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Life & Times Transcript
9/25/07 Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- What's the key to preparing our children for the twenty-first century? The answer may lie in these teachers from China. Eric Olander>> You'll never be unemployed if you speak fluent Chinese. You'll get into better colleges probably. You separate yourself from the pack and that's really very important for every young person to understand. Val Zavala>> And then, he's America's premier documentary filmmaker. Ken Burns talks about his career, his techniques and his love of the photograph. It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val Zavala>> Think about this. One in five Chinese is studying English. They know that their future is brighter in this global economy if they can speak English and the same is true for Americans who can speak Chinese, but very few can. Well, now some southern California schools are stepping up to the plate and hoping to get students interested in Mandarin. When do they start? Sam Louie has our story. Sam Louie>> It's a country bustling with more than one billion people. Its strength is evident in its dominance of manufacturing, manpower and the marketplace. Eric Olander>> As China becomes a global power, it in many ways competes with the United States. So understanding how this big giant, the eight hundred pound panda, is kind of moving in the world will really help us navigate in the future. Sam Louie>> Part of that understanding is to learn the language. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> School districts across southern California are recognizing this. In the Palos Verdes Unified School District, more than fifteen hundred students are learning Mandarin. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> And within the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the country, the district has just hired four guest teachers directly from China to teach Mandarin to select elementary school students. Liza Scruggs>> What you're seeing is very historic because, for the first time, we're offering Mandarin language and culture at the elementary level. Sam Louie>> Liza Scruggs is the Assistant Superintendent of Instruction for LAUSD. She went to China last year and recognized the dire need to start bringing American students up to speed with Chinese language and culture. Liza Scruggs>> We went to various provinces across China and, everywhere we went, the students were speaking English. They were performing, they were doing geometry in English, they were rehearsing for plays, they were doing ping pong, but everything was in English. Sam Louie>> And with so many Chinese learning English, she decided that it was time to get as many American students to learn Chinese. Liza Scruggs>> Twenty-five percent of the world's population speaks Chinese or are in China and they're learning our language. So it's key not only for our economy, our politics, our social aspects, but in terms of deepening our understanding of language and culture for ourselves and the other people of the world. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> Jing Hu was one of four Mandarin teachers selected for LAUSD. As a professional teacher back home to both Chinese and foreign students, Jing has seen interest in learning Chinese grow exponentially. Jing Hu>> I asked my students, "Why you want to learn Chinese?" They told me they want to learn Chinese because, if they can grasp the Chinese, they can find a good job for a higher salary. I know maybe a lot of cultures want to have the trade with China, so they think it's necessary for them to learn Chinese. Sam Louie>> This is Jing's first experience living and working outside of China. She will teach Mandarin for at least two years with her salary paid for by the Chinese government. Lynn Haines Dodd>> It's a very important initiative for the College Board. Definitely having the mindset of bringing not only language, but culture to students not only here in the Los Angeles Unified School District, but throughout the states. Sam Louie>> Lynn Haines Dodd is with the College Board. The College Board is in charge of the SAT and other tests which govern college admissions. Lynn Haines Dodd>> We feel that having students become multi-lingual is the way to go in terms of being able to understand the global economy, being able to communicate, the economic impact that it has not only on them growing up, but on the societies in which they are residing. Sam Louie>> Already the discrepancy is huge between the number of Chinese learning English which compared to Americans learning Chinese. Liza Scruggs>> Two hundred million Chinese children are learning English. Fewer than fifty thousand American children are learning Mandarin. We can look at our own data in our school district and, from our seven schools last year, three hundred five students completed either first, second, third year or the Chinese AP program. Sam Louie>> No one knows this better than Eric Olander, the Vice President of News and Production at KSCI 18. Eric Olander>> Channel 18 is their link to the old world, but as well as the new world. We're the bridge that connects people to understanding how things are done in America. Sam Louie>> Like the television station, Eric also acts as a bridge between east and west. [Film Clip] Sam Louie>> As an American fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he can go back and forth between both cultures with incredible ease. Eric credits his success in broadcast journalism