From East to East

The Hong Kong Skyline

This blog documents my Fall 2009 semester of teaching journalism in Hong Kong, as a Visiting Scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University. I thought of calling this blend of light and serious observations “One Hundred Days in Hong Kong.” (Though it’ll actually be 108.) But because I’ve spent most of the past 16 years in ex-Communist Eastern Europe (that’s old Bratislava drawn above), my life and journalistic experiences there are the inevitable measuring stick for fresh encounters here in China. So I dub thee blog: “From East to East”! [First entry: Sept. 2 – "Land, Ho..."]

Mission Almost Accomplished

Before arriving in Hong Kong, knowing I was to teach young Chinese in an “International Journalism” program, I pondered: “How can I teach them international journalism without the travel?”

With that, I returned to a course I hatched almost seven years ago, an International Reporting class for two New York City universities – again, no passport required. The essence: simulate the overseas experience by having each student explore an ethnic, immigrant or refugee community.

In New York, of course, that’s no problem. In Hong Kong, too, I saw the potential: with its historic British and South Asian communities, plus recent waves of Southeast Asian migrant workers.

One obstacle, though: the department chairman, Huang Yu, had a reasonable point. He noted that while many from the mainland had some journalism experience, or studied it as undergrads, others didn’t. “Our students must first learn solid fundamentals,” he explained. I pledged to. But I wanted to blend that with my master-plan: serious reporting of non-Chinese communities.

I wanted to force students out of their “comfort zone”: to meet, understand and write about people unlike them. From there, it’s actually a short leap to travel to another country and write about others.

The first day of class, I introduced this semester-long project, reassuring students that I’d walk them through, step by step, the entire research, reporting and writing process. Well, the results are now coming in – and I’m awed by what I’m reading. Exploitation of Indonesian and Filipina maids. Cantonese-language rules that limit university enrollment of Hong Kong-born Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese. Discrimination against minority athletes. Survival prospects for the tiny Zoroastrian community. And on and on.

I’d put into words how proud I am, but I wouldn’t want them to hear. After all, I’m just now editing their first drafts, which are still flawed in significant ways. The final draft looms. So let’s keep my delight between us, OK?

Tough Love

If you were to ask my students, they might describe me as one part Jekyll, one part Hyde. (So would my sons, but that’s another story.)

Sure, the students sometimes chuckle at my classroom shtick, whether it’s a self-deprecating jab, voice impersonation or the crook of an eyebrow.

But they also see a nastier side. Especially when I repeat myself for the umpteenth time: from their failure to proofread an article before submission, or consistently quoting fact, not paraphrasing, to larger issues like plagiarism (see Oct. 20 post) or ignoring my prescribed story structure. The venom really spews when I edit their work, inserting comments in red-hot caps … with lots of exclamation points.

This week, though, I apologized. To all 70 of them. I’m so used to hearing them speak English, my mother tongue, that I easily forget this is their second, third, even fourth language. I may dabble in Hungarian, Slovak and Cantonese, but can only dream of writing in a foreign language as well as they are right now.

So, I taught them the idiom “can’t see the forest for the trees,” to underscore how I’d lost perspective. Theirs is actually a double degree of difficulty: writing in English, but also in a completely new writing form, this American-style news feature I’m teaching them.

Recognizing the need to balance praise with poison, then, I wrote on the board another new expression: Tough Love. “It’s because I care too much,” I explained. More chuckles.

Positive Reinforcement: For Them, For Us

As journalists, we’re taught to refuse “freebies,” the gifts that may influence our work. But I’m thrilled that seven Pulitzer-winning journalists accepted a free trip to Hong Kong last week. If nothing else, they made our job a bit easier.

My journalism teaching is a mix of what I learned in school, what I’ve gleaned from my own journalism of the past 20 years, and my journalistic instincts today. Still, as a freelance teacher, I don’t often get the feedback that “Yes, you’re doing it the right way.”

Which is one reason why the Pulitzer Prize-Winners Workshop, hosted by Hong Kong Baptist University, left such an impression. It wasn’t just drawing inspiration from seven of the best that American journalism has to offer. But how their words reinforced our own.

On hand for the week were Jim Amoss, editor of The Time-Picayune in New Orleans, the 1997 and 2006 winner in the Public Serve category; Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times, a 2009 winner for Explanatory Reporting; Hank Klibanoff, a 2007 winner for History; Michael Parks, the 1987 winner for International Reporting; Jane Perlez of the New York Times, a 2009 winner for International Reporting; Connie Schultz of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the 2005 winner for Commentary; and Damon Winter of the New York Times, the 2009 winner for Feature Photography.

During a mid-week break in the discussions, I sat in the news lab with two colleagues. “It’s so good to hear them saying exactly what I’m teaching,” said Robin Ewing, an American. Before I could second that, our Japanese colleague, Masato Kajimoto, exclaimed: “I was thinking the same thing!”

My view is that students can’t hear the principles of serious, responsible journalism often enough. Especially at HKBU, where we’re training the future generation of Chinese democrats. (That’s democrat with a lower-case “d.”)

Winning Hearts and Minds

Pulitzer week was clearly meaningful to the students, as it opened their eyes to so many layers of the work we do. What surprised me, though, was how the prize-winners themselves came away inspired from meeting our students.

In other words, it went both ways – a genuine cultural exchange.

To document it, I’ve asked both sides for their impressions. A sampling so far:

Chen Chen, 22, from Qufu, Shandong:

There are two thoughts so beautiful that may spur and inspire me for quite a long while. One is from Julie and Connie. They both said, being humble, and being grateful. Before that, I was very depressed, felt so debased that I didn’t want to pick up the phone and make another call. I wondered whether a REAL journalist would experience the same. But then I knew even Pulitzer winner went through the same. That’s just part of being a journalist. Not everyone is nice. You just have to be humble, and feel grateful to those who are nice to you. Another one is from Michael Parks. He said and I remembered clearly, “there would be no great story in a place of comfort. I can hardly remember when the best story happened in London, or Paris.” His words gave me strength. I went to the Central with my partner that afternoon and didn’t feel tired at all. It wasn’t a place of comfort to interview a lisping old man in front of a working crane, but I always thought of what Michael (and you) said.

Andrea Deng, 23, Shenzhen:

It was so inspiring and triggers so much aspiration of becoming a professional international correspondent that I have to let myself calm down a little bit, just to be sure that I’m not overwhelmed by faraway dreams and actually act on what I’ve learned. I’m most impressed by the experience of Julie Cart writing the Pulitzer-winning news, that she found the most interesting story only at the end of her last day staying in Australia. Before that, she had already done scores of interviews. It shows tremendous patience and conscientiousness. She said she never felt interview was done enough. I marked down what she said and tried to practice in my recent task, doing my best to contact strangers and interviewing people half a day before deadline. It’s my inexperience to not achieve better, but I feel that I have done everything I can to achieve the best of myself. Time will perfect my skills. I’m also impressed by Damon Winter’s photos, effortlessly. All that devastated close-up faces of ordinary people and appalling long-shots where tragedy took place in front of the camera thrill me. Journalists are front-line witnesses of human sufferings and human history. I’m not saying that everything in the world makes people sad, but picking up pieces of stories gradually forms one’s understanding of people and the world, and hopefully forms a clear mind of how to live one’s own life. I just wish that I could be more sensitive about people’s thoughts and feelings, and be more knowledgeable to assist my understanding of different people.

TOTAL RESPONSES (7)

Connie Schultz Responds

In a Jordan Ink. exclusive, columnist Connie Schultz, who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, reflects on her visit to Hong Kong:

It is 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning in our home in America, and being the cook of the family I am the only one up. Being the only journalist in the family, I am also the only one already on a computer checking the news and e-mail. Some habits will die only when I do, I’m afraid.

One of my e-mails included a wonderful note from Professor Robin Ewing, who asked me if I had checked Professor Michael Jordan’s blog, “Jordan, Ink.” to read what some of the students have written here.

What? My beloved Hong Kong friends are writing about their experiences with us? I rushed to click on the link. I was eager for my HKBU student-fix, as spending time with all of you created a new addiction in me. A good one: I yearn for more of our lively conversations.

I am so moved by what has been posted here, in large part because, from my perspective, the gratitude is all mine. When I arrived in Hong Kong bedraggled and blinking like a newborn, I had no idea what was in store of us, but it didn’t take long to find out. Immediately, I was greeted by the smiling faces of students who traveled at night just to meet me. Yang Zhuo stood front and center, recognizing me immediately and welcoming me like a long lost relative.

I had the hunch that I was about to have the adventure of a lifetime, and boy, did I. Woo-hoo, as my son always says.

I am still digesting all that I learned during my time in Hong Kong. Meeting such a brave group of students and faculty – and yes, it is brave what you are doing – shook me of any resigning thoughts I might have been having that the best days of American journalism must surely be behind us. The newspaper industry in our country is deeply troubled right now. But how can I possibly give up trying to find ways for us to continue to play a vital role in our country’s democracy when you are fighting so hard for the right to practice ethical, responsible journalism in your country? I feel newly charged, and it’s because of you.

After the Berlin Wall, Nostalgia for Communism Creeps Back

An archivist at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague files some of the 280 million pages’ worth of secret-police reports. (Photo: mjj)

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, some in Eastern Europe miss the days of full employment and before free elections brought extremism.

By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

From the November 8, 2009 edition

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC; and PARTIZÁNSKE, SLOVAKIA – In the airy lobby of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, George Santayana’s immortal words are a daily reminder to Czech staffers digitizing millions of Communist-era files: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Yet even the institute’s spokesman says his grandparents criticize the organization’s mission. They brush aside four decades of neighbors and co-workers spying on one another in the former Czechoslovakia and long wistfully for a time of full employment.

“My grandmother says the Com­munists were great, while my grandfather says we’re stupid to open the archives, because people don’t have jobs, which is more important than … history,” says Jiri Reichl.

On the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germans and others across the world are celebrating the moment that clinched the end of the cold war. But the Czech Republic reflects another trend across Eastern Europe, 20 years into the traumatic shift from dictatorship to democracy: creeping nostalgia.

Each positive development of “democracy” ushered in negative consequences: Free-market competition brought soaring prices and joblessness; free elections brought extremist parties; free press brought incitement; free movement brought cross-border crime and westward “brain drain.”

Dead Soles

Topiary on Partizanske's main square pays homage to the product upon which the town was founded. (Photo: mjj)

In Partizanske, Slovakia, a mighty producer of shoes under socialism, the free-market transition remains a work in progress.

A TOL special report.

 

By Michael J. Jordan, 29 October 2009

Click here to see a slideshow about Partizanske. See more special coverage of the anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain at our 20 Years After website.

PARTIZANSKE, Slovakia | Julius Michnik speaks of two great loves in his life. One is his wife, Frantiska, with whom he’s spent the past 55 years. The other is the Bata shoe company, with whom he’s spent the last 66.

As a 15-year-old apprentice, Michnik recalls, he marveled at the rigorous quality control Czech shoe baron Tomas Bata’s disciples imposed in the Slovak town that bloomed around the company. This standard propelled “unbeatable, eternal Bata” upward in Czechoslovakia both before and during the communist period. At its peak the Partizanske plant employed nearly 16,000 people and turned out more than 30 million pairs of shoes a year, according to a history of the town published in 2000.

Today, that’s a distant memory. Most of the mile-long complex is a rusting hulk, with few signs of life on its vast grounds.

“I was very proud, and I’m still very proud, to have worked there,” says Michnik, president of the Bata “School of Work” Alumni Association. “But this would never have happened if Bata himself were here today. Or he would have shot himself.”

Twenty years after the collapse of communism, Partizanske is a microcosm of how classic one-company towns in Slovakia, and Eastern Europe itself, were devastated by the free-market transition. Blasted by Asian competitors, the city labors to recover and compete.

“Here was ‘Strong Bata’ and ‘Strong Socialism.’ Families didn’t have to struggle for anything, because the boss provided for all their needs,” says Mayor Jan Podmanicky. “How do you teach people to be independent and take responsibility for themselves? People from the outside can give you advice, but you have to change yourself.”

The Plagiarism Pox

Plagiarism warnings to students are all theoretical until that vexing assignment comes along. Oh, the temptation! Just a simple Control-C-Control-V maneuver with your fingers, pasting just the right words into your document … Presto! All your homework worries evaporate.

The contagion entered my classroom clinging to modest 300-word features, on Filipinas in Hong Kong struggling to support families in the typhoon-struck Philippines. (See post below.) While focusing on one woman, students were also required to note the big picture of what befell the country itself.

Searching the wires, the temptation proved too great. Some seemingly wondered: “How could I ever describe the destruction as eloquently?” Others succumbed to: “I wanna get this story done, quick!” I found at least a dozen cases of flat-out theft. Which is a real pity, because I was truly pleased with the students’ overall effort to find compelling stories and describe them in detail.

I’ve heard of pervasive plagiarism in Chinese universities (and elsewhere, of course), with several of my colleagues here now grumbling about the same thing. I’m new to Chinese culture, but I wonder if there isn’t a link between plagiarism and the same mentality and lawlessness that enables widespread piracy of CDs, DVDs and computer software: “If it’s ripe for the taking, take it.”

