In the Australian context what is now called “Asia-literacy” is still only discussed in fits and starts.
In the words of Kent Anderson, the Director of the ANU’s Faculty of Asian Studies, “[i]t is in Australia’s short- and long-term interest to be ‘the most Asia-literate country in the West’”. Support for the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program is a move in this direction.
But is it nearly enough?
Back in 2006, I wrote a piece examining the issue of “Asia-literacy” that attempted to draw out the reasons for apparent disinterest in “Asian Studies” among Australians. At that time I suggested that a lack of clear vocational pathways discouraged many potentially keen students. With a new Prime Minister, and a somewhat refreshed national outlook, I do wonder if that is starting to change. For the first-time in history an Asian Studies degree from the ANU looks like a pretty good qualification for the highest office in the land. It is not, as such, surprising that with the Rudd government’s Asia credentials on display the issue of “Asia-literacy” has come back on the agenda.
In my previous effort to explore this issue I also discussed the way that Asian Studies has been, perhaps to its detriment, cordoned of from the mainstream of social science in Australia. This is, I am convinced, an issue that will, at some stage, need to be seriously re-considered.
But that is an old argument, and one that is far too ambitious for today’s New Mandala post; I need not re-hash it right now.
Today’s thoughts are directly inspired, instead, by an article in this past weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald where Hamish McDonald, the paper’s Asia-Pacific Editor, sounds a warning about Australia’s enduring lack of Asia-literacy. He sums up the current situation by lamenting:
…the steady attrition of humanities and language studies at our universities – Hindi and other Indian languages almost gone, Korean ditto, and Indonesian down to about 400 students, and a handful doing Thai and Vietnamese…our knowledge base for picking up opportunities and threats in our part of the world is woefully thin.
Non-Australians may find the terms of this “Asia-literacy” debate excruciatingly parochial. I hope not. There is, to my eye, something about this debate that is relevant to all of us in one way, shape or form.
But for Australians, in particular, there are very important questions here (questions that have now been chewed over for more than a generation) about the goals of education (and not just higher education). The national knowledge base is, arguably, not what it should be given Australia’s geographic, political and cultural realities. That much is clear. What is far less clear is exactly how what we currently call “Asian Studies” and “Asia-literacy” can be made attractive to students, and their parents. It is student choices of subjects at school, and university, that have arguably led to the “steady attrition” that McDonald identifies. Why don’t more Australia students get excited about learning their satu, dua, tiga, or figuring out how Japanese politics works?
Is there some way of doing this better? Will Kevin Rudd’s $62.4 million over four years (the money devoted to the National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program) do the trick? I am not yet convinced that it will.
Whether or not you have studied in an Asian Studies program (at school or university) I would be delighted to hear your ideas on this ongoing debate. As an aside, I would also be interested to hear your thoughts on the status of “Burma Studies” in Thailand, or “Thai Studies” (or “Australian Studies” or whatever) in China. I get the impression they are all part of inter-related conversations.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Tony Loader // Nov 3, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I am one of very few at my university who has recently majored in Asian Studies and International Relations (basing much of my study on Thailand and Laos where possible), and the only one attempting honours in Asian Studies this year.
Our uni specialises in Indonesian Studies (and does it well, I believe), but as far as my interest in Thailand and Laos goes…it’s pitiful. Thai or Lao language studies here in SA are non-existent, so I muddle through still trying to learn little bits here and there from native speakers. I am at a distinct disadvantage to the students at ANU for example, where Thai language is taught (at least for now).
In my situation, I believe it would be useful if it were possible to learn Thai or Lao at a private language school as an adjunct to Asian Studies at university level. Only in the last few years Vietnamese has been dropped altogether (incredible given the number of Vietnamese resident in Australia), and now only Japanese, Mandarin, and Indonesian are offered here.
As much as I enjoy my studies, I have increasingly wondered what the hell is the point when there appear to be few if any career paths open to anyone studying Thailand or Laos. So, at year’s end I plan to return to Thailand, go back to teaching English for a pittance, learn a little more language, and hope something better comes up.
PS: Hope this is what you were looking for, Nicholas!
2 Nicholas Farrelly // Nov 3, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Thanks Tony,
Great to hear of your experiences in SA. I expect that the general picture you paint is one that is common to many campuses around the country. Thanks for sharing!
