Traveling to Asia for Enlightenment

[This appeared in Notre Dame Today, Spring 2002]

What compels a woman to travel alone to Asia for the first time? Two things, really. First, a “think tank” meeting on media, religion and culture scheduled in Bangkok, Thailand. And, secondly, the knowledge that I had local friends and colleagues who would help me to understand, enjoy and learn from new cultures.

I am convinced, in our post-9/11 world, that the ultimate solution to global understanding is forging millions of people-to-people links on the ground (and in cyberspace) around the world. I often urge my Notre Dame students to “think link!”

Imagine what would happen if almost every church or congregation had a sister church or synagogue or mosque somewhere in the world and these people became linked personally. Or imagine if most women in the U.S. had a personal link with a Muslim woman, or a woman in the Middle East or in Northern Ireland. And why not millions of school children with a pen pal somewhere around the globe? All of this could be so easy in an Internet or “snail-mail” world!

My own networking was enriched several years ago when I was invited to join a small international and ecumenical study commission. This group is funded to reflect thoughtfully on the intersection of media and religion and culture around the world. The commission has met in Europe, in Brazil, in Africa, and now in Asia. Over the next two years members will travel to Vancouver, Mexico City and Australia. Then, after publishing a whole series of books on our findings, the International Study Commission on Media, Religion and Culture will conclude its work.

One follow-up activity will be a dramatic scholarship program – with three-quarters of a million dollars in funding – to support Catholic doctoral students from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These individuals will specialize in studying media, religion and culture challenges – both theoretical and practical.

Bangkok Setting

Our group lived and held meetings for a week at the Gabrielite Conference Center in Bangkok. There were twenty-three of us. Commission members came from the U.S., Mexico, Australia, Scotland, Colombia, and Italy. Invited guests were from the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, and Taiwan. A special guest was a Buddhist monk from Bangkok who had studied at Oxford and at the Harvard Divinity School.

A unique treat for me was a reunion with a former student whom I had mentored as his doctoral advisor at Syracuse University. Boonchai Hongcharu is now a professor in Bangkok. We planned to have special days together after the conference concluded.

Whenever our study commission meets in these cultural settings, a major task is, quite simply, to listen. We always have a lot to learn about local cultural patterns and how religious practice is processed through today’s media culture; much of the media culture, of course, reflects U.S. culture.

We listen to theorists and to practitioners. Imaginative new concepts are mixed with “on the ground” realities. We visit local sites. In Bangkok we spent an afternoon at the Grand Palace to view a number of Buddhist temples and monuments, including the Temple of the Emerald Buddha that houses the most widely-revered Thai Buddha. Later we visited the offices and production facilities of the Thairath Newspaper, the largest daily in the country. A color photo of our group was featured on the front page of the newspaper the following day! We also went by boat to Ayudhaya, the ancient capital of Thailand.

Becoming a Global Media Citizen

As I went to Asia for the first time, I wanted to be willing to move outside of my own Western, primarily rational, mind-set – to be open to Eastern history and culture. A professor/theologian from the Philippines, Dr. José de Mesa, explained that Asians often perceive Western ways of religion as connected with colonialism. He urged, instead, an appreciation of local cultures with values of “thoughtful sensuality” or a “sensual intellect.”

Most of us are aware that we process things like news through mass media. Communication specialists speak of this as mediation. However, most people are not aware of how much our contemporary mass media culture mediates religion for many people, especially youth. Research shows that today’s audiences perceive religious realities through media (film and TV stories, and rock music culture), whereas for most of us our spirituality is associated with religious institutions.

The question is: how will religious groups (theologians, institutional religion, local ministry leaders) respond to the reality that “media and religion are converging in contemporary life”? Religious authority no longer controls spiritual definitions, as in our previous experience. However, what people call “religious” is religious for them. As Stewart Hoover, a member of our commission and a leading scholar on all this, stated: “We have to stand with the people and report what they are making out of all this.”

The media presence and professionalism of Asian women were an inspiration to me at our conference. One Bangkok TV producer showed samples of her evening news clips which focused on stories of women and children and how Thai society neglects both. Siriwan’s work was the first such effort and established the subject as a discrete genre within Thai journalism.

Another woman, Dr. Clotilde Lee, teaches Media Studies at a university in Korea. She is also serving as a consultant for a production company there attempting to create digital animated Bible stories in a science fiction idiom. Another academic scholar, from Bangkok, shared her research on how children are portrayed in Thai newspapers and on TV. This research is calling attention to areas of concern in the media with regard to children’s rights.

