Six Stages of the Essay Writing Process: 3

Stage Three: Outlining

An outline is a working plan for a piece of writing. It’s a list of all the ideas that are going to be in the piece in the order they should go. Once you’ve got the outline planned, you can stop worrying about the structure and just concentrate on getting each sentence right. In order to make an outline, you need to know basically what you’re going to say in your piece—in other words, what your theme is.

Themes

One way to find a theme is to think one up out of thin air, and then make all your ideas fit around it. Another way is to let the ideas point you to the theme—you follow your ideas, rather than direct them. As you do this, you’ll find that your ideas aren’t as haphazard as you thought. Some will turn out to be about the same thing. Some can be put into a sequence. Some might pair off into opposing groups. Out of these natural groupings, your theme will gradually emerge. This way, your theme is not just an abstract concept in a vacuum, which you need to then prop up with enough ideas to fill a few pages. Instead, your theme comes with all its supporting ideas automatically attached.

Using index cards

One of the easiest ways to let your ideas form into patterns is to separate them, so you can physically shuffle them around. Writing each idea on a separate card or slip of paper can allow you to see connections between them that you’d never see otherwise. Making an outline involves trial and error—but it only takes seconds to move cards into a new outline. If you try to start writing before the outline works properly, it could take you all week to rewrite and rewrite again. In an exam, you can’t use cards (see page 208 for another way to do it), and you’ll gradually develop a way that suits you. But doing an outline on cards—even a few times—can show you just how easy it is to rearrange your ideas.

Finding the patterns in your ideas

One way to put your ideas into order so that your theme can emerge is to use the most basic kind of order, shared by all kinds of writing:

1. A Beginning—some kind of introduction, telling the reader where they are and what kind of thing they’re about to read.
2. A Middle—the main bit, where you say what you’re there to say.
3. An End—some kind of winding-up part that lets the reader know that this is actually the end of the piece (rather than that someone lost the last page).

Exactly what’s inside the compartments of Beginning, Middle and End of a piece of writing depends on whether it’s a piece of imaginative writing, an essay or some other kind of writing. It helps to remember that behind their differences, all writing shares the same three-part structure—just as all hamburgers do.

The ‘Hamburger Thing’

TOP BUN
Where it all starts: a beginning that
gives the reader something to bite into
FILLING
A middle that gives the reader all kinds
of different stuff
BOTTOM BUN
Finishing off the piece: something to
hold it all together

Making An Outline For an Essay

You’ve now got a collection of ideas that all relate in some way to your essay assignment. What you’ll do here is rearrange those ideas so they end up as an orderly sequence that will inform or persuade the reader. To do that, you’ll need to know what your theme is—the underlying argument or point of your essay. The first step towards this is to put each of your ideas on a separate card or slip of paper. That makes it much easier to find patterns in your ideas. As you look at the ideas on the cards, chances are you’ll start to notice that:

• some ideas go together, saying similar things;
• some ideas contradict each other;
• some ideas can be arranged into a sequence, each idea emerging out of the one before it.

By looking at these groupings, you’ll begin to see how you can apply your ideas to the task of your assignment. Once you have a basic approach (you don’t need to know it in detail), you can begin to shape your ideas into an outline. Start with the most basic shape, using the fact that every piece of writing has a Beginning, a Middle and an End.

Beginning

Often called the introduction. Readers need all the help that writers can give them, so the introduction is where we tell them, briefly, what the essay will be about. Different essays need different kinds of introductions, but every introduction should have a ‘thesis statement’: a one-sentence statement of your basic idea. As well, an introduction may have one or more of these:

• an overview of the whole subject;
• background to the particular issue you’re going to write about;
• a definition or clarification of the main terms of the assignment;
• an outline of the different points of view that can be taken about the assignment;
• an outline of the particular point of view you plan to take in the essay.

Middle

Often called the development. This is where you develop, paragraph by paragraph, the points you want to make.

A development might include:

• information—facts, figures, dates, data;
• examples—of whatever points you’re making;
• supporting material for your points—quotes, logical cause and effect workings, putting an idea into a larger context.

End

Often called the conclusion. You’ve said everything you want to say, but by this time your readers are in danger of forgetting where they were going in the first place, so you remind them.

A conclusion might include:

• a recap of your main points, to jog the readers’ memories;
• a summing-up that points out the larger significance or meaning of the main points;
• a powerful image or quote that sums up the points you’ve been making.

Just sitting and looking at a list of ideas and trying to think about them in your head doesn’t usually get you anywhere. Writing is like learning to play tennis—you don’t learn tennis by thinking about it, but by trying to do it. You might have to spend a while rearranging your index cards—but it will save time and pain in the long run.

The ‘Hamburger Thing’ Again…

TOP BUN
Beginning (introduction): where you
tell the reader briefly how you’re
going to approach the subject
FILLING
Middle (development): where you lay
out all the points you want to make
BOTTOM BUN
End (conclusion): this ties the essay
together and relates all the bits to
each other

Different ways of organising the middle of an essay

The Middle of an essay should be arranged in an orderly way: you can’t just throw all the bits in and hope for the best. What that ‘orderly way’ is, depends on your assignment.

One-pronged essays

Some assignments only ask about one kind of thing or one way of looking at a subject. In that case you can just put the filling into the burger in whatever orderly way seems best for the subject. One kind of arrangement might be to present the ideas from the most important to least important, or from the most distant in time to the most recent.

Two-pronged essays

Some essays want you to deal with two subjects (not just oranges, but oranges and apples) or two different points of view (for example, an assignment that asks you to ‘discuss’ by putting the case for and against something, or an assignment that asks you to ‘compare’ or ‘contrast’ different views). With these twopronged assignments, it’s easy to get into a muddle with structure. For two-pronged assignments you can organise the middle in either of the following ways (but not a combination!).

Making An Outline For an Essay: 10 steps

1. Look at the assignment again

• This is so you don’t stray off it.