to learning Mandarin while in high school. Eric Olander>> After high school, I moved to Taiwan to continue studying Chinese and I got an internship at an American radio station there, an English language radio station, and kind of stumbled into the news department as an intern and just fell in love with it. Sam Louie>> Eric eventually worked for CNN, the BBC, and the Associated Press while in China. Eric Olander>> You'll never be unemployed if you speak fluent Chinese. You'll get into better colleges probably. You separate yourself from the pack and that's really important for every young person to understand. Sam Louie>> There are two major Chinese languages, Mandarin and Cantonese. In the United States, Mandarin is now growing in dominance. That's because immigration reform in the 1960s brought a new wave of Chinese to America. Ronald Lew>> The flood of immigration from those people from the mainland China made Mandarin the language certainly of choice here. Sam Louie>> Ronald Lew is a United States District Court Judge whose parents immigrated to the United States during the 1920s. Ronald Lew>> I suppose it's a real great situation that Mandarin now is the language for China because you have universalized the language itself so that you can have one Chinese language spoken. It's a common language throughout China. Sam Louie>> Although English is expected to remain the language of choice for commerce and trade, with one-sixth of the world's population in China, Mandarin Chinese could follow as a close second. Do you think Mandarin will ever be the number two language? Jing Hu>> I think so, I think so. Number two. Sam Louie>> I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> So what do you think of the effort to get more American students speaking Mandarin? You can post your opinion on our blog. Just go to kcet.org/lifeandtimes/blog. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> All this week, American veterans have been reliving World War II through the work of Ken Burns. Now despite the controversy among Latinos, Ken Burns is still America's premier documentary filmmaker. But how did he get into it and what first captured his imagination? I had a chance to sit down with Ken Burns and talk with him about the art of filmmaking. You didn't go to film school. You're in a very film school kind of town, as you can imagine, and there are many people who would die to do what you've achieved and have gone to school to learn it and yet you didn't ever. Did you plan on being a filmmaker when you were young? Ken Burns>> I've wanted to be a filmmaker from -- Val Zavala>> -- really? What was the first sign that you thought you could? Ken Burns>> Well, I remember that my dad had a fairly strict curfew, but he'd let me stay up late at night and watch an old movie or he'd take me to the Cinema Guild in Ann Arbor, Michigan and I'd see a foreign film. It's the first time I ever saw my dad cry. You realized then that there's something pretty special here. So from fairly early on, I wanted to be a filmmaker. Actually, I wanted to be a dramatic -- Val Zavala>> -- you wanted to make people cry, huh? (laughter) Ken Burns>> A dramatic filmmaker like a John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock. I went to Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, an undergraduate. All of the teachers there, the film and photography teachers, were mostly social documentary still photographers. They reminded me quite correctly that there's much more drama in what is and what was and, in anything, the human imagination -- this town -- can think of. So I suddenly had all of my molecules rearranged and decided to devote myself to documentary and suddenly realized that I had this latent and completely untrained interest in American history. Talk about no film training, but we practiced making movies in the field. I came out of college and just started my own film company and it's thirty-one years later and we're still working and I still feel like I have the best job in the country. It educates all of my parts. It gives me a chance for me to understand almost all the aspects of our complicated and, incredibly to me, inspiring history. Val Zavala>> Now clearly you've made your mark on filmmaking and one of the signs of that is this quote from a web log. It's advice to editors that says, "You can't escape the Ken Burns Effect. There's simply no way to disable the Ken Burns Effect," it says. "Apple -- meaning Apple Computers who makes this system -- must think it's so cool that they want to ram it down your throats." (laughter). Ken Burns>> Well, Steve Jobs called me up and asked me if they could put in this thing that they'd been working on for years which they had as a working title of the Ken Burns Effect in iPhoto. People use it all over and apparently it's very, very successful. It's funny. What we're saying was that a still photograph is the DNA of our visual communication. Most people want something to move and that's very important that it does. But I think things also move emotionally, that it's much better to be moved than to necessarily move. So we've always felt, even though we use particularly in this film, "The War", lots of newsreels, we still think the still photograph is the anchor and we believe to get inside of it. So like that old feature filmmaker that I wanted to be, I treat a still photograph as if it's a wide shot with a medium, a close-up, an extreme close-up, a pan, a tilt, a zoom, all of that stuff. I started moving it within. Most other documentaries before we came