“Okay, so here I am! Tell me all about your book idea.”
“To be honest, I don’t really know what I want to write about anymore… my ideas keep proliferating, to the point where I am overwhelmed by options, intimidated by perceived reactions to my own outlandishness, and afraid that, for all my supposed genius, I’ll never be good enough to attract the reader I want the most.”
“You’re thinking too much – just start writing!”
“Start writing… as always, that’s a brilliant idea, however I’m getting sick of hearing people tell me not to “think too much.” I like myself the way I am.”
“Alright, alright: I’m not trying to change you. That has always been pointless. I apologise. I do however see great potential in you, and I want to help you find your way.”
“If you want to help me, help me change the world.”
“Maybe you can change the world... through your stories.”
“To change the world… I used to pity the people who ever fell out of love with the notion of changing the world. But now I don’t know if I can even light a match to that adolescent fervor. The best I can hope for now, is to make minor alterations to the overarching global storyline.”
“You never know, what if you get incredibly famous?”
“Highly unlikely as I’m a postmodernist. The vast droves of people that doesn’t elude through ignorance, it alienates through antipathy.”
“And yet, many people thoroughly enjoy your work. They think it’s ground-breaking, revolutionary… they might call it avant-garde, or unconventional. ‘Postmodern’ is just one possible label, but as you yourself would say, labels aren’t important. It’s the story you weave together from those disparate influences, in the end.”
“I see your point. Well, luckily for my would-be publishers, I have given up on marketing my work as postmodern… just gotta keep thinking 'outside the box', I guess.”
“Well? I’ve got thirty minutes. I know you’ve been sitting around basking in your own sense of futility, and I’m here to get you away from all that: I want you to tell me a story. Any story, my dear disgruntled artiste. It could be underdeveloped or full of blemishes – but I want to hear it.´
“Guess there’s no turning back now…”
*
It’s all very well to make a list about your ideal guy – until the girl who would be your better half for the next few years walks into your life and it’s suddenly made clear just how much your notions of an ideal were lacking.
It wasn’t her gender that made me rearrange my gaze – it was that her personality was so different from anything I could have dreamed up myself.
In order to reach the desired seat, in the middle of the lecture room, Lea had to give non-verbal messages to the other students, which she did with as little eye contact as possible. It was when she sat down that her eyes became alive – it was as if her eyes were dancing in response to the lecturer’s presentation, going all over the place, and then back to the podium, made all the more attention-grabbing for the calm and steady demeanor of our classmates. This Asian girl was one a different plane, in another world. I noticed that something about her made me feel slightly uncomfortable, like she was hitting notes in my psyche I hadn’t accustomed to resonating with. I focused instead on what of her playful deconstruction of the lecture I could find across her face, letting her games inspire my own. I, too, was scarcely in need of inspiration – I hoped and feared I had found a friend.
When I finally talked to her it was as if she could see parts of me I’d been struggling to consciously understand for years. And yet she was surprisingly blind to the obvious.
Our conversations always operated on multiple levels – that which was subconscious shifted into consciousness, and vice versa; we tied up loose ends and flew into new topics with but a single phrase; we were always running off on tangents, yet the underlying themes of our connection stayed much the same. We were much like any other couple, off in our own little world. Yet there was one variation on the typical Aussie couple that nobody would let us forget.
*
“So you’re Jewish and she’s Chinese? Interesting.”
“If you think about it, it will be to be old-fashioned a hundred years from now when we’re all mixed race and all in inter-ethnic relationships.”
“Could be, but I’ve always been one for being in the moment. And at the moment, I don’t envy you: cross-cultural relationships are just not easy.”
*
What people didn’t understand was that there is no universal, one-size-fits-all Jewish or Chinese culture. Despite the mainland Chinese fervor for assuming all Chinese citizens shared common values and an essential Chinese-ness, and the Jewish superiority belief over the inferiority belief I had been gotten to know so well at home, I was firmly of the belief that every person had a culture of their own.
“We are all a community of selves,” Lea once mused as she stroked my hair. “I don’t know where the next part of me to establish itself will begin or end.”
Besides, there are points of commonality between any two cultures. For instance, Chinese and Jews, both drive their offspring to aspire to become well-off in life, determined to triumph in their new circumstances, despite discrimination and the fight to establish a space of belonging in a new culture.
Both Lea and I had decided we didn’t want to belong to any traditions which forced us to deprioritize our dreams. Thankfully my parents had long since abandoned their hopes of me pursuing a psychology degree, and hers had eventually come to accept that her communication skills wouldn’t flourish the way she wanted them to if she had become a law student. I, the poet, and she, the storyteller, were no worse or better off as a couple for our ethnic differences – it was our personalities which demanded the other’s attention; which got in the way of ever writing the other off as too foreign, and which inspired me to challenge myself in ways I couldn’t have previously imagined.
*
“So after all the indecision over names, you came up with Lea. Were you thinking Star Wars?”
“Actually, I was thinking that my character really loved the surname ‘Lee’, and turned it into a first name by adding an –a at the end, as per the Western tradition.”
“Ah. What’s her last name?”
“Right now? Couldn't tell you. You'll have to wait till inspiration strikes.”
