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Slavery Didn’t End with the Civil War

There are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in history. In fact, estimated at 20-30 million, the number of people enslaved in forced labor is well more than the 13.5 million people taken from Africa during the 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade.

The ballooning numbers of human trafficking is the subject of J. J. Gould’s article, “Slavery’s Global Comeback,” published in The Atlantic this past December. Gould not only covers the statistics but looks at the definitions and perceptions concerning slavery as well as abolitionist movements throughout history.

While, on the one hand, the numbers are worse than they’ve ever been, Gould also sees a reason for muted optimism: Because of the increase in the world’s overall population, the percentage of people currently enslaved is at an all-time low, and the $30-45 million generated by slavery annually is the smallest-ever portion of the global economy. This, along with a growing global intolerance for human trafficking, makes Gould wonder if the current situation is nearing a tipping point for a new abolition movement.

The Faces of Slavery
Slavery takes many forms around the globe, and photographer Lisa Kristine has spent the past two years documenting them with her camera. Kristine first became aware of the scope of human trafficking when, at an exhibit, she met a representative of Free the Slaves. Since then, her subjects have included slaves in the brick kilns of Nepal and India who carry bricks on their heads for 16 to 17 hours every day; children hauling sheets of slate from quarries in the Himalayas; sex slaves in Kathmandu; families in Uttar Pradesh enslaved coloring silk in vats of toxic dye; an estimated 4,000 children forced into fishing on Lake Volta in Ghana; and people forced to pan for gold in water poisoned with mercury, as well as miners and those who crush the stones from the mines, looking for gold, also in Ghana.

You can see her photos and hear her stories in the following TEDtalk. She ends her presentation by showing photographs she took of slaves holding candles she had given them, symbolically “shining a light” on their tragic circumstances. She says,

They knew their image would be seen by you out in the world. I wanted them to know that we will be bearing witness to them. And that we will do whatever we can to help make a difference in their lives. I truly believe, if we can see one another as fellow human beings, then it becomes very difficult to tolerate atrocities like slavery.

Not Just “Over There”
For those of us in the West, we need to realize that forced labor is not a problem limited only to the rest of the world. As present-day abolitionists are quick to point out, while slavery is illegal all over the world, it is also present all over the world. The International Labour Organization estimates that there are 1.5 million people in forced labor in “Developed Economies” (including the United States) and the European Union.

The movie, I Am Slave, gives a glimpse of the kind of slavery that is hidden in plain sight in the West. Inspired by the real-life story of Mende Nazer, it tells of a girl, Malia, stolen from her home in Sudan and forced to work for a family in London. The deeply moving film is advertised as a thriller, but it is less thrilling than it is frightening—frightening for “Malia Al-Noor, daughter of Bah Al-Noor, champion wrestler” . . . in her tribe, a princess . . . in London, a slave—and frightening for us all, as well.

Produced by Altered Image Films, I Am Slave aired on Britain’s Channel 4 in 2010. It is available online in the UK at 4oD and can be rented for streaming at Netflix (viewer discretion, for “violence and some strong language”).

(J. J. Gould, “Slavery’s Global Comeback, The Atlantic, December 19, 2012; ”ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour,” International Labour Organization, June 1, 20102)

[photo: "Yr hudol eiliad olaf—Ynys-las," by Rhisiart Hincks, used under a Creative Commons license]

Exporting Fast Food: The Biggest American Chains

Published April 5, 2013 expats , film and video , food , global , imports and exports 7 Comments
Tags: Domino's, expat life, fast food, KFC, life abroad, living overseas, McDonald's, Scott Oelkers, Taipei, Taiwan

Ronald McDonald in Thailand

You already know that McDonald’s is the global king of fast-food success, but do you know which US chains are next in line outside of America’s borders?

Well, the answer depends on how you define success. If overall non-US sales is important to you, then number two is KFC, followed by Burger King (according to figures from 2011).

But if you’re more of a How-many-international-restaurants-do-they-have? kind of person, then Subway comes after the Golden Arches and KFC.

Or maybe you care about who’s expanding the most. In that measurement, McDonald’s isn’t in the top five. The three American companies that opened the most non-US units—from 2009 to 2010—are Subway, Dunkin’ Donuts, and KFC.

All this information comes from QSR‘s “Global 30,” a sortable list ranking the top American “quick-service” restaurants outside the US.

Below are the ten American chains with the most restaurants outside the US. That’s the list I’m most interested in, since that gauges your chance of running into one of them overseas. Most are in Taiwan, so I’m adding embellishments from my experiences during my time in Taipei. We had more than our fair share of American fast-food outlets in the capital city, but there were still some gaps. I mean, how can a city of 6 million be Taco Bell-less?

