A Khmer student wrote to me on youtube and asked me to produce videos about how to read English language newspapers.

“I’d like to ask you to make videos how to read newspaper and translate it from English to Khmer. I Khmer and I having a problem to understand English phrases.” Wrote the student.

Language learners often write telling me about some area of learning or area of their lives where they are experiencing difficulties of comprehension and ask me for a trick or a guide to help them learn.

As I have said in numerous other language learning articles, there are no tricks and no hints. The more hours you invest, the better you will get. And if your goal is to read at a native speaker level, then you need to read things a native speaker reads. If you are a 22 year-old university graduate, then you need to be reading at that level in the foreign language. And you won’t get there by reading textbooks ABOUT the language. You will get there by reading books, articles, and textbooks IN rather than ABOUT the language.

If we analyze this latest email, the student says he has trouble reading, and he specifically singled out newspapers.

Obviously, reading is reading. On some level, reading a newspaper is no different than reading a novel or reading a short story.

If you are reading novels and short stories, you should be able to read newspapers. If I asked this student, however, he is probably is not reading one novel per month in English. If he were, newspaper reading would just come.

Therefore, the problem is not the reading or the newspapers, per se. The problem is the lack of practice.

I never took a course called “Newspaper Reading” in English. I just started reading newspapers. And at first, I had to learn to deal with the language, structure and organization of newspaper writing, but no one taught me, or you. It just came to us. The same was true for German or Spanish newspapers which I can read almost as well as English. No one taught me, or taught Gunther or Pablo, it just came through practice.

A point, that I have made many times in articles, is that when you begin learning a foreign language, you are not an idiot. You are not starting with an empty brain. One reason it takes babies three years to learn their native tongue is because they are also learning what a language is and how language works. You know all of that, and much more. Babies don’t know that there is such a thing as grammar. Every single piece of vocabulary has to be learned. A seven year old may not know the words “population, economy, government, referendum, currency” in his native tongue. So, reading a foreign newspaper would be difficult for him, because reading a newspaper in his mother tongue is difficult for him.

If you are an adult, coming from a developed country, with at least a high school or university level of education, you should already be able to read newspapers in your native tongue. At that point, reading a newspaper in a foreign tongue is simply a matter of vocabulary.

True there are different uses of language, and styles of writing. And newspapers do have style which differs from other kinds of writing. But you just read, and read and figure them out.

The problem with most learners, however, is that they aren’t reading novels and short stories. Most learners need to just accept that they need practice. They need to read, and read, and stumble, and fall, and read again, until they get it.

I didn’t develop a taste for reading the newspaper in English untill I was in my late twenties. But, by that time I had read countless books in English, and completed 16 years of education. I only began reading newspapers because I had to read foreign newspapers at college. Then I learned to read the newspapers in English first, to help me understand the foreign newspaper.

One of the problems, specifically with Khmer learners is that there is so little written material available in Khmer. American students have had exposure to newspapers, magazines, novels, reference books, poetry, plays, encyclopedias, diaries, biographies, textbooks, comic books…  Most Khmers haven’t had this exposure.

If they haven’t read it in their native tongue, how could they read it in a foreign language?

And, I am not just picking on Khmers. True these styles of writing are not available in Khmer language, but even in Chinese, Korean, or Vietnamese education, where these many styles of writing exist, students may not have had exposure to them. For example, Taiwanese college students said that during 12 years of primary school they never wrote a single research paper.

But then they were asked to do that in English, in their ESL classes.

Currently, I have a Thai friend, named Em, who is studying in USA. He has been there for three years, studying English full time, and still can’t score high enough on his TOEFL exam to enter an American community college. In Thailand he is a college graduate, but education in Thailand is way behind western education. And in the developed world, American community colleges are about the single easiest schools of higher learning to enter.

If Em finally passes the TOEFL and gets into community college, in the first two years of core requirements for an American Bachelor’s Degree, he will be given assignments such as “Read George Orwell’s 1984, and explain how it is an allegory for communism, and how it applies to the Homeland Security Act in the US.”

When foreign students stumble on an assignment like this, they always blame their English level. But I am confident that the average graduate from most Asian countries couldn’t do this assignment in his native tongue. Their curriculum just doesn’t include these types of analytical book reports.

When I was teaching in Korea, there was a famous story circulating around the sober ESL community. A Korean girl, from a wealthy family, had won a national English contest. She had been tutored by an expensive home teacher, almost since birth, and her English level was exceptional. The prize was a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school in the Unites States, graduation from which almost guaranteed admission to an Ivy League school.

Apparently, one of the first assignments she was given at her new school in America was to read a poem and write an original analysis of it, and then give a presentation in class. When it came time for her presentation, the student stood up and dutifully recited the poem, word for word, she also regurgitated, exactly, what the lecturer had said about the poem in class. And she failed.

In Korea, her incredible memory and ability to accurately repeat what the teacher had said, had kept her at the top of her class. But in America, she was being asked to do much more than that; think, and analyze, create, present, and defend.

The majority of learners believe that their difficulty in dealing with foreign education, books, newspapers, or conversations lies in their lack of vocabulary or failings of language. But once they posses a relatively large vocabulary, the real problem is some combination of culture and practice.

Getting back to the Khmer student and his problem reading English newspapers: To understand English newspapers you also have to know all of the news and concepts in the newspaper. The best way to deal with foreign newspapers, at the beginning, is to first read a news story in your own language. Then read the same news story in the foreign language newspaper. Also you can watch the news in your own language and then in whatever language you are studying, and compare.

Translation isn’t just about knowing words. You have to know concepts. The first rule of translation is that the written text must convey the same meaning in the target language as it did in the source language. Even if the wording, in the end, is not even remotely like the original. No matter how good your foreign language skills are, you cannot convey meaning which you don’t know in your native tongue.

Recently, newspapers in Asia were running stories about the Taiwan Y2K crisis.

