20 Shots

Wang Feng sat at the very back of the noodle shop, a midsummer’s evening drenched in Guizhou’s warm southwestern rain. It was a quiet night for business. The two waiters were so at ease that they smoked and joked about at the counter, flicking through the TV. Two men played cards at one corner of the eatery and a couple with a young child slurped their meals quietly at another. Wang watched them with vacant eyes, preoccupied with anticipation.

Wang lined his table with twenty pearl white shot glasses. Ten a row, two by two. They had already been impatiently filled with maotai, a playful, or rather, painful local hard liquor distilled from sorghum. He called the waiter for some peanuts. He looked at the clock then at the wall. Between two cheaply printed bamboo scrolls depicting flocks of herons in a waterfall scene, hung a calendar that displayed a large plump ‘4’ under a smaller ‘June’ across the top.

“A curse of a birthday.” He mumbled to himself as he lit a cigarette and sighed through the smoke.

Li Yi appeared from the front of the shop, in a fading white shirt almost breaking at the seams, tucked into his usual black trousers. He was younger looking than Wang, his high cheekbones and thin jaw line hung like mountains that dipped into sea on his pale face. Thin, lanky and looking ever so unnecessarily surly, he drifted past the rows of tables and tapped Wang lightly on the shoulders.

Wang almost jumped when he felt Li’s cold hands on his neck, but soon turned on a smile.

“Brother!” Wang cried as he stood up to greet his friend, shaking his hands keenly. “On time yet again! Happy birthday Brother!”

“Yes Brother, happy birthday to you too. Forty today. A big round number.” Li returned with a faint smile.

“Ah yes forty. What an age. Except you look like you haven’t aged a day and I’ve got this plump tummy to keep my fortunes!” Wang bellowed and laughed. “Sorry about the weather Brother. Suppose you’ve eaten…”

“Yes Brother, you know I only come for the birthday baijiu.”

Li settled himself opposite Wang, the shot glasses lined like soldiers on a chessboard between them. Wang handed Li a glass and held one up himself with both hands.

“Happy our birthday, and to twenty years of friendship!”

“Yes! To twenty years!” Li beamed, finally looking a little more energetic, and the glasses clinked crisply in the air.

“2009,” said Li. “And two fourty year-old men. Tell me about your year, Brother.”

“Well,” began Wang. “I managed. Better than the last. Ming Ming got into a good high school and Rong can’t stop bragging about us going to watch the Games at the Bird Nest to the neighbours...”

“So you went back to the Jing?”

“First time for, what, eighteen years, yeah. Couldn’t recognise it. Just couldn’t. Some times I wished I’d stayed there, would have been loaded by now.”

“You are loaded Brother. And the Square? Did you go?”

“No Brother.” Wang said, after a short thoughtful pause. “Rong went. She got a framed photograph with the Chairman in front of the Forbidden City. Everyone that’s ever been to Beijing has got one of those, you know what I mean? It’s a total joke to me. I was a bit tired that day so I slept at the hotel.”

“I thought as much.” Li shot Wang a look.

He handed Wang another glass. “2008!”, and then another, “2007!”.

The men knocked back.

“…and 2006. That year you finally bought out the entire garment business from your uncle, Brother, what more could you want?”

“I’m not a coward you know, Li.”

“No one said you were.”

“I’m just trying to move on. Move on from my stinking past, Brother.”

“2005.” Li continued, ignoring Wang’s desperate attempt to explain. “We met in Haerbin that year remember? Not much of a summer there for a birthday party but the damn vodka there was quite something.” He slammed the shot glass on the table.

“Twenty years, you track me down every time, no matter where I went.” Sniggered Wang with a bitterness in his voice, as he licked his lips.

“Friends are important Wang, and so are birthdays. Say, how often is it that you meet someone born on exactly the same day as you, Brother? We’re connected by fate.” Li said, tapping his nose cheekily. Wang let out a little sigh.

“2003. Tiento.”

“Don’t get started on that one, please.”

“What the hell were you doing there at the first place?”

“I went to apologise to Miss Ma’s family in person, and, of course…”

“Give them a handsome dosh so they’d not speak? Good one, CEO.”

“Could have spent the same amount on some proper safety latches and pressure gauges but Zhang told me they had just been replaced, but in actual fact he just pocketed the money himself. But to be honest she was just so clumsy.”

“After working for 60 hours a week in a factory line and seeing no more than an hour of day light a day, who wouldn’t be? And now she’s blind and her entire family’s stuck out there gleaning the rice paddy, they can’t even marry her out, and you’re still drinking here with me.”

“I told you I was sorry. Drop it will you? ”

Wang examined Li’s scathing face. Li’s self-righteousness irritated Wang, but he could never find words to prove him wrong.

Li sniggered, and reached for another glass. “2001. You know, my successors at Beida have completely no idea what happened that summer at that Square. Some journo from America showed a group of them a picture of the man in front of the tanks, none of them recognised the scene, and even said that it looked like a film set or a modern art installation or something. And all this happened right on the ground they stood on.”

“They’re kids, old as we were, how are they supposed to know? Or care, for that matter?”

“Ignorance is a bliss, Wang. Isn’t that what you say to yourself all the time? That’s why you’re out there in Ninghan running your boxed up sweatshop instead of climbing that lucrative ladder in the PLA?”

“PL fucking A indeed.” Wang spat. “That army ate me inside out I tell you. Now what? Downsized, modernised, revolutionised. They have the fattest, most brainwashed preppy boys in China, get paid a fortune and do nothing except parading around like Robocops, waiting for the day to take our motherland to global domination. Gave me not a cent when they booted me out, told me I was mentally unfit and lucky to not be put on court martial. You know, two of my friends in my regiment hung themselves because they couldn’t face going back to their families, that’s what I should have fucking done to save this miserable mess!” Wang almost roared, and knocked back another maotai, and Li followed quickly.

“No Brother, that would be stupid. Escapism is more cowardly than your ‘moving-on’ business. Besides, who would I drink with? And 2000… ha, good appetite we have tonight huh?” Li was growing more boisterous with the alcohol.

