They glanced my way with mild curiosity under the dim lights of the Vietnamese restaurant, and I tried to meet their gaze with an inner animation I was all too aware I didn't feel. I couldn't wait for this tedious dinner party to be over. In a typical display of extravagance, Brad had ordered every single dish on the menu, and now a small portion of the Stanford Drama department was assembled around me, happily munching on the various delicacies. Mr L and his wife sat directly opposite me, making polite but affected chit-chat in an air that let me know I was welcome to join in anytime. Mr L. luxuriated in the laid-back arrogance indicative of his Northern Californian "Golden Boy" upbringing. His wife, who came from a lower class, had a blonde bob and a rather ordinary style of speaking, the details of the facial features fading from my memory.
Upon being informed by the person who had brought us all there that one of my passions was actually the continent of Asia, the two stared at me uncomprehendingly.
"What do you like about it?" Mrs L decided to play.
Unable to gather up the enthusiasm for complex metaphors or comparisons this time, I began to rattle off key words: The people, the weather, the culture, the social dynamic, the food... The incredulity in their eyes increased with every addition.
"We went to the Phillipines on holiday, and we didn't like it," Mrs L channeled distaste at the thought of the distant nation quite clearly.
I think about where she might have been coming from. I have heard that Philippinos, like the rest of South-East Asians, were quite friendly. Mr & Mrs L were in possession of wealth. The host (my victim and oppressor) had told me that their philosophy of travel was to go "north in the summer and south in the winter," indicating that they travelled regularly and often. As first time visitors to Asia they would have gone to luxury hotels and spent their money on top end level goods and services - the sort of things that tend to isolate you from the local culture of the everyday person of a new location. They wouldn't have gotten to know any of the lean figures with world-weary gazes as individuals, learned about the stubborn will to succeed that they have cultivated from birth, learned that they are still soulful, kind, friendly and generous even though they live on a fraction of how much Americans earn back home. They would have seen statistics, as superficial an impression of Philippine life as can only be gleaned from the plush comforts of beach side resorts.
I feel sorry for these people who hadn't had the experience of appreciating the warmth and magnetism of the Asian culture that has so informed my adolescence and early adulthood. What could I say? I merely gave an absent-minded smile and waited for someone to change the subject.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Making the most of each place
Over the last eight years I have found myself exploring diverse aspects of four continents. I've been from Adelaide (2003) to Nimbin (2009) in Australia (read: a very slow, quiet major city to a small village thriving off tourism based on its creative residents who produce high qualities of innovative artistic products and host a festival dedicated to marijuana each year), from Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, Vietnam to Kamakura, Japan (a motorcycle-congested, unbelievably polluted, Communist commercial capital to a beautiful small town known for its Zen garden and religious statues, beautiful nature and peaceful demeanour by the sea), from Los Angeles, California to Buffalo, New York (read: one of the most south-westerly points on the West Coast to one of the most north-easterly ones just off the East Coast), and Santorini to Copenhagen (will fill in the comparison later).
These last eight months, especially, have catapulted me back and forth between Asia, Europe and Australia in ways which - yes - both irritate and soothe. It's no secret that I don't like living in Sydney, but I do appreciate the hard copies of books I have here, my laptop, and my CD collection. Even more than that, a place I don't have to move out of in less than two weeks, not because I enjoy the recurring sameness of this apartment but because it can be irritating to pack up and leave just as you're starting to figure out the hidden potential for comfort a room can provide, and the way you manage your pleasure levels by going in and out of it.
In writing the last paragraph I realised that I should do what Rolf Potts is doing and get Kindle, so I can download books to my smartphone (I was planning to get rid of mine), get rid of my laptop and manage everything through my phone (maybe with an attachable keyboard, as Rolf has - although he has a iPhone, whereas my Blackberry makes it easier to type on the device itself (or does it?), and store all the music I have on my computer on another kind of portable device, like an iPod or smartphone.
The fact that I'm afraid of losing these, and, in so doing, my livelihood, makes me wonder if I've thought this whole thing through... but how else am I going to spend my entire life (or as much of it as possible) on the road?
At any rate, I'm in Sydney for the next one and a half months (maybe even two or three, goddamn it), and I want to take advantage of it by savouring my soft, soft bed, a fridge stocked full of food (is Thailand starting to spoil me for any location that doesn't thrive on street food?), the buzz of the most innovative suburbs (hello Darlinghurst, Newtown, Surry Hills and Paddington), the well-meaning but distracted and somewhat soulless company of my parents, which nevertheless tells me I am cared about (will they ever evolve to higher emotional IQ?), and the general friendliness of the populace.
