The Three Degrees

I checked my account at the online admin thing we have here at Columbia (which keeps track of grades, registration, fees etc) and learned that my Master's Degree was officially awarded on the 14th of February. I didn't actually notice until now, because they don't seem to reckon on telling you by e-mail or anything, and in any case I won't be taking it until the main Commencement ceremony happens in May. Still, I suppose it's the culmination of a year and a half of hard work; on the other hand, I'm still only just getting started with the PhD, relatively speaking. But either way, I am now Robert J. Tuck, BA (Oxon), MA (Columbia).

It won't be long now until I get a second MA to go with the one I actually earned. Some of my British readers, particularly the Oxbridge ones, will know all about this, but for those who don't, 21 terms (that's 7 years) after you matriculate at Oxford, you become eligible to take an MA degree simply by sending the University ￡20 (you don't even have to turn up at the ceremony if you don't want to). You do not have to have done any work, academic or otherwise, in the meantime - so you could quite happily sit on your arse for three to four years after graduating and still collect the MA. All that is required is that you send them the money. Needless to say, the qualification is almost totally worthless in real terms, and causes a considerable degree of resentment amongst other universities that award real MAs (a taught 1-2 year MA at Oxbridge is known as an MPhil, confusingly enough). For a fuller explanation, try here.

Anyway, I've paid my dues, and will be collecting my MA in July back home in England. It's mainly in order to keep my Mum happy - I took my BA in absentia because I was in Japan, and so she never got a graduation ceremony. Between that and Commencement in May, I think she should have a couple of good photos to stick on the mantlepiece. The qualification is actually not totally worthless, since it does entitle me to reciprocal alumni privileges at Cambridge (and, bizarrely, Trinity College Dublin) - so I can use Cambridge's libraries and facilities as if I were an alumnus of that university. Which, given that my parents live in Cambridgeshire, is actually quite handy.

One other typically eccentric Oxbridge point is that it is very much not the done thing to actually put this on your CV as if it were a real Master's degree, but to assume it replaces the BA (so I'd be MA (Oxon), MA (Columbia), not BA (Oxon) MA (Oxon) MA (Columbia). No doubt for reasons of space as much as anything else.

And finally, speaking of degrees and the like, I'm delighted to report that my good friend Arunabh was accepted to do a PhD in Chinese History at Columbia after having been on the MA program, just like what happened to me. You can't underestimate what it means to have someone else around who understands cricket. A hearty congrats from here, and a beer or four when he gets back.

Jet Setting - and some random Japan photos

It might be pure coincidence - I have no way of knowing - that the Daily Yomiuri newspaper in Japan has been printing a series of letters bashing the JET programme recently, just as the yearly selection process gets under way again. In the e-mail that brought this to my attention, we were implored to deluge the Yomiuri with letters pleading its case. I'm not really inclined to do so, partly because I have better things to do, but also because I believe that the criticisms raised have some merit. Anyway, more on that later.

I've maintained for some time (even before I left Japan) that JET is a good idea, executed with a degree of ineptitude that verges on the breathtaking. To what extent such flaws are the fault of the participants remains an open question. It was, however, somewhat illuminating to be able to take part in the selection process and see why and how people are chosen to go out to Japan. I will have to be careful here - the interviews and subsequent scores are meant to be confidential, and won't be disclosed until mid-April - but I think I can still give some general remarks without breaching any confidentiality agreements.


I was actually pleasantly surprised by what seemed to me a relatively high standard of applicant throughout the process. I had - perhaps on the basis of some of my colleagues in Miyagi - been expecting a group of unqualified yet somewhat enthusiastic fresh graduates with little real idea about Japan or what they were getting themselves into. It wasn't as bad as I expected - we had a surprisingly high number of actual qualified teachers and TESOL holders, as well as those with informal tutoring or teaching experience. Some had been to Japan before, most hadn't, and I was quite disappointed with the general knowledge of Japan that many of them displayed - though almost all put that they had "always been interested in Japan and its culture", few could give concrete examples or convincing answers as to why they wanted to go to Japan and not South Korea or Thailand. And equally few had a realistic grasp of what a Japanese public school environment was like - almost all of them thought that it would be focused, disciplined and orderly. Boy, are they in for a shock.