In this case, my sleuthing was made easier by non-native-English-speaking students who suddenly produced a perfectly worded, native-English-sounding sentence or paragraph. Not the cleverest of criminals!

In the West, intellectual-property theft is taken so seriously, I told students about the time a magazine client accused me of plagiarizing … from myself. I’d written a short article for one client, then expanded it for another, doubling its length with much more research and interviewing. Yet I also lifted a few graphs from my original. Not good enough, said the second client. Lesson learned.

In a hotly worded email to my students, I imposed another “zero tolerance” policy. (See Sept. 15 post below.) Either paraphrase the words or quote directly, in both cases attribute the source. There are no other options. One student was so ashamed at being busted, she emailed me that she “could not fall asleep or even stop my tears.” Lesson learned.

Walk a Mile in Their Shoes

In teaching, as in reporting, you have to roll with the punches. You never know what may happen next week. So, with twin typhoons in the Philippines, coupled with the huge number of Filipina maids in Hong Kong, I had to detour from my planned course curriculum.

I challenged my students to localize a major international story, profiling one Filipina and her reaction to what had happened to her family: 300 words. (When you’re editing 70 articles, you must be reasonable with length, right?)

I told all 70 students to descend on the parks and public spaces where these Filipinas gather every Sunday (see the Sept. 13 post below), split up, and respectfully ask: “Have any of you been directly affected by the storms?”

I explained that “directly affected” is a more sensitive approach to “Has anyone here lost a home or relative?” For emphasis, I recalled the black humor of the ill-mannered Western reporter in a Rwandan Tutsi refugee camp, asking loudly: “Has anyone here been raped … and speak English?”

It may be urban legend, but students got the point.

I provided a simple, diamond-shaped story structure: a “curtain-raising” intro of our Filipina subject; deep, meaningful quote; transition to the big picture of what happened to the Philippines; then transition back to our subject.

A few more tips, just to get the hang of it: open the story by describing exactly what she was doing when she learned of the destruction, how she reacted, then quote her explaining why she reacted the way she did. I also reiterated the magical – sometimes cliché – transition word: “Meanwhile, …”

And if you’re at a loss for what to ask, imagine yourself in her shoes. You live far from home, far from your children, parents and siblings, and they’re struck by natural disaster. How would you react? Now you know what to ask them.

Among all the skills a reporter should possess, empathy ranks way up there.

The Business of Politics

Election monitor Rayna Dzhipova explains to officials in an ethnic-Turkish village the potential violations she saw during the July 5 elections. (Photo: mjj)

Bulgarians know well that “Buying and Selling Votes is a Crime,” but views on who the main culprits are depend on social affinities.

 

by Michael J. Jordan and Ognyan Isaev
13 October 2009

RAZGRAD, Bulgaria | The urgent call pipes into Rayna Dzhipova’s cell phone as she drives through the Bulgarian countryside. “They’re giving away cheese in Vladimirovtsi!” she exclaims, flooring the accelerator toward the remote village in the country’s northeast. Dashing across bumpy rural roads, past sunflower fields and donkey-drawn carts, she hopes to catch the vote-buyers red-handed.

During the 5 July parliamentary elections, Dzhipova has an unusual role: roving watchdog, patrolling the anticipated “hotspots” heavily populated by ethnic Turks and Roma – a favorite target of vote-buyers. While the vote-selling phenomenon cuts across ethnic and economic lines here, Turks are typically pressured by their community to vote for the ethnic-Turkish party, and the Roma – many of whom are destitute and hold few hopes that any party will improve their lot – are particularly vulnerable.

“I tell people, ‘You cannot blame anyone for your situation if you haven’t used your right and voted,’ ” says Dzhipova, 23, an ethnic Bulgarian who hails from the Turkish-majority city of Razgrad.

With the help of monitors like Dzhipova, the European Union’s poorest and reputedly most corrupt member has finally produced a rare bit of good news for both Bulgaria and Brussels. According to a newly released report by the Civil Society Coalition for a Free and Democratic Vote, public awareness and high turnout – some 60 percent – successfully diluted the corrosive effect of vote-buying this time around.

China’s 60th Birthday: The View From Hong Kong

 

Thousands in Hong Kong lined the streets for a parade in advance of China’s 60th National Day celebration. (Photo: mjj)

In Britain’s former colony, now China’s property, the mood is mixed.

 

By Michael J. Jordan — Special to GlobalPost

October 1, 2009

Editor’s note: Oct. 1 is the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. To mark the occasion we have two dispatches from two very different corners of China — Tibet and Hong Kong. And from Beijing, Kathleen E. McLaughlin looks at the event’s unique security arrangements.

HONG KONG, China — One month ago, Chinese journalists flocked to cover renewed violence in Xinjiang province, as ethnic Chinese blamed the Uighur minority for a rash of mysterious hypodermic-needle attacks.

China’s media is among the most restricted in the world, so it wasn’t entirely surprising when reports emerged that police had beaten and detained three of the bolder television journalists, accusing them of inciting inter-ethnic violence.

Except, this trio hailed from Hong Kong, the one beacon of democracy in all of China. So news of their treatment struck a nerve in a territory that London returned to China 12 years ago, after 150 years of British rule. Hundreds of Hong Kong journalists took to the streets to demand not only an apology from the Chinese authorities, but even an investigation of the event.

“Press freedom and rule of law are core values of Hong Kong society,” said Yin-ting Mak, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. “That’s why people were so angry, because this was the most vivid, most extreme example of violating these values.”

The incident exposed ongoing tensions within the “One Country, Two Systems” policy that underpinned the British handover and lies at the heart of China-Hong Kong relations today.

This helps explain why this week, as Beijing celebrates 60 years of the “People’s Republic of China” and Communist Party accomplishments, the reaction is far more mixed in politically polarized Hong Kong. After all, Hong Kong has shared only one-fifth of that history, and many locals descend from the Chinese refugees who fled since the 1949 Communist takeover.

First the Reporting, Now the Writing

We’d kept it a surprise, asking all the students to bring to class: a) a print-out of their transcribed interviews (see Sept. 23 post below); and b) their laptops.

Surprise! Today we want you to write; turn your interviews into articles. Some students gasped.

My partner and I strategized ahead of time, creating a basic story structure that we insist they follow. First, one sentence to summarize what your range of street sources told you about the Oct. 1 anniversary, with some indication why they’re saying what they’re saying. For example, if sources are excited, indifferent or of mixed opinions about the anniversary, include a few words about why.

Then, a deep, meaningful quote that SHOWS, say, the excitement or indifference. As I always tell students, you’re free to write whatever you want, but you must back it up with facts, statistics, anecdotes, quotes … anything to make your point credible.

Then a paragraph to explain the big picture: what the anniversary is, what Beijing is doing, why the authorities are doing what they’re doing. Then, a “reader-friendly” transition that brings us back to Hong Kong. This is story-telling, after all, and we can’t jerk the reader from idea to idea, without some connective tissue to smooth the ride. Here I introduce students to the wonders of the word “meanwhile” – as in, “Meanwhile, back in Hong Kong …”

Finally, we want more real-people perspectives. On paragraph to introduce a new character, explaining a bit of their story, where they’re coming from, what their views are. Then a supporting quote that explains why exactly they feel the way they feel about the anniversary.

That’s it: story structure in four parts. Three hundred words. In 90 minutes.

Meanwhile, my partner and I circle the room, coaching them individually when they hit a wall.

Their Maiden Voyage

Time to pound the pavement.

My teaching partner and I have devised the first reporting assignment for our 70 students, pegged to the Oct. 1 commemoration of 60 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China – or in Western short-hand, six decades of the Communist regime.

The story out of Beijing is two-fold. First, a security clampdown borne of anxiety about anti-government protests: public celebrations will only be tolerated in the capital. Second, a show on par with the Beijing Olympics that will showcase China’s gleaming new military hardware, signaling both the country’s economic and diplomatic emergence on the world stage.

Reaction in Hong Kong, though, is mixed. The British handover in 1997 only hardened the pro-Chinese versus pro-democracy factions. Since most of our students are from the mainland – and hearing open criticism for the first time – we figured it’d be interesting for them to go gauge public opinion.

The benefit is manifold: build confidence in approaching strangers; understand what it means to collect a “cross-section” of public opinion – across socio-economic class, gender, age, etc; and hone a skill I’ve found to be the great weakness of a young journalist: the ability to dig deeply, beyond WHAT people feel or believe, to explore WHY EXACTLY they feel what they feel, or believe what they believe.

Moreover, we required them to find and email me English-language news links describing various anniversary activities planned for here and Beijing. This emphasizes the need for advanced preparation, to impress interviewees with their seriousness and enable them to ask smarter questions.

How will we measure how deeply they’ve dug? We’ve asked them to transcribe their interviews.

This should be interesting.

Easy For You To Say

I started Cantonese class today, expecting to learn vital phrases like, “Please help! I’ve suffered a splinter from your disposable wooden chopsticks.”

What I didn’t expect was a singing lesson. But there we were, eight faculty in our free 10-week lesson, belting out the doh-ray-mees of the Canton dialect: six basic tones with names that conjure images of urban housing – high level, high rising, mid level, low level, low rising, mid low level.

Without even introducing ourselves, a collection of strangers was immediately forced to mimic the teacher’s peppy sing-song. Voices cracked, cheeks flushed. “There’s no judgment made,” she reassured us. “Make your mistakes here.”

The beauty of learning obscure languages, I’ve learned, is how much more the locals appreciate the effort. Understandably, they take it as a sign of respect, of cultural appreciation. I already have utterly impractical notches on my belt: conversational Hungarian and survival Slovak. I also know some niceties from a bunch of other East European countries — an essential for a foreign correspondent who asks for a lot of favors. So whatever I get out of this class, I know I’ll garner grins galore on the streets of Hong Kong.

On this day, my pitch was surprisingly good, catching the teacher’s attention. “How many years have you been here? Months? You must have a singing background?” Uh, not even in the shower.

Sure, I was flattered. But it also ratcheted up the pressure to replicate the feat on ensuing swings around the room.

Finally, she taught us a word, a phrase: How are you? “Dim-a?” (Don’t forget the high-rising tone on the “dim”!)

Again, I pulled it off. Which led to more individual praise from teacher: “Maybe you were Cantonese in a previous life?”

That threw me off. Rather than follow the last minutes of class, I day-dreamed of being a 19th-century opium smuggler, steering a waterlogged sampan …

Life of the Party

While Eastern Europe celebrates 20 years since Communism’s collapse (see post below), the Communist Party is alive and well in China. This will be on display Oct. 1, as Beijing commemorates 60 years since founding the “People’s Republic of China” – in Western short-hand, the Communist regime.

The Party today uses more than heavy-handed suppression to prop up its regime: patronage is just as invidious and effective. One of my students from the mainland, May, matter-of-factly explains that her parents are small-town Party members, with a Mao statue in their home. Their faith is buffered by disgust with the materialism and corruption flourishing since the opening of China’s economy.

Her parents hope she will join the Party; May, 25, shares that sentiment.

Joining, however, is a highly competitive, drawn-out process. By May’s estimate, if a class has 30 to 40 students, only three or four will be selected. You need a high GPA, write an essay “about how much you love Communism, and what you’ll contribute to the Communists,” then a committee of senior Party cadres will interview the candidate to gauge their loyalty.

May, though, admits her motive for jumping through these hoops is not quite idealistic. “You sometimes feel hopeless,” she says. “Unless your family has connections, you can’t get a good job.”

A Little White-Washing of History

The Hungarians deserve credit for courage.

In 1956, a puny country of 10 million stood up to the mighty Soviet Empire, demanding reforms and an end to Stalinist repression. Moscow ordered in troops. More than 2,000 Hungarians were killed, another 200,000 fled into exile. (Including my father and his family.)

Then in 1989, as my Christian Science Monitor colleague Colin Woodard recently highlighted, the Hungarians literally snipped the first hole in the Iron Curtain.

I was delighted to be reminded of this tonight, way out here in the Far East. Walking through a campus lobby, I stumbled upon a Hungarian exhibit, connected to a symposium that’ll be held at HKBU later this week to commemorate the end of the Cold War twenty years ago.

I was struck, though, by the exhibit’s very first sentence: “The Red Army occupied Hungary in the Second World War.”

Well, that’s only partly true. In fact, it was the Nazis who occupied Hungary first, in Spring 1944, which suited some Hungarians just fine. The Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators cleansed the countryside of hundreds of thousands of Jews. A Hungarian Nazi-puppet regime then continued the blood-letting – until the Soviet Red Army liberated the capital, Budapest, in January 1945.

That the Soviets then stayed on is another story.

I can imagine why the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, co-sponsor of the symposium, wants to keep hush-hush what else happened during World War II. And, why it prefers to paint Hungary as only a victim. Thousands of miles away from Hungary, the ministry will likely get away with this distortion.

But at least one observer has taken notice.

Just the Right Moment

Now that I’ve begun blogging, I headed into the weekend consciously looking for a blog-able Hong Kong moment. Perhaps I was trying too hard.

