I just asked myself, how am I ever going to excuse myself if I don’t make use of all those great opportunities lying ahead of me? It would be a crime to myself and, for example, to all those Jingpo village children that unknowingly would miss those unique events, and even to the people around me that already are waiting for my programs and plans to be realized, not to speak of those that already are actively helping me.
Crimes are complicated stuff. For example, it should also be considered a crime, then, that I can’t get myself to paint and hardly make any music nowadays. But not doing those things also gives me more time to think about other things, things that might need some more attention for the moment. So maybe this is some kind of good crime, or a nasty trick by an off-beat police officer that in the end helps to solve a bigger crime.
But I should relax. These are only rhetorical crimes, and things are actually going in the right direction. Let me explain now what I refer to as these opportunities, step by step. And let’s see what this possible 'crime scene' is about. First I need to introduce myself.
Though I grew up in Holland, eating oat-porridge and riding bicycles, by some chain of circumstances, I ended up having spent almost half my life in China and I happen to have this peculiar connection to the Jingpo minority living in the remote border area between China and Burma. I wrote a so-called ‘grammar’ of the language of Zaiwa: a linguistic description of all I could find about that language while I was there. I also worked my data into a dictionary, which can also be useful from time to time. After obtaining my PhD on that research, at Leiden University in 2002, I continued going back to the Zaiwa people yearly. I like staying in those villages, where life is much closer to nature than in cities. The people there are nice and hospitable.
I am not a conventional linguist. Actually, it was hard to make myself say that, because I hardly consider myself to be a linguist at all. I know people that speak many more languages than I, and that are much better at logics and at clearly explaining things without getting stuck in their own argumentation. What I say now is not a confession, so again, no crimes are involved: I wouldn't have been able to finish my dissertation were it not that no one had ever made a description of the Zaiwa language before me, so I didn’t have to read through heaps of heavy books and articles. I surely wouldn’t have enjoyed that. Looking back, I see my ‘grammar’ as a piece of art, a very complex and detailed painting. It is inspiring to find your way into a language that is absolutely different from any of the languages that you have encountered. Where tones not only determine the meanings of concrete syllables, but where there also are ‘invisible’ tonal items that carry specific meanings and that can attach themselves to suitable target words, changing the flow of the tones. It is also nice to realize that different languages can express similar meanings in such different ways. Mechanically speaking, different languages often use very different tools and therefore also different tactics for reaching similar messages. But there is logic in all of these languages’ tricks, human logic.
My connection to the Zaiwa/Jingpo is a treasure for life. But making music and painting are just as important to me. My works are as sharable as language, but of a more explorational and personal nature. Crossing cultural borders and open-mindedness are the most important things involved. And my work touches on a lot of things that i find mysterious, though these can be just around the corner. Yes, I do have my philosophies about how I think paintings and music can best be appreciated, or at least how my work can be appreciated, or what it can do. But I will have to keep these matters for one of the next blogs.
So what are those projects that I was hinting about? A program which I have named ‘Prop Roots’. It is mainly about community empowerment, through a combination of education, exchange and research. On one hand we would continue to work on cultural research and culture conservation, and on the other hand we would continuously try to find new and inspiring ways to teach a few classes of Jingpo village children. We would therefore use video cameras for educative and creative use, why not even letting the children be actors or perpetrators. We would encourage video exchange between us here and primary schools in other countries. Our village would be often visited by guests from elsewhere, from various walks of life.
Very concisely, the Prop Roots program’ objectives:
1) Provide effective education for Jingpo children, through language teaching, cultural exchange projects, art and other stimulative methods, using multi-media tools
2) Preserve the cultural heritage of the Jingpo minority through ethnological and linguistic research by recording and transcribing elements of their endangered oral culture, filming their rituals, singing, dancing, handicraft making, and etcetera.
3) Create a bilingual textbook (in Zaiwa language and Mandarin) for teaching the Jingpo’s Zaiwa language, integrating traditional cultural contents and local knowledge
4) Make the Jingpo children more capable of coping with the challenges and problems within their society, and enhance their chances for higher education, thus giving them better opportunities for the future
Important to point at here, is that the Jingpo minority not only is poor and facing cultural degeneration, it is also struggling with drugs and HIV/AIDS, since decades. Nevertheless, the children's creativity is still the most important.
5) Show the Jingpo children’s life to children in other parts of the world and let those other children learn from the Jingpo people’s respect for nature and cultural diversity
6) Enhance the Jingpo’s interest in and knowledge and pride of their own culture and thereby strengthen their confidence
7) Establish cultural exchange between this remote area and the outside world, sharing the essence and values of Jingpo culture
We already are affiliated with educators, ethno-graphers, journalists, filmmakers, designers, ethno-musicologists and artists from all continents, wishing to contribute to the project. This will really be a very much inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary project and with the involvement of the right people, it will be really innovative and influential, inspiring in many ways.
I consider myself to have some kind of a task, a way to go.
Maybe this explains my strange laziness lately.
More news soon. If you're interested ;-)
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