Halfway between Ca Mau and Sai Gon

End of an Era

2009-02-13T14:21:00.001Z

I am ditching this blog.

I've moved to Wordpress:-

http://uniqueschmuck.wordpress.com/

So, come visit me there, update your links and adios Blogger.

A week of weather

2009-02-06T20:55:00.005Z

England has been proudly displaying its capacity for weather this week. And I have been alternately revelling in it and reviling it.

On Monday, I woke to vast (for the area I live in) amounts of snow. At first, I thought it would melt away by the time I was ready for work, but over breakfast I watched snow falling and swirling outside.

At 0813 hours, my boss telephoned me. Standing at my bedroom window, I gazing out at the white street and mulling about whether I could - or should - cycle to work. He informed me he had been trying to get to work since 0700 hours (weirdo) and that he was now going to turn around and go home. He asked how I was going to make my way to work and I blithely informed him I might cycle, or walk. Soon.

I and my partner made our way - on foot - through the snow-covered streets. A bus was abandoned at the end of our street. People were milling about everywhere: pegging snowballs at each other; sliding along the ice; laughing and marvelling at the snow; and building snow men. Everyone grinned at everyone else.

We were set free from work early, but already the snow was melting away from roads and pavements. Still, snow continued to fall and it flurried around my face. I know now what a flurry is: gorgeous.

On Tuesday, I expected to wake to slush. Instead, I woke to snow still on the ground and more snow falling. This was more fabulous than I could possibly imagine.

I walked to work again, but things were a little dour. The world was less crisp and the snow more dangerous. The sky was grey. The streets were quieter. The fresh snow fall lay on top of ice, so was rather slippery, but interestingly crunchy, underfoot.

At 1000 hours, I rang my boss to find out whether he was going to make it into work. In the background, I could hear his son; he had tried and failed.

On Wednesday, I expected to wake to slush. I did wake to slush, but there were still minor bits of snow about the place. I decided to cycle into work because the roads looked reasonably non-icy.

Elsewhere in England, it snowed. Where I live, the sky dumped gentle sleet. (Yes, it's possible. I had not thought this was possible because the only sleet I had ever experienced before was on top of Mt Russell in Tasmania. That sleet was mean, horizontal and very painful, like some throwing a million needles at you. Wednesday's sleet was not so sharp. More like slivers of soft hair whipping your face. It was okay.)

Then, it hailed; again, gently. The balls of ice were very little (and rather cute). Again, I have only experienced nasty hail - the kind that bruises heads and smashes windscreens. After the hail, came some more snow but, somehow, lacking in conviction.

At 0930 I rang my boss who was still trying to get to work. He decided to keep trying and eventually got in at about 1100. He should not have bothered.

On Thursday, I woke to rain. Lots and lots of rain. I kitted up in all my rain gear and cycled into work. By the time I got in, my cheeks were frozen (not quite literally but it sure felt like it). This was the first time the rain had been so cold. I thought, I can take this. This is fine.

Snow was but a distant memory. Strange clumps of ice and dirt were the remnants of Monday's joyous snowmen artistry.

My workmates laughed (not cruelly) as I trudged into the office. I huddled beside my radiator to thaw out.

My boss beat me to work that morning.

On Friday, I woke to rain. Here we go again, I thought, grimacing as I pulled on my waterproof trousers.

Inexplicably, between the time of putting on my trousers and wheeling my bike outside the rain had cleared. In its stead, a wind came along. A horrid, icy head wind that made cycling rather unpleasant indeed. At least, a head wind means a tail wind home (I thought).

My boss did not come into work; he had booked the day off as annual leave.

At 1030, I watched rain, hail and snow beat up against my office window. My thoughts strayed to the trainee in my department who had, unfortunately, chosen the worst half hour to take the 20 minute round trip to court. She came back looking remarkably chipper; rosy cheeks suit her smooth, porcelain white skin.

I cycled home, in a head wind. This was the height of unfairness and I was oh-so tempted to circumvent the big hill and go home the wrong way down a one-way street. Ultimately, I decided not to (partially because I was complaining inside my head so much I forgot to not cycle my normal route home). I thought about walking my bike up the hill, but as I started climbing (it's a roughly 30 degree grade over about 200 metres), another cyclist was pushing her bike. Enough to spur my competitive edge, I grunted and huffed and sniffed my way past her.