Wang refilled each of the shot glasses and called for more peanuts. The waiter yawned as he brought over the plate, impatiently returning to his late night television by the counter. The rain outside had finally stopped, and the other customers left as quickly as they finished their meal.

“Year of the Dragon, the beginning of our century.” Li quipped, sarcastically.

“I can’t believe you came and met me in Vietnam that year. I didn’t know you took overseas holidays,” said Wang, popping a peanut into his mouth.

“Neither did I. What a nice trip though. That melancholic erhu played by the old man on the corner of the street in Hanoi, that slow calm eerie sound amongst the screams of the fanatical motorcycle wheels, reminded me so much of my old Grandfather… He played a wonderful erhu... He cried himself to death after he found out what happened on the Square. You know, his father, as in, my Great-grandfather, was a fighter in the Boxer Uprising.”

“Yes you mentioned,” replied Wang, starring into the distance. “Beheaded by the Japanese in 1900. Almost the same spot us two met. It makes me sick just thinking about it.”

“He didn’t know there was an unborn baby in his wife’s belly.”

Caught in their own thoughts, they took another shot.

“You know what its like to never know your own father or mother?” said Li. “Its like not knowing where you come from - no one to explain to you why you have a round nose or double layered eye lids, why your name rhymes with the rain. No one to tell you who planted the big tall tree in the yard, why you are good at maths and not so good at science, why you prefer bok-choi over gai-lan. No pride about who you are, because you can’t see your past. To not know your past is to not know who you are. Like a leaf without a branch, a kite that broke its string.” Li said, as if reciting poetry. He looked right into Wang’s eyes, the pupils now wandering more and more as the maotai wore in, but he was determined to look straight back.

“You’re right. I need to be a better father to Ming. I’m hardly there.” Wang finally said, breaking the short silence. “I may as well have been beheaded to him. What are we up to?”

“1997.” Li replied.

“Xiaobi had a little girl that year, in Canada, yeah?”

“Wang, your memory is getting better as you get drunker, I am impressed.”

“You still see her?”

“When I can, yes. As friends, of course. Every August if I try.”

“She thinks that, you’re friends?”

“I know she does.”

“You’re a freak, Li. I can never imagine you as a romantic.”

“Part of her daughter’s name is actually mine, you know? Her husband has no idea. But he’s French, so as if he’d care.”

“She’s as much of a freak as you are.”

“Double Major in Film and Arabic, she’s quite something. It was 1989 after all.” Li grew very quiet, and Wang observed a little mist in Li’s dark sank in eyes.

They drank in silence until they reached 1994.

“The year you became father.” Li said.

“I was so lucky that it was a boy.”

“Would you have kept it if it was a girl?”

“I’m the only son, you know that.”

“So am I.” Li shot back. “But instead I chose eternal bachelorhood. It broke my parent’s heart, but what are they going to do? Besides, no more wasting time on those stupid games that women play. If there’s any women left in this country, that is!”

“What ever! its cos you’re butt-ugly Brother!” Wang added irreverently. At this, the men laughed hysterically together. The waiters observed their fits of laughter with some concern, but decided to leave them to it.

“1991!” Li took another shot. Wang paused at this. Looking deep into his shot glass, he felt his eyes finally welling up.

“The year you left the Army, Lao Wang.” Li said in a quiet voice. Wang finally took the shot, and fondled the glass in his hands, no longer smiling.

“Don’t be upset Brother, you’re not the only quitter. I would have gotten my Bachelor’s degree the same year too. But what would I have done with it? Write books that I couldn’t publish and swallow words I couldn’t say? Or follow every one else into a MacEmpire and watch my own soul rot trying to please every dog and his man in the bloody Party? Would have been a waste of time anyway. Damned first class education from Beida.” Li sighed and shook his head, taking one of Wang’s cigarettes and lighting it up.

Wang remembered getting off in an empty bus station in Jujiako, his home town, after he was finally dismissed by the army. He walked home in the dry dust along an empty street lined with old crumbling brick houses. His parents couldn’t bare the shame of their son coming home in disgrace, giving up a comfortably salaried future in the military. But really, they were glad to have him home. At least they knew he was alive, and an extra pair of hands at home, and they talked his uncle into offering him a management apprenticeship in his small garment business, which was just taking off. Not bad for a 22 year old, really. But he was more than 22. He saw more than he needed to and he couldn’t unload what he carried with him. It seemed like he no longer knew anyone at home. His friends all just seemed like such little kids to him, and his parents wanted to treat him like one too. Li caught him weeping on their birthday at the back of an old warehouse by the bank of the river. It was the first time he cried since he was a grown man. Not even in the army, where the physical pain of training and the hard abuse of the officers wore deep into his pride, not even after he washed the blood splatters off his face with a flannel at the dormitory that quiet morning after they took the human out of him, and no one in his regiment had said a single word to each other. Li knew him like no body else, his words reached him in the darkest places, and in the strangest way Wang was more and more glad to see him. Li and Wang sat together at the back of the warehouse watching sparrows flitter in the evening sun, against the green tips of the rice. Blades of the grass waved in the wind, like ripples in a storm. They skipped stones into the river, and drank gaoliang that year. Sweet, sweet gaoliang.

Li interrupted Wang’s thoughts with 1990.

“The first year we celebrated our shared birthday together. Baijiu was hard to come by on that anniversary day, but we got there. One shot each. You and I. One shot was good enough that day. Just one shot.” Li smiled, and Wang rolled back deep into his own memory.

All leave were cancelled that evening in the barracks, the Army being on full alert. It seemed like they were always on alert that year, and time after time they began to relax more and more on evenings like those, almost like in the story of The Boy that Cried Wolf. And so Wang and his mates sneaked in some baijiu for some late night birthday drinks, inside his boots. He was by himself in the dormitory trying to find a good place to hide it, when Li appeared out of no where, almost spooking him out. He asked to drink with Wang, explaining that it was his birthday too. Later on, Wang’s friends found him passed out on the floor late into the evening, but Li had already gone.

