spent a day home happily and quietly online and this is the first time after a long, long while of perpectually biking to uni for internet connection.
my housemate went on a one-day trip to london for visa application and so the usual internet-router-goes-to-her-since-i've-got-my-own-office-on-campus-and-she-doesn't deal stircken in early september temporarily stop taking effects for roughly ten hours.
it's just been blissful with a mug of tea, my dear laptop and haraway's 'situated knowledge'.
in between the reading haraway and doing my viusal essay in relation to the article, some people rang the doorbell and banged on the door. as i was seriously wondering who it is, i heard 'trick or treat' while opening the door cautiously. oh gees. my first reaction was 'this is not the states, why does it always have to be the american way'? i thought british people didn't celebrate halloween: my british housemate always says she just doesn't get halloween.
'uh, uh. no candies. sorry.' i looked at them and wondered if they would assume i didn't speak english.
'would you like some tricks then?' asked a boy-monster.
'maybe not.' i grinned and closed the door after their deep sighs. (in response to the boy's questions, i seriously thought to myself: uh, excuse me, but i think i am just taller and stronger than you are. -_-;)
yeah i am quite cold and indifferent to this once-a-year children's community acitivity. i opened the door three times having pretty much the same conversations.
. . . but honestly i did get a bit scared when a couple of boys with ugly monster masks appeared outside of the door speechless. without the shout of 'trick or treat', i was momentarily left confused why i would see such an image. i mean, who would expect to see horrid non-human faces in front of you having just finished a sentence like 'gender is a field of structured and structuring difference'?
Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
buses take you nowhere
It was the club night of YLAF last night. and it was, for me, quite a night of walking.
At the beginning, I got lost for one and a half hours in the middle of nowhere due to getting off the bus at the wrong stop. Having to start walking to the racecourse- where the event is mostly based, I launched on my 'it-'s-quite-a-walk' tour, according to the woman who gave me the directions, from one end of the town to the other. Practically seeing nobody around for one hour, I texted my supervisor for some directions. But no reply. Luckily, before I gave up my drifting about and started to find ways hitting back, a couple of women came out from a farm-like place nearby along with a big dog. I followed them immediately, worrying they would think that I were a stalker in long black coat, hesitating about asking for directions (it seemed a desolate area and so it was likely, I felt, that I ended up somewhere very far away from the racecourse- which would make my looking for the racecourse a completely random action as if it were an excuse to get close to them- OK, this is a very winding way of thinking, but it did then occur to me right away). Turned out that they'd camped behind the racecourse in order for joining in the lesbian festival and I was very near the very destination (!) I was trying to get to for the past one and a half hours. so I walked with them for a few minutes, thanking them before we parted.
At the end of this night, however, I was again left wandering on the street alone in the foggy early morning. The bus that the organisers hired for the late-night participants only took people to the neighbouring area of the place we wanted to go. So, for 'Fulford', the driver dropped us at the beginning of that road, which meant that to return to my bed required half-an-hour walking time down in a street with nobody around at 3AM. This broke the record of my late-night walking alone last time, roughly from 1AM to 2 AM, from linköping central station (railway station) to rydsvägen, where i lived at the time, in May 2004 Sweden.
I am so gonna be either a brave person fearing no late-night walks by myself, or the next person to be raped and severely traumatised in this town. To be frank, i am not intimidated by late-night walks in taiwan and other places i've so far been to. I can do it anytime when I have to. While i am glad that i feel ok (not deprived of the right to solitary walks at night on the road), i am also aware that this is after all not a good idea in general because people still think those who are raped after midnight have to be responsible for the rape themselves.
At any rate, both times the buses ended up taking me to nothing but solitary trudging in the dark. So buses take you nowhere- at least last night. This may be regarded as a way of thinking about how much public transportation really helps for women passengers and where it stops helping them.
In between the two roams in the dark, I had an boringly interesting night. Among the students who signed up for voluntary help for YLAF as a whole, I was the only one who was willing to stay last night for work instead for the drinking/dancing fun. And in a way that predetermined my night with heaps of drunk women and alcohol- I sort of had to be not part of the jolly crowd.