These women are playing a key role in Asian media and media studies. They are interesting role models for NDC as we continue to attract students from Asia.

Another helpful aspect of the conference was the focus on social responsibility. This urges respect for local Asian history and culture in a globalized world. This also challenges us to sustainable development instead of the exclusive emphasis on the material-growth paradigm of the West. Dr. Nadarajah, a sociologist from Malaysia, urged us to be global citizens, re-thinking Theology in the light of a market-centered world.

I keep reflecting upon my conference notes as a way of thinking outside of our own Western conceptual “box.” Thoughtful travel can do this – get us to cross intercultural and intellectual boundaries, in addition to the geographical ones. 

Two Additional Journeys

I never expected to ride an elephant, but that’s what I did after our Bangkok conference ended! I flew with my former student, now my colleague, to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for several days of travel and adventure. There are over 300 Buddhist temples in this city and its surrounding areas.

Here, far from the millions of people in Bangkok, we visited small Thai villages (where there was always a satellite dish bringing TV programs and modernity to remote areas). We rode an elephant through Thai forests and went bamboo-rafting down the Ping River.

I learned that the Thai Royal Family provides aggressive leadership in promoting new agriculture – to replace the opium production of the past. The present King is an agricultural engineer; his daughter, the Crown Princess, is greatly loved. Many people in Thailand would like to see her be the next royal head of Thailand. All this is quite a contrast to the Hollywood version of this country portrayed in The King and I. No wonder the Thai people are unhappy with the film version of their country.

Another significant side trip took me to Tokyo. This part of my Asian experience was very, very special. Here again a former student was a valuable link for me. During my few days in Tokyo I stayed with the Daughters of St. Paul. Several of these sisters had been in a class I taught one summer at the University of Dayton.

Now they shared aspects of Japanese culture with me, showed me their amazing Web site, and gave me an evening tour of Tokyo. They also chuckled as I tried to eat with chopsticks.

 I had been invited to conduct a workshop at the headquarters of the Catholic bishops of Japan. With an interpreter by my side I shared insights about integrating communication studies into theology. This is a new field of thought and practice known as Communication Theology. This is a special interest of mine.

I was warned that participants would not raise questions; this is a cultural response due to their deference for instructors. How could I facilitate dialogue? To encourage them to think about applying this new field of thought to their own work, I asked them to write out comments or questions in Japanese. After a break my interpreter could report the anonymous comments for my reactions. A teacher must be creative in other cultures in order to promote dialogue!

Meanwhile, back in our NDC classrooms…

Why are these Asian media culture issues important to our students and to our graduates?

Every day in NDC classrooms, all of us as teachers face some unique challenges; many were not there in the past when our alumnae attended Notre Dame. In addition to preserving liberal arts studies we have new realities. This is a multicultural society – in our college, in our nation, and around the globe.

Senator Pat Moynihan wrote of the impact of ethnicity in his Oxford lectures published in a book entitled Pandaemonium. We continue to see proof daily of the power of legitimate ethnic pride. Teachers at Notre Dame College must respect ethnic cultures and prepare students to live in a diverse workplace. As a Catholic college Notre Dame students today reflect the religious pluralism of America.

Last summer I read a fascinating book by Diana Eck, professor at the Harvard Divinity School. The title: A New Religious America: How a ‘Christian Country’ Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation. Eck refers to “the religious energies” of the United States. You can find more information about her work at www.pluralism.org.

Today the percentage of foreign-born Americans is greater than ever before, even than during the peak of immigration over one hundred years ago. Eck notes there are more Muslim Americans than Episcopalians, or members of the Presbyterian Church USA, and as many Muslims in the U.S. as there are Jews – about six million.

  • The technological challenge in higher education today is enormous and shifts almost weekly.

My own doctoral emphasis at Harvard and MIT was on telecommunication technology so I was prepared for what was coming. It is still a daily challenge for me to keep pace with change in what we now call our digital culture.

As teachers we are all trying to prepare our students for this technological culture. We must also continue to give them the conceptual and analytical tools that a good liberal arts course of studies provides because these latter skills are vital in a rapidly-changing world.

As I travel and meet with innovative thinkers from varied cultures, I am doing fieldwork that enriches every class I teach here at Notre Dame.