1989. They took the last filled glasses left on the table.

The day Wang turned 20 was an awful day. All week he’d been sitting at the back of the truck in the nauseating heat, rubbing his sub-machine gun, sweat and black oil running all over it, and inside the intricate crevasses of the sophisticated weapon. The crowd out in the Square had lost their optimistic party atmosphere of a few weeks ago, replaced by an anxious, tense, and slow grinding smell of fear. When things finally cracked late that evening he had no idea where he was firing or running to, his entire uniformed body was over taken by chaos and entropy. He was blinded by flashes of gun fire and leaned against a lamp post at the edge of the square to regain his posture. And there Li was. His white shirt and white banner around his head drenched in blood, dragging an incapacitated student from a collapsed tent. “Don’t die! Don’t die! I’m getting you out!” He hollered hysterically. He dragged his friend on his skinny shoulders and staggered towards the edge of the square, and when he saw Wang he was just as startled and frightened as he was. They both hesitated. Wang’s gun was slung behind him and he hadn’t had time to hold it up before Li did the most unthinkable thing. He let go of his friend and grabbed Wang’s shoulders and shook him. “Take us to the hospital, I beg you, I beg you! You are my Brother, like he is! Within four seas, all men are brothers! You hear me? Please Brother, please!” He screamed desperately, his face against Wang’s, tears, sweat, saliva, blood all running from his face. Wang tried to speak, but his tongue froze. Then Li let go of him. Wailing now, he went back to his friend. A moment later, Wang heard two shots, and Li slumped onto the concrete. A massive hole gaping at the back of his head, it broke the banner that was tied around it. Blood spilt out like a waterfall. A third bullet finished off his dying friend.

The entire bottle of maotai had gone, and Wang fell sleep on the table that was scattered with empty shot glasses and flakes of peanut shells. The waiter noticed an icy shudder of wind against his face that surged towards the door, and looked to the back of the shop, only to find Wang passed out. One waiter took Wang by the feet, and the other took him by the arms. They dragged the pot bellied drunken man to the foot path outside and settled him against the wall next to crates of empty beer bottles.

“He’s been drinking by himself and mumbling and yelling into thin air all evening. Gee - that maotai certainly did his head in.”

They returned to the television set that was playing a Sci-Fi movie.

“To not know your past is to not know who you are…” They heard Wang mumble in his troubled sleep. He was ignored.

A Political Culture Shock

On our last evening we walked past the “US Den of Espionage”, the former US Embassy in the middle of one of the busiest commercial areas in Tehran – now a training centre for various military units. Its a large brick compound with 3 meter high barricades on the outside, with guards patrolling every few meters. The US emblem that was suppose to be sealed out on the side walls had been torn off the bricks, but its pretty obvious what had been there before.. This was where 52 American Embassy staff was captured and held for 444 days between 1979 and 1981 at the hight of the Iranian Revolution. The outside walls were painted with some extremely interesting, fascinating, quite good quality but blatantly disturbing propaganda murals with anti-US and patriotic propaganda (I didn't dare take pictures, but here are some), such as a paintings of the Goddess of Liberty as an evil skeleton, several ripped USA flags and various picture of Khomeini in heroic poses, with a clear and concise ‘Down With USA’ in English painted on the very front door. This is just like the public mutilation of a dead enemy’s carcass after a victorious battle, looted and then hung on display, all hatred of a nation dispensed upon it, compulsorily. Gratification? Revenge? Indifference? Debt? Inheritance?

We were booked on the overnight train to Esfahan, and we spent an hour or so in the station waiting lounge waiting for our train to get there. The wide-screened television was broadcasting an image I am not completely unfamiliar with, but became suddenly weary and intense about: A Palestinian city in chaos, grey clouds of smoke rushing into the sky, debris across the street, ambulances shriek about. The people I saw in there suddenly looked like everyone else that’s sitting around me, and everyone that I’d rubbed shoulders with in the last few days in Tehran: handsome lean young men in sweat-shirts, jeans and sneakers, middle-aged women covered in hijab and long coat, small children wide-eyed and vulnerable, skinny old men with silver moustaches… suddenly displaced on the dusty street, some lying in pools of blood, screaming, some hurrying the injured onto ambulances, others crying over a dead loved-one on a stretcher. Then came the tightly wrapped body bags in an angry public funeral procession, little bundles, big bundles, white bundles, green and black and red bundles. These images are one sided, as one would expect, but refreshingly so. Graphic, unforgiving, the closest camera screens to tragedy I have ever seen... children's severed limbs, a dead man's eyes piercing the screen, the haunting sound of wailing. Then familiar nouns flash across the bottom of the screen in English, – bombs, death, condemnation, Israel, guns, soldiers, Hammas, rockets, food, aid, blood... Gaza. and then the slogans appeared across the bottom of the screen - US DOES NOT STOP ISRAEL. ABBAS HAS NO HOPE OF LEADERSHIP. OUTRAGE FOR GAZA BROTHERS. JUSTICE TO MURDERERS OF GAZA'S CHILDREN. DESTRUCTION TO ISRAEL!

Sitting here in this crowded waiting lounge, it just felt far too close to home. It can happen right here, right now, and I wouldn't be surprised. I looked around here into hundreds of pairs of enraged eyes. The station roof may as well have come down now.

民主是一個過程

民主不是一個完美
它是一個過程

失敗是一個學習
挫折是一個磨練

民主就像一塊樸玉
用心 用愛 琢磨
未來的一天
它的殤痕會變美麗

2008年3月於倫敦

Festivities in Taipei

A very cosy Mad Ratter's Tea party outside the Mitsugoshi

The MTR arrives at Taipei Central.

Hellooooooooooo!

Its been a pretty good week in Taipei despite not coping well with the sudden contrast in temperatures. Its still the lunar new years festive season so although most people have gone back to work the parties just keep going. So I've kinda been party hopping and consuming copious amount of food. Otherwise I've been spending time with Ah Gong who is feeling much much better after that bad bout and he's pretty much on top of everything and back to his mischief self which is very comforting.

(This is Uncle Joh and Ah Gong whos is dressed like he's going to a meeting in Moscow)

The Parties

This is the revered shua-shua-guo, a modern day personalised version of the hotpot, where you get a whole bunch of stuff and cook it in your own little cordron, so the party control freak doesn't dictate everything that goes into your dinner, and you certainly don't have to share spit with any one that you don't want to share it with. All for under 10 AUD.

