September 2012 – Experiment: In Progress

Koudouryoku (行動力)

There is a word in Japanese called koudouryoku. I’ve been wracking my brain for a long time trying to find a suitable translation into Chinese or English. Unfortunately, unsuccessful. The approximate meaning is “the ability to get things done.” (Which, by the way, is very much in the spirit of the organization I’m currently working with.)

Koudouryoku, as far as I can tell, is quite prized in Japanese culture. It’s about how much energy and perseverance you have to make things happen; to make ideas materialize. In the popular, lets-do-this-for-fun personality tests, there’s usually a section on how high your koudouryoku is, along with how emotional you are or how creative you are. Even when they analyse the personality of pop stars on TV shows, this category would come up.

I think Tanzania would benefit from an injection of koudouryoku.

All these failed NGO projects, company projects, government projects. Sometimes I wonder if it really is the problem of design or is it the problem of implementation. Of course, most of the time it is both, but if you had more koudouryoku, the goal can be reached, regardless of the obstacles. How does a society get more koudouryoku? How does an individual get more koudouryoku?

Furrowed brows, tightened lips, squinted eyes. A sneer flashed across the adult’s face.

The child whipped back his head, innocently staring at the adult with eyebrows raised, brown eyes wide, mouth ajar.

The daladala conductor glared at the waist-high student in a primary school uniform with a look of pure hatred. He spat at the child. Then again. The child continued walking, clearly perplexed, turning his head to look back a few more times.

As far as I could tell, the conductor didn’t know the child. As far as I could tell, the child committed no offense, except walking on the sidewalk. Except for being a different skin colour. Except for looking ethnically South Asian.

I’ve seen racism. I’ve felt racism. I’ve probably been racist, unknowingly, unwillingly. But seeing it so direct, so raw. Targeting a random child, in my neighbourhood. It was a sobering morning experience on the way to work.

Utopia might never come. Sometimes it seems like the bare minimum of basic human decency won’t ever come either.

P.S. I can’t guarantee that if I were the daladala conductor, I wouldn’t feel enough resentment about current economic inequalities to do the same thing. Your child is heading to a private school, in a crisp uniform, tummy full, limitless opportunities waiting ahead in life. My child? Probably going to a public school where teachers are absent 80% of the time, where she can’t pass a grade 2 test in grade 6. Just like millions of other children, struggling to scrap together a living in ten years.