Monday, 28 January 2008
You know what I mean.
So It's been a few weeks since I last bored you with my thoughts. Not as much time has passed as I had thought though. I have been putting the time to good use by watching a lot of Angel, working and sweating on trams. But you already know this don't you? There has been some friends staying and beer in the sun but you know that too. You don't know that I've been watching the freckles on my feet darken with mixed feelings. But perhaps you know me well enough that I don't need to tell you this. Perhaps you also know that I have concocted various daydreams in which I run into cute!tutor. Mostly the concern in these daydreams is what I am wearing when this happens as well as the secondary quandary of whether I should sleep with him on our first (no doubt) passion-filled encounter. I'm not entirely joking about this (you probably know that too). Sadly no encounters have occurred despite making a deal with the romance gods that I didn't mind if I was wearing my daggiest clothes, as long as I saw him it would be ok. Don't look so worried, I'm not really that obsessed. I just need something to think about and it seems more practical than lusting after vampires (but you know Angel really doesn't do it for me, it's all about Lindsey and perhaps Spike). As an aside: how great is it that a fairly small character from Angel has a Wikipedia page (of course perhaps this says a lot about people who write Wikipedia articles) and I'm not linking to Spike because you really are a hopeless case if you don't know what I'm talking about there. I have also been thinking about grown up things: the correctness of Australia Day, the Decline of the American Republic and how exactly tennis works. All warrant further investigation. On the first topic it seems that Australia really isn't anything to be proud of. Although telling people that can lead to interesting results. Tell me are you proud to be an Australian? (cnnn newsticker: blogger asks question in vain attempt to generate comments from her two person readership). Would you wear an Australia flag tshirt? I wouldn't and I think it's probably a complete misdirection of middle class guilt as well as a wish to look like a cool lefty and not a bogan. Ok I am going to move because my back is hurting and I have to pretend to be a normal person an not an internerd to my housemates. For posterities sake I will say that life remains fleeting and random and unfair and last week was a reminder of that. Do you know why it all happens? (Patrick Verona will never be the same again).
Sunday, 6 January 2008
This is a piece I had in my end of semester creative writing folio which went surprisingly well. It remains a mystery to me why. However as you know, I am not above double usage so here you go. It is clearly non fiction although certainly not entirely the truth (a piece of truthiness, you might say). It had a ridiculously wanky title which I can't bring myself to reproduce here.
My father had come to visit me; he’d decided at the last possible moment that he would. Over the weekend, when I didn’t have to teach, we took the train up to the mountains, so different to the flat brown noise of Hanoi. Here there are picture postcard mountains reaching towards the sky, topped with thick, creamy clouds. Even here there are rice paddies though, the Hmong (and other hill tribes) carve steps into the sides of the mountain and dig channels to keep the seedlings irrigated. The rice paddies chime bright green against the deeper green of the steeper, unusable mountain tops.
The town of Sapa is losing its rustic charm. There are some pretty almost Swiss style guest houses and there’s the market, filled with vegetables and strange looking powdered substances. However, the thing most visitors to Sapa remember isn’t any of this; it’s the hordes of hill tribe girls who patrol the streets. They are dressed in their traditional clothes, heavily embroidered velvet tunics with lashings of silver jewelry. As we leave our guest house they pounce.
“Hello, what’s your name? Where are you from?” they trill, some venturing to grab an arm. They have learnt that unlike the Vietnamese who happily barter over everything and push past vendors a hundred times a day we westerners are hostages to our inbuilt politeness.
“Hello.” I offer, putting on my best ‘I am not a fool, and also I have places to be’ face. My father, enamored by the authenticity of it all, picks up where I left off.
“We’re from Australia.” he says.
“Oh Australia, the crocodile hunter, g’day mate!” says one of the older looking girls. Her English is unaccented, here learning English is the way to earn money and this is more incentive than my students back in Hanoi have. My father laughs mildly back at her and I push him up the road as the inevitable happens.
“You should buy some jewelry for your daughter.” the girl continues, shoving a collection of bangles, necklaces and earrings into our faces. My father looks imploringly at me.
