What's on my mind:
WHERE THE TIME WINDS BLOW
A 1981 science-fiction novel by Robert Holdstock, picked up by me for about forty cents at a used-bookstore here in Baguio. The story centres around a group of cosmic explorers in the far future (is there any other kind?) on a distant planet (is there any other kind?) who regularly and routinely find themselves evading giant, hurricane-like windstorms that just happen to leave debris, artifacts, dead aliens, etc., from either the past or the future. Time winds, in other words.
Kind of a cool idea. Things from the past pop up in the present. Or stuff from the future has been blown back. And there's an old man who is routinely seen popping in and out of time at the edges of this cosmic desert, and he may (or may not be) the future self of one of the novel's protagonists.
Good fun. I love time-travel stories, and this one has a fresh take on a tired genre. (Even though the book was published when I was in Grade 2, I'm still considering it 'fresh', because I'm reading it for the first time.)
I have my own ideas about a time-travel type story that I'm considering writing, which may dovetail nicely with a ghost-story type story that I've had rattling around inside of my head for a good five years. I like the leeway fantasty and sf gives your imagination. Anything goes, as long as it's halfway plausible and completely entertaining.
1408
This Stephen King thriller just left the theatres here, and I found it a nice, nifty throwback to THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Somebody described it as 'the mini-bar version of THE SHINING', which is as good a description as any, given that John Cusack spends most of the movie holed up in a single hotel room, fighting off ghosts and insanity and his own dark demons.
It's been awhile since I've seen a genuinely creepy movie, and this was it. With an ending that lingers.
JOSEPH ESTRADA
He's the former president of the Philippines who was finally sentenced to life in prison yesterday, after six years of court delays. A former famous B-movie star, he was elected president and then promptly proceeded to plunder the national banks for all they were worth.
A lot of the public, mostly the poor, seem to love him, mostly because he was an action star who promoted himself as a 'man of the people', but plunder's plunder, me thinks. He remids me of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin of Thailand -- loved by the poor because he throws them scraps every now and then, but disdained by the urban elite, who know corruption when they see it.
JAPAN
Back to Japan next Wednesday. (I'll take the night bus from Baguio to Manila on Tuesday around 11:50 p.m.) Once safely nestled in Nippon, I'll be living in a city whose exact name I forget -- never a good sign. But I think I'm pretty sure which train line it's on -- always a good sign. I'll be working as a 'cover instructor', filling in for teachers who get sick, or observing other teachers teach and giving them advice. Or replacing teachers who get fired (like I did last semester). So I could end up teaching at one university for three months, or bopping between schools and spying on other teachers anywhere and everywhere for three months. Time will tell.
CANCER
Second opinions being sought on the latest MRI. Another round of chemo possibly in the near future -- or possibly not. Being an observer, a spectator to the whole thing is frustrating beyond measure, but so it goes. Almost two years (and counting), so every day is something to be celebrated. Still. Let's just hope our genius medical minds come up with a cure pretty damn soon for this dreadful disease, right?
BEING LEFT-HANDED
I thought about it yesterday for no reason whatsoever: How often am I aware of my left-handedness? And I realized: Not very often. Once, twice a month? Usually when I spot an actor holding a gun with their left hand (Bruce Willis, in every action movie he's ever made), or I catch an actress unconvincingly attempt to portray a right-hander (the only example being Julia Roberts -- a famous lefty -- in Erin Brockovich signing a form on a clipboard handed to her by the delivery man, and she signs the sheet with her right hand, because I'm assuming the real-life Brockovich was a righty, but she holds the clipboard in such a way that she's shielding us from seeing her hand signing the paper, because it probably looked all awkward on her first two or three attempts, so the director, Steven Soderbergh, probably asked her to tilt the clipboard in such a way so that the audience wouldn't see her hand too much, and I'm such a loser with so much time on my hands that I spotted her deception right away and screamed: "Bullshit! You're a lefty trying to be a righty!" Okay, I didn't scream it, but I thought it...)
BEING THIRTEEN
There's a thirteen year old in the house, so I'm reminded of how far I've come and how soon it's all passed. A good age, thirteen is. Still a little bit of the kid left in you. Adolescence not completely coming down on you. Things are fresh. Still okay to sing goofy songs at the top of your lungs, and nobody's going to call you on it.
THE BLIND MAN ON THE STREET
There's an old and dirty and poor little man who sits on the sidewalk outside of this internet cafe, day after day, month after month year after year. His arm extends upwards in a creaky position, his fingers gnarled, his palm open. He might not be blind, actually, but his eyes are always closed, and his face is often grimaced, and he's been there for as long as I've been here, and, I'm told, for the twenty years before that, too.
NERDS
They have them here in the Philippines, too --not the geeky people like me, no, but those tiny, fruity candies we used to gobble as kids. Haven't tried any yet, though I'm tempted. I'm worried that the inevitable sugar rush would send me skyrocketing back to the past in a flash.
A time wind would pick me up and hurl me back and I might never be able to find my way back here, to this moment in time, to this place. I'd be lost in the past, wondering if everything after thirteen was nothing more than a sugar-fuelled dream, sweet and tangy, but distant, in a haze.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
CLUMSY BUT CURIOUS
I recently read of a fifty or sixty year old Japanese woman who, fearing that her brain was getting a little lazy, her outlook on life a trifle static, decided to throw caution to the wind and move to Moscow. She's been there for over ten years now, teaching ikebana -- the art of Japanese flower arranging -- to eager, energetic Russians. (Or cold and frigid Muscovites, looking for a place to come out of the cold. One of the two, at any rate.)
