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a penguin of very little brain
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| homework help |
[Aug. 20th, 2008|03:07 pm] |
Quickly, somebody give me a topic I can turn into a case study about why businesses now have to operate ethically, otherwise their legitimacy is compromised. Case Study One is about Nestle (I just typed 'nestle kills babies' into google), but I need a second one and I don't want to write about Chernobyl or the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. |
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| in a low place like home |
[Aug. 14th, 2008|09:01 pm] |
This is a post of miscellaneous stuff from the past week.
I wrote a post for IBARW at the food blog on language, food and ethnicity: talking about things to eat.
**
Some days I pass as Caucasian, and some days I don't. Sometimes I play up the performativity of my Chineseness, but how do you define that? For me it's something quite personal, I hate it when people say "Oh that's very Chinese of you" but I can say that about myself, because I define my identity, and what being Chinese means to me.
Based purely on performative and visual prompts, I am in a position where I had a moment of HOLY COW when I discovered this afternoon that Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack on Saved by the Bell, is Asian American.
Some days I pass, but my word!
A short list of Asian-Anglo actors here.
**
Some blogs that are new to me:
Slant Eye for the Round Eye
100 Acorns (by Yoko Ono)
Things Younger Than Republican Presidential Candidate (Oh, And Did I Forget to Mention War Hero?) John McCain
Living Oprah - an experiment to live Oprah's advice for a year
The Dawn Chorus - a collaborative blog by Australian feminists
**
Other things:
Burmese women in Thai 'human zoo', about Kayan refugees in Thailand.
I realise this is old, but School bars same-sex partners at formals was an interesting article for me, particularly as it highlights the fact that private schools receive government funds but get to discriminate in a way that state schools absolutely are not able to.
Hi-C-Ya, Hold Tight! posits the theory that the Spice Girls were pivotal feminists for the time.
Immigrants Facing Deportation by U.S. Hospitals, this sort of thing makes me so frustrated.
MORE LATER
PS I am at del.icio.us here. If you have one, let me know what yours is!
ETA: Have you moved since you last voted? Reenrollment/enrollment for the upcoming WA state election closes tomorrow. |
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| a gentle winter haze creeps in at three forty-four |
[Jul. 27th, 2008|09:59 pm] |
native plants and things
This morning it rained and it was cold, but still I wandered out for National Tree Day. It's been years since I've done any serious planting, but it was quite a lot of fun! And really appeals to my hippy sense of saving the planet, planting native trees in the rain. The soil was all damp and soft, and so dry about half a trowel down, and then I came home and had to throw all my clothes in the sink I was so wet. It was great.
In comparison, yesterday was cold but dry, and I couldn't see down half the street due to the fog, which was exciting when I was walking to my Chinese class. It then burned off clear and bright by lunch time when I was walking home.
Last night Davyd and I went Lindy Hopping at Royal Hall. We go to classes in Subiaco once a week and it was good to get out and social dance for an evening. I always mess up but it's always great fun, and I love any excuse to go dancing.
I would put out a photo of Davyd dancing, but he rejected them all, so have one of me instead.
all photos |
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| not for the sake of fighting |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|06:20 pm] |
This post was crossposted here.
"But that's the good thing about you," K said recently. "You can choose your Chinese side or your Australian side."
And I didn't say, "are you using 'Australian' to mean 'Anglo'?" I can't remember what I said, but I didn't say that, and things that I hate include but are not limited to: that I have become so complicit in this game of privilege and institutionalisation.
Since the debacle of last week (leading to the bannination of someone for being a dickhead and a racist apologist), I have been so fired up and angry, but also more aware than usual of my own privilege and the privilege of others. I am almost always aware of white privilege and, as someone who has been known to pass (as many things that I am not), sometimes it's painfully clear to me how I play that to my own advantage.
I tend not to talk about this stuff because I find it really difficult to articulate, for all that I like talking and I enjoy writing. But not talking means silence, and silence is often a tool of acceptance, and I can't let myself be like that anymore, that's not really who I am. And I'm not just talking about racism, either.