Friday night, for example, I got together with a colleague, Tim Hamlett, and his friends to sample a dying breed of local dining: the open-air restaurant. In a working-class district, in the parking lot of a busy bus station – but amid festive neon – we tore into juicy roasted pigeons with our hands, batted our eye-lashes at the “beer girl” who encouraged us to refill our beer bucket, and enjoyed a nice chat. Good time, but not a full blog post.

On Saturday afternoon, I met with another colleague, Robin Ewing, for a tasty Pakistani lunch inside an HK landmark: Chungking Mansions, immortalized by the film Chungking Express. The “mansions” bit is tongue-in-cheek. It’s actually a notorious tenement in downtown Tsim Sha Tsui, at once hailed for its vast ethnic diversity and decried for drug-dealing, prostitution and fire hazards. Maybe next time, blog-worthy.

Around midnight, I headed home, walking through the Temple Street night market. Inspired by the scene, I sat for a beer at one of the sidewalk eateries. To my left, an old-timer gorged on three dozen snails, using a long toothpick to pry the suckers out. To my right, a younger fellow noisily slurped oysters from the shell. As the vendors packed up their Chinese knick-knacks (a painted Mao plate for just 20 bucks!), off-key karaoke escaped the nightclub behind me.

I pulled out my laptop, as I often do. This peculiar behavior drew the eye of my waitress, wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Smitten with my gear, but speaking only Cantonese, she jotted something on a piece of paper: $1,000. She wanted my computer for the HK equivalent of U.S. $125. “No, no,” I said. But she took this as my opening gambit in “the haggle.” She wrote another figure: $3,000. (U.S. $375.) Again, I refused. She thought I was playing hardball: $8,000!

I then realized that on the street, I’d somehow picked up wireless. Lo and behold, my wife popped up on Skype, asking if we could try the camera she’d just gotten. Within seconds, I was seeing my 8-month-old daughter for the first time in three weeks.

I wasn’t the only one delighted. The waitress grew so animated, a crowd gathered. With my daughter looking befuddled, half a dozen Chinese waved excitedly at her: “Hel-lo, bay-bee! Bay-bee!”

Now this, I thought, is a blog-able moment. Even a great ad for Skype video.

Removing the Rose-Colored Glasses

Some things I’m learning about China aren’t just eye-opening for me, but even for students from the mainland.

Emily, who hails from the southern city of Guangzhou, says she believed official propaganda that portrayed a unified, harmonious China. Then, just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, she came across an article in Foreign Affairs, describing the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang.

“I started to doubt if we were getting the truth,” she explained Wednesday.

This past weekend, she visited her hometown, not far from Hong Kong. Even there, her parents hadn’t heard about the issue that has dominated news in Hong Kong for more than a week: recent aggression by mainland police against HK journalists. (See posting below.)

I then asked our small discussion group if they thought mainland journalists admire the HK journalists for their spirited street protests, or are perhaps envious of HK colleagues who feel empowered enough to defend press freedoms they themselves are denied: one facet of the “One Country, Two Systems” policy that has reigned here since the end of British rule in 1997.

The question, it turns out, may be moot.

Sherry, a mainlander who last year interned at China Central Television (CCTV), says she recently emailed her former boss, asking what she thought of the HK protests.

The response: “What protests?”

To Protest, Or Not To Protest

Outrage still smolders over police beatings of three Hong Kong television journalists covering inter-ethnic tensions in Xinjiang, China – providing me plenty of conversation fodder with my students.

The Hong Kong Journalists Association and Foreign Correspondents’ Club jointly protested Sunday, with the FCC calling for not only a formal investigation, but an apology from Xinjiang officials.

Yet the story behind the story was debate among journalists over if they should ever join a protest, forsaking their “observer” status. HKJA chief Yin-ting Mak addressed this Tuesday in a letter to association members:

Some journalists are concerned the younger generation may adopt such protest actions when they get blamed, assaulted or come under investigation in order to win glory … In principle, journalists should not be involved in news event so as to maintain objectivity in reporting. However, press freedom can and is also a news issue. When press freedom is trampled upon … reporters naturally become the main focus. I see no reason for holding back on involvement just because journalists are involved. It is like telling yourself to stop eating for fear of choking.

I always emphasize the need for reporters to be a neutral “fly on the wall,” detached from what they’re observing. But when they themselves are targeted, is silence tantamount to consent?

This sparked lively discussion among the half-dozen students I met Wednesday. As Carol put it, “If they beat my colleague and I do nothing, I may become afraid for my own rights and lose passion for telling the truth.”

It’s not black-and-white, yet there are consequences for speaking out. At first I thought, “Well, I suppose if they limited their protests to ‘their rights,’ but not criticize the government explicitly, that might work.” As our chat proceeded, though, I realized how naïve that was: How could Beijing not view the journalists’ protests as implicitly critical of an entire system that emboldens police to pummel them?

The “neutral” tag is tarnished regardless.

Freelancers: Diversify Your Journalistic Portfolio

I was recently appointed to the Freelance Committee of the 7,800-member Society of Professional Journalists, and the committee just opened a blog discussion on how we can weather these troubled times.

Member Bruce Shutan encourages fellow freelancers to “specialize” in narrower fields, aim for more lucrative trade magazines, and enjoy “recession-proof” employability. To which freelancer Ruth E. Thaler-Carter responded that she has lots of different interests and, fortunately, a large stable of clients.

My two cents was to propose a third way, a middle road:

“I’m no financial adviser, but I’ll borrow their phrase ‘Diversify Your Portfolio.’ I think it’s still important to have your safer investments: your anchor clients, the ones who provide regular work, pay better, pay regularly – and hopefully you rather like the work as well. Those safer investments enable you to mix in some riskier investments: in this case, the kind of journalistic topics you feel passionately about, but are less frequent, more difficult to place or time-consuming to pursue, and perhaps pay less –yet offer greater ‘return on investment’ because, gosh darnit, you love writing about the stuff.”

This is the way it is for me today: fortunately, I enjoy the regular teaching and training that I do. But they also allow me to take my three-to-five foreign-reporting trips a year for my newspaper clients – trips that, in Bruce’s words, “doesn’t even begin to pay the bills.”

At least, not like they used to.

The Zero-Tolerance Policy

The Chinese students here can be effusive with their praise.

Like the student who last week emailed the faculty: “Dear my teacher … Today is the Teachers’ Day. Happy Teachers’ Day! Please allow me to acknowledge my great thanks to you for your hard work. I hope I can be the first student to say ‘Happy Teachers’ Day’ to you.” (He was the first, in fact.)

The students can also be effusive with their apologies.

During my Week One lecture, I’d unveiled a “zero-tolerance” policy regarding spelling errors. I know English is the second or third language for my students. But just as I’ve told students in New York, Central Europe and elsewhere, in this day and age – with built-in spell-check – there’s no good excuse for an aspiring journalist to turn in typo-ridden work.

It’s a question of professionalism. What kind of impression would it make on an editor if you miss such easy-to-catch mistakes? Pick your poison: lazy, careless, unprofessional, lack of self-respect for your own byline. An editor’s job is to improve your copy, not clean up the mess.

Therefore, before you hit “send,” take FIVE more minutes to a) spell-check; and b) read the piece aloud, further improve the language and submit it in the best possible condition.

Today, one student emailed me to say, among other things: “Hi, Michael. My name is XXX XXX. I come form Shandong Province, east China. I’m your student … and I like you. Especailly you making faces … Have a nice day, sir.”

Twelve minutes later, a second email from her: “I just realized that I forgot to spell check my E-mail before I sent it out. I checked and find two mis-spellings: ‘from’, as in ‘I come from Shandong’; and ‘especially’ as in ‘especially you making faces’. I know, it is unforgivable, and you have every reason to think that I’m irresponsible, disrespectful, lazy, and incompetent. I just want to apologize and promise this would never happen again. I promise. And I’m so sorry.”

Unforgivable? Quite the contrary, I wrote back: I’m gratified to see my message hit home.

Careful What You Wish For

I like extreme weather. It’s something that unites us, regardless of race, religion, socio-economic status, etc: “How about that hail storm last night?!”

Similarly, I don’t want Siberia during summer, nor the Sahara during winter. I want “the Real McCoy.” So during a downpour few days ago, I mentioned to a Hong Kong native that, well, I wouldn’t mind tasting a real typhoon. Not that I want death and destruction; just a good story to tell.

It’s now Monday night, and I’m tasting my first typhoon: an 8 on a scale of 10.

I first got word in late afternoon that my evening class was cancelled. At an 8, I’m told, civil servants are sent home, and schools shut down. The Hong Kongers, though, played it cool. Sure, the supermarket lines were enormous, and the subway staff was managing traffic down below. But most residents strolled and chatted on their cell phones as if nothing were amiss.

Like others, I stocked a few supplies: water, sushi and almond cookies. I then headed up to my apartment to watch the show. Yet I was tad nervous: I’m now on the 22^nd floor of an unusually scrawny building. Each of the 24 floors has a single apartment like mine, measuring a measly 290 square feet.

Not surprisingly, then, I’m swaying. The wind is whistling through the closed windows, in gust after gust. Rain is pelting the glass of the great big bay window that convinced me to rent the place. (“What a view of the skyline and mountaintops!”) I’ve placed a glass of water beside me, just to watch the ripples. I’ve seen TV footage of some downed trees and fallen neon signs.

My father just skyped to ask at what point I should head to the typhoon shelter. Shelter? For some reason, that’s a question I forgot to ask the property agent. At least Letterman’s on, which is strangely comforting.

Anyway, I’m confident that the HK architects, with all their years of experience, have built this place to bend. But not break. I hope.

The Great Filipina Migration

Today, I headed to the southern shore of Hong Kong to explore Aberdeen, a former fishing village that was virtually the only sign of life when the British colonized the place some 160 years ago.

Approaching the central bus station, I was stunned by what I saw: a sea of Filipina women, swarming about (all of them two heads shorter than me). Thousands sat in circles, some on cardboard boxes, fanning themselves in the humidity, chatting, reading, writing.

They looked like groupies, camping out for concert tickets. I figured they were waiting for buses. Then I learned: these were the Filipina maids, the lifeblood of HK housekeeping.

The ratio is staggering: 7 million Hong Kongers employ some 140,000 live-in maids and nannies. It’s so commonplace, the government has legalized their conditions: minimally US$460 per month, a room to sleep, Sundays off, a plane ticket to visit the Philippines for one two-week trip every two years. Still, these women are vulnerable to employer violence or sexual exploitation, like their Filipina counterparts in the Middle East.

The risk is worth it, apparently: most of the women are university-educated, English-speaking, trained as teachers or social workers, yet the pay is poor and jobs scarce. So they leave husbands and children behind, sending money home. Entire villages are reportedly empty of women, as they’ve become a leading Philippine export.

So, on precious Sundays like today – and every Sunday for the past 30 years, in fact – they flock to the city center … to spend time with each other.

On my short subway ride home, I found myself standing next to two Filipinas. I couldn’t help but strike up a brief conversation.

“We’re lucky, because our employer is good to us,” said one.

Both had children back home. Said the other woman, “This is our sacrifice.”

They asked if I was visiting. I told them about teaching for the semester, having also left behind a wife and kids. “My sacrifice,” I said, smiling.

They laughed. I laughed. But we all knew it wasn’t quite the same.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

When we lived in New York, every time we swung through Chinatown I wondered what it’d be like to live there. A world apart, an ethno-linguistic island within the island, like Williamsburg and its Orthodox Jews, Brighton Beach and its Russian-speakers, Washington Heights and its Latin Americans.

In Hong Kong, I have my chance. In the Yau Ma Tei district, I was struck by the authenticity: outdoor produce markets; dark, creepy alleys; loads of elderly Chinese, shuffling along; plus, herbal apothecaries, feng shui shops, Asian eateries and others crammed side-by-side, their neons signs screaming for attention. Not surprisingly, many a Hong Kong movie has been filmed here.

Sure, I’ve heard about local “Triads,” the criminal networks with a rich history in HK. I’d also noticed all the signs for “guesthouses,” brothels masquerading as massage parlors. (Individual prostitution is legal here, but any “business” connected to it is illegal.) Placards by the doorway point up narrow stairwells. A typical one reads like a menu, in Chinese and English, with the price in Hong Kong dollars (I’ll helpfully note the US$ equivalent):

“Hong Kong girl 250″ (about US$32)

“Chinese girl 250″

“Malaysian girl 200″ ($26)

“Philippine girl” 200

Then, the filet mignon option: “Russian girl 550″ ($71)

No, I have no idea what they do for these prices. Really, I don’t.

That said, before I moved onto Shanghai Street two days ago, I suppose it would have made sense to visit my new locale at night, to see its other face. That first night, I strolled around for a few hours, exploring. On my way home, I noticed two women, in heels, standing on the corner diagonal from my apartment: “Hello!” they said, enthusiastically. Taken by surprise, I mumbled, “Um, Hi.”

Last night, there they were, again. This time, one of them waved at me.

This could get awkward. Or I may just go ahead … and interview them.

Dream vs. Reality

I’ve seen this look before. Lecturing to journalism students, I get on my high horse about the watchdog role of a journalist: to hold the authorities accountable for their words and deeds.