2. What groups of ideas are here?

• If you’ve got ideas that point in different directions within the assignment, you might have to decide which to focus on.
• Or you may be able to organise the ideas into a ‘two-pronged’ essay.

3. Get some index cards

• Normal sized index cards cut in half seem to be most user-friendly for this.
• Write each idea on a separate card.
• Just a word or two will do for each (enough to remind you of what the idea is).

4. Think about your essay’s theme

• Look for ideas that go together, that contradict each other, or that form a sequence.
• From those patterns, see if a theme or argument seems to be emerging.

5. Pick out cards for a Beginning pile
Ask these questions about each card:

• Is this a general concept about the subject of the assignment?
• Does it give background information?
• Is it an opinion or theory about the subject?
• Could it be used to define or clarify the terms of the assignment? If the answer to any of these is yes, put those cards together.

6. Pick out cards for a Middle pile
Ask yourself:

• Could I use this to develop an argument or a sequence of ideas about the assignment?
• Could I use this as evidence for one point of view, or its opposite?
• Could I use this as an example?
• If the answer to any of these is yes, put those cards together in a second pile.

7. Pick out cards for an End pile
Ask yourself:

• Does this summarise my approach to the assignment?
• Could I use it to draw a general conclusion?
• Could I use it to show the overall significance of the points I’ve made, and how they relate to the assignment?

If the answer to any of these is yes, put those cards together.

8. Refine your outline
Ask yourself:

• Can I make a ‘theme’ or ‘summary’ card?
• Are the ideas in the Middle all pointing in the same direction (a onepronged essay)? If so, arrange them in some logical order that relates to the assignment.
• Are the ideas pointing in different directions, with arguments for and against, or about two different aspects of the topic (a two-pronged essay)?
• Are the cards in the Beginning in the best order? Generally you want to state your broad approach first, then refer to basic information background (such as definitions or generally agreed on ideas).
• Are the cards at the End in the best order? (You may not have any cards for your End yet . . . read on.)

9. Add to the outline
Ask yourself:

• Have I got big gaps that are making it hard to see an overall shape?
• >>> (Solution: make temporary cards that approximately fill the gap: ‘find example’ or ‘think of counter-argument’.)

• Have I got plenty in one pile but nothing in another?
• >>> (Solution: get whichever pile you have most cards for, into order. That will help you see where you go next, and you can make new cards as you see what’s needed.)

10. Not working?

• Am I stuck because I can’t think of what my basic approach should be?
• >>> (Solution: start with the Middle cards and think of how these ideas can address the assignment. If one point seems stronger than the others, see if you can think of others that build on it.)
• Am I stuck because my ideas don’t connect to each other?
• >>> (Solution: find the strongest point—the one that best addresses the assignment. Then see how the other points might relate to it. They might give a different perspective, or a contradictory one, but if they connect in some way, you can use them to develop your response to the assignment.)
• Am I stuck because I haven’t got a Beginning or an End?
• >>> (Solution: make two temporary cards:








on the first, write ‘This essay will show…’ and finish the sentence by summarising the information you’re going to put forward, the argument you’re going to make or the two points of view you’re going to discuss;

on the second, write ‘This essay has shown…’ and finish the sentence by recapping the information you will have given by the end of the essay, the argument you will have made, or by comingdown in favour of one of the two points of view.)

IN THIS SERIES ABOUT THE ESSAY WRITING PROCESS:

Previously…

• Stage One: Getting Ideas
• Stage Two: Choosing Ideas

To follow…

• Step Four: Drafting
• Step Five: Revising
• Step Six: Editing

Exchange Student: Reflections On Yogya

I have now been in this country for three and a half months. It occurred to me today that there are loads of crazy things that happen around me, some not so crazy but still pretty weird, whose impact have been dulled by the passing of time. With about five weeks left in Yogya before I move on to Jakarta, I have been reflecting once more on the many peculiar phenomena which are inherent features of daily life in Indonesia and in the life of foreign students generally.

For a start, there's the fact that I have friends from many countries here including Japan, Germany, Korea, Turkey, New Zealand. The peculiar thing about our friendships however is that, excluding obviously the English speakers, we all speak to each other in Indonesian. Of course, that is probably rather an obvious thing to most of you, however picture this scenario: a bunch of Australians, Japanese, Koreans and a German go out for dinner and spend the whole evening speaking Indonesian. White people and foreigners generally already get stared at anyway by Indonesians without needing to draw further attention to ourselves by speaking their language in their absence! They seem to find that scenario rather hilarious, but in a nice way.

Another dominant lifestyle-affecting characteristic of this place is the weather. I wake up in the morning usually to a clear blue sky and it feels about 30 degrees by about 9am. However, more often than not, I get out of class in mid-afternoon and it is torrentially down-pouring which inevitably means - in a country with an average sewerage system, motorbikes as the dominant form of transport, and a generally, erm, flexible attitude to time - the only way to deal with such conditions is to either make friends with someone who has a car, or wait.

An example: on the way to the movies the other day, in a period of five minutes, a massive storm developed and purged itself with equally impressive speed. We were on motorbikes at the time and had no option but to park them in the middle of nowhere and huddle under the eaves of a translation shop and plough through the usual questions (Where are you from? Why are you here? etc, etc) with the owner. We waited for an hour and when we eventually decided to resume our journey, still ended up quite soaked. You have no choice but to wait. I am developing remarkable patience in this country.

Other circumstances that require patience...

The bus continues to provide me with great amusement. A new phenomena that I have observed is the proclivity of the driver to just randomly stop for a rest and drink a cup of tea or chat to his fellow bus-driving mates for as long as he sees fit. This seldom occurs when I am on the way to campus (thankfully, because I rarely allocate enough time for such unexpected occurrences in my morning schedule) but often happens on the way home when I am about 1km from the kos. I always have to toss up whether to just get off and walk or hope that his conversation is sufficiently boring that he drinks his tea quickly and gets moving!

