Left in the Dust?

I watched a documentary yesterday called “Sari Soldiers” that was a part of a Human Rights Watch Film Festival going on at the James Farmer center. The documentary is all about the political and social crises going on in Nepal, but specifically from a female point of view.

The political instability began following the royal massacre in 2001 when allegedly, the crown prince killed his entire family and then committed suicide. A civil war took place shortly afterwards involving an underground Maoist (socialist/communist) insurgency and the King seizing absolute power from the multi-party democracy. This caused many abuses against human rights and people’s civil liberties, and also changed people’s everyday lives for the worse.

Seeing footage of the atrocities going on in the country of the corruption of the government itself made me realize that certain aspects of globalization such as the increase of international trade or the spread of technology will have no effect or importance whatsoever with such political, economic and social instability going on.

Being one of the 50 poorest nations in the world, Nepal and her citizens have to worry about basic human needs such as nourishment and safety, rather than focusing on other concerns. Globalization can not spread in a nation where there is no infrastructure. So while the rest of the world is advancing due to globalization, extremely poor and unstable nations such as Nepal are left behind, since they can not catch up to the level of competition where everyone else is or has been at.

So what is it that these poor nations need to do? What is it that they can do so they won’t be left in the dust?

God, I feel dumb

I’m sitting here, babysitting my seven-year-old nephew. He’s your average first-grader in a Fairfax County public school. We’re watching Sesame Street. There’s Big Bird singing with some out-of-the-ordinarily cute and ethnic looking girl with pigtails. Just like back in 1992, when we all probably watched Sesame Street as well. Just like always.
Except this is not like always.
Big Bird is not singing in English. He (or she, who ever knows?) is singing “La Cucaracha,” a popular children’s song in Spanish.
Yup, we’re watching Sesame Street in Spanish.
Did I ever think that I would be in this situation? No. But is this a perfect time to blog about something globalization-ish? YES.
Just before you might think that Jakey, my nephew, is not really understanding any of this Spanish and he probably is just zoning out with an occasional drool, he is not. Jakey is actually quite enthralled, sitting on his knees maybe about a foot away from the TV, repeating everything Big Bird says, in Spanish. I mean, if I had learned Spanish way back when I was a little fledgling, just think about how fluent I would be now…
The thing is, I guess people are realizing how important it is for them to understand multiple languages. Nowadays in high schools and colleges across the country, becoming proficient in at least one other language is mandatory.
Jakey’s mom, my cousin, told me the other day that his school has been experimenting with their curriculum and has added learning Chinese to the class’s daily schedule. So Jakey is not only learning his colors in Spanish with Big Bird, he’s also learning Chinese in school, beside all his other regular subjects i.e. reading, numbers, first grade stuff.
I ask Jakey to count to ten in as many languages as he can and he rattles off English. Super star. Then he counts to ten in Nepali, the language that he uses at home with the family. Nice. Spanish? Easy peasy. And lastly, Chinese? Probably a little mistake or two in intonation, but nothing that my deaf ear would pick up.
Basically to sum up this entire post is a sentence: I need to catch up to that brat.