Biography
As a teacher it is not so unusual to shift schools but I have made an art form - or at least a career of sorts - shifting schools and country. I am also inclined to wax philosophical about teaching experiences across different cultures and civilizations.
My first professional teaching job was in a school in the riverine Mekong town of Vientiane where I first arrived as a 20-year old. Then the administrative capital of Laos alongside the royal capital of Luang Prabang, the country was at war. Actually several wars were then being waged in Laos; the civil war between the Royalists and the communist Pathet Lao - eventually won by the latter in December 1975 - the clandestine war waged by the CIA using Hmong mercenaries; the armed North Vietnamese implantation in Laos; and the devastating US bombing of rural Laos. Vientiane was then a splendidly decadent Sino-Vietnamese-Lao populated city (with an American enclave) just emerged from the cocoon of French colonialism and still coming to grips with the US aid bonanza and the corrupt political and military cliques which it spawned. One of my favorite hangouts was the French officers mess (French cuisine but no French military in sight). Well, I worked as a teacher for the Lao Ministry of Education - notionally - because my true employer was the parallel US government. Matching the demography of the city, my students were Lao, Vietnamese, Chinese and Hmong. Some spoke all these languages and all spoke French. The Lao-American Association where I worked would later became headquarters for the communist ministry of propaganda and information. No doubt some of my former students fled the country in 1975 on Air France - especially as many studied in the lycee - but some also stayed on.
Actually I have a trilogy of books on Laos history, culture and politics all in print. Back in Australia I scrambled to complete three degrees in Political Science and Asian studies (Melbourne University; Queensland University and Monash University). At Monash I worked most closely with renown Cambodia specialist Prof .David Chandler, but I was also fortunate to be hired as tutor/teaching assistant to the late Prof. Herb Feith, undoubtedly Australia's leading Indonesia specialist and pioneer peace studies teacher/researcher.
I was then writing up a Ph.D. dissertation following some 15 months field work in Laos, Thailand, Yunnan in China, and France. Prof. Feith's course "Rich World-Poor World" was immensely popular with students, but teaching was no pushover as obscure readings could run to reams and students were not content with glib answers.
Nothing like a change in scene - although I had previously spent time in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria - my next job was in the Libyan People's Arab Jamahiriya, then politically twinned with Syria. I worked in Colonel Muhamar Gadaffi's former alma mater and he frequently dropped in with armed entourage just to check morale. This was at Benghazi on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. My office was on Jamal Gaffar Nasser Street in the former palace-headquarters of some (no-less?) tyrannical Italian colonial governor. Italian influence was still quite strong, not only in architecture but also food (pizza and spaghetti). Unspoiled Greek and Roman sites abounded. My students were pleasant enough - even gregarious - and undoubtedly the first generation ever to enjoy the opportunity for higher education. I worked in the Urban Planning Department with teachers from Helsinki University of Technology. The idea was to teach restoration of the old bazaar district still extant amidst the devastation of World War II. The university was modern and the faculty handbooks resembled those of a North American university, while bilingual Arabic-English education was well developed. The library was well endowed and I enjoyed reading Libyan history besides the petroleum journals, and once in this library I even found a hair-raising official US report on human rights abuses in Libya. Pleasantly I was invited to departmental meetings. Once the agenda for discussion included a proposal for military training for staff. I learned that Gaddafi-style people's councils also penetrated the university. Anti-Italy; anti-Britain and anti-US day were established national holidays. Political posters proclaimed "Africa for the Africansand support for various anti-imperialist causes. Needless to say, local cultural style overrode everything else. My time was before Lockerbie but coincided with the alleged shooting in London of a British policewoman by Libyan embassy staff. Oil-rich Libya was a beleaguered country. My university deployed SAM missiles for self defense - for very good reason as Benghazi would subsequently (April 1986) be attacked by US F-111 warplanes, launched from British bases and US warships. There were 24 dead in Benghazi. In my time, however, tensions were more internal and my university was the major site where these political tensions would be played out. Warming came in the form of a giant video screening of a live execution of students in Tripoli. But this was just a frightening premonition of the public hanging of a trio of Palestinian (it is said) students outside the law faculty of my university. Well, I didn't directly witness this frightening event because I was pushed away by a swirl of hysterical girl students, but my Polish girl counterpart did happen upon it. Not all Libyans were content with this state of affairs including the then crippling border war with Chad in the south - and some told me as much - but neither was there any avenue for dissent. Libya's main enemies then and now stemmed probably from Islamicist elements especially as Gaddafi's Libya - and the comparison could be made with Assad's Syria and Iraq under Batthist control - is a highly secularized and therefore a friendly form of Islam.
