Quality or quantity

When I write, it is mostly a stream of consciousness. Sure, I go back and edit, rearrange, correct, but usually quickly and cursorily, aimed at expressing what I want to say, and no more.

I would like to be an artist. To tease with elegant or amusing phrases, to astound, or to evoke emotions. I wish I could craft my words. I would like to sit pondering over a sentence, or to come up with some of Mrs S’s wonderful words. I would like to produce little polished gems of posts, like those on The Danforth. But I’m no poet. It seems to be my lot to work on the basis of quantity rather than quality.

This is however, currently working in my favour as I take on the task of NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words in November. So I hope too you will forgive me if I post less frequently here over the next few weeks.

Things I learned today about ageing

1, If you want to feel young, put a sticking plaster on your skinned knee.

2. If you want to feel old, skin your knee by falling down the stairs at the posh department store.

Seeking refuge

When I was an AFS student in Bangkok, I met a woman who had been working with refugees. She was from my home town in New Zealand, and it seemed quite extraordinary that someone else had travelled that far from home. I can’t remember how the arrangements were made, but back in 1980 it must have involved quite a lengthy process of letter-writing and waiting. What I do remember is meeting this intelligent, big-hearted woman from home, showing her around Bangkok, and hearing her tales of the children in the refugee camps who did not know how to play. Looking back, those were the children who lived through the regime of the Khmer Rouge. Looking back, I know that those children were the lucky ones.

About eleven years later, I met one of those lucky children. I was in Phnom Penh in 1991, on behalf of the New Zealand government, to make contact with the interim Cambodian regime that was operating under the auspices of the United Nations peace process. (Don’t ever tell me the UN doesn’t achieve anything! ). New Zealand had provided some of the vanguard troops and they had found a small hotel to live in. I can’t quite remember if it was owned by Dith Pran, the man whose story was told in The Killing Fields or Haing Ngor, the actor who played him. Regardless, it was a good reminder of why we were all there.

At the time, one of the leading Cambodian staffers for Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s FUNCINPEC party was a New Zealand citizen, formerly a refugee. He had been a refugee in 1980, when I was an exchange student in Bangkok. Sereyvuth was around my age, and had spent about a year in the camps on the border where Ruth worked, before he was resettled in New Zealand. He had escaped the Khmer Rouge twice, moving first in around 1971 to Phnom Penh with his family, until the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh, sending the town’s residents back to their traditional provincial homes. He didn’t dwell on his story, but he told me that he and his sister escaped from the Khmer Rouge, and cycled across Cambodia to reach the Thai border. I imagined how long it must have taken, the dangers they must have faced, the close calls they inevitably encountered, the fear they must have felt. At the time they didn’t know what had happened to the rest of their family, but eventually their mother and another sister joined them in Wellington. They were lucky.

Sereyvuth then studied English by working as a taxi driver (for years all the taxi drivers in Wellington were Cambodians, now they tend to be Somalian), and in the kitchens at the hospital. In just a few short years his English allowed him to attend university, and he gained a degree in Political Science. He returned to work in the refugee camps as a translator, then joined the party of his Prince, first based in Bangkok (where I first met him) whilst they were still exiled, and then back in Phnom Penh. He was so proud, so pleased to be able to return home. A few years later, he became a Cabinet Member at only around 33 years of age, as Minister of Tourism. A good advertisement for his country.

One day in Phnom Penh I had arranged to meet him. He came with a friend. Touch was also from Wellington, back in Cambodia for the first time to visit his father, who had not managed to leave. The two friends had lived next door to each other in Phnom Penh. They never knew if the other had survived until, one day in Wellington at a Cambodian community event, they bumped into each other. The joy on their faces as they told that story brought tears to my eyes.

Around the same time, New Zealand was elected to the Security Council of the United Nations. We knew that the Cambodia issue was going to be an important part of the work on the Council, and so when our Foreign Minister visited, we arranged for a visit to the refugee camps on the border. We flew there courtesy of the Thai Prime Minister, in his official helicopter, sound-proofed with leather seats. Drinks were served. We flew directly over my host family’s home in the Bangkok suburbs, as I excitedly pointed it out to the Minister and my colleagues. When we landed we met a stark contrast of fortunes.

The largest camp held 200,000 Cambodians, living in tin huts, arranged in orderly rows and “streets.” The conditions were basic, but not so different from those endured by the rural Thais who lived in the surrounding areas, and so there could be little argument that conditions should be improved. The Thai government was ill-equipped to cope with such an influx of needy people, but did not turn them away. The UN and other agencies did an amazing job supporting these people. (Don’t ever tell me the UN doesn’t do anything). The people were looking forward to either resettlement in the West, perhaps reuniting with other family members there, or returning home as part of the peace process.