So if I get angry at you, I'm not sorry. I don't want to be complicit in playground equipment that you can't get to if you're on wheels, preventing parents in wheelchairs from reaching their kids. I don't want to just accept when people tell stories that start, this Asian girl or that Aboriginal boy, but begin a boy when they're talking about someone who is Anglo, singling out the difference and othering us through language. I don't want to sit silently by as people talk in stereotypes because they're funny, gay people are promiscuous and fat people are lazy and when you say these things somebody believes you, and when you say these things you draw a line between you and the people you're picking out, and we have different backgrounds and histories but we're people and it's terrible, regardless of your intentions.
My anger is real. And so is the bigotry and discrimination in this country, overt or not, and talking about it doesn't create it, talking about it makes the problem visible, and we do not have to give the benefit of the doubt that everyone is actually totally nice. It's easy to point at someone who thinks all Chinese are stealing the jobs or whatever and say, "that person is racist!" but it's harder to point to someone who is being nice, because it's often the nicest people who are so well meaning and don't notice that their own prejudices are totally messing us up.
A STORY:
Friday, on the bus:
*man visually of African descent stands and gives his seat to a middle-aged lady*
Anglo lady next to me: Oh, isn't that lovely. (in an approving tone)
Anglo lady opposite her: Well, he's not Australian.
Anglo lady next to me: Give him twelve months.
This is a well-meaning conversation: isn't he lovely? He's giving up his seat!
But it IS STILL RACIST, this assumption that different ethnicity = different nationality, and it does us all a disservice, and it still makes me angry. And I bet they thought they were being nice, too. And how did that guy feel, hearing that? All he did was stand up whilst black, and to those women that means he's not Australian.
Further reading:
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| slide in the park across the street |
[Jun. 25th, 2008|09:51 pm] |
The last visit to the apartment in Crawley was a bit of a downer: it's devoid of all penguins and cleaner than I can recall it being, the carpet damp from the carpet cleaning yesterday. Today I returned the keys and that was it, after six years I'm no longer a resident of Crawley.
We are now living more than 200 metres away from Broadway Fair, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm okay with it, living back on the Eastern side of Perth. I'm that much closer to my parents (and their favourite restaurants) and we have a whole other area of food places to explore! Recommendations welcome.
Of course, the flip side of that is it now takes between 15 - 30 minutes to walk to the restaurants of Northbridge: this is very dangerous and A+++.
Davyd blogged yesterday when the internerds were restored, he has more words here. I don't know why people torture themselves with dial up, every day before late last night was terrible, everything was so slow.
The kitchen is somewhat operational, I managed to cook dinner and dishes were washed, and I'm not sick of stairs in the house yet. We can't find the tea towels, though, and that's going to get really annoying any minute now.
Housewarming eventually, after we finish unpacking and I get over this cold. |
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| 无论你我可曾相识 |
[Jun. 6th, 2008|10:36 pm] |
I tend to post little things, selfish things, things about being happy and living your life and I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm just saying they are centred on the self. Sometimes I post about slightly bigger things, mostly Chinese-Malaysian issues, but that's it, I don't really comment on the news and things, not really.
I was passing by K's journal, and we don't talk much anymore, but she's been living in Beijing for a bit and she was a little surprised, she said, and a little not, by how full on the coverage has been in China of the earthquake, and how non-existent it's been when she's popped on LJ. After September Eleven, and even after stuff like strikethrough there was such an outpouring of words on blogs, and compared to that it's been nothing, and she's right. I can't be as eloquent as those who have come before, I appear to have lost the words, but I thought I would share this with you, this image that has stuck in my head for weeks.
( image from a local school )
Via ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lauredhel I found these comics by Coco Wang, illustrating some pieces of the earthquake, and I was skeptical going in but I cannot emphasise how amazing they are (and how I was weeping by about the third comic): earthquake comics.
