Vietnamese Government Approved Bob Dylan Lyrics

In a memorandum from the ministry of communications, the Bob Dylan show scheduled for April 10 has been approved, but with revisions to some of Mr. Dylan's original lyrics. This has caused great consternation amongst many long and loyal Dylan fans in Vietnam as many of the songs were popular during a time of great national struggle. In response to these concerns, the Ministry has issued the following statement and approved lyric:

"The appearance of Mr. Robert Zimmerman (AKA: Bob Dylan) and his band will indeed be a watershed event in Vietnamese history. Some of Mr. Zimmerman's early songs played an important part in Vietnam's struggle for independence but the passing of 50 years has made many of his lyrics difficult for young Vietnamese people to understand. Working with top Ph.D.s from our most prestigious universities, we have carefully re-crafted and updated his lyrics to be more like what a Vietnamese student may have actually learned in school. Understanding also, that many of Mr. Zimmerman's lyrics are intended to employ 'poetic license' we have either left phrases alone, or substituted more contemporary American idioms from a bunch of idiom books we had lying around the office. We believe these lyrics accurately depict the author's feelings to today's Vietnamese audience and will be pleased to hear them sung in a contemporary socialist context." - The Ministry

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright


It ain’t no usto sit and wonder why, babe


It is of no value to sit and be confused about the circumstances, young lady


It don’t matter, anyhow


It is not of any importance in any case.


An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe


And it is no longer of any purpose to sit and ponder things that already are, adolescent female


If you don’t know by now


If you are not already aware of this fact


When your rooster crows at the break of dawn


When your male chicken sings as the sun comes up


Look out your window and I’ll be gone


Look out your window and I will have vacated the premises.


You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on


Because of you I am now in transit


Don’t think twice, it’s all right


Do not consider this two times, there are no anomalies here.


It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe


It is of no purpose to turn on your torch, young female


That light I never knowed


That torch I have never been familiar with.


An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe


And it is of no purpose to turn on your torch, young female


I’m on the dark side of the road


I am on the side of the road that has less light than the other side


Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say


Still I wish that you would do something or say something


To try and make me change my mind and stay


To try and make me change my mind and hang around for a bit


We never did too much talkin’ anyway


You and I were never very conversational in the first place


So don’t think twice, it’s all right


So do not consider this two times, there are no anomalies here.


It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal


It is of no purpose to call out my name, young woman.


Like you never did before


As if you had ever done that previously


It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal


It is of no purpose to call out my name, young woman.


I can’t hear you anymore


I can't hear you anymore.


I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ all the way down the road


I am thinking and wondering all the way down the road


I once loved a woman, a child I’m told


I once had improper sexual relations with an underage female I am told


I give her my heart but she wanted my soul


I gave her a lot of money but she wanted a house in America and a credit card and many, many things


But don’t think twice, it’s all right


But do not consider this two times, there are no anomalies here


I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe


I am walking down a road that does not have any other people on it, young lady.


Where I’m bound, I can’t tell


I do not have any f*&@#$% idea where I am going.


But goodbye’s too good a word, gal


But the word 'goodbye' is a much better word than I should use here, young woman.


So I’ll just say fare thee well


So I will just say goodbye anyway because that's the only English word I know that means goodbye.


I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind


I have not said that you treated me poorly.


You could have done better but I don’t mind


You screwed me over pretty badly but I do not care in any case.


You just kinda wasted my precious time


But I thought you were extremely time consuming and generally high maintenance.


But don’t think twice, it’s all right


But do not consider this two times, there are no anomalies here.


(additional suggestion)


With sincere thanks,


Robert

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

Vietnamese Govt Approved Bob Dylan Lyrics: "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"

On 10 April, Bob Dylan will play Vietnam for the first time in Ho Chi Minh City at RMIT University. In preparation for his visit, the Vietnamese Censorship Authority has asked the RMIT English department to revise the lyrics to be linguistically, and grammatically correct for Vietnamese students. Below are the party approved lyrics for Mr.Dylan to sing to his song "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright":

It is of no use whatsoever to sit and question the circumstances, young lady.
It has now become a moot point.
And it is also futile, to sit and be curious about what already is so, miss mature adolescent female,
if you had not been aware of this previously.
When your male chicken sings as the sun comes up,
look out your window and I will have abandoned the premises.
It is because of you that I am now in transit.
Don't think the same thought double the number of times one might ordinarily think. 
There are no anomalies here.