Making the most of Sydney is a lot easier when you know you're not rooted to it. When you know you have the power to leave reasonably soon after you've landed.
And now, dear reader, I'm heading to Oxford St to celebrate the first day of Spring! Hope you're feeling similarly optimistic.
These last eight months, especially, have catapulted me back and forth between Asia, Europe and Australia in ways which - yes - both irritate and soothe. It's no secret that I don't like living in Sydney, but I do appreciate the hard copies of books I have here, my laptop, and my CD collection. Even more than that, a place I don't have to move out of in less than two weeks, not because I enjoy the recurring sameness of this apartment but because it can be irritating to pack up and leave just as you're starting to figure out the hidden potential for comfort a room can provide, and the way you manage your pleasure levels by going in and out of it.
In writing the last paragraph I realised that I should do what Rolf Potts is doing and get Kindle, so I can download books to my smartphone (I was planning to get rid of mine), get rid of my laptop and manage everything through my phone (maybe with an attachable keyboard, as Rolf has - although he has a iPhone, whereas my Blackberry makes it easier to type on the device itself (or does it?), and store all the music I have on my computer on another kind of portable device, like an iPod or smartphone.
The fact that I'm afraid of losing these, and, in so doing, my livelihood, makes me wonder if I've thought this whole thing through... but how else am I going to spend my entire life (or as much of it as possible) on the road?
At any rate, I'm in Sydney for the next one and a half months (maybe even two or three, goddamn it), and I want to take advantage of it by savouring my soft, soft bed, a fridge stocked full of food (is Thailand starting to spoil me for any location that doesn't thrive on street food?), the buzz of the most innovative suburbs (hello Darlinghurst, Newtown, Surry Hills and Paddington), the well-meaning but distracted and somewhat soulless company of my parents, which nevertheless tells me I am cared about (will they ever evolve to higher emotional IQ?), and the general friendliness of the populace.
Making the most of Sydney is a lot easier when you know you're not rooted to it. When you know you have the power to leave reasonably soon after you've landed.
And now, dear reader, I'm heading to Oxford St to celebrate the first day of Spring! Hope you're feeling similarly optimistic.
Why are so many same-sex attracted women accountants?
I recently attended a gathering of same-sex attracted girls and women in Sydney and was surprised to learn that, out of the nine or ten of us in the group, one was an accountant and another was contemplating a career in this line of work. It took me back to my reacquaintance with my old girlfriend, who had given up working as a counselor and is now 'analysing futures' and who now has an accountant girlfriend. It also reminded me of how even in Paris, the lesbians we chatted up in a gay bar were accountants.
Perhaps it's not surprising that women, who are usually paid less than men, and no longer want to be dependent on anybody, let alone families who are selectively approving of their sexual orientations, are looking to one of the most stable of jobs out there.
I'm just hope that this traditionally not so entertaining job doesn't interfere with the girls' creative development...
Or is there something appealing about the straight-forwardness of accountancy that same-sex attracted women are drawn to? Since I've never wanted to become one, I have no idea... thoughts?
Perhaps it's not surprising that women, who are usually paid less than men, and no longer want to be dependent on anybody, let alone families who are selectively approving of their sexual orientations, are looking to one of the most stable of jobs out there.
I'm just hope that this traditionally not so entertaining job doesn't interfere with the girls' creative development...
Or is there something appealing about the straight-forwardness of accountancy that same-sex attracted women are drawn to? Since I've never wanted to become one, I have no idea... thoughts?
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Improbably An Insider Of Sorts
Whenever I am enveloped by the European continent, I am instantly soothed and irritated. (Come to think of it, I feel like that in every continent.) In the city of Toronto, Canada, half the people are foreign-born. In Sydney it's more like 3/10. In New York City it's just over 1/3. In most European capitals, however, it's less than 1/10. The most international parts of Europe I have been to are London (the exception to the rule with 2/5), Barcelona (13%) and Stockholm (37.5% immigrants and non-Swedish born, according to Wikipedia)... everywhere else has smaller amounts of immigrants and a high percentage of people who openly display attitudes which people in Australia, Canada and USA would deem racist.
I've been reading a portion of V. S. Naipaul's work, The Writer and The World, in which he describes suddenly finding himself in an environment in which his race/ethnicity (or appearance of such) is seen as unremarkable, comfortable and familiar by the majority, who also share numerous of his physical attributes. It reminds me of other experiences I've read - Zadie Smith commenting on how it feels to be suddenly in a majority-black environment after being used to being a Black British girl in England, or an acquaintance of mine in Sydney, Matthew, recounting how it feels to no longer be typecast by a resentful white majority in Australia, in returning to his city of birth, Shanghai.