McDonald’s – 18,710 units
When we first arrived, we didn’t have the vocabulary to order individual items, so we just ordered meals by number. This meant a soda for even our smallest child, and we had four children. One day I walked up three flights of stairs (most McDonald’s in Taiwan are vertical) balancing 6 Cokes on a tray. I was pretty proud that I’d made it and pretended to stumble when I got to our table . . . and spilled the whole tray. . . . On another day we went to our local McD’s to find out that they’d run out of hamburger. I didn’t know that was possible.
KFC – 11,798
The extra crispy chicken at Taiwan’s KFCs is spicy hot, which we grew to like more than its American counterpart. And because the Taiwanese like dark meat better than white meat, when we ordered a bucket of chicken, we could substitute white for dark at no extra cost. One negative is that their KFCs don’t have slaw. I love KFC’s slaw.
Subway – 10,109
You could almost replace your vegetable-vocabulary unit in language learning with several trips to Subway. If you want the right toppings on your sandwich, you simply have to learn the words. Pointing at “that green thing” won’t do. Building a sandwich at Subway is like a chapter test. . . . By the way, a Subway near us in Taipei also ran out of meat. For a few days it was a salad shop.
Pizza Hut – 5,890
We had a Pizza Hut around the corner from our last apartment in Taiwan. Loved their pepperoni pizza. Not so crazy about toppings with peas or corn . . . or squid . . . or tuna.
Starbucks – 5,727
Most of what I have to say about Starbucks I’ve already said here. The chain has made a big enough impact on the tea-drinking island of Taiwan that several coffee shops have sprung up with circular green logos and/or copycat names (ecoffee, for example). My favorite was the shop that had a sign that said, in a small font, something like, “We’re Not,” over the very large, “STARBUCKS.”
Burger King – 4,998
For a while, my absolute favorite sandwich was a bacon cheeseburger from the Burger King in Keelung next to the train station, eaten on the train as I and a teammate rode back to Taipei after our evening Bible studies with students at the National Taiwan Oceanic University. My second favorite sandwich near the station was a da chang bao xiao chang, or “big sausage wrapped around a small sausage” (the outer “sausage” was made from sticky rice).
Domino’s – 4,422
After serving for two years as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan, Scott Oelkers returned to Minnesota and double majored in Chinese and economics. Following his graduation, he got a job as a buyer for Domino’s Pizza International and worked his way up to vice president. He sold franchise rights in Taiwan to a private equity firm, and the firm asked him to run the business for them. He did, and in the process became a minor celebrity in Taiwan with his humorous TV commercials. Now Oelkers is president and CEO of Domino’s in Japan. He’s still making commercials, like the one below that just came out last month. Betsy Isaacson of the Huffington Post calls it “the most awkward ad in the universe.” I guess one man’s awkward is another man’s profitable.

Dunkin’ Donuts – 3,005
When the first Mister Donut opened in Taipei in 2004, the lines were so long that there was a sign a ways back on the sidewalk that read, “240 minutes from this point.” Dunkin’ Donuts came not long after, and we were glad to see one open in our neighborhood. We held our team meetings there for a while because we usually had the upstairs mostly to ourselves. Not a good sign. It closed.
Dairy Queen – 802
There’s no DQ in Taiwan that I know of (and we usually heard about those kind of things). I do see from an article in Taiwan Today that one was slated for opening in 1986 “located near Church’s Texas Fried Chicken and Lotteria in Taipei.” Someone else with a longer history in Taiwan would have to say whether it ever opened its doors.
Papa John’s – 755
We’re getting farther down on the list, and neither is there a Papa John’s in Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean there’s not room for another pizza franchise, or room for some other kind of fast-food chain. The question is, which one should it be? . . .

For those of you living outside the US, are there any restaurants that you long for? For you American expats, what tastes do you miss, and what do you think would go over well among the locals?

Wendy’s? It comes in at number 11. Taipei used to have at least one. I’ve heard stories from my former coworkers, and a Taipei Wendy’s is even the setting for a short scene in Ang Lee’s 1994 movie, Eat Drink Man Woman.

Or how about Long John Silver’s? It didn’t make the Global 30. One came to Taipei for a short time. We ate there a couple times just to try it out. As I recall, it didn’t last more than a year.

Oh, yeah. There’s Taco Bell (#19). Why can’t you find more Taco Bell’s overseas? I can’t count how many times I heard American expats say that when they get back home the first thing they want to do is eat at a Taco Bell.