Click above for full original lyrics.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Interpersonal Neurobiology: Yes, the mind can change.

IPNB: The idea that our personal relationships shape our brain and in turn our reactions and impressions in life. Positive reinforcement and relationships in life actually grow new neural pathways over old ones that may have been damaged by negative influences earlier in life, thus changing our perceptions from negative to positive.

"Interpersonal Neurobiology, a term coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, studies the way the brain grows and is influenced by personal relationships. Interpersonal Neurobiology studies what occurs in the brain as a result of significant life experiences and how the therapeutic relationship can be used to actually change the brain and neurological system. . It was once believed that neurological development ceased by late adolescence, but Dr Sigiel's research has determined that neurogenesis and neuroplasticity--the creation of new neurons and new neuronal connections--continue throughout our life spans. Whenever we learn something new, including new attitudes, perspectives, or behaviors, we are changing the physical structure of the brain."

I have been blessed, in general, with pretty good bosses, but along the way there have been a few asses as well, so for as long as I can remember, I have had a simple tutorial for all of them. "The better you treat me, the more you will get - many times beyond any idea of average. But treat me poorly and you'll get complete shit, and eventually defiance". And then I became a boss - and I can tell you, the whole office behaves exactly how you behave when you walk in the door in the morning. Crap mood? Crap service from staff. Good mood? Good things follow.

I worked for a man recently at a very small magazine who had open tirades, about all kinds of things, in the middle of the office of a company he owned. You could hear him through the stairwell for three levels. Disgraceful I thought - and honestly, in my 30+ years working had never seen such behaviour from a company owner. What kind of message did it send to staff? Did they respect him for it? Did it make them better? I can assure you not. His employ was a place of fear, no imagination and for certain, no fun. 

Want to get the best out of your staff? Be clear about your directives, treat them with respect and even humour when appropriate, deal with mistakes seriously but fairly - and pay them properly. I once had a staff at Leo Burnett in Korea remark, "David, we can never tell when you're mad". Because I never was. Unhappy maybe, but never mad. Positive influences grow the brain. Negative influences atrophy the brain. Now it's been scientifically proven.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Overheard in Vietnam: A question of what is believed to be disbelieved?

Below was found when looking at the blog one of my new Twitter followers, @QuynhGiao - and it illuminates the idea that to suspend one's disbelief, one must first believe in something. What do Vietnamese youth believe in? What they are being taught, or the life they are living?

• You don't know this -ism, Socialism? It's on your passport.

So startling a question, isn't it?

Socialism is in my thinking, when I read about it. Socialism is in my heart, when I love and hate it. But only when I overheard that question did I realize it's on my face!

Some days ago, they again mentioned Socialism. A girl said, "It's not Socialist. It's about Communism." That's what I'm pretty preoccupied with. Is what Dr Long Le*** argues, that most young Vietnamese are apolitical, true? Vietnamese youth are fed up with political education to the extent that they've ignored politics altogether? Or are they enjoying so many Western values that they'll fight against anything Vietnamese whatsoever? Or are they, like me, not sure if they're loyal kids or dissidents?


It has been said that when a tourist lands at the airport here in Ho Chi Minh City, that he will instantly look out at the beautiful new building and acres of neon advertising outside and immediately surmise that "America has finally won the war". Walking around either here in Saigon or in Hanoi, but much less so in the smaller cities of Hue or Hoi An or Dalat I am continually impressed by the suspension of disbelief with which the government continues promotion of a doctrine and ideal that seems, well, very 1960s to a foreign national. But it is interesting to see that the urban young Vietnamese national feels precisely the same way. All that government teaching lead you to Prada? Even fake Prada. It's all the same.