A photograph was taken of our tall, handsome Foreign Minister standing talking to a man on crutches, his right leg blown off by a landmine. A small, bedraggled boy, the man’s son, stood to the side. The photographer snapped his camera just as the Minister reached out to the boy, and he looked up, laughing in wonder at this giant man.

When in doubt, blog about the weather

The choppy sea was a faded, cool, green this morning, covered in white-tipped waves. The waves were crashing against the harbour edges, the foam flying high across the railway lines, and the clouds raced across the sky. Earlier this morning I had cancelled a trip across to the vineyard region to visit a friend, as the hill road was closed by snow. Yet the sun shone brightly, and I squinted, wishing I had remembered my sunglasses. Spring in New Zealand is always unpredictable.

Queensland: Why (not)?

Queensland (and Australia generally) is a popular place for NZers to live. All of us probably know someone who lives there, most of us have some relatives who live there. So, of course, it occasionally crosses our minds … should we go too? After a long weekend in Brisbane, I feel more qualified to comment.

Reasons why:

1. Warmth: There is a freedom with warmth. My shoulders drop, my neck relaxes, my posture improves, I don’t worry every morning if I’ve missed the weather forecast, I can go out without contemplating just how many layers I will need, and best of all, I can relax outside with a coffee.You don’t need as many clothes in the summer, and that must be cheaper. Sandals are cheaper than boots, no need for expensive winter coats, etc.
2. Seafood: prawns, yabbies (I love the name), beer-battered barramundi, accompanied with fantastic Thai or Vietnamese flavoured sauces. Mmmmmmm.
3. Myers/David Jones. Big department stores you can spend hours in.
4. Pleasant open areas. Life is lived outside, and the governments and councils seem to have recognised this and provide parks and gardens and places for picnics, walking/riding, etc.
5. It’s flat. I feel a twitching in my toes when I’m somewhere that is flat. I have an urge to walk and run, to get on a bicycle. Here, I live on the top of a steep hill. So whenever I talk a walk (and I haven’t owned a bicycle for years), I know that at the end of the walk, I face a steep incline to get home. The thought of that is usually enough to deter me.
6. Skin cancer awareness. There was a public notice from the Queensland government on TV that said “there is no such thing as a healthy tan.” Finally, somewhere that shares my philosophy.
7. Mangoes and pineapple.
8. There is a degree of formality when it comes to dining out or going to parties. Australian women like to dress up. I like to dress up. In New Zealand, we have taken being relaxed to a ridiculous extreme.
9. A great variety of food. With a large Mediterranean population, and a growing Asian presence, my favourite foods are well represented.
10. It’s only 5 or 7 hours to Asia.

Reasons why not:

1. Australian TV. They used to produce some good dramas, though I haven’t seen any for a while. But then there are the chat/variety shows, ensuring that the “Australian content quota” is met.
2. Australian rivers. I looked out our hotel window in the morning, and saw the sunlight sparkling on the river below. It would have been pretty, if the river had not been brown. Brown rivers – they’re just wrong. And sad.
3. Expensive good food. We ate out at some award-winning restaurants, and the food was good. But we were surprised how expensive it was, particularly given that everyone in NZ seems to think Australia is a cheaper place to live.
4. Poisonous slimy things (snakes), and dangers in the water. What’s the point of having warm seawater if you can’t go in at certain times of the year because you’ll either get stung (jellyfish) or eaten (crocodiles or sharks)?
5. Skin cancer. 80% of all cancers diagnosed in Australia are skin cancer. 66% of all Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the time they turn 70. Avoiding sunburn in such a climate would be hard.
6. Australians aren’t fans of clothes. They show a lot of flesh, which is both a) unsightly (over many years and visits to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, I have observed that the women often seem to wear clothes about two sizes too small, and inches too short for the state of their thighs), and b) scary, if I found myself doing it too.
7. If I lived there, I would have to ask for a skinny cappuccino. Australians pronounce it skeeeneee – I could never bring myself to do that. And as soon as I opened my mouth and asked for a skunny cappuccino, I would be setting myself up for ridicule.
8. My hair goes fluffy. Beautifully straightened hair inside, I turn into Basil Brush when I emerge into the heat and humidty. I’d have to cut it off. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.
9. Relative distance to relatives.
10. Four minute showers. It is a strange land. So many of the homes have swimming pools, yet there are droughts and bushfires, and pleas to keep showers to only four minutes. Four minutes???????

