Can I Help You With Anything, Sir?

I was flying Northwest Airlines last week. While the Airbus was cruising above the clouds, my mind drifted to the past. The vivid picture of my first encounter with Northwest surfaced.

Before I boarded a Northwest flight destined for Los Angels, California over a decade ago, I’d never taken a flight in my whole life. Prior to that day, I always thought only stewardess, foreigner, or government official were allowed to fly. When a stewardess—a tall blond—greeted me “Welcome onboard” at the gate, I quickly glanced at my back to see if anyone dressed like a party cadre behind me. There were four.

Once onboard, I did my best to act like a veteran traveler: opening the overhead cabin, throwing the carryon bag in, sitting down and buckling the belt on—all done by a quick study of other passengers doing it. I was satisfied with my composure of handling seatbelt, which was tricky to tighten properly.

Once settled, I heard a flight attendant announcing one thing and another in a quick succession. Her voice was pleasant. But it had little soothing effect on me; I barely understood what she said. Hearing “Los Angels” a few times was a big relief to me. I made sure it’s not Laos.

The Boeing 747 climbed to the clouds all right.

My maiden flight had been uneventful, until the flight attendant handed me an earphone. It took me a while to figure out what it was for, but I tried hard not to show. I soon became fond of an array of buttons on the seat’s armrest, surfing music channels with the earphone on.

While I settled in the “light rock”, my hand, however, was busy of exploring other buttons. I was about half sleep when the blond stewardess, who greeted me at boarding, approached me. She bent over and said: “Sir, can I help you with anything?” I took off the earphone and stared at her. She repeated with the widest smile I’d ever seen.

“No, nothing.” I told her, ending my first in flight English dialogue. She kept her smile and walked away. I was back to the light rock. Two songs later, the blond remerged on my side. I snapped off the earphone, hearing the same “Sir, may I help you on anything?” from her. I was trying to figure out what’s the difference between Can I and May I. My grammar failed me. So I answered: “No, nothing. Thanks.”

Her smile froze a little bit. Bending her head over near my face, she whispered to me: “If not, sir, please don’t push that button again. It would turn on the Attention Needed light.”

As she turned off the light overhead, I knew I could no longer pretend to be a veteran traveler anymore for the rest of my flight.

Music in English

If you would like to improve your listening skills and spoken English, and if you also love music, indulge yourself in American pop songs. They complement Hollywood movies well, as they too can serve as a great language learning tool and are as effective.

John Denver’s "Take Me Home, Country Roads” was perhaps the first American song I was exposed to. In the early 80’s, China just opened its door to the West. Country songs were among the first ones to arrive, along with the artists who sang them.

Growing up in the city, I was drawn to the vivid image painted by the song. Winding country roads, by Shenandoah River, on Blue Ridge Mountain ... The tune was easy for sing-along too. The song struck a chord close to heart with its nostalgic lyrics:

“Country Road, take me home.

To the place, I belong …”

Unlike nowadays when you can easily find the exact lyrics of any song on the Internet, I had to listen intently to the song over and over. I did my best to discern every word behind its beautiful melody.

Then in the late 80’s, the air of Chinese college campuses, and beyond, was filled with American songs. They were played on radios all the time. On TV we watched pop singers like Madonna and Michael Jackson perform. Let’s just say I was appalled. Our visual senses had been accustomed to the restrained Chinese performers for years. All of a sudden that wall was tumbling down.

Back then my favorite singer had to be Whitney Houston. The pop diva’s vocal brought about powerful emotions in her audience. Although not being able to lip-sync to her songs, due to the often unusual high notes, I diligently listened to and wrote down the lyrics of her songs. My listening comprehension was taken to the next level with this experience.

Fair enough to say it is through the American songs that I finally found the rhythm and music in the English language.

Arnold On Milton

I’ve often seen Hollywood stars promoting movies; I’ve sometimes seen economists promoting theories and ideas; but I've rarely seen a star promoting an economist. And particularly delighted to my ears, he’s talking in a charming accented English.

The success story of an immigrant, the virtues of free market and private enterprise, and the commanding of English by a non-native speaker—it has all the baits that I eagerly to bite. Here is the gem:

Milton Friedman: A Short Man, A Giant Figure

The economist, Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman died yesterday in California at age of 94.

The first time I heard Friedman’s name was when was in the mid 80s. He traveled to Beijing and met then China’s Premier Zhao Ziyang. He found a receptive ear from a veteran communist leader, who defied the hardliners of the Party in the economic policies. In the brief period of time, China seemed to move toward a free market economy, and even possible democracy that curbs the absolute power of the government.