I asked a good Taiwanese friend—who had studied at a US university—if he thought Taco Bell would do well in Taiwan. He wasn’t sure that it would, as Mexican flavors don’t always fit the Asian palate. Then I asked him about Arby’s (#21). It seems to me that roast-beef sandwiches could fit in in a lot of cultures, and I like them a lot, too. He said, no, that he didn’t think that there would be enough room for parking. That seemed strange since most fast-food restaurants in Taiwan don’t have any dedicated parking at all. When I questioned that, he said that Arby’s are just too big for Taiwanese. I was confused. Were we talking about the same thing? They’re too big, he said again. Who in Taipei would have room to park an RV?

Hmmmm. Maybe our miscommunication has birthed an idea. How about setting up a fleet of mobile Arby’s in RVs around the globe. I wonder. . . .

(“The Global 30,” QSR Magazine, April 30, 2013; “Scott Oelkers: Bringing Something Extra to the Table,” College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota; “Personality, Pizzaz Mixes with Pizza,” Taipei Times, September 9, 2002; Ashley Chang, Tiffany Huang, and Alan Wu, “Mister Donut—Worth the Wait?” Centered on Taipei, December 2004/January 2005; Betsy Isaacson, “Domino’s Ad Featuring Japanese Computer-Generated ‘Vocaloid’ Hatsune Miku Is Incredibly Awkward,” March 8, 2013; “Dairy Queen Joins American Parade of Food Chains to ROC,” Taiwan Today, December 29, 1986)

[photo: "Sawatdee Khrab!" by iamagloworm, used under a Creative Commons license]

Fake News: You Can Fool Some of the World All of the Time

Published March 15, 2013 cross cultural , global Leave a Comment
Tags: Bangladesh, China, Dennis Rodman, fake news, Harper's, Iran, Kim Jong-Un, NewsBuiscuit, North Korea, The Onion, This Is That, visual allergies

No matter how you slice it, some people in some countries are just so gullible.

Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, has had a busy few weeks. Not only did he watch a basketball game in the company of Dennis Rodman, but he also threatened to launch a nuclear missile at the US. He sure knows how to grab the headlines.

Phony News Is Still News
But the dictator whom Rodman calls “awesome” isn’t new to being in the news. Take for instance when The Onion last year named him the “Sexiest Man Alive.” Of course, you and I know that The Onion is a satirical news outlet, so everything it reports is fake news. But it appears that others outside our borders are not so savvy.

Following the bogus proclamation, the People’s Daily in China jumped on board, running its own story on Kim—including 55-photos of the dictator—and borrowing quotations from The Onion, such as

With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-born heart-throb is every woman’s dream come true.

Will Tracy, editor of The Onion, told BBC that he’s not surprised. ”I mean, this kind of thing has happened in different forms before,” he said, “so it never totally takes us by surprise, although it’s a total delight whenever it does happen.”

Not the First Time
When has it happened before? Well, 10 years earlier, the Beijing Evening News reworked (without attribution) another story from The Onion, “Congress Threatens to Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built.”

But China hasn’t been The Onion‘s only victim. Two Bangladeshi newspapers, The Daily Manab Zamin and The New Nation, issued apologies in 2009 after running stories based on an Onion article titled “Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked.”

Last year, the Iranian news agency Fars apologized as well, after publishing a story based on The Onion‘s “Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama.” In the agency’s defense, Fars’ editor-in-chief wrote,

Although it does not justify our mistake, we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen.

And in December 2012, Ghana’s SpyGhana republished a satirical news story that came from NewsBiscuit, originally titled “Mike Tyson Sex Change Operation ‘a Complete Success’, Say Surgeons.”

Good Thing the US Is Safe
What is it that makes the rest of the world so easily taken in by satire? You’d never read about an American publication believing foreign-born fake news.

For instance, a magazine like Harper’s would never be duped by a report on something like “visual allergies” from, say, the satirical program This Is That of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Harper’s, in its “Findings” section last month, wouldn’t have written, “A Canadian student sued her university for failing to accommodate her allergies to cactuses, escalators, tall people, and mauve,” as if it were true and then wouldn’t have had to follow up in its March issue with “We regret the error.” Of course, that kind of thing would never, ever happen here. Right?

(“China Paper Carries Onion Kim Jong-un ‘Heart-Throb’ Spoof,” BBC News, November 28, 2012; Henry Chu, “U.S. Satire Tricks Beijing Paper,” SFGate, June 8, 2002; “Bangladeshi Newspapers Duped by The Onion’s Spoof Moon Landing Story,” The Telegraph, September 4, 2009; “Iran’s Fars Agency Sorry for Running the Onion Spoof Story,” BBC News, September 30, 2012; Sydney Smith, “Mike Tyson Sex Change Hoax, Part 2,” iMediaEthics, January 16, 2013; “Findings,” Harper’s, February 2013)

[photo: "Red Onion Slice," by Earl, used under a Creative Commons license]

POYi, the Best Show-and-Tell of the Year

Published March 5, 2013 global , photos Leave a Comment
Tags: photography, photojournailsm, Pictures of the Year, POYi, Reynolds Journalism Institute, University of Missouri

The bust of Donald W. Reynolds is displayed in the Reynolds Journalism Institute at MU.

