Speed Reading

In a couple of weeks, I will be attending a Global and Cross-Cultural Management PhD workshop in Maastricht. It is going to be fairly intensive, five days of 9-5 workshops about a topic that I've never encountered on this level. It is an excellent fit with my PhD project, though, so I am excited. Last week, I received the big workshop surprise: about 1,000 pages of reading material and a request to write one question for each article. After my panic attack and a three-day wrestling match with copy machines and binding services, I realized that although getting through the material was going to be tough, it wasn't impossible.

What this project is turning into is fantastic training for getting through mountains of reading material efficiently. After all, given that I still have to do little things like sleep and eat as well as a couple bigger things like grade and return exams, reading every page carefully is out of the question. So, after finishing my BA, MA, and a couple of other courses and whatnot along the way, I'm finally learning the discipline of NOT reading every single page. After years of knowing somewhere in the back of my mind how efficient reading works, I'm finally doing it. It starts with reading the abstract, if there is one, then scanning the article/chapter to figure out its structure, marking the areas that look like they might be more interesting, and then reading the introduction, marked areas, and conclusion carefully. Thank goodness I already have a bad habit of taking too many notes, so highlighter and pen in hand, I'm even managing to get something out of my reading for future reference.

Aside from being able to delight in my new found reading skills, I'm also pleased that this (enormous) task hasn't turned into a downer. Deciding to see it as a challenge and even a bit of a game (can I get away with it?) has made feel much less like a burden and much more like a serious challenge and achievable goal. It's all in my little head, I tell you!

Fantasy Reading List

Some people have fantasy sports teams. Every once in a while, I come up with a fantasy reading list. This is usually a group of novels (who reads non-fiction?!) that I would like to read together in order to see how they inter-relate, or not. My most recent fantasy list developed out of my recent trip to the US, where I attended a comparative literature conference and walked through too many airports looking at bookshops. It was mainly inspired by an interesting conference talk that discussed variations on the sleeping beauty theme. Somehow, this lead right to teenage prostitution, but, honestly, in interesting ways.

The first story on my list is, The House of Sleeping Beauties by Yasunari Kawabata. According to my sources, the House of Sleeping Beauties is a Japanese brothel where teenage girls are drugged to sleep. Patrons, mostly impotent old men, who visit the brothel pay for the privilege of spending the night with these girls, but penetration (of any kind) is prohibited. The premise is intriguing. In fact, so interesting that it appears to have been adapted for film, stage, and pornography.

The second book on my list is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of my Melancholy Whores. Here's a review by John Updike. Apparently, after being told that his writing was similar to Japanese writing, Garcia Marquez spent a year reading Japanese literature. When he was done, Kawabata's short story was the only one he wished he had written himself. Memories is Garcia Marquez's response to Kawabata's story. It tells the tale of an old man who wants to sleep with a young virgin for his 90th birthday, but ends up falling in love with her instead.

The last book on this fantasy list is Natsuo Kirino's Grotesque. Kirino is a Japanese crime fiction writer with a truly morbid imagination and a great style. I ran across Out a couple of years ago and was completely blown away by it. When I saw in the airports that a new book had been translated, I knew I wanted to read it. As it turns out, it fits my fantasy list theme. Grotesque tells the story of how two students from an elite Japanese high school both ended up working as prostitutes and how both of them were murdered. I'm reading it now and find it's more a tale of jealousy, manipulation, and questions of truth, but quite interesting nevertheless.

So, that's my current fantasy book list. My plan was to get all three books and read them in the order described here, but I wasn't able to find a copy of Kawabata's book while I was home. So, I'm inverting the list and starting with Kirino. Garcia Marquez is on the shelf and I'll read it next. Stay tuned for my thoughts on both books!

"Integration" in the Netherlands

Some of you may not be aware of my minor obsession with immigration policy in the Netherlands. In the good times (when I don't follow the news), it's a research interest. In the bad times (when I do) it's really an obsession and more than a couple people have been subjected to rants crudely and ineffectively cloaked as discussions. Given all that, you can imagine my delight today when the Expatica.com news feed posted an item about Human Rights Watch finding the integration exam discriminatory.