Part of the reason why I keep studying Japanese, no matter what country I'm in, not matter how meager my progress, is that I, too, worry about my brain becoming dull. Ineffective. Like a razor that has long lost its sharp and ragged lustre. They say that writing and reading are great for the mind, and reading and writing in a foreign language is even better, especially when that language is Japanese, composed of odd and engimatic picture-shaped symbols that appear more artistic than linguistic. If I keep studying, poking away, plodding along, eventually comprehension will follow. Not complete, no, but my comprehension of English is not complete, either. (Having Japanese students ask me the meaning of certain English medical words only confirms this.) The best I can hope to do is refine my English ability by reading and writing in my native tongue, and hope to harness a teensy weensy bit of Japanese, because the more I learn, the more I comprehend, and the more I comprehend, the better I feel. The larger I feel.
The irony, of course, is that part of the reason why I meander my through the endless intricacies of the Nihongo language is that I feel myself becoming too self-satisfied with English itself. Having been a fairly steady readyer for almost twenty years now, a certain, well, smugness has settled in. Almost arrogance, you could say. I know the authors I like; I know the styles I like. I choose my books accordingly. Which, in and of itself, reveals a certain presumptuousness: How can I, just past thirty, assume to know what is and what isn't pristine and refined in the written word of the English world?
And that's the thing: The older we get, the more self-satisfied we become. I'm more and more amazed at people (myself absolutely included) who are convinced about the rightness, the goodness, the overall completeness of whatever it is that they believe. Whether it comes to art or sports or politics or science, there is something within each and every one of us that affirms the validity of each of our individual opinions. We all see the word through different eyes, and usually assume that our eyes are the most perceptive eyes.
Yet there's a double irony involved, I think, in that the older we get the more static and certain our viewpoints become, and yet at the same time, deep down, deep inside, we realize that we don't know much at all. If anything. So we have to overcompensate by recklessly and ruthlessly defending that which we do believe in, whether it's the potency of a particular political candidate or which burger chain produces the best hamburgers. (I vote for Harvey's, a Canadian original.)
So by studying Japanese, I admit, daily, that I don't, know, shit. And by admitting that, I'm allowing myself to learn a little bit more, for a little while longer. Something has been gained; something has been added.
Being a perpetual beginner, an unapolegetic amateur, ensures that I will always have something to shoot for. And being clumsy but curious is surely the most we can hope for out of life.
And, given that Blogger tells me that this is my 500th clumsy but curious blog entry, many thanks to those desperate souls who have read all (or one!) of them.
I don't know if I have another 500 in me, but I'm fairly certain I have at least another, and yet another, and perhaps, for the moment, that's enough.
Part of the reason why I keep studying Japanese, no matter what country I'm in, not matter how meager my progress, is that I, too, worry about my brain becoming dull. Ineffective. Like a razor that has long lost its sharp and ragged lustre. They say that writing and reading are great for the mind, and reading and writing in a foreign language is even better, especially when that language is Japanese, composed of odd and engimatic picture-shaped symbols that appear more artistic than linguistic. If I keep studying, poking away, plodding along, eventually comprehension will follow. Not complete, no, but my comprehension of English is not complete, either. (Having Japanese students ask me the meaning of certain English medical words only confirms this.) The best I can hope to do is refine my English ability by reading and writing in my native tongue, and hope to harness a teensy weensy bit of Japanese, because the more I learn, the more I comprehend, and the more I comprehend, the better I feel. The larger I feel.
The irony, of course, is that part of the reason why I meander my through the endless intricacies of the Nihongo language is that I feel myself becoming too self-satisfied with English itself. Having been a fairly steady readyer for almost twenty years now, a certain, well, smugness has settled in. Almost arrogance, you could say. I know the authors I like; I know the styles I like. I choose my books accordingly. Which, in and of itself, reveals a certain presumptuousness: How can I, just past thirty, assume to know what is and what isn't pristine and refined in the written word of the English world?
And that's the thing: The older we get, the more self-satisfied we become. I'm more and more amazed at people (myself absolutely included) who are convinced about the rightness, the goodness, the overall completeness of whatever it is that they believe. Whether it comes to art or sports or politics or science, there is something within each and every one of us that affirms the validity of each of our individual opinions. We all see the word through different eyes, and usually assume that our eyes are the most perceptive eyes.
Yet there's a double irony involved, I think, in that the older we get the more static and certain our viewpoints become, and yet at the same time, deep down, deep inside, we realize that we don't know much at all. If anything. So we have to overcompensate by recklessly and ruthlessly defending that which we do believe in, whether it's the potency of a particular political candidate or which burger chain produces the best hamburgers. (I vote for Harvey's, a Canadian original.)
So by studying Japanese, I admit, daily, that I don't, know, shit. And by admitting that, I'm allowing myself to learn a little bit more, for a little while longer. Something has been gained; something has been added.
Being a perpetual beginner, an unapolegetic amateur, ensures that I will always have something to shoot for. And being clumsy but curious is surely the most we can hope for out of life.
And, given that Blogger tells me that this is my 500th clumsy but curious blog entry, many thanks to those desperate souls who have read all (or one!) of them.
I don't know if I have another 500 in me, but I'm fairly certain I have at least another, and yet another, and perhaps, for the moment, that's enough.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
MY TWO (CANADIAN) CENTS ON IRAQ
Here's what I don't get about George W. Bush's current rationale for the ongoing carnage in Iraq.