拜天公 Bai Tien Gong

The birthday of Tien Gong, who is the God of the Sky (some might know him as the Jade Emperor), the chief god of all gods (there's a god for everything, eg. God of Earth, Goddess of Compassion, God of Money - are some of the better known ones, but there's also Goddess of Beds, God of the Oven, Goddess for Peace at the Sea, Goddess for Getting You Pregnant, God of War, God of Honesty etc etc you get the picture) in Taiwanese folk religion, falls on the 9th day of the year. This is an extremely important date in the lunar calendar as every household must prepare a humungus feast for God of the Sky, who is the god of all gods as well as all their warrior helpers who run around and does stuff for the gods.

Food prepared for the ritual is extremely important. God of the Sky is vegetarian, but his warriors eat meat because they run around a lot and requires lots of protein and carbs. So you will see in this picture that the top table is prepared with vegetarian food for the God of the Sky and the bottom table is prepared with meat and cakes. Every year the best/luckiest time to make this ritual will differ and this year thankfully is at 11pm and not at 3am like one of the other years. There are a lot more things like having to bath and clense before hand, the position of the table, the table cloth under the candles (a beautifully embroidered art work which my Great Grandfather brought when he was a young man which is now a treasured heirloom). Its a fascinating tradition that's been practiced for thousands of years and there is still so much more I don't know about it.

Concert & Belly Dancing

On my first day I went belly dancing with my sister and I thought I was actually really really good at it. Then I went to a Concert by the Evergreeb Orchestra which was just beautifull...

元宵節 Lantern Festival

Then it was Yuan Xiao, or known as Lantern Festival in the West (only half right cos Lanterns are only one part of the festival or the Pyromaniac Festival for others), which is on the 15th day/first full moon of the year. Food of the festival is Sticky Rice balls of all sorts of amazing flavours - except you get a year older with every one you eat, and I have lost count... opps. Brrp. This one is a black sticky rice ball with sweet sesami filling. YYUUUUUMMMMM!!

and politics.

Meanwhile, its a month till the presidential elections and the UN referendum, but politics seem to be depressing and unusually uninpiring - if not for the following people - who definitely have my vote:

逆風行腳團 - a group of young people (mostly pan-green) who are walking around Taiwan 'upside down'/against the tide to raise awareness about reconnecting to this land and its people.

http://taiwanwalklog.blogspot.com/ or try the very brief & DPP sponsored English version.

Stephen Spielberg & Mia Farrow for using their profile to stand up for peace & justice in Darfur and to draw some appropriate attention to China's atrocious behaviour in the international arena and the compromises on both human rights and the environment China has made to keep its thin face stuck on for the Beijing Olympics. Politics has absolutely everything to do with the Olympic Games.

Miss Tibet - usually I cringe at beauty pagents cos its sexist consumerist anti-women tripe, but I think this young woman has gumption. She pulled out of the race last year because, surprise surprise, the Chinese delegation asked her to call herself "Miss Tibet-China" or quit. So she quit and made a great fuss about it - good on her. She's on tour in Taiwan and one of the very few beauty queens I'd want to be seen drinking tea with.

Kosovo - again - gumption & inspiration against adversities. See an editorial from Taiwan News here.

Its About Bloody Time...

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that doesn’t lie

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that can’t get away with lying

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that listens to public opinion

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that won’t just lip service climate change and actually gives a shit about investing in renewable energy

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that won’t lie about nuclear energy – hello – who in the right mind would think that’s a) safe b) sustainable c) not a propaganda to cover up dodgy sells to rogue states developing nuclear weapons

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that isn’t morally bigoted

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that hasn’t got fundamental religious freaks in cabinet

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that will say SORRY to indigenous Australians – and mean it – and committed to better their lives

If I were an Australian I would vote for a government that represents the majority not the few

If I were an Australian I would vote for an intelligent conversation about real issues that affect our future generations and not about shallow things like interest rates and ear wax

If I were an Australian I would vote for vision, responsibility, tolerance, harmony, justice

If I were an Australian I think my only choice this year is to vote for a Labor win and the Greens to hold balance of power in the Senate

So if I were an Australian I would vote. Not only would I vote but I would vote for change

COS ITS ABOUT BLOODY TIME!

myanmar

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING IN MYANMAR???
WHY HASN'T ANY OF THE NEWS I WAS WATCHING IN CHINA MENTIONED THIS?

Summer of 1989

I was small. I stood in front of the television with my grandmother. It was hot and the fan was on from 10am in the mornings. Day after day and night after night the TV showed young people sitting hand in hand, singing, making poems, camping and talking about how they'd like life to be. Things happened quick and the reporter spoke like he was panicking. Then day after day and night after night there were things like blood and dead bodies and tanks. Blank fuzzing TV screens after 2am. Then at 6am it was back on and there were more tanks and broken bikes and blood and people lying on the side of the streets, mothers screaming their children's names...

Today I stood in front of the square. Big slabs of grey concrete one after another with no blood stains or torn tents or faeces and rubbish in piles in sight. Hundreds of people going about their business, exercising, walking, chatting, taking pictures, selling magazines, children chasing each other, people saying hello, ice blocks, sausages, smiling, happy people.

All that was going across my mind were the images of people that aren't here doing this. Happy smiling faces, full of hope, ready to sing another song, to inspire, live life to its fullest...

Here's a big *!@#U to the PRC government who banned my blog here, courtesy to another blogger's site I surfed into one day. I can't see this but the rest of you can. Its a shame that another one billion has got wool over their eyes.

De/\/cR4CY k4NN07 8e 84NNeD

Banned~~

Hello everyone

I've arrived safe and sound in China. I met up with Templeton in Beijing and we took the overnight train to Shenyang where his parents Margaret and Peter are living and working as English teachers. The weather is perfect and the food is just excellent and the locals are absolutely delightful.