Still, for the most part I was quite taken with the general level of enthusiasm (or ability to fake it...) and desire to teach that many of the applicants seemed to have. I have no idea how the people we chose will actually do - that's very much in the lap of the gods as regards where and with who they're placed, but I think we had in the nine we selected some people who, if the cards fall right, might genuinely bring something worthwhile to the programme. Unlike myself, of course, as you can see to your left.

I don't think you can really defend JET from the allegation that overall it is a miserable failure and complete waste of money as regards improving English teaching (the scores speak for themselves - the only nation worse at English in Asia is North Korea, and they have some pretty good excuses for that). But I think that to make that attack is to show a poor grasp of the actual thought processes and priorities behind JET and behind Japanese English language education in general.

It wasn't as if, when creating the programme, the powers-that-be thought "Wow, our English scores suck. We need some young native speakers over here to help out with that. Best if they're largely unqualified and inexperienced, and we'll make sure to can them after three years just as they work out what they're doing." It seems to me that it was more like this:

Faceless Bureaucrat A: Wow, the Americans hate us. Look at all that trade friction. What if we get some young college kids over here and show them how great Japan is?
Faceless Bureacrat B: Well, that's all well and good, but what the hell are we going to do with them while they're over here? They won't speak Japanese and most won't have any useful skills, so...
Faceless Bureaucrat A: Hmmm. But they can speak English, right? Get 'em to teach English!
Faceless Bureaucrat B: Brilliant! Let's go look at some schoolgirl p@rn to celebrate!

Being a part of JETAANY serves to confirm this impression; we get a surprising amount of our funding direct from CLAIR, who are very keen to know about what goes on with us (though the fact that, at CLAIR's urging, we have recenly become a 501 (c) 3 NPO - capable of independent fundraising - might suggest where they think this relationship is headed). Sometimes, though, they're more obvious than that, like when they asked if we could give them the names of any ex-JETs we knew in places like the Federal Reserve, the State Department and so on - the people who actually have power to influence policy.

The point, which I'm admittedly labouring, is that JET is not and never really was about teaching English. It is, if I may put it in crude terms, one gigantic and hugely expensive PR Stunt. And judging by JETAANY, it seems to be a spectacularly successful one, too. Banzai!

Business as Usual?

Under the slogan "No 'business as usual'!"Columbia students decided to protest against the war in Iraq yesterday by not going to class. In other news, alcoholics decided to protest by drinking heavily, Wall Street investment bankers by making huge sums of money, and workers in the US Post Office by making their customers wait in line for hours on end.

The paper I gave at the graduate conference last weekend went really rather well. I was very happy with the delivery and the response it got, though since it was at 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday, there weren't huge numbers of people there. The party afterwards was unfortunately kind of lame - certainly not as good as last year, anyway. I think I know why, too - last year a lot of attendees were staying with Columbia students as a courtesy to them and to make it easier to find accommodation. This year the organisers basically told 'em to find their own - not particularly inviting, and obviously if you're staying on, say, West 34th St, you're hardly going to trek all the way back up to Columbia for a party when there're better options nearer you.

I'm going back to the Consulate later this afternoon for the second shift of interviewing JET applicants, after doing the first lot on Tuesday. I'm kind of in two minds about exactly how much I should really be writing on the subject, since the procedure is supposed to be confidential. I do have some observations to make, but I think I'll save them until after I've had a little time to reflect, and of course to do the second lot of interviews.

We got our first serious snowfall on Tuesday night, actually, right after I'd got back from the Consulate. Naturally, it all turned into grey slush within 24 hours, but...just like in Japan, a coat of snow does wonders for a city's complexion.

And Valentine's Day on Wednesday, of course. I cooked a luxurious and gourmet dinner for my girl as we celebrated in the most decadent style imaginable. 2 in a row - that's a record for me.