Essentially, Dubya is arguing that if we don't stop them over there (meaning Iraq), the terrorists will continue the fight over here (meaning America.)
Sounds good, right? We kill each and every terrorist in Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan (which is an unlikely, almost ludicrous prospect in the first place), and then they won't be able to blow us up in our own homeland.
Fine. But this is the thing. The terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have passports.
I may sound flippant, but I'm serious.
Who bombed the World Trade Center? Sixteen middle-class dudes from Saudi Arabia. How were they able to travel around Europe and end up in America in the first place? Because they had passports.
The terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan are not middle-class. They are not doctors. They are not lawyers. They are not even teachers. They are desperately poor and hiding in the hills. I'm not saying that to justify their actions; I'm saying that to point out the fact that they don't have passports, and they won't be able to get passports, ever, and so they won't be able to get on the planes that would take them to the United States to continue the carnage.
Granted, they may have powerful friends who do have passports, but I don't think anybody from the Iraqi National Congress is willing to blow themselves up on the streets of downtown Baltimore. They've got enough problems in their own country without wanting to seek vengeance on grocers in Vermont. (Or wherever.)
Who was behind the recent, attempted attacks in Scotland and England? Middle-class doctors from India with a distorted theological rationale for their own violent, destructive actions. All of whom, it goes without saying, had passports.
What's amazing to me is that this fact hasn't been remarked upon more often (if at all) in what passes for the mainstream media. From Bush's words, you would think that the only thing that's stopping these terrorists from hopping on the first flight to Hartford is the price of a plane ticket. They ain't going anywhere, these terrorists, the one in Iraq. I have no doubt that there will be more terror attacks attempted in Europe and the United States, but they will only be done by middle-class folks with a twisted ideology and an axe to grind and, you guessed it, a passport.
One more thing: Besides Bush's absolute inane comparison of Iraq to Vietnam in the past few weeks, arguing that the States should stay until forever and a day and win this war that will most likely be generational, if not multi-generational, the other thing I can't get my head around is the fact that the American government and American media are somewhat naive about the fact that they just want to leave now, while the getting's good, and that the Iraqis will somehow be able to handle things on their own.
Now, I don't think it's good to stay, and I don't think it's good to leave; I think the U.S. is screwed four ways from Friday either way, frankly. (And yes, I don't quite know what that last phrase means either, but it sounds kind of neat.) I don't what the fuck to do there.
But it seems to me a lot of American poliicians' arguments boil down to: "Look, we invaded your country and started a war that you didn't want and didn't ask for, with no plan for what we would do once we were actually in control, and we have been killing you and your people for the past, what, four or five years, with our motives changing like clockwork every year-and-a-half or so from 'disable the weapons of mass destruction' to 'spread democracy in the Middle East' to 'stop them over here before they come back home'. We have the most powerful, advanced, high-tech army in the history of the planet, and yet we are getting are our asses completely wiped by a bunch of medieval religious nuts, poorer than dirt, who totally tear down our choppers and tanks using home-made bombs the size of a six-pack. We've fought for a few years, and we can't beat them, just like we couldn't defeat dirt-poor Vietnamese peasants a quarter of a century ago, so what are we going to do? We're going to pull out completely, and let you, the Iraqi army, take care of it, even though you are completely incompetent, corrupt, understaffed, underfunded, and devoid of adequate weapons. As I said, we are the most powerful country in the world, but we couldn't make much headway here, but you guys, you guys with your six-shooters and twenty-dollar-a-month wages will, I'm sure, be able to defeat the insurgents. After all, Allah is on your side. Good luck!"
An oversimplification, but I think the reality is that the United States is going to have to somehow figure out a way to stay for a little while longer (meaning years, not months), or else Iraq itself will collapse in on itself in the very near future with one gigantic whoosh of dust and air and blood and bones.
What I think will most likely happen is that Bush, with only one year and change left in his mandate, will keep most of the troops there, hand it all over to his successor, and then, five, ten years from now, when the troop pull out actually happens, and Iraq remains a devastated, distorted mess, will be able to point out comfortably from his couch at Kennebunkport that things would have been just hunk-dory if everybody had just stayed a little bit longer, and not been so wussy about the whole thing. (The scary thing is that I'm actually kind of agreeing with Bush about staying, but disagreeing with how he handled the whole thing to begin with, and how he will justify it to historians later. Either way, I seem to be siding ideologically on the outcome with Bush. Hmmm. Don't tell anyone.)
The circumstances are completely different, but after living in Cambodia for years, and seeing what a mess that country still is (though getting better -- anything after genocide is a step or a staircase or an elevator up, obviously) I think it's fair to say that Iraq will still be a poor, fragile, massively fucked-up nation when I hit the big 5-0. The best we can hope for, as in Cambodia, is that the war will have stopped, peace will have come, the schools will have lighting, and books, and desks, and democracy, corrupt and misshapen, but democracy nevertheless, will have a solid grounding. There will still be disease and unemployment and dirty water and dirty politicians, but people will be able to stroll the streets of Baghdad without the fear of bombs blowing them out of the markets. That's what the aim should be.
There.
That's my two cents, for what it's worth.
(And that's two Canadian cents, so my intellectual value has just really depreciated...)
Essentially, Dubya is arguing that if we don't stop them over there (meaning Iraq), the terrorists will continue the fight over here (meaning America.)