And maybe this and this, and did you know that the first soldiers to enter Wenchuan County (at the epicentre) walked 90 kilometres in 21 hours to get there? Other soldiers entered stricken areas by parachuting in.
And Sharon Stone said that the earthquake was karma, which, WHAT?
So there's that. |
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| draw a shadow across the light |
[Jun. 5th, 2008|10:04 am] |
Yesterday I read this post on unclutterer, about preparing for tomorrow's work day today. It passed me by and I thought no more about it, because whilst printing out tomorrow's agendas and leaving them where they could be seen was a fine enough idea, it's hardly practical. For the most part, we assume that people will bring their agendas with them, emailed two days previously. And the rest of it is kind of impractical, at least for me.
This morning I woke up, stumbled down the stairs, and halfway down the street I stumbled back home again, too nauseous to contemplate making it all the way to work. I called in, trying to remember what meetings I had scheduled for today, and for one brief moment I wished that I had a paper diary that my boss could open to find today's meetings. Instead, my beautifully scheduled Outlook calendar has all that information, unaccessible by any colleague in my department, and I had to say things like, "I have a meeting with an architect" and "call X, he'll probably know who it is."
Of course, I don't really long for a paper diary at work. But sometimes, I can see where that level of preparedness would be useful. |
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| sunday lunchtime link |
[May. 25th, 2008|12:19 pm] |
This page has been cheering me up all week, I highly recommend it:
OM NOM NOM NOM |
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| run your intentions past me |
[May. 22nd, 2008|08:22 pm] |
![mortar + pestle [+ steph]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/2513756314_72d1797df7.jpg)
gigantic photo of me, how narcissistic
things i love on rainy days include but are not limited to:
一 mashed potato
二 sleeping in, the sound of the rain on the roof
三 splashing puddles in gumboots (i need a pair of these)
四 sitting on the floor of the kitchen, pounding spices for curries
五 hot chocolate
六 warm carbohydrates, rice and pastas and things
七 bright red coats
八 standing in the rain, big drops falling as i run for my quite close front door
九 the sunlight shining weak but clear
十 curries simmering on the stove, filling the house with rich smells and warmth from the kitchen
十一 baking
十二 umbrellas
十三 wrapping myself up in a blanket, reading a book
十四 cuddles
i would be interested to know how your lists differ from mine (and how, perhaps, they are the same) |
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| do i have to go on talking |
[May. 18th, 2008|05:12 pm] |
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| someone sneaking 'round the corner |
[May. 15th, 2008|07:57 pm] |
Four weeks ago we arrived home from Singapore to a pile of mail, including a package from threadless and a letter from the real estate agent, telling us we had to go back on a fixed lease and oh, by the way, did we happen to still have anything to do with UWA? A week after answering in the negative, we found ourselves served with a termination notice, which, as someone who spent several years being a poor UWA student, I totally understand and appreciate. It's a difficult market at the moment, and we live about twenty metres away from the Biol Library.
Rental prices being what they are, we decided to attempt to purchase a property. My mother is a real estate agent, and you can say what you like but she's my mum and she was awesome; agents take you more seriously when you already have an agent, and she vetted all the properties so that out of the dozen or so we visited, we only went to one that was a complete waste of time, and two and a half weeks later we made a very cheeky offer which this morning was accepted.
So here we are, and in five weeks time we'll be leaving Nedlands and that's weird but after six years (bar the few months in which I ran back to my parents) living within three hundred metres of Broadway Fair, I'm excited for the change (and the new Ikea that we can buy, and the picture hooks which I can pin into the wall). |
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| 但我会用自己翅膀 |
[May. 4th, 2008|03:25 pm] |
- If I'm writing in Chinese, turning the capslock on allows me to write in English. I am quite excited by this discovery! It means swapping between English and Mandarin is suddenly much faster and easier.
