-by-side easy chairs in our family den in Birmingham, Alabama.  They never missed an episode and it warms my heart to think of the years my dad had in retirement watching not only “Matlock” but also “The Andy Griffith Show” in reruns on TV Land, the cable network that caters to the nostalgic who likes quality.

Andy Griffith died one day before our most patriotic holiday, Fourth of July.  How fitting, for he was America’s favorite son, father, sheriff, and lawyer.  He died in the early morning and was buried on his beloved Roanoke Island before noon.

If you want to see Andy Griffith’s acting range, then watch the 1957 film Elia Kazan directed, “A Face in the Crowd,” where Griffith plays an everyman turned demagogue named Lonesome Rhodes.  I love to show clips in class whenever I lecture on American propaganda and persuasion.  This film was a warning to America that we are easily duped, not only by the charismatic common man like Rhodes, but also by advertising and celebrity.  I’m afraid that we’re ever more like the Andy in “A Face in the Crowd” than we are like the Andy in “The Andy Griffith Show.”

The Busy Trap: Here and Everywhere

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Slow down, you move too fast.

I hope you aren’t too busy to read this latest post.  I recall sometime this year that my landlady in California said that I’m the busiest person she knows.  Wow, I thought, that must mean I’m doing something important.  On second thought, it could have meant that I’m like many Americans, including herself, who is preoccupied with, well occupations.  We’re too busy to care, too busy to bother, too busy to matter, too busy to know that we’re too busy.  Get the picture?

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.

Tim Kreider, The Busy Trap, New York Times

Do you feel like you are too busy?  Knowing your life as a full-time student, I would imagine that you must feel too busy.  How do you find time for yourself?  In an educational setting where the brain is on overdrive, we must take time to stop and enjoy the hollyhocks or just listen to the sage advice of Simon and Garfunkel or Mac Davis.  Now go grab that cup of matcha latte and relax.

For Love of Humans and Cats

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This is such a sweet story about Japanese-American Dale Araki and his wife Shoko.  The couple have a strong attachment to each other and to their cats, Suki and Yaki.  They also give some great life lessons about surviving and thriving in a cross-cultural relationship:

What is intercultural marriage to you?

Dale: It’s like double-mint gum. You double your pleasure, you double your fun, there’s also double misunderstanding!  On the positive side, you double everything.          

Shoko: That makes life richer. Another good point is — if we were both Japanese, I might have thought, “No, I can’t continue the relationship anymore,” but in an intercultural marriage, I can think like “Misunderstanding occurs because of cultural factors, not because of one’s character.” A concept such as “kuuki o yomu” (literally, “read the air”) exists only in Japanese culture. A relationship won’t work out if you think of trying to make yourself understood without saying anything. You have to speak up and express yourself in words.                                        

Dale: We’re like a reference to our former students who get married to foreigners. When I ask my students what they think of intercultural marriage, they say things like “It’s fun” and “gaijins are more romantic.” But it’s not for everyone. It requires a lot of work, understanding, more patience, sense of humor — to really make it work.

Of course when I read about Dale, Shoko, Suki and Yaki, I thought of one of my favorite songs growing up: “Sukiyaki” by A Taste of Honey.  I did not know that the American Sukiyaki song was based on the Japanese original, Sukiyaki, which was sung by Kyu Sakamoto under the title “Ue o Muite Aruko” (I will walk looking up).  If you watch the Sakamoto video, you will see that it is anything but glamorous.  He is walking in a very industrial setting.  As my historian friend, Yuko Konno, explained to me in an email:  “As you can see in the video of ‘Sukiyaki,’ there’s a working-class theme here.  This was a time when Japan was experiencing rapid economic growth supported by cheap labor from rural areas.  Sakamoto’s songs appealed to these lonely young men and women.  His songs are both sad and forward-looking — sad because of loneliness, hard work, and simply the pain of living, and yet forward-looking because (I assume) Japan’s economy was doing well.”  Well put, Konno-sensei!

Oh, and as a cat lover, I couldn’t resist buying a little substitute cat.

Nora Ephron (1941-2012)

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Nora Ephron (1941-2012) 

Nora Ephron is dead.  I find that a bit hard to believe because (a) I didn’t know she was ill and (b) she wasn’t that old where one started asking, “Gee, I wonder if s/he is still alive?”  Ephron was a 1962 graduate of one of the Seven Sisters, Wellesley College, in Massachusetts.  This link is her 1996 Wellesley Commencement address and you’ll find it very entertaining, which is what we all know about Ms. Ephron.  You can also read about her thoughts regarding aging here.

Nora Ephron was a Renaissance woman: novelist, writer, film director, comedian, playwright, and Huffington Post blogger.  She is remembered for many memorable films, Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, all three of which received Academy Award nominations for best original screenplay, and Heartburn, about her marriage breakup with Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein.

I’m very sad about the passing of Ms. Ephron, who I had the pleasure of hearing speak in 2009.  She introduced her good friend Arianna Huffington at a Manhattan event where Arianna was about to be presented with a lifetime achievement award.  Ephron was side-splitting funny.  She had no off button, as you will hear in the commencement address.  She is that unusual type of person, a real “woman’s woman.”  We don’t have enough of these women in the world: strong, funny, vulnerable in that secure way of knowing she is smart.  Ephron wrote and spoke from a woman’s point of view, which isn’t a bad thing.  She made women feel really good about being women.  I will miss her and am sorry she is gone at 71.  What stories did she have left to tell?  We won’t know.