Sounds good, right? We kill each and every terrorist in Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan (which is an unlikely, almost ludicrous prospect in the first place), and then they won't be able to blow us up in our own homeland.
Fine. But this is the thing. The terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have passports.
I may sound flippant, but I'm serious.
Who bombed the World Trade Center? Sixteen middle-class dudes from Saudi Arabia. How were they able to travel around Europe and end up in America in the first place? Because they had passports.
The terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan are not middle-class. They are not doctors. They are not lawyers. They are not even teachers. They are desperately poor and hiding in the hills. I'm not saying that to justify their actions; I'm saying that to point out the fact that they don't have passports, and they won't be able to get passports, ever, and so they won't be able to get on the planes that would take them to the United States to continue the carnage.
Granted, they may have powerful friends who do have passports, but I don't think anybody from the Iraqi National Congress is willing to blow themselves up on the streets of downtown Baltimore. They've got enough problems in their own country without wanting to seek vengeance on grocers in Vermont. (Or wherever.)
Who was behind the recent, attempted attacks in Scotland and England? Middle-class doctors from India with a distorted theological rationale for their own violent, destructive actions. All of whom, it goes without saying, had passports.
What's amazing to me is that this fact hasn't been remarked upon more often (if at all) in what passes for the mainstream media. From Bush's words, you would think that the only thing that's stopping these terrorists from hopping on the first flight to Hartford is the price of a plane ticket. They ain't going anywhere, these terrorists, the one in Iraq. I have no doubt that there will be more terror attacks attempted in Europe and the United States, but they will only be done by middle-class folks with a twisted ideology and an axe to grind and, you guessed it, a passport.
One more thing: Besides Bush's absolute inane comparison of Iraq to Vietnam in the past few weeks, arguing that the States should stay until forever and a day and win this war that will most likely be generational, if not multi-generational, the other thing I can't get my head around is the fact that the American government and American media are somewhat naive about the fact that they just want to leave now, while the getting's good, and that the Iraqis will somehow be able to handle things on their own.
Now, I don't think it's good to stay, and I don't think it's good to leave; I think the U.S. is screwed four ways from Friday either way, frankly. (And yes, I don't quite know what that last phrase means either, but it sounds kind of neat.) I don't what the fuck to do there.
But it seems to me a lot of American poliicians' arguments boil down to: "Look, we invaded your country and started a war that you didn't want and didn't ask for, with no plan for what we would do once we were actually in control, and we have been killing you and your people for the past, what, four or five years, with our motives changing like clockwork every year-and-a-half or so from 'disable the weapons of mass destruction' to 'spread democracy in the Middle East' to 'stop them over here before they come back home'. We have the most powerful, advanced, high-tech army in the history of the planet, and yet we are getting are our asses completely wiped by a bunch of medieval religious nuts, poorer than dirt, who totally tear down our choppers and tanks using home-made bombs the size of a six-pack. We've fought for a few years, and we can't beat them, just like we couldn't defeat dirt-poor Vietnamese peasants a quarter of a century ago, so what are we going to do? We're going to pull out completely, and let you, the Iraqi army, take care of it, even though you are completely incompetent, corrupt, understaffed, underfunded, and devoid of adequate weapons. As I said, we are the most powerful country in the world, but we couldn't make much headway here, but you guys, you guys with your six-shooters and twenty-dollar-a-month wages will, I'm sure, be able to defeat the insurgents. After all, Allah is on your side. Good luck!"
An oversimplification, but I think the reality is that the United States is going to have to somehow figure out a way to stay for a little while longer (meaning years, not months), or else Iraq itself will collapse in on itself in the very near future with one gigantic whoosh of dust and air and blood and bones.
What I think will most likely happen is that Bush, with only one year and change left in his mandate, will keep most of the troops there, hand it all over to his successor, and then, five, ten years from now, when the troop pull out actually happens, and Iraq remains a devastated, distorted mess, will be able to point out comfortably from his couch at Kennebunkport that things would have been just hunk-dory if everybody had just stayed a little bit longer, and not been so wussy about the whole thing. (The scary thing is that I'm actually kind of agreeing with Bush about staying, but disagreeing with how he handled the whole thing to begin with, and how he will justify it to historians later. Either way, I seem to be siding ideologically on the outcome with Bush. Hmmm. Don't tell anyone.)
The circumstances are completely different, but after living in Cambodia for years, and seeing what a mess that country still is (though getting better -- anything after genocide is a step or a staircase or an elevator up, obviously) I think it's fair to say that Iraq will still be a poor, fragile, massively fucked-up nation when I hit the big 5-0. The best we can hope for, as in Cambodia, is that the war will have stopped, peace will have come, the schools will have lighting, and books, and desks, and democracy, corrupt and misshapen, but democracy nevertheless, will have a solid grounding. There will still be disease and unemployment and dirty water and dirty politicians, but people will be able to stroll the streets of Baghdad without the fear of bombs blowing them out of the markets. That's what the aim should be.
There.
That's my two cents, for what it's worth.
(And that's two Canadian cents, so my intellectual value has just really depreciated...)
Thursday, August 30, 2007
FIXTURES
Standing in line outside of the Japanese Embassy in Manila last week, I tried to avert my eyes away from the skinny, slightly-dirty, probably middle-aged Filipino man trying to sell me a bottle of water, or a Coke, or an iced tea, but it was hard to do, because he was persistent, and constant. (I'm not proud to say that 'I tried to avert my eyes', but it's the truth. If you smile and shake your head, you feel kind of stupid, because he knows that you have more money than he does, and your not buying a drink is a not-so-subtle way of denying him some much-needed coin, so the smile comes across as possibly patronizing and definitely hypocritical, because what foreigner can't afford a bottle of water? But looking away doesn't help much either, because he constantly walked to and fro past the front of the embassy, so it wasn't like I could avoid the dude. Either way, as a foreigner, in a poor place, you feel kind of stupid.)