So ends my week of weather. Weather is predicted for the next few weeks.

On My Own

2009-01-29T13:36:00.000Z

I'm back to writing on my own again.

The second writing group I joined has now disintegrated. Perhaps this means I will feel freer to write about the people in the writing group. Usually, I came away from writing group with the urge to write about my fellow writing groupies, but am restrained by a combination of niceness and fear; fear that they may come to this blog and read my mean thoughts about them.

They are all very nice people; they are just full of neuroses or loneliness or, in the case of one incandescent individual, complete madness (seriously, he was involuntarily admitted to psychiatric hospital).

As I am, I suppose (full of neuroses and/or loneliness). Although I'm pretty sure I'm not certifiable.

Another Year!

2009-01-26T18:05:00.001Z

I do not make public New Year's resolutions. I make private promises to myself. This year, I'm going public.

A friend informed me that a former boss "found" my piece in Growing Up Asian in Australia, so she directed him (with my permission) to this blog.

(Hi - you know who you are Former Boss - if you're reading this now. No need to say 'hi' back...)

I spent some hours re-reading past posts and am a little saddened that so many of my earlier posts read so much better than my recent posts. They seem more thoughtful, more insightful, more thinking (which I think is different to thoughtful). I need to re-capture them.

So that's Resolution Number One: Write More and Write Better
(Although I'll be happy with the 'more' bit and will leave the 'better' bit to fall into place. If there's a lot of chaff, eventually there's wheat, right?)

I've not really got off to a good start, but I'm a battler and I ain't giving up.

Resolution Number Two is a bit mundane: Sleep at Regular Times on a Weeknight.

Which leads nicely to Resolution Number Three: Arrive at Work around 8.30am.

I've been doing very poorly on both these fronts but that's gonna change, I swear.

Resolution Number Four: this year, REALLY, is the year I Wear Contact Lenses. This has been my New Year's resolution (even though I say I don't make them, I LIE) for the last, hmm, 5 years or thereabouts. Seriously, 2009 is the year. I'll update you on that one.

chuc mung nam moi, friends.

Sub-Zero

2009-01-18T23:09:00.002Z

The temperatures have been sub-zero in the last few weeks (though it has now warmed up again).

This has been quite exciting, although cycling into work in the mornings is hard.
Actually, getting up in the mornings is hard. My bed is nice and warm. My house is reasonably warm. I even have underfloor heating in the bathroom and in a defiant burst of extravagance programmed for it to come on and warm the bathroom floor on weekday mornings.

All encouragement to get me out of bed when it is minus 5 outside is welcome.

My main gripe with sub-zero temperatures is that it is not snowing. Surely, if it is sub-zero, then it must snow. Surely, this is the way things are. There can be no other way. But no, no snow. Every morning, lots of frost but no snow.

I went for a long(ish) cycle ride on Friday and for mere moments, snowflakes fell onto my nose, causing me to go cross-eyed so I could see them. I held out my tongue to see if I could catch a few. I could not.

I wonder what the cars coming in the opposite direction thought of brightly coloured me, cycling along, tongue out like an overheated dog. Another mad cyclist?

The other mad cyclists who bicycle commute into work or school/uni of a winter morning all look pretty happy to me. I tend to be smiling as I cycle along - I love cycling in the cold - and my fellow cyclists seem equally chuffed.

I wear three pairs of socks: tights, a thin liner sock, a thick outer sock.
I wear four layers of tops: a singlet/vest, my workshirt (usually a knit or jersey 3/4 or long sleeve top), a fleece jumper and my wind&water-proof cycling jacket.
I wear two layers of bottoms: tights and corduroy trousers.
My neck is wrapped in a red or green scarf and a 'buff' that I fashioned by cutting up a pair of old trackie-dacks (tracksuit trousers / sweat pants) that no longer fit me.
My head sports a naff yellow beanie (woolly hat, touk) with ear flaps and dangly plait bits and helmet.

I am the very epitome of sartorial elegance on a bike.

Home, again. And again.

2008-12-30T15:49:00.002Z

The word home is so imprecise. Rather like the word love, I guess.

Questions I was frequently asked when in BrisVegas:

1. Is it good to be home again?
2. How long are you home for?
3. When do you head home?
4. When are you coming home for good?