It occurred to me the other day also that when we all go home to Australia we are quite likely to develop psychological paranoia about being ignored by the people around us, because we will be able to once more walk down the street and not have anyone care less about where we have come from (Dari mana?), where we are going (Mau ke mana?), are we studying in Yogya (Kuliah di sini?) and why we are walking alone (Kok sendirian?). It is absolutely mustahil, impossible, to go anywhere incognito in this place.

I went down to the bakery near my kos today, "Parsley", to buy some bread and realized how that although I used to find it weird to see cheese and chocolate used in the same baked good or to see for example cheese as a topping on cake, I hadn't even thought about it for two months as being anything other than normal. In Bandung, where Brownies are apparently a specialty, they make a cheese version (eww). The absolute over-sweetness of everything here would also be normal if it wasn't for the fact that I am constantly reminded when I smile at myself in the mirror how bad my teeth will be when I get home. The default taste of hot drinks here (Milo, coffee, tea, green tea) is hyper-sweet. Out of control, cavity-inducing, stomach-churning sweet. Alas, being an adaptable creature and one who is not prone to being fussy, I have learnt to accept it. This is in lieu of other options other than the rather unpalatable "don't have a drink" option.

Oh and by the way, I eat rice and sambal (chilli sauce) for breakfast. The girls in the kos think it's hilarious. But they all do it too. Anyway, that's a pot pourri of random tidbits.

By Adelle Neary, 22 [at the time of writing], Adelaide University [taken from http://www.acicis.murdoch.edu.au/]

40 Golden Rules Of Marketing

You may agree or you may disagree. Either way, the following list makes good food for thought.

• Rule 1 Rules are Meant to be Broken
• Rule 2 Marketing Must Result in Sales
• Rule 3 Plan a Little So You Can Do a Lot More
• Rule 4 Know What You're Aiming At
• Rule 5 Pick the Problem You Want to Solve
• Rule 6 Get to Know Your Customers
• Rule 7 Target Your Messages
• Rule 8 Customers Are People Too
• Rule 9 See the Forest and the Trees
• Rule 10 Change the Words, Not the Idea
• Rule 11 Involve Them and They Will Understand
• Rule 12 Be Different
• Rule 13 Admit When You Make a Mistake
• Rule 14 Messages Need Testing Too
• Rule 15 Just Say No to Jargon
• Rule 16 Be Compelling
• Rule 17 Don't Follow the Pack
• Rule 18 Be Consistent
• Rule 19 Use the Right Tools
• Rule 20 See and Be Seen
• Rule 21 Blogs are Good
• Rule 22 Email is Personal
• Rule 23 Viral Marketing is a Tactic
• Rule 24 Be Critical
• Rule 25 Always Have a Next Step
• Rule 26 Change is Your Friend
• Rule 27 PR Doesn't Mean Press Release
• Rule 28 Tradeshows Will Never Die
• Rule 29 Clicks Aren't Customers
• Rule 30 A Launch is a Process, Not an Event
• Rule 31 Don't Get Caught in the Hype
• Rule 32 The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
• Rule 33 Marketing Plans are Good
• Rule 34 Marketing is Art
• Rule 35 Marketing is Science
• Rule 36 Make Them Laugh
• Rule 37 Always Have a Deadline
• Rule 38 Everyone is a Marketing Expert
• Rule 39 Deliver What You Promise
• Rule 40 Give it a Chance

Any comments or thoughts?

Which 3 do you think are the MOST Golden!?

Are there any missing 'Golden Rules' according to you?

Indonesia's place in the global jungle

Its people agree that their democratic country should play a bigger global role - but what?

by the columnist Banyan

Mar 31st 2010 | from The Economist PRINT EDITION




By dint of size, population and potential wealth, Indonesia has long loomed large over its own backyard. The archipelago nation bestrides the world’s busiest sea lanes. Some 231m Indonesians account for two-fifths of the population of ASEAN, the ten-country Association of South-East Asian Nations. A young and reasonably educated population offers perennial promise, as do vast deposits of oil, gas and minerals, forests and palm-oil plantations. For all that ASEAN operates according to its famed consensus, Indonesia has been its stealth leader.

But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has bolder aspirations. A liberal internationalist, Mr Yudhoyono convincingly won a second term last year, and monopolises the foreign-policy apparatus. He has brought Indonesia closer to Australia, its big southern neighbour with which it has a troubled past. He was supposed to have signed a “comprehensive partnership” with Barack Obama by now, but the American president delayed the trip in order to push his health-care reforms through Congress.

Mr Obama will return in June. [This articles was written in 2010]. He spent four boyhood years in Jakarta and a huge welcome awaits his pulang kampung (homecoming). Before then, Indonesia will mark the fifth anniversary of another (this time “strategic”) partnership, with China, when the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, visits in late April. Indonesia, Mr Yudhoyono likes to say, has “1,000 friends and zero enemies”.

Indonesia now wants to raise its diplomatic game, acting the part of a regional power with a global impact. One sign of this is a desire to be ranked among the BRIC economic club of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Another is to send peacekeepers as far away as to Lebanon and Darfur. A third is Mr Yudhoyono’s admirable wish to make democracy and human rights a plank of foreign policy. But the country’s rising ambitions are best epitomised by more urgent talk about how Indonesia can capitalise on its membership of the G20 group of major economies.

A powerful impetus for all this comes from its Asian neighbourhood. In both economic vitality and security importance, Indonesia pales beside both China and India. China’s rise from regional to global power poses the biggest challenges for Indonesia, as its policymakers see it. But it is India’s élan, both in terms of its economy and a newly polished image, that has got Indonesians worrying about their own image.