I then suddenly realized that I recognized the guy. From last year. From this same place, at this same spot, in front of the Japanese Embassy on Roxas Boulevard. While I had been to Japan and back again (and Japan and back again) in the ensuing year, he had been there, in that place, walking to and fro. Trying to sell water. Some Coke. Possibly an Iced tea. Probably ten, twelve hours a day.
Going back and forth from place to place these past few years, I find myself remembering, more and more, the people who work at the places I frequent. The privilege of jetting between countries has made me realize that most people stay rooted in place. So my return to Toronto inevitably finds me, at some point, walking into the Indigo book superstore at Yonge and Bay, and, over a span of three, four, five years, I've grown to recognize some of the staff. The pudgy man in his mid-forties with the shock of white hair quietly shelving books and asking if I need any help. The balding cashier with the dark goatee -- possibly a manager by now? -- in his early thirties who often looks like he would rather be anywhere but there, in that exact place, at the front of the store, serving up customer after customer, tallying up books, placing books in bags, checking the computer for the location of the latest Grisham.
They are fixtures, these people are. I go away and they are still there.
Sometimes I wonder: "Are they happy? Is this where they want to be? Do they dream golden beaches and crimson suns, of turquoise water and hammocks swaying them gently to sleep in the late-afternoon breeze?"
Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe they are exactly where they want to be. Maybe that's why they've stayed.
And then there's the chubby little man in his early sixties who runs the snack counter at the Yonge and Bloor subway. (Whether it's in the North/South/East/West direction, I can't remember.) He's been there since I first headed out to the big bad city of Toronto to attend York University in the fall of 1994, best as I can recall. Always looking tired, and stressed, and bored, and somewhat bloated. Dark, dense rings under his eyes, like soot-stained fingerprints poked in dough. Probably an immigrant. (Not such a tough call, given that Toronto is now composed of fifty percent immigrants.) Sitting there, day after day after day, selling gum, candy, magazines. Watching the commuters be so busy while he stays so still.
And then there's Japan, where I lived for four years in the past and have returned (in two month intervals) twice in the past year, and I've been somewhat startled to see some of the same familiar faces wandering around the train station where I used to teach. I was gone for four years, and there they are, still there, Americans or Canadians, whose names I never learned but whose faces I never realized I hadn't forgotten.
Of course, I've also been on the other side, so to speak. Coming back to Baguio after a few months away, clerks at the Internet cafes remember my name. Korean students who I taught last winter have returned for the summer session and are somewhat surprised to see that I'm still here. I formed a little piece of their mental picture of the Philippines, and to see me again, to be taught by me again, provides a little piece of stability in an otherwise ever-changing world.
We like to form little mental-slots in our minds, ways of understanding different places and different times in our lives, markers of the journey, and we like to fill those slots with the people we met along the way. Seeing them there, in their place, allows us to believe that what is in flux might possibly stay stable. If only for a moment, at least, for the time it takes to buy a magazine before hopping on the subway.
I have gone but they are still here, and when I come back again, someday soon, or five or ten years from now, perhaps I will see them again. And the world will thus make sense.
That's what I think, anyways.
But the man in front of the Japanese Embassy, the one trying to sell me some water, is most likely thinking of the sun, and its heat, and his feet, and their weariness, and his children, and their hunger.
For that moment, he needs to be nowhere but where he is.
I then suddenly realized that I recognized the guy. From last year. From this same place, at this same spot, in front of the Japanese Embassy on Roxas Boulevard. While I had been to Japan and back again (and Japan and back again) in the ensuing year, he had been there, in that place, walking to and fro. Trying to sell water. Some Coke. Possibly an Iced tea. Probably ten, twelve hours a day.
Going back and forth from place to place these past few years, I find myself remembering, more and more, the people who work at the places I frequent. The privilege of jetting between countries has made me realize that most people stay rooted in place. So my return to Toronto inevitably finds me, at some point, walking into the Indigo book superstore at Yonge and Bay, and, over a span of three, four, five years, I've grown to recognize some of the staff. The pudgy man in his mid-forties with the shock of white hair quietly shelving books and asking if I need any help. The balding cashier with the dark goatee -- possibly a manager by now? -- in his early thirties who often looks like he would rather be anywhere but there, in that exact place, at the front of the store, serving up customer after customer, tallying up books, placing books in bags, checking the computer for the location of the latest Grisham.
They are fixtures, these people are. I go away and they are still there.
Sometimes I wonder: "Are they happy? Is this where they want to be? Do they dream golden beaches and crimson suns, of turquoise water and hammocks swaying them gently to sleep in the late-afternoon breeze?"
Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe they are exactly where they want to be. Maybe that's why they've stayed.
And then there's the chubby little man in his early sixties who runs the snack counter at the Yonge and Bloor subway. (Whether it's in the North/South/East/West direction, I can't remember.) He's been there since I first headed out to the big bad city of Toronto to attend York University in the fall of 1994, best as I can recall. Always looking tired, and stressed, and bored, and somewhat bloated. Dark, dense rings under his eyes, like soot-stained fingerprints poked in dough. Probably an immigrant. (Not such a tough call, given that Toronto is now composed of fifty percent immigrants.) Sitting there, day after day after day, selling gum, candy, magazines. Watching the commuters be so busy while he stays so still.