1, 2 and 4 all refer to Brisbane as home. 3 refers to England.

I caught up with some people who did not know I was no longer living in Brisbane, and my typical convolutions (in response to "What are you doing at the moment?"):

"I'm in the UK - well, obviously not right now. Right now, I'm sweating like nothing else, but in general, I've been living in the UK for the last few years and lawyering."

And that's what I did for two solid weeks. Sweated like nothing else and spun stories about my life in the UK, my life as a lawyer and my life as a merry holiday maker. After a while, I bored myself (and possibly my listeners). I also ate. My goodness, did I ever EAT.

At home (with my family), I had goi cuon, pho, bun nuouc leo and banh xeo. Goi cuon was my hello meal and banh xeo was my goodby meal.

Some of the places I visited were a disappointment. Kabuki, at Stamford Plaza in the city, loses my vote. As does Espressohead in West End. Keeping my vote are Batavia in South Bank and Happy Days in West End. And my brother, mother and sister-in-law all still have my votes, too.

Since coming back home from back home I have been busy with work, Christmas client lunches, work, Christmas itself, laundry and then, um, work. So this is a bit of a pathetic nothing of a post to round off 2008. I thought about writing about my Christmas day (fire! We had a FIRE! And we roasted chestnuts over our open FIRE!) but I don't have time. And I think all my Christmas day photos (rather surprisingly) have people who look recognisably like themselves in, and you can't have a Christmas day post without photographs. But mostly, time is my problem.

I'm hoping 2009 will bring more writing - either on this blog or elsewhere. (Ominous, no?)

Happy New Year to all (four!) of you.

Guess where I've been

2008-11-18T21:23:00.000Z

No, there aren't any prizes becuase the neon glowing thing really gives it away.

I spent a cold, drizzly autumn weekend in Paris and I have a new artist love: Francois Pompon and his white polar bear. Not only does the artist have a very cool name, but he captures the majesty of the polar bear in simple, stark lines.

I also found a fabulous Viet bakery doing Viet baguettes (I missed them muchly in England and I do not have the skills, or the baguettes, to replicate them): Saigon Sandwich in Belleville. It is at 8 rue de la Présentation, 75011 Paris. The nearest metro station is Belleville.

I learned about Saigon Sandwich via Chocoloate and Zucchini's blog. But I really did find the place, because I set off in one direction from Belleville and found myself walking through a grungy, multicultural suburb. It was great to be surrounded by brown faces. All of sudden, it ended. The streets were cleaner and there were fewer people about. I thought, "oh dear, I've missed it." So I turned right back around and wandered down different streets, taking random left and right turns at whimsy (and once to escape a gypsy woman who started yelling at me in French and my pathetic pardon je ne parlais Francais - yes I'm now aware that is wrong, but I was not aware at the time - did not shake her). Saigon Sandwich is actually about 50 metres away from the metro station.

I had their special baguette, which I successfully ordered in French: je voudrais speciale baguette sil vous plais. But then, the man in the bakery said something in French and I had to apologise and say I don't speak French in bad French. He held up a bowl of chillies and I said, oh! ot. Then I braved some Vietnamese. We had a conversation in Vietnamese, and another patron of the bakery joined in. They were pleased to meet a Viet-Australian and I was pleased to meet some Viet-Parisians. Oh, and the baguette was delicious. And very cheap - only 3 euros (about 2 pounds).

After that, I kept hearing Vietnamese at the other tourist spots I visited: Basilica Sacre Coeur, Tour Eiffel, the Louvre (though I did not go inside) and the Musee d'Orsay (where I spent a solid three and a half hours on only the second floor). I did not engage anyone else in Viet conversation. I'm quite shy in a non-English language (and that includes Viet).

I have also learned, from my solo travel, that middle-aged men like me. I was expecting to get hit on, but hit on by middle aged men only? A wee bit disturbing, really.

****
On a different note, I will soon be travelling home to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. So, this blog's going to go quiet awhile. If being away for a few weeks is anything like it was last time, coming back to work is going to be horrid, so I may find it extremely difficult to post.

One thing I miss quite a bit about Australia is bushwalking. Something very different from rambling or hiking or trekking. I miss the Australian bush. Here is a photo of me, this time in the Tasmanian bush, looking up at my partner who has gone where I am too afraid to follow.