The language of brands has taken over the conversation and it's communicating loud and clear. And the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a brand - a brand badly in need of a makeover. It's almost as if the government and the people are of two different imaginary ideations. The government believing that they are running a socialist utopia, whilst living in a shopping mall with a string of new motorbike dealers outside, and the people believing that they are living in a shopping mall whilst plaster busts of past leaders and banners proclaiming dated symbolism beg for their compliance. Each group suspends disbelief in the other's belief because that's what's necessary to maintain harmony.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Polymath: A Person Who Knows a Lot About a Lot of Things

I was reminded this week of the term polymath - and how society will either worship or vilify such persons or both, simultaneously usually. Einstein was disregarded by his professors for his questioning and argumentative nature - then banished to a life as a lowly patent clerk  where he did his best work in his spare time - what he would be remembered for. Abraham Lincoln is credited with abolishing slavery, but was also despised and highly criticized in office and eventually shot. He was a statesman, but also wrote this:

Whatever Spiteful fools may Say 

— Each jealous, ranting yelper 

— No woman ever played the whore 

Unless She had a man to help her.

Could Jesus sing or dance or paint? Funny he was treated the same as polymaths hence - a dilettante possibly - that water to wine trick?. A 'jack of many trades', yet master of none? DaVinci made money designing stage sets for royalty's entertainment - yet also conceived the helicopter and did a few small paintings. Shen Kuo was a polymathic scientist and statesman - as was Thomas Jefferson.

"Oh. they're much too much for me. Let's put them down. Make them down, lest they make me lower. I am not thus so I cannot accept. I will listen when they die - but only when they die. When their din is gone. When I can speak to simple people in simple ways, I say. When I can have my say. Without the interference of multiple intelligences", says society.

Oh the gifts we burn to let another generation resurrect their ashes for study, never fully knowing the full measure of their impact, alive - those polymaths.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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In life, perception IS reality

From Seth Godin again today, the following illustration:

"Do you have an opinion about nuclear power? About the relative safety of one form of power over another? How did you come to this opinion? Here are the stats, and here's the image. A non-exaggerated but simple version of his data:

For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced. You might very well have excellent reasons to argue for one form over another. Not the point of this post. The question is: did you know about this chart? 

This last week has seen a fair lambasting of the media over the nuclear non-meltdown in Japan. The sky was not falling - but it gave plenty of Americans cause to pound the stump for or against nuclear power. And how about Libya? America and France are now bombing against the regime. Do we really know what's going on? No, not at all. And don't expect the western media to go down there and start digging for the real story. Won't happen. Too many vested interests at stake. But we'll plunder away, at whatever our day jobs are. All that other stuff is far away. So we'll just continue making the reality we want to perceive, because we can. Reality is just terribly subjective. Perception is almost fact.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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"We Blog The World" Welcomes A Suspension of Disbeliefs

This week A Suspension of Disbeliefs was picked up by We Blog The World, a blog aggregating venture out of Silicon Valley founded by Renee Blodgett. Renee's assembled a list of top worldwide bloggers to provide a media source we can believe in instead of having to suspend our disbelief by watching TV.

Last night however I did watch an excellent National Geographic feature with a group of 'embedded' reporters who traveled with an American Green Beret force in Afghanistan. Two men were lost in that series and it was truly touching and many times, too real. But if National Geographic were called International Geographic we would have gotten embedded reports from the Taliban side as well. As it stood, no mention was made that the Taliban not only frown on but prosecute the cultivation of poppies used to produce heroin - and that under American rule, poppy cultivation is at an all-time high. But I'm sure Myth Busters will tackle that one and tell us all we're full of shit once that episode is finished.

Look for alternative stories on We Blog The World. We're happy to be part of the family.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

"Idea Tourism" - To visit and see yet learn nothing?

From Seth Godin today, the idea of 'Idea Tourism'.

"It's possible for a tourist to visit Times Square in New York City, see nothing new or unexpected, and leave the city unchanged. I don't think there's a lot of point in that. If you want to truly understand Darwin, then go to a lab and do some experiments. If you want to understand a gun lover, go to a shooting range for an afternoon. If you want to see how social networking will actually change the way ideas spread, go use it. Intensely, and with a purpose in mind."