“If they’re spending taxpayer money,” I preach, “you have a right to explore how exactly they’re spending it, and why exactly they’re spending it the way they’re spending it.”

Yet this sermon is not always greeted with “Amen!” I’ve spoken with young journalists from harsh dictatorships – say, Central Asian countries like Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan – where I spot an eye roll, or feel a rise in temperature. Because for them, this “democratic”-style journalism is an appealing but unattainable ideal. Asking such tough questions back home may land them in prison, or worse.

I’m now getting some of the same looks here, from mainland-Chinese students. Those who’ve had internships have already tasted censorship – editors explain which lines can’t be crossed, like criticizing the authorities, or third-rail subjects like Tibet or Xinjiang, with its restive Uighur minority.

I’m fortunate to also have a handful of Burmese, Cambodian and Vietnamese students in class, and one of the Burmese articulately noted the time isn’t right for such journalism under his country’s military regime – but he’ll wait patiently.

What these aspiring journalists believe can and can’t be done is a topic I look forward to exploring throughout the semester.

How Czechs Are Like Chinese

Two beverages with an international reputation, each of them a centuries-old tradition entwined with national identity and lifestyle. (Though, consuming one of them may get you pulled over by traffic cops.)

In Hong Kong, I’ve realized the deeper, historic correlation between Czech beer and Chinese tea. Both, it turns out, flourished as a reliable alternative to drinking water, which was often polluted.

As Czech-beer connoisseur Evan Rail has explained, “Water was contaminated in the Middle Ages, but beer was almost always safe … Soldiers often drank beer for the same reason.”

Likewise, in China, the process of boiling water for tea was viewed as necessary for a health ier life. I see this in Hong Kong, as I’ve heard mixed opinions about whether tap water is safe to drink. My apartment manager says no, but I’ve already drunk plenty elsewhere – and feel fine.

But it’s in the restaurants where this belief stands out. In the States, a waiter will automatically bring you a glass of cold water. Here, it’s a cup of hot tea – or glass of hot water. On my first night, we were served hot water, and my companion then requested ice. It was served in a tall glass, with a spoon for scooping. (Of course I wondered: where’d the ice come from, tap water?)

I’ve now grown accustomed to the oddity of drinking hot water. I just close my eyes and imagine I’m drinking tea … a very, very weak tea.

You’re One in a Billion

I’ve now heard plenty of students utter the phrase “I want to broaden my horizons,” like a mantra. I’ll be sure to ask them to clarify further. But for now, it has me wondering about China’s unfathomable size – and how difficult it would be for one individual to distinguish themselves.

My homeland, America, is no 98-pound weakling: 300 million is nothing to sneeze at. Not only is China quadruple the size, but it boasts at least 170 cities with a population of 1 million or more.

To boot, I can’t help but note that most Chinese have a rather singular look: medium height and build, straight black hair. Anxious I was stereotyping, I asked my Chinese-American teaching partner, Peter Eng; to my relief, he conceded that he, too, is so far having difficulty telling our students apart.

Now, I’ve long entertained the question: Would I rather be a small fish in a large pond, or a larger fish in a smaller pond? Yes, I prefer the latter. Most of us would, I think.

So for our students, most of whom hail from these sprawling metropolises, studying international journalism in Hong Kong represents more than a master’s degree: HK is a uniquely cosmopolitan Chinese city; this field may offer exciting, exotic travel opportunities, far from the rat-race back home; and lastly, they’re honing their English skills, at a time when English is a highly valued skill.

That’s certainly one way to distinguish yourself.

An Oasis, of Sorts

A couple months before I came here, I asked a British colleague who’d been a Beijing correspondent why he thought so many mainland Chinese would come to affluent Hong Kong to study Western-style journalism, when the Chinese media itself is so tightly restricted. His reply: “The shopping.”

That, I now see, is not true. (Or at least only partly true.) Over the past 24 hours, I’ve gone around the room in each of my four sections, asking students about their motivation for studying journalism. The answers ranged from “My parents chose this for me” and “I don’t want to be tied to a desk,” to “I like interviewing different people” and “I want to broaden my horizons.”

Yet one response I heard again and again was particularly moving: “I want to know the truth. I don’t want to be lied to, or told what to think.”

Back home, one of their most illustrious institutions, Tsinghua University – some hail it as the “MIT of China” – now purveys what it calls “Marxist Journalism.” This, the Washington Post wrote in 2007, is “broadly interpreted to mean journalism that the government views as improving society and taking account of Chinese realities, including censorship under one-party rule.”

So, it dawns on me that Hong Kong, with its legacy of British law and tradition, may represent a haven for more critically thinking Chinese. Already, students are reading and watching local news reports – and finding taboo books in the library – they’d never get on the mainland.

As if to reinforce the point, last night I watched a TV report of how some 40 Hong Kong journalists demonstrated here Monday before Chinese government offices, protesting police detentions and beatings of Hong Kong journalists covering inter-ethnic tensions in Ürümqi, in northwest China.

Such an outcry by mainland journalists, on the mainland, is unimaginable. Truth is, I don’t know how many Chinese share my students’ views. But it sure inspires me to help make a difference.

No, Your Other Left!

For 40 years, I’ve been conditioned to look left, then right, and cross when all’s clear. I’ve also developed a habit of, when sensing no traffic from the left, instinctively stepping into the street, ready to stride across.

In Hong Kong, this habit may get me killed. In this ex-British colony, they drive as the Brits do: wheel on the right side, driving in the left-hand lane. It’s as jarring as a visit to Bulgaria, where Bulgarians quirkily nod when they mean no, and wobble their head from left to right when they mean yes.

Silly as it sounds, I’ve been here a week and still mix it up, looking the wrong way. I’ve already had several buses whizz past my nose.

Apparently, I’m not the only one finding this habit hard to break; the mainland Chinese, likewise accustomed to right-lane driving back home, also get confused in Hong Kong.

Otherwise, how else to explain what looks like a “Street-Crossing for Dummies” guide: at most intersections here, painted into the crosswalk, in both English and Chinese characters, are the words “Look Right.” If that’s not enough guidance for some pedestrians, they’ve helpfully added another clue: an arrow.

Groundhog Day

This semester, I’m assigned to co-teach the same reporting class to four separate sections, numbering nearly 80 students in all. My colleague, Peter Eng – a longtime AP man in Southeast Asia – teaches the first 90 minutes, I do the next 90.

The challenge is not just to lead so many through the big reporting project I’ve planned for them; it’s the idea of teaching precisely the same material to four different groups: three on Monday, one on Tuesday. Delivering the same principles, the same anecdotes, the same witty (?) one-liners.

The first week was easy enough, as I mainly introduced the syllabus and myself. But today was tougher, trying to ensure each hears the same shpiel and moves forward at the same pace.

Unfortunately for Section I, they may serve as guinea pig, as I gauge what worked, what didn’t, then fine-tune for the remaining three. And I’ll be sure to fuel up on espresso before Sections III and IV, to avoid running on fumes.

The (Looming) Battle of the Bulge

Chinese waistlines are doomed.

I’ve seen it happen in Central Europe: slick new Western-style marketing coupled with a bottomless array of junk food and fast food contribute to an epidemic that now sees the Hungarians, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks climbing the ranks of Europe’s most-obese nations, according to the World Health Organization.

Here, the vast majority of Chinese are svelte. But in terms of goodies, it almost feels like I’m back in the States. In one metro station, the intoxicating scent of Mrs. Field’s cookies lures commuters up the escalator. The supermarkets have aisle upon aisle of snacks, from America, Japan and all points in between. Vending machines and 7-11 stores are everywhere, with customers guzzling their sugary drinks and fattening treats.

And as I’m sitting here in the mega-mall Festival Walk, I spy the food court, where McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken enjoy capacity seating, with many customers afterward heading over to Haagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s for a couple of scoops. (Hooray, cookie-dough ice-cream!)

Long-term, I don’t know how Chinese metabolism can withstand the assault.

I’d get more sanctimonious about this if I weren’t about to head in to the multiplex, armed with my bucket of popcorn …

Check, Please

I miss the simple pleasures of Bratislava, the low-key capital of Slovakia, where I’ve lived with my family the past three years.

Not only the wider, less-populated sidewalks – at half-a-million souls, Bratislava is one of Europe’s tiniest capitals – which enable me to stretch my long legs and slalom around pedestrians. Compare that with Hong Kong, which is 14 times larger (and more populous than all of Slovakia combined). The narrow sidewalks are jam-packed, crawling like the cars: you’re condemned to stop-and-go traffic.

Instead, what I really miss is the café culture of Central Europe, romanticized by the literary salons of centuries past. As a freelancer whose laptop is a permanent appendage to my back, this is the lifestyle for me. Whether in Slovakia, Czech Republic or Hungary, I can always find a kaviareň or kávéház around the next corner, order a double espresso in the local tongue, then work for an hour or two or three.

While it’s still rare in Central Europe to see someone open a laptop, plug in and mooch free wireless, I do my part in Bratislava, visiting two or three cafés a day, greasing the wheels with tips well beyond the leave-the-coins norm.

Hong Kong, though, is dominated by eateries. The steady flow of customers deters a loiterer like me. Yesterday, in my favorite HK neighborhood so far, Yau Ma Tei, I was pleased to find a cozy, Parisian-themed spot with a long list of coffees, plus light meals. I settled in to read a few pages, but the customers kept a-comin’, even in mid-afternoon. I couldn’t stand the pressure, so got up and left.

Hoping for authentic, mom-and-pop places to sit and work, it seems I’m left with three options: yes, Starbucks (the McDonald’s of cafés); its HK imitation, “Pacific Coffee Company”; or the American-style mega-mall, “Festival Walk.”

Wait a minute … don’t they have teahouses around here?

A Run on Business Cards

I taste a dynamism in Hong Kong I don’t get in Central Europe – which, while now in my blood, can at times be aloof and insecure. And I don’t mean HK’s big-city pulse of crowded sidewalks and streets, framed by neon. Until I understand it more deeply, I’ll guess that it’s a different level of self-confidence.

Today I dropped into a small antique shop in the historic Chinese neighborhood of Kowloon City. Inside I found a woman who was the only other Westerner I saw in the enclave. She was negotiating a business deal, with the occasional help of a young translator she’d brought.

Within seconds, the translator approached, asking what brought me so far from the traditional Western haunts around Hong Kong. When I mentioned the teaching-journalism bit in nearby Kowloon Tong, she grew excited, saying she’d tried to get a job with CNN-Hong Kong. She went further: could I get her into our one-year master’s program?

Bam, she asked for my card. Stunned by her assertiveness, I nevertheless pulled out a card.

Later in the day, while strolling around the Yau Ma Tei neighborhood, I spotted a tiny apartment-rental office, and popped in. Two women, one working behind the desk, the other her friend. The agent spoke no English, but her friend, Lihiuyim, spoke some. With a huge smile, she mustered her best effort: I’m 37, from the mainland, work for a bus company, living here with my young daughter.

Then, an epiphany: “You teach me English! I teach you Mandarin and Cantonese! You give me card!”

Forget for a moment that I’ll be happy to learn 100 words of Cantonese while here. What I marveled at was the day’s second example of someone who knows what they want – and go for it.

Score One for the Barbarians

Speaking of that dinner (see below), it was quite a feast: platter after platter of meats, noodles, vegetables and fish brought to each table of 12.

But before the first bite, I can’t help but think of the book I’m making my way through, “Tai-Pan,” about the British colonizing of Hong Kong in 1841. Throughout, the British refer to the Chinese as “heathens,” while the Chinese brand the Brits as “barbarians.” There are vivid descriptions of the Brits eating with only their hands, tearing apart chickens, the grease dripping into lice-ridden beards.

I’m new to China. And I’ve yet to broach this with my students. But I wonder if a sense of “barbaric” Western customs still resonates. (In my first trip to a restaurant here, they served me a fork and knife. I had to request chopsticks, like the other diners.)

So I wait and watch how the students serve themselves. Yet no one has. I ask why, and am told that tradition bestows first dibs to “elders” – that would be me and another veteran journalist seated at the table, Zoher Abdoolcarim, the Asia editor of TIME International.

The eyes are on me. Rex helpfully advises me not to use my own chopsticks, but the communal ones resting beside the dishes. Fortunately, I wield a mean pair of chopsticks. Modestly helping myself to a bit of beef and snowpeas, I succeed in not dropping a single piece.

Then the others dig in. When a platter of two large broiled fish is later placed in front of Zoher, I realize I had it easy. He grew up in Hong Kong, as his ancestors first came from India 130 years ago to trade in textiles. But now he’s protesting having to be the one to tackle the fish.

The students insist, so he deftly plucks a symbolic piece. Overall, the meal goes off without an embarrassing hitch. At least, not that I’m aware of.

What’s In a Name?

One of my great challenges here will be to remember the names of all 100 students. It was tough enough in Slovakia, where my spring class hit 30. If I’d forget one, my fallback option were the most popular names: “Hmmm. Martina? Lenka? Katarina?”

In Hong Kong, the task is even more difficult.