Bosses and Cherubs

2008-11-10T20:24:00.003Z

I must stop being so inordinately pleased by the fact that I outwitted a 6 year old. It is ... unseemly.

I babysat for some friends on Saturday night. They went off to see the new Bond movie and for some dancing. I read to their two boys - let's call them Boss and Cherub -, watched them fall asleep and then crept into the loft conversion to settle in with a good book, listening out for any sleep disturbances. There were very few.

As I was reading to both boys, Cherub fell asleep on me and when I finished the story, I shifted him to his bed. Boss said, "Is Cherub asleep?" I nodded. "You know, Oanh, sometimes, when one of us falls asleep before the other one, the other one can stay up to watch TV."

Me: "Hey, that's a great idea. Just to make sure Cherub is definitely asleep, though, let's wait 5 minutes and pretend we're asleep, too."

Boss: "Okay."

So the little Boss curled over, smiled up at me and closed his eyes, pretending he is asleep. He was such a good pretender that he actually did fall asleep. I almost did as well, but as I was sitting on the floor between two beds, and not lying down on a nice comfy mattress with doona, I managed to bestir myself. Grinning because I had not been tricked into letting Boss stay up watching TV, I turned the lights off.

It was a very wet, very windy and overall miserable night. The book I had chosen from my friends' shelves was Diana Wynne Jones' The Time of the Ghost, a rather unsettling story. As the wind lashed around the house and rain beat against the windows, I read. I almost turned the TV on because the story scared me so much - except I had to finish the story so that it would leave me. Otherwise, I would stay afraid.

Every now and then, I went down to the boys' room to see if they were okay. They'd moved from where they'd started, and kicked off their doonas (although being English, they'd probably call them duvets). A few times, Cherub called out in his sleep and I came in to comfort him. The way he sat bolt upright, eyes closed, lurching forwards for a hug was at once disconcerting and utterly charming. The first time, I murmurred at him, "Mum's out, but it's me, Oanh's here. It's okay," He came fully awake, which worried me, until he said, with his head to one side, "Hello, Oanh!" as if I had just turned up at his house. He gave me a hug and settled back to sleep.

Later, Boss woke and came looking for me. "Are Mum and Dad not back yet?" he asked. "No, but I'm still here," said me, "Are you okay? Do you want to stay up?" "No, I'll go back to bed." But he stood, confused, in front of me. I got onto my knees to give him a hug, and asked him if he wanted anything, "Another story? A pee? Water?" To the last, I got a nod, so I trotted off to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water. He drank, gave me a hug and then went back to his bed.

I love the tactility of children. These two, in particular, have no qualms about demanding hugs or climbing onto your lap to talk to you. Cherub has a habit of reaching his hand to your cheek as he talks, or of putting his face right in front of your face. Boss likes to hold onto you while he is talking.

There is something so upsetting about a child upset in its sleep, and something so comforting about being able to soothe a child, with rubs on the back and murmurred words of,"It's okay", even though I don't know what's wrong or what I would do if I did know what was wrong.

Much later, their parents came home. I was comforting Cherub at the time and trying to settle him back to sleep, but they'd missed him so much they were quite happy to take over the settling part. "You okay?" Dad whispered at me. "Totally fine. They were great." Boss woke and said, "Dad!" and "Bye Oanh!" and Cherub sleepily lifted his arm to wave at me, and I snuck off.

Oh, and I finished the book.

Daylight Savings

2008-10-30T20:50:00.002Z

On Sunday I woke unsure of the time. We had guests coming 'round for lunch and most of it was ready: a big pot of pho had been bubbling away all day Saturday. My partner had woken earlier than me as I could hear him downstairs. I walked to the bathroom and switched on the light. A spark shot out, and then all went dark. To let in light, I opened some blinds and performed my morning ablutions in a grey dimness.

Later, as I pottered in the kitchen making breakfast, my partner wandered in. I told him about the bathroom light blowing, and asked him to switch on the kitchen light for me, as not much sunlight was seeping in this overcast autumn morning. He did and nothing happened. He wandered into the living room to switch on the living room light, and nothing happened there either.

We had to switch off all electricity to fix the fuse, and then resumed our lazy lunch preparations. I needed to reset the timer on our cooker, because, for some unfathomable reason, it refuses to work unless the time is set.

