A Tale of Two Compadres: Teaching International Trade and Development Across Cultures

The world is flat. Globalization and technology have opened pathways into other countries and cultures, and those of us who teach law in this environment must be able to take advantage of those openings. A few years ago, I was asked to teach International Trade and Development Law in Guatemala. Although I had taught the course numerous times at my home institution in California, designing and implementing the course for a Guatemalan audience would require some re-framing. International trade law is, by definition, consistent across borders thus the core legal concepts do not change whether I am teaching in Guatemala or California. But to be effective, a trade course taught in Guatemala would have to take that country's unique social, economic and cultural history into consideration. I am a storyteller, thus I began my inquiry in Guatemala by exploring its rich storytelling tradition. Almost immediately, I came across a teaching story that provided a frame for my musings. In A Tale of Two Compadres, a poor man asks his rich neighbor to teach him how to become economically successful. But the rich compadre was the jealous and envious sort, so he advised the poor man to kill his bull and sell its “package” abroad. Thinking this was real advice, the poor man obeyed. Through a strange and unexpected twist of fate, the poor compadre becomes a rich man. And so the rich compadre goes to his formerly poor compatriot seeking his advice on how to become wealthy. The (formerly) poor man offers up the same advice the rich compadre had once given him. But the rich man was not so lucky. He proved to be an unworthy teacher, and thus he was destined to live out the rest of his days in poverty.In designing my course for a Guatemalan audience, I sought to be a worthy teacher. This essay explores the lessons I learned teaching the course as part of a unique program designed by Pacific McGeorge Law School (my home institution). While some of those lessons are particular to that experience and do not easily translate (pun intended!), much of what my bilingual and bicultural students taught me has a great deal to tell us about how to effectively teach trade concepts to students across cultures and around the world.