Benedict Anderson
"A Life Beyond Boundaries" is the first memoir I've read about a scholar and the first time I realized that there are not many books written from this perspective of someone in academia.
His life is endlessly fascinating from the fact that he was a polyglot that spoke many languages, that he was born in China to European parents while his father was also a first-class linguist with the CMCS (Chinese Maritime Customs Service) as well as countless other unqiue worldly qualities he developed through life.
He said that his memoir had two main themes; first, the importance of translation for individuals and societies and second, the dangers of arrogant provincialism and nationalism. He wrote the most influential textbook on nationalism in his book "Imagined Communities" (reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism) which he wrote from his experience and fieldwork in Indonesia; although he also did research in the Phillipines and Siam (aka Thailand).
Siam
Benedict prefers to use the word "Siam" rather than "Thailand" as the traditional name of the country was always Siam, which explains why (in English) we speak of "Siamese twins" and "Siamese cats". Benedict explains that
"It was changed to 'Thailand' in the late 1930s by the nationalist military dictator Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram. After the end of the Second World War, civilians were briefly returned to power, and reintroduced 'Siam'. In 1947, the military seized power again, and held it for the next twenty-five (Cold War) years. This time 'Thailand' was thoroughly institutionalized."
"Controversy over the name still continues. Critics of 'Thailand', mostly liberals and moderate leftists, dislike the identification of the land with the 'Thai', who are only one of the over fifty ethnic groups in the country, though the dominant one. They believe that the name encourages narrow-minded and repressive attitudes towards minorities, especially the Malay Muslims in the far south. Those who dislike 'Siam' argue that it is too identified with the pre-modern, undemocratic, feudal era. I share the sentiment of the former critics and thus use 'Siam' as the country's name, with some exceptions for well-established names of organizations."
In 1974-75 he lived in Siam to learn the language and do research where he noticed that the way he was taught the Thai language was entirely focused on useful everyday speech like "where is the post office?" or "how much is a haircut?". Learning to read Thai was later, and optional. Most of his classmates had never used a non-Roman writing system (except for a middle-aged Japanese businessman) so Thai orthography seemed exceptionally hard.
Dutch
Most of his fieldwork was done in Indonesia earlier. He had such a love for Indonesia that he called it his first love. In order to better do his research he recognized a need to learn the Dutch language to understand the texts written by the colonizing Dutch in Indonesia.
At Cornell (where he both studied and worked), Dutch was not regularly taught so he taught himself the language, not to speak it, but to read and understand. He said it was not too hard, since he knew some German, which is like a more difficult version of Dutch. He did this in a way that he repeated many years later when he decided to learn Spanish, by taking a large, difficult and fascinating book and stumbling through it line by line, almost word for word, with a big dictionary at his side.
Latin
When he was young the most important piece of luck for him was a key decision made by his mother.
Irish law made it compulsory for small children to start learning either Irish (nationalism) or Latin (Catholicism). His mother saw no point in his learning a nearly extinct language spoken fluently only in the far west of the country, so Latin it was. Later when he asked his mother: "Why Latin? It is even more extinct than Irish."
Though she did not know Latin herself, she knew the right answer: "Latin is the mother of most Western European languages - French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian - so if you know Latin, you will find all these languages easy. Besides, Latin has a great literature which every well-educated person should know."
Education
Benedict was educated at a fine boarding school in England where the core element was always language, Latin, Greek, French, German, and later a little Cold War Russian. But languages were backed by classes in ancient history, art history, bits of archaeology, and a lot of comparative modern history, with Britain at its heart.
Most impressively to me was learning he had to practise writing poetry of his own in Latin, and translate English poems into Latin. He also studied carefully the great masters of English prose from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth. Finally, he had to memorize and publicly recite many poems in different languages. To the end of his life he still had in his head poems in Latin, Greek, French, German, Russian and even Javanese.
Late life
Around 2007 he went to Leningrad to help with an advanced class on nationalism for young teachers at various Russian provincial universities. Over the decades his spoken Russian had almost disappeared, except for "Good morning", "Thank you very much" and "I love you". But to show some solidarity, he started to recite the final stanza of a beautiful poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, a radical who committed suicide under the early Stalinist regime. To his astonishment, all the students immediately recited along with him.
He was in tears by the end, some of the students as well.
Memorized Poetry
During his youth at a boarding school he did not know it at the time, but he was lucky to be among almost the last cohort to have the experiences of translating and memorizing poems. By the late 1950s, the practice of memorizing poems had almost died out. Classical studies in the old broad sense, considered as the basis for a humane education, was also being pushed aside by subjects thought more useful for careers, the professions and modern life in general.
Moreover, coarse Anglo-American was becoming the only 'world language', at a great loss to the planet.
Lasting contribution to language
I have lived in Indonesia now for the last 3 months and have enjoyed learning Bahasa Indonesia. The term used commonly to describe foreigners is "bule". While reading Benedict's memoir I learned that he was the one who coined this term around 1963.
He said that he never thought of himself as "white", but in a society only recently liberated from colonialism, he found himself too often addressed as "Tuan" (Master), as the Dutch colonialists had insisted on being called, and some people were embarrassingly deferential to an unimportant foreign student simply because of the color of his skin.
Looking at his skin, which was not white but pink-grey, he realized that it was close to the skin color of albino animals (water buffaloes, cows, elephants, and so on), for which Indonesians used the casual term "bulai" or "bule". So he told his young friends that he and other people who looked like him should be called "bule", not "putih" (white). They loved the idea and passed it around among other students they knew. Gradually it spread to the newspapers and magazines until it became part of everyday Indonesian language.
From Benedict's own words
"I was very amused, more than ten years later, when a 'white' colleague from Australia wrote me an innocent letter complaining how racist Indonesians were, and how he hated being called a bule. So I asked him to take a look at his own skin in the mirror, and see if he really wanted to be called Tuan. I also told him I had invented the new meaning of the term in 1962 or 1963. When he refused to believe me, I said: 'You are an experienced historian of Indonesia. I bet you $100 that you cannot find bule, in the sense of "white" people, in any document before 1963.' He didn't take the bet."
Mau ke mana? (Where are you going?)
In Indonesia, when someone asks you where you are going and you either don't want to tell them or you haven't yet decided, you answer: "lagi tjari angin", which means "I am looking for a wind", as if you were a sailing ship heading out of a harbor onto the vast open sea.
Final thoughts
I love language, love learning languages and loved this book. Because it enlivened me to the rich history of Indonesia, to how we use language, but mostly because it showed me a powerful example of someone dedicated to the betterment of himself and others through the rich and beautiful intricate tapestry of education.