Thank you to both Minty and Pseudonym for their entries. It was very difficult to judge them as I enjoyed both.
Pseudonym’s was brilliantly wrought with a subtle and delicate touch.
Araminta’s poem was vivid and colourful. It reminded me of reading some works by my favourite author, Yoshimoto Banana.
It’s been a difficult decision, but I will give the tenth competition to Araminta.
This is just a friendly reminder that the 9th poetry competition will close this Wednesday at midnight GMT. Entries so far: none. I would be happy to give an extension.
Thank you Soutie for selecting my humble offering as the winning entrant and giving me the honour of presiding over the 9th poetry competition. After some thought I have settled on the topic of beautiful things. There is no need to worry about form or length, just write about anything that you find especially beautiful. (Perhaps poor Monty can take a pleasant and uneventful holiday for once?)
Entries must be submitted by Wednesday, the 4th of May at midnight, GMT.
Growing up I was drip-fed a steady stream of guilt. Germany is an evil country, one without a soul or hope for national redemption/salvation. Germany, in fact, existed in a historic vacuum only emerging on occasion to be the villain, the bogeyman for the world. Often, the only time when Germany would really be discussed in any meaningful sense by most people, in the times I was living in the USA, was in the context of wars — mostly WWII, sometimes WWI. There were the occasional references made to Germany’s music, literature, art, and engineering. Most of the time, though, it was the war. When in Germany we sought simply to get by in life. The war was not a common subject of discussion — though the scars were everywhere, it was something best left alone. Things such as flag waving were simply not done and patriotism was passively discouraged. Even quiet guilt is still guilt, scars are merely nature’s way of covering a wound.
These scars were not the scars of victims, however. Germany started WWII and it was Germany that was guilty of the tens of millions of death — civilian and military. Germany was responsible for the Holocaust. In time, however, wounds heal — not quite forgotten, but the memories fade ever further into the back of the national consciousness as more and more things take place after that. Germany was divided, Germany was held hostage by France for its political motivations. Germany survived and it thrived. We rebuilt, we became strong, and I would argue better, that we had ever been before. Still, there was that spectre hanging in the background. Then something happened — the World Cup. The entire world saw Germany as it is, not as it was then. A new country, a country without jackboots or criminally insane dictators with ugly moustaches. Suddenly Germany was reborn, or rather, Germany was brought forward in its best.
On a personal level, my sense of national guilt had already been dispersed before. This guilt was a bit stronger than most. Two great-grand-uncles were involved with the Nazi government. One was a high ranking regional official, the other a slave labour “farm” manager. It was a family matter for me, not just a national matter. Yet, when I met Holocaust survivors — I’ve had two experiences — they had no bitterness for me, nothing but kind words and warmth. I was not their enemy, nor should I, could I, ever apologise or feel shame for that. That guilt, that blame was not my own. That was done by others decades before I was born, before my parents were born. To have someone who watched virtually her entire family shot in front of her eyes or starve to death after being worked to the point of immobility shake my hand and say that to me carried more weight than anything. To have a man whose entire family were executed in front of his eyes tell me that I had no need to fear his hatred as he had none to offer was worth more than all the gold in the world.
Recently I had a discussion with a professor in training regarding history and approaches to it. Though our fields are different, both are subject to a “post-imperial” discourse. (Latin America and East Asia, respectively, for those who do not know) Though he tends to favour the post-imperialist approach, he stated that it has its own number of defects — namely that it tends to pressure people not from that cultural background to avoid studying it on the ground that to understand a culture, one must come from a culture. We were in agreement that this was too extreme.
It would seem that this mentality brings up a new sort of racism — a revised racial exclusivity in which the “other” can be neither scrutinised nor fully studied. Rather than promoting cross-cultural understanding in any meaningful way, white-wash is applied to one and the other is subject to unquestionable rights to vilify. To clarify this, less developed regions such as Latin America, Africa, and South Asia are not to have their historical record or traditional defects questioned while developed regions such as North America, the UK, Europe, and Japan are subject to having their histories scrutinised and subject to unfair, unfounded commentaries and these are to be respected as “new approaches”.
This does not apply only to history. I recently had a rather severe falling out with a classmate over the nature of linguistics and their application. I knew that this man is in many respects a racist and does little to hide this fact, as he is of Chinese ancestry this is not to be challenged as he is allowed to be as racist as he wishes. The nature of our falling out was in how to classify languages. Cantonese, Mandarin, Hoklo, and Hakka, among others, are categorised as different languages within the family of Chinese languages, not dialects. This is a result of the fact that they evolved independently of each other. While language classification is at times arbitrary and imperfect, general guidelines are usually followed. He did not wish to accept this fact and said that these guidelines were set up by “ignorant whites who don’t have a clue” and said that he can back his thesis up by saying a single word in Cantonese and then in Mandarin. (The word was “you”) (Quite, German, Danish, Italian, and Portuguese forms of “you” are even closer)
Today a joint student-faculty strike was called in opposition to cuts to California’s university and college budget. The strike received a great deal of publicity, at least on campus. In the end it was simply a noisy nuisance. My primary professor, whose class I had at the time the walk-out, continued to lecture as usual and class went on much as it always has. Well, except for the noise-patrol chanting the same tired slogans from the 1960s over and over again. “Affordable quality education is a human right”.
No, a basic education is a universal right — university is a privilege. Frankly, it is a privilege too freely given to the inept and hopeless. There should, in fact, be fewer spaces available and fewer programmes offered. That taxes go to support degrees in dance, theatre management, and “liberal studies” is simply beyond and rationale. If people wish to learn to dance, by all means they should — there are always a number of private dance academies that offer lessons, some at reasonable prices. If people wish to learn theatre management they should be allowed to — at theatres and private schools. Studying Japanese is a hobby, so I take it privately at both a language school and with a tutor. My whim, my money, my time. As for cost… Grants pay for my tuition and even then there is money left over. My debts are incurred not because of university fees, but because I insisted on living in one of the USA’s most expensive cities and having my own flat.