I had a client recently who only wanted to buy 2/3rds of a project. The part they left out, they said they'd do themselves. It was a social media project.

"Only when we try the idea on for size and actually use it do we understand it. With more ideas offering visitation rights than ever before, learning how empathize with an idea is critical."

My particular client wanted to tour social media, take a photo, and then go back to business as usual. Sadly, little was learned and business is, sadly, back to usual..

Another project I'm involved in has that risk for some as well. Many will be familiar with the aSaigon/CreativeMorning initiative I work on with a small group of other like-minded creative business people. What we've seen in three sessions is a great deal of people who sign up, but never show up, and another group, who come only once - sort of missing the point entirely. Buts what's left is becoming a good core group of interested pioneers who really are beginning to use the sessions to foster ideas and friendships and like visions. I was asked recently if it was possible to 'teach' creativity, and my response was that I didn't think so. But if one practices enough, on a regular basis, they might learn something - more than all the tourists learn who have a photo of themselves in front of their favourite world monument.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

If we're all living in a fantasy, I think I'll just believe in mine a whole lot more than the other people believe in theirs.

Gapingvoid.com

I'll criticize things in a meeting. I'll ask the tough questions. And I'll kill ideas on all the levels they don't work - and then look for better ones. I'm critical of food in restaurants, films, music, fashion, business models - whatever.

Because I'm an optimist, and I want things to work like baseballs flying over outfield fences as many times as they can. A pessimist won't do that, because he's afraid of winning, not loosing. Too many people fight to loose, so if life is just all one big fantasy, I get to win one every once in a while. The rest is what most of us just call work.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

"It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference"

Daryl Hall and Todd Rundgren from 'Live at Daryl's House' - Episode 40, live from Todd's house in Hawaii.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

Did I make a mistake? I fell in love.

Maybe with the wrong person and maybe for the wrong reasons, but I believe it's the first time I have ever done that. I submitted. Surrendered. Gave all. It didn't work But I'm so glad I did it. Once in a lifetime? Maybe I learned something about myself. What it took to give in. To give up. To be there. To not be me, if only for a minute. Or two. And maybe again. In a better world. But in this world, I suspended disbelief and saw the best of life. If only shortly.

July, 2009 - Reprinted from The Wild Wild East Dailies archive

A death and birth in Dalat. Long live Michael Jackson. 

My birthday week in Dalat was inspiring. I was taken as a 
birthday gift and if one can be given peace, comfort, 
hope, inspiration and confidence in a big box with a ribbon 
on it, that was my gift. A gift from God. No cakes cut, no 
candles lit and no songs sung. It was perfect.  

 The Ana Mandara resort is an old French colonial weekend 
colony that has been meticulously refurbished to maintain 
the architectural integrity of the original villas whilst 
bringing them up to date with WiFi, microwave  cooking 
and the like. The staff are courteous and casual and make a science out of staying 
out of your way while still making sure that all service points are met. 

Birds sing daily and nights by the fire are standard. Our villa had three fireplaces, 
making me a full-time Boy Scout and just as happy as could be. Candles are lit in 
groups of three always. Flowers arranged immediately. A trip to the market 
one day brought tuna, vegetables, fruits and the finest of Dalat's vineyards - and 
with the help of the resort kitchen for pots and pans, I was able to cook a meal that 
rivaled  what  the chefs had been preparing for us the whole time. Magical. 

With a jazz soundtrack. Morning was delivered in waves of reflection and care. 
Introspection and extroversion. Exploration and discovery of truth, love, logic, loss, 
magic and pro-activity. Beautiful mystery, explained - explained again.  Then 
Michael Jackson died. 