Keeping my new family alive was another headache. Notably, the water was undrinkable. Fortunately South Korean engineers had discovered a solution and on daily basis offered me a jerrycan of fresh water which I lugged around the place along with briefcase. Libyan style socialism also meant some severe bottlenecks in food distribution and some creativity on the part of the consumer in order to survive. Aside from saline water - or no water when a precious US-made water pump collapsed - occasional food shortages as with meat from Bulgaria, sugar from Cuba and tea from Sri Lanka, at least were guaranteed. Notwithstanding, blistering desert winds, and formidably mean streets after dark when gangs took over,, Libya offered up a rich civilizational experience but one that must have left my friends in Monash wondering.
Arriving back in Australia after an interlude in Hong Kong. I accepted a position at University of New South Wales in Sydney. This was in General Studies and I taught Australian-Southeast Asian relations. General Studies was unusual insofar as the university required all students irrespective of faculty to sit one course prior to graduation. Needless to say the very existence of General Studies was contested. Looking back, I see General Studies as an exceptionally liberal school. The first day I was required to hire six teaching assistants to help tutor some of the 300 odd students who would enroll in this course. Never before or since have I reigned over such an empire. As well, the head insisted that all staff chair meetings on a rotational basis, a kind of devolution of authority I have not since witnessed. General Studies was also liberal in the range of course offerings, in the relationship of staff with the rest of the university, with students, and with the community. My time in General Studies coincided with some critical issues besetting Australia and Indonesian over East Timor and the need for UN engagement in the Cambodia problem. Not surprisingly, given the huge Asian student population at this university, the on-campus Asian Students Organization was particularly active - especially the Malaysians - and always ready to debate and discuss the issues with me as they saw them. One of them, Khamal Bhamadaj, was a victim of the 1991 Dili massacre in East Timor. One teaching innovation I learnt in this position was to screen several movies per session, all with political or moral themes. It was also nice to be taken seriously by media and government. Living in Sydney also had its moments. It is just possible that I was then the only teacher in Australia mainstreaming the discussion of East Timor into an undergraduate class. [Two of my books stemming from this position concern Timor and the media; and Cambodia and the media respectively, both co-authored with Jefferson Lee]
Still this was not Asia. I departed Australia for the National University of Singapore (NUS) in the island republic of that name. I was hired by the Department of Political Science to teach Southeast Asian Studies. In fact, over half my time was spent teaching an introductory course on political science, recycling standard formulaic enumerations of global regimes, whether liberal democratic, authoritarian, or totalitarian. The problem in Singapore was that as soon as you opened your mouth on a range of issues from representation, to media, to judiciary, to civil rights, your student audience could only draw one conclusion, namely "my country is not a liberal democracy. Well, some of my former colleagues theorized this politely as "illiberal democracy. Truth is that my time in Singapore coincided with the so-called Marxist-church-US conspiracy against the state. The ruling PAP-state claimed to have uncovered a "Marxistbookshop in Singapore and then aired a deplorable televised "confessionby the alleged author of the plot The conspiracy against the state was also said to include interfering Christians. I actually witnessed a demonstration against alleged US interference in internal Singaporean affairs. That would not be unusual around the world except that Singapore bans demonstrations. Just as foreign media were frequently banned or restricted in the Lion City, so the state famously went over to its Asian values defense of illiberalism against universal values. The students were smart just as the nation's then single university could afford to be selective. With its origins in the British colonial period NUS retains many outward features of a British university, except that it is run by the civil service. As a meritocratic civil service that may not necessarily be a bad thing. But the PAP world and the NUS world also coincide in numerous appointments, just as the colonial ethos has long been replaced by PAP's righteous brand of Confucian ethics along with homespun Singaporean homilies. While NUS prides itself as a leading university globally, that accolade cannot apply to the Department of Political Science. It is praiseworthy that NUS seeks to recruit globally, but it is a comment upon the Department that it cannot retain the best. Indeed, the attrition of non-Singaporan foreign staff from Political Science suggests a wide gap in expectations between deeply socialized locals and highly professionalized internationals.