"Okay... So, well, then, keep going..."
*
“To be honest, I don’t really know what I want to write about anymore… my ideas keep proliferating, to the point where I am overwhelmed by options, intimidated by perceived reactions to my own outlandishness, and afraid that, for all my supposed genius, I’ll never be good enough to attract the reader I want the most.”
“You’re thinking too much – just start writing!”
“Start writing… as always, that’s a brilliant idea, however I’m getting sick of hearing people tell me not to “think too much.” I like myself the way I am.”
“Alright, alright: I’m not trying to change you. That has always been pointless. I apologise. I do however see great potential in you, and I want to help you find your way.”
“If you want to help me, help me change the world.”
“Maybe you can change the world... through your stories.”
“To change the world… I used to pity the people who ever fell out of love with the notion of changing the world. But now I don’t know if I can even light a match to that adolescent fervor. The best I can hope for now, is to make minor alterations to the overarching global storyline.”
“You never know, what if you get incredibly famous?”
“Highly unlikely as I’m a postmodernist. The vast droves of people that doesn’t elude through ignorance, it alienates through antipathy.”
“And yet, many people thoroughly enjoy your work. They think it’s ground-breaking, revolutionary… they might call it avant-garde, or unconventional. ‘Postmodern’ is just one possible label, but as you yourself would say, labels aren’t important. It’s the story you weave together from those disparate influences, in the end.”
“I see your point. Well, luckily for my would-be publishers, I have given up on marketing my work as postmodern… just gotta keep thinking 'outside the box', I guess.”
“Well? I’ve got thirty minutes. I know you’ve been sitting around basking in your own sense of futility, and I’m here to get you away from all that: I want you to tell me a story. Any story, my dear disgruntled artiste. It could be underdeveloped or full of blemishes – but I want to hear it.´
“Guess there’s no turning back now…”
*
It’s all very well to make a list about your ideal guy – until the girl who would be your better half for the next few years walks into your life and it’s suddenly made clear just how much your notions of an ideal were lacking.
It wasn’t her gender that made me rearrange my gaze – it was that her personality was so different from anything I could have dreamed up myself.
In order to reach the desired seat, in the middle of the lecture room, Lea had to give non-verbal messages to the other students, which she did with as little eye contact as possible. It was when she sat down that her eyes became alive – it was as if her eyes were dancing in response to the lecturer’s presentation, going all over the place, and then back to the podium, made all the more attention-grabbing for the calm and steady demeanor of our classmates. This Asian girl was one a different plane, in another world. I noticed that something about her made me feel slightly uncomfortable, like she was hitting notes in my psyche I hadn’t accustomed to resonating with. I focused instead on what of her playful deconstruction of the lecture I could find across her face, letting her games inspire my own. I, too, was scarcely in need of inspiration – I hoped and feared I had found a friend.
When I finally talked to her it was as if she could see parts of me I’d been struggling to consciously understand for years. And yet she was surprisingly blind to the obvious.
Our conversations always operated on multiple levels – that which was subconscious shifted into consciousness, and vice versa; we tied up loose ends and flew into new topics with but a single phrase; we were always running off on tangents, yet the underlying themes of our connection stayed much the same. We were much like any other couple, off in our own little world. Yet there was one variation on the typical Aussie couple that nobody would let us forget.
*
“So you’re Jewish and she’s Chinese? Interesting.”
“If you think about it, it will be to be old-fashioned a hundred years from now when we’re all mixed race and all in inter-ethnic relationships.”
“Could be, but I’ve always been one for being in the moment. And at the moment, I don’t envy you: cross-cultural relationships are just not easy.”
*
What people didn’t understand was that there is no universal, one-size-fits-all Jewish or Chinese culture. Despite the mainland Chinese fervor for assuming all Chinese citizens shared common values and an essential Chinese-ness, and the Jewish superiority belief over the inferiority belief I had been gotten to know so well at home, I was firmly of the belief that every person had a culture of their own.
“We are all a community of selves,” Lea once mused as she stroked my hair. “I don’t know where the next part of me to establish itself will begin or end.”
Besides, there are points of commonality between any two cultures. For instance, Chinese and Jews, both drive their offspring to aspire to become well-off in life, determined to triumph in their new circumstances, despite discrimination and the fight to establish a space of belonging in a new culture.
Both Lea and I had decided we didn’t want to belong to any traditions which forced us to deprioritize our dreams. Thankfully my parents had long since abandoned their hopes of me pursuing a psychology degree, and hers had eventually come to accept that her communication skills wouldn’t flourish the way she wanted them to if she had become a law student. I, the poet, and she, the storyteller, were no worse or better off as a couple for our ethnic differences – it was our personalities which demanded the other’s attention; which got in the way of ever writing the other off as too foreign, and which inspired me to challenge myself in ways I couldn’t have previously imagined.
*
“So after all the indecision over names, you came up with Lea. Were you thinking Star Wars?”
“Actually, I was thinking that my character really loved the surname ‘Lee’, and turned it into a first name by adding an –a at the end, as per the Western tradition.”
“Ah. What’s her last name?”
“Right now? Couldn't tell you. You'll have to wait till inspiration strikes.”
"Okay... So, well, then, keep going..."
*
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