Turning on the BBC while having my morning coffee, it was like a replay of 
Princess Diana's death in August of 1997 except the celebrities had been changed 
and the person to whom I would deliver the news would be different. In 97 I had  
driven from the lake house to the local convenience store for the morning's milk 
and eggs when I saw the newspaper headline as big as it could have been printed, 
"Di Dies!". This I knew somehow, would be reacted to profoundly by my wife who 
was still sleeping back at the cottage. When I asked her why this was such 
important news, during the day long coverage her response was simple. "David",
 she said, "Don't you know that every little girl wants to grow up to be a 
princess?" This response would prove to be a milestone in my understanding of 
women in general but not prepare me much for my traveling companion's reaction 
to Jackson's death.

"Michael Jackson was a foolish man. He couldn't manage his life or his money", 
was the statement. No sorrow, no sympathy, no regret. Just a cold hard statement 
of what was essentially the truth. Michael Jackson was a victim of himself and no 
one else - now relegated the the historical oddity chamber of pop fame. And did he 
contribute to my life?  Yes. But did his death have the impact on me of that of John 
Lennon's? No. Because with Lennon a part of my childhood died but with 
Jackson only a part of his childhood died. He seemed to live in a perpetual Peter 
Pan state and that, in the end, may have been his demise. He refused to grow up. 
And my week in Dalat would teach me that, that was exactly what I needed to do. 
 Grow up a little bit more.

I have always been extremely guarded of the childish part in me that looks at a white 
sheet of paper and conceives castles to commerce and so showing that to others has 
been something I have avoided - even to my wife during our 15 years in marriage. 
Yet here in Dalat I was being confronted by a friend, confidant and full-time muse 
to look beyond my reality and into a future of intelligence, stability and growth
 - a future so unlike anything that Michael Jackson could have ever conceived. And 
so a death, and a birth, were happening in Dalat - all at the same time. 
It was coincidence, and contradiction and contrition to the fact that I would need to 
leapfrog some things in business and jump-start the machine again - all inspired 
by the most unlikely person I had met through a failed job interview. Who knew. 
Well, it seems that God knew. 

For readers in Germany, France and Africa stay tuned for an upcoming tour schedule 
as the Wild Wild East goes west. A death in Dalat. A birth in Dalat. From the loss of 
Michael Jackson to the birth of something new. The one to thank, already knows. 
It's time to take this show on the road. Long live Michael Jackson.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

Complete Spam Blog helped by the Australian Consul

Oh, I hate this shit. This got sent to my email and it's a blog, designed to look like it might be a Vietnamese author and then when you want to make a comment, like, "this sucks" there is no response button. Who do we call? Aussie Ghost Busters?

Hello boyz. New Facebook account is that? Nice blog. Dinos.

The Drive-by Technorati and Why You're Fucked up

Oh dear. I said I would never use a four-letter word again. I did. Because it was necessary. Read this. Nuff said.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

"Hey, could you make this a little more, uh, average?"

I pitched an idea to a local magazine to use the library of 500 stories that is the Wild Wild East Dailies for a new column and they said they'd consider it. I sent a 6-10 story suggestion for updating blog posts I had done on a variety of subjects from movie reviews, to observations, some satire, music and more, all with the voice that had become that particular blog. Wild, Wild, as you might say. The voice here is different, for different purpose. But the voice on WWED came from a part of my life that I will never experience again and I will never write quite exactly like that again - so it sort of lives in the voice in which it was written. Holden Caulfield was never heard from again for a reason.

A few days after I sent my story samples, I received a note from the editor and three samples from their magazine. "Do you think you could revise your style to be  little more like these?". he asked.

So I read the stories he sent me. He had written one of them. But the interesting thing is that  in moving from story to story, they all had a sameness, a sort of soft edge. There was nothing particularly wrong with them, but there was nothing particularly right about any of them either. They were just sort of straight reporting with little personal angle - and this is a feature publication, not a newspaper. The writing sucked. You could have switched the writing credits between all three and you wouldn't really know the difference.

So I asked myself the question, "Could I make my stories like theirs?",  and the answer was, "not really". But if I'm asked to write newer things in a style similar to something I am given for example, sure. In Korea I taught myself to write brochure copy for the Korean Ministry of Finance. I simply read all the brochures from Financial Times writers before me and put what personal twist I could on that. I learned the lingo and tone they needed and, maybe only because I was a white guy, got it approved with little issue. I got ten grand for a 36 page brochure. It was good money. It wasn't exactly War and Peace, but I was happy with it for what it was. Similarly, I've written for American Airlines, Nintendo, and a plethora of diverse clients and they all need their own particular 'voice'. Not my voice, their voice.

