About wars

The first time I realised that war is really tearing people apart, that it is really affecting everyone in the world, was no more than a couple of years ago.

I mean I wasn't naive or anything.

I knew all along that wars were affecting people. Only, in the sheltered haven of Taiwan we didn't come across international news much, not when we were students at least. The education system in Taiwan is funny like that.

It solely focuses on academical performance. An old saying in Chinese goes "everything is nothing, only studying is the best way to success", or something like that. Only the ones who had studied in the ancient dynasties had a chance of becoming a somebody.

And so when we were in junior high (which is like, 7-9th grade in the US system, I think...; I never did figure out the UK schooling system, even though I must have asked my bf about a dozen times by now), we were preparing for a giant, regional examination that would allot us to senior high schools (or the latter part of six-form + a level, i think) in accordance to our exam results, after the three years of studies.

I failed that one and had to take separate exams afterwards to get myself into a private catholic school. The next three years was more studying and memorising for the next, national examination that is to come at the end of graduation. That one allots a person (again, according to grades and a list of choices that a high school student isn't really sure about) to a university.

So you see? It's not really what we are interest in that we study in a uni., more like what our grades allowed us to.

Well, maybe some of us are luckier and actually ended up studying something they really enjoyed. I just studied a major that was a bit of a mystery at first. And because I'm not really into studies at all, I didn't bother to study more to join an exam that allowed myself to be transferred to a different major. I was through with exams.

So yeah, life as a student was mostly about studying..., and after I got into uni, about reports and assignments and going places with my classmates, having fun.

War was far, far away. Very far indeed.

I got a job after I graduated. I decided hey, I do like languages and working with them. And after a couple of years doing self-taught translating and interpreting...I decided that maybe there is something I wanted to study after all. I wanted to know how to do professional translating and interpreting.

I wanted to go to Europe.

And I did. I went to Newcastle upon Tyne, England. I entered a postgraduate program that was about translating and interpreting. I met a lot of friends there.And I've been through a lot during those two years.

But what has this to do with war?

Well, by the end of 2006 UK was well into it's 4th year in the Middle Eastern War that was waged by the Bush administration. So it was a lot closer in the UK than here in Taiwan. There was always something about it in the news. And as postgraduate students studying interpreting and translating, we were asked to read the news daily.

But the time I really realised what a horrible concept war is, was when a professor of mine, a very eccentric, passionate and ohmygodheknowssomanylanguages Yorkshire man, was giving a course about general translation studies. And he talked about Yugoslavia, Serbia and Bosnia, and he talked about the time he had there.

Usually talks about those old days always ended with a pause, with a musing 'Hmmmm...', and then he would move on to the next topic down the line.

One time though, he went a bit deeper into the topic. He talked about friends he had. He talked about the week the war actually broke out and the purging actually took place...he talked about his escape.

I don't think he meant to say that much. I think it was just a time when he started feeling powerless over the situation back then, again.The quiver in his demeanour, the trembling of his voice...the soft sob and deep sigh that came involuntarily, and the long, long silent that followed....

THAT, made me look at war in a very, very different way.

Yesterday they arrested Ratko Mladic for the war crimes he had committed. The only thing I could think of was that professor. I imagined him sitting in his research room with the news after paddling to work. I imagined the heavy air that was about to lift, even for just a bit. I thought about how he would remember his friends and maybe this time, he would have a smile on his face, even though some tears would probably fall.

And yeah, maybe next time when he talked about this subject, some sense of justice would be in it. Maybe justice will be delivered.

After all, a couple weeks back, in Germany, they did that, didn't they?