Wearing the earphone and carrying around a radio, I helped people with the elevator, checking if anybody smoke in the non-smoking area, answering questions with standardised sentences such as 'the cloakroom is on the third floor', 'the bathrooms are behind this door' etc. It also reminded me of the year in sweden where I'd go to pubs and bars with friends almost every other week where the regular 'people checking people out' sort of thing took place all the time, and the way we'd joked about it: 'human-meat market'.
Several women came to talk to me about completely nonsense and I guess aside from the fact that I was easily spotted in the backdrop against loads of white women, 'the most unattainable is also the most desirable'- the fact I was obviously 'working' probably added some extra charm to my low-profile outlook.
There was one very straightforward. And I guess I sort of wasted her time talking nonsense with me as I declined her suggestion to go to her hotel room with her (I was very tired; got up at 7AM yesterday to begin with).
That was something new to me. Nobody has ever asked that- I've always been perhaps too demure for that question. So I guess I shall remember this thing about YLAF 2005. . . (and, the other way of thinking about this incident will be: does horniness translate cross-culturally? XD)
Another woman who also came to me for chats said that _saving face_ is a good movie and she insisted that I must go see it- she said that I looked like Joan Chen in this one. I'm not sure if it was because 'you "chinese" all look alike' or what. But I guess I will try to look for this movie and have a look some time later since it got good review on imdb (so it was not complete nonsense after all).
YLAF will be successfully finished today and I am helping no more. For the past three days I've been bored and tired because of this job, despite many interesting observations and new experiences it has brought to me. This is not to negate this event, but simply recognise that a lot of these things are after all to do with culture, languages, personal connections etc. my position in between the margins and borders (here, in taiwan, and perhaps anywhere else for the matter)will no longer allow me to find anything 'simply', or 'innocently', fun and pleasant. as i was saying to my sipervisor last week, it's been all very clear with deliberation, awareness, choice and contemplation in leading my simple life day in day out, no matter where i am.
At the beginning, I got lost for one and a half hours in the middle of nowhere due to getting off the bus at the wrong stop. Having to start walking to the racecourse- where the event is mostly based, I launched on my 'it-'s-quite-a-walk' tour, according to the woman who gave me the directions, from one end of the town to the other. Practically seeing nobody around for one hour, I texted my supervisor for some directions. But no reply. Luckily, before I gave up my drifting about and started to find ways hitting back, a couple of women came out from a farm-like place nearby along with a big dog. I followed them immediately, worrying they would think that I were a stalker in long black coat, hesitating about asking for directions (it seemed a desolate area and so it was likely, I felt, that I ended up somewhere very far away from the racecourse- which would make my looking for the racecourse a completely random action as if it were an excuse to get close to them- OK, this is a very winding way of thinking, but it did then occur to me right away). Turned out that they'd camped behind the racecourse in order for joining in the lesbian festival and I was very near the very destination (!) I was trying to get to for the past one and a half hours. so I walked with them for a few minutes, thanking them before we parted.
At the end of this night, however, I was again left wandering on the street alone in the foggy early morning. The bus that the organisers hired for the late-night participants only took people to the neighbouring area of the place we wanted to go. So, for 'Fulford', the driver dropped us at the beginning of that road, which meant that to return to my bed required half-an-hour walking time down in a street with nobody around at 3AM. This broke the record of my late-night walking alone last time, roughly from 1AM to 2 AM, from linköping central station (railway station) to rydsvägen, where i lived at the time, in May 2004 Sweden.
I am so gonna be either a brave person fearing no late-night walks by myself, or the next person to be raped and severely traumatised in this town. To be frank, i am not intimidated by late-night walks in taiwan and other places i've so far been to. I can do it anytime when I have to. While i am glad that i feel ok (not deprived of the right to solitary walks at night on the road), i am also aware that this is after all not a good idea in general because people still think those who are raped after midnight have to be responsible for the rape themselves.
At any rate, both times the buses ended up taking me to nothing but solitary trudging in the dark. So buses take you nowhere- at least last night. This may be regarded as a way of thinking about how much public transportation really helps for women passengers and where it stops helping them.
In between the two roams in the dark, I had an boringly interesting night. Among the students who signed up for voluntary help for YLAF as a whole, I was the only one who was willing to stay last night for work instead for the drinking/dancing fun. And in a way that predetermined my night with heaps of drunk women and alcohol- I sort of had to be not part of the jolly crowd.
