Top News
Between 13 September and 20 October 2003 EARTH sent out 875 personalized letters of invitation to funders, social critics, academicians, university department heads, secondary school teachers, and school principals in Hong Kong, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan. These people reflected the needs of the HKLNA-Project, in so far as they included linguists, educationalists, a large variety of social scientists, and area specialists. The purpose of these letters was to identify and muster support for the HKLNA-Project. Under the assumption that Hong Kongers would have a greater interest in the project than non-Hong Kongers two separate versions of the letter were sent each with a different email cover letter. The faculty members of five of the seven Hong Kong educational institutions, who were sent invitations but did not reply, received additional brief, simple-text, follow-up, email questionnaires. This was done in order to determine why they had not responded. Approximately 60% of all those invited were included in this second mailing. Follow-up questionnaires were also sent to about a quarter of the non-Hong Kongers who were invited. Please see under Community Relations below for the results and relevant discussion.
Government Relations
The Hong Kong Inland Revenue Department has agreed to consider a second request for a waiver of EARTH's business fee and levy. EARTH's owner/manager has still not heard from the Hong Kong Immigration Department whether his work visa will be renewed for a second year. The initial request was filed on 3 September 2003.
Community Relations
- Reaching Out Across the World-wideWeb - Though a continuation of work begun in September, a significant number of new invitees were added to the list (new window) of those already contacted by EARTH in an effort to generate support for the HKLNA-Project. The two letters of invitation mentioned above and their corresponding cover letters were slightly modified, as an ever greater number of letters were sent and few responses were obtained. These letters are assembled in pdf documents with direct links to the email addresses of those invited. Simply click on the highlighted pdf document under the category of institution(s) of interest to you, download the file, and open to the list and corresponding letters. Assembled documents with no date indicated beside them are more recent. Only those whose assembled documents are dated received follow-up letters.
- Top News (continued) - As observed in last month's newsletter (new window) the results from this extended campaign were likely to be disappointing. A brief look at the response rates for each institution and/or country provides addtional evidence that the HKLNA-Project is up against a difficult barrier. As myths are deeply embedded into the value paradigms of all societies this should be of little surprise to many. This is especially true for this initiative, because some of the chief beneficiares from East Asia's universal English language requirement constituted the vast majority of those to whom EARTH sent out its invitations -- namely, university professors on Hong Kong government UGC (new window) payrolls and non-Hong Kong academicians, social critics, and others, who depend on the English language for their regional expertise, because they cannot speak the language of those whom they study and/or about whom they write.
Although the response rates were better for those institutions that received the follow-up questionnaire, of the 21 people, who provided non-machine generated responses, most stated that they could not support the project. Reasons provided were usually of the non-informative, polite type, such as "overcomitted" or "insufficient expertise". Several indicated that they had never received a copy of the invitation and requested that it be resent. Several others indicated that they received no attachment, but a quick check of the outgoing mail indicated that they had been sent one. A few commented that the project was worthwhile, but could not commit themselves. One respondent sent two papers that largely supports the project. No one offered to write a letter of endorsement. No serious discussion with regard to possible funding was forthcoming. Two requested that they receive no more email about the project.
In the end Hong Kongers provided a somewhat better response than their overseas counterparts, but they also received more than twice as many follow-up questionnaires. No support and only one response was received from Hong Kong's principal institution for the training of Hong Kong's primary and secondary school educators. A large increase in the amount of unsolicited email initiated by anonymous users resulted; some of it was actually helpful. Just under 5% of all responses (not indicated in the table) were automated replies indicating that people were out of the office or no longer available at the address provided. With an overall non-machine response rate of 1.8% one can only conjecture what the remaining 93.2% of those, who neither rejected nor returned EARTH's invitations, were and probably are still thinking.
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Strategy Update
The disappointing results from EARTH's most recent email campaign bode poorly for EARTH's future. As the HKLNA-Project does not depend on EARTH for its existence, it will likely survive what appears to be an ever pending financial crisis.
Acknowledgments
This month special thanks are given to Professor Kooenraad Kuiper, Department of Linguistics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand for the two papers he sent to EARTH. Not only does his research reach many of the same conclusions that EARTH has reached, but his list of references suggest that EARTH's discovery has not been a singular regional event. In short there are more people out there who might just be interested in joining the HKLNA-Project after all. In this regard the future of the project remains bright.
Closing Remarks
If you would like to provide support to the HKLNA-Project but are unable to donate to the HKLNA-Project Fund, then at least hire EARTH to provide you with the best in telecommuted translation. Surely many ProZ.com translators would also be greatful. See EARTH's translation services' promotion material.Finally before submitting your request to be removed from the HKLNA-Project's mailing list, please consider obtaining a copy of the play Galileo (Leben des Galilei) (new windows). If you do not wish or are unable to purchase a copy, a play of this caliber can probably be found in a major university or public library in your mother tongue. Certainly the play reflects in many ways the upward struggle that EARTH and the HKLNA-Project have faced here in Hong Kong.
Sincerely,
R. A. Stegemann
hsmr@pacific.net.hk