To understand the newspaper stories, you would first need to understand the original, global Y2K crisis. The global Y2K issue was something that Cambodia wasn’t very involved in because there were so few computers in Cambodia in the year 1999. There were probably less than one hundred or so internet connections in Cambodia at that time. Next, you would have to know and understand that Taiwan has its own calendar, based on the founding of the Republic of China in 1911. Government offices and banks in Taiwan record events according to the Republic of China calendar, which means if you take money out of an ATM machine today, the year will show as 99.

Once you know and understand these facts, then you would know that Taiwan is about to reach its first century, in the year 2011, and is facing a mini-Y2K crisis, because the year portion of the date in the computer only has two digits.

The bulk of my readers do not live in Asia, and may not have known anything about the history of Taiwan, or the Taiwan date. But, any person with a normal reading level should have understood my explanation. It is not necessarily a requirement that you posses prior knowledge of the exact situation you are reading about, but you can relate it to other things you know about, for example, other calendars and otherY2K problems.

If you look at the above explanation, the vocabulary is fairly simple. There are probably only a small handful of words, perhaps five or six, which an intermediate language learner wouldn’t know. So, those words could be looked up in a dictionary. And for a European student, with a broad base of education and experience, that would be all of the help he would need. But for students coming from the education systems of Asia, particularly form Cambodia which is just now participating in global events such as the Olympic Games for the first time, it would be difficult, even impossible, to understand this or similar newspaper stories.

The key lies in general education, not English lessons. Students need to read constantly and simply build their general education, in their own language first, then in English, or else they will never understand English newspapers or TV shows.

Brooklyn Monk, Antonio Graceffo has been in Asia studying martial arts, languages and religion for nearly nine years. This video was made in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where Antonio was attending classes about Islam. He grabbed two Chinese cameramen, one protestant and one Buddhist, and headed out to explore many of the religions of Southeast Asia, focusing on Thai Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, Bahai, Islam, and Cao Dai. Parts of this video were shot in Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Lao and Taiwan.

The punches came right off the screen and someone all the way back in the cheap seats got a nose bleed from a kick in the face.

The only thing more exciting than a martial arts fight is a martial arts fight in 3D.

Al Caudullo, of 3DGuy.tv and Exploreworldtv, and Ric Lawes, of Location Thailand, teamed up with Black Belt columnist and Martial Arts Odyssey host, Antonio Graceffo, to produce one of the first ever 3D martial arts shorts. It was shot in a playground in Bangkok, where Antonio gets pounded by Taiwanese Muay Thai fighter, Ulysses Chang. The two ran past the see-saws and duked it out on the slide. Perhaps Antonio was trying to steal the kid’s lunch money.

The one-minute clip is meant to be a pilot for an upcoming series of 3D martial arts videos shot across Asia. It was also part of a two-shoot screen-test for Antonio on Wealth TV, one of the first American networks to broadcast 3D content. Al Caudullo is in the development stage of a 3D adventure travel TV show, for Wealth TV, featuring Antonio Graceffo.

“Following my life in Asia is weird enough.” Claims Antonio. “Doing it in 3D puts a tiny holographic image of myself right in your living room.” The would-be TV host went on to say, “And if you fall asleep with the TV on, I might go in your kitchen and eat all your pasta and gapagul.”

With movies such as Avitar and Toy Story coming out in 3D, it is obvious that the technology has come of age and that it is here to stay. Nearly every television manufacturer in USA is producing a 3D model this year. But there is still a shortage of content.

It was Al Caudullo (3DGuy himself), one of the world’s leading experts in 3D filming, who came up with the idea of shooting martial arts in 3D. When you see the end product, it just makes sense. 3D takes something exciting and makes it even better. Al also had the genius stroke of calling fellow Brooklynite (and fellow Italian-American) Antonio Graceffo to appear in the clip.

“Al knows a lot about 3D.” Says Antonio. “He also made the right choice by calling me for the shoot. If more people did that, I’d be rich.”

Spoken like a man dedicated to his art.

“Seriously, it is amazing how much more a producer or director has to know to shoot in 3D. For example, Al carries some kind of a laser calculator in his pocket, so he can measure the distances between objects and fighters in a scene. If you measure wrong or get the lighting wrong, the image goes flat.” Explained Antonio. “If we take this modern 3D like Al uses, or like Toy Story, and compare it to the old 1950s Creature of the Black Lagoon in 3D, the big difference is that the modern movies are written, scripted, choreographed and planned in 3D before they even start shooting.”

Since shooting the first 3D short with Al Caudullo, Antonio has appeared in an another Al Caudullo production, an episode of Wow Bangkok, a 3D travel show, starring host, Kelly B. Jones, which appears on Wealth TV in America.

Doing a full-length TV show, rather than a short, required a lot more brain work. The shots had to first be planned on a digital 3D mockup of the sets and locations they were planning to use.

“With reality TV shows, which are the only kinds of shows I have worked on, it is really hard to plan every shot in advance, and get the distance and lighting and all right.” Said Antonio, “But this is one of the challenges you have to overcome when shooting in 3D.

In the Wow Bangkok segment, for example, Al wanted to shoot footage of Antonio sparring, but it wasn’t possible to put the massive 3D camera in the boxing ring. The rig was too big and the canvas flooring would not have been stable enough.

“Shooting 3D creates a whole new set of problems, but the end results are so spectacular that it is worth it.” Said Antonio.

Since the 3D martial arts clip was posted on youtube, Al and Antonio have been receiving all sorts of offers to do 3D film and TV projects.

“It’s nice to be the first person, or almost the first, to do something.” Smiles Antonio.

by Antonio Graceffo

Watching the proof of our 3D martial arts fight on a video monitor was incredible. The spinning, dancing, battling images popped off the screen like holograms in some advanced video game, but it wasn’t a random CGI image, it was me. And it was one of the coolest projects I had ever been involved with.

My greatest aspiration is to one day become an action figure.

The video was cut into a series of free promos that will be running online at 3Dguy.tv and on youtube, which you can watch with 3D glasses. A new martial arts series will be launched in August, hosted by Antonio Graceffo. As far as we know, it will be the first ever 3D martial arts series.

The way I got involved in this project was a lot of luck. I had just arrived back in Bangkok, when Al Caudullo, who owns a company I had worked with last summer, 3D Guy TV called me for a one-day video shoot. He asked me to bring a friend, to be my opponent, and we filmed in a park.