Unfortunately it appears that my blog is banned here (go figure), so though I am able to log on to post and edit from time to time, I can't see the published material nor some of the "objectionable" content. Its all a bit of a mess for me to figure out the technicalities, so in case you don't hear from me - that's why. Do drop me a line via email and text though, and I'll try keep you posted as much as poss here.

love, FB.

p.s. Dad - I'm hope you're proud ;-)

Challenge No.6: Confronting Acid Violence

While I could make a light hearted approach to this diplomat wives hobby event which makes ex-pats feel better about spending money on a night out amidst the surrounding festering poverty just 30 meters away on the otherside of the barb wire, I think I should also point every one to some important websites/research helping women in this region of the world that has survived acid attacks and other gender based violence - ie. violence committed upon people specifically as a result of them being women.

Some things to ponder:

• Acid violence is prevalent in the Indian subcontinent (ie. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) as well as parts of South East Asia. It is however more frequently reported in Bangladesh than any other country.
• Physical "beauty" is the main way which women gains status in societies that denies them equal education, employment etc social opportunties or recognitions, and in Bangladesh for example a women's "beauty" can mean she marries into a better family. Being defaced by acid destroys a women's ability to advance in soceity in this manner, and contains cultural concepts of shame - permanent scarring/ "marking" you (and your family) forever. AV is a gender based violence like rape and genital mutilation, it is a means of controlling women's sexuality and subordinent position via physical harm - eg. punishment for extramarital sex (infidelity), not marrying whom their family directs them to etc. The constant threat of acid violence against women is a method of reinforcing male dominance/the patriarchal power structure - so it is just as important to address as equal access to education, health, economic equality.
• AV is a burden to health expenditures for families and communities. Physical health risks associated with acid attacks eg. further skin diseases and blindness; mental health affects of attacks leading to cases of depression and suicide, plus the combined of the above on women's economic ability to support herself and her family and children

Links:
www.acidsurvivors.org/ (Bangladesh org)
http://cambodianacidsurvivorscharity.org/ (Cambodia org)
http://www.womenatrisk.org.uk/vw1.html (UK based org)

Elora Halim Chowdhury on feminist perspectives on AV in Bangladesh & world
Amartya Sen's chapter on "Missing Women" in Development as Freedom

Marseille Meets the Eye

Anna is a cool Italian woman my age that I met on the train from Nepoli to Rome. She works as a community radio announcer in Madrid and is fluent in four languages. She is a huge fan of Marseille, having lived there previously and recommended a list of things I should do in Marseille. I promised I'd report back on my progress.

Dear Anna

Thanks so much for the brilliant suggestions for stuff to do in Marseille, I had a fabulous time poking around and completely regret that I only had one day there.

The Chateau D’If was jus one of the most awesome and fulfilling things I’ve done so far on my trip. The Count of Monte Cristo (translated into Chinese) was one of the first ‘serious’ novels I attempted at Primary school, so taking the boat out and checking out the place has been a dream of mine for about twenty years. The boat ride itself was amazing, the brilliant views of the harbour as we pulled out of the thousands of fishing boats and yachts, the crisp ocean and rugged terrains of the mainland was magnificent and I’d recommend it for anyone even if they are not a Monte Cristo fan. Yep it did look spooky towering in that ocean even in bright day light, and I had not realized how close it was to Marseille. Mademoiselle Mercedes must have been gutted to find out that her loverboy Edmund had only been a stonethrow away from her all those years that she’d thought he’d employed a drastic method to get away from marrying her. And they must have also cleaned the place up and opened more ‘windows’ in the fort, because the place did not resemble for one moment the dark, wet, claustrophobic rat infested warren in Duma’s book, even though I’m sure he was very colourful or even exaggerative with his words. Its interesting in Europe that many former sites of trauma are often sterilized and monumented to distance visitors from being too close to the actual confrontations. These places are reinterpreted into spaces for leisure and entertainment, rather than a more vivid documentary of past events. As tourists we are there to be reminded of the traumas, but in actual fact sheltered by the passing of time and the removal of certain objects reminding us of human presence, as though it is important to know that the past is the past and we are ready to move on. True, practical, but also escapist. As if the struggles of yesteryear has been totally won, and every woman and man is free today and every where. The context of the space has changed from a place of suffering to a place of amusement. The experience becomes surreal, and at the end of the day, entertainment rather than like watching animals in a zoo rather than sympathise with the way in which they are incarcerated.

The weather in port today was gorgeous, not stinking hot and coupled with a gentle flowing air, just like a light duvet in an early morning siesta. Marseille resembled Copenhagen in a way, the grand buildings on either side and the yachts packed on the edges of the wharf. The cute old fishing boats were still there at the centre pier doing the rounds for morning fish market when I arrived. Since we were discussing politics the other day, you might also be interested in the overfishing problem in the Mediterranean. I think by far the hardest social issue here is balancing local and traditional livelihoods with the ever increasing global demand for more (sea)food and the globalizations of environmental exploitation. How will the environment ever cope with this continuous onslaught for more and more and more?

Many people have told me that Marseille is very crusty and dangerous (‘full of Africans’ was one descriptions) , but quite the contrary I thought it was very attractive and clean, especially compared to Napoli. The only thing near ‘crust’ I bumped into were the faeces coloured abandoned 60s era small factories on the rim of the Panier (old town). I thought the rest of the centre and the port looked very scrubbed up.

I loved the Cour Ju area, it was just fascinating looking at the eclectic collection of food and bits and bobs you can get from different ethic shops and stalls. The sites and sounds reminded me very much of Morocco’s huge souqs. Because of the bold way that immigrants of all kinds have lived their lives here in Marseille for thousands of years, I find the streets just that tad more colourful and exciting.
I don’t understand why people automatically brand anywhere with African or Middle Eastern immigrants ‘rough’. (I mean, just look inside some middle class suburbs anywhere in the world and people would be amused to see the violence that are not spoken about). Its not only a huge generalization but it ignores the cultural blending so beneficial to any society’s further development. The things that are keeping many immigrants poor is prejudice, alienation, discrimination in things like education and employment that continues a cyclical pattern of unemployment, and drug and alcohol abuse as a direct result from the hardship they face. Its not just France or Italy, its everywhere. Its time people put away those ridiculous walls between themselves and others that they aren’t familiar with or get on with, rather than just the fear of ‘the other’.