“I already have enough, thank you.” I say, politely but firmly and I grab my father’s hand and pull him up the road. The girls spot another group of westerners and give up on us.
We wander up the slight incline of the main road, keeping our eyes averted from anyone wielding jewelry. Choosing a café, we are ushered to a table.
“You have to ignore them.” I say.
“It’s worse than in Hanoi, or Halong Bay.” My father replies with a shake of his head. He’s smiling though; in my family we celebrate this kind of thing. My parents met while traveling, they adore culture and they had quietly lobbied for me to take a ‘gap year’ while my friends’ parents pushed their children headlong into further study or work.
***
The next day we have booked to go on a two day walk in the mountains. Our guide shows up wearing the uniform of young men in this part of the world: well pressed, slightly flared dark slacks with a t-shirt and dress shoes. He collects us from the front desk of our guest house and like school children and we obediently follow him out. His name is Tam he tells us as we make our way down a steep and muddy track. We pass people working in the rice paddies, pulling out seemingly random chunks of the vegetation. They are mostly wearing their traditional dress and I wonder cynically if the owners of the guest houses in Sapa rush down early in the morning to make sure no one’s wearing any Nike t-shirts.
The set of huts we come to is obviously a well worn part of the tourist trail. There is a water powered mill, slowly grounding an improbably small amount of rice. There is a small child selling small embroidered bags. The hill tribes look so different to the ethnic Vietnamese. Their skin is darker, their hair more brown less back. This little girl has slightly curling hair and a large smudge of dirt on her cheek. My father buys a bag, the walking tour was very cheap and it’s probably financed from kickbacks. If we were to make a brave stand against the cute little girl holding bags and friendship bracelets it would be unlikely to make any difference. The sternly worded passage in the Lonely Plant guide which urges travelers to only buy from the shops in Sapa has yielded little response.
By the time we reach the homestay where we’ll be staying the night there are flecks of mud up the back of my legs and I have fallen down twice. For dinner we sit at a low table outside with the family who live in the house and Tam. The middle of the table is filled with plates piled with food there are spring rolls, vegetables cut into shapes and a variety of meat dishes with lots of garlic and onion, and of course the ever present potato chips. Halfway through the meal someone produces a drinking bottle filled with rice wine. I am caught between wanting to impress my father with my already well honed ability to handle rice wine and an equally childish desire to remain innocent in his eyes.
***
On the train ride back to Hanoi the carriage jolts along the track and I entertain thoughts of my immediate demise.
“I had a really good time,” my father says. “I was impressed that you kept up, with the hiking.” I realize he’s probably referencing the photo albums full of me at different ages looking morose and unimpressed by various holiday locals, sitting on park benches refusing to go any further.
“Good and yeah, I’m a grown up now.” I say, laughing at him. Of course, the ridiculous happiness I felt at the end of the well planed and executed trip said otherwise.
My father had come to visit me; he’d decided at the last possible moment that he would. Over the weekend, when I didn’t have to teach, we took the train up to the mountains, so different to the flat brown noise of Hanoi. Here there are picture postcard mountains reaching towards the sky, topped with thick, creamy clouds. Even here there are rice paddies though, the Hmong (and other hill tribes) carve steps into the sides of the mountain and dig channels to keep the seedlings irrigated. The rice paddies chime bright green against the deeper green of the steeper, unusable mountain tops.
The town of Sapa is losing its rustic charm. There are some pretty almost Swiss style guest houses and there’s the market, filled with vegetables and strange looking powdered substances. However, the thing most visitors to Sapa remember isn’t any of this; it’s the hordes of hill tribe girls who patrol the streets. They are dressed in their traditional clothes, heavily embroidered velvet tunics with lashings of silver jewelry. As we leave our guest house they pounce.
“Hello, what’s your name? Where are you from?” they trill, some venturing to grab an arm. They have learnt that unlike the Vietnamese who happily barter over everything and push past vendors a hundred times a day we westerners are hostages to our inbuilt politeness.