Shooting 3D is a whole new art and presents a lot of different problems, compared to regular 2D movies. First off, movie sets which work in 2D will not work in 3D because they will look flat. Movie sets today, especially large sets, like cityscape backgrounds, are done in 4th Dimension.

If you wanted to shoot a movie and have the characters in New York and you wanted the Empire State Building, Rockefeller center, and the New York Public Library in the background, first off, those buildings are nowhere near each other, so it would be impossible to get them all in a single shot. Next, they are so big that if you had two people standing in front of them, you wouldn’t even recognize the buildings or wouldn’t be able to see very much of them. So, you create a 4th dimension set. The set would be custom made, including the buildings you wanted. Then they would be shrunk down to size that would make them appear bigger than your stars, but small enough to fit into the frame. Next, to give them depth, there would be a mix of 2 and 3D scenery. If you go to the New York section of Universal studios, you will find a small version of the New York Public Library. The building is mostly a flat painting, but the stone staircase in front is real. And part of the lion statues are real, 3D. The other parts are painted on. To complete the illusion, a 4th Dimension set is tapered on the sides so that it creates an artistic vanishing point, to make it appear that you have a wide shot and the images melt away into the horizon at the ends of the shot.

In reality, if you shot a picture of a building in New York and had the same perspective, your stars would be two little ants, barely visible in the foreground.

With 3D, things change. If you shot the same set on 3D you would be able to see that half of it was painted on the wall and that the parts that stuck out were only inches deep. Remember 3D gives real perspective. 4th Dimension only gives the illusion of perspective.

So, a lot of old scenery will have to be scrapped when shooting in 3D. Luckily, my shoot was outdoors, in a garden with a playground.

When we arrived at the shoot, I immediately spied a gazebo which had a roof made of crisscrossed steel. I th

ough, wow! Perfect. We could put the cameraman up there and he could shoot form bird’s eye perspective, down through the holes in the steel.

But with a massive 3D rig, 23 kgs, plus a monitor, it would have been nearly impossible and stupid to try and climb up anything. Next, Al explained that if you shot from directly overhead with a 3D camera, the actors would look like they were six inches tall.

I am already self conscious about my height. So we left the bird’s eye shot out.

While we are on the subject of body image issues, I got seriously out of shape in Malaysia. With 3D I was worried that I would look even fatter, or my fat would come out of the screen and spew onto the audience. In normal shooting, a camera adds ten pounds, so I never do a three camera shoot. But with 3D, I was really worried I would look like Jaba the Hut.

The other thing I was concerned about was whether or not I would need to wear the glasses during the shoot. It seemed safer not to wear them. But then I was worried I wouldn’t appear in 3D.

Al told me not to worry about the fat thing. Then he called me an idiot for asking about wearing glasses during the shoot. It’s refreshing, working for someone from Brooklyn, who knows how to speak his mind, even if his mind is full of venom.

During the shoot, I noticed Al wearing the glasses, however, and I was a little jealous. I wanted glasses too.  He said it was because he needed them to watch the monitor. That made sense. When I am filming on my 2D camera, obviously, I have to watch the monitor to make sure I am picking everything up and getting the right shots. But with 3D you need to wear the glasses to see everything properly, on the monitor.

When Al said “action,” we began fighting. Ulysses is an experienced Muay Thai fighter. He has had a number of fights and spars regularly. So, he knew how to circle and stick and move. The problem is, in movie fighting that can be very boring. For one thing, real fights are composed of five two minute rounds. The first two rounds are usually pretty

slow, with two fighters feeling each other out. They don’t really get going till the third and fourth rounds. But in a movie, a fight scene rarely lasts more than a minute or a maximum of three minutes, but not 15 like a real fight.

The audience doesn’t want to see circling and isolated strikes. They want to see pounding and pounding, and hitting, and popping and possibly some blood and death.

Real tournament fighting, jab, jab, front kick, circle, step, jab…isn’t going to cut it.

I explained to Ulysses that in movie fighting he just needed to hit and hit with intensity and not worry about getting hit back. We started fighting again and Ulysses, to his credit was doing much better, but Al stopped us again.

“3D is not just a film effect.” He explained. “It is psychological. It is an illusion. The audience sees the 3D because they believe in it.” Al went on to teach us that if during the fight we moved too much and part of our bodies went out of frame, or we got cut in half, the part that remained on screen would revert to 2D and the scene would be ruined. “As good as the movie Avatar was, there were several scenes where the movie went back to 2D because of these types of mistakes.”

“Action!” yelled Al, and we began hitting each other. Two seconds later, he was already yelling “Cut!” Ap

parently every time we moved or circled we were going out of frame. Al marked the ground where we needed to fight. After one more cut, he tightened up our fighting area. Eventually it got so small he asked us, “Can you guys just grapple?”

I wanted to do a couple of sweeps or throws, but aside from the fact that we were fighting on concrete, the only safety gear I had with me was an oral dam with a hole in it that I use for administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Actually, the sweeps would have been problematic, anyway, because they would have taken us out of frame. The more we filmed, the more I realized how narrow the “in frame” area was and that it was limited not only by breadth but also by depth. Once again, this was 3D, depth TV. Getting too far away from the camera, under the camera, over the camera…left or right, we would go out of frame. But the real no-no was to be half in and half out.

The second half of the fight scene consisted of a chase across the playground and a very cool final fight on the sliding board. On the way to the sliding board, Ulysses was chasing me. He leaped up onto a row of park benches, got beside me and leaped off, giving me an elbow to the top of the head. I had wanted to shoot the leap from several angles, including from the ground and from bird’s eye perspective, but it just wasn’t possible.

Next, we fought on the sliding board, which worked extremely well for 3 D because Ulysses leapt off the board on top of me, dropping both a knee and an elbow on me.

Al said, “We are pushing the envelope today of what has been done with 3D.”