And then there's Japan, where I lived for four years in the past and have returned (in two month intervals) twice in the past year, and I've been somewhat startled to see some of the same familiar faces wandering around the train station where I used to teach. I was gone for four years, and there they are, still there, Americans or Canadians, whose names I never learned but whose faces I never realized I hadn't forgotten.
Of course, I've also been on the other side, so to speak. Coming back to Baguio after a few months away, clerks at the Internet cafes remember my name. Korean students who I taught last winter have returned for the summer session and are somewhat surprised to see that I'm still here. I formed a little piece of their mental picture of the Philippines, and to see me again, to be taught by me again, provides a little piece of stability in an otherwise ever-changing world.
We like to form little mental-slots in our minds, ways of understanding different places and different times in our lives, markers of the journey, and we like to fill those slots with the people we met along the way. Seeing them there, in their place, allows us to believe that what is in flux might possibly stay stable. If only for a moment, at least, for the time it takes to buy a magazine before hopping on the subway.
I have gone but they are still here, and when I come back again, someday soon, or five or ten years from now, perhaps I will see them again. And the world will thus make sense.
That's what I think, anyways.
But the man in front of the Japanese Embassy, the one trying to sell me some water, is most likely thinking of the sun, and its heat, and his feet, and their weariness, and his children, and their hunger.
For that moment, he needs to be nowhere but where he is.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Every man has his own patch of earth to cultivate. What's important is that he dig deep."
-- Jose Saramago,
Portuguese novelist
-- Jose Saramago,
Portuguese novelist
Monday, August 20, 2007
THE ECHOES INSIDE US
A friend and I recently read the same novel, Q and A, by Vikas Swarup, a funny and involving and moving story about a young Indian beggar boy who becomes the richest game-show winner in international history, and the two of us, my friend and I, came to slightly different conclusions, or interpretations -- conclusions that, perhaps, are not so different after all, upon a little reflection.
Given that the main character's success in answering correctly the questions asked during the quiz portions of the game show resulted from specific incidents from his own life on the streets and in the slums of India, events that provided him with the knowledge needed to win a shitload of money being offered by greedy television executives who didn't really think that anybody would actually be able to answer these queries, was his success therefore a product of his own cunning, his own ingenuity, his own perceptiveness and memory, or was his ultimate triumph nothing more than the working out of his own particular fate, the destiny that his life had been pointing towards all along?
Here's a word or two on this subject from actor Ben Kingsley (real name Krishna Bahnji) recently interviewed in TIME:
Q: What do you look for in a role?
- Catherine Raymond, Bellingham, Washington
A: I look for the echo inside me. Maybe we're all born with our future coiled up inside of us like a spring, and we just unravel this coiled spring and work it out. I'm sorry if this sounds a bit bizarre. I'm trying so hard not to be pretentious because I'm always called pompous and pretentious.
Well, what's he talking about may sound a little pretentious, in person, through the vessel of his voice, if only because Sir Ben Kingsley's diction and overall bearing is probably a bit more distinguished than yours or mine, but I don't think his ideas are particularly pretentious at all. They're what everybody asks themselves all the time, every day, in the morning while nibbling Corn Flakes or in the evening while washing their hair: Is this where I'm supposed to be? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Is here the there I once wanted to reach? And if not, how do I get there, and how will I know what it looks like when I arrive? And will I still be able to get fries with that?
There are many times where I'm standing in front a class full of foreigners, teaching, realizing that they're looking at me as the foreigner, and I realize with a startled flash that I started life on Bayshore Drive in St.Catharines, Ontario, and I'm currently halfway around the world in a country I knew nothing about only a few years ago, and I think: "Whoa -- something happened here."
It can seem so random, the places we end up.
And yet, if I look back, I can see how choice A led to path B, and how from trail C I ended up in valley D. There is a link, and, whether it's random or not, preordained or not, here I am. In this place. At this time. Perhaps the best question is not 'how did I get here' but 'where do I go from here?'
I'm inclined (or would desperately like) to believe that destiny and chance are intertwined, that we do, in the memorable words of Ben Kingsley, look for the echo inside of ourselves, and long, our whole lives, to seek out its original source, its initial shout, its preliminary whisper, its hushed murmur. (Its affirmation of existence, if only in a sigh.)
At the same time, after recently reading a few books recently on evolutionary biology, and a concept called consilience -- the intertwined nature of the arts, sciences and humanities -- I'm beginning to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, we, meaning humans, truly are simply accidental evolutionary byproducts, functioning, intelligent organisms that have developed notions of religion and fate and destiny because, by doing so, it allows us to adapt and understand our place in the universe a little bit better than we would otherwise be able to.
And I keep thinking about all the pathetic people stuck in North Korean concentration camps, or refugees holed up somewhere in the Gaza strip, or children sold through prostitution and living out the remainder of their little lives in a whorehouse on the side of a dusty road somewhere in the backwoods of Cambodia or Laos.
Is that their destiny?
Perhaps we as a thinking species have created these somewhat grandiose concepts of predetermination and existentialism because it allows us to escape from the confines of the 'self' -- that restless, unending state of consciousness that is determined to believe that me, myself and I is a special and unique being. To believe otherwise would be to admit that we are nothing more than arbitrary cogs in an unseen, vaguely understood evolutionary wheel that rotates whether we want it to or not.