Vogue Propaganda

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Vogue Propaganda

Fashion-backward Propaganda

Last week I watched a documentary film from 2009 that profiles Anna Wintour and the American edition of Vogue magazine as it prepares for its annual most important fall fashion issue.  It’s called The September Issue and I highly recommend it if you are at all curious about the British-born editor-in-chief Wintour, who nevertheless remains an enigmatic figure behind those enormous sunglasses.  (The only person I have strong positive feelings for in the documentary is creative director Grace Coddington, without whom Anna Wintour would have her goose cooked.)  The Hollywood version of the diva-in-chief is The Devil Wears Prada (2006) starring Meryl Streep as the Wintour character and Anne Hathaway as her assistant.  (The 2003 book on which the film is based was written by Wintour’s former assistant Lauren Weisberger.)

In February 2011, Vogue published a very flattering profile of the lovely, fashion-forward Asma al-Assad, married to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” She is the first lady of Syria.

Syria is known as the safest country in the Middle East, possibly because, as the State Department’s Web site says, “the Syrian government conducts intense physical and electronic surveillance of both Syrian citizens and foreign visitors.” It’s a secular country where women earn as much as men and the Muslim veil is forbidden in universities, a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings, but its shadow zones are deep and dark.

You can see from the article that the profile avoids the horrific human rights record of the Assad regime.  After the Syrian uprisings began in spring 2011, Vogue pulled the article from its online archive but you can read the original here.  (The Internet always allows such things to show up again somewhere.)  It has been reported that the global PR firm Brown Lloyd James arranged for this positive propaganda piece to help soften the image of the Assad family in the Western media.  The United Nations estimates that up to 11,000 Syrians have been killed in the uprisings, primarily civilian protesters but also armed combatants fighting the Syrian army.

Take this as a lesson in bad timing and fashion-backward reporting.

Lights of Japan

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Lights of Japan

What the world needs now is the light of “Resilience.” With thanks to people all over the world, we would like to create things that serve as lights to the world. This film was created for “Japan Night,” a side event of World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 at Davos.

Come for the music. Stay for the story.  This beautiful short film, Lights of Japan, must be seen by more people than those lonely few who visit the Japanese Government Internet TV site.  I have a feeling Lights of Japan has been seen exclusively by a select group of the world’s elite cozying up at Davos.  That’s not good enough.  It must be seen by the masses, because it’s the elite and the masses who are going to rebuild Japan.

When I asked my Sophia students if they had seen the film, they all said no.  Hmm, I thought.  Why is this such a hidden gem?  I realize that it was made for Japan Night at Davos, but it is a public domain film or it wouldn’t be linked to the Japanese government website.

The Japanese government produced the film with private partners and the film production quality is high.  The problem is the distribution, which is a critical part of the planning for any film.  If Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message,” still applies, then the message of Lights of Japan is suffering due to poor media distribution.  You won’t find this film on YouTube (yet), nor will you find it easily on the Internet.  I had to dig and dig until I found the “Japanese Government Internet TV” webpage.  Believe me, that URL does not glide off one’s tongue.

Watch the film and tell me what you think.  What’s your favorite scene?  Mine is that lengthy pause before Nobuyuki Tsujii starts playing the first notes on the restored piano.  The classical music is extraordinary and the first time I watched this I had tears in my eyes.  It is truly inspirational to watch the resilience of the Japanese people a year after the earthquake and tsunami.  The message of resilience and hope is a message that is ripe for the world, so I hope the world will see this.

Weird Japan: Cool Japan or Just Weird?

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Weird Japan: Cool Japan or Just Weird?

21st Century Japan

It is very true that many people outside of Japan laugh at the popular culture videos,  game shows, news, and photos.  So, if foreigners think that some of the J-Pop is weird, is that good for Japan’s image?  I think it is, because the bottom line is that you are garnering global attention.  Lady Gaga is a weird American and that doesn’t stop her one bit from upping her Twitter follower numbers.  Now I don’t think “weird Japan” will garner more support for Japan’s government policies, but at least it intensifies curiosity.

I do have an issue with the baby doll look of a lot of these adult women pop stars.  Doesn’t it feed a stereotype of the Asian female in general and Japanese woman in particular as someone to be dominated and controlled?  Am I just being extreme here in my theory?  You tell me.   I think that the West still gazes across the Pacific to the East and finds it a place of mystery and exotic adventure.  We hold a lot of stereotypical images in our heads, both positive and negative, about the Asian region of the world.  How can we get to know each other with more honest eyes?

21st Century China

Asian-Americans Dominate New Immigrants

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Asian-Americans Dominate New Immigrants to US

A new Pew Research Center survey, “The Rise of Asian Americans,” finds some startling changes in immigration patterns to America.  A decade ago, 19% of immigrants to the United States were Asians and 59% were Hispanics.  That’s all changed. In 2010, 36% of all new immigrants were from Asian countries and 31% were Hispanics.  The face of America is changing once again.  The Pew study concludes: “Asian Americans are the best-educated, highest-income, fastest-growing racial group in the country.” Consider the statistic on higher education attainment.  Almost 7 out of 10 Asian immigrants to the U.S. from either South Korea or Japan will have their bachelors, according to the Pew study:

Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.  In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.

That does not mean that everything is rosy for Asian Americans.

CNN.COM

The survey noted that Indian-Americans stand out in the personal importance they place on parenting – 78% of them said being a good parent is one of the most important things to them personally.

Korean-Americans are the most likely to say discrimination against their group is a major problem, and they are the least likely to say that their group gets along very well with other racial and ethnic groups.

What do you think of the study’s findings?