“Hello.” I offer, putting on my best ‘I am not a fool, and also I have places to be’ face. My father, enamored by the authenticity of it all, picks up where I left off.
“We’re from Australia.” he says.
“Oh Australia, the crocodile hunter, g’day mate!” says one of the older looking girls. Her English is unaccented, here learning English is the way to earn money and this is more incentive than my students back in Hanoi have. My father laughs mildly back at her and I push him up the road as the inevitable happens.
“You should buy some jewelry for your daughter.” the girl continues, shoving a collection of bangles, necklaces and earrings into our faces. My father looks imploringly at me.
“I already have enough, thank you.” I say, politely but firmly and I grab my father’s hand and pull him up the road. The girls spot another group of westerners and give up on us.
We wander up the slight incline of the main road, keeping our eyes averted from anyone wielding jewelry. Choosing a café, we are ushered to a table.
“You have to ignore them.” I say.
“It’s worse than in Hanoi, or Halong Bay.” My father replies with a shake of his head. He’s smiling though; in my family we celebrate this kind of thing. My parents met while traveling, they adore culture and they had quietly lobbied for me to take a ‘gap year’ while my friends’ parents pushed their children headlong into further study or work.
***
The next day we have booked to go on a two day walk in the mountains. Our guide shows up wearing the uniform of young men in this part of the world: well pressed, slightly flared dark slacks with a t-shirt and dress shoes. He collects us from the front desk of our guest house and like school children and we obediently follow him out. His name is Tam he tells us as we make our way down a steep and muddy track. We pass people working in the rice paddies, pulling out seemingly random chunks of the vegetation. They are mostly wearing their traditional dress and I wonder cynically if the owners of the guest houses in Sapa rush down early in the morning to make sure no one’s wearing any Nike t-shirts.
The set of huts we come to is obviously a well worn part of the tourist trail. There is a water powered mill, slowly grounding an improbably small amount of rice. There is a small child selling small embroidered bags. The hill tribes look so different to the ethnic Vietnamese. Their skin is darker, their hair more brown less back. This little girl has slightly curling hair and a large smudge of dirt on her cheek. My father buys a bag, the walking tour was very cheap and it’s probably financed from kickbacks. If we were to make a brave stand against the cute little girl holding bags and friendship bracelets it would be unlikely to make any difference. The sternly worded passage in the Lonely Plant guide which urges travelers to only buy from the shops in Sapa has yielded little response.
By the time we reach the homestay where we’ll be staying the night there are flecks of mud up the back of my legs and I have fallen down twice. For dinner we sit at a low table outside with the family who live in the house and Tam. The middle of the table is filled with plates piled with food there are spring rolls, vegetables cut into shapes and a variety of meat dishes with lots of garlic and onion, and of course the ever present potato chips. Halfway through the meal someone produces a drinking bottle filled with rice wine. I am caught between wanting to impress my father with my already well honed ability to handle rice wine and an equally childish desire to remain innocent in his eyes.
***
On the train ride back to Hanoi the carriage jolts along the track and I entertain thoughts of my immediate demise.
“I had a really good time,” my father says. “I was impressed that you kept up, with the hiking.” I realize he’s probably referencing the photo albums full of me at different ages looking morose and unimpressed by various holiday locals, sitting on park benches refusing to go any further.
“Good and yeah, I’m a grown up now.” I say, laughing at him. Of course, the ridiculous happiness I felt at the end of the well planed and executed trip said otherwise.
I am open minded, if by open you mean closed.
The level to which I can NOT cope with uncertainty is quite ridiculous. I like to believe that this is due to my independent and forward thinking attitude and not because I am a crazy person. Clearly the latter is true. The fact that I even vaguely function in society is astounding. See, I thought one of my housemates was getting home today so whenever I left the house today I left her little notes saying where I was/when I'd be back. Each time I'd have this massive internal debate about whether a note was required. But she still isn't here so I think she must have got the day wrong...? Anyway, increasingly irrational thoughts followed to the affect that she'd clearly decided not to come home because she finds me annoying. So irrational.