Compared with Indonesia, India has even more atrocious infrastructure, more intractable insurgencies, more terrorist attacks, and often awful relations with neighbours. Yet investment and tourists pour unfairly in, Indonesians complain. Meanwhile their country, a largely peaceable place with few terrorist attacks since the Bali bombing of 2002, is deemed unstable—and with a negative Muslim identity to boot. Australia, for all the improvement in relations in recent years, nevertheless advises nationals to “reconsider your need to travel to Indonesia”. Total Australian investment in Indonesia is less than it was in 1996. An Indonesian cabinet minister says that his country needs to change perceptions by aping India’s “Incredible India” promotion that took Davos and the business world by storm in 2006.

Foreign perceptions are unhelpful in other areas too. The commonest description you hear when Indonesia is praised by Americans—that it is the world’s most populous Muslim democracy—is a tag that thinking Indonesians chafe at. They think it limiting and certainly misleading. Indonesia prides itself on being a secular state that happens to have a Muslim majority. Moreover, they say, America is fooling itself if it thinks that Indonesia’s brand of Islam can help the superpower with its problems in the Middle East, Iran or Afghanistan, where faraway Indonesia’s syncretic practice is as likely to be abhorred as admired.



As for the elevation of the G20 to global prominence, Indonesians sometimes appear hardly able to believe their luck. The question is what they can do with it. On the one hand, Indonesia weathered the global financial crisis that gave the G20 its sense of purpose. On the other, it did so because Indonesia is still shockingly ill-integrated into the global economy. Besides shoddy infrastructure, it has an economy distorted by subsidies, a business climate hostile to foreign investment and a bureaucracy and legal system shot through with corruption. With a bit of joined-up reform, which after six years of stops and starts Mr Yudhoyono may be on the point of beginning in earnest, Indonesia’s annual growth would surge from the present (admittedly respectable) 4.5-5.5% to rates closer to India’s or China’s.

More than most admit, Indonesia’s international ambitions rest on shaky domestic foundations. Mr Yudhoyono has committed Indonesia to sweeping cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases, risking unpopularity among other developing nations. But thanks to widespread deforestation, much of it illegal, the country remains among the world’s biggest emitters.

And despite the admirable advances of democracy and of sound fiscal management, prosperity is not entrenched. One in seven Indonesians still lives below the poverty line, and many more perch perilously just above it. By several measures of development—life expectancy, health care, sanitation—Indonesia scores well below the middle-income country it is.

Poor governance at home has a bearing on soft-power aspirations abroad. A reputation mainly for having resources to plunder colours the views of Indonesia by India and China, huge buyers of Indonesian commodities. In countless areas, from illegal logging and fishing, to climate change, people-smuggling and extremism: a failure to prosper at home would turn the spotlight away from Indonesia’s desire to solve global problems, and towards its capacity to generate them.

This article was published three and a half years ago. Has anything happened in the meantime that might affect the analysis laid out in it?

Why is Reading Important?

Books, not instruction, key to creating writers

Setiono Sugiharto , Jakarta | Sat, 23rd August 2008 10:01 AM | Opinion

Conventional wisdom advises this: "If you want your student writers to be able to write, have them write, and nothing else." Our tendency in teaching writing seems to reflect this wisdom.

The best we can do to assist our students of all levels of language proficiency in developing their writing skills is to give them writing instruction, to encourage them to do more writing practice and then to give feedback.

In addition, as writing entails ability in adeptly using language rules (grammar) and as students often find it hard to write using correct grammatical structures, teachers cannot resist the temptation to explain the rules as painstakingly as possible to their students. In this case, grammar instruction is considered necessary.

Both writing instruction and the mastery of language rules, however, are of little value in helping student writers acquire writing competence. Many published studies demonstrate that the effects of instruction on students' writing are weak, fragile and immediately wear off over time. Other studies show that instruction has no effect at all on writing development.

With research confirming that instruction has little or no effect on accelerating writing competence, it is pretty safe to conclude that writing competence cannot be acquired via either instruction or practice.

It is really unfortunate, however, that most teachers are not well-informed about what research on literacy has told us. Because, in their view, research is often incompatible with what they are experiencing in the classroom, they just ignore it.

While it is true that research often makes statements incompatible with teachers' experience, its importance in helping shape our teaching methodology cannot be overlooked.

We need a philosophical justification of what underlies our methodology. At this time, research helps us discern the extent to which our justification is consistent with the reality we are facing.

In fact, teachers' ignorance of research findings has prevented them from finding good solutions to the problems they are constantly confronting. Writing teachers, for instance, have enthusiastically endeavored to assist their student writers in bolstering their writing ability via writing instruction and practice, with little success.

Such a persistent problem can be solved, as long as teachers are willing to pay attention to the following suggestions based on current research, and then take the other alternative which offers much better and less tedious effort on the part of both teachers and students.

Writing instruction doesn't give students a feel of what good and acceptable writing looks like. Specifically, it doesn't help students acquire writing style, appropriate diction and correct spelling. Increasing writing frequency either through self-sponsored writing or classroom-instructed writing doesn't result in significantly increased proficiency. It must be emphasized that the ability to write is the result of acquiring written codes, not the cause of it.

Similarly, the mastery of language rules, which is the result of grammar teaching, doesn't necessarily contribute to writing development. It has been evident that students who are exposed to grammar lessons for many years and grapple with understanding and memorizing rules are still unable to display competence in writing.

A general conclusion then is that writing competence cannot be acquired via either writing and grammar instruction. Forcing students to write without sufficient competence is tantamount to forcing an engine to work without gasoline. This, however, doesn't mean writing and grammar instruction are of no use and should be jettisoned from the school curriculum.

Their relative usefulness can best be explained in terms of Stephen Krashen's dichotomy: writing competence and writing performance. The former refers to the possession of technical writing skills (i.e. grammar, vocabulary and spelling), while the latter designates the ability to write using efficient writing strategies (i.e. planning, drafting, revising and editing).

Writing instruction, it should be reiterated here, cannot make students competent in writing, but it does help equip students with efficient writing strategies. As these strategies are teachable, writing instruction is key to raising students' awareness of how to compose efficiently.