Last week, Pictures of the Year International completed its slate of winners for 2013, marking its 70th annual competition. POYi, “the oldest and most prestigious photojournalism program in the world,” is sponsored by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Below is a list of 14 winning photo collections that offer a great show-and-tell of global and cross-cultural issues. There’s a lot here, but it’s still only a small part of this year’s entire POYi gallery. It’s well worth your time to settle down with a cup (or a pot) of coffee and click through all the winners, including the work of Paul Hansen, who was awarded Photographer of the Year honors in the newspaper division. Earlier in February, Hansen’s “Gaza Burial,” was named World Press Photo of the Year.

If, after looking at these photos, you’re inspired to try the challenging life of an international photojournalist yourself, watch the video at the end of this post. It’s Ed Kashi’s Photojournalisms, the third-place multimedia documentary winner. A companion to his book Witness #8: Photojournalisms, the short video was made from a compilation of Kashi’s photos and nearly 20 year of journal entries and emails addressed to his wife. “Home for me,” he writes, “has always been a shifting term, with shifting people and shifting objects vying for my attention.”

Here, in no particular order, are some of the people and objects that caught the attention of some very talented and dedicated photographers in 2012:

Life without Lights, Peter DiCampo
+++1.5 billion people around the globe don’t have access to electricity.

The Siege of Aleppo, Javier Manzano (includes graphic images of war)
+++The U.N. recently reported that nearly 70,000 have died in Syria’s civil war.

Beyond 7 Billion, Rick Loomis, et al.
+++“The biggest generation in history is just entering its childbearing years.”

North Korea—Collectivism, Vincent Yu
+++While the majority of North Koreans suffer, the government presents a “glossy” image to the world.

Water Is Personal, Brent Stirton
+++Drought, floods, and lack of clean water affect people all over the world.

A Long Walk, Shannon Jensen
+++These are the shoes of refugees who fled northern Sudan.

Paris Suburbs, Arnau Bach
+++Poverty and drug trafficking are prevalent in the neighborhoods surrounding Paris.

Dark Isolation, Tokyo, Salvi Danés Vernedas
+++“It is easy to find oneself isolated and alone among a crowd.”

Labor Movement, Alejandro Cargagena
+++From an overpass above a highway in Monterrey, Mexico, one can see laborers traveling to work in the open beds of pickup trucks.

Uncounted Casualties, Jay Janner
+++“They survived the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But they did not survive the homecoming.”

In the Devil’s Footsteps, Tyler Anderson
+++The people of Northern Uganda try to recover from the devastation left by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army.

Buzkashi, Casper Hedberg
+++North of Kabul, thousands gather to watch Afghanistan’s national sport in which men on horseback fight over an animal carcass.

Zone of Absolute Discomfort, Justin Jin
+++Few people live in the frozen tundra of the Russian Arctic.

Fukushima: Taking Back a Nuclear No-Man’s Land, James Whitlow Delano
+++Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster left “a vast network of nuclear ghost towns” waiting to be reclaimed.

[photo: "Reynolds Statue, Reynolds Journalism Institute," by moohappy, used under a Creative Commons license]

‘Tis the Season for International Photo Awards

Published February 26, 2013 film and video , global , photos Leave a Comment
Tags: Aleppo Battleground, Dreams on Freewheels, Gaza Burial, In the Shadows, photography, Sony World Photography Awards, Too Young to Wed, World Photography Organisation, World Press Photo

Not only is it the month for the Oscars, but February is also a busy time for selecting the prize winners in international photography. The judges have hard work wading through the thousands of photos, but we are the beneficiaries, as we get to browse through the best of the best.

Sony World Photography Awards
On the 6th of this month, the World Photography Organisation announced the shortlist winners for its 2013 Sony World Photography Awards. The finalists, in the professional, open, and youth categories, were selected from 122,000 entries representing 170 countries.

Lens Culture has a high-resolution slideshow of 45 of the shortlisted photos, or you can click through the galleries at the WPO site here. Final winners will be announced in April.

56th World Press Photo Contest
On February 15, World Press Photo announced the winner of its “Photo of the Year” for 2012. It is Paul Hansen’s “Gaza Burial,” an image of men carrying the bodies of a young brother and sister to be buried after the two were killed by an Israeli missile strike.