Chinese names are difficult to pronounce, even when transliterated from the original Chinese characters. I learned this the hard – and humiliating – way in January, in Prague, while handing out certificates to the Hong Kong Baptist University students who attended the TOL foreign-correspondence training course, which I helped lead.

Transliteration doesn’t quite capture the Chinese tones. So as I read out each name, the crowd roared at my mangled pronunciation. This I endured for a mere 35 names.

To simplify things, the Chinese who interact with foreigners typically choose a more international name, for those special occasions. So a “Jiangjie” becomes “Lulu.”

This allows from some creativity: women reinventing themselves as Coral, Icy or Evening. Occasionally, it leads to chicanery. One HKBU colleague tells me a female student last year asked to be called “Ice Cream.” Then she noticed another colleague refer to that same student as “Chocolate.” The ruse was exposed!

Since most students are from the mainland, with this their first time meeting Western faculty, several are trying out new names, to see how they fit.

At a teacher-student dinner earlier this week, on my right a young man introduced himself as “Rex.” He’d originally chosen the name “Lex,” until an American woman told him “Rex” was cooler. I agreed, and told him to Google the Latin definition.

On my left was “Emily” – a popular choice. In America, too, as it ranks No. 1. (It’s also the name of my darling niece.)

Two days later, Emily came to our first class. Her name placard puzzled me: “Psyche.” I thought you were Emily, I asked. With another Emily in class, she wanted something unique. Next class, though, I may have to tell Psyche how uncomfortably close her new name is to a certain Alfred Hitchcock film …

(Sept. 7 note: I see the student has now reverted to the original, but Frenchified it – Amelie.  Excellent choice.)

Gesundheit!

It’s a bit unnerving to see so many locals wearing surgical masks over their mouth and nose: the staff at the airport, at the hotel, at the bookstore, etc. On the streets, I estimate 1 in 20 wear them.

Sure, HK saw a few cases of swine-flu earlier this year. But do they know something I don’t know? Nahhh. It’s just a healthy dose of paranoia.

In 1997, Avian flu struck Hong Kong, killing six. Then in 2003, along came Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which traumatized Hong Kongers when it claimed some 300 lives.

So their anxiety is understandable, writes expat guru Rory Boland: “At the slightest sniffle of a cold they will, quite sensibly, don their mask, thus stopping any disease from spreading.”

In this heat, though, I can’t imagine exacerbating my misery by breathing into a paper mask. However, I just may adopt another popular accoutrement here: umbrellas to shield you from the sun.

Land, Ho …

It’s sticky hot, and dripping sweat often burns my eyes. But I don’t mind. I arrived in Hong Kong this week, and the adrenaline I feel – day in, day out – reminds me of the rush I experienced when I moved to Budapest, way back in 1993: I’m damn lucky to have this kind of adventure.

This time around, more remarkable is that my wife and kids allowed me to do it.

Hong Kong is my foothold into Asia, just as it was in 1841 for Dirk Struan, the seafaring merchant in James Clavell’s “Tai-Pan” – a 700-page epic I began reading on the flight over. In fact, it’s the farthest east I’ve ever been, eclipsing my journo-adventures Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Where those Central Asian countries are more “Russified,” after seven decades of Soviet control, Hong Kong is China. Or perhaps it’s better described as China* – the asterisk to denote the lasting cultural, capitalistic legacy of 150 years of British rule, which only ended in 1997.

At least I’m not alone here. No, I don’t mean the 7 million Hong Kongers crammed onto these rocks and islands. Turns out, of the 100 first-year graduate students I’m teaching at Hong Kong Baptist University, almost all of them hail from mainland China – and also have never been to HK before. In fact, they, like me, don’t speak the language: the Cantonese unique to this region, versus the Mandarin spoken by 1 billion-plus other Chinese. So, as I tell the students with a smile, “We’re in the same boat.”

Other than that, they have a clear advantage. They know the proper way to each jellyfish or chicken feet. They know their personal chopsticks from the table’s communal chopsticks. They also know why it’s acceptable to belch at the table. Me? I’m learning … quickly!

Making Bulgaria Home

 

 

Karl, Paunka and Petur share a laugh over a glass of home-brewed Bulgarian rakia. (Photo: mjj)

While many vacationed here, thousands of Brits have made Bulgaria their full-time home.

 

By Michael J. Jordan, Special to GlobalPost, August 28, 2009

SHTIPSKO, Bulgaria — Bulgarian villagers Petur and Paunka share a lot with their neighbors Karl and Shirley. Petur taught them how to brew rakia, an intoxicating brandy, from any fruit that falls from his trees. Paunka shared her recipe for the rabbit stew she makes with bunnies bred in her barn.

In return, Karl and Shirley check in on their septuagenarian neighbors, bringing food when they’re sick. Karl, 38, also shovels their snow and drives Paunka to the nearest city for heart check-ups — sparing her the long ride on her donkey-drawn cart.

“They really are like family,” he says.

Yet Karl Wadsworth, chatting away in imperfect, accented Bulgarian, is no ordinary villager. He’s British — one of thousands of his countrymen now living today in this small Balkan country. Brits now own an estimated 42,000 homes in Bulgaria as investments, vacation residences, or full-time homes. For those who have made the move and embraced rural Bulgarian life, adjusting to local rhythms has been key to their successful integration.

Lake Balaton at Sunset

The waning days of summer at Hungary's favorite vacation spot. (Photo: mjj)

Home Sick: Life in Mitrovica’s Roma Camps

Ten years after being displaced by war, hundreds of Kosovar Roma still live where the UN put them – atop a toxic dump. A TOL multimedia presentation.

Michael J. Jordan, Special to Transitions Online, August 12, 2009

(Note: Below is the introduction to my photo essay. To view whole slideshow, click here.)

A decade ago, the orgy of violence that consumed Kosovo first revealed Albanian victims, then Serb victims. One victimized community was often overlooked: the Roma.

At the epicenter of interethnic clashes was the northern city of Mitrovica, which even today remains divided: Serbs on the north side of the Ibar River, Albanians on the south side, and NATO troops guarding the bridge in between.

In summer 1999, returning Albanian refugees virtually razed a local mahala (settlement) that was home to 8,000-plus Kosovar Roma, accusing the residents of collaborating with the Serbs. The UN mission in Kosovo relocated many of the displaced Roma to the abandoned Trepca mining and smelting complex in north Mitrovica, just a few blocks from the bridge.

But the Osterode and Cesmin Lug settlements, it turned out, sat on land contaminated by lead and other metals. And what was supposed to be temporary accommodation has turned permanent.

Despite calls by the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, and others to evacuate Osterode and Cesmin Lug, some 450 Roma continue to live amid what Thomas Hammarberg, the European commissioner for human rights, has branded “the single most major environmental disaster in Europe.” Roma leaders and their advocates allege that as many as 80 residents of the camps have died of cancer-related illness over the years.

Find Your Way to Foreign Correspondence

By Michael J. Jordan, August 2009 Issue

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – Every foreign correspondent has a tale of their big break: the story that, in the eyes of editors back home, suddenly transformed them from a dreamer who only talked about the overseas reporting they wanted to do, into someone who’s proven they can deliver the goods.

My break came in Spring 1995, amid the wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia. My story: the babies abandoned by the Bosnian Muslim women whom Serb paramilitaries had raped. Rape as a war crime.

My journalistic journey had actually begun years earlier. I was the son of Cold War refugees from Hungary and Egypt, and my professor father often took us along to international conferences. I, too, wanted foreign adventure.

There are essentially two ways into foreign correspondence: Climb the ladder at a major newspaper, win awards and seniority, await the vacancy of a plum post overseas. Or strike out on your own, push through the back door.

I chose the latter.

A Bag of Sugar For Your Vote?

Bulgarian Roma Ognyan Isaev hands out anti-vote-buying pamphlets in the northeastern city of Shumen. (Photo: mjj)

It’s election time in Bulgaria. Gangsters are running for office and voters are taking photos of their ballots to receive payoffs.

By Michael J. Jordan, Special to GlobalPost, July 4, 2009

SHUMEN, BULGARIA — Ognyan Isaev knows his fellow Roma — known derogatorily as “gypsies” — are stereotyped for a slew of unsavory habits. In his native Bulgaria, the poorest and most corrupt European Union member, they are often accused of freely selling their votes to the highest bidder.

So in the run-up to Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Isaev helped lead an “I Don’t Sell My Vote” campaign. He handed out T-shirts and hit the airwaves with a message he says is not just for the Roma.

Distributing fliers Friday in the downtown of this provincial city, Isaev wanted to remind Bulgarians, Roma and ethnic Turks alike of what is not just a Roma problem but a national affliction.

Whether the campaign will make a dent is unclear. Studies indicate that 30 percent of voters would be willing to sell their ballot for as little as 20 Bulgarian leva (about $14), or items like grilled meat, a bag of sugar or cooking oil. The situation has grown so bad that all campaign advertising must now note: “Buying and Selling of Votes is a Crime” — like cigarette packets reminding “Smoking Kills.”

It is this level of corruption, which extends far beyond the election, that is carrying Bulgaria to new depths.

Jews Hope to Reclaim Architectural Legacy in Eastern Europe

This restored synagogue in Samorin, Slovakia, today houses an art exhibit. (Photo: mjj)

The region’s Jewish communities are now largely gone, but a growing movement seeks to restore and protect the synagogues, cemeteries, and other remaining landmarks.

 

 

By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, June 25, 2009

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – For architectural historian Maros Borsky, the story begins five years ago.

 

He was documenting the synagogues of Slovakia, which, like the rest of post-Holocaust Eastern Europe, saw its countryside depopulated of Jews, with most provincial synagogues abandoned. Slovakia itself has seen a war-time community of 137,000 shrink to some 3,000 Jews today, with only five of 100-plus synagogues functioning.

 

In the course of his work, Mr. Borsky came across a donor who wanted to renovate a rural synagogue. But which one?

 

“I realized it’s important to create an audience for these synagogues, for Jews, non-Jews, locals, and tourists to learn there once was a community here – and what happened to it,” he says.

 

The result of Borsky’s work, the “Slovak Jewish Heritage Route” will soon connect 23 restored synagogues.

 

The Slovak project will be just one of scores discussed this weekend in Prague as representatives from 49 countries convene for the landmark Holocaust-Era Assets Conference. The agenda ranges from charting the progress made in returning Nazi-looted artwork and restituting Jewish property to caring for elderly survivors of the camps.

Why the UN Anti-Racism Conference ‘Finished’ Early

 

Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the final document in Geneva "highlights the suffering of many groups." (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

April 22, 2009

 

GENEVA – After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s barrage Monday against Israel threatened to derail the global antiracism conference, UN officials decided to act quickly.

 

The conference was teetering on the verge of collapse. By Sunday, nine Western member-states had announced a boycott. On Monday, 22 European countries walked out as Mr. Ahmadinejad launched a verbal attack on Israel as “cruel and racist.”

 

That’s why UN officials jumped right to the main event: the final declaration. It was adopted late Tuesday, three days earlier than scheduled.

 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called the document’s early adoption “great news,” saying it “reinvigorates the commitment” of governmental anti-racism efforts.

 

Typically, such documents are negotiated right into the 11th hour. That’s why it was supposed to be released April 24. The basic 16-page agreement had already been hammered out last Friday. Releasing it at the end of the five-day meeting was “just in case the main committee needed that much time – just in case various debates reopened or questions were raised,” Ms. Pillay told reporters. “None of that happened.”

 

The Ahmadinejad speech “set a very negative tone and created a very negative atmosphere,” says Slovak diplomat Drahoslav Stefanek, whose delegation was among those that walked out. “So there was a need to calm things down.”

Ahmadinejad Polarizes UN Racism Conference

European diplomats walking out during President Ahmadinejad's fiery speech. (Photo: mjj)

More than 40 European diplomats walked out to protest the Iranian leader’s speech, in which he called Israelis “the racist perpetrators of genocide.”

 

By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 20, 2009 edition

 

GENEVA – A major UN anti-racism conference already wounded by the boycott of nine Western countries, opened Monday with the buzz of anticipation for a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – the only head of state who accepted an invitation to attend.

 

Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has referred to the Holocaust as a “myth” and called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” assailed the West for supporting the creation of the Jewish state after the atrocities of World War II.

 

“Under the pretext of Jewish suffering, they have helped bring to power the most oppressive, racist regime in Palestine,” he said, to loud applause from Iranian activists in the gallery and pockets of headscarved Muslim women on the floor. “They have always been silent about their crimes.”

 

With that, the 23 European Union countries who had not yet boycotted the conference abandoned their seats and streamed out of the hall, which was met by a smattering of more applause.

 

It had been hoped that this year’s UN Racism Conference would avoid the fate of its 2001 predecessor, which was nearly derailed by vituperative debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The event is intended to be a global forum for addressing racial intolerance and sharing how to combat it. But the Middle East conflict again threatens to dominate the agenda.

Why the US Will Boycott Global Racism Conference

Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists debate outside UN-Geneva headquarters. (Photo: mjj)

A meeting to judge progress on racism is likely to be captive to Israeli-Palestinian and Islamic defamation issues.

 

By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 19, 2009 edition

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – The first World Conference Against Racism, held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, was all but derailed when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took center stage.