- A newish blog: Penang - My Everlasting Love, a daily photo blog. Bercinta <333
- I had no idea that Nanyang Technological University looked so awesome. One of the really great things about Singapore is that a lot of the big buildings really do look quite awesome, like all the architects have been given free reign and gone mad in a really cool way.
- This is my new favourite photo blog: One Love Photo, she does a lot of weddings but I love the lighting she uses and some of the ideas she has. She also has some engagement sets, and, as an aside, engagement photos are things that I don't really understand.
- Article: Penguin's wetsuit puts him back in the swim of things.
- Other article: Naked cop surprises NZ car thief.
- The weather is getting cold, and I'm turning more back to curries and cookies and things that heat the kitchen up, misting the windows and warming my toes. I will miss this kitchen when we are gone from here.
- I miss salads, but they just don't feel the same when I'm wearing a heavy jumper.
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| the plastic mountain at your feet |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|02:24 pm] |
I have to review an article that contains the following sentence:
The exclusive focus on universal principles and strong negative obligations drew the spatio-temporally egalitarian interpretation of the kernel of the notion of sustainable development to the same preoccupation with the survival of the human species that characterises the apocalyptic views of radical environmentalists.
I have decided that using the words 'pretentious' and 'condescending' in my review are not completely inappropriate. |
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| Singapore: A, Miscellany |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|05:05 pm] |
Having never visited one before, we ventured out to Little India. Every ten metres or so took us past another restaurant with the word vegetarian in its name, and Davyd's excitement never waned. Little India was filled with delightful smells and bright, fabulous colours, and Davyd suggested that perhaps we could visit Big India some time.
We jumped on the MRT down to Raffles Place to find Merlion Park. Catching the MRT was fun, we never had to wait more than about five minutes for a train and almost every place we wanted to visit was near a train line, or close to a train-bus connection.
Merlion Park was disappointing. Its name implies a theme park, or an adventure; instead we found a merlion, gushing into the harbour, and a baby merlion, its back to the water.
More exciting was the Asian Civilisations Museum, located a short walk away at Empress Place, just across from the Cavenagh pedestrian bridge. We wandered in shortly before the 1400 guided tour, and on a whim decided to join it. Yuli, our guide, explained a hundred little nuances I'd never realised, the shape of the Buddha's hat and the origins of writing in Europe and Kwan Yin's journey to China. The museum itself is well laid out and incredibly interesting, focused on explaining the history of Singapore through its inhabitants and ancestors. It traces the path of Chinese history, the path of Islamic history and Indian mythology and weaves it all together to form Singapore today, and it was fascinating. I wanted to buy so many books in the museum shop, and we spent a delightful two hours wandering back and forth inside the museum's galleries. If you visit Singapore, you should visit the museum, it was certainly worth the visit to me.
Other notable visits were to Orchard Road, the major shopping district, and the Kinokuniya located there. Davyd was entranced for quite some time by the walls of engineering texts, and at one point lamented that we would never be able to leave it. We visited Clarke Quay, the major clubbing area, which was fun enough, and at Suntec City hopped on a Duck Tour. The Duck Tours involve a one hour tour around Singapore in an amphibious vehicle that was used by the US in the Vietnam War, the tour is 40 minutes on water and 20 on land, and it's an interesting way to see some of Singapore.
Haw Par Villa (Tiger Balm Gardens) was boring and uninspiring, though my childhood memories recall it as bright and beautiful.
We spent some time on Sentosa Island, exploring Fort Siloso. I remembered the fort from my childhood, but not any of the details, so it was interesting to return and actually be interested in the information gleaned, the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942 and the ensuing occupation. And the merlion on Sentosa, at least, was visually more impressive, though my favourite of all was the Merlion Walk, a dynamic mosaic pond and series of fountains trailing behind the merlion.