Wearing the earphone and carrying around a radio, I helped people with the elevator, checking if anybody smoke in the non-smoking area, answering questions with standardised sentences such as 'the cloakroom is on the third floor', 'the bathrooms are behind this door' etc. It also reminded me of the year in sweden where I'd go to pubs and bars with friends almost every other week where the regular 'people checking people out' sort of thing took place all the time, and the way we'd joked about it: 'human-meat market'.
Several women came to talk to me about completely nonsense and I guess aside from the fact that I was easily spotted in the backdrop against loads of white women, 'the most unattainable is also the most desirable'- the fact I was obviously 'working' probably added some extra charm to my low-profile outlook.
There was one very straightforward. And I guess I sort of wasted her time talking nonsense with me as I declined her suggestion to go to her hotel room with her (I was very tired; got up at 7AM yesterday to begin with).
That was something new to me. Nobody has ever asked that- I've always been perhaps too demure for that question. So I guess I shall remember this thing about YLAF 2005. . . (and, the other way of thinking about this incident will be: does horniness translate cross-culturally? XD)
Another woman who also came to me for chats said that _saving face_ is a good movie and she insisted that I must go see it- she said that I looked like Joan Chen in this one. I'm not sure if it was because 'you "chinese" all look alike' or what. But I guess I will try to look for this movie and have a look some time later since it got good review on imdb (so it was not complete nonsense after all).
YLAF will be successfully finished today and I am helping no more. For the past three days I've been bored and tired because of this job, despite many interesting observations and new experiences it has brought to me. This is not to negate this event, but simply recognise that a lot of these things are after all to do with culture, languages, personal connections etc. my position in between the margins and borders (here, in taiwan, and perhaps anywhere else for the matter)will no longer allow me to find anything 'simply', or 'innocently', fun and pleasant. as i was saying to my sipervisor last week, it's been all very clear with deliberation, awareness, choice and contemplation in leading my simple life day in day out, no matter where i am.
Friday, October 28, 2005
caberat night of YLAF
dyke marolyn is like the sexiest high femme character i've ever experienced. her vocal is terribly sexy. god i love this femme woman.
al start is really awesome too. i bought her cd's, got personalised discount and asked for her autography. cool stuff. her songs are so lovely and pretty.
but again i am just so not part of the whole lesbian ecology/politics. and probably because of cultural difference, language barrier and other stuff as such, i look perpectually dumbstruck and wordless- though i do try to talk as much as i can! btw, the steward coodinator says that she's known someone from 'green island' (one of the teeny-weeny islands of taiwan). how refreshing. i don't think i've met anybody from gree island in the past 21.5 years in taiwan.
al start is really awesome too. i bought her cd's, got personalised discount and asked for her autography. cool stuff. her songs are so lovely and pretty.
but again i am just so not part of the whole lesbian ecology/politics. and probably because of cultural difference, language barrier and other stuff as such, i look perpectually dumbstruck and wordless- though i do try to talk as much as i can! btw, the steward coodinator says that she's known someone from 'green island' (one of the teeny-weeny islands of taiwan). how refreshing. i don't think i've met anybody from gree island in the past 21.5 years in taiwan.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
sort of an update
. . . so i deleted my last entry about those little dramas that have taken (been taking?) place in our house for some time now, not quite because i got paranoid and want to hide things- at least i really hope not- but because i figured that i am now in a better position to account th,em in a more 'understandable' fashion, wanting to redo it step by step- and you know, we are all reconstructing narratives anyway, each one giving out something less and more at the same time.
starting from what has very recently happened- it's yet again about the long-lost comments of my subjection to 'overanalyses' in life. i know perfectly well that i am considered an analytical sort of person and so i identify myself as somebody who 'thinks and analyses a lot'. i see it as necessary though people normally don't. and frankly, it doesn't take a lot of time and energy; ie, it's _not_ exhausting to me. but people keep on thinking it 'a thing that you should do without' and reject such a personality of mine, constantly imposing ideas that are more 'socially common' to make me feel my analyses in life are inadequate and basically, strange and unnecessary, whenever i insist on 'doing such a thing to myself'.
so such kind of comments came back to me again last week. some counsellor said to me i overcomplicated things with my analyses, and that it was exhausting to listen to me. i was immediately offended. i tried hard not to be, and yet it still offended me a great deal. i decided to flee from the session coming up this week by cancelling it three hours after the first counselling session. for the first time, i realised that counselling can be and does become some terrible thing, disturbing and unsafe just like the 'normal life'. (ps. i went for counselling to talk baout my housemate, in hopes of finding some ideas and ways to deal with my housemate as well as the changes/hurt she's done to me.