Doing the Dishes

My post about my time in Wat Bak Nam (The Temple at the River Mouth) as a Buddhist nun, and Helen’s post about a meditation retreat, brought back memories.

In the early nineties, when I was back in Thailand as a diplomat, a good Thai friend gave me Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “The Miracle of Being Awake.” It is a beautiful little book, about the benefits of mindfulness, of appreciating the moment, living in the moment. I think everyone can do with a reminder that this is important. It’s one of the reasons I read the blogs I do. They are all particularly good at appreciating the moment, about celebrating the simple things in life. I put the book away for a long time, but I realise now that much of it stayed with me. During a particularly difficult time in my life, as I struggled to take pleasure in my life as a whole and the direction it was going, I found that I took great pleasure in the little moments. Being able to stop and enjoy the “now” when the future seemed bleak gave me much hope. I think TNH would have approved.

So when Helen wrote about “working meditation” when doing the dishes, I remembered this little book. I remembered the chapter on “washing the dishes to wash the dishes.” This particular chore has never been my favourite, and washing the dishes to wash the dishes (the journey is important, rather than the aim simply to get them done), was a foreign concept to me. Now I understand it better, but back in the temple, at 18, when one of my fellow AFS nuns volunteered to do the dishes after lunch, I remember being extremely peeved. I could have used some mindfulness.

The temple fed hundreds of monks, nuns and followers. The piles of dishes were mind-boggling. It was hot, and we were tired after rising at 4 am. It took the four of us hours to complete. I’m not sure I took pleasure in washing the dishes simply to wash the dishes.

Washing the dishes - we'd only just begun!

Life as a Buddhist Nun

We woke early at 4 am. It was quiet and dark, but we could hear the nuns around us getting ready to go to morning prayers, moving and talking softly, before they made their way to the temple room where the nuns worshipped. The temple was very segregated – the monks worshipped separately, in a larger but, I thought, uglier room. The women had a more intimate space down by the canal.

Some mornings we sneaked in late, kneeling on the mats at the back of the room. Louise was always hard to wake at that hour of the morning, and the others took their time. Despite the fact that I love my bed and am definitely not a morning person, then and still now I tend to be a rule-follower, and wanted to be there on time. Besides, once we got there it was worth it.

The room was decorated in classic Thai temple style, with an altar type arrangement of Buddhas at the front. The temple was dimly lit, candles surrounding the Buddhas cast a golden glow, silhouetted in front of us were the lines of nuns in their white, flowing robes and shaven heads. All was quiet, until the eerie chanting began. We joined in when we could, as we had had to learn the basic chants before we were permitted to join the temple and wear the robes. The chants echoed around the temple:

Namo tassa
bhagavato
arahato
sammā-sambuddhassa

Homage to
the Blessed One,
the Worthy One,
the Rightly Self-awakened One

Towards the end of prayers, we would hear the occasional long-tail boat on the klong (canal) alongside the temple, its motor sounding softer than usual, moving slowly, more cautiously in the dark of the early morning. But it was the first sign that the early morning tranquillity, with its serene magic, was about to be broken; the day was beginning, the city starting to wake, and dawn was not far away.

Thank you

Over the weekend, I received two thank you notes, from the son and daughter of a good friend. They were written in their own hands, and their own words, though I suspect Madeline might have been given a hint to use the word “genre.” I had visited them recently, and delivered some rather overdue birthday presents – Ollie’s birthday is in January! – and so they had thanked me in person. I was very touched by the notes, particularly Ollie’s, which was addressed simply to “Aunty (Mali).”

For the last 29 years, I have been sending various nieces and nephews birthday and Christmas presents. I’m not always on time, but as one of my now-grown nieces once said, “we always know we’ll get something from you, we’re just never quite sure when.” I usually enjoy shopping for the presents, indulging the child in me as I don’t have any of my own to indulge. But I have very rarely been sent thank you notes, and rarely too do I even receive acknowledgement from the parent that I sent the gift. And I won’t say it hasn’t irritated me over the years. I get tired of asking the mothers of these children if they have received the gift. As most of my nieces and nephews live overseas, the cost of posting these parcels isn’t cheap, and so at the very least I like to know they have arrived. If I’m lucky I will get a response saying yes they arrived. I have never received thank you notes (or emails), even from children who a) are extremely articulate and intelligent (according to their parents), and b) are adept at emailing (because their parents have boasted of an email correspondence with another relative), and c) receive the gifts in the midst of the school holidays, and so have time to write a paragraph or two. I write them notes, and ask them questions, and receive a deafening silence in return. I often send clothes to the girls, and frequently ask for photos of them in the clothes. I have seen one photograph of the Californians in some clothes I sent them, even though they’re now nine going on nineteen.

