Now, let’s really get down to business. Why stop with the continent? Someone today expressed her frustration with the limits of education saying that the lack of English proficiency cuts people off from accessing international knowledge.
For the book, I’ve interviewed managers in Luang Prabang and asked them three things they need from staff. Sometimes I had to make them stop after number three. Managers moan about the lack of strong human resources.
Actually, nobody even mentioned English. According to one manager,“English and business experience can be picked up, but without a sense of honesty, there’s no go.”
Other popular responses include integrity, motivation, self-direction, initiative, will to communicate and creativity. “Creativity is the international language” is what one manager said.
Thumbs up
This has got to be the most outrageously ambitious project I’ve tackled. I kind of fell into it. Lao sign language is very new and hardly standardized. That means a book is really necessary. It also means there’s almost nothing to work with.
I’ve chased for answers about the proper use of the Lao language like a wild chicken/duck/goose, but imagine trying to get consensus on a hand movement.
The biggest disputes, curiously, were the signs for “Vientiane” and “Lactasoy” (a popular grand of packaged soy milk) This is not because these words are obscure. I’m sure people are saying, “I live in Vientiane” or “Buy me some Lactasoy”. They probably say this more often than, “I want a durian” though signs for fruits and vegetables are the first to fill up such dictionaries,
I gave up on some words like, “confused” and “teapot”. Maybe confused is just a fancy word for “I don’t understand” and is not necessary. I could never be sure if people were signing “teapot” or “tea” or “pour” or “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” so I gave up. Who needs to sign a teapot anyway?
Hey, if anyone out there wants to rescue me from pain and help the entire Lao population of deaf people, please donate $3,000 US to buy the Avatar software. This is a computer program to animate sign language. It would be a breeze to do around 50 signs a day, soon making a substantial dictionary in a month. This is in contrast to the 600 signs I finally collected with a digital camera. It topped off my laptop’s memory and my patience and took around a year.
Actually, nobody even mentioned English. According to one manager,“English and business experience can be picked up, but without a sense of honesty, there’s no go.”
Other popular responses include integrity, motivation, self-direction, initiative, will to communicate and creativity. “Creativity is the international language” is what one manager said.
Thumbs up
This has got to be the most outrageously ambitious project I’ve tackled. I kind of fell into it. Lao sign language is very new and hardly standardized. That means a book is really necessary. It also means there’s almost nothing to work with.
I’ve chased for answers about the proper use of the Lao language like a wild chicken/duck/goose, but imagine trying to get consensus on a hand movement.
The biggest disputes, curiously, were the signs for “Vientiane” and “Lactasoy” (a popular grand of packaged soy milk) This is not because these words are obscure. I’m sure people are saying, “I live in Vientiane” or “Buy me some Lactasoy”. They probably say this more often than, “I want a durian” though signs for fruits and vegetables are the first to fill up such dictionaries,
I gave up on some words like, “confused” and “teapot”. Maybe confused is just a fancy word for “I don’t understand” and is not necessary. I could never be sure if people were signing “teapot” or “tea” or “pour” or “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” so I gave up. Who needs to sign a teapot anyway?
Hey, if anyone out there wants to rescue me from pain and help the entire Lao population of deaf people, please donate $3,000 US to buy the Avatar software. This is a computer program to animate sign language. It would be a breeze to do around 50 signs a day, soon making a substantial dictionary in a month. This is in contrast to the 600 signs I finally collected with a digital camera. It topped off my laptop’s memory and my patience and took around a year.