By contrast, writing competence can only be acquired via reading. That is, the ability to write in an acceptable manner using correct grammar, vocabulary and spelling is derived from reading, not from writing practice. It is reading, Krashen says, that gives the writer the "feel" for the look and texture of reader-based prose.

One might argue that language components such as grammar and vocabulary are teachable via instruction. However, it could be counter-argued that they are much too complex, not to mention tedious, to be taught. What is more, we need to invest more time and energy in making students understand and acquire them.

It seems then that the best and the only way of accelerating students' writing competence is to get students hooked on books and to make them fly to books, just as an opium smoker flies to his pipe.

The writer is chief editor of the Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching and teaches English composition at Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta. He can be reached at setiono.sugiharto@atmajaya.ac.id.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.

Source URL: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/08/23/books-not-instruction-key-creating-writers.html

Japanese idealized overseas

Takamasa Sakurai / Special to The Daily Yomiuri

In my previous column in November, I talked about the global spread of so-called soshoku-kei (literally translated as male herbivores), which is found in environments where Japanese anime plays a heavy role in forming personalities among young people of both genders.

That column triggered greater feedback than usual, and I appreciate our readers' interest in the subject. In this column, I'd like to discuss how these soshoku-kei boys--and girls--interact with each other.

Last month, I visited Moscow for the first time in a year to attend J-Fest, an event showcasing the latest Japanese culture. I've participated in the event as a producer since J-Fest was launched two years ago. Working as a lecturer and emcee, I became friends with many young Muscovites, and they form a large portion of my Twitter followers.


One of them, a 27-year-old male graduate student who is a big fan of Morning Musume and other Japanese idol groups, introduced me to two of his female friends, aged 16 and 20. He had taught himself to speak proficient Japanese and is a good example of the saying: "Suki koso mono no jozu nare" (You'll be good at what you like.)

The two girls work part-time at a maid cafe, which opened two months ago in Moscow. A maid cafe in Moscow!? It was shocking to me even though I've reported on such places in China and other Asian countries. Although I would have loved to visit the Russian counterpart, I was unable to as it was only open during the weekends and I had to attend J-Fest.

The three Russians said they mainly communicated via the Internet. What interested me most was that they said their ideal partner would be Japanese. In everyday life, they rarely interact with Japanese, so young people in Russia chat online with each other about Japan and Japanese people in the same way they talk about Japanese anime and idols.


When talking with young people from around the world, I'm often bewildered by their glamorization of not only Japan, but also Japanese people. If even I--with my many opportunities to interact with these "Japan admirers"--am overwhelmed by the trend, then Japanese people who have never heard about it before are even more shocked. I'm often asked to talk about the question: "Are Japanese people popular overseas?" when I appear on Japanese TV or radio.


"If I can go to Japan, I'd like to gaze at men walking by on the street at a cafe in [Tokyo's] Harajuku for a whole day," a Croatian female college student told me.


When I asked another female college student I met in Mexico if she was interested in going out with a Japanese boy, she replied, "Not worth asking. [Of course!]"

At J-Fest, I met a Russian girl who is in a long-distance relationship with a Japanese man in Hokkaido.

I've written some books and columns to raise awareness over the introspective mindset of Japanese people today. The number of Japanese who are eager to study or work abroad has decreased.

On the other hand, young people overseas are exploring the appeal of Japanese anime and fashion via the Internet and talking online about Japanese people with the same admiration they give anime characters.


It's a one-sided love toward Japanese people. People in my generation who grew up adoring foreign cultures from countries such as the United States, are at first, bewildered by this phenomenon. But looking back on our own memories, adoration of other countries can develop anywhere in the world.


Sakurai is a content producer using events and seminars to engage in "pop culture diplomacy."

(Dec. 9, 2011)

Like a ‘Bule’ in a China Shop

What Indonesian’s REALLY Think About the West!

According to THIS article on the net.

Time for a Fresh Look on Indonesia

I have been running Cross Cultural workshops and working as a cross-cultural / cross-linguistic buffer in Asia for over 12 years now. Growing up in a mixed up cultural background and spending time constantly working between different cultural groups, I feel that over the years, the contrast between different cultures working and living together in Asia has become not as crisp as it was when I first started. I get so used to jumping between languages and cultures in my professional and personal lives, that the ‘mind set shift’ becomes automatic to the point that I often don’t realise what the ‘shifts’ are.

In a few weeks I will be running a Cross Cultural / Cross Linguistic workshop for large western company that will be sending many expats into work with and manage several thousand Indonesians. I thought it would be a good opportunity to put a survey out to my networks in Indonesia and hear from the horse’s mouth what their CURRENT opinions are on themselves, their own country’s culture, languages and how they view westerners in their country.

If you are Indonesian and still haven’t shared your thoughts with me by filling out the survey, there’s good news!… I will be leaving the survey open indefinitely. You can access it HERE.

Questions

Here is a list of the questions asked in the survey:

No.	English	Bahasa Indonesia
1	What part of Indonesia are you from?	Di indonesia, anda berasal dari daerah mana?
2	Where do you live (city) now?	Anda tinggal di mana (kota) sekarang?
3	What religion are you?	Agama anda apa?
4	Aside from Bahasa Indonesia, can you also speak any other local Indonesian languages?	Selain bahasa Indonesia, apakah anda bisa bahasa daerah seperti sunda, jawa, dll?
5	Do you still use the local languages that you can speak? If so, where / when?	Apakah anda masih menggunakan bahasa daerah yang anda kuasai tersebut? Kalau iya, dimana anda biasanya menggunakan bahasa tersebut?
6	In your honest opinion, what does the term ‘bule’ mean to you? (both positive and negative meanings)	Menurut pendapat jujur anda, apa artinya istilah ‘bule’ bagi anda, baik positif maupun negatif?
7	Please list 3 principles of Indonesian culture that you would consider important – e.g. ‘gotong royong’	Tolong sebutkan 3 prinsip budaya Indonesia yg penting bagi anda, contohnya gotong royong.
8	In your opinion, what do foreigners need to understand about Indonesia and Indonesian when working in Indonesia?	Menurut anda, apa yang diperlukan oleh orang dari luar negeri untuk mengerti tentang negara indonesia dan warga negaranya ketika bekerja di indonesia?
9	How do you feel about foreign men dating Indonesian women? (without the intent of marrying them).	Bagaimana perasaan anda tentang laki-laki bule yang berpacaran (dan tidak mempunyai tujuan untuk menikah) dengan perempuan indonesia?
10	How do you feel about cross-cultural / cross-religious relationships? Would you allow your child marry a foreigner or someone of a different religion?	Bagaimana perasaan anda tentang hubungan lintas budaya/agama? Apakah anda akan memperbolehkan anak anda menikah dgn orang asing atau orang yang berbeda agama?
11	From the foreigners in Indonesia that you either know or have observed, how would you rate foreigners living in Indonesia’s overall understanding of Indonesian culture (Don’t understand at all, Insufficient Understanding, Sufficient Understanding, Extreme Understnding)	Diantara orang-orang asing yang anda ketahui dan/atau telah anda perhatikan di indonesia, berapa anda akan beri nilai untuk pengertian dan kepekaan mereka terhadap kebudayaan indonesia ? (Sama Sekali Tidak Mengerti, Kurang Mengerti, Cukup Mengerti, Sangat Mengerti)

I chose these questions to specifically address areas that we’d been asked to cover in the workshop. The initial questions on the speaking of regional Indonesian languages was also for my personal interest, as I wanted to know whether there had been any shift over the past 15 years or so.

Speaking Regional Languages

I’ve found from the responses to the survey, the situation in regard to regional languages is slightly different to the situation in Thailand. In Thailand, especially in Bangkok, there is a certain stigma that’s attached to people speaking non-central Thai. The main dialect regions in Thailand are Northern, Isaan (Northeast), Central and Southern. There are many shades in each of these and some are thought to sound more refined than others. I have even seen people on the skytrain, subway, restaurants and other places with ‘people’ in downtown Bangkok receive a call on their mobile phone only to quickly hang-up on the caller saying something to the extent of ‘I’ll call you back soon’ in their local dialect trying not to be heard. I find this happen mostly with people who speak Isaan.

From the results from the Indonesian survey, I get the feeling that people are a lot more proud to use their local languages in public, as long as they are with people who speak the same language /dialect. One of the reasons that people would choose to switch to standard Bahasa Indonesia would be to release them from the hierarchical bonds that languages like Balinese, Javanese and Sunda put on them. Javanese for example has several levels of speech – Krama (High), Krama Inggil (High Krama), Krama Andhap (Low Krama), Madya (Middle), Ngoko (Low). In any interaction in Javanese, someone would have to have a full grasp on the nuances of all these registers of speech / vocabulary to be able to competently communicate in a respectable / appropriate manner. Speaking in Bahasa Indonesia to a great extent strips away many of those levels and gives a ‘vanilla flavoured’ language where people’s statuses are to a good extent flattened (though not to the extent of English).

Many of the responders mentioned that their level of their local language isn’t where they would like it to be. Many who speak Javanese speak mainly in the low level and are embarrassed of their lack of ability. Using standard Bahasa Indonesia is a safe alternative for them.

‘Bahasa Indonesia’ or ‘Indonesian’- Not just ‘Bahasa’

While we’re on the point of ‘Bahasa Indonesia’, I’d like to address a pet gripe of mine. Many of my clients will send me an email or call me up and ask if I’m free to do a job in ‘Bahasa’. ‘Bahasa’ is a Sanskrit based word – भाषा ‘Bhasha’ that just means ‘language’. So ‘Bahasa Indonesia’ mean ‘Indonesian Language’. The same word is used in many other languages like Thai ภาษาไทย ‘Phasa Thai’. If you’re going to use the term Bahasa when speaking English, say ‘Bahasa Indonesia’ or ‘Bahasa Melayu’ etc … otherwise it’s just like saying “Are you free to do a job in ‘language’?”

Bule… Bule Bule Bule

As you travel throughout Asia, you’ll find that most countries have their own ‘endearing’ term for ‘westerners’. In Hong Kong it’s 鬼佬 ‘Gwai’Lo’, in Mandarin it’s 老外 ‘lao wai’, in Japanese it’s 外人 ‘gai jin’, Tagalog it’s ‘puti’, Thai is ฝรั่ง ‘Farang’, Malay it’s ‘Mat Salleh’ and in Indonesian it’s BULE (pronounced ‘boo-leh’).

I often read forums from all these countries in both English and in the local languages and the feelings vary. Some will say that these are derogatory terms for foreigners, some will say that they’re neutral and others will say that they’re terms of endearment. I’ll let you decide. Most of the responses were in Bahasa Indonesia, so I have translated all the responses and deleted any repetition. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not you’d like to be considered a ‘bule’.

Positive	Negative
neutral culture	selfish
more developed	look down on other cultures
westerner	arrogant
open minded	proud
long pointy nose	albino – pigment deficiency
blue eyes	don’t like to learn language or culture of host country
good looking	doesn’t like washing
speaks English	dirty
likes to be practical	smells
rich	has free sex
smart	afraid of commitment to marriage
live for the future	atheist
	egotistical
	only eats bland food
	cannot eat chilli / hot and spicy food
	alcoholic
	refuse to try and understand Indonesian culture
	Has bad taste in women – can’t tell a ‘good looking’ or ‘good’ woman from a ‘less than good’ one
	don’t try to see things through the eyes of Indonesians
	dress inappropriately
	too much emphasis on personal privacy
	don’t respect the past

Many locals will be reluctant to mention what the ‘real’ feelings are about the term ‘bule’ as they think that it would be disrespectful. I have run workshops with expats in Indonesia and Thailand that have said ‘Some people might think those things, but they don’t think that about me – it’s not a negative term in my mind’. My response to that is that perhaps you are in denial.