Now the crazy Pastis Ricardo drink you said I simply must try… I made the mistake of getting into it too early in the afternoon, it definitely is a night drink. You were trying to murder me weren’t you? The waiter handed it to me and urged me to blend it down with water, and even after that it felt like meths evaporating on my tongue. The flavour was very very spicy, if not exhilarating. Aniseed is definitely one of those acquired tastes I just don’t see myself acquiring… So for the first time in my life I’ve actually left a fresh serving of alcohol unfinished. The Frenchies must have thought I was a total wimp!! Later I found out that Pastis is actually a later version of absinth. Great.

Marseille just oozed culture and history, its amazing to know that it was in fact the first ever settled French village back in 600 AD, and the maritime and military history its had over the years just made it so much more fascinating as a place to visit. It is to me the first French enigma I knew as an outsider. I really wished I had more time hanging out in Marseille, especially when you mentioned how wonderful the night life is like here particularly in the summer. Oh well, there’s so much I still want to do both in France and Italy so looks like I’ll have to pencil it in for the next trip (touch wood).

I hope you are having lots of fun in Madrid and hopefully we’ll catch up in person very very soon.

xx WaWa



--> If someone had a shop like this in NZ they'd be dragged out and shot. Well, only if we actually had guns...

Wir Sind Das Volke!!

Being a tourist in Berlin is particularly meaningful to me because of its fascinating role in modern political history. Berlin has seen some pretty heavy trials and tribulations, and a lot of this only being in the last 100 years. Sch'cuse for a bit of sch'piel but some of this is really interesting if you get into it....

The Ministry of Finance building

Formerly the Nazi Air Force Ministry. It was the the first large Nazi building to be built, and then one of the only ones to survive. It is particularly infamous because of the number of high profile political events happened next to the building. The underground Third Reich head quarters entrance is right next to it, and Colonel Schauffenberg, the man who tried to assassinate Hitler was tortured and executed there in 1943. On June 17 1953, East Germans protesting against Soviet rule and suppression gathered outside the building (then the Soviet´s main Ministry) and in the course of the next few days the Russian military killed over 200 protesters and arrested countless others (many of whom probably died under custody and possibly out in Sachsenhaussen). A large death strip was set up right there next to the Berlin Wall during the Cold War, and countless people attempting to cross it has been shot there. Now accountants work here.

To the left is the monument which now is situated at the book burning square where in May 1933 Hitler Youth burnt a list of 20,000 books which are considered against Nazism and Fascism. A quote written in 1823 by Heinrichy Heine reads : When you start to burn books, you will eventually end up burning people. The installation is extremely powerful in the sense that it is entirely underground with a glass frame looking into an empty shelf that could store up to 20,000 books, right in the middle of the square.
Brandonberg Gate

many notorious armies has marched through these gates, including Napoleon's, the various Kaisers, the Russian Red Army upon liberating Berlin in 1945 (then proceeded to rape approx 100,000 Berlin women - again, an eye for an eye makes the whole ). Then during the Berlin Wall years the wall ran right next to the gate, and countless speeches by various politicians were made in front of the gates as the symbolic flash point between the two sides. Then the wall came down in front of those gates and in front of the world in 1989.

I remember 1989 like no other year. I was in my third year in Primary school but the world around me was going off. Taiwan was going through an absolutely exciting period of democratic reforms, having the first opposition party being set up in 1986 after marshal law imposed by the KMT government had been lifted. Chiang Jing-Kuo, who was Chiang Kai-Shek's son and succeeded him as President (we're talking empire here, of course) died in January that year, and Lee Deng Hui became the first Taiwan born person become president. Central Taipei where we lived was abuzz with democracy fever, free and democratic elections at all levels of government was taking place, even at my own primary school, the children even voted in the raccoon as the animal to represent Taipei. Dad was (and obviously still is) the political junkie type that would take his kids to election rallies and volunteered us to fold propaganda for his fav candidate that set up shop just across the road from our apartment. So there we were, after homework and dinner, at election rallies listening to passionate people talking about their dreams and visions, but also their anger and their hurt. I was young but I felt it running in my blood. In June, across the strait in China an estimated 7000 people were killed during the few weeks of demonstrations. The Taiwanese was obsessed with what was happening over there, cos the same thing could well happen to us, if it was say ten year before under KMT (and did in February 1947) or in thirty years time if we were unlucky enough to be bulldozed over by the CCP. But its not. We were sitting there watching. Bearing witness. It sent shudders down my spine because those students were not much older than I was, and they were doing the same things my parents were just last night -saying what they felt was right. We traveled to Singapore and New Zealand in July, my first overseas trip. Full of fantastic memories of sheep on the hill and feeding black swans in Lake Rotorua. My parents even decided to move there, and of course that changed the rest of our lives. Then on 9 November 1989, the same television screen beamed the pictures of German people, many of them as young as the Tienanmen Square students, in front of those giant gates, jumping across this giant wall and breaking out champagne and dancing all night, crying, laughing, as if they've never done it before. They yelled 'Wir sind das volk! Wir sind das volk! Die mauer muss weg, die mauer muss weg! ' (WE ARE THE PEOPLE!!! WE ARE THE PEOPLE!!! THE WALL MUST COME DOWN!!! THE WALL MUST COME DOWN!!!). The passion in their voices and their joy of experiencing freedom shook the lounge room and the entire family was clapping for them. And here I am again after all these years, this time really standing here!

The Reichtag

The German Parliament is actually called the Bundestag, and only started sitting back in the original Berlin Reichtag in 1999. The Parliament Buildings is still affectionately known as the Reichtag after it was commissioned to be built to house the Second Reicht in 1894 ie. the Kaiserreicht (after Kaiser Wilhem II united Prussia, Bravaria and Saxony into Germany) and they did in fact have democratic elections, women even voted. But after Hitler came on the scene, the building mysteriously caught fire in 1933 and the whole building was abandoned as Hitler sacked the Weimer Republic parliament and began his war against the world. Hitler was completely uninterested in democracy so he in fact NEVER sat foot into the building. The burnt building itself didn't get fixed for many years through out WWII and the early 1960s as the Germans were preoccupied and also underfunded. It was then slowly refurbished and after reunification Sir Norman Foster (who did the giant cucumber in London) won the competition to reconstruct the dome destroyed in 1933. The Reichtag reopened in 1999 and the Bundestag sat in the building again after 66 years. It is now the beautiful building and dome that I climbed earlier this week. It sits right above the debating chamber so that the pollies know that the PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING!!