I talked to my supervisor the next day and unwittingly started to pour out the thing this counselling person has doen to me. It was nice and warm as she actually managed to push me further, and we never before talked about things as such (though i was obviously emotional and everything, i am really glad that she was not intimidated and decided to be 'soft' with me). She asked me why i felt so intimidated when she implied that my friend might be right- that i was behaving strangely and needed some'professional' help. My supervisor said that although she's got her own ghosts, she would not have felt intimidated in that situation with somebody who barely knows her.
And she's got a point. I certainly need to figure that out.
(to be contiuned)
starting from what has very recently happened- it's yet again about the long-lost comments of my subjection to 'overanalyses' in life. i know perfectly well that i am considered an analytical sort of person and so i identify myself as somebody who 'thinks and analyses a lot'. i see it as necessary though people normally don't. and frankly, it doesn't take a lot of time and energy; ie, it's _not_ exhausting to me. but people keep on thinking it 'a thing that you should do without' and reject such a personality of mine, constantly imposing ideas that are more 'socially common' to make me feel my analyses in life are inadequate and basically, strange and unnecessary, whenever i insist on 'doing such a thing to myself'.
so such kind of comments came back to me again last week. some counsellor said to me i overcomplicated things with my analyses, and that it was exhausting to listen to me. i was immediately offended. i tried hard not to be, and yet it still offended me a great deal. i decided to flee from the session coming up this week by cancelling it three hours after the first counselling session. for the first time, i realised that counselling can be and does become some terrible thing, disturbing and unsafe just like the 'normal life'. (ps. i went for counselling to talk baout my housemate, in hopes of finding some ideas and ways to deal with my housemate as well as the changes/hurt she's done to me.
I talked to my supervisor the next day and unwittingly started to pour out the thing this counselling person has doen to me. It was nice and warm as she actually managed to push me further, and we never before talked about things as such (though i was obviously emotional and everything, i am really glad that she was not intimidated and decided to be 'soft' with me). She asked me why i felt so intimidated when she implied that my friend might be right- that i was behaving strangely and needed some'professional' help. My supervisor said that although she's got her own ghosts, she would not have felt intimidated in that situation with somebody who barely knows her.
And she's got a point. I certainly need to figure that out.
(to be contiuned)
an excerpt from 'introduction: criticism as autobiography' in white woman speaks with forked tongue
p.5
thinking is not the management of thought, as alas it is too often taken to mean these days (ie, in the eighties and perhaps nowadays as well). thinking means putting everything on the line, taking risks, writerly risks, finding out what the actual odds are, not sheltering behind a pretend and in any case fallacious and transparent objectivity. only when it actually thinks is criticism ever a form of writing. only then is it a total commitment to language, the way a good joiner who makes a table will choose the best food he or she can get, attempt to serve the wood well, use his or her skill to best effect, invest everything, body and knowledge, into what the old Compagnons used to call a masterpiece(which cold also be a mistresspiece).
thinking is not the management of thought, as alas it is too often taken to mean these days (ie, in the eighties and perhaps nowadays as well). thinking means putting everything on the line, taking risks, writerly risks, finding out what the actual odds are, not sheltering behind a pretend and in any case fallacious and transparent objectivity. only when it actually thinks is criticism ever a form of writing. only then is it a total commitment to language, the way a good joiner who makes a table will choose the best food he or she can get, attempt to serve the wood well, use his or her skill to best effect, invest everything, body and knowledge, into what the old Compagnons used to call a masterpiece(which cold also be a mistresspiece).
Saturday, October 15, 2005
talk
lots of power exercise keeps on filling up my simple life. sometimes the best you can do is really participate in this game and be as aware as you can be of everything that's been going on.
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