Galleries containing all the winning photos, selected from the work of 5,666 photographers from 124 countries, are on display here.

Coinciding with the photo contest is World Press Photo’s third annual multimedia competition. The gallery of winners is here, including the following videos covering subjects outside the US (viewer discretion advised):

Into the Shadows, Pep Bonet, dir. (1st prize, Online Short)
Desperate Africans who migrate to Johannesburg face terrible circumstances.

Aleppo Battleground, Clément Saccomani, ed. dir. (3rd prize, Online Short)
A photojournalist joins the Free Syria Army at the front lines.

Too Young to Wed, Jessica Dimmock, dir. (1st prize, Online Feature)
Destaye was 11 when she married a priest in Ethiopia. Now 15, she has a 6-month-old son.

Dreams on Freewheels, Yang Enze, dir. (3rd prize, Online Feature)
The seven members of the China Disabled Track Cycling Team train for the 2012 London Paralympic Games.
(This video not available for embedding.)

Pictures of the Year International
POYi started announcing their latest winners on February 5, with the final group announced today. I figured I’d wait until they were finished to start working my way through the results—it does take a while. And after I’m done, I plan to post again with links to some of their photos that tell stories from around the world.

[photo: "Flickr Photographers : Mauronster," by Sergio Bertolini, used under a Creative Commons license]

Happiness Is As Happiness Does

Published February 22, 2013 film and video , global , quality of life 5 Comments
Tags: Gallup, Gallup World Poll, happiness, Happy People, prosperity, Werner Herzog, World Happiness Report

What are the happiest countries in the world?

Well, that depends. It depends on how you define happiness and how you figure out if people fit your definition.

Do You Feel Good?
In 2011, the Gallup organization measured “positive emotions” by asking people in 148 countries about their previous day, asking whether they felt well-rested, were treated with respect, smiled or laughed a lot, learned or did something interesting, and experienced enjoyment. The countries with the highest percentage of respondents answering “yes” to all five questions are labeled the “most positive.” They are

Panama
Paraguay
El Salvador
Venezuela
Trinidad and Tobago
Thailand
Guatemala
Philippines
Ecuador
Costa Rica

(Jon Clifton, “Latin Americans Most Positive in the World,” Gallup World, December 29, 2012)

Do You Not Feel Bad?
Gallup also asked people if they had experienced physical pain, worry, sadness, stress, or anger. Those answers produce the following list of places with the least negative emotions:

Somaliland region
Uzbekistan
Thailand
Kyrgyzstan
Kosovo
Turkmenistan
Mali
Singapore
Mongolia
China

(Jon Clifton, “Middle East Leads World in Negative Emotions,” Gallup World, June 6, 2012)

Are You Prosperous?
The Legatum Institute‘s Prosperity Index measures wealth and wellbeing by looking at the eight categories of economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital. This gives us the following list of top-ten countries in 2012:

Norway
Denmark
Sweden
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Finland
Netherlands
Switzerland
Ireland

(The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index, The Legatum Institute, 2012)

Are You Thriving?
To measure whether people are “thriving,” “struggling,” or “suffering,” Gallup uses the “Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale.” Participants are asked to imagine a ladder, with rungs numbered 0 to 10 from bottom to top, with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best. The poll then asks two questions: “On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” and “On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now?” Results in 2010 produce the following ranking, showing the ten countries with the highest levels of thriving people:

Denmark
Sweden
Canada
Australia
Finland
Venezuela
Netherlands
Ireland
Panama
United States

(Julie Ray, “Nearly One in Four Worldwide Thriving,” Gallup World, April 10, 2012)

Deeper Analysis, Anyone?
Last year, Columbia University’s Earth Institute published the first World Happiness Report. It contains in-depth evaluations of the hows and whys of measuring happiness around the world, as well as lists based on its own examination of survey responses. One such ranking is the “Average Net Effect by Country,” which combines the averages of the positive and negative emotion results from Gallup (like those shown above). Those results give these top-10 countries:

Iceland
Laos
Ireland
Panama
Somaliland region
Thailand
Taiwan
Austria
Sweden
New Zealand

Another ranking shown in the World Happiness Report is called the “Happy Index.” It uses information from the combined World Values Survey/European Values Survey, asking the question, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days/nowadays?” putting these countries at the top.