3D really lends itself to action. Shrek was great in 3D because there was constant acti

on with things leaping off the screen at you. “The Office” in 3D, wouldn’t be as exciting. It is an extremely funny show, but you need action to really capitalize on the 3D. So, a martial arts fight scene was perfect for 3D. BUT, there are special problems with shooting in 3D.

For one thing, as I said earlier, the camera weighs a ton. At this point in time, you can’t just pick up a 3D camera and run with it. In our fight scene there was a chase sequence. Normally the cameraman would run in front of us or behind us, but you can’t do that with 3D. The camera has to stay put.

You can move the camera to get multiple angles as you could with a 2 D camera. Al says that when you are used to it, moving and re-setting the 3D camera isn’t any harder than doing the same for a 2D camera, and he was very fast. He told me, though that you had to be really careful about how you did scene cuts cut-aways.

When you cut the action and then restart, in 3D you have to make sure that the actors are in the same exact positions as they were

before. This is true of good 2D filming as well, but for 3D you have to ensure that the actors are on the same relative plane. Remember the camera picks up depth. So, for example, when shooting a 2D fight scene, I can put the two actors facing each other, inches apart, but one is slightly closer to the camera to the other. When the far away guy punches, his fists will appear to go through his opponent. So the opponent reacts, and it looks like he has been hit. With 3D if we had that same layered effect, the audience would be able to see the distance between them.

In fact, in some of the better, clearer shots, the two fighters popped off the screen so well, that you felt you could pass your hand between them. If one punched and the other reacted the audience would just laugh, because you would see that the punch missed him by a mile.

3D is going to create a whole new type of scenery. It will also create a new type of fight choreography, and in the end, it will create a new type of action movie star.

And since I am one of the few who has experience, I just wanted to say, I am available for your next 3D action film.

A friend of mine told me he was on his way to Ohio and that he hated going. He wanted sympathy from me. Telling a New Yorker that you are going anywhere, except back to your own apartment in New York, will normally evoke sympathy.

But in this mixed up, upside down world where the cop is the perp, and the perp is the victim, I envied my friend going to Ohio.

I told him:

Ohio, hugh? For my new TV show, I have to go to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macao. You know how much I hate travel to begin with. On top of this, I will be staying in a $600 USD per night hotel. BUT I won’t be able to eat or do laundry, because only the room is comped.

This annoys me. I saw Casino. I know how comped is supposed to work. I am allowed to strangle the prostitute as long as she has no family, and useless brother Fredo owns the brothel. But then I have to do whatever Marlon Brando wants me to do, even give Johnny Fontain a part in my new movie.

On top of all of my other travel issues, I have already lived in Hong Kong. So, it’s like, you know, redundant, the same thing, you know, the same thing over and over, repeating, again and again…sort of like subscribing to the New York Times but getting the May 18, 2004 issue delivered to your doorstep, day, after day, till you finally just give up, and dangle your leg in a vat of dry ice until it has to be amputated.

I have never been to Ohio. You are lucky, seeing something new. Try and see Ohio through my eyes.

I will send them to you, and possibly my left leg as well.

I am talking to a large, well-paid network. They have a famous TV chef who has agreed to be on my show in (a certain country). And now, large, well-paid network might pay me to be on famous, TV chef show in (a certain country). And large, well-paid network might be offering me my own TV series on large, well-paid network. So, I am pretty excited. But still what?

BROKE!

This is a constant. I keep thinking about fat people who are afraid to loose weight, because they are used to their fat, and fear regret if they loose it. Buyers remorse, also called losers remorse.

And no one wants to be a loser. They don’t even want to be the Biggest Looser. There are even people who get upset when their blood tests come back negative. No one wants to be thought of as negative.

But at the same time, there are people with body integrity identity disorder, who wish to get rid of a limb or body part that they hate.

So, on the one hand, my poverty is a constant, which psychologically, I could attach to in some sort of Helsinki Syndrome, as in (Helsinki, Sweden). On the other hand, I could hate my poverty, like someone suffering from body integrity identity disorder who dangled his leg in dry ice for several hours till it had to be removed.

Why do people from Helsinki always take hostages when they rob a bank? And then why do people fall in love with them? The only Helsinki-ite I have ever worked with is Arman Alizad, from the TV show, Kill Arman, and he never has, to my knowledge, taken a hostage.

Maybe it is a bum rap, like when people say all Italian men know how to cook and cheat on their wives. Some might argue it is because Helsinki is in Finland, and not Sweden. But I think they are just making excuses for bank robbery.

They are a bunch of enablers.

But anyway, doing a self-diagnosis:

If I had poverty integrity disorder, I would dangle my poverty in a vat of dry ice and wait for a rich doctor to cut it off. Or, if I have fat-person-fear-of-skinniness disorder, I would cling to my poverty and love it.

By Antonio Graceffo

When I was a financial planner in New York City, I reviewed the finances of nearly 1,000 individuals and small businesses. While there were people who made bad decisions, stupid decisions, or created debt to finance consumption, the bottom line was that most of them simply didn’t earn enough to live. If they had made good decisions and lived frugally, they would still fall short month after month. When you realize that this is the situation you are in, with two parents working full time and you still slip deeper and deeper into debt every month, why not just use credit to buy the plazma TV or go on holiday at Disney?

Living in Southeast Asia, I am confronted with poverty on a daily basis. But, there is a Western poverty in developed countries which needs to be addressed. Very few Americans are suffering from lack of food, but a significant percentage earn less than the basic minimum needed to live.

Back in America, in the 1980s, when a friend of mine, call him Jawa, was in his early twenties, he was extremely poor, living hand to mouth, pay check to pay check. Working at a grocery store, he earned slightly less than it cost him to live. One day, he was late for work, but needed to stop at the post office to mail his financial aid paperwork, so he could pay his next semester’s tuition, eventually finish college, get a decent job, and not have to suffer financially and spiritually anymore.

Not finding a convenient parking space for his 15 year old car, which barely ran, Jawa parked illegally. The line in the post office was longer than expected, and while Jawa was waiting in line, his car was towed. He came outside the post office and discovered that not only was his car gone, but now he had no way to get to work.