That power turned out to be absolutely absolute. It sent the tanks to the Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 and squashed any talk of democracy. Zhao disappeared from the public, so did Friedman from the China’s media.

I only learned a lot about Dr. Friedman after I came to the U.S. The more I read his books and articles, the more I grew admiring the man. For many years, he challenged conventional wisdom of economic and public policy. Most of the time, he was a dissident and stood alone. Eventually, the conventional wisdom collapsed.

Dr. Friedman was a short man, stood less than 5 feet 3, but he’s a giant of the economic thoughts. In early 80s, he was the brainpower and public intellectual, along the politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, who turned the tide to favor the small government conservatism in the U.S. and Britain.

Upon hearing Dr. Friedman’s death, I dug out in YouTube the PBS’s ten-episode TV series, Free To Choose, which was based on his same-titled book. Revisiting the clips of the series, I thought that a witty, self-assured, and determined giant was still alive.

Here are the links to Free To Choose at YouTube:

Free To Choose: 1 of 10

For the rest of nine episodes, click the this link.

It Can’t Be All Because of Kim Jong-Il In the North

South Korea got me really curious because of this census data.

According to the latest census from the Institute of International Education (IIE), the students from India, China, South Korea, and Japan lead the international student enrollments in American colleges and universities during the academic year of 2005/6, making up for 42% of the total.

Being the number three after India and China doesn’t tell the whole story. South Korea is the only country that sent in more students, close to 60 thousands, comparing to that of last academic year, jumping over 10%, whereas China stayed flat, and India and Japan both had a drop.

Here is an even more intriguing fact: if we take consideration of the population of these four countries—China, 1.3 billions; India, 1.1 billions; Japan, 127 million, and South Korea, 49 millions, then, in per capita basis, South Korea has about three times more students studying in the U.S. than that of Japan, 17 times more of India, and 25 times more of China.

Can anyone offer an insight of South Korean students flocking to the U.S.? Kim Jong-Il stubbornness to set off nuclear bomb in the north alone won’t explain this, I presumed. Something is going on in that part of the peninsula.

Some Are More Minor Than Others

Slang can be utterly confusing for non-native speakers, as I’ve experienced many times over, mainly because the meaning of slang can be miles apart from what you infer literally. In this regard, slang has a twin sibling; it’s called political talking.

Take Affirmative Action as an example. Simple words, literally. But the first time I heard it, I had a least clue what the phrase does mean. So I looked up in the dictionary. Here is the definition from Webster:

affirmative action, an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women; also: a similar effort to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged persons.

A plain and straightforward explanation. Once I understood it, I was happy to know such “active effort” even existed. The joy didn’t last long. About the same time I realized “big cheese” wasn’t cheese, it was clear to me that “minority groups” was a fuzzy math on what counts as “minority”.

Daniel Golden, a Wall Street Journal reporter, wrote a series of articles about Affirmative Action and other preference practices in the America’s top universities (which won him the Pulitzer Award in 2004). On today’s Journal, his latest report focuses on how Asians being treated in the admission game at the elite schools. Here is an excerpt:

“The study, by the Center for Equal Opportunity, in Virginia, found that Asian applicants admitted to the University of Michigan in 2005 had a median SAT score of 1400 on the 400-1600 scale then in use. That was 50 points higher than the median score of white students who were accepted, 140 points higher than that of Hispanics and 240 points higher than that of blacks.”

One way to interpret the study is that, in the eyes of the University of Michigan’s admission staffs, the Asian, about 4.5% of the total population, is …a majority—more so than the White; by holding a higher standard against Asians, the University is reducing their “educational opportunities” in order to increase the opportunities for the Black and the Hispanic, each making up of about 12% of the total population.

To paraphrase George Orwell’s “all animals are equal; but some animals are more equal than others”, all non-White groups are minorities; but some minorities are more minor than others.”

On Tuesday, the Michigan voters disagree with many elite academia and politicians, and favored the ban of such racial preference policy by a large margin. The common people may not be smarter than elites, but they always have common sense.

The president of the University of Michigan vowed to file a law suit to challenge the ban, arguing that “diversity” is vital to make the University a success.

She has a point. Since we all agree “diversity” is a good thing, why limits Affirmative Action to the undergraduate admission; why not extends it to Michigan’s football team, a top ranking college football teams in the nation. It has about 100 players in the team. A quick glance at the team’s roster will tell you that blacks are over represented and Asians are no where to be seen.