Iceland
New Zealand
Denmark
Netherlands
Northern Ireland
Ireland
Singapore
Malaysia
Norway
Tanzania

(John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs, eds., World Happiness Report, The Earth Institute, 2012)

Or Would an Anecdotal Approach Make You Feel Better?
And finally, if all this data crunching is not your cup of tea—or if it leaves you somewhat confused—you can do what documentarian Werner Herzog did, and simply recognize happiness where you find it. Even if it’s in the most unlikely places, under the most unlikely circumstances. Even if it’s in the wilderness of Siberia.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (Werner Herzog and Dmitry Vasyukov, dirs., 2010)

[photo: "A Happy Man," by Sukanto Debnath, used under a Creative Commons license]

Sorry You Weren’t the One to Buy “Afghan Girl”

Published February 15, 2013 cross cultural , global , photos 2 Comments
Tags: Afghan Girl, auction, Christie's, eyes, N.C. Wyeth, National Geographic, photography, Steve McCurry, The Duel on the Beach

My apologies.

It’s been more than two months since the National Geographic auction at Christie’s, and I need to set something right.

It’s quite likely that at least one of you, dear readers, saw my post about the sale of Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl at auction, arrived at Christie’s on December 6 with only $12,000 in your pocket, and watched in horror as other bidders immediately left you behind . . . far behind . . . so far behind that you weren’t able to lift your paddle even once.

The pre-auction estimate that I quoted for McCurry’s iconic photo was indeed cited at $8,000 to $12,000 in October, but the estimate listed on Christie’s website, where the photo was displayed, was $30,000 to $50,000. Not that that would have helped a lot anyway, as the print’s winning bid came in at a whopping $178,900 (with the buyer’s premium added to the “hammer price”).

And Afghan Girl wasn’t the only item to bring in an enormous amount of money. N.C. Wyeth’s Duel on the Beach topped the sale at $1,082,500. The entire auction brought in $3,776,587.

I was wondering what would make a print of a photograph worth so much. The anonymous buyer didn’t get the original Kodachrome slide. He didn’t purchase future licensing rights. And he didn’t buy the last copy of the photo ever made.

I think I’ve figured it out, though. The print is signed, of course, and dated. But then comes the really special part. Next to the signature is the marking “1/1.”

That does it for me. Not 1 of 200 or 1 of 10 . . . but 1 of 1.

Afghan Girl truly is an iconic photo. Monica Hess of The Washington Post calls it “the photograph of photographs of photographs” and then describes “the ragged red scarf, the scissors-sharp green eyes, the hungry, hunted, haunted beauty.”

Ah, yes, the eyes.

If you’d like to get a better view of what $178,900 got for one bidder, do this: Go to this link—which will bring you a larger-than-life image of Christie’s “Sale 2603 / Lot 194″—and click on the zoom-in symbol a few times. Re-center the photo and look into those “scissors-sharp green eyes.”

Those eyes. Two of two.

(Monica Hess, “National Geographic’s Auction of Images Fetches $3.8 million,” The Washington Post, December 6, 2012)

[photo: "Steve McCurry: On the Outside Looking In," by Steve Evans, used under a Creative Commons license]

Go Global with Go Daddy . . . but Be Sure to Be First

Published February 2, 2013 film and video , global , sports Leave a Comment
Tags: commercials, football, Go Daddy, Super Bowl ads, Super Bowl commercials, Super Bowl XLVII

I’m not a fan of very many Go Daddy commercials. Most aren’t in very good taste. But I was looking at the availability of some domain names at their site today, and I saw an ad that I like. It’s pretty funny, and it’s supposed to air during the Super Bowl.

The commercial is touting registration for .co domains. While .co is the internet country code for Colombia, it’s been open to unrestricted used since 2010.

The ad is aimed at an American audience, but it has a global cast. The internet really has broadened the playing field when it comes to the marketing of ideas, even ones that are “one in a gazillion.”

YourBigIdea.co:

An Interview with Jessica Stahl of Voice of America

Published December 21, 2012 cross cultural , culture stress , expats , global , overseas students Leave a Comment
Tags: blogging, college life, culture shock, D.C., EducationUSA, international students, Jessica Stahl, living overseas, radio, social media, study abroad, The Student Union, VOA, Voice of America, Washington D.C.

I first “met” Jessica Stahl after I wrote about a post from The Student Union, a blog she edits for Voice of America. A native of Long Island, she now lives in Washington, D.C., where she works across the street from the Capitol building.

I’ve enjoyed reading Jessica’s blog and then chatting with her through email. I’m interested in the work she does at VOA (see the end of this post for more info about her employer), so I asked if I could interview her. She graciously agreed.

When I asked Jessica what she does at VOA, she told me she is ”a producer for social media and special digital projects.” That led me to my first question:

What does “a producer for social media and special digital projects” do?