Jawa called his boss and explained the situation.  His boss was angry, but he told Jawa to come in as soon as he could. Without a car, the only option to get to work was to take a taxi. The taxi fare would have been $20. Jawa earned $4.50 per hour. His shift was scheduled for six hours. So, after taxes, Jawa would break even. And of course, at the end of his shift, Jawa would still need to get home, which would put him $20 in the hole.

Jawa looked in his wallet and found that he had three dollars more than what he had thought. He had eight dollars. Not seeing how he could get to work, Jawa began walking home, which was closer. By the time Jawa walked the five miles back to his home, it was too late to call the towing service and find out about his car. The next morning, he woke up and called the impound lot. The cost of releasing his car was going to be $30 for the fine, $50 for the tow, and $50 for storage. Jawa needed $130 to get his car back.

Of course, he had missed both school and work that day with no way to get around. He had $80 in the bank, but in those days before ATM machines, getting the money would necessitate going to the bank, which would be $30 round trip in a taxi. This left Jawa with $50 toward the $130 that he needed to get his car out of impound. It was a Wednesday, and Jawa would be paid at his job on Friday. He earned $4.50 per hour, worked 30 hours per week, and he would get a check for about $100. The check, plus the $50 he had would be almost exactly enough to get the car back. So, Jawa decided to wait till Friday, get his check and go pick up his car.

By Friday, Jawa had been fired from his job for missing work. When he got his check, that evening, he wasn’t able to cash it, because the banks were closed. So, he had to wait till Monday. Early, Monday morning, Jawa went to the bank, cashed his check, took out his other money, and went to the impound lot. At the lot, he paid his fine and tow bill. But when he went to pay the storage bill, he found out that the fee was $50 per day. The car had been there since Wednesday, so the fee was $300.

Obviously, Jawa couldn’t pay the bill. He also couldn’t get his car back, so he had no transportation to go look for a new job. The bill went into collections, and eventually, Jawa found himself the defendant in a legal action. He missed more than three days of classes at university, so he received failing marks in several of his courses. Because of his poor academic performance, his financial aid was discontinued, and he had to drop out of college.

Eventually, Jawa found another minimum wage job. It took him over an hour to walk each way, but he looked at it as a temporary problem he had to overcome, just one more obstacle, on the road to graduation from University.

During the frictional period that it took him to find a new job, Jawa failed to pay rent twice. He begged the landlord not to kick him out. The landlord was sympathetic and agreed to accept late payments when Jawa received his first salary from his new job.

When Jawa’s first pay check arrived, he found that his wages had been garnished by the impound lot. Although he had worked full time, plus over time, his check was less than $80. And, with late charges, interest and penalties, it was going to take months to pay off the debt to the towing company.

Jawa’s landlord was unimpressed with the $80. Jawa lost his apartment.

Getting a new apartment was an impossibility because he would need to put down first and last month’s rent plus a damage deposit, money he simply didn’t have.

Then a lot of other stuff happened, and Jawa became an author, so he could live in a dignified poverty for the rest of his life.

Jawa was a relatively smart guy, from a decent family, and through a chain of unfortunate circumstances, his life was almost ruined. How much more difficult must it be then for people from broken homes or ghettos, people with children or with a criminal record? A large percentage of the American population lives, hanging by a very narrow thread, which could break at any moment, setting them adrift, slipping into the oblivion of those two relatives, homelessness and hopelessness.

Recently, I have developed an addiction for the Judge Judy TV show. What I love about the show is Judy’s sense of justice. But I also see the show as a look into the lives of everyday Americans. Everyone on the show is not necessarily poor, but what I often see is that people behave immorally for relatively small amounts of money, and I have to believe that they would have behaved better if they weren’t living so close to poverty.

I think that many people have a moral compass, and would behave better, more fairly, if they had more money. For example, two friends go out for lunch. They decide to split the bill evenly, although one of them ordered an entree which cost fifty cents more. This is normal and moral behavior. When you are with a good friend or relative, then you think, no worries, next time, I might be the one who spends more and it will even out. But in cases where people are barely earning enough to survive they don’t apply that type of reasoning. Every debt, every contract, every discrepancy becomes a fight, results in litigation, costs more money, and often destroys personal relationships.

In a recent case that I saw on Judge Judy, the plaintiff, X, sued the defendant, Y, for several hundred dollars. Y had borrowed X’s car and wrecked it. Then the car was impounded and destroyed. So, X felt she didn’t need to pay Y, because the car was gone. Obviously, Judge Judy said that Y had to pay X for the car. Next, X continued the suit, saying that, because of the fines and fees associated with the wreck and impound, X missed payments on his insurance and rent, and incurred late fees and monetary penalties. Judge Judy basically said, you can’t sue for a chain of events. You can only sue for direct costs or direct losses.

The case reminded me of what had happened to my friend Jawa. When you are living so close to the hilt, any little problem can destroy your whole life.

And it doesn’t just happen to poor people.

In my financial planning business, I had mostly wealthy clients. One client had a car accident, while on holiday in Florida, and killed someone. When he rented the car, he had had the forethought to purchase maximum car insurance. It turned out, after the survivors sued him for 1 Million dollars, that the car rental company actually only sold an overage insurance, which was to cover that portion of your liability not covered by your own car insurance. For most Americans, this would have worked out fine, because they have car insurance. But my client was a real New Yorker, living in Manhattan. He had no car insurance.

He will be paying off this debt for the rest of his life. Any plans he had for retirement were gone. The only reason his kids will even be able to attend college is because he had some type of prenuptial agreement with his wife, which established separate property, and his wife’s assets were not attached by this law suit. But now, his wife will be paying the entire college tuition for all three children, herself.

The recent mortgage crisis is full of stories of people who had been using their home as an ATM machine and because of sudden declines in real-estate values, those loans came due and people were unable to pay them. In some cases, this caused a domino effect of loss of home, loss of job, loss of credit, and eventually drove people into a seemingly inescapable poverty.

The credit crisis caused a lot of people to point fingers and throw blame. “They shouldn’t have bought a house they couldn’t afford.” Probably, but many of these people wouldn’t have had a house at all, unless they over extended.