Am I a relic of the distant past, expecting the occasional thank you from children I remember every year? (I guess that makes my friend, the mother of Madeline and Ollie a relic too! She will not be pleased to hear that!) I try so hard not to begrudge the time, effort, and yes, money, that goes to these children, when I have none of my own. I don’t expect lavish gifts in return, and I certainly don’t want the children or the parents to feel indebted to me. A simple acknowledgement, a smile (in an email or on a note), would be sufficient. Thankfully, Ollie gave me one, drawing a huge smile on his note as he said thank you for his signed Hurricane’s shirt that he “really, really, really, likes.”

Addendum: My friend informs me that the children decided to write the notes themselves, and that “she didn’t have anything to do with it other than to have been told off for leaving the notes sitting on the bench for a week!!”
Apologies then to Madeline who obviously came up with “genre” completely on her own.

Roast duck and gravy

As May arrived, and the cold winter night fell, the mist would hover over the damp grass not yet frosted, and my father would arrive home from his evening duck-shooting. We would run out to see how he did that day, and look at the different feathers on the ducks, as Dad explained whether they were ducks or drakes, and what type of ducks they were. Then we would retreat inside, to the warm kitchen where a hearty meal of roast wild duck with its gamey delicious meat, a rich dark gravy, roast potatoes (crispy in duck fat) and pumpkin and parsnips, awaited. If we were lucky, it would be followed by a fluffy ginger steamed pudding. With custard. Duck shooting season was all about the food.

Dinner

Silvery delicious indulgence

A few years ago my sister and I received one of our best Christmas presents ever. Our older sister had given us some frozen whitebait, which we cooked up for lunch a few days after Christmas. The whitebait fritters, with a little lemon juice and salt, were a real treat, and our partners looked on, amused, as we demolished the pile of fritters we had cooked up.

Whitebait are the babies of about 6 different species of native New Zealand fish, and are only about 3-4 cms long, tiny, silvery, and transparent (turning white when cooked). People who haven’t eaten them before get squeamish over their eyes. They are caught at river mouths in spring each year, and whitebaiting takes on almost a religious fervour in some communities, and particularly on the West coast of New Zealand. Whitebaiters suddenly become everyone’s best friend, as we all hope against hope that we will be offered some to buy, or even better, given some for ourselves. These delicacies grace restaurants all over New Zealand during the seasons. As much of a fan of whitebait as I am, I usually find only disappointment when I order whitebait. Expensive little morsels, the amount of whitebait in each fritter is often minimal, and I find their subtle taste overwhelmed by too much eggy batter. Once, however, I was presented with a dish of pure deliciousness. The whitebait had been lightly tossed in flour, then flash-fried, individually. With a squeeze of lemon juice their taste was pure, delicate, delicious.

My father used to go whitebaiting, down at the mouth of the river. He took his net, early in the morning, and when he would return we would excitedly gather round to see how much he had caught. Some days he would come back with just ten or twenty, tantalising but insufficient for a meal. Other days he’d come back with a couple of pounds, and we would eat well that night. Until I left home, I just assumed that everyone had access to whitebait. But when Dad left me some whitebait when I was at university, and I invited a friend to share it with me, her sheer delight and gratitude made me realise that this was something special. Her subsequent awe at the whitebait fritters I made – packed full of whitebait bound with just a little batter – confirmed to me how lucky I was.

No longer, sadly. So when I was at the supermarket yesterday, standing at the fish counter about to buy some salmon, I couldn’t help but notice the long trough full of “Fresh New Zealand Whitebait.” I salivated. We often see frozen squares labelled as Chinese whitebait, but it is not the same. I looked cautiously at the price. $135/kilo sounded outrageous. “But,” I thought, “I probably only need 100 gms. I can afford that for a one-off indulgent Friday lunch. So I duly purchased it, and as soon as I got home, I made my lunch. I tossed the whitebait in about a tablespoon of flour, until each one was individually coated. Then I fried some of them individually, squeezed lemon juice over them, and snacked on them while I mixed an egg with the rest, and made myself some fritters, chock full of whitebait. I smacked my lips, licking off the salty, lemony, fishy taste. Indulgent. Delicious. Reminiscent.