As for liberal studies… If students are so utterly inept as not to be able to choose a primary course of study, why should they be allowed to create one for themselves? Am I supposed to somehow, hearing the plight of mediocre dance students whose marks in actual subjects such as language, history, and the sciences, be moved?
Perhaps unsupported accusations that the chancellor of the California State University system is corrupt and spelling his name as (G)reed. Is he inept, clueless, and out of his depth? Likely so, yes. These points are subjective and can be argued either way. But to label him as corrupt? That is somewhat more an objective term, one with legal definitions. Actually, libel as legal definitions, too. Rant over.
Telephones are some of my least favourite innovations. They’re invasive — even if a telephone call does not involve physically entering another’s house, or, in the case of OZ, cave, it comes as close to this as possible without actually doing it. In times past, manners books wrote of telephones as something best left to close friends and family — all other correspondence would best be left to letters and notes delivered by servants. Telephones irk me enough, in fact, that I do not have a telephone at my San Francisco residence.
Recognising the nature of the world the closest thing I do have is a now very outmoded mobile phone purchased nearly 4 years ago which has only the most very basic of features and is primarily used as an alarm clock. (So… I also do not give my telephone number out to many people so the majority of telephone calls I would receive would be from telemarketers. At the end of the day there are few more irritating things) The matter of the mobile phone is yet another development in this chain of annoyances.
The home telephone, while domestically irritating, was at least limited to the home itself. Mobile phones are even more irksome. Sitting in the train, watching the world go by while drinking a cup of cocoa, is one of my favourite things to do. I might read a book or practise kanji as well while listening to music. Breaking the peace and quiet is a ring tone — a herald of worse things to come! Often the person who answers will not make short use of it. Rather, it seems as if the ultimate outcome is more often than not the inane blabbering — often at elevated voice — about nothing of any importance.
Whether it is on the train or elsewhere, these conversations often eventually divulge more personal information than would ever be considered appropriate. No, it is not of critical importance to the life of the other 10 people in the carriage that your “homie” or “dawg” was so pissed after last Saturday’s bender that (s)he walked into several walls before passing out on your front lawn only to be woken by the police, neighbours, or rain. It is also equally unnecessary to hear graphic accounts of sexual escapades. Such things are best left in private settings.
Sometimes life in the city can feel like a trap. There comes a time, after a variable number of circumstances occur, that one no longer feels safe — no longer feels comfortable in going about on basic business. This is how I often feel in San Francisco. In order, for example, to get from uni to the financial district, where my bank is located, requires a tube trip through two of the worst neighbourhoods in the city — the Mission and Tenderloin. Taking bus from the financial district obliges me to travel through the Tenderloin — the worst neighbourhood by far. Walking through the city at times makes me feel trapped — people milling about everywhere, in some places getting so congested that basic movement becomes highly restricted by a distinct lack of space. At other times, seeing the crumbling splendour of by-gone eras and increasingly destructive graffiti, now carved into glass rather than just drawn on, makes me wish to conclude that perhaps these circumstances, these self-feeding spirals are feeding a growing number of people with mental instabilities or simply rude.
It is late on a Thursday evening and I am trying to put off washing the dishes for as long as possible.
After a week’s holiday, a joyful time of frolicking in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, I returned Sunday evening to San Francisco. The the that followed, to this point, was at the beginning slightly painful. A week of peace, quiet, and harmony in an area with clean, fresh air and miles of rolling hills is difficult to leave behind in exchange for one of the world’s most congested blocks of concrete. As the week progressed, however, things would grow better. My Japanese lessons resumed and the teacher was rather surprising. An Edoko, Tokyo-native, judging on her accent she is a case apart from the average Japanese woman. While not a great beauty, she has a husky, gravelly voice and a sultry demeanour more akin to a Nipponic Marlene Dietrich than the stereotypical Japanese woman, much less a language teacher. My luck further continued in my weekly Kanji (Japanicised Chinese characters) when my memory had not fully abandoned me and I was able to score 90pc on my quiz. Tomorrow I will return to the Sierra Foothills, but only for the weekend. My excuse this time is a trip to buy a bottle of wine, a locally-produced Moscato.
David Cameron, a man with at least as little principle and grasp of reality as Blair, has chosen to apologise for the Partition of India and its still unsettled consequences. There is really no reason for this, nor does it actually show any understanding of the issue. While the bungled partition of Bengal, one of Britain’s least successful policies on the subcontinent, did have some implications the British were not responsible for the degree to which things would spiral out of control. Indian Muslims, having tasted political power for the first time since the fall of the Mughal Empire, did not wish to cede power back to the long-dominant Hindus. Nor was it Britain’s fault that Kashmir was made part of India. One of the quirks of the Raj was the number of princely states which remained, some of them with rulers not of the same religious background as the majority of his subjects. It just happened to be that the ruler of Kashmir was a Hindu in a Muslim-majority area. That he chose to go with India rather than Pakistan is not the fault of the British. If anything, the goading of Nehru, a Kashmiri himself, had more to do with it. Nor could the largest share of the blame for the poorly-drawn partition of the Punjab be blamed solely on the British. Both Mountbatten and Nehru feared the same thing — a full-scale civil war breaking out, once long fomenting along religious lines, especially at the prodding of Jinnah who was determined to have his Pakistan. Cameron cannot accept the blame on behalf of the United Kingdom for something which was ultimately the fault of the Indians and the Pakistanis themselves, even if that is something that Pakistanis and Indians might want to hear.
Boadicea's Chariot 
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