The purchasing power of Americans has steadily dropped over the years, as the cost of living has increased. In 1971 very few Americans had credit cards. According to creditcardstatistics.com, in 2009 there were 609.8 million credit cards in the US, which is almost double the number of people.

In 1971 the average home price was $24,000 and the average income was $10,000. Said another way, a house cost about 2.5 years’ salary. The down payment was about 3 months salary. Couples took a second job or worked weekends for a year to save $2,400 for their down payment. A new car cost about $2,000, or 20% of salary. The average college tuition, for their children, was $600, or 6% of their salary. Minimum wage in 1971 was $1.60. So, it was not unreasonable for parents to expect their kids to work part time and help pay for their education. In a single summer, kids could earn enough to pay their full tuition without any assistance.

In 2009, however, the average house cost was $270,000. But, the average US income was only about $42,000. So, the house cost 6.4 years salary. And the down payment of $27,000 represented more than half of a year’s salary. An average car costs $14,000 or 33% of salary. College costs in 2009 skyrocketed to $19,000. With federal minimum wage at $7.25, kids could barely earn a quarter of their college tuition in one summer.

In that financial climate, the average American was in a house he couldn’t afford. If the majority of the population is forced into doing something that doesn’t make good fiscal sense, then the situation, not the people, must be called suspect.

If everyone is overextended, something is wrong, somewhere.

We all have seen stories on Jerry Springer or in the news about people on welfare buying themselves this or that extravagance that they shouldn’t have. Jawa had bought a leather jacket just a week before his life exploded from the towed car. Jawa had a cousin by marriage who was similarly poor, who paid $300 for a paintball gun that he had been dreaming of for years.

People pointed at those two purchases and identified them as the root of the two boys’ financial problems. But the truth is, the jacket was on sale for $125. The paintball gun was $300. Neither of these young men could have dramatically changed their lives for that amount of money. If they bought themselves a treat or didn’t, they would still have been poor.

Wearing a nice jacket or owning a slick paintball gun makes poverty a little easier to live with.

You can easily spend $6 on a large frapa-mochiati-chino at one of the many fashionable coffee chains in America, and now, around the world. That represents 1 hour of net salary for a minimum wage worker. It represents a quarter of an hour of salary for the average American worker. In theory, no one can afford a $6 cup of coffee. So, why do people buy it? Because it is an attainable luxury, that makes life livable. Everyone has $6, even if they shouldn’t spend it on coffee. If any coffee drinker wound up loosing his or her home in the recent mortgage fiasco, could we blame the coffee? Would $6 have made a difference?

I lived in Tennessee for years and saw people who earned minimum wage or slightly above, buy a new car that they couldn’t afford. And when that decision wrecked them, people pointed a finger at them. “You did this to yourself.” Yes, and no. Take my friend Jawa, after the mess that caused him to lose his car and his job, he bought a brand new car.

Why does someone with no money buy a brand new car? Because you can get a new car with no money down. Jawa needed transportation. An affordable used-car cost cash. But someone with no money could drive off the lot with a brand new car.

And so the cycle of debt continues and actually worsens.

And again, this situation is not limited to the poor. I have seen upper-middle class families do exactly the same thing. They were barely making it financially. Then, the kids reached driving age, and the only way to give them a car was to go into debt with a brand new car, no money down.

Consumption is definitely a culprit in the financial plight that most Americans find themselves in. How many TVs do you have in your home? How many cars does your family have? Do you really need a swimming pool?

But the flip side is, it costs a lot to live, no matter how careful you are. As a result, even in one of the world’s richest countries, a significant percentage of the population slips deeper and deeper into debt.

Twenty-two year-old Reuters photographer, Dan Eldon and was stoned to death in Mogadishu, Somalia. In addition to covering conflicts in Africa, he personally organized aid and relief missions to help the starving people. Dan’s mother. Kahy and sister, Amy published his diaries and art work in a book, “The Journey is the Destination.”

Both the book and story of Dan’s life inspired Antonio Graceffo and countless people around the globe. “Dan made more difference in his short life than many do in a long lifetime.” BBC

Sam Stavros, Dan’s cousin, wrote a moving song dedicated to Dan’s life, entitled, “Neverland.” The song is both powerful and moving and encourages people to follow their dreams, to fly, and never land. The song is featured in this video:

Kathy and Amy formed a foundation called Creative Visions dedicated to the memory of Dan Eldon:

“Creative Visions Foundation supports ‘Creative Activists’, individuals who use the power of media and the arts to create positive change in the world.”

I just saw “The Karate Kid 2010” tonight in Bangkok, and I feel like I am 43 going on 16. I have one of those feel-great movie highs that prompts you to make life altering decisions, which you will never follow through on when you wake up with a hangover. But for those brief moments of illusion, you feel like a million bucks.

In short, the new version of “The Karate Kid’ was the greatest movie ever. It was certainly better than “Cats”, but I wouldn’t want to match it up with “Casablanca”, “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Dodge Ball.”

Even if my over-blown praise seems exaggerated, I can’t believe there are people out there who didn’t love this movie. Maybe if you prefer movies that suck, you wouldn’t like “The Karate Kid”. Or, if you like movies made with crap instead of excellent writing, great acting, and incredible characterization. I hate to compare it to the original, which is a classic, iconic film, but it was even better.

The original was great. I saw it when I was basically the same age as Daniel San and I related to it in so many ways. As an adult, I have re-watched the Pat Morita version a number of times, including twice in the last year, and it is truly a great and timeless film. And of course, I am required to like Ralph Macchio on ethnic grounds. BUT, it did have holes. For one thing, the original needed to be trimmed by 30 minutes. There were too many sequences of playing beach volleyball, riding bicycles and listening to the Bangles musical montage. Otherwise, it was great.

Everyone who was a kid in the 1980s will say that “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” were the two most unforgettable film franchises of their youth. Kids who grew up in the 2000’s will say that the “Star Wars” prequels and the fourth installment of “Indiana Jones” were some of the most forgettable moments of their youth, except those kids who were so traumatized by the terrible films that they are in counseling, reliving those tear-filled moments, again and again….