And yet, there's always something mysterious and mercurial at the bottom of us, a feeling, a twinge, that I hesitate to label as nothing more than mandatory biological functionings:
Example:
When I was a teenager, driving my buddies back and forth to the movies in my dad's car when it was my week for my turn at the wheel, I sometimes would crank up the volume on a silly rap song called 'You Got What I Need', artist unknown, which was already outdated by the time I slipped the tape in the deck but which was perpetually hummable and compulsively hilarious nevertheless. "Oh baby you -- you got what I need/But you say I'm just a friend/You say I'm just a friend/OH BABY YOU..." (Well, it was screamingly funny at the time, at age sixteen, in my car, on a Friday night, with the windows down low, and the spring air warm, and the future stretched out before us like the red carpet of life.) And here I am, a good fifteen years later, and there's a remix of that very same song playing now on the radio here at the Internet cafe, the original song being one I have not heard in well over a decade, and I'm thinking: There's a circle at work here, the circle of my life, and it's an absurd one, a silly one, one that allows for a rap song that was heard at the age of fifteen in southern Ontario to be heard once more in a remix a decade and a half later in the northern Philippines, but irregardless, the circle exists, and it is real, and it rotates, with or without me...
So, which of the three options is it (it being life, and everything in between)?
Is it all random, or preordained, or something in between?
Not a clue.
You tell me.
After all, in the end, it's your call.
Given that the main character's success in answering correctly the questions asked during the quiz portions of the game show resulted from specific incidents from his own life on the streets and in the slums of India, events that provided him with the knowledge needed to win a shitload of money being offered by greedy television executives who didn't really think that anybody would actually be able to answer these queries, was his success therefore a product of his own cunning, his own ingenuity, his own perceptiveness and memory, or was his ultimate triumph nothing more than the working out of his own particular fate, the destiny that his life had been pointing towards all along?
Here's a word or two on this subject from actor Ben Kingsley (real name Krishna Bahnji) recently interviewed in TIME:
Q: What do you look for in a role?
- Catherine Raymond, Bellingham, Washington
A: I look for the echo inside me. Maybe we're all born with our future coiled up inside of us like a spring, and we just unravel this coiled spring and work it out. I'm sorry if this sounds a bit bizarre. I'm trying so hard not to be pretentious because I'm always called pompous and pretentious.
Well, what's he talking about may sound a little pretentious, in person, through the vessel of his voice, if only because Sir Ben Kingsley's diction and overall bearing is probably a bit more distinguished than yours or mine, but I don't think his ideas are particularly pretentious at all. They're what everybody asks themselves all the time, every day, in the morning while nibbling Corn Flakes or in the evening while washing their hair: Is this where I'm supposed to be? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Is here the there I once wanted to reach? And if not, how do I get there, and how will I know what it looks like when I arrive? And will I still be able to get fries with that?
There are many times where I'm standing in front a class full of foreigners, teaching, realizing that they're looking at me as the foreigner, and I realize with a startled flash that I started life on Bayshore Drive in St.Catharines, Ontario, and I'm currently halfway around the world in a country I knew nothing about only a few years ago, and I think: "Whoa -- something happened here."
It can seem so random, the places we end up.
And yet, if I look back, I can see how choice A led to path B, and how from trail C I ended up in valley D. There is a link, and, whether it's random or not, preordained or not, here I am. In this place. At this time. Perhaps the best question is not 'how did I get here' but 'where do I go from here?'
I'm inclined (or would desperately like) to believe that destiny and chance are intertwined, that we do, in the memorable words of Ben Kingsley, look for the echo inside of ourselves, and long, our whole lives, to seek out its original source, its initial shout, its preliminary whisper, its hushed murmur. (Its affirmation of existence, if only in a sigh.)
At the same time, after recently reading a few books recently on evolutionary biology, and a concept called consilience -- the intertwined nature of the arts, sciences and humanities -- I'm beginning to believe that perhaps, just perhaps, we, meaning humans, truly are simply accidental evolutionary byproducts, functioning, intelligent organisms that have developed notions of religion and fate and destiny because, by doing so, it allows us to adapt and understand our place in the universe a little bit better than we would otherwise be able to.
And I keep thinking about all the pathetic people stuck in North Korean concentration camps, or refugees holed up somewhere in the Gaza strip, or children sold through prostitution and living out the remainder of their little lives in a whorehouse on the side of a dusty road somewhere in the backwoods of Cambodia or Laos.
Is that their destiny?
Perhaps we as a thinking species have created these somewhat grandiose concepts of predetermination and existentialism because it allows us to escape from the confines of the 'self' -- that restless, unending state of consciousness that is determined to believe that me, myself and I is a special and unique being. To believe otherwise would be to admit that we are nothing more than arbitrary cogs in an unseen, vaguely understood evolutionary wheel that rotates whether we want it to or not.
