Al Hoang

The UK news.telegraph has a story
about Miss Vietnam becoming the target of a kidnapping. The reason being
that she was about to go to England to study on a scholarship. That’s
really pathetic.

One thing that is definitely necessary to increase economic output is
a good supply of WELL EDUCATED people that can be tapped to help build
the economy. I’m glad that in Vietnam they decide that they should
hold them for hostage instead.

I’m sure most people have forgotten about Vietnam after the Vietnam war and have
a very vague notion of what Vietnam is like now. And if the topic of Vietnam
DOES come up it’s always in reference to that war in the 1970s. While it
does mark a very important part of modern Vietnamese history it is not the
only thing about Vietnam. I have reasons that I would really like Vietnam
as a country to have an economic boom like China is having. However, it seems
the current government just makes it impossible to do anything.

Read it yourself

Another kudos to No Sword for a great
post on dying human languages of today. If I ever meet up with you, I should
buy you a beer and see what else is lurking in your head. Here’s
some tidbits:

Learning a language isn’t like checking tuna cans for the smiling dolphin
symbol. It takes time and effort to get anywhere, and by that I mean hours
and hours every week — ideally every day — for years. Unless you are
already part of a dying language community, your ability to make a
positive contribution to it is next to nil.

…

So, in summary, the conditions required for so many different languages to
thrive are long gone, and thus the languages are dying. It’s natural.
It’s what you would expect based on human psychology and the current situation.
Still, that doesn’t mean it’s good for humanity. It’s natural for us to
get small pox, bear half a dozen children, and then die at 40, but most of
us don’t stand for that any more, either. So although language extinction
today is generally a natural process, we should and can still fight it.

Good observation. I have to say I agree completely with this
observation. Unless you’re someone as talented as Kenneth Hale
the amount of work once can do is rather limited. But it doesn’t
mean you should roll over and take it lying down.

Read it yourself

This post is right on the mark:

Amen. This post hits the nail on the head for exactly what I’ve been
trying to be able verbalize what has been in my mind around for awhile.
Japan is different but making a Grand Unified Theory as
No-Sword calls it is just plain stupid.
I just wish more people would catch on to this. The longer I stay here, the
more I see similarities in everything but I also am surprised by many
things I definitely can’t see back home or perhaps anywhere else but it
doesn’t mean I have some Grand Unified Theory of what Japan is. It’s more
like just adding a bunch of random stuff to a very huge bag. Yeah it’s
still that bag but I have no idea what is the essence of all those
pieces in the bag. It’s just there.

Read it yourself