Core Indonesian Values

Even though I asked for 3 of the core values that they thought were most important, many of the respondents gave more than 3. The answers all hovered around similar points. It would seem that knowing the appropriate protocols is paramount. The other major concept to embrace is that of family and society / the workplace as an extended family. We will see in a later question that part of showing respect and getting into the ‘culture’ and showing that you ‘care’ is learning how to address people properly. Not just by their name, but by the kinship title that an Indonesian version of you would address them in in Indonesia.

Respect / Politeness - Using appropriate greeting protocols 71%, Friendly 67%, Gotong Royong' - Mutual Assistance and Repect 63%, Family 54%, Respect Elders 46%, Caring for each other 42%, Tolerance 42%, Cooperation 42%, Importance of Religion 29%, Social Solidarity 25%, Humility 21%, Maintaining Good Relations / Networks of Influence 17%, Dilligence 13%, Forgiveness 13%

What do Westerners Need to Understand about Indonesia when Living and Working in Indonesia?

Answers were very long and descriptive here. In the following chart, I’ve translated the answers and categorized them under just a few major headings. From right across the board, nearly everyone unanimously said that learning the Indonesian language and learning about Indonesian culture is THE most important thing for foreigners to do when working in Indonesia. Not just learn about the culture, but to implement what was learned too.

Many foreigners may think that the linguistic side isn’t important and that they are there just to do business. The fact is though, in order to do business well, the foreigners need to work with and motivate local teams. To truly do that effectively, language and being able to speak to and understand the heart of the people is a vital ingredient.

Learn Indonesian 96%, Learn about Indonesian culture and do what you've learned 96%, Listen 79%, Don't come across as thinking you are superior 79%, Don't cause people to lose face 75%, Don't appear arrogant 63%, Don't Speak too much 21%, Don't just treat everything as business 21%, Don't think of Indonesia as a terrorist country 13%

One response stood out in regard to language and culture:

Tidak Tahu Unggah Ungguh

Foreigners should learn to address people – especially those older than them by the correct term. E.g. ‘Pak’ or ‘Paman’ for an older male. Even though a certain degree of familiarity might exist, for example a foreigner’s child should not just call the driver by his name directly. (He should use the correct term of address). This is often called ‘Tidak tahu Unggah Ungguh’ – to not be of a good upbringing / not know how to operate in a normal society.

Depending on what ethnic group and what part of Indonesia you are in, the terms used to address people can vary. There are a standard set of terms you can learn though that should get you by in most places. Stay tuned for an article covering these terms.

How do you feel about foreign men dating Indonesian women? (without the intent of marrying them).

The answer to this one was divided, though still weighted about 70% towards the ‘do not approve’ answer. The main difference was that from the ‘do not approve’ group, about a third of those people did not approve, but thought that it was up to the individual’s involved. Everyone is different, so if the girl makes a decision to do that, it’s her decision.

The majority however did not like the idea of western men dating Indonesian women without the intent of marrying them and said that it just reinforced the negative connotations of ‘bule’. That is that they are dirty, immoral, non God fearing people that are just after free sex and to take advantage of people.

How do you feel about cross-cultural / cross-religious relationships? Would you allow your child marry a foreigner or someone of a different religion?

The answers here were varied, though the majority of respondents when it came down to it did not approve of people marrying across cultures and especially not across religions.

I have translated 3 responses below to show the gradient of opinions.

Sample 1

All humans were created differently. There aren’t any two people the same. That is the greatness of God, and that is what makes this world so beautiful. Because of this, I am extremely ok with cross-cultural and cross-religious relationships. I would certainly allow my child to marry a foreigner but not with someone of a different faith (this is my own personal principle), as it’s difficult to sail a ship with two completely different captains.

Sample 2

I don’t agree cross religious relationships because it is not permitted by Islam. If a Moslem marry’s someone who is not Moslem, it means that they will be committing adultery for eternity. Just as long as the two people follow the rules of marriage for Islam, I have no problems with people of different cultures or nationalities marrying.

Sample 3

Cross-cultural no problem at all. Cross-religious or agnostic no way jose
[Note that this last response was submitted in English]

How Well do Foreigners Understand Indonesia?

The final question was to get a general picture of how Indonesians perceive foreigners living in Indonesia:

From the foreigners in Indonesia that you either know or have observed, how would you rate foreigners living in Indonesia’s overall understanding of Indonesian culture

(Don’t understand at all, Insufficient Understanding, Sufficient Understanding, Extreme Understanding)The results are as follows:

Don't Understand at all 0%, Understanding Not Sufficient 58%, Understanding Sufficient 42%, Understand Very Well 0%

There is obviously a long way to go in developing a better cross-cultural understanding between foreigners living in Indonesia and Indonesians. I will continue to hone my cross cultural programmes to address all of these issues and more. One take-home from this survey is that in the programme that I will be running for one of my oil and gas clients in a couple of weeks is that ‘language’ is a ‘need to know’, not just a ‘nice to know’. I will incorporate fundamental language learning within the cultural programme in a fun way to at least equip the expats with enough to make a good impression and start building bridges with their Indonesian team-mates.

Take the Survey! (If you’re Indonesian)

At the time of writing this article, there have been a total of 51 respondents. I will be leaving the survey form open indefinitely and encourage all Indonesians out there to share your own views. Do you agree with these findings? Do you disagree? Let me know what you think.

You can access the survey on a separate page HERE.

The women's sport we want to see on the BBC

Priced out of showing Premier League football, the BBC needs to find an alternative – and women's sport could certainly pull in the viewers

The BBC's new director general's comments about women's sport smack a little of winning the booby prize (no pun intended). Outpriced by commercial rivals for the rights to Premier League games, George Entwistle told the Radio Times, "We are simply no longer in that league," and that an alternative would be to target less mainstream sports. "Look at growing interest in women's sport and what opportunities might there be for us in the future as different sports come to the public's attention. Women's sport could be a real opportunity for the BBC."