What you may find interesting is that the New Zealand electoral system, ie Mixed Members Proportional, is actually mirrored against the German Bundastag system. In the early 1990s, the NZ gov commissioned a group of experts including my lecturer Professor Richard Mulgan to search the world for a better system to enable New Zealand"s tiny, but fledging democracy which is rapidly changing in terms of party composition and voting behaviour. For example, there were few minor parties gaining significant and fairly legitimate percentages of votes but never able to be represented in parliament due to the first past the post system, which favoured the two major parties, while minorities such as Maori, women, immigrants, and non heterosexuals were not having enough voice in Parliament. The Royal Commission traveled all over the world sampling electoral systems, including considering the Irish, Japanese and Israeli systems of preferential etc before recommending MMP, as its done in Germany to NZ. You can read more about how it works here. Once you get into it, its actually quite an interesting subject. I personally think its a pretty wonderful system where everybody gets a fair chance of being represented rather than an outright majority by the most powerful and resourceful party, whom often are fuckers anyway.

Democracy is not always perfect, and so many people are still perfecting it as we speak. But don't you think that this big beautiful building housing a forum where everybody can supposedly have a place, have a voice, have a share of the sky is a wonderful thing that the German people and ultimately Berlin really really deserve after all these years and the blood and the tears? You go for it, Dem Deutschen Volke!!

David Hicks 26-3-07

I find myself angry and disgusted hearing about the coverage on David Hicks. Hearing about this man who is in bad health, low spirits, isolated, possibly tortured, and who after all this time, be humiliated in front a court in front of strangers and his family. And that it has taken five years in solitary confinement before a person is trialed, and that the Australian government tolerates this, and public outrage over this.

Its embarrassing for the Americans to have the last tribunal ruled as unconstitutional, a country who’s government and president that’s already been reduced to chain-email jokes and crass T-shirts. A country who does not respect international law and order at the first place who have taken law into their own hands. We’ll hang this person today and we’ll bomb this other place tomorrow. America, the country that thinks it speaks for everyone else in the world.

I find the whole idea of solitary confinement a repulsive way of punishment, let alone an acceptable way to “temporarily detain” someone for five years. The sort of mental destruction this must have on any one is unimaginable for me. Cutting off people’s beards, taking away their religious scripts, forcing them to walk around in chains or confined to the floor. Did these perpetrators ever think what if this is their brother, sister, father, mother? This is not justice, its abuse. And its tolerated.

The worst news is, David Hick’s case is receiving this kind of media attention because he is Australian. He is the first to be trialed in the new commission out of hundreds of political prisoners detained as those accused of terrorism. There are HUNDREDS of people from countries from the Middle East and around the world not just in Guantamao but all over US military run prisons that do not have the democratic processes behind them, whether it be public scrutiny or government will or media capacity to pressure some action for their case. Before they are trialed properly, many of them would have probably been physically, mentally and sexually abused before they die in destitute, despair, and with absolutely no dignity – without any one knowing about it.

I think what I feel most angry about is perhaps how powerless I feel about this injustice. I can write in my blog, I can go on a protest, I can write to the paper, I can sign a petition, I can cast a vote, I can ring up my local polly. Thousands of people have done that, and still… some times I really wonder.

All that flag bullshit

Can't help m'self but to put in my five cents worth.

This whole Big Day Out thing hasn't turned out to be as bad as I thought, I recon. Yes the Big Day Out team was a little bit stupid not to predict the obvious backlash they're going to get by simply targetting the wrong thing. Its not the Australian Flag per se that's the problem its the hoolagans that misuse it to mascarade racism under patrioticism. Now that they're allowing the australian flag back in, at least people are treating the flag a lot more responsibly intentionally and are starting to question some of the current attitudes about national pride/racial tolerance/what the flag really means.

I'm not really qualified to tell Australians how their flags should be used, but personally for me national flags no matter which nationality, whether your own or others, should be respected and all that jazz, its a symbol of a nation's pride so if you're not in a proud state (ie. drunk or high or in the mood for mulsim-bashing) you shouldn't go around draping it around your shoulder. As far as I'm concerned, unless you've just won the 400m dash at the Commonwealth Games or something equivalent, sorry, not good enough for that. The irony is that, the person who actually won the above mentioned race chose to drape herself in the aboriginal flag instead and got completely crusified by the same mob that was also pretty upset three days ago. Such culturally embracing good sportsmenship.

And what does patriotism mean anyway? I'd say it sits on a Kensey Scale and can be up to no good at each end. Not only can it be interpreted/used/ taken as , as the case shows, into all sorts of other quite not so nice things, such as racism, pig headed nationalism, zenophobia, monarchirism, conservatism, and the likes, and then further picked up by the next Pauline Hanson and snowball into the mess as it is like the BDO saga. Just look at the line up of pollies we had coming out to give the BDO people a good slapp'n.

Even so, forgetting all the above, I question how relevant patrioticism is to Australia today anyway. Australia's not at war with any other nation (ah remember terrorism isn't a country or a person or an organisation?? not even an idea??) not invading anyone, not being invaded, not being threatened by economic sanction, no one's "defecting" on a jetplane, not being dumped from an international organisation, being sued, etc etc. (Being beaten at a sport doesn't count). I just don't think "loving your nation" is particularly relevant when it doesn't actually need your love. Plenty of people to take your place if you want to bugger off somewhere else. Patriotism played its part in different nation's history and times when national unity and pride needs to be ramped up by upstairs because a nation or its nationhood is underthreat. Like when Europe's countries are underthreat by fascism, or if the Mongols are trying to get over the wall, or Napoleon's trying to cross the snow... Now its like if you're Taiwanese, or Tibetan, or Greenlander, or Quebecan (or Quebecer?? Quebequai)... except you're loving a country that no one else knows exists... MY POINT IS, YOU'RE FUCKING LUCKY TO BE HERE - DON'T RUB IT IN!