Can we bring in a couple of Asians—four to be exact, proportional to the general population, or thirteen, to the study body—and put them in the position like, let’s say, linebackers?

Ohio State’s fans would be the only people I know who like to see such diversity with a glee.

The Gaffe That Cost Republican’s Control of the Senate

I’d been watching the TV coverage of the midterm election last night and today. After all the voting was done, and as the results began to trickle in, the politicians came out on the stage to give their last speech of the campaign. Usually, the politicians are great public speakers. But their last speeches were all predictably dull, as if coming from the same script.

All the winners, in between cheering and applauding, said that “The people had spoken”, adding “loudly and decisively” if the margin exceeds two-digit, then thanking everyone on the scene (hugging and kissing), not on the scene (pointing to a TV camera)—including his or her dogs and cats (silently), and claiming it’s the people who won.

All the losers, grinning or even teary, graciously congratulated the opponents for their “hard-fought” but “deserved” victory, attributing it to “the great campaign my opponent had run”, also not to forget thanking everyone on and off the scene (minus hugging, kissing, and smiling), and finally, stressing that the most important thing in life is to “spend more time with the family”.

On the House side, by the late night yesterday, “the people had spoken” louder to the Democrats, and more Republicans would “spend more time with the family”. On the Senate side, however, until this moment, the balance is still hinged on the final result of the Virginia’s race between the Republican George Allen and the Democrat Jim Webb. The margin is razor thin, but slightly in favor of Webb.

If Allen loses, then the Democrat will take control of the Senate too—by one seat. The political pundits all pointed to Allen’s one gaffe during the campaign that sank him. If that’s the case, it would be remembered forever that it’s a “mocaca”, not Saddam Hussein, who tilted the balance of the power in the U.S. Senate.

Here is that famous gaffe posted at YouTube:

It’s Easier to Act Kongfu than to Speak English

Rush Hour 3 is stuck in the traffic and won’t come out any time soon, all because the star Jackie Chan featured in the movie has a hard time to do the dialogues in English. He complained in this interview:

“To me, action scenes are so easy, but dialogue scenes drive me crazy. The directors and produces want me to speak everything perfectly. Sometimes when a word is in the past tense or plural, I get confused. It is hard to remember lengthy dialogue and still sound natural. I have to say my lines over and over again until I get it right. I want to ask them 'Can I speak Jackie Chan English?”

Suggestion to Chan: go to the fund raising events of the California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and spend some private moments with him. Ask him for the tips. If you are generous enough with your purse, and Arnold pays back with equally generous advices, then you hit two birds with one stone; not only that you’ll get on the fast lane with your Rush Hour’s English dialogues, but also that, if you harbor a political ambition, you might be elected to be the next head of Hong Kong.

But don’t rush.

The Hollywood Lessons (7)

Long before the episode of Tom Cruise jumping up and down the couch of Oprah’s, crying “I’m in love! I’m in love”, he had once paced back and forth in a room, shouting “Show me the money! Show me the money!” on the phone.

On both occasions he was hysterical. The former was real Cruise lashing out in a live TV; the latter was his acting of a sport agent, Jerry Maguire, in the same-titled movie. And “show-me-the-money” became one of my favorite movie moments.

When I first saw the movie ten years ago, the timing was perfect. I’d lived in the U.S. for a few years. My spoken English was adequate to handle the routine conversations at work. But I could feel I was caught awkwardly somewhere between the two cultures. Jerry Maguire was the movie that unwinds me.

As a language learner, I could pick up plenty from the dynamic dialogues between Maguire and his sole client, the football player Rod; from the emotional conversations between Maguire and his girlfriend, later the wife, Dorothy; and from the funny chats between Maguire and Dorothy’s cute boy Ray.

But for me, the movie was much more than learning a new phrase or two. It’s about better understanding of American culture: the national obsession with the professional football, the yearning for true love and loyalty, and the drive to succeed in one’s chosen career.

Sport obsession and love bug aren’t unique to American culture; the Europeans might be wedded to football—sorry, soccer—and sucking to romance even more than the Americans. But one aspect of the American culture, as told by Jerry Maguire’s story, struck me hard: that it tolerates a failure, gives man a second chance, and applauds the comeback kid. That’s almost like a fairy tale to me.

In the movie, Dorothy told Jerry: “I just want to be inspired.” In the darkness, inspired I was.