And yet, there's always something mysterious and mercurial at the bottom of us, a feeling, a twinge, that I hesitate to label as nothing more than mandatory biological functionings:
Example:
When I was a teenager, driving my buddies back and forth to the movies in my dad's car when it was my week for my turn at the wheel, I sometimes would crank up the volume on a silly rap song called 'You Got What I Need', artist unknown, which was already outdated by the time I slipped the tape in the deck but which was perpetually hummable and compulsively hilarious nevertheless. "Oh baby you -- you got what I need/But you say I'm just a friend/You say I'm just a friend/OH BABY YOU..." (Well, it was screamingly funny at the time, at age sixteen, in my car, on a Friday night, with the windows down low, and the spring air warm, and the future stretched out before us like the red carpet of life.) And here I am, a good fifteen years later, and there's a remix of that very same song playing now on the radio here at the Internet cafe, the original song being one I have not heard in well over a decade, and I'm thinking: There's a circle at work here, the circle of my life, and it's an absurd one, a silly one, one that allows for a rap song that was heard at the age of fifteen in southern Ontario to be heard once more in a remix a decade and a half later in the northern Philippines, but irregardless, the circle exists, and it is real, and it rotates, with or without me...
So, which of the three options is it (it being life, and everything in between)?
Is it all random, or preordained, or something in between?
Not a clue.
You tell me.
After all, in the end, it's your call.
AT FIRST, I AFRAID YOU, BECAUSE YOU ARE THE ONLY CANADIAN TEACHER IN HERE...
It's customary for Korean students in the Philippines to give their teachers small gifts and notes of appreciation when they hightail it back to their homeland, so I thought I'd offer a sample of some of the notes I was given this morning. Along with numerous trinkets, pens and pencil cases, I received the following messages from my group of nine-to-fourteen year olds; the grammar and spelling are not quite stellar, but they did their best, and the sentiment is sincere, and much appreciated, irregardless of the syntax:
Dear. teacher Scott.
Hello! my pronunciation teacher.
You teach me eagerly. so
My English pronunciation is better
than after go here.
Pronunication is very important
subject.
Thank you teacher.
You are very funny man.
From your student
Mark
************************************
Hello, Good morning!
I haven't been
writing a letter to you.
So I feel something strange.
But you're a good teacher
in my phonics class. Also you
are a good teacher because you didn't give me a lot of homework!
Anyway. Thanks for your good
teaching.
I will
miss you
in
Korea.
O
Bye. See
you
again.
From.
Shelter
****************************
Teacher Scott
Hi! teacher scott.
thanks for with me.
thank you very much
Scott teacher.
bye, teacher scott!
Bye!
*******************************
Dear T.scott
Hello? Teacher. I'm Jeoun. Thank you for teach
me, If I see you again I'm very happy. bye
Teacher, I miss you
************************************
Hello! I'm Sky
You are is very god
thank for teachme
bye teacher see you
agin
**************************************
Dear teacher Scott
Hi. I'm your student Jack Before long
I should go back to Korea I become higher
in pronunciation because of you
If I see you again in Canada. Could you
explain about Canada. I'll miss you.
Bye-bye ^ kind ^ teacher Scott.
from. Jack
*****************************************
Hi, teacher
SCOTT!
I am Stella.
I was very glad
to meet you
again. Hahaha
take care!
You are a very
good teacher.
Your pronou-
ciation class was nice!
So...Bye
bye!
(accompanied by a drawing of me in a kimono, holding a sword, with the caption: "LEFT-HANDED SAMURAI")
*******************************************
Dear. Teacher Scott
Hi, teacher!!
I'm Liz.
How are you today??
I'm fine.
I miss you.
Bye Bye
From Liz
***********************************
Dear. Scott.
Hello, Scott. I'm your student, Terry. At first,
I afraid you, because you are the only Canadian teacher
in here. but you are a good teacher for me.
and you are very funny. You gag is gentle,
but very funny. Thank you for teach me,
and I'll miss you.
Bye-bye,
From. Terry
Dear. teacher Scott.
Hello! my pronunciation teacher.
You teach me eagerly. so
My English pronunciation is better
than after go here.
Pronunication is very important
subject.
Thank you teacher.
You are very funny man.
From your student
Mark
************************************
Hello, Good morning!
I haven't been
writing a letter to you.
So I feel something strange.
But you're a good teacher
in my phonics class. Also you
are a good teacher because you didn't give me a lot of homework!
Anyway. Thanks for your good
teaching.
I will
miss you
in
Korea.
O
Bye. See
you
again.
From.
Shelter
****************************
Teacher Scott
Hi! teacher scott.
thanks for with me.
thank you very much
Scott teacher.
bye, teacher scott!
Bye!
*******************************
Dear T.scott
Hello? Teacher. I'm Jeoun. Thank you for teach
me, If I see you again I'm very happy. bye
Teacher, I miss you
************************************
Hello! I'm Sky
You are is very god
thank for teachme
bye teacher see you
agin
**************************************
Dear teacher Scott
Hi. I'm your student Jack Before long
I should go back to Korea I become higher
in pronunciation because of you
If I see you again in Canada. Could you
explain about Canada. I'll miss you.
Bye-bye ^ kind ^ teacher Scott.
from. Jack
*****************************************
Hi, teacher
SCOTT!
I am Stella.
I was very glad
to meet you
again. Hahaha
take care!
You are a very
good teacher.
Your pronou-
ciation class was nice!
So...Bye
bye!
(accompanied by a drawing of me in a kimono, holding a sword, with the caption: "LEFT-HANDED SAMURAI")
*******************************************
Dear. Teacher Scott
Hi, teacher!!
I'm Liz.
How are you today??
I'm fine.
I miss you.
Bye Bye
From Liz
***********************************
Dear. Scott.
Hello, Scott. I'm your student, Terry. At first,
I afraid you, because you are the only Canadian teacher
in here. but you are a good teacher for me.
and you are very funny. You gag is gentle,
but very funny. Thank you for teach me,
and I'll miss you.
Bye-bye,
From. Terry
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)