Anyway. Christmas was nice. I don't think I'll recap much because anyone who's reading this already knows the details or is able to ask if they want to know. It was a very secular holiday for me this year which I consider A Good Thing. Falls was also enjoyable, although less great at times. Damn other people messing up my plans/event. What really annoys me at Falls is that it's not considered okay to do anything alone. The only child in me really enjoys being able to do stuff without running it past the committee of people I'm with, I am quite happy getting some food by myself, you needn't look at me in a way implies that you are shocked and horrified by my loner-dom. Humph.
Anyway moving off the "What I Did Over My Summer Holidays" theme to the the "Stuff that I Thought" theme.
I pride myself on my ability to be able to see both sides of an argument (Thank you Mr. Martin, debating teacher to the stars). However, more and more I find myself simply unable to deal with people who hold different opinions to me on some things. I can't respect them, I can't focus on the things we have in common, I even find sometimes I can't argue with them. It's as if I get some kind of error message telling me our brains are running on different software (I know this is a stupid analogy and I'm embarrassed about it already). This really bothers me because I think understanding is important. I believe in negotiating. And negotiating only works if you can try and find common ground with those who seemingly you don't have any with. I don't know why this is, maybe I feel more confident in my beliefs now? I have become more liberal towards things in recent years (what with no longer be a stupid 16 year old [and now being a stupid twenty year old]. Whenever I feel like just yelling at someone that they are stupid I have this image of my mother poking me with a stick and casting her guilt eyes of motherly doom on me while saying "be understanding, show some empathy". This is Very Concerning. In an attempt to reduce the ridiculous vagueness of this point let me tell you (dear reader) that I find it difficult to cope with people who: are "pro-life", pro death penalty (and so often both at once! Stupid people why must you torment me!?), anti gay marriage, people who believe climate change is influenced by humans and that we can save the world through a reliance on coal technologies (Mr. Giuliani, I am looking at you), people who think that you should choose what degree you do at uni based on how much money you could earn... etc.
Anyway. Christmas was nice. I don't think I'll recap much because anyone who's reading this already knows the details or is able to ask if they want to know. It was a very secular holiday for me this year which I consider A Good Thing. Falls was also enjoyable, although less great at times. Damn other people messing up my plans/event. What really annoys me at Falls is that it's not considered okay to do anything alone. The only child in me really enjoys being able to do stuff without running it past the committee of people I'm with, I am quite happy getting some food by myself, you needn't look at me in a way implies that you are shocked and horrified by my loner-dom. Humph.
Anyway moving off the "What I Did Over My Summer Holidays" theme to the the "Stuff that I Thought" theme.
I pride myself on my ability to be able to see both sides of an argument (Thank you Mr. Martin, debating teacher to the stars). However, more and more I find myself simply unable to deal with people who hold different opinions to me on some things. I can't respect them, I can't focus on the things we have in common, I even find sometimes I can't argue with them. It's as if I get some kind of error message telling me our brains are running on different software (I know this is a stupid analogy and I'm embarrassed about it already). This really bothers me because I think understanding is important. I believe in negotiating. And negotiating only works if you can try and find common ground with those who seemingly you don't have any with. I don't know why this is, maybe I feel more confident in my beliefs now? I have become more liberal towards things in recent years (what with no longer be a stupid 16 year old [and now being a stupid twenty year old]. Whenever I feel like just yelling at someone that they are stupid I have this image of my mother poking me with a stick and casting her guilt eyes of motherly doom on me while saying "be understanding, show some empathy". This is Very Concerning. In an attempt to reduce the ridiculous vagueness of this point let me tell you (dear reader) that I find it difficult to cope with people who: are "pro-life", pro death penalty (and so often both at once! Stupid people why must you torment me!?), anti gay marriage, people who believe climate change is influenced by humans and that we can save the world through a reliance on coal technologies (Mr. Giuliani, I am looking at you), people who think that you should choose what degree you do at uni based on how much money you could earn... etc.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