Photos:
Jurong Bird Park
Asian Civilisation Museum
Selected others (mostly of the same): here |
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| threadless order |
[Mar. 20th, 2008|11:52 pm] |
threadless is having a $9 sale! my sister wants a shirt so i'm putting through an order tomorrow (friday) evening. if you want in, please let me know by then! they're very awesome... |
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| as we turn down the lights |
[Mar. 12th, 2008|10:08 pm] |
The race riots of 1969 were considered to be the fault of the economic and wealth disparity that existed between the poorer Malays and the more wealthy Chinese. This disparity developed for various historical reasons, but most obviously because many Chinese people had come in to Malaysia and set up businesses, which moved the flow of wealth in that direction. The NEP was established in 1971 to compensate for that economic and social disparity, giving ethnic Malays preference in government positions, university placements and government tenders. The NEP involved a redistribution of wealth and ownership from other Malaysians and foreigners to Bumiputras, and was supposed to increase the overall national economy.
Its emphasis was on actual ownership, rather than training, a sort of constant bandaid rather than solution. The NEP officially ended in 1990, but is considered to still live on today in many forms.
Lim Guan Eng was sworn in as Penang's head of state on Tuesday; this morning the very first thing I read was this headline: Penang abandons pro-Malay policy.
I am trying to be reasonable as I write this, not talking about what a shit program NEP was. So this is kind of dry, but inside my head I'm leaping around freaking out (coalition with PAS?! WE'RE RUINED) and incredibly hopeful (NO NEP!) and I'm trying to summarise it so you understand, but every time I think about it I can't stop grinning.
There will be no overnight change; given the control still remaining with the central government, and the continued fear that it will take funding away from Penang, there may never be any real change; but I am hopeful.
Some reading: Slaying an Immortal Tiger (old article on NEP); Malaysia PM: Lessons to be learnt; Penang's leaders abandon pro-Malay policy. If you're interested in this, Mahathir's The Malay Dilemma is very interesting reading. |
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| on your shoulders |
[Mar. 9th, 2008|04:23 pm] |
I am excited; awash in a sea of joy and confusion. UMNO has been the ruling party in Malaysia since Merdeka fifty years ago, and its power has been pretty concrete. There are many reasons why I grew up in Australia and not Malaysia, and UMNO is one of the biggest of them. At yesterday's national election, it won with a simple majority. This sounds like nothing but the government no longer has power to make constitutional changes, and is a sign of dissatisfaction across the country with the loss of four state assemblies, including my beloved tiny island of Penang. I'm afraid and I'm concerned but most of all I'm excited, and I hope.
Links: BBC; ABC; Associated Press; Straits Times. |
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| this space intentionally left blank |
[Mar. 9th, 2008|10:55 am] |
I don't try to be, I just am: food positive; gender positive; body positive; sexuality positive; lifestyle positive. What I mean is, I don't think any of these things are negative. Your body is great, food is great, your life choices are awesome so long as they make you happy. I don't say that to sound trite or lame, I honestly believe it.
Some mornings, though, I just wake up and hate everything.
On days like these I type some sort of whiny post into an LJ window, and I get to the end of it and promptly delete it and go outside because seriously, cheer up emo penguin!
Today, I want somebody else to be inspiring.
DO IT GO NOW |
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| you catch your breath in time to fall |
[Mar. 5th, 2008|10:21 pm] |
Davyd worked from home today, and whilst the sun was still soft in the sky but quickly climbing, he wandered with me as far as Stirling Highway. It felt a bit like being walked to school. The day was full of HR and IT and similar things, but I feel positive about it, excited and pleased and ready to save the world. Later, I wandered home, and it took me all of fifteen minutes. I walked home from work!
My lunch breaks are supposed to be an hour in length, so I'm toying with riding, in order to facilitate going home for lunch on days when Davyd works from home. Does anyone have a bike I could borrow for a couple of days to see how I feel about the idea of purchasing one?
I'd like to thank Helen, who let me know about the job for which I originally applied, which ultimately led to this one.
The moral of this story: tell your friends all your plans so they can help connect you to the world; and also have plans. |
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