The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Chinese Eternity! LINH DINH [Phnom Penh, 11/17/23] In  Sihanoukville , I was surprised to see so many Indonesian restaurants. Surely, they weren’t just there to serve tourists? It turned out many Indonesians had arrived to work for the Chinese. As employees, they’re preferred over Cambodians, just as, a century earlier, the French had to bring in Vietnamese to do both white and blue collar jobs. No two groups are equally competent or willing at any task. Somebody has to be better, if only slightly, at accounting, dishwashing, fishing, fighting, sweeping the floor, brain surgery or shooting a jump shot with a hand in one’s face. Eighteen years ago at a literary festival in Berlin, I met Indonesian writers who were very impressive and well-prepared. The Thais, too, were similarly professional. By contrast, the lone Cambodian was only interested in shopping, and she even asked our German hosts to put her up for a few more days. That’s just not done. She was at least half Chines...

  The Secret Sauce for Not Shooting Each Other The Washington Post goes to a Public School and, like the Students and Teachers, Learns Nothing. LIBRARIAN OF CELAENO I really didn’t intend a series inspired by the  Washington Post , but reading that august journal is much like watching  Neil Breen films , so-bad-it’s-good entertainment, but with a bigger budget. As I had to give them an email address when looking up the original story that  inspired the last   two essays  in my  WaPo  rabbit hole, I now get regular announcements for their new material, and since they’ve algorithmically deduced that I am a teacher, I get a lot of their hot takes on the world of education. Needless to say, their content is undeviatingly homogenous neoliberal boilerplate, the kind of stuff that could be (and may be) produced by an AI trained by reading NEA press releases and watching TED Talks. Not the good ones, though Most of you reading my essays probably don’t rea...