But I believe kids who are kids now, will remember “The Karate kid 2010” as fondly as we remember the original. And if they don’t, I will punch them in the nose, the snotty ungrateful bastards…not liking my favorite film. Video games and childhood obesity ruined an entire generation.

A lot of people ask me, “So, Antonio, why is Karate Kid so great?”

Funny you should ask that. I was just about to explain what I liked about the movie.

First off, the casting was brilliant. Obviously Jackie Chan is the greatest living martial artist on the planet. He has more film credits and more stunts than almost any living actor. Since I live in Asia, I am probably more aware than most Americans of his tireless activities and charity works off camera. He did no-smoking campaigns in Hong Kong, save the tigers in Cambodia, and promoted world peace, fitness and martial arts everywhere else. Plus, he makes me laugh. The man has made a career out of being the funny, but unbelievably talented Kung Fu movie star. And he just keeps going. He is 56 years old but no one can hold a candle to his martial arts ability.

Pat Morita was Mr. Miyagi. In fact, he said in an interview, that he personally created the Sensei as a character in movies. And I strongly agree. He should  be remembered and honored. But the new movie is not an exact remake of the old. And the performance of the new actors shouldn’t be degraded by our emotional ties to the originals. The two films both exist and are both good, full stop. And Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Han both exist. And each is great in his own right.

Probably Mr. Han, Chan’s character, won’t be as quoted as often as Miyagi, but that’s because his lines were in Chinese. And the pronunciation is difficult for many westerners.

When I first heard Jaden Smith was playing Dre Parker (Daniel San) my first thought was that he was from an incredibly talented family, son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. I also remembered him from the movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness”, which was great. I didn’t see him in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” because it starred Keanu Reeves and I was afraid people would see me buying a ticket.

The only concern I had about Jaden was that he was too young, twelve-years old. While both “Karate Kid” films dealt with being the new kid in school and being the geek that no one liked, two demons which I wrestle with to this very day, the original was about a boy in high school, a boy trying to become a man. Also, the guys who were beating up Daniel San were basically full grown men. When Miyagi defeated them, he was a hero. The kids beating up Jaden Smith were 14. When Mr. Han defeated them, he should have been arrested.

Although I may have gone into the theater with some slight reservations about a film with such a young kid as the focus, those reservations disappeared minutes into Jaden’s performance. The kid is hip, cool, sassy, good looking, and very likeable. The fact that he is the new kid in school, in China, as opposed to California, means he is facing a bigger challenge than Daniel San and it more than makes up for his lack of years.

Just like in the first movie, Daniel San, Dre gets a crush on a girl who is out of his league. Wen Wen Han the young Chinese actress who plays Mei Ying was excellent. And as a character, she was infinitely more interesting than Ally in the original. In the film, Mei Ying is a musician trying out for the Beijing Academy of Music, facing her own daemons. Dre teaches her the pinky-swear, and they both promise to support each other’s dreams.

As for sheer action, the kung fu was, of course, incredible, because Jackie Chan, unlike Pat Morita, is actually a martial artist. The modern version of “wax-on, wax-off” was also a pleasant surprise. An article I read about the original said it was one of the only karate movies that was about karate. I definitely felt that way about the new version as well. It was about martial art and about taking martial art to your everyday life.

Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) tells Dre (Jaden Smith) “Kung fu is in everything we do. How we put on a jacket, how we take off a jacket, how we treat people. Everything is Kung Fu.”

On the whole, the greatest strength of the movie is that it is not a remake. This film is not just a modern reboot of the original. It is almost a parallel story, which loosely follows the original formula. There were a lot of really fun references to the original movie. Particularly funny for me, as a Chinese speaker, was the fact that some of the dialogue was exactly the same, except in Chinese.

Notable lines translated into Chinese were, “There is no fear in this dojo” And, “One on one problem, the boy can handle, but not six on one problem.” The one line they did not translate, unfortunately, was “Sweep the leg Johnny.”

As an American living in Asia (I said that already) I completely related to many of Dre’s problems adjusting to his new country. I remember not being able to read street signs, getting lost everywhere I went, Stumbling through my first words of Mandarin, and trying to watch cartoons, only to find that they were dubbed into Chinese. In those early silly days in China (ROC) I remember constantly insulting or interrupting people, simply because I didn’t understand the culture and every time I had a problem I had to go to great lengths to find the one person who spoke English well enough to understand me.

I give huge kudos to the US movie-makers and the American viewing audience for getting out of the American bubble and supporting a movie about an American living abroad.

The Kung Fu training center was exactly like my experience in Shaolin Temple, with hundreds or even thousands of students, in colored track suits, doing forms and practicing for hours. And of course, all of them better than me.

Go see “Karate Kid”. Don’t waste time comparing it to the original. Just enjoy it, and let the memories and emotions wave over you. You may even shed a tear or two.

Antonio Graceffo is a martial arts and adventure author living in Asia. He is the author of the books, “The Monk from Brooklyn” and “Warrior Odyssey. He is also the host of the web TV show, “Martial Arts Odyssey,” which traces his ongoing journey through Asia, learning martial arts in various countries.

Buy Warrior Odyssey on Amazon

Following the author’s landmark decision to quit his job on Wall Street and become a martial arts student, Warrior Odyssey captures one man’s ongoing adventure across the Far East.

Beginning in Taiwan, this autobiography documents how the protagonist learned the Chinese language, kung fu, and “twe so” (push hands), then journeyed on to the Shaolin Temple in mainland China. His next trek found him studying at the last Muay Thai temple in Thailand.

Reflecting on a decade of travel, this recollection illustrates a perpetual quest as the author continues to voyage and practice both familiar and obscure fighting styles. Tracing his expeditions through 10 countries altogether, the odyssey also ventures through Hong Kong, Cambodia, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Burma.