So, my actual title is “Audience Engagement Analyst,” which is one of those phrases that makes less sense the more you think about it. I call myself a social and digital media producer because that’s much more accurate to what I do. Basically, I manage VOA’s social media presences in English and advise our reporters and programs on how to use social media in their own work, and then I also put together projects and coverage that has a social media or user-generated component to it. Sometimes that’s an article that’s based on something that’s happening on social media (like when the Israelis and Palestinians were basically live tweeting the Gaza conflict a few weeks ago), and sometimes that’s a big project around an event like the presidential inauguration (which is what I’m working on at the moment).

You also edit The Student Union. How did you get started with that?

The Student Union came about a bit by accident. When I started in this job, I was looking around our website and familiarizing myself with what we had going on, looking for areas for improvement. One that jumped out at me immediately was our coverage of international-student issues. We would do these profiles of international students, which were fairly formulaic, and I immediately thought how much more interesting it would be to have international students telling their own stories. It was one of those things where I pitched the idea and was essentially told, “Great, go do it.” So I did. At the time I didn’t know anything about international-student issues, so that first year was a pretty big learning curve!

But I really love working on it. I love editing, and I like writing/reporting without the deadline pressure of breaking news, and I find working with the students so incredible. Their stories are fascinating, and they are so talented, and I love being in a position to help them mold that (not that they always need my input). If I’m honest, it makes me feel important and useful in a way that my regular job doesn’t always!

How did your life before VOA get you ready for what you do now?

That’s a tough one, because I fell into this a bit by accident. My degrees are both in international relations and economics—I did journalism as a hobby in college and grad school but never seriously considered pursuing it as a career. But I ended up at this job at VOA and I absolutely love what I do. I didn’t really have a lot of knowledge about social media when I started, but I’ve learned as I went and now I’d say (humbly, I hope) that I’m very good at my job.

I do think that the training I got in college as a print journalist has been absolutely vital though—that’s where I had the principles of journalism and of good writing drilled into me.

And my interest in/knowledge of international relations comes in handy pretty much every day, since I’m constantly dealing with world news and expected to have a really solid grasp on everything happening around the world.

Back to The Student Union: You have a great mix of students contributing to the blog. How did you meet them?

I find the writers in a whole bunch of different ways—a lot of it is actually dumb luck from students stumbling across the blog and then asking how they can get involved. That’s how I got matched up with two of my best writers: Anna Malinovskaya, from Russia, and Sarah Bosha, from Zimbabwe. I also do a lot of outreach towards the end of the summer with EducationUSA advisors around the world and with international student advisors at US universities, and they’ve been really helpful in spreading the word among their students and helping connect me with people who might be interested. And then, of course, I put it out there on our social media channels as well.

There is actually an application process, so I get to shape the group to make sure it’s pretty diverse in terms of country of origin, location in the US, major, and level of education. But most of that stuff sort of works itself out naturally, and the biggest things I look for are whether the student has ideas and is comfortable sharing things about their own life.

Can you give us examples of posts that give us a taste of how interesting/insightful The Student Union can be?

I’m personally interested in questions of identity and how that’s challenged in cross-cultural situations, and we’ve had some amazing posts on that topic, including from an African girl who had to confront her bias against gay people, “Just when I Learn the Answers, They Change the Questions: A Zimbabwean’s Journey“; from a Chinese girl who tried out several American personas, “What Does It Mean to ‘Be American’ as a Chinese Student“; and from an Afghan guy about the burden of showing American classmates that Afghans are normal people, “‘Who Are You?’ What It Means to Be an Afghan among Americans.”

But we also discuss quirks of American culture, like in this post about classroom discipline (by Anna), “Two Russians Discussing American Education,” or this one about the meaning of the phrase, “How are you?” “The ‘Wrong’ Way to Answer ‘How Are You?’“ as well as more informational things like admissions procedures/requirements.

No matter what the topic is, it’s always from a first-person perspective, which I think is what makes it interesting. We’re not just telling people do this or do that (I have a serious pet peeve about “advice” articles that are so vague they can’t possibly be actionable or have no context to help you apply the advice to your own life); we’re sharing what we’ve done and what we learned from it, which someone can just read as a compelling story or can use as an input to make their own decisions.

The international students you work with, did they know about Voice of America before they met you? Did they listen to it in their home countries? What ideas/opinions did they have about VOA?

Depends. Some did, some didn’t. This year, I think, most didn’t. So I think for the most part they don’t really have a pre-existing opinion about VOA. During winter break a bunch will be traveling through D.C., and I’m really psyched to have them over to VOA and show them around so they can get a better sense of what they’re part of.

That sounds like a great time, for them and for you. I’d enjoy seeing DC through their eyes (I hope they get to blog about it). I’d also like to see DC through the eyes of an “insider.” So one last question: If I were to bring some international students to visit DC, after going to all the standard must-see sights—and VOA, of course—what would be a place off the beaten path that you think we should experience? What is a place that you’ve discovered because you’ve made D.C. your home?