Faculty meeting were rare and highly formalized, departmental meetings were formalities and decision-making was neither collegial nor transparent. Not too much conversation flowed in the common room - the hallmark of many a big name university and, something which I subsequently learned (Brunei and Japan), reveals a cautious Asian trait of not wanting to be heard. Former professors of literature have in the past lampooned this university which is not my style, but teaching politics in "illiberal democraciesis not like teaching English or science or robotics. One of my highlights was to host a series of discussions by ASEAN ambassadors. Most declined the invitation, but the Indonesian ambassador - a former general - accepted. As a former Sukarno-era military attachin Laos, we got on well but when faced with a battery of perfectly articulated questions from the student audience on the Indonesian occupation of East Timor he visibly dissembled. The audience was stunned as well as informed. I often wondered who was this all so rare student who dared to speak out? Things may have changed somewhat, but in my time, NUS academics were fiercely risk-averse, with the result that very little cutting-edge social science research emerged in this tightly regulated academic environment.
Singapore has its attractions. Everyone passes through this city going somewhere else and the shopping is first class. It may also have been boring alongside Sydney but that is not the point. Singapore is but an island in the midst of an Islamic sea and so it was to Brunei Darussalam that I next relocated. The oil-rich Sultanate wedged between the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah on the northeast of the island of Borneo would be my home for the next five years. This time I would work in a department of history in the newly established University Brunei Darussalam. More or less, as with the Libya and Singapore model, I was a civil servant. The Sultan served as chancellor of the university (and, like Colonel Gaddafi, he was also want to arrive practically unannounced).
Our first lodging was in a hotel annex adjacent an urban Iban longhouse. We later relocated to a lush forested valley alive with troops of monkeys and other wildlife. For the duration of my stay I habitually rode a bicycle in the early morning cool, then rode a bus to my university campus. Classes usually finished in the morning so I would struggle to return via the single irregular bus service. When it failed I rode a fast motor sampan that would take me down a river tributary to Brunei's famed water village, busy with all kinds of river activity and framed by the Sultan's landmark palace. Still, a bicycle journey awaited and frequently, while "dinkingmy young passenger on the way back from primary school, we would be overwhelmed by torrential rains arriving home like drowned rats.
I did not find it difficult to adjust to teaching Southeast Asian history and enjoyed adding East Asian history, but doing this in Malay had its challenges, at least until I could gather in an optimum selection of Malay and sometimes Indonesian textbooks. I realized that Malay translations of social science texts lagged dramatically, but I also endorsed the translation of books in general if Malay is to flourish as an academic language. Universiti Brunei Darussalam then, as with its Libyan counterpart, had established a bilingual teaching policy. and most other international teacher's taught in English. Again the university model is British on paper, although it soon became apparent that the university was a hybrid British-Islamo-Malay teaching institution. The cultural religious context was highly variant to Libya's secular model and variant to the Singapore experience in most respects aside from its academic presumptions. Both Singapore and Brunei universities are conscious of the need for international examination and assessment of both its teachers and its students. The major test for students in both systems is in the grading of a graduation thesis. The student's final grade will go far in determining future civil service ranking. Grading, standardization, and examination of grades becomes a fine art and takes years of experience to acquire the skill.