1. Tips on interpreting a message in another language

Most people think that being a good translator or interpreter is based on having a good command of the foreign language. While it is true that you need to have the linguistic skills, you must also have the cultural understanding to interpret what someone is saying. When I was translating for Warner Bros. Germany, there was a line of text in one of their shows which said, “He is a real Boy Scout.” In American English, a Boy Scout is a good thing, America, apple pie, clean, no crime, no sin, good person. But in Germany the Pfadfinder (German Boy Scouts) grew out of the Hitlerjugend and have a reputation of being Nazis. So the connotation was different. You have to be aware of these differences.

Another example, in most Asian languages there is still a sense that fat people are rich and happy. So, when you are translating a story or movie, the fat pig may represent something very positive. The same is true of a monkey. The Monkey god is the smartest god. In the west we think of Monkeys as being stupid.

In America, “The Cosby Show” was considered excellent family entertainment, a wholesome show, with a black family, positive role models and well-behaved kids. In Spain, parents forbid their kids from watching it. They felt Cosby signaled the downfall of the very institution of family, because the kids voiced their opinions and often disagreed with the parents. Even the fact that the parents consulted with the kids before making major family decisions would be considered bad in many cultures.

The above examples were problems of connotation, rather than translation or definition. But in asia the line sometimes gets blurry because of the poor quality and dirth of dictionaries.

If you specialize in a European language, such as French, German, or Spanish, there are world class linguists on both sides of the Atlantic studying the language, writing and rewriting dictionaries, as well as updating the language and inventing or adding new words. In Asia, this type of study is a fairly new concept. There aren’t any major linguistics coming out of Asia. There is no Chomsky or Krashen in Taiwan. They are still relying primarily on dictionaries written by French-speaking Swiss missionaries a century ago. This doesn’t mean that there is no one working on the language or no one writing new dictionaries or doing new research but it is not as common as it is in Europe.

As a result you wind up with consistent mistakes. In Taiwan, most Taiwanese lack the phrase, “on the house” and instead say “service.” This is not interference from Chinese language, as the two concepts are as distinct in Chinese as they are in English. The problem stems from a single mistake in a dictionary written 100 years ago which has now become part of the culture.

The average Asian, even language teachers, take the first definition in the dictionary as gospel. As a result, they do terrible translations. If you were to point out to someone that “service” does not mean “on the house” they would just get confused and probably give you some type of answer such as “but this is English.”

After I had taken my students to the department store on an outing, the school manager asked me which part of the store the children liked best. I said in Chinese, “the toy area.” Which I correct in Chinese. She then translated directly into English and said “toy area.” In English it should be the “toy department,” but the Chinese word is normally translated as “area” in 90% of other usages. And in the Chinese mind, companies and armies have departments but stores don’t. in fact, the word for department store doesn’t have the word department in it. Literally it means “hundred product company.” The police department, in Chinese, is called “the police office.” And they say it this way in English. It makes perfect sense, since the people who work there are police officers. But it is wrong in English. The word, “ju” in 90% of other usages should be translated as office, such as “post office.” But, in the case of “police department” the word should be changed. But if you were only taking the first definition in the dictionary as law, then you would wind up with a “toy area” and a “police office.”

These are types of small but important differences in definition and connotation that a translator or interpreter would need to know. The understanding goes way beyond the dictionary and into deciding what function a particular word or concept has in the foreign language.

2. The fastest method of learning other methods of communication

Gestures that work when you’re translating to a more primitive or remote culture

Since 80% of communication is non-verbal, it should be easy to communicate with people with whom we don’t share a common language. I think if you are going to go live overseas or in a tribal type of environment where you don’t speak the language, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a short course in line drawing or sketching and a quick course in pantomime. I know it sounds silly, but body language and drawing might be two of the bets methods you have of communicating with people.

In language teaching we employ a method called TPR, total physical response. This metho teaches you to assign meaningful gestures to words and concepts. I also participated in Toastmasters International, a public speaking organization with thousands of clubs around the world. Both of these experiences helped me to think about how to tell a story with my hands, voice modulation, facial expression and movement, rather than relying on words. If you do all of these things while you are talking, it could b a huge help in communication.

3. Guidelines of respect or conduct for these people.

Obviously every culture has its taboos. In southeast asia, in Theravada Buddhist countries it is believed that the soul resides on the top of the head, so to touch the top of anyone’ head is a huge insult. There was a murder case in Cambodia a few years ago where a cook in a restaurant dumped a pot of soup on the head of a kitchen boy. The boy killed him. And although he didn’t go free, common people who heard the story said things like “what did the cook expect to have happen?”

In these same countries, the feet are considered dirty and it is a huge insult to ever touch anything with your feet or to motion to your feet when speaking. And if you ever touched someone’s head or hat with your feet, that would be the worst thing you could possibly do.

So for every country, every culture, you need to study and inform yourself about the religion and social norms, so as not to offend anyone.

4. Best exercises to help with vocalisation/pronunciation.

To improve pronunciation, do a lot of listening, hours and hours and hours of listening. Watch TV, use your tapes and CDs also put on your head set and speak after the tape or CD. Don’t mumble when you speak. Speak loudly, clearly, forcefully, and try to put meaning into what you are saying. Sit alone and read aloud for hours every day to improve pronunciation. Have foreign friends read your lessons aloud for you to listen to and copy.

5. Suggested routine (how you would structure a speed course in learning a new language)

You need to study every single day. The more hours you put in the better you will be. You also must use a textbook, a work book, tapes or CDs, and possibly computer aided programs if available. Use every single resource. Develop a routine and logical order in which to do them. Listen first then read, or read first then listen. Speak next, then write. After you have completed a written exercise, check it. Correct it, rewrite it. Start again cold, look at the page of questions and write the exercise again from scratch. Always copy the questions along with the answers. Copy dialogues and reading texts. Recite them in your head as you go.

Have the CDs or audio running while you are traveling, jogging, riding an exercise bicycle or puttering around the apartment.

Seize every opportunity to read your exercises with a native speaker.

6. Recommended resources – the most inexpensive way to learn a new language.

As for resources, look for a consistent series where the dictionary, textbook, workbook, reading book, DVDs, CDs, tapes….all resources are consistent and matching. Look for graded or scald readers or videos stories you can read or watch for entertainment which are enjoyable but which will reinforce your lessons learned.