 

The second global meeting against racism, discrimination, and xenophobia, which starts Monday, is on shaky ground over the same question. Over the weekend, the United States and the Netherlands pulled their delegations. Australia, Israel, Canada, Sweden and Italy have said they also may boycott the UN forum in Geneva.

 

The week-long event is also in trouble over the issue of religious defamation, specifically the portrayal of Islam in Western nations. The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is expected to accuse the West of Islamophobia and press to restrict criticism of Islam. If this happens, it may upstage discussion of all other topics.

 

At the 2001 conference, the fight over whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was racist often drowned out grievances from minorities such as the Roma of Europe, the “untouchables” of India, and the indigenous tribes of South America.

 

Ayca Ariyoruk, a senior associate at the United Nations Association, a pro-UN think tank, says it will be up to the OIC to “resist the temptation to bring up issues that have proven to be very divisive.” A citizen of Turkey, as is the OIC secretary-general, she adds, “This conference needs to focus on what can unite countries, not divide them.”

The Durban Dossier

 

A crash course in eight years of the Durban process. 

 

BRATISLAVA – It’s rare for me to have covered a single story over many years, but “Durban” is one such story.

 

In 2001 I traveled to that South African city for the original U.N. event, the ambitiously titled “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” Eight years later, I attended the follow-up “Durban Review Conference,” held in Geneva from April 20-24.

 

That’s why I devoted a special section to Durban. Like any major international issue, this one demands a grasp of the background and context, the origins and evolution. So I’ve posted links here to all the Durban-related articles I’ve written since 2001.

Pro-Israel Activists Set To Do Battle At Durban II

The 2009 Durban Review Conference will be held on U.N. grounds in Geneva (above), where security will be far tighter than in 2001. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · April 6, 2009

 BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA (JTA) – Eight years ago, at the first U.N. World Conference Against Racism, pro-Israel activists endured a week of hate-filled insults, pamphlets, posters and marches in the streets of Durban, South Africa.

When they finally marched out of a forum that branded Israel genocidal and racist like Apartheid South Africa, keffiyah-clad antagonists serenaded them with chants of “Free, free, Palestine!”

Overwhelmed, activists vowed to prepare better the next time. That chance comes later this month: the Durban Review Conference will be held April 20-24 in the Swiss city of Geneva.

Palestinian supporters will hold another large street demonstration and brainstorm ways to strengthen their Israel-is-apartheid movement. But this time around Jewish groups are, among other things, sponsoring a pro-Israel rally, co-sponsoring a human-rights event that will feature Martin Luther King III and others, and organizing a Holocaust commemoration just outside the gates of the bucolic U.N. compound in Geneva.

“Some have told me the reactions now are like post-traumatic stress syndrome, because the community was so traumatized by what happened in 2001,” says Felice Gaer, who attended Durban as director of the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for Human Rights. “Jewish tradition teaches us to repair the world, not turn our back on the world. So why will Jewish groups be in Geneva? To bear witness, fight back and repair the world.”

UNRWA Gets Political. Again.

During the recent war in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees repeated a pattern of bias that I documented three years ago in a five-part series.

 

BRATISLAVA – Criticism is mounting that a UN probe of Israel’s attacks on its own facilities in Gaza is too limited, and should be widened to investigate attacks on both Israeli and Palestinian civilians.

 

The UN “Board of Inquiry” findings are expected any day, and pro-Israel advocates expect no surprises – especially since the key source is UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.

 

In February, Amnesty International, which pro-Israel advocates critics describe as no friend of the Jewish state, opened criticism of the narrow mandate. “What is needed,” said Amnesty’s Irene Khan, “is a comprehensive international investigation that looks at all alleged violations of international law – by Israel, by Hamas and by other Palestinian armed groups involved in the conflict.”

 

Then on March 16, 16 respected war-crimes investigators and judges sent an open letter to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, further chastising the world body – and added that a broadened investigation should recommend for prosecution “those responsible for gross violations.”

 

“It is not only the UN personnel that deserve truth and justice, but Palestinians and Israelis themselves,” wrote one signatory, Prof. William A. Schabas, former member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

Even if the investigation were expanded, Israel’s defenders would balk at the main witness: UNRWA.

In Austria, an Israelite is Born — or Not

Lenke Livia Jordan, shown approximately 15 minutes after her birth, is officially without a religion in Austrian records. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan      January 26, 2009

HAINBURG, AUSTRIA (JTA) — “Ich bin ein Israelitischer!” While it doesn’t quite have the ring of John F. Kennedy’s famous pronouncement in Berlin, it’s a German construction that, surprisingly, I recently had to learn.

Last year I wrote an article about the ongoing obstacles to producing ethnic data to more accurately count Central and Eastern Europe’s millions of marginalized Roma, aka Gypsies. The count would provide data detailing their miserable living conditions, with an eye toward creating better policies to improve their existence.

One reason many Roma refuse to identify themselves officially is that during the Holocaust, Nazis and local collaborators seized upon such personal census material to track down Jews and Roma in towns and villages and send them to concentration camps. Today, some Roma vow never again.

This resonates with me, a Jew whose family was deported from the Hungarian countryside during World War II.

But it was only after the birth this month of our third child that I tasted the self-identification dilemma firsthand.

Corruption in Bulgaria Tests EU Expansion

'Iron Meggy': Bulgaria has entrusted diplomat Meglena Plugchieva to clean up corruption of EU aid. Massive amounts of EU assistance are being withheld until reforms are made. (Photo: mjj)

Frustrations mount over Bulgaria – the most violent, corrupt, and poorest of EU members. Aid is being withheld as reform promises are made (and broken). Can it be fixed?

 

By Michael J. Jordan|

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

From the December 31, 2008 edition

 

SOFIA, BULGARIA – This spring, after Bulgaria recalled Meglena Plugchieva from her ambassadorship in Berlin to clean up widespread corruption and misuse of European Union funds, she warned fellow ministers they must act to prevent the loss of massive funding from Brussels.

 

But Ms. Plugchieva also vowed to stand up to Western criticism that singles out her nation’s ills. “Bulgaria is not the cradle of corruption,” she said. “Germany also has its corruption-related scandals.”

 

The “double standard” defense, though, wasn’t enough to deter a stinging financial slap delivered last month by a European Commission angry after millions of euros in development assistance had been siphoned off and a string of high-profile corruption and murder investigations resulted in no convictions.

 

Bulgaria’s case was putting the credibility of EU enlargement at stake: Brussels needed to send a message to those arguing against further expansion and to candidates banging on the door, including Croatia, Serbia, Albania, and Turkey. Just last month, EU officials warned Croatia that its failure to crack down on organized crime and corruption jeopardizes its chance to join the EU next year.

 

“Brussels needed to get serious, to show they’re not just taking a country’s word for fighting corruption,” says Katinka Barysch, deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London. “If they can’t do that with Bulgaria, how are you going to do that with the countries still queuing outside?”

 

With EU Help, Bulgarians Return to Roots

 

Bulgarian potato farmer: Atanas Birnikov used European Union development aid to buy new machinery.(Photo: mjj)

Failure to curb corruption means less assistance for some.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 31, 2008 edition

 

VELINGRAD, BULGARIA – When Atanas Birnikov was a child, his parents’ rolling farmland at the base of the Rodopi Mountains was seized by the communist regime.

 

Fifty years later, after Mr. Birnikov lost his job in the turbulence of the post-communist transition, he was able to reclaim these ancestral lands.

 

Now, Birnikov finds himself a rookie potato farmer. Reviving the farming tradition, he says, couldn’t have happened without funds from the European Union, which enabled him to repay huge bank loans for seeds and farm machinery.

 

“When you’re left out on the street, you have to figure out how to survive,” Birnikov said during the recent harvest, as several dozen seasonal workers he’s hired gathered spuds nearby. “Because we have such young farms, we need help to get on our feet.”

 

Birnikov is one of many Bulgarians benefiting from EU taxpayer assistance – the very funding that the EU has withdrawn because of Bulgaria’s failure to curb corruption.

Will a New Generation Bring Fresh Justice to Bulgaria?

 

Bulgarian police cadets Elena Kolcheva and Danail Velichkov say they hope to improve the reputation of Bulgarian policing. (Photo: mjj)

‘We need a moral cleansing of the system,’ says jurist Nelly Koutzkova.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 31, 2008 edition

 

SOFIA, BULGARIA - Many residents of the European Union’s most corrupt and violent member state say that apart from the uniforms there’s little difference between Bulgaria’s cops and mobsters. But over at the Simeonovo Police Academy, on the sprawling eastern edge of the capital, cadets Elena Kolcheva and Danail Velichkov are champing at the bit to get the bad guys.

 

“My family and friends don’t trust the police to be effective,” says Ms. Kolcheva, who’s ranked second in her class and hopes to someday investigate murders. “But now they see the younger generation is motivated to change the system.”

 

Brussels bemoans that as many as 150 assassinations over recent years have produced no prosecutions in Bulgaria. Locals blame a police and court system infested with bribery. A common joke in the business community here is, “we don’t invest in lawyers, we invest in judges.”

 

But there’s also a glimmer of hope that the next generation of police and judges will take a more professional approach to justice. Cadet Kolcheva says a major corruption conviction would embolden her and her fellow cadets. This view is shared by Nelly Koutzkova, former president of the Bulgarian Judges Association.

 

“A young colleague complained to me, ‘When I’m in the courtroom, I feel everyone look at me like I’m for sale,’” Ms. Koutzkova says. “We need a moral cleansing of the system, where even one prosecution would show people, inside and outside, there’s justice for the justices as well.”

Wrestling: A Fight for an Honest Living in Corrupt Times

Bulgarian wrestler Hristo Stoilov (Photo: mjj)

Despite the lure of easy money, Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoilov says he’s refused to use his muscles for criminal activity.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 31, 2008 edition

 

SOFIA, BULGARIA – While practicing takedown flips with a dummy, Hristo Stoilov’s phone rang. The wrestler, covered in sweat and wearing tights, listened for a minute, shook his head, then returned to grappling. Later, Mr. Stoilov explained the call was from a friend offering him “easy” money to rough up a debtor.

 

Although Stoilov’s thick muscles and steely presence might allow him to quickly earn the $200 fee for intimidating a debtor into paying, he says this is no way to live, not even if a single “visit” yields as much as he earns in two weeks as a personal trainer.

 

“I want to live a quiet life,” Stoilov says.

 

Wrestling, the national sport, once generated jobs, entertainment, and considerable national pride here during international tournaments. During communist times, with state-controlled dreck on television, most towns held Saturday night matches. And the state paid wages to some 50,000 wrestlers and coaches – in a country of only 8 million.

 

The postcommunist economic crisis left thousands of wrestlers unemployed, says Emil Budinov, a former national wrestling champion and now a coach.

 

“Imagine: you start winning medals, but then the system collapses and you’re left with nothing,” Mr. Budinov says. “But you’re a strong man, a brave man. So what do you do? You go out on the street.”

Jewish Life Flourishes Where Kazakh Gulag Once Stood

Vilen Molotov-Luchanskiy, standing in front of the lone memorial in Karaganda to gulag victims, says his grandmother's faith in the Soviet system never wavered despite eight years in the gulag. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · December 22, 2008

 

KARAGANDA, KAZAKHSTAN (JTA) — Liza Luchanskiy was born to a poor, Yiddish-speaking family in Berdichev, the historic, heavily Jewish city deep in the Pale of Settlement.

 

Lured by Soviet promises of equality, she became a communist true believer, working her way up to serve on a committee in Siberia that targeted so-called enemies of the revolution. But her zeal wasn’t enough to save her or her similarly devoted husband, Josef.

 

They were swept up during the frenzy of Stalin’s Great Terror, from 1937 to 1939. Josef was shot by a firing squad in 1938, and Liza was exiled by cattle car to Karaganda.

 

Luchanskiy was sentenced to eight years in the vast network of forced-labor camps here, on the southern edge of Stalin’s fearsome gulag. Enduring extreme cold, hunger and exhaustion, which afflicted her health ever after, Luchanskiy never let go of her faith in communism, her grandson says.

 

“She never blamed the system, only Stalin,” says Vilen Molotov-Luchanskiy, an internist who today heads the Jewish Cultural Center in Karaganda.

 

As many as 1.2 million Soviet citizens — spanning practically all the myriad ethnic groups nationwide — were worked to death or near death in the 75 camps that comprised Karaganda. Among them were many Jews, including many rabbis.

A Shared Destiny Among Jews, Kazakhs

Koran teacher Adilkhan Serikbay says Kazakhs want no trouble with Jews or any other of Kazakhstan's many ethnic and religious groups. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · December 18, 2008

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN (JTA) — Seventy-five years ago, the once-nomadic Kazakhs endured a famine, purportedly orchestrated by Moscow, in which some 1 million people starved to death.

 

Not long after, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin created a network of prison camps in Kazakhstan that in the late 1930s became the southern flank of his notorious Gulag, sucking in countless Kazakhs, Jews and myriad other ethnic groups.

 

Then, during the Holocaust, thousands of Jews from places such as Ukraine and Belarus were evacuated ahead of the onrushing Nazis eastward to the vast, sparsely populated steppes of Kazakhstan. The local Kazakhs mustered the hospitality to greet them with milk and bread.

