A Point of Difference

(The only problem with living in gorgeous natural surrounds is that when it comes time for the trees to get a trim it is a VERY NOISY sleep defying procedure...between the horsepower revolutions of the electric chainsaw to the *whoosh!* as the thundering vibrations of large branches fall and hit the ground...)

I recently came across a character so refreshing I felt genuinely compelled and drawn for no other reason than uniqueness and a MUCH NEEDED 'breath of fresh air'...a point of difference amongst the stock standard majority culture of this isolated backwater.

Recently I felt so frustrated in this country with its trademark chauvinistic treatment of women to its low standards, anti intellectualism and bordering racist treatment of ethnic minorities...I remember learning about our country being a "melting pot" in primary school... rather than a melting pot it is increasingly pockets of different ethnicities all co-existing side by side and failing to have any flow of discourse between neighbours...breeding resentment especially if that culture wants to practise and preserve its indigenous traditions. I think the problem needs to be approached with a healthy balance...that all ethnic groups should have the freedom to practise their culture such as religious festivals and whatnot that doesn't violate the laws of that country however they should still care to make an effort with the mother tongue and integrate with the rest of the residents of their host country...

So as I've exited a globally flavoured educated intellectual context I have more than noticed the external population here have a really strong reaction to me- they either like or dislike me immensely...I have the ability to polarise populations! LOL Basically I think it stands as this...anybody who appreciates uniqueness and individualism will side with me but those who feel threatened by anything that is not status quo and need a generic robot standard will find me very challenging because I refuse to conform. Perhaps why I well deserve the "anti-conformist" and "rebel" label my folks pinned on me at a young age...

When I was younger perhaps it was more a case of "rebel without a cause" but as I grow older and feel incredibly oppressed by the dominant dissonant culture I feel a need to assert my right to be different and resentment towards people wanting to push me into boxes just so they feel more comfortable about themselves! And more than ever I feel a need to preserve my standards...and that the way forward is to push boundaries and always aim towards higher things. Not to stay complacent and degenerate...So there's definitely a clash of values happening here...

I guess when one's character defies all common and expected norms and sits at the far end of the bell curve and is not mute...yeah that invites a lot of arrows fired your way. I guess insecurity is a normal part of biological evolution...and a healthy characteristic of self preservation and survival instinct...so at the end of the day ALIENS, UNITE! lol well either that or leave like everybody I actually like seems to...

Toyboy's Cure To End Racism...

Lately Toyboy has gotten bitten with the big case of "clucky" lol. So he's been trying to sell the whole inter-racial marriage thing cos he wants Eurasian kids cos a) they are HOT and b) they are SMART (he has two good points there but first he needs to find someone that WANTS to be responsible for his little RATS! lol)

So anyway, lol, anyway lately has has been advocating inter-racial marriages since he believes that it is THE cure to end racism...the logic being that the less "pure breeds" that exist will bring an end to racism if everyone becomes a mixed breed...

I don't know if this is such a bad idea...even as recently as Friday when my mate came from overseas to visit he did cop quite a bit of "white australia" flack from a local...it's so weird it's almost like there was racism before I was born when Australia was known as "White Australia" with their immigrant unfriendly policies...then as a child I didn't experience it and all my friends were white locals...then in the last few years racism has well and truly had a rebirth in Australia as the sore losers take it out on the successful and wealthy migrants here.

But anyway I digress, what I really wanted to say was THANKS HO, I GOT YOUR CARD- it was a winner!!! And yes the wait must have been agonizing but it arrived too late- need to improve for next year, lol...you forget USPost sucks!!!

Oh and this was the fancy pavlova with strawberries and mango we had Friday...



it was a very good round of beaching and eating all day- my favourite!!! ^^

Oh, and a secret lookout we found halfway up a windy cliff road...


Oh and a final WISH...can the bloody mosquitoes stop EATING me!!! arghhhhh

I wonder...

if all third culture kids experience a serious sense of cross cultural displacement unless they either enter a completely alien culture or always mix with foreigners or expats?

or maybe it is only the problem of fence sitters...I guess if you definitively took a side and adapted to identify with just one of your cultures prioritising either look or geography, then maybe it is easier.