One of our bloggers who spent a semester in D.C. did a nice insider’s look at some of the things she discovered, so you can check that out: “A Shifting Identity in Photos: Jihve’s Story.” For me, one of the things I love about D.C. is just the feeling of gravitas you get walking past the US Capitol and the White House. I still always get chills going past the White House. So I recommend walking the National Mall and seeing those sights, both during the day and at night when they’re all lit up. There’s an amazing spot on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial where you can look across the Tidal Basin and see the Capitol on your right, the White House through the trees straight ahead and the Lincoln Memorial on your left, and it’s just gorgeous.The other thing that people probably don’t know about D.C. is how many different neighborhoods we have. It’s not just downtown that’s interesting. I love to walk (probably obvious from my previous suggestion), so I’ve really enjoyed just wandering through the neighborhoods and absorbing their different characters. I recommend Capitol Hill, particularly Eastern Market (which is a giant open-air food/crafts market), U Street (for something that is more authentic to DC’s homegrown culture), and Georgetown.

____________________________________

Voice of America began broadcasting in 1942 and in the 70 years since has grown to reach a television and radio (including shortwave) audience of 141 million each week, in 43 languages. Begun “as a response to the need of peoples in closed and war-torn societies for reliable news,” VOA is under the direction of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent agency of the US government. The BBG’s mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

(“VOA Fast Facts,” Voice of America)

Playing Games with World Proverbs

Published December 18, 2012 books , global 5 Comments
Tags: Balderdash, cultures, Encyclopedia of World Proverbs, games, prentice hall encyclopedia of world proverbs, proverbs, sayings, Wise and Otherwise, World Proverbs Game

2706821422_b976cbc1db_m Looking for a game to play with family and friends? Here’s one you might like.

I’ll call it simply The World Proverbs Game. I came up with the idea several years ago after playing a version of Balderdash, just using a dictionary. (As you probably know, Balderdash is a board game in which players try to come up with believable sounding definitions for obscure words.) Similar to Balderdash, there’s a game called Wise and Otherwise that requires players to complete proverbs that come from around the world. I found out about it after I’d already bought a book of world proverbs and made up my own rules. Honest.

Judging by the reviews at Amazon.com, Wise and Otherwise is a great game. For about $43.00, you get a game board, a die, paper and pencils, playing pieces, and 500 cards containing 2,500 proverbs. But if you can do without most of that and would like to save some money, here’s how to play The World Proverbs Game:

First, you need an encyclopedia of proverbs. There are several out there, but the one I got is Wolfgang Mieder’s Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs. It says it’s “the largest compilation of its kind,” and I won’t argue with that claim, since it includes 18,520 sayings from all over the globe (that’s a big increase over Wise and Otherwise). The proverbs are arranged by topic, and each one is followed by the place from which it comes. As I write this, I see there are a couple used copies at Amazon for under $3.00.

Next, cut up some scratch paper and gather up some pencils. That’s it. You’re ready.

The rules are simple: One person in the group (you need three or more players) looks through the encyclopedia and chooses a proverb. He then reads it to the other players, leaving out one or several words. For example, he might read, “Nine out of ten matchmakers are BLANK.” Then everyone writes down the full phrase, filling in the blank with a word or phrase of his choosing.

After everyone is done, the players hand in their papers to the reader, who has written down the real proverb on his own piece of paper. He then reads them all out loud. The rest of the players then vote on which one they think is the real proverb. You can work out your own scoring system, but here’s one to start with:

10 points go to a player for every person who mistakenly chooses his made-up proverb
10 points go to a player if he completed the proverb correctly—regardless of whether anyone chooses it
20 points go to the reader if no one chooses the actual proverb as being correct (he gets no points if anyone correctly picks his phrase as the real saying)

Each player takes a turn being the reader. To save time, the person next in line should vote first and then make her own selection from the encyclopedia while the others are voting.

Play continues until someone reaches 100 points (or that can be higher or lower, depending on how long you want the game to last).

It’s fun to see how people with different personalities play the game. Some people are very logical. Some people would rather go for laughs. Some are experts at bluffing. Some, not so much. And some people can’t keep a straight face when they read the false proverbs, no matter how hard they try.

What about you and your friends? If you want to find out, start playing. As the Russians say, “One gets to know people during games and on journeys.”

By the way, according to the Chinese, “Nine out of ten matchmakers are liars.”

[photo: "A Bird in the Hand," by Dave S., used under a Creative Commons license]

Clearing Customs

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Playing Games with World Proverbs

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