Psapphirical

Amazing article by Juliana Qian on Chinese identity: The Name and the Face

Favorite bits:

I know what stories sell. Australian audiences have an insatiable appetite for the suffering of people of colour, for stories of violence and poverty, trauma and tragedy. But I came to this country on a Cathay Pacific plane. My childhood was suburban and ordinary. I had experiences of racism, of loss and shame, but always plenty of friends too. And the China I knew was largely peaceful and comfortable, despite real corruption, censorship and repression. My parents used to rush to the television whenever China was mentioned, but soon my father began to grumble that they were only interested in the dismal and catastrophic. SBS showed many horrific documentaries, few films, no comedies. As Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie says about representations of her country, ‘to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience … the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete’.

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My generation was promised equality after assimilation. And for a while there I believed it: I read Blyton and Blume, and later Plath and Salinger. And I loved them as I should. I forgot Chinese word by word and let my tongue grow wooden. And I hardly noticed because I always had more to say to my friends than to my parents. I waited for strangers to stop asking where I came from, and they kept me waiting. I went to the place I didn’t remember that I’m supposed to have come from, I looked at my grandparents’ bookshelves and the gaps in their photo albums and I thought about culture, loss, change and time. When I was four an ocean crossed me. If it hadn’t, I still wouldn’t be in the same place I came from.

I got chills.

Small-minded, insular people annoy me.  So much.

Also - I am so sick of being woken up every morning by the sound of saws and drills and hammers.  I swear, I haven't gotten a proper night's morning's sleep these entire holidays.  Bathroom renovation FAIL.  For the last two weeks, I've been woken up at 9am (after going to bed at around 4) and then I spent three or four hours stuck in that horrible place where you're really sleepy and want to keep sleeping, and you occasionally manage to drift off, but are repeatedly woken up by persistent but random noises.  And on the days when the workers aren't here?  I've been woken up by Rianna or the telephone each time - once from a telemarketer.  It makes me want to kill someone.  Srsly.  And now I have to go back to the office to do work every day, so there is no more sleeping in for me.  :(

This morning I dreamt of guildchat and walking down a lonely path in the Barrens.  I randomly bumped into Lyan and I was like "what are you doing here?"  And then Ingrid's Dad turned up, and took us to Disneyland in Egypt.  And then we posed with the pyramids. 

In other WoW related news - today I rode past this person called Cloudberry in Ironforge.  For a single, brief shining moment, I thought Cloudberry would turn out to be my Scandinavian soulmate who would one day help me fulfill my dream of eating cloudberries by a fjord.  But then I asked and it turned out to be an American named after booze.  *sigh*  Oh world, why do you disappoint me like this?

Happy 60 Years of Communist China everyone, yay!  (I'm only being facetious slightly.)
If you haven't already seen 'em, check out these go-go boots and amusingly short skirts on China's female soldiers.  I do love women in uniform - even if they're scarily in sync.