When I go back to Europe, I am something different to everyone. To immigrants I am a friendly face and an open mind. People stop by to chat (the Lebanese girl who opened up to me whilst waiting for the train in Berlin), complain (the Pakistani convenience shop owner in Copenhagen) or indulge their desire for infatuation (the Senegalese construction worker in Stockholm), and we bond over our appreciation of Europe yet our sense of being an outsider. (I would never want to be of like mind as the xenophobic, racist or homophobic contingents. In that sense, I prefer to be an outsider, especially to those who would see me as such.) I recognise the well-travelled, open-minded, kind-hearted individuals immediately through the way they look upon everyone else. Fluidity in accommodating new concepts, a gentleness in the eyes, elastic defenses. I do not long for identification with a national psyche - I am interested in the transnational individual. The appraisal of different races, a diversity of paradigms, and a multiplicity of ways of enjoying life.
Perhaps the sense of inclusion I do feel is not racial but cultural. Whether in Sydney, Stanford, Santorini or Stockholm, I am still Slav. My race is displaced in each of those locales. Sofia, where I can pass for Bulgarian before I open my mouth, is somewhere I would never consider living permanently, as nightmarish as Siem Reap (they're of a similar level of Epiphanie-unfriendliness). However the proximity of Barcelona or Berlin to Eastern Europe mean that my race elicits a kind of distant friendliness - a recognition of a neighbour, a merry cohabitant of the multitude of frameworks that is Europe.
Conservative, backward Europe would embrace me, but I choose to run away. I am an asset over there, dramatically facilitating a dialogue between the most open parts of people and their fearful shadow/double. I vaguely fathom the context for their xenophobia, and humbly remember how predisposed I was to follow in their footsteps had not my parents decided to see 'how the West lives'. In Europe, my suppressed Australian-cum-American identity demands expression, just like in Australia I'm always seeking to escape the limitations placed upon me.
And yet, for the most part, I feel more comfortable in Europe, and always will.
I've been reading a portion of V. S. Naipaul's work, The Writer and The World, in which he describes suddenly finding himself in an environment in which his race/ethnicity (or appearance of such) is seen as unremarkable, comfortable and familiar by the majority, who also share numerous of his physical attributes. It reminds me of other experiences I've read - Zadie Smith commenting on how it feels to be suddenly in a majority-black environment after being used to being a Black British girl in England, or an acquaintance of mine in Sydney, Matthew, recounting how it feels to no longer be typecast by a resentful white majority in Australia, in returning to his city of birth, Shanghai.
When I go back to Europe, I am something different to everyone. To immigrants I am a friendly face and an open mind. People stop by to chat (the Lebanese girl who opened up to me whilst waiting for the train in Berlin), complain (the Pakistani convenience shop owner in Copenhagen) or indulge their desire for infatuation (the Senegalese construction worker in Stockholm), and we bond over our appreciation of Europe yet our sense of being an outsider. (I would never want to be of like mind as the xenophobic, racist or homophobic contingents. In that sense, I prefer to be an outsider, especially to those who would see me as such.) I recognise the well-travelled, open-minded, kind-hearted individuals immediately through the way they look upon everyone else. Fluidity in accommodating new concepts, a gentleness in the eyes, elastic defenses. I do not long for identification with a national psyche - I am interested in the transnational individual. The appraisal of different races, a diversity of paradigms, and a multiplicity of ways of enjoying life.
Perhaps the sense of inclusion I do feel is not racial but cultural. Whether in Sydney, Stanford, Santorini or Stockholm, I am still Slav. My race is displaced in each of those locales. Sofia, where I can pass for Bulgarian before I open my mouth, is somewhere I would never consider living permanently, as nightmarish as Siem Reap (they're of a similar level of Epiphanie-unfriendliness). However the proximity of Barcelona or Berlin to Eastern Europe mean that my race elicits a kind of distant friendliness - a recognition of a neighbour, a merry cohabitant of the multitude of frameworks that is Europe.
Conservative, backward Europe would embrace me, but I choose to run away. I am an asset over there, dramatically facilitating a dialogue between the most open parts of people and their fearful shadow/double. I vaguely fathom the context for their xenophobia, and humbly remember how predisposed I was to follow in their footsteps had not my parents decided to see 'how the West lives'. In Europe, my suppressed Australian-cum-American identity demands expression, just like in Australia I'm always seeking to escape the limitations placed upon me.