Why is this grounds for celebration? Because I've been running around like chicken little about that sky falling for nearly four years now. The exam they are referring to is one that some immigrants are required to pass if they want to enter the Netherlands. The exam takes place in the country of residence (so, in your home country) and costs €350 every time you sit it. It has effectively reduced immigration into the Netherlands since its introduction. Of course, that the official policy doesn't say is that it's a move to keep certain people (especially the Muslim and the poor) out of the Netherlands. Instead, it and other restrictive immigration policies have been introduced under the guise of integration. That means, the Dutch government claims that requiring this test is good for immigrants because it insures that those immigrants who do enter the country will be more successful upon arrival. In fact, it should read "less likely to be a burden on our wonderful welfare state."

While I'm willing and happy to celebrate this report (anyone want to print all 45 pages for me?), I still have some major concerns. The Dutch integration project doesn't stop outside the country's borders. Once inside the country, some immigrants are required to complete an integration course in order to stay. Obviously this does not apply to tourists, but it does apply to individuals from some countries (and the USA is included) who want to reside either temporarily or permanently in the Netherlands. Keep in mind, this is not related to applications for citizenship, it is a requirement for residents. Again, the official reason for the course is to help resident effectively integrate into Dutch society by giving them the skills they need to effectively negotiate Dutch bureaucracy and society. I challenge this claim.

The course is made up of two parts, a language part and a "knowledge of Dutch society" part. The language section makes sense. I do believe every country has the right to expect and possibly even require people who want to reside there to speak the language. However, the level of fluency required is so low an individual can successfully complete the program with a level of Dutch that would allow them to keep up only a very basic conversation. In more technical terms, it's A2 of the Common European Framework. The knowledge of Dutch society aspect, in so far as I have been able to learn much about it, is more problematic. In addition to addressing important issues like how to contact emergency services, insurance, and banking, it is also concerned with questions of Dutch identity. This aspect of the course requires participants give the right answers to questions about, for example, homosexuality and how to interact with your neighbors. In other words, questions to which even within the Netherlands, there is no clear consensus.

Needless to say, I could go on for hours (pages) about this, and I have in the past and in other places. So, I'll just leave you with one final tidbit of information. One individual I know, an American, recently successfully completed his exam. The course work took one year, 35 hours a week, to complete. Those participants who were employed had to follow night courses. Is this a fair requirement for people who want to live in your country in order to join their families (husbands, wives, partners, children)? Will it help them to integrate into Dutch society? What is Dutch society today, anyway? So you see, while I'm very happy with the Human Rights Watch report, as they say in the Netherlands, there's still work in the store!

April Reading

My April reading list may elicit some comments, but you can't say I didn't warn you! This much honesty may be very bad for my reputation...

April 2008
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It was actually quite fun to read them all in order. Apparently I've read them just in time as Harry Potter has fallen off the bestseller lists for the first time in ten years. All that reading did lead me to one question, though. Well, at least one. At what point did the movies start influencing the books, if at all? There's a scene where Ron is described as the tallest of the three (Harry, Hermione, and Ron). Was that an idea that originated with Rowling or a reflection of the fact that the actor Rupert Grint is in fact taller than Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson? This could keep me busy for days...

North Carolina Primaries

Today, I found a graphic column about the North Carolina primaries on the New York Times website. It reminded me that one of the great things about my recent trip home was that I got to participate in the North Carolina primaries. Now, being a state that votes in primaries in May, North Carolina usually doesn't count. This year, that's all different. Candidates visited the state and in Carrboro (my hometown) on May 1, there was an Obama early vote rally. I was disappointed that the candidate wasn't there to talk to us, but it was neat to attend an event where people were being encouraged to vote. North Carolina lets you vote early on a no-excuse absentee ballot.

The rally was basically a free concert featuring Superchunk and Arcade Fire. I'm not much of a music fan, unfortunately, and was probably most amused by all the cutie kids wearing huge ear protectors. But, the music was good and spending an afternoon outside listening to it was great. Here's one link and another to some pictures of the event. Best of all, I voted! It's a good thing, too. The absentee ballot I received when I got home yesterday said they have to receive my ballot the Monday before the election if I want to be counted. We'll just have to hope that my ballot for the November elections arrives with more time for sending it back than this one did!

In case you haven't checked the results yet, Obama won in North Carolina.