Imagine that nine years ago, a rich philanthropist decided that your community needed an elementary school. He constructed a nice building, furnished it with desks and blackboards, and maybe even gave you a playground. Now imagine that the school was right in the middle of a vicious turf war between two rival gangs. The teachers at the school have a 10
th grade education – and that’s in the classes that have teachers. Most don’t, because a teacher salary wouldn’t cover rent in the neighborhood, and few are willing to brave gunfire to get to work. Now, eight years on, the philanthropist is wondering why literacy rates haven’t improved in your community. Do you want to smack him yet?
Girl’s education was supposed to be the one success in Afghanistan’s largely unsuccessful war. But a sobering new
report just released by a consortium of aid agencies, including Oxfam and Care International, reveals just how much we have failed Afghanistan’s future generation. Sure, an overwhelming 1.9 million Afghan girls are in primary school, compared to a couple thousand in 2001. But by the time junior high rolls around, that number goes down to 400,000. High School? 120,000. Don’t even ask about college. “We must ensure Afghan girls face a blackboard instead of a bleak future,” says Abdul Waheed Hamidy of Co-ordination for Humanitarian Assistance, an Afghan NGO which took part in the research. “Investing in education is vital for the future of Afghanistan. An educated woman is better able to stand up for her interests, raise a healthier family and contribute to the economy.”
There are many reasons why Afghan girls aren’t getting the education they deserve, and the report details them in depth. Insecurity and poverty loom large. But so does a low teacher salary and a lack of qualified teachers. We donate funds to build buildings, but what about augmenting salaries? What about teacher training colleges? If we had invested in Afghanistan’s teachers as much as we invested in physical infrastructure over the past nine years, we would have been able to lock in those gains. Now that the international community, in preparation for the eventual handover of security responsibilities to the Afghan government in 2014, is focused more on stabilization and counterterrorism, aid agencies are worried that they may see even less education investment in years to come. It’s ironic, considering that a good education is probably one of the best counter-terrorism measures around.
Walking through my neighborhood last night I passed an old couple walking a large, shaggy chow. Another neighbor gave it a look, paused and asked, “What do you call it?”
“We call it, ‘big bear,’” one of the owners said.
“Oh, I was going to say, it looks just like a bear,” the neighbor replied.
Names, especially nicknames, pet names and the like, can be incredibly literal things in China. If you are fat, there’s a good chance people will call you “fatty.” If you have a big beard, people will call you “big beard.”
The same goes for iconic structures. The Great Wall (or literally, the “long wall”) doesn’t leave a lot of doubt as to what it is. Many of the famous new buildings that have gone up in Beijing recently have been given their own tags by the people. The National Center for the Performing Arts is known as the “Duck Egg.” The National Stadium is known as the “Bird’s Nest.” They’re both humble yet fitting names for these grand edifices.
The people at China Central Television are apparently not so happy with the public’s nickname for their gleaming new headquarters. The building, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, consists of two slanting towers that are joined by sections on the ground and two horizontal sections at the top to form a continuous loop. It is an architectural and engineering marvel. To the people of Beijing it is simply, “Big Underpants.”
That name is not yet as common as “Bird’s Nest” or “Duck Egg,” and CCTV seems intent on thwarting the rise of the admittedly inelegant Big Underpants. The state-run broadcaster has asked for alternatives from staff members, according to a report in the Chinese press, but so far they’ve had little luck coming up with a popular substitute.
Centuries ago Confucius spoke about the “rectification of names,” which, somewhat ironically, is a highfalutin way of saying you need to call things what they are. Perhaps CCTV should heed the wisdom of the sage, and the people of Beijing, and go with Big Underpants. It could be worse. One possible substitute floated in the Chinese press was the “Wisdom Window.” Nice try, but as some online commenters have noted, in Chinese it’s a homonym for “hemorrhoids.”