I think I feel complete cross cultural displacement in my new digs...so escape from all cultures I may represent into a completely alien one seems a very tempting option. I think maybe the two countries I would feel the least sense of displacement (or where it didn't bother me) might be either Japan or Switzerland.

but yes until then perhaps I am most comfortable being a wandering gypsy...

A Higher Standard...Of Maleness!

They say that the things you experience as a child really affect you...I only recently remembered that probably my earliest memory of encountering a guy that wasn't family as a kid was actually...a European! My sister's penpal that just suddenly "dropped over" with flowers and chocolates from so many thousands of kilometres unannounced...lol, romantic? You don't say!

Perhaps it is based on THAT (he was Swiss) that all my expectations of how men are supposed to be got formed....ie: that they are polite, eloquent, refined, cultured, civilised, intelligent, thoughtful...and did I say POLITE?!!

Lol a far cry from the rude uncivilised can't spell or form sentences sleazy rude yobbo thugs that treat women like "girl-meat" here and holler at them like dogs...Today on the bus I almost imploded by how bad the music was...and seriously I have been all throughout the country and never had to endure such terrible tasteless music...in any case a great reprieve from my yobbo conditions lately...some arty films, a euro exhibition, an internationally renowned line up for a music festival...and a third culture kid of my same disposition, likes and interests to buddy up with-exciting!!!

So anyway, perhaps cos of being exposed to a Swiss in my formulative impressionable childhood years I have NEVER managed to accept anything less... maybe I AM a snob like I get accused of...so be it! I have STANDARDS!!! :)

INTERNATIONALS.....Arghhhhhh!!!! :-D

THANK. YOU. GOD!!!!

May you and I all never forget that God is faithful and answers prayers :) ^^ ^^ ^^!!

So anyway I was *so so excited* I finally cracked through my monoculture no culture brains void bang head on brick wall issue here....

I seriously had had it up to HERE(motions 50cm above head) with the uncultured yob factor and Tall Poppy Sooks I get subjected to here...not to mention all the vacant stares...seriously, okay for sure it's elitist and Aussies have major overaffliction of Tall Poppy Syndrome and thus related oversensitivity but SERIOUSLY, sometimes it IS just about being able to converse with people at the SAME LEVEL of your understanding on various things...I don't know why such offense and discrimination is directed at cultured intellectuals in this country I mean I wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about if you talk engines and tools yet I don't get a CHIP ON MY SHOULDER because of admitting I'm ignorant about cars!

So yes Thank God for the Multi-cultured seemingly less neanderthal Internationals :)

I reflected on the whole debacle of how I CLASH so much with the majority of native locals left in this country these last few years since 90% of my friends went overseas...the solution I found had a lot to do with teeing up with a really really old friend of mine who went to the same infants, primary, highschool AND uni I did...all in all we received a pretty high and advanced standard of education as can best be expected in Sydney....she too has found herself less than ecstatic with the Aussies and in love with the foreigners!! Like just about all my friends...

And I realised it goes like THIS....once you get out of fairly academic environments you get presented with the REAL state of Australia...and that is one where there is a very very low level of education among its residents....by this stage many of the highly educated typically go overseas since their qualifications give them access to more promising encouraging environments. I guess it's also cos our population is not that big either and not to mention higher education is a bit costly :P so relative we have quite a small population of very educated people, maybe throw in we are marooned on a desolate island far removed from the rest of the world...and it is so easy to shelter in a kangaroo microcosm where that much sun fries the brains and that much water clogs the ears that people aren't that broadly informed either...

And that is why as highly educated intelligent minority ethnicity FEMALES we are subjected to a huuuuge amount of disfavour and discrimination by the dominant majority in this country...I guess being a male minded non submissive slightly feminist INTJ doesn't help either ;) lol the more minority you are I think the more of a rude shock it is for the average person to encounter ...like something they have never encountered...and they don't quite know how to handle you but lament you are weird and abnormal because you are such a rare and special minority...hehe...if people thought I was weird here I wonder how HO gets away with it??LOL Simple. SHE is in America the Land of the Free! lol and anYthinG really does go there!!!

But seriously...in the last few years as the success of the asians particularly the Mainland Chinese has really made a huge presence known in this city I have really felt a level of racism and jealousy never experienced before growing up just because of what I look like on the outside! Which in turn has naturally made me start to feel resentment toward the other side...I know it happens all over the world but for the first 20 years or so of my life it was seriously a non issue, which is how I would have liked it to stay!