 

“That which united our grandmothers and grandfathers makes us closer today,” says Jewish activist Valentina Kuznetsova, who lives in Karaganda, the country’s third-largest city.

Kazakhstan Seen as Bridge to Muslim World

In tightly controlled Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev's ubiquitous face and words are seen as a "cult of personality." (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · December 18, 2008

 

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN (JTA) — In a world where Israel can claim few Muslim friends, no one is more passionate about Kazakhstan than the Israeli envoy to this oil-rich nation.

 

While the nation jockeys to be a major energy producer, joining Caspian Sea neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan as a vital alternative to Middle East instability and Russian heavy-handedness, observers often cite the Central Asian nation as a moderate Muslim bridge to the Islamic world. That helps explain why Western allies typically downplay the unseemly side of Kazakh rule — repression of independent critics, persecution of political opposition, harassment of marginal religions. They instead accentuate the positives about this ex-Soviet republic.

 

Israel’s ambassador here, Ran Ichay, also tends to focus on the upside, listing several Kazakh achievements of recent years that he terms “world-class contributions.”

 

Kazakhs, for example, voluntarily dismantled their nuclear program, even as folks in the northeastern region of Semipalatinsk still suffer from having served as human guinea pigs for Soviet-era nuclear testing. And twice they have hosted the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, an interreligious forum they created that Ichay says is the rare gathering where Jews, Israelis and Iranians are spotted around the same table.

 

“Kazakhstan is very different from what we know in the Middle East,” he says from his modest office in central Astana, the capital city. “They use their religion as a bridge between cultures.”

 

Still, the elephant in the room remains oil and the worldwide worry over “energy security” that was underscored by Russia’s assault on Georgia in August.

In Kazakhstan, Jews Span Miles to Create Community

Dina Itkina, director of the Jewish community center in Astana. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · December 18, 2008

 

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN (JTA) — For Dina Itkina, the number of times she has trekked hundreds of miles for a Jewish event are too many to count. But one time stands out in the mind of this young Jewish activist here — a journey to neighboring Uzbekistan.

 

Seven years ago, at the age of  17, Itkina began with a 30-hour train trip from her hometown, Kokchetav, south across the plains to Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty. There she met two dozen other young Jewish leaders from around the country,  including a pair who had spent more than two days aboard a train from the western Caspian Sea coast. Together they piled into another train for the 12-hour overnighter to the southern city of Shymkent. Then came a one-hour bus trip to the border, an hour walk across the border and another hour ride to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital.

 

After three days of conference, there was the grueling return home.

 

“And nobody cried,” says a laughing Itkina, now 24 and director of the Jewish community center in this capital city. “You have to live here to feel the distances. But this event was a new experience, new emotions, new friends. And a lot of fun.”

 

It’s not only Jewish youth who are immersed in Kazakhstan’s culture of overnight train travel, tolerating odysseys that might deter all but the hardiest Westerners. This is the way of life in Kazakhstan, a country comparable in size to Western Europe, four times the size of Texas. Its population of 15 million is clustered across vast, mostly empty swaths of inhospitable desert and prairie known as steppes.

For Bulgarian Nurses, Freedom Isn’t Easy

A year after being released from prison in Libya, where courts had accused them infecting children with HIV, five nurses face tough living at home.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 19, 2008 edition

 

SOFIA, BULGARIA – For eight years, five Bulgarian nurses were locked in a Libyan prison, accused of intentionally infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV, and dreaming of the day they would get released and expose the charges as fraudulent.

 

But that day came and went more than a year ago, and now the nurses find themselves facing an increasingly stark reality as they adjust to life back in Bulgaria.

 

While they’re working with the producers of the Oscar-nominated “Hotel Rwanda” to make a film based on their story, the real life version has had anything but a Hollywood ending.

 

Although prominent Libyan authorities admitted that the nurses were tortured into confessing, some Bulgarians still believe that the nurses are guilty. Others view them as opportunistic, and trying to exploit their situation for unreasonable compensation. In reality, many of the nurses now say they’re struggling to make ends meet.

 

“I’m very disappointed in humankind,” says Valentina Siropulo, one of the nurses who has returned to the hospital she worked in before traveling to Libya. “Not only because of the way we were treated in Libya, but also the extreme negative reactions here in Bulgaria.”

Murder Mystery Vexes Ex-Soviet Bloc

Crusader: Bulgarian journalist Hristo Hristov has fought for more than a decade to uncover the truth about Georgi Markov's murder that took place in London 30 years ago. (Photo: mjj)

The death of Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov in 1978 raises questions about Europe’s lingering ties to communism.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 28, 2008 edition

 

SOFIA, BULGARIA – While Bulgarian émigré Georgi Markov walked over Waterloo Bridge in London on Sept. 7, 1978, a passerby bumped into the well-known critic of his native government. A stinging pain shot through Mr. Markov’s calf, and four days later he was dead.

 

Investigators initially thought an assassin, hired by the communist regime in Bulgaria, jabbed him with a poison-tipped umbrella. But later reports suggested a spring-loaded pen, probably KGB-designed, had fired a ricin-tipped pellet into his leg.

 

Today much of the Markov murder remains shrouded in mystery. The case, however, is just one of many unsolved mysteries spurring intense debate in Eastern Europe between critics and defenders of the communist system.

 

 

Though the days of Soviet control are but a distant memory, revelations about who was once a spy or informant continues to rock the region. Many communist-era officials remain in power and continue to hold onto a number of secrets about the past, not only to protect themselves and their allies, but the reputation of the former dictatorships.

Amid Russia-Georgia Standoff, Iconic Photo of 1968 Soviet Invasion

1968: Ladislav Bielik's image, on display exactly 40 years later in Bratislava, is a poignant symbol of Moscow's aggression. (Photo: mjj)

Ladislav Bielik’s iconic image of a Slovak baring his chest to the barrel of a Soviet tank is part of a commemorative exhibit 40 years ago to the day.

 

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the August 22, 2008 edition

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – Before the 1989 photo of a Chinese man confronting tanks in Tiananmen Square, there was the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia captured by Ladislav Bielik’s iconic image of a protester in Bratislava baring his chest to the barrel of a Soviet tank – 40 years ago Thursday.

 

The moment is brought to life here in Slovakia’s capital, where Bielik’s sequential batch of 185 photos are featured in a photo exhibit on the same square where ordinary citizens confronted the Soviets that morning.

 

Bielik, whose office was just around the corner, shot them the morning of Aug. 21, only hours after tanks rolled in to snuff out a glimmer of democratic reform known as the Prague Spring.

 

“You can read a history book about what happened then, or someone will say ‘There were tanks here,’ but when you see these photos, you know it was real,” says student Tanya Takacova, born just before the 1989 collapse of communist Czechoslovakia.

 

While Bielik’s photos drive the Slovak narrative of that Soviet-led invasion, some cannot resist drawing broader parallels between Moscow’s aggression then and its recent invasion of Georgia.

Finding Community at a Hungarian Camp

The author says it was "gratifying" to see his sons Kende, far left, and Miksa, second from left, "find their Jewishness a comfortable fit" at a Jewish camp in Hungary. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · June 23, 2008

 

 

SZARVAS, HUNGARY (JTA) – A friend told me recently about an article he had read proposing that one way to encourage children to eat salad is to drizzle a dab of dressing on top. This way, they would associate healthy eating with something positive rather than the parental harangue, “Because it’s good for you.”

 

I was reminded of this advice earlier this month when we immersed our two sons, ages 6 and 4, in their first meaningful Jewish experience: five days at the renowned international Camp Szarvas in southeastern Hungary.

 

On this occasion, though, instead of the hundreds of Jewish youth from across Central-Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union who gather here each summer at this Jewish oasis, it was Family Week for Hungarian Jewish families with young children.

 

It was particularly important for my boys to have a positive experience, as my Hungarian wife and I have agreed to raise them with dual identities: Hungarian and Jewish – with a dash of American. And while Agi has held up her end of the deal, I – a tribal agnostic – need to offer up some Jewish substance. Or, as we say in journalism, “show, don’t tell” what being a Jew means to me.

Kazakhstan Seeks Identity on the Big Screen

'I wanted to show that Kazakh history…is much deeper than we'd ever thought.' – Gulnara Sarsenova, cosmetic magnate and movie producer (Photo: mjj)

The Central Asian nation throws Borat a counterpunch.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 8, 2008 edition

 

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN – If the satirical movie “Borat” spoofed an entire nation, then “Mongol” was a decent counterpunch, casting back 800 years to the glory of a world conqueror, and earning Kazakhstan its first nomination for a foreign-language Academy Award earlier this year.

 

But “Mongol” was more than a big-budget Genghis Khan biopic, says Gulnara Sarsenova, the perfume and cosmetics magnate who helped bankroll the $23 million production. It also aimed to bolster the self-respect of a traditionally nomadic people aggressively Russified during 70 years of Soviet domination.

 

“There’s a lack of awareness among Kazakhs of our rich and interesting past,” says the flamboyant CEO, who is from the Naiman clan of northeastern Kazakhstan. That’s the same clan of Borte, Khan’s empress, whose charms in the movie brought out the sensitive side of the Mongol pillager. “I wanted to show that Kazakh history goes much further, is much deeper, than we’d ever thought.”

 

As a co-producer of “Mongol,” Ms. Sarsenova is at the forefront of efforts to reconnect Kazakhs to their ancestors, especially through film. While “Mongol” – with its Russian director, international cast, and global audience – is still a rare, privately funded exception, more typical are the dozens of historical films for domestic consumption that state-run Kazakhfilm has churned out since independence in 1991.

On Guard

A Hungarian far-right party spins off a contingent of uniformed marchers and takes aim at “Gypsy criminality.”

 

by Michael J. Jordan
21 March 2008

 

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (Transitions) | Tamas Gyimesi has a style all his own, like a cross between a nightclub bouncer and Hungarian folkloric dancer.

Below his shaved head and gold loops that dangle from both ears, he’s wearing a striking floral, hand-woven vest over a billowing white shirt.

 

On marching days, though, Gyimesi breaks out a more ominous look. He and fellow members of the new, far-right Hungarian Guard don black boots, black caps and black vests stamped with ancient Hungarian stripes last embraced by the Nazi-allied Arrow Cross – a regime that killed tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, dumping many of them in the icy Danube.

 

Members of the Guard, which claims at least 650 adherents, say their mission is to protect Hungarians, their culture, their traditions.

 

“Here, all the minorities have rights, but unfortunately, I don’t have rights,” Gyimesi explains from the outset. “We’re becoming a minority in our own country.”

A New ‘Neighborhood Watch’: Azeri Horsemen Guard BP Pipeline

Seymur Alizadeh patrols the BTC pipeline near the village of Duzdag, Azerbaijan. (Photo: Yigal Schleifer)

The $100 million effort stretches across 450 towns and is part of a growing push for corporate social responsibility.

 

 

By Michael J. Jordan and Yigal Schleifer |

Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 12, 2008 edition

 

DUZDAG, AZERBAIJAN – Six days a week, Seymur Alizadeh and his chestnut-brown mare patrol the Azerbaijani countryside. Buried a few feet below is the prized Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, which delivers nearly 1 million barrels of Caspian Sea crude to Western markets each day.

 

Mr. Alizadeh, one of many local villagers guarding the oil route, says, “I feel like a very important part in protecting this pipeline.” Hiring local horsemen is part of a larger effort by pipeline builder BP to create a massive neighborhood watch.

 

BP and other energy companies are under scrutiny for their relations with local communities worldwide for the cost, disruption, and even bloodshed their lucrative pipelines are responsible for. So in recent years they’ve honed a new formula: invest heavily in the affected communities and try to foster goodwill, neutralize controversy, and hopefully safeguard their multibillion-dollar investments.

 

“They have the spotlight on them to do something good in the societies in which they operate, and with the Internet communication revolution, you can very easily publicize something about them from any corner of the globe if they do not behave appropriately,” says Lars Gulbrandsen, a Norwegian researcher who has studied corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Azerbaijan and elsewhere.

Statistical Significance

Governments and many Roma alike are reluctant to gather accurate information on Europe’s largest minority, but activists say a lack of data blocks progress.

 

By Michael J. Jordan

 

5 March 2008

BRATISLAVA (Transitions) | Andrey Ivanov knows all about the Roma plight, as a former activist who ran a micro-lending program for Bulgarian Roma in the 1990s.

 

He saw then how difficult it was for both government agencies and non-governmental organizations to create truly effective policies and programs without official and reliable data on the scope of Romani poverty.

 

Today, as the human-development adviser to the U.N. Development Program regional office in Bratislava, Ivanov watches the curtain close on the third year of the vaunted Decade of Roma Inclusion. Questions loom about its prospects for success.

 

Accurate data is essential to establish benchmarks for measuring all efforts regarding Europe’s Roma, who number anywhere from 8 million to 15 million. This, observers say, also helps explain why most governments dodge the data: they shun the accountability.