Five years saw the gradual Islamicization of Brunei's schools and university in line with a general deepening of Islamic culture. This is not to say that Islamicists took over but certainly their influence in institutions and the university increased. But, after all, this was a Sultanate, practically the only global example of an unconstitutional monarchy. As in Singapore liberalism was suspect, a strict censorship regime prevailed and, no doubt a system of spies and informers served to kept malcontents offside, hence a culture of pernicious and sometimes malicious rumors. There is no question that Brunei was ruled by a system of archaic rules and regulations that often challenge commonsense. Brunei tradition had its charms but it also had its share of intolerance. Civil society remains highly constricted and expatriate life could often be lampooned.
In any case I have greatly elaborated upon the educational system of Brunei in my Language, Power and Ideology Departing Brunei Darussalam with a diplomatic escort, my next appointment would be in the land of cherry blossom. This would be in the southwestern city of Nagasaki known of course as the second city on which the atomic bomb was dropped. This was more than ironic as Nagasaki is host to the largest Christian community in Japan, in part legacy of the city's foundation at the hands of Portuguese traders and missionaries in the late sixteenth century. Nagasaki was for several centuries Japan's near exclusive window on the outside world, notably to Dutch traders arriving from Jakarta and Chinese whose legacy today remains in the form of elegant stone bridges and regional Chinese temples.
Joining a national university I also became a civil servant. I also became a "professorin an inverted triangle system whereby full professors outnumber associate professors who in turn outnumber assistant professors. Just call me Doctor please! I soon found that the Japanese university model was utterly outside my experience. To generalize, up until the reform of April 2004 ushering in "independent corporate entities, the Ministry of Education wielded extraordinary control over some 287 national and public institutions including Japan's unique system of university entrance exams. With the exception of China? where else in the world could one find such standardization, uniformity and control. The Ministry control also extends to a parallel system of private universities through the conditional disbursement of subsidies. Needless to say, in a system which Napoleon would have admired, there would be little scope for innovation unless it came from the top down.
Many surprises awaited. This time teaching in English, I found that bilingualism didn't exist and neither are students (outside some private universities) streamed according to language ability. The results can be farcical. Famously, test-oriented students cannot write essays in any language. In fact, they are required to write a graduation dissertation but this carries little weight in the system. Neither do students read much! except for the teacher's single textbook, just as few students patronize the library. But neither is library science well developed in Japan and library environments are not attractive even by the standards of, say, Libya. I am referring to reading/writing in Japanese. Famously, few students graduating from the Japanese school system can utter a sentence in English, although a narrow majority can reproduce some written lines with coaching. By the third or fourth year of university most Japanese students have forgotten the English they learned at school. So, how do I operate? Now that is a secret.
University life in Japan is not truly a leisure land as often suggested, as students lurch from one 90 minute class to another filling most of the week, especially as they over-enroll to minimize failure and failures are not registered as such. Little reading, and sloppy writing, so is it academic? Social science concept building, an exploration of theories, critical use of source material, eludes Japanese students (and teachers??). Moral debates, critical thinking are just about alien to the system I would say. Social science/humanities students emerge at the end of four years as generalists in some field, especially as there does not appear to be a system of "majorsas might be expected in a British or US university. Few Japanese students proceed direct to the new graduate schools opening across the land, just as company recruiters are disinterested in such an eccentric cohort. To carry on, there are no student newspapers, student club activity is flagging outside of sport, and neither are students represented in university government. Campus life is pretty dead. Even by the standards of Singapore this looks depressing.
The model is also very insular. Only recently a target of 100,000 foreign students in Japan was registered, albeit with the vast majority hailing from China. In fact, many are highly motivated, some with superior study skills, and many with competence in English besides Japanese. But generally, there is little student diversity. "Foreign faculty remain a restricted category. While foreign language teachers have been a feature of Japanese university life since Meiji times, "foreign facultyteaching content courses was an innovation introduced only in the mid-1980s. The Ministry offers no statistics but they once possibly numbered some 300, spread very thin through the system, a figure which probably included many lab assistants and researchers also mostly from China. In the current climate the number has fallen away with virtually zero renewal or recruitment. There is also a huge imbalance in the number of Japanese researchers sent to foreign universities and the number of foreign researchers entering Japan to study. Why? Lack of facilities, no transparency in application procedure; and a strong cultural predisposition to remain outside of international scrutiny. Neither does a system of external refereeing exist in Japan. To the extent that Japanese universities figure in international rankings - and I have several times been asked to participate then, following THES criteria, it cannot be for scholarly citations, it cannot be for an international faculty or international student profile, although it could be for the huge sums of research money which these universities attract. Where the system wins of course (and, in the THES rankings) is in the employment of graduates emerging from the nation-wide centrally-coordinated system of finely attuned university cum job shops. The nation can be proud.