And so it is for work I did for my own purpose, as my own client. It can be edited, revised, updated and have the four letter words taken out where needed, but it can never sound like other stuff that was written from a completely different point of view by other people. Because after that, it's just not fun, or interesting or me. The book Wild Wild East and recently retired blog, the Wild Wild East Dailies are now capsules in time. Products if you will. My job is to sell them as such and preserve as much of the attitude as possible in their publication.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like - Luv this site!

We suggest you
not run your country
like America.

Hi all. Now, for those of you who have never lived overseas as an 'expat' they say, this may not make any sense. But for those of us who have, and primarily in developing countries (that means poor as f-all) this makes a great deal of sense. Aid workers belong to the business class we call NGOs, or Non-Governmental Organizations. You may refer to the Red Cross or Unicef or Doctors Without Borders to get your bearings here. These are organizations from rich countries that run TV spots in your country looking for just $20 a month to support an African child or drill wells in Mongolia to irrigate the Gobi. Rubbish. So much of this does little to help the locals and a whole lot more to make the foundation holders feel as if they are helping the world - like inventing dynamite and then giving out a peace award is in some way, making up for the dynamite.

Country managers and high ranking staff ( and anybody from a rich country who went to a brand name university ) live in nice houses, have Land Rovers and drivers and rarely spend a day in the 'poor' villages they show you in the brochure. The last 'Foundation' CEO I met had an office on the 26th floor of one of the prime office towers in town. And then I went to Danang and saw their 'Foundation' retreat on the beach. Any poor people there?  I didn't think so. Looked more like cabanas on the beach and championship Colin Montgomerie golf across the street. Thank you Mr.Corp.

When I was in Mongolia, George Soros bought an old Russian mansion in town and had it refurbished to look like what? And old Russian mansion - just so they could run what he calls the Soros Open Society Foundation. They teach poor people how to make newspapers.Rich people creating the illusion that if you followed their lead, that you might actually be like them. So cruel, so wrong. Just selling another Gucci handbag - maybe a real one, made by your cousin.

The people who work for these NGOs are called Expat Aid Workers. But what it really means is a bunch of  upper middle class kids at least from very respected schools come to do 'non-profit' work for what in the end, works out to be considerable profit in terms of local lifestyle - not to mention some serious street-cred back at the old sailing club. Oh, sure, it's less than they might get at J.P. Morgan or Goldman, but WTF, they're in BumFudgeNowhere helping 'poor' people and not shoveling the same old horse shit they'd have to back on Wall Street. Cheerio chaps!

Read away.

#31 Using Words in Other Languages

MARCH 7, 2011

tags: #stuffexpataidworkerslike, using words in other languages

by J.

One of the few things that Expat Aid Workers love more than having a deep, nuanced and specific understanding of many local cultures, is being able to demonstrate (show, don’t tell)  to others that they have a deep, nuanced and specific understanding of many local cultures. And there are few things that get this across as effectively as using words in other languages.

Many will confuse “using words in other languages” with “speaking another language.” But these two things are not at all the same. Speaking another language is a great skill to have if you’re tied down to one place. Speaking another language can make it easier to “go native. ” Phraseology in another language can certainly help those Expat Aid Workers who like to explain local culture to locals. It can also make those who dress like locals (perhaps in an attempt to blend in) or who make a point of not seeing other foreigners more convincing.

But using words in a variety of other languages helps to show that you have been around. Peppering your speech, skype chats, Facebook updates with words in other languages lends thatje ne sais quoi of a true global nomad. “Accidentally” murmuring phrases in a random language during sex  (“I just don’t know how to express that in English….”) helps you play up the mysterious, nomadic part of your persona. Using words in other languages communicates that you have a deep, phuc tap personality. You have spent so much of your life as a mzungu or bule that very little can phase you. (read more by clicking the title)

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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