grade school blues

in grade school, back in my day, when we would get report cards, the teacher would handwrite your grades in scholarship and citizenship and then, make an earnest snippet of character appraisal of each pupil in neat, post-WWII babymaking boom-era cursive penmanship.

stylized pigeonhole judgements--made when you were 9-years-old and your personality was emerging into its destined formation while you played Foursquare, Dodgeball, and Unicorns with reckless abandon on the liminal cusp of tween-hood, a blink before adolescence and a semi-forgotten dream away from childhood--those reportcard judgements contain raw truths waiting to be unhusked and polished into a pearlescent grain of rice with your name improbably imprinted on it.

is one's destiny written in the stars by celestial beings and ancestral spirits? or is your destiny sincerely scripted on canary cardstock by pretty Mrs. O'Neill of the overflowing sympathy and coiffed ringlet mullet while you sat with your desk facing the wall on Movie Friday puzzling over a weeks' worth of overdue homework?

[Mrs. O'Neill if ever you come across this, i own up to being a delinquent GATE kid. as my sister said, it was challenging carrying around that big brain o'mine. so i have to admit to the petty theft of books. The Yearling and Professor Diggin's Dragons, i believe. i spose i ought to feel remorseful and ought to send you a copy, wherever you are, but ehhh, i don't and i won't.]

sigh. as ever...

Bright, but does not apply herself.

Lessons in Vinamese Decisionmaking Process

SITUATION: how to make a vinamese plan of action for a decision involving more than one person.

WHO: anyone who is impacted, anyone with experience, guests, neighbors, third parties, anyone with an opinion (does not have to be present to participate).

WHAT/HOW:

1. engage in lengthy crosscutting discussions with all parties. weigh out all the options and variations conceivable with unstated assumptions based on self's reality and way of thinking. multiple onsite/offsite side conversations as well, sometimes via telephone or third parties. decisionmaking process is influenced by who is most experienced, most vocal, and/or high status/elder.*

2. come to understanding and consensus on plan of action with all parties.

3. all parties must them come to consensus about which party implements decision or which person(s) will delegate implementation of decision and who is ultimate implementor(s). implementor(s) does not have to be affiliated with decisionmaking process. additionally, other parties will take action on auxiliary actions needed to satisfactorily accomplish decision, usually involves significant quantities of food.

4. because of culturally-based cosmological flexibility (i.e. the epistemological lack of Platonic diametric binaries, absolutist Cartesian logic common in simplistic Western way of thinking and capitalist cultural understanding of time whereas multiple truths and realities co-exist simultaenously layered with animist, ancestral, Daoist, Confucian, Buddhist beliefs in complex Vinamese way of thinking**), each individual walks away with entirely different interpretation of what consensus entailed based on own reality, preference & assumptions and who was the most vocal and influential vis-a-vis self.

IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS:
implementor can then take any or all of the following options:
a) implement own understanding of the decision based on own reality, interpretation, assumptions & preferences. if they were not affiliated with consensus process, they will implement own interpretation of delegator's own interpretation which will vary from original interpretative decision consensus.
b) be influenced into implementing variation of own interpretation of decision consensus--possibly, but not always, one previously discussed in the descionmaking process--by entirely unaffiliated opinionated people or circumstantial shifts or vagaries of Life, Supply, and Bureaucracy in Viet Nam.

RESULT:
once decision is implemented, regardless of outcome, have conversation rehashing, processing and sometimes arguing about decisionmaking process, any and all deviations from one's own interpretation of consensus decision until mutual understanding and satisfaction is reached. conversation can take place over extended spans of time and can involve any parties named above and occasionally, wholly irrelevant parties who will insert their opinions as to an alternative course of action.

CONCLUSIONS (or my trademark Choose-Your-Own-Moral™)

• it takes an extended family of at least 3 generations, plus kin (based on marriage alliances 3-4 generations removed), and give or take some community members, totalling approximately 42 people to get 15 people (4 Viet Kieu and 11 uncles, aunties & cousins) on a combi to go on a mini-vacation road trip 20 km away. the absolute number and who attends is subject to change given (un)affiliated opinionated people, circumstantial shifts or vagaries of Life, Supply, and Bureaucracy in Viet Nam.
• there is no absolute Truth or Reality. Reality and Truth are context based.
  
• linguistics & anthropology dual bachelor's degree and doctorate-track anthropology grad school are put to amusing if inconsequential use thereby justifying the incurred debt from student loans. use-per-wear theory of finance would indicate that this blog is worth $1 every time it is read.
  
• and that my friends, is how we won the wars...
  

anthropological notes
* an elder/high status person can exercise decisive authority and make an autocratic decision at any point in the process which nevertheless will be subject to vagaries of Life, Supply and Bureaucracy.
**a linguistic or grammatical analogy is the lack of universal definitive articles 'a' or 'the' in vinamese language. articles are context-based on the being of the noun and fluctuate ('con' animate, 'cai' inanimate, 'qua'/'o' form, 'cap'/'chiec' set) or be entirely omitted. pronouns are also based on kinship context and flux according to the reality/status of the person speaking and that of the indicated person and under certain contexts can be entirely omitted or personal names used in its stead.

Viet Nam | lessons in irreverence

things not to make merry about while in Viet Nam:

• Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum

  ...or your patriotic taxi driver might drop you off at the exit end of the gated 5 acre enclosure 10 minutes before closing

• family planning

  ...procreating is a serious matter that involves your goddesses, your ancestors, your kin, and the government (official VN policy is that women are sanctioned to have no more than two children, between the ages of 24-35.)

• innuendos (when around elders)

  ...elders are very, very, very earnest. bawdy humor is best left amongst vinamese peers.

• how many wives your uncle-in-law has

  ...particularly when he has two

• matchmaking

  ...funny for you, crushed expectations for your little stars & stripey-eyed cousin

• what ethnicity your beau is

  ...make one small joke to one person about 1/32nd and sheesh, seven years later all fourscore and seven of 'em think its gospel and every single detail is just confirmation

• what kind of meat you want for dinner

  mmm...mouse in point