along sort of held their photographs at arm's length like a slideshow, happy when it was, phew, over with. But I went inside. I wanted to live inside. I wanted to not only look at it, but I wanted to hear it. Where those troops are tramping. Where the cannons are firing. Where the glass is tinkling in the bar of the jazz club. Where the bat cracks. Where you hear the roar of the crowd. I wanted to hear the photographs. I think that this Ken Burns Effect is really just one manifestation of understanding that it is possible in our hurly-burly kind of MTV quick-cutting generation to find meaning within something. As much as we want it quick and we want it fast and we want it changing, all real meaning in this world, the things that you and I value most in our lives, the relationships and the work we've done, have benefited from our attention. Sometimes that means just sitting there and looking at something for maybe just a second more. Val Zavala>> What's the most challenging part of the production process for you? Ken Burns>> I think the challenge for me is the challenge that everyone faces and it extends to all aspects of life, which is to try to remain authentic, to be true to one's self and to one's talents, to say what you have to say. For us, it's going out and trying to approach a subject that we've chosen without kind of a preconception or learning how to throw off those preconceptions, to allow a story to tell itself. That's a very complicated and difficult thing to do. We so often impose our story on things. We're so certain of our judgments, particularly in our media culture now, that sometimes you just want to get out of the way of a good story and figure out ways that it tells itself. Then I think a huge and complicated aspect of what we do is sort of spreading the word about it. We live in an era with five hundred channels and you have to be part evangelist to sort of praise the gospel of what you've just done and try to get people to pay attention. So there are challenges at every moment of a production. But I think in the end, it's all being true to one's self and being authentic and we recognize that in somebody else. We spot we phony a mile away. We see the junk on television. It may just attract us for a little bit like flies to honey, but in the end, we're sustained by stuff that has some larger, nutritional value and we hope that we've been able to do that. Val Zavala>> Well, Ken Burns, thank you very much for your work. Ken Burns>> Oh, it's my pleasure. Val Zavala>> And thank you for spreading the gospel. Ken Burns>> Thank you. Hena Cuevas>> And now for a Life and Times update. Two years ago, we brought you the story of how the IRS was investigating All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. The agency claimed that one of the church's anti-war sermons violated its tax-exempt status. The sermon was delivered in October 2004 just two days before the presidential election. It was given by retired Reverend George Regas and was called "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush". Reverend George Regas>> I've certainly engaged the president before. I've engaged the war issues before. But I've never had this kind of clear confrontation with the IRS. Hena Cuevas>> However, it still considered the sermon illegal even though no reasons were given. All Saints is now demanding a clarification as well as a correction and apology from the IRS. According to the church, the entire process has cost the congregation about two hundred thousand dollars. And last October, we also brought you the story of LAPD officer, Kristina Ripatti. In June 2006 while on patrol, she was shot and was paralyzed from the chest down. Kristina Ripatti>> I just remember the smell of the gunpowder was so strong. It was like the gun was just inches from my face. Hena Cuevas>> Her husband, Tim Pearce, also a cop, was one of the first to arrive at the scene. Tim Pearce>> I jumped over to the other side of the porch and got down next to her. I figured the only thing I could do is tell her I love her and hopefully she hears that I'm here. Hena Cuevas>> In the months since, Ripatti has continued with her intense workout routine to strengthen her upper body. They sold their two-story house and moved into a one-level built for them by the ABC program, "Extreme Makeover Home Edition". This past July, Ripatti retired from the LAPD with a full medical pension, but the biggest change of all is that she's expecting her second child. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Val Zavala>> He's easily one of Los Angeles's most eccentric and creative characters. He's the builder of the Watts Towers, Simon Rodia, and this weekend is the thirty-first Simon Rodia Watts Towers Jazz Festival. Probably few people know more about Rodia than the man who spent years making a documentary about him, Ed Landler. The documentary, "I Build The Tower", reveals the life and work of one of Los Angeles's most fascinating residents, Simon Rodia, a poor immigrant from Italy who came to America, worked in construction, got married, became an alcoholic, abused his wife, got divorced, disappeared, then finally emerged on a small plot of land in Watts and proceeded to build these extraordinary structures, what is now a national landmark, the Watts Towers. Filmmaker, Ed Landler, worked with Rodia's great-nephew, Brad Byer, who gave him access to rare archival footage and audio recordings of his Uncle Sam, as he was called, who was always expounding on the state of the world. Simon Rodia>> "Good, good, good; now