 

“My favorite excuse from governments is, ‘I’m sorry, but the EU doesn’t allow us to collect data by ethnicity,’ ” says Ivanov, whose office shelves hold several files with precious ethnic data that UNDP itself has collected. “That’s not the point. The EU doesn’t forbid the collecting of data; it forbids abuse of that data – the tracking of individuals.”

An Expanding EU Confronts Nuclear Proliferation

The capture of nuclear materials in Slovakia last week raises security questions about borderless travel.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 4, 2007 edition

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – The capture of over a pound of powderized uranium in Slovakia last week has served as a sharp reminder to Europe, though nuclear experts have cast doubt on the assertion by local law-enforcement officials that terrorists could have used it for a “dirty bomb.”

 

The incident comes just weeks before Slovakia, Hungary, and seven other recent European Union inductees _ some of which are former Soviet states – join the passport-free Schengen zone on Dec. 21.

 

As the EU’s borderless travel area expands, the arrest has brought renewed attention to unsecured nuclear material from former Soviet states.

 

“We seem to be immune to understanding that this is worrisome, [saying] ‘Oh well, it’s not enough for a nuclear weapon, or radioactive enough for a dirty bomb,’” says Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington.

 

“Enriched uranium at any level is a worry; even if low-enriched uranium, it should be a wake-up call of the danger that someone who might be covertly enriching to make a bomb’s worth of highly enriched uranium could get a hold of this as fresh feed to accelerate their enrichment efforts.”

Nuclear Watchdog Short of Cash

The International Atomic Energy Agency complains that US and other nations are not contributing as promised.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 22, 2007 edition

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA — The world’s leading nuclear watchdog warned this week that it’s not getting the money to do its job.

 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), given the task of monitoring the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea, and others, has also been taxed of late by the so-called “nuclear renaissance.” As countries renew the push for nuclear energy, they expect the IAEA to help safeguard new power plants.

 

In a letter sent to the 144 IAEA member-states after budget negotiations stalled last week, director-general Mohammed ElBaradei wrote, “You could finance a less effective agency and we will tell you what that would mean – less than credible verification assurance, less than the best safety advice, a less than perfect security function.”

 

Yet, though the major powers voice fears of nuclear terrorism and nuclear accidents, financial support for the IAEA doesn’t necessarily follow, says Vitaly Fedchenko, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden.

 

“There’s an expression in English: Put your money where your mouth is,” says Mr. Fedchenko. “If you’re saying the IAEA is important, OK, but do you really mean that by contributing to the agency? Arranging your spending priorities in a certain way is a political statement in itself.”

Why There’s Little Coverage of the Andijan Massacre in Uzbekistan

One of the ubiquitous Uzbek policemen on patrol in Tashkent, in January 2003. (Photo: mjj)

A reporter holds a restricted discussion with Uzbek colleagues, who have been effectively gagged by the country’s president.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 15, 2007 edition

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA – Two years ago this week, Uzbekistan’s security forces opened fire on antigovernment demonstrators in the city of Andijan, killing 187 people. That’s the official number. The actual figure was likely hundreds more, say most observers.

 

With the anniversary of the “Andijan massacre,” one would expect Western journalists to flood into this ex-Soviet republic. They would be expected to write stories about how a predominantly Muslim nation in Central Asia that Washington had enlisted in its “War on Terror” had since clamped down on dissent.

 

They would likely note that Freedom House, the pro-democracy watchdog based in Washington, now ranks Uzbekistan as among “the worst of the worst” abusers of human rights and civil liberties in the world.

 

Instead, Uzbek President Islam Karimov has effectively gagged the media. Besides persecuting independent local journalists and blocking critical news websites, Tashkent has barred entry to most foreign correspondents.

 

“It’s easily explained: [Mr.] Karimov doesn’t want any foreign witness to what’s going on,” says Elsa Vidal, head of the Europe desk for the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.

 

Yet, Uzbeks are puzzled – and upset – by this lack of foreign coverage. Revealing the depth of their isolation, one Uzbek journalist asked me at a recent videoconference to mark World Press Freedom Day, “Why are no foreign journalists in Uzbekistan? Not interested?”

Trolleys Help Decode EU’s 27 Tongues

Lithuania: Daiva Malinauskiene, by a language trolley in Vilnius, got the idea after a trip to Spain five years ago, where she couldn’t communicate. (Photo: mjj)

The ‘Learning by Moving’ project helps EU citizens learn the languages of their neighbors.

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 9, 2007 edition

 

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA – On a visit to southern Spain five years ago, Lithuanian Daiva Malinauskiene encountered a typical traveler’s problem: no one could give her directions in a language she understood.

 

But rather than pass it off as an inevitable annoyance of travel within the European Union (EU), which has 23 official languages and 60 indigenous ones, she devised an unusual solution when she returned to Lithuania: the Learning by Moving project.

 

Today, on commuter-packed trolleys in the capital, Vilnius, the PA systems crackle with impromptu language lessons. “Is the post office far from here?” a voice asks cheerily, first in Lithuanian, then in English and Polish.

 

Passenger Ana Zagun spies the saddle slung over a plexiglass partition, pulls a brochure from its pocket, and follow along. “We’re in Europe now, so we must learn English,” says Ms. Zagun, who speaks Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian.

 

Launched last fall in this ex-Soviet republic, the project has since expanded to five other EU countries: Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Malta. It’s one prong of a broader policy to promote multilingualism, as the 27-member Union struggles to cultivate a sense of “Europeanness” while respecting unique identities.

Ex-Communist Purge Bumps Up Against EU Values

A Lithuanian law serves as a litmus test for what punishments Europe will tolerate against former collaborators.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 1, 2007 edition

 

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA – When Kestutis Dziautas enrolled in Moscow’s KGB college in 1985, he wasn’t aware, he says, of the Soviet secret police’s role in executing and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of fellow Lithuanians decades earlier. Likewise, he says, he didn’t know that KGB agents were still the feared foot soldiers of a ruthless regime.

 

But neither his claim of naiveté, nor the fact that he spent only four months working for the KGB before the fall of communism, was enough to spare him: A 1999 law aimed at punishing and rooting out ex-KGB operatives like Mr. Dziautas banned them from a wide range of public- and private-sector jobs for 10 years.

 

So Dziautas and three comrades took their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – and won. In 2004 and 2005 verdicts, the court declared Lithuania’s “KGB Act” a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights, specifically the right to work.

 

“I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t deport anyone, I didn’t commit genocide. I felt like a rabbit upon which they were experimenting, making an example out of me,” says Dziautas, who says he was relegated to fishing and picking mushrooms.

 

Now, Lithuania is under mounting pressure from the Council of Europe to amend its law or face sanctions when the Council’s Committee of Ministers reconvenes in October. The Lithuanian parliament is leery of how the issue, debated again in early April without resolution, may tarnish the reputation of one of the EU’s newer members.

 

Cases like Dziautas’s highlight the struggle Lithuania and others in Central and Eastern Europe face, years into the postcommunist transition: if and how to punish those who persecuted on behalf of a cruel dictatorship and how to make peace with the past and move forward.

Last of the Yiddish Mohicans

Simonas Gurevicius, one of the few native Yiddish speakers left in the world, is teaching his wife Yiddish so it can be their children's native tongue. (Photo: mjj)

The Nazis and Soviets couldn’t stop the Gurevicius family from speaking their native tongue.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 21, 2007 edition

 

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA – Simonas Gurevicius has serious shtick. Blue eyes gleaming, he talks fast and animatedly. His accent, inflection, and shoulder shrugs – like a young Jackie Mason – makes him a throwback to the “Borscht Belt” and the dozens of famed, Yiddish-influenced comics who honed their acts in the upstate New York resorts that once catered to Eastern European Jewish immigrants.

 

But Simonas is no comic and he’s never been in the Catskills. He’s a Yiddish-speaking Jew from Lithuania, the Baltic region of northeastern Europe.

 

“Have a seat there,” Simonas says in English, motioning a visitor to a chair. As the visitor bends to sit, he adds: “The chair’s broken.”

 

“And this, this is a nice guy,” he deadpans, introducing a young colleague. Beat. “But he’s got major psychological problems.”

 

Simonas’s corny shtick is no gimmick; its rhythm and accent ring with authenticity. He’s a rare breed: a young, native speaker of Yiddish, the historic language of Eastern European Jews. And his perseverance makes him something of a hero here.

 

“Simonas is the last of the Mohicans,” says DovidKatz, the Brooklyn-born director of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute. “He’s the last of his generation here to have learned Yiddish in the home.”

 

The Holocaust erased 5 million of the world’s 11 million Yiddish-speakers. In Lithuania, 220,000 of 250,000 Jews died. But Simonas and other Jews here in Vilnius – the cobblestoned cradle of Yiddish life and culture, or Yiddishkeit; a city Napoleon reportedly dubbed “the Jerusalem of the East” – are today working to revive the language.

Where Have All Our Migrants Gone?

HIGH-TECH: Deimante Doksaite (l.) and Edita Pundziute (r.) update Lietuviams.com, a website they created to keep Lithuanian migrants connected to home. (Photo: mjj)

Eastern Europe wants them back.

 

By Michael J. Jordan |

Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 10, 2007 edition

 

VILNIUS, LITHUANIA – Much ado was made in Paris several years ago about the symbolic “Polish plumber” who was coming to steal jobs from les français. Now, it’s Eastern Europeans who are lamenting the loss of not only plumbers, but all service workers.

 

“If you want some repairs in your apartment, you can’t find anyone,” says Rita Stankeviciute, a sportswriter in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. “It’s ridiculous. Lines in the grocery stores are longer. When I used to need a taxi, it was always three minutes. Now it’s ‘In an hour.’”

 

As Western Europeans fret about a new wave of Eastern Europeans flooding their countries – this time from Romania and Bulgaria, the EU’s newest members – those nations have an opposite concern: how to bring those immigrants home.

 

For a small country like Lithuania, with a low birthrate but high rates of immigration, alcoholism, and suicide, the situation is particularly urgent. The former communist nation of 4 million has seen at least 400,000 people migrate west, whether to work construction in Dublin, pick strawberries in southern Spain, or conduct research in Scandinavia.

 

“We must invite them back,” says Zilvinas Beliauskas, director of the government- supported Returning Lithuanian Information Center. “We should consider them an integral part of the nation.”

1956: A Tale of Two Crises

Rosy and Frank Jordan in a recent photo with two of their grandchildren – Kende, 2, and Miksa, 4, the author’s sons. (Photo: mjj)

By Michael J. Jordan · October 25, 2006

 

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA (JTA) — The first came to America with parents, delivered via U.S. Army transport plane. The other arrived alone, six months later, aboard an ocean liner.

 

My mother and father were refugees from different lands. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the simultaneous Cold War events that spurred their journey to freedom. October 1956: The Hungarian Revolution. The Suez Canal Crisis.

 

“It was the most crucial month of the most crucial year, the most dramatic time in the entire history of the Cold War,” historian John Lukacs wrote a decade later in “A New History of the Cold War.”

 

As the world confronts a nuclear North Korea and nuclear-aspiring Iran, the 50-year anniversary reminds us of the world’s first nuclear showdown. Coming at the height of the nuclear-arms race, the Hungary-Suez entanglement sparked the first Soviet threat to attack the West with what Nikita Khrushchev called “rocket weapons.”

 

The American reluctance to intervene in Hungary — after encouraging Hungarians to rise up against their Stalinist oppressors — also was a turning point in U.S.-USSR relations, signaling to the Soviets that their grip on half of Europe would go unchallenged.

 

Meanwhile, the British-French maneuver against Soviet-friendly Egypt to reclaim the Suez Canal — in concert with Israel, but without U.S. support — almost shattered the NATO military alliance. With London and Paris ultimately forced to climb down, the Suez adventure drove the final nail in the British imperial coffin.

 

For me, October 1956 was a pivotal time in my parents’ teenage lives — though they would actually meet only a decade later, as newly minted U.S. citizens in Philadelphia. Dad was born and raised in Budapest; Mom in Alexandria, Egypt.

1956 Crises Decimated Two Communities

Newly arrived Hungarian Jewish immigrants to the U.S. who fled their country due to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. (Courtesy HIAS)

By Michael J. Jordan · October 25, 2006

 

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA (JTA) — The second half of the 20th century was marked by crises that sparked waves of Jewish flight and immigration — but it was rare for two such crises to happen simultaneously.

 

In late 1956 and early 1957, the Hungarian Revolution and the Suez Crisis in Egypt rattled their respective Jewish populations, disgorging about 20,000 Jews apiece. For those who fled, the anti-Jewish strain in each event was the final straw.

 

“Ask anybody who had to flee once: It’s just a matter of pure physics,” says Valery Bazarov, director of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s location and family history services, who bolted the Soviet Union with his family in 1988. “You have a scale: When the fear to stay is greater than the fear to leave, then you go. But it depends on your physical and spiritual mindset, how you interpret what you see and hear.”

 

For neither community was this the first wave of emigration: On the heels of a Holocaust that decimated their community, thousands of Hungarian Jews migrated to pre-state Palestine or to the West. Others didn’t have the means to leave or stayed with elderly relatives.

 

But thousands more — especially young Holocaust survivors grateful to the Soviets for liberating them — flocked to join Soviet-backed Communists who sought to ensure that fascism would never return.