No mention of why, as a public service broadcaster, women's sport hasn't long been given the coverage it deserves instead of being considered something to fill the sports schedules when you can't afford the sport you want, but still. After the success of female athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics - and the number of viewers who tuned in to watch them - this year could prove a turning point for women's sport on freeview television (some women's rugby and football is broadcast on Sky, ESPN and British Eurosport).

What would work well? "International football has developed to a superb standard," says Sue Tibballs, chief executive of the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation. "In Germany, when the women's world cup was on [last year], women's football was everywhere, and advertisers and brands got involved." In the UK, MPs had to intervene to get the BBC to show England's quarter-final match against France – its original plan was to show repeats of Porridge and Flog It!. Happily, today England's qualifier against Croatia is on BBC2.

Internationally, Tibballs says: "Netball is also interesting. It's a huge sport in Australia. There is some profile on Sky but there's an opportunity to show more. A lot of the sports people enjoyed at the Olympics were things such as judo, boxing, rowing. A bit more creativity could be applied in creating packages that profile those sports, rather than just turning up to events." A magazine show, perhaps, along the lines of the much-missedGrandstand, would be good. "We're very much compromised by the dominance of Premier League football in this country and I think 2012 really woke everyone up to diversity."

Taken from HERE.

Thoughts About The Future: Health

Doctors Online

Our relationship with our doctors is changing due to new technologies. Increasingly, instead of going to visit a doctor for routine matters, you can go online, as described in a CNS News article. The big difference is that doctors can now use what is being called e-health or e-care to meet with their patients online to engage in video chats, participate in health checkups over the phone, or review the results of in-home health monitoring devices that send the data to the doctor over an Internet connection.

Doctors can even monitor and adjust the doses of medicine that patients get over the Internet. If patients have an automatic drug dispenser, a doctor can prescribe how much of what drug a patient will get and change or stop the dosage based on the information obtained from other health monitors.

The way this online health care works is that a special device is clipped onto the patient ’s skin that contains all the drugs prescribed by the doctor. Then, based on what the doctor prescribes, the device using an Internet wireless connection will adjust what it doles out to the patient. In turn, the doctor will get information on what to do for the patient through an electronic health record, which keeps track of the results from other devices measuring the patient ’s blood pressure and glucose level. Later, should the doctor want to talk to the patient, he or she can communicate through video conferencing, as well as by phone.

For example, if a patient has diabetes, the flu, or high blood pressure, the doctor can see how the patient is doing at the push of a few keys or the movement of a mouse on a screen. Then, based on this information, the doctor can decide what the patient should do and provide any prescriptions for drugs or further treatment—all electronically, of course.

This means that doctors and patients no longer have to see each other very much, because so much routine medical care can be practiced while the patient is in the comfort of his or her own home. Certainly, if necessary, this Internet medical treatment can pave the way for the patient to actually see someone by going to the doctor ’s office or to a hospital for further care aided by electronic devices for everything from reading blood pressure to taking brain scans. But otherwise, the system increasingly emphasizes getting health care from the comfort of your own home without needing to physically visit a doctor.

Ironically, this new focus on medicine is a bit like turning back the clock to the days when doctors did in-home visits, though back then they were actually there in person, whereas now these home visits are increasingly conducted via an Internet connection between the doctor in his office and the patient at home.

Though some might consider this distance between doctor and patient overly impersonal, this system has much to commend it. You don ’t have to take the time to physically go to the doctor, and you don ’t have to deal with the stress of getting there as you battle traffic pileups and bad drivers. Additionally, you might have access to the latest and greatest of electronic monitoring devices.

However, there can be a number of downsides. For example, what if you are dependent on all this electronic gear to communicate with your doctor and the power suddenly goes off? Or what if when the power comes back on again, you find that the power surge has blown the power system in your monitoring gear, much like what happens when a surge takes out a computer power supply or motherboard (which is what has happened to me when I left one of my printers on, and suddenly ZAP, during an outage in the neighborhood, the power supply went dead and has taken three months to replace). And then what if your equipment simply fails or becomes uncalibrated and gives a wrong reading?

If you ’re in a doctor ’s office, where the doctor is seeing you personally, he might realize there could be a problem if you are telling him one thing about your health while he is personally examining you which contradicts what he sees on the electronic device. This means he should do further checking. Perhaps seeing you on a video monitor might help to overcome that disturbance problem—and maybe some home equipment plugged into the monitor might be able to take your blood pressure and pulse or scan your open mouth and listen to you breathe. But if there is all this high-tech equipment between you and the doctor, maybe that could cover up some of the things that might be observed during an in-person doctor ’s visit. Not everyone may want all of that electronic medical gear in their house, and some may consider it overly expensive.

Also, this care over the Internet lacks one more important thing. Quite often medical treatment depends on the placebo effect—a very real effect that comes not from the specific pills or other treatments the doctor provides, but from simply seeing a doctor and getting his or her reassurance or from a belief that the pills or treatment will work. While some people might need that personal interaction with a trusted doctor to get that reassurance, some people might just as easily feel it and maybe even more so when they interact with a doctor over a computer screen.

So are all these changes making health care more electronic a good thing? I think the doctor is still out—or maybe the appropriate word now is offline—on that one. But the one thing that seems certain is that more and more of us will be getting our health care online and through electronic devices. And as we do, more increasingly we will need to personally see fewer doctors, which could be a good thing, if fewer doctors are available. Or then again, this new technology could lead to outsourcing medical care as well as many other jobs, so now, not only is the doctor that you see likely to be online, but outsourced to another country, too.

In any case, for the health care of the future, just turn on your computer and start the program. Wherever you are, the doctor is always in, er . . . online.