Tears aside, I tend to agree with Tim Flannery in his fantastic interview on ABC on Thursday night - why don't Australians feel affinity to each other via the land they share, the very thing that nurtures life on this continent? why define Australian with shit like meat pie and man from snowy river, which is totally irrelevant to vegetarians and any one who lives north of the Victorian border. Or women. And how many Australian flags you managed to tattoo on yourself just so you could go to the concert.

A few clarifications

Just in case you googled yourself into my site when looking for stories about the 8 year old West-Papuan boy called Wa-Wa who supposedly is under the threat of being eaten by his tribe "in the next ten years", well, it ain't me.

I really can't speak on his behalf despite sharing the same name, and I am pretty unclear on exactly what the circumstances exactly of his life or welfare, but I'd still like to take this opportunity to say what a fuck wit twit Naomi Robson is and that Today Tonight is the lowest form of entertainment any one would ever come across. Nevermind all the misquoting and misleading editing they do all the fucking time esp about Muslim Australians, and the numerous times she'd been caught by Media Watch for doing whatever unethical business they are doing.

Australians, BOYCOTT THIS DISGUSTING PROGRAM!! Its not "current affairs" its not even gossip, its complete tripe that is keeping bogans of this nation bogans.

Oh, poor little Naomi gets kicked out by an authoritarian terrorist tolerating model-jailing drug-mule executing government for snooping around without prior permission. I can just imagine her squeeling. Serves her bloody right.

Of all the pressing issues you can investigate in West Papua, like their ongoing independence struggle against Indonesia, asylum seekers that Australia SENT BACK to face whatever Indonesia wants to do with them, the generl impoverishment of the area, the arms and drug trade, illegal logging and HIV/AIDS coming out of their ears etc etc etc, instead you go do a story another network has already done... on CANNIBALISM?? Several anthropologists/etc experts already says its not something they practice anymore, they only do it to each other's tribes not their own etc etc, the initial report was not even investigating cannibalism to start with, bumping in the the little boy was a side thing. To sensationalise Papuans as "savages" is reenforcing the ignorant and xenophobic and neo-colonialist attitude Australians has towards anyone who's not white and speaks English. As sad as it is for any one to die and their human rigthts violated, Cannibalism is not a systematic issue. Genital mutilation, domestic violence, forced conscription is - and millions more die from this much much more frequently than isolated cases of cannibalism. For fucks sake why isn't she going around saving kids from killing themselves in refugee camps or jumping off a leaking boat.

Oh, and did any one ask her to tick against "Indonesian Values" she identifies with on the visa card before they let her in? She failed? How unjust!!

Beattie vs Greer

"Beattie adds 'stupid' to Greer backlash"
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20365256-2,00.html?from=rss

er, when did over-exaggeration of public grief take over tolerance of a sober, and reasonably formed personal opinion? Oh, I get it, state election time, and you're picking on a child-less hairy raging feminazi. Who's 'stupid' and hiding behind "politically correct clap trap" exactly?

Clive Hamilton's piece in SMH hits the spot. Death becomes an excuse to savage "elites" - now that's nasty the pollies are milking this whole Steve Irwin thing big time, don't for one minute think that they are truly "sad" for it all, except for that fact that Steve Irwin won't be buying land off them and doing the state's job of conservation instead. or to call John Howard the greatest leader alive. *chunder in the land down under*

Personally, to me its a bit like picketting at Joh Bjelke-Peterson's funeral, like, you're making a valid point but at a cheap-shot kind of timing makes it just look a little bit not that cool, but its not like Germain Greer is the one to bite her toungue on anything. What I love about Germain Greer is her guts to say what she thinks, when ever she thinks, she shocks and she challenges, she picks up a deluded population masked by spin and systematic brainwash, and shake them about and bring them to the realisty of some pretty "inconvenient truths" to coin that other bloke, and thats what takes the message home, and I fearlessly defend her just for that.

Score Board- Greer:1, Beattie:1, Freespeech: Nil.

RU486 blah blah blah

Anything to do with abortion will always arouses emotions, moral high grounds, and a whole lot of political showdown.

It shows again that the personal is the political. First there was Tony Abbott milking his "reunited with my long lost son" story then having it bite him back on the arse story. And then Lyn Allyson and Nick Minchin also comes out and shares their abortion story. Which ever side they stand and what ever the starting point, I do think it is courageous to take on this taboo. Back say 40 years ago in the first wave of abortion debates it would have been political suicide. Its interesting that it can be turned straight around. And it demonstrates that its pretty obvious that unplanned and unwanted pregnancy happens through out any section of the society, and it can happen to any body. Its not a teenage problem, its not a lower socio-economic problem, it can happen to any body, and any body, particularly the pregnant woman herself MUST have the choice to decide on what is best for her, first and formost.

As far as I am concerned the debate is not about abortion. We had that debate 40 years ago – its pretty clear that people in this country wants to uphold that simple freedom of controlling the paths of their own lives. Its about introducing this drug into Australia and the Its about the administration and control of the drug – which is a fair enough debate.

But its also very interesting that the debate is only happening now. RU486 has been available in New Zealand since 2001. Why has it taken so long for the health system to finally get the paper work going? Red tape in a regime controlled by Christian Fundamentalists.

Its not even a debate about late term abortion. RU486 is a pill (or 2 pills) that can only be used to terminate pregnancy in the first NINE weeks of pregnancy. It reduces the trauma and complication and risks of a surgical abortion. see http://www.ru486facts.org/ or google it for more info.

And then Dana we-are-aborting-ourselves-out-of-exisitence Vaile comes out with that stupid comment about Australia being over populated by Muslims and white women (I'm pretty sure Asian women are having too many babies too) are obviously out-competed in the baby popping race. (cos you know, they have the freedom to work, walk down the street without having to veil themselves head to toe, own property rather than being owned as property, choose who they want to marry, enjoy sex, use contraceptives, and god oh god have abortions!!)

If people do not think abortions are part of their moral lifestyle, then its their CHOICE (as in, I'm not referring to the free market). Don't use your moral/religious values to govern other people’s moral values. We are a much more secular society than many others, its just that the religious few seem to still want to have their say for everyone else. So they loose the abortion debate and are still trying to make it harder for other people to have more safer choices incontrolling their own bodies.

There's only one line I've gotta say: "Get your rosaries off my ovaries Mr Abbott!"