And, by the sound of it, your experience of Asian Studies is one where isolation (from a broader community of students and scholars) prevails. Can I ask – and here a wider-ranging conversation might be productive – how a website like New Mandala could help in such conditions? Under current circumstances, not every University campus in the country will have a huge Asian Studies program. But, to fill some of that gap, are there specific services that a site like this one could offer?
I am genuinely interested in any resposnes, from Tony, or from anyone else, on these questions.
Thanks for your interest.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
3 Colum Graham // Nov 4, 2008 at 12:05 am
Yes, in SA there is next to no resources available, and from having briefly taken introductory Mandarin, most students are Commerce acolytes — not that there is anything wrong with that. No.
Tony, to learn Vietnamese you only have to go and hang around Pennington!
I think the geopolitical reality of Asia being so close still does not counter the tyranny of distance that we suffer over land. Is there an Asian Studies center at Charles Darwin University? I’ll stop being facetious. The biggest problem I had with taking “Asian Studies”, or looking to pursue an area study at all was the label. I think the identity of Australians is as much in question here as the policy of Asia literacy. I see ‘Asia literacy’ policy as a diplomatic card more than anything else. An effort to be in touch with a more local region, but at the same time not to antagonize the dominant roots of Eurocentrism. Perth is only 11 hours away from Johannesburg, but there isn’t an African studies programme at UWA. Maybe “Area” is the issue??
$60 million is not nearly enough. Will that employ native speakers of a various languages to come and be conversationalists at Universities? Would Rudd, the diplomat, really want to rock the boat when “Australiana”, is still defining itself away from the colonial past. Furthermore, I think Rudd’s flat rejection of Paul Keating’s thoughts about Kokoda this week undermines his purported willingness to bring Australia ‘closer’ to Asia over his own political posturing. Hardly evidence of the political will necessary to strike a deeper chord with our neighbours.
This website really serves as an advertisement for studying at the ANU, haha.
Your posts are like introductions to tutorials which is great, maybe a more in depth ‘tutorial’, would take your much appreciated help further. I feel though that you will be tempted to charge!
4 Tony Loader // Nov 4, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Colum, I find hanging around Chinatown very useful too; there’s a myriad of languages spoken in the central city area of Adelaide thanks to the growing wealth of (expensive) student accommodation available.
Most of my language practice comes from associating with my partner (an Isan native) and her work colleagues who are a mixture of Lao students on scholarships and their partners, and the large number of Lao settlers living here. Nevertheless, away from Thailand and Laos, my speaking has gone downhill (lacking confidence), but listening is improving.
From my own perspective New Mandala has proven a vital resource of ideas and comment – as a ‘mature age’ student, tracking down resources presents a challenge which I revel in, but I can imagine that for younger students wishing to study Thailand for example, the lack of access to necessary resources outside of the old standards such as those of Wyatt, Girling, Keyes et al would be disconcerting if not studying at ANU, Monash, or wherever. It’s incredible at times just how little one can lay their hands on here unless you use document delivery and wait (until you’ve forgotten what you needed it for).
What I would most like however, is to read Thai and Lao; that is, to gain the ability to at least gain a grasp of what the Thai newspapers are saying for example (knowing there is a difference between newspaper language and standard written Thai). So what I’m suggesting to New Mandala (or whoever) is perhaps a series of tutorials for beginners and try-hards like myself in reading for Thai (for example) politics, culture, etc. This is the area I feel most disadvantaged in, and I’m sure would be of some help.
Once again, thanks to Andrew and Nicholas for the invaluable resource you provide.
5 Stephen // Nov 4, 2008 at 2:56 pm
As per the above points, I’ve found (although no longer in formal uni studies) the occasional New Mandala posts on Asian language issues to be interesting and useful – both practical pieces like Nic’s list of Thai abbreviations and more anthropological stuff like the recent discussion on Pali. These can be especially helpful when supported by recommended study materials and links to online resources (I’m thinking of things like the online version of Saya Saw Tun’s self-study texts for Burmese). Please continue providing language-related posts.
6 Nicholas Farrelly // Nov 5, 2008 at 11:02 am
Thanks Tony, Colum and Stephen for all your interesting comments.
Andrew and I will certainly take these suggestions on board when we next discuss future directions. We are always keen to hear about what is useful for students, scholars, journalists, and analysts.