bad, bad, bad." Brad Byer>> My first memories were family reunions at my aunt's house and the family was arguing about Simon Rodia himself, arguing about Uncle Sam, whether he was a genius or a bum because the controversy with the Towers swirled around and sometimes raged constantly in our big Italian family. Simon Rodia>> "We got three classes of people all over the world, millionaire class, medium class and the poor class." Brad Byer>> He would hold court and most of the family thought he was crazy because he would just go on and on and on. Simon Rodia>> "You got to do what the boss wants. Wrong or no wrong, do what I tell you." Ed Landler>> Here was an old world peasant coming to an America that was becoming industrial and technological and his skills helped create that world. He was a builder. He worked in construction. Simon Rodia>> "Galileo, Galileo. The Pope was boss then. He built the tower. Tower lean over. Tower of Pisa. My God, I say I'm going to make a tower different than Galileo." Ed Landler>> Coming to America, oh, go to America, oh, the great country. And what did he find in America? He got kicked around a lot. I mean, he was an immigrant with a thick accent and was the brunt of so many of the prejudices that are still part of our country and this is also part of the story. Brad Byer>> He developed a drinking habit and, by the time he settled with his wife and children in the San Francisco Bay area, he was a big drinker. In his own words, he was a falling down drunk and I believe that this caused the breakup of his family. Probably in 1911 or 1912, I think his wife had enough of it and she divorced him. The kids got taken into a charities home and Sam lit out. Val Zavala>> Then he surfaced about seven years later, the owner of a parcel of land on East 107th Street in Watts, and he was sober. Brad Byer>> He had probably suffered enough and gone through enough pain because of it. He lost everything and he just had enough. As a matter of fact, he says that that's the reason he started the Towers because he threw down the bottle and the glass broke and that was his root inspiration to build the Towers and decorate them with mosaic. Simon Rodia>> "I build a tower the people like. Everybody come. I work in the night, midnight, sleep five hours a night. Work two hours in the morning. Sunday, Christmas Day." Val Zavala>> Rodia worked on the Towers for about twenty years and then inexplicably left the property in 1954. He headed north to join relatives. Five years later, the city of Los Angeles deemed the Towers a safety hazard and wanted to demolish them. That set off a heated controversy and the famous Watts Towers stress test. If they could withstand the test, the Towers could stay. Narrator>> "Where we would simulate the force on the side of one of the Towers that the wind would cause or the earthquake would cause and, if the Towers were not pulled down, the city would let the Towers stand." Brad Byer>> Half of our family members felt that they should be pulled over (laughter) and the other half felt the opposite way and I remember the morning of the stress test, my mother was very nervous because she felt he was a great artist and a genius and she was on pins and needles, very anxious the whole day. Then she got a call I believe around two or three in the afternoon that they had stood and they had passed and I remember her being very happy about that. Val Zavala>> The success of the stress test on the Towers made Simon Rodia famous. Brad Byer>> He didn't want to be famous. He didn't want to put his achievement in those sort of terms and I think that's what I remember the most. Ed Landler>> "That we got from archive photos." Val Zavala>> It took twenty-two years to make the documentary. That's longer than it took Rodia to build the Towers. Ed Landler>> Part of it was, for years, there was scaffolding all over the Towers for the city's conservation efforts and we had to work around that. In the end, you know, some of the things we found that are in this film which are most fascinating only turned up, some footage we found of Rodia at the Towers from the early 1950s. Val Zavala>> Where he's crawling up the Towers? Ed Landler>> Where he is climbing up the Towers, where he's jumping around. We have the black and white footage of him at the Towers. That only came to our attention in the last year and a half before we finished out of nowhere. When I first saw that footage, I said, "Oh, my gosh. No wonder it took so long. We were waiting for this to show up." Simon Rodia>> "Some people they say what does he do. Some other people thinking I was crazy. And some people say that he's going to do something." Val Zavala>> Simon Rodia left the Towers to a neighbor who later sold the land and the Towers for a thousand dollars. But then in 1985, the Towers were made a national historic landmark and a state park. Simon Rodia died in 1965. He was eighty-six. So is it more concurrent now among the family that, yes, he was eccentric, but a genius? Brad Byer>> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. Val Zavala>> There's no more debates now? Brad Byer>> No, no. They're all swung to the great master artist and architect and engineer. Simon Rodia>> "You got to do something they never got in the world." [Film Clip] Val Zavala>> Now this Saturday is the annual Watts Drum Festival followed on Sunday by the Simon Rodia Jazz Festival. It's all free. You can get more details at trywatts.com. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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