And yet, for the most part, I feel more comfortable in Europe, and always will.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
On Same-Sex Marriage (The New Equal)
I don't live in The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Canada, Argentina or South Africa. I don't even live in California (anymore). So I can't imagine what it's like to live in a nation where same-sex marriage is an everyday fact of life. Ten years ago, when I was facing the outside world in Sydney and believing that I had made the best out of an opportunity-laden situation, it never occurred to me that I was discriminated against by the marriage laws of the time. I couldn't even imagine gay marriage being represented as a civil right. I knew that women were still fighting for full equality, but I thought gay people had somehow managed to have it all.
Fast forward ten years, and I'm sick with longing for what I've never had: the opportunity to discard the possibility of marriage with either a man OR a Woman. I consider it my right to vigorously ignore this inalienable right I (should) have to take my relationships all the way to 'the piece of paper'.
I am very passionate about equality and fairness, and I rest in the knowledge that the majority of Australian citizens (60% last time it was counted) support my (and their) freedom of either-sex marriage. As Diane J. Savino notes in her Ted.com speech on the subject, long-term loving relationships that two men or two women have are useful to hetero couples as examples they can learn from. Alternatively, Judge Walker's comments on the institution of marriage make me think that many gay couples would receive a significant self-esteem boost if the government allowed them to achieve marriage status equal to that of their heterosexual peers, friends and relatives. And when more of our citizens are happy, the happier we will all be.
However we create healthy, supportive romantic relationships, we need all the help we can get on maintaining them in maximum condition. Have you had a conversation with ppl close to you who don't support marriage equality recently? The world is collectively changing its mind on this issue at lightning speed, so don't give up hope that those close to you will become more accepting someday (soon).
Fast forward ten years, and I'm sick with longing for what I've never had: the opportunity to discard the possibility of marriage with either a man OR a Woman. I consider it my right to vigorously ignore this inalienable right I (should) have to take my relationships all the way to 'the piece of paper'.
I am very passionate about equality and fairness, and I rest in the knowledge that the majority of Australian citizens (60% last time it was counted) support my (and their) freedom of either-sex marriage. As Diane J. Savino notes in her Ted.com speech on the subject, long-term loving relationships that two men or two women have are useful to hetero couples as examples they can learn from. Alternatively, Judge Walker's comments on the institution of marriage make me think that many gay couples would receive a significant self-esteem boost if the government allowed them to achieve marriage status equal to that of their heterosexual peers, friends and relatives. And when more of our citizens are happy, the happier we will all be.
However we create healthy, supportive romantic relationships, we need all the help we can get on maintaining them in maximum condition. Have you had a conversation with ppl close to you who don't support marriage equality recently? The world is collectively changing its mind on this issue at lightning speed, so don't give up hope that those close to you will become more accepting someday (soon).
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Creative Constructs
On the plane from Seoul to Sydney, I found myself listening to Adam Lambert's For Your Entertainment CD for the first time. I didn't expect to enjoy it very much, but I discovered a track or two I really loved: Sleepwalker, Aftermath and Broken Open.
I'm now back to Lady GaGa, my lovely, problematic muse.
More later, chatting to a friend :o)
I'm now back to Lady GaGa, my lovely, problematic muse.
More later, chatting to a friend :o)
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Veering Out Of Careening
So I started taking antibiotics for whatever ailments the symptoms of a chesty, phlegmy cough, running nose and a decreased ability to concentrate represent, and things are clearing up... now if only the nosebleeds would disappear altogether. Perhaps this is the worldøs revenge for taking time out of a dream escape to take a dream holiday... all the same, I wish it had been a little been more perfect.
And yet perfect it is... The Danes have the condition of being both progressive and pretty, direct and good-humoured. The charm of being prominent yet small, tangential yet central, historic yet contemporary.
I have promptly fallen in love with the place, and donøt intend to forget this fact. Tall poppy syndrome is supplemented by national pride to rival that of Australiaøs, proximity to other nations, the ability to speak at least two languages.
Near-pure air, neat and cute arrangements of nature and architecture...
Robyn was a revelation... I witnessed a woman with a strong and resilient sense of self... especially when she sang while making eye contact with me. I was determined to get her to do just that, and succeeded. Pitch-perfect, soulful, funky, inspired. A revolution.
And yet perfect it is... The Danes have the condition of being both progressive and pretty, direct and good-humoured. The charm of being prominent yet small, tangential yet central, historic yet contemporary.
I have promptly fallen in love with the place, and donøt intend to forget this fact. Tall poppy syndrome is supplemented by national pride to rival that of Australiaøs, proximity to other nations, the ability to speak at least two languages.
Near-pure air, neat and cute arrangements of nature and architecture...
Robyn was a revelation... I witnessed a woman with a strong and resilient sense of self... especially when she sang while making eye contact with me. I was determined to get her to do just that, and succeeded. Pitch-perfect, soulful, funky, inspired. A revolution.
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