Lucky winners of Education Ministry scholarships aside, there are few carrots offered to entice international faculty to relocate to this country such as doled out by the likes of Saudi Arabia (tax breaks) and China (nice apartments), just as attitudes to the presence of non-Japanese, much less foreign immigration, appear to be invariant (witness the farcical 2009/2010 recruitment of Indonesian and Filipino nurses.). Setting aside cultural dispositions, there are a brace of legal obstacles besetting the empowerment of non-Japanese in Japan, so even being "seenwould be a major achievement, because no-one else is exactly "readingyou. Language is a barrier but, like Japanese women hitting the famous "glass ceilingin career advancement, so non-Japanese find themselves perpetually suspended in a netherland of make believe. As mentioned, I prefer to be called "doctorbut not part of local vocabulary apparently.
The Japanese higher education system simply stands above or aside the rest of the world. Korea has long moved on with strict bilingualism and international recruitment, and China is moving. Still, the Japanese system is highly serviceable to purely national interests hence the proliferation of so-named national universities - just as hundreds of thousands of young Japanese graduates abandon all pretense at academic achievement in the scramble for company recruitment. Infamously, this scramble now begins up to 12 months before graduation, in any case virtually assured. With its special school-work transition system, boot camps, indoctrination, and training courses, the Japanese student can look forward to his/her future employer filling in curricular gaps, and who would doubt the multi-skill acumen of the Japanese salaryman (rarely woman) blithely entering a world without moral dilemmas.
To summarize, the Japanese Ministry of Education model is one in which age may take precedence over merit, where Japanese ranked universities are overvalued, where higher degrees are undervalued, where innovation comes from top down, where assimilation to nation-wide bureaucratic norms takes over, and where international comparisons simply do not count. Specialization is embedded, post-modernism is hardly known, and one can hardly communicate across a discipline. Intellectualism is probably better developed in the world of journalism than the academy. From the student perspective, the model is highly rigid, credit transfer virtually unknown, curriculum development and subject choice is unexciting and unchanging. Rather than being challenged, students face down a regime of memorization, cramming and testing recalling the experience of high school. The worst fear of all, if it has not already transpired, is that progressively falling birthrates has led to an easing of entry standards to fill up vacant places.
Lest no confusion enter the picture, I am referring to the fifty plus years education system dominated by the Ministry of Education which, less than dramatically, came to an end on 31 March 2004. Japan now enters the third wave of educational reform, pregnant with hope that enlightened internationalism, academism, and inspired pedagogy will take over.
Although my researches are hardly noticed in Japan (after all I write in English), I used my time in Nagasaki to produce several cycles of books. The first cycle might be described as regional histories, or correlated history written from a regional perspective within a world-history framework. My book on the academy obviously awaits.
The first cycle might be described as regional histories, or correlated history written from a regional perspective within a world-history framework.
Timor Lorosae: 500 years (Livros do Oriente, Macau, 1999)
A second cycle is my world history
First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange (1500-1800) (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, 2003)
A third cycle relates to international organization and stems from my close involvement with East Timor especially during the 1999-2003 period.
East Timor and the UN: The Case for Intervention (Red Sea Press, 1997)
Historical Dictionary of East Timor, Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
And finally, recent reprints of my Indochina studies
Political Struggles in Laos (1930-1954) (Bangkok: Duang Kamol, 1988) (reprinted White Lotus, 2005)
Theravadins, Colonialists and Commissars in Laos (Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 1998)
Rebellion in Laos (Westview Press, 1990) (Reprinted White Lotus, 2003)