At the Heart of Things

Conference is tomorrow (well, today, actually, but I'm not there right now) and I think I'm ready to present the paper. It's entitled "Poets, Paragons and Politics: Sugawara no Michizane in the Meiji Period", and you can see what else is on offer right here (I'm about half-way down). It's at 10:00 a.m., so it remains to be seen how many people we'll get, but still. One small-ish step on my road to dominating the world of academia, I suppose. The best bit will be the party in Starr Library later that evening, which - if last year's was anything to go by - will involve some considerable damage to the light fittings.

I've also, speaking of academic things, applied for a scholarship administered by the Japanese-American Association of New York. It's supposed to be awarded to graduate students who contribute to Japanese-American relations (the fact that I am neither Japanese nor American does not, apparently, disqualify me). So perhaps a chance for a little extra cash - who knows? Though these things are less about the cash than establishing a good track record of being able to get them - money makes the world go round in academia just the same as anywhere else.

It would appear that not being American is also no obstacle to becoming President. Or at least, of JETAANY. Elections are in two weeks' time, and I'm running. Right now it looks like I'm running unopposed, since no-one showed up to challenge me at the hustings on Wednesday. Of course, if someone does decide they want to take me on, it will all be at the will of the electorate. I will win, though, because I have the best policies, the most charisma, and most importantly, of course, I'll cheat.

Since the New Year, I've also been flogging myself in the gym harder than at any time since I got to Columbia. For the past month or so, I've been down there four days a week, doing at least 30 minutes' hard cardio per session, and lifting most times as well. It would seem to have paid off; over the last 72 hours, I've noticed that the heart palpitations I wrote about last term, which have been with me for 7 months or so, have completely stopped. It's rare that one gets such tangible benefits from going to the gym - of course, "not dying" is usually a fairly powerful motivating factor.

Full of the Joys of Spring

One of the things that has surprised me about living in New York has been how poor the general standard of Chinese food in the city is. Admittedly, a large part of my dining out takes place in the Columbia area, which is, with a few notable exceptions, a culinary wasteland, but even in Chinatown I've had a couple of meals with which I was not greatly impressed. About 18 months ago Nina's husband Matt came out here and we did manage to find somewhere really good in Chinatown, though I am damned if I can remember where it was or what it was called.

It's not necessarily that the stuff's bad, just - blah. Mediocre, really. Kate and I went for dinner at a place down on 94th. Now, I have, from considerable experience, developed something of a barometer of whether the chef at a Chinese restaurant knows what he's doing. I call it the Spring Roll test (春巻きテスト, or maybe, in Mandarin, 春巻考試). If he does, the Spring rolls will be short - 2-3 inches long - golden in colour, with a thin, crispy skin and mainly vegetable filling, as in the left image.

If he doesn't, as has been the case at 6 out of the 7 places I've been, they will be large, brown parcels of overcooked cabbage wrapped in what appears to be a thick, blistered pancake, such as you see below. Not nice at all. And unfortunately, such was the case on Thursday. The search continues.

I talked to Norman, the manager of Megu, about this before Xmas, and he agreed with me on my Spring Roll theory. I have also noticed, and perhaps remarked on here, the fact that anywhere in the city that does Asian food now also does sushi. There's even a place on Times Square that does "Sushi and Dim Sum", which for my money is HERESY, and I would cheerfully torch the place were it not for the fact that it would get me carted off to jail and probably sent to Guantanamo shortly after.

The reason for this, apparently, is that a) you don't have to cook anything, and b) you can serve $3-worth of rice and vegetables for $7-10 a time. Big profit margins. Perhaps because I lived in Shiogamam, sushi capital of Tohoku, for 2 years, I must confess to being a sushi snob, and most of the stuff served in NYC is not particularly impressive.

Anyway, apart from that I got a little reminder in Chinese class that I'm not exactly a spring chicken any more myself. I was talking to one of our undergrads who is part of the group of us that took the class last semester (though not everyone in this class did, so it's kind of a mixture of old and new). Parenthetically, she's Turkish and related to none other than Kemal Ataturk, and so we were talking about this and that in Europe, and one of the undergrads sitting next to me asked me "Where are you from?". Well, I don't mind that so much, but what he actually said was "Where are you from, sir?" Jeez. I'm not that old, for heaven's sake. I mean, I appreciate the courtesy and everything, but come on, it's not like I'm ten years older than him, and even if...oh. Wait a minute...