Wow code cracked, I'm glad...it's been such a mystery my inner psychologist has pondered so much about why I clashed so much with locals especially Aussie men of my vintage and younger my whole life...

It IS a cultural issue. Anyway once you work out what it is that is irking then you can just avoid it as much as possible...yay! ...Happy days! :)

Cultural Fencesitting

I've been having this horrible niggling feeling lately...one of cultural fencesitting discomfort...which is idiotic because it is obviously something I will never be able to resolve having grown up in an environment and culture disparate to my ethnicity.

Maybe I will feel better if I get to know more Eurasians, even though I'm not one...cos really, I feel 50-50. Or at least when I am with asians, I feel Caucasian relative...and when I am with Caucasians I feel asian...It's almost like I choose to be difficult on purpose...I will always tend to the opposite/minority way.

In any case I went to a full asian house for dinner tonight- big meal lots of dishes chopsticks bowls soup all gathered around a circular table...the predominant language was something asian...wow I felt it was all so exotic and I felt disconnected but at the same time that there was something comfortably familiar...

arghhhhh.

Life's Big Questions: Am I a Banana or an Egg?

I'm definitely some kind of yellow varietal outside but am I white or yellow inside? I think my values and interests are more "western" but I understand or better understand Asians and I've noticed they tend to be drawn to me as a bit of "comfort" perhaps cos I am the kind of fencesitter that can actually bridge the cultural gap somewhat...

Growing up my first 15 years were very anglo - the last 15 or so I'd say was opposite, especially in terms of friends.

I don't know why I always feel the need to fit into a box on this issue since my life is testimony to the fact that I don't ever fit in any kind of "box" well anyway!

Anyway that was just my random thought too early this morning. I feel half crazy cos I'm so tired...I think cumulatively I've had 8 hours sleep the past 2 days and have really been stretched in terms of physical/mental energy demands. So I feel kinda trashed but my blog is a good "unwind" while I wait for my beans to steam...literally haha :) and then I'm going to take a much needed nap before I get stuck into the books...all these crazy sleeping hours- can't be very healthy! :p

Things that make me sad: Monoculturalism

I grew up in Sydney at a wonderful school with great exposure to a diverse mix of cultures - there was nothing but integration, inclusion and acceptance there...well maybe we were also too young and innocent to have much prejudice.

I feel sad that these days I rarely witness this same beautiful vibe.

In my new class this year, a distinct line down the middle separates the people with black hair with the people with any other coloured hair. When I first came to this new class, I had issues...I had NO IDEA which side of the line to sit on! By all superficial aspects, I knew which side of the line I belonged on but I didn't have a whole lot in common with that side of the line. But then again neither did I have too much in common with the other side of the line...after all I'm a Third Culture Kid ;) I was BORN to be a fencesitter...so I went for the middle :)

Anyhow, I was organising dinner with some asian friends and looking forward to eating something a bit different...african, spanish I suggested...I was not happy when I got an email back from a very good friend (who was actually born here so by some logic should be less Asian than me!) saying she REFUSED to eat either cuisine(has she even tried it?)...I also felt shocked when another 2 asian friends told me they had never tried Spanish food in their life!!!!!!! It was at this point I felt some serious frustration with how narrow minded and monocultured many people can be...

I don't think there is any way in hell I will EVER understand Monoculturalism...to me there's no attraction- it's just absolutely hands down BORING AS HELL...a primitive attitude that belongs in the past and definitely has no place in this jetplane, internet connected GLOBAL society...

I think I'm going to have to practise some "narrow-minded Exclusivism" of my own from now on... if you wanna be part of MY Clique you can't be an Uncultured Monocultured unprepared to venture outside your own doorstep for even one night! Grrr.

THERE...how's that for Dis-crim-in-ation?! LOL, that's probably my first attempt at un-inclusivism - I think I'll get better with practice though haha.

Honestly, I've not really noticed any discrimination until the last year or so...surprisingly, it's taken being back in this huge "melting pot" to actually notice it...(and it's right up there on the most disgusts me list along with smokers)...although we are such a richly diverse city I can't believe how much each clique still sticks to themselves so there are just separate pockets of cultures co-existing on the same turf with little interaction with each other. Maybe that is normal? What are your experiences with multiculturalism where you are?!

addendum: 21-11-08 interesting topical piece