Comments on Building Peace: Cross-cultural learning and the danger of overconf...

To the India scholar--A newspaper article? Wow. ...

2010-02-21T22:01:05.671+02:00

To the India scholar--A newspaper article? Wow. And I thought I had stories.

I mostly keep my military identity a secret here because of the security situation, but my elusiveness about my career sometimes arouses suspicion. A Syrian language teacher at my school was so terrified that I was in the CIA that one day between classes, she approached my wife and begged her to tell her the truth. When my wife explained that, no, I was in the Air Force, she was so relieved.

As with your experience, most people here can't figure out why an American would want to study in their university.

Your work is highlighted in the D3 blog by Robert ...

2010-02-21T18:13:27.752+02:00

Your work is highlighted in the D3 blog by Robert Swope. You can read it at www.robertswope.com.

Years ago I spent an enjoyable afternoon in Amman ...

2010-02-21T06:13:56.472+02:00

Years ago I spent an enjoyable afternoon in Amman talking with a Jordanian graduate student studying anthropology. He explained many things about Jordanian society to me. As we were saying goodbye he cautioned me. "Don't go back to America and become an expert on the Middle East. Instead be my voice to tell Americans what people in Jordan think."

I tell my students that the most important thing I learned in my own graduate studies was how much I didn't know and how much I still had to learn.

You are doing a great job sharing the lessons you learn from Jordanians. Keep up the good work. It is worth all the time and thought you put into it.

MJ, When I was on my Olmsted tour in India, I was ...

2010-02-20T18:51:32.480+02:00

MJ,
When I was on my Olmsted tour in India, I was at first astonished at the anti-Western conspiracy-mindedness/neo-pan-Asian solidarity of many folks at university (many were English-speaking as their first language---this was Bombay after all), but eventually grew to enjoy it for the humor's sake. My retort to them, my Public Admin professor who was a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) especially, was that I wish the US government was half as competent (especially our intel services) as you give us credit for. You'll know you've made an impression when there is an article about you in the newspaper about how you must be a CIA officer since "why would the Americans send a military officer to study in our crappy university."