Language related posts will, I’m sure, to continue to be a key part of the site. And, of course, we are always happy to receive contributions on language issues. Featuring that sort of material is, as I see it, one of our most important jobs.
With all that in mind, if anyone has further suggestions please don’t hesitate to pass them along.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
7 Ryan // Nov 6, 2008 at 1:35 am
From a skills-acquisition perspective, studying Asian languages in Australia will always be highly difficult. There is very little that can be done to make up for the fact that exposure to a language is everything. In my humble opinion, a couple of hours in a classroom and the odd movie on SBS can, at best, keep up old skills rather than really allow you to learn a language to any level of fluency.
Moreover, there is a fragmentation issue. There is no single one language that for Australia makes sense as making the only “second language” and thus exactly how will we manage to allow students the exposure to the language? It isn’t like we are Sweden, who broadcast almost all their TV shows in English with Swedish subtitles- in their case because they have identified English as the de facto second language.
Thus, to me, the most important thing to encourage is interest in the country in general. We need to encourage people to get over to the country and spend time there learning the language. This seems to have two parts: firstly, an acknowledgment that learning a language is useful (Nich’s part about the school choices etc. is interesting here) and secondly, that going to the country itself is a necessary part of learning a language.
NM has a role to play in both of these I think. The first, identified above, may come from an expansion of the abbreviations series, or the “four-letter words” segment that encourages greater engagement with the language. The second may be in its ability to provide people with contacts/language resources/information that make it easier for people to head to SE Asia?
Either way, any kind of service that “brings alive” a country will be of considerable use.
8 Colum Graham // Nov 6, 2008 at 12:45 pm
In addition to my muddled post above, with regards to learning a language, what about a short weekly podcast that talks about the weeks most interesting stories on NM, and then after each story, re-enforcing everything with a Thai summary, or iterating the stories in Thai slowly alongside the English?
Ryan, you mention providing resources to make it easier for people to get over there. I’ve not seen other websites that manage to keep up a c0nsistent level of enthusiasm in order to serve as anything beyond an Orientalist advertisement. For instance, the TLC site:
http://tlc.ucr.edu/news/index.html
… doesn’t really say much beyond join our lovely exclusive maroon club where we talk about the various aromas of teak. There are many links to US aid agencies, scholarship programmes and so on, but really this is not comparitively engaging. The beauty of NM is that it transports the commentators significance in the region to the readership on a consistent basis.
The biggest resource available here is the willingness of people to talk, and that certainly brings part of Southeast Asia alive as it is alive within the authors. However, to really transform Australia’s perspective, this sort of experience needs to be related on a much bigger scale — and to do that people who would otherwise be unable to have an opportunity to have any significance with Southeast Asia need to be provided with opportunities.
In Europe, undergraduates have many opportunities to study abroad for a year, for instance, the famous and ultra accessible Erasmus programme, which receives a great deal of funding. Why isn’t there programmes of a similar level of accessibility and popularity for Australians? The loaded answer is funding of $64 million is treated with the same significance as giving change to a beggar. To make a difference, NM could raise awareness of this issue by often raising it.
9 jonfernquest // Nov 6, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Perhaps the lack of interest in Asian language literacy stems from not knowing what to do with such a language after you learn it. How does the need for such a language come about?
Pretty much all the westerners that I know who learned Thai fluently and made a contribution to the country of Thailand were involved in some voluntary service organization like the Peace Corps and the Australian equivalent. They learned Thai from a combination of initial training course and then living and working in the community.
Then there are the engineers, journalists, corporate managers, highly skilled oil drilling technicians, etc whose careers led them, probably completely unexpectedly to Thailand. Missionaries are also quite numerous. English teachers and International School teachers are also quite numerous.
Then there are the handful of Asian Studies academics and PhD candidates doing research in the country, a very small group compared to these other groups, supposedly the end product of on-campus “Asian Studies.”
IMHO to accomodate these other important groups some combination of internet and on-site in-country programmes should probably be used. Little things like sponsoring MP3 downloadable Thai listening practice would also really help a wide variety of groups. Since any one academic specialty is going to be very thin, collaboration between specialists in different countries, including the Southeast Asian countries themselves, is essential but one sees very little of that. Small informal seminars would be a lot cheaper than, for instance, the great Mon Studies conference at Chulalongkorn last year that brought together academics from all over the world.
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