As I sat on the cold kitchen tiles, mobile phone in one hand, cooker manual spread out on the floor, I realised I have a tenuous grasp on time. Were we going one hour backwards or forwards? Did I have more time or less? What time was it now, anyway, other than shortly-after-breakfast? I wondered whether our guests would arrive on daylight savings time or GMT. I wondered whether we would have time to make dessert. Had I failed to husband my time correctly to take account of dessert?

It was all too much and I retired to the sofa for a wee lie down. We re-jigged our plans and decided to make brownies for dessert: fast, easy and a perennial favourite.

The idea of time, like the idea of money, is mostly arbitrary, theoretical. It is what it is because we say it is what it is. Out there, there is a credit crunch, but I don't really know what that means. In my life, there is a time crunch.

Gardening with the Seasons (Part II)

2008-10-16T20:42:00.003+01:00

or: How (& why) I planted bulbs (I'll try not to digress this time)

Gardening in the northern hemisphere, with seasons is completely unlike gardening in tropical Brisbane. (Such riveting news, I thought I should repeat it).

In Brissie, I just planted whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. And watered. Just like my dad told me to.

Like my dad, I did other things too, which I, like him, seem less inclined to tell people about: preparing the soil, digging in compost, turning the soil over, etc. I did not really do much of that. My partner did the bulk of it, when I decided it was time to do it. He'd watch me struggling with the spade, digging ineffectual holes and then take over.

It just took me longer to dig holes. In the far-away time before my partner, I dug my own holes. I would strike at the earth with the spade a few times experimentally. Then plunge the spade in. Then again. Then, with spade left in, wiggle it about a bit. Then plunge again. Then sit down for a rest. Then go get a drink. Then return to try again. It took me a while to dig a hole, but I always succeeded. I'm persistent.

Oh dear, I'm digressing again.

After we moved from the Little Flat to the Little House, I was most excited about the idea of having a garden again. I dug a hole (I did this myself, while my partner was away. It took three times as long as it would have done if he was present as he would have taken the spade away from me after my first few experimental strikes at the clay-y patch of earth I had decided would be our veggie patch). Into the hole, I buried the Bokashi contents from our flat. I mixed it all in and left it alone.

A few weeks later, we bought seeds of things we wanted to plant: beans, spinach, lettuce, silverbeet; and some flowers: nasturtiums, poppies, foxglove, honeysuckle, passionflower, jasmine.

A few weeks later again, we had some time to actually plant. On reading the labels of the seeds we'd bought, I realised we'd missed our window of opportunity for planting most of the flowers. The poppies and foxgloves should have gone in shortly after we bought them (should have realised this from the fact that I was now seeing foxgloves and poppies in the woodlands and other people's gardens ... probably therefore past their sowing time). We planted everything else, plus some of the basil that was outgrowing its pot.

That's just not how it works in Brisbane. Stuff grows year round. You can plant it year round. And if you can't, then it's only because it's too hot. Don't plant in December, January or February. In those months, you won't know if the sun will wither your plant to a burnt crisp of its former self, or if a torrential downpour will relocate your seedling or seeds, somewhere else, entirely out of your control. Or both. On the same day.

In England, the slugs got almost everything. They destroyed the basil in one night. Seedlings would disappear as soon as they emerged from the earth. We tried everything organic: eggshells, coffee grinds, hair. The only thing that worked was a plastic pot (formerly containing yoghurt) half buried in the ground, half filled with beer. The slugs would go for it, instead of the emergent seedlings. But, by then, we only had a very few seeds left. All that grew was a lone stand of silverbeet. It was much too late in the year to plant any more seeds.

Flower-wise, most things grew fine. The slugs did not like nasturtiums one bit, so we planted more of them round the edge of our veggie patch as a barrier. They make our garden look productive, rather than bare. But it is bare. It is bare of vegetables. We were demoralised. So demoralised, we even forgot to eat the silverbeet, so it is now unpalatably bitter.

Quite a few weeks ago, I was flipping through the weekend paper and read about planting bulbs. I adore the bright flowers that pop up at the end of winter, heralding spring. I bear much affection for them, as they first greeted me in this new land. It was so exciting to see white and purple crocuses, daffodils and snowdrops, growing like weeds. They symbolise England for me. They are so very different to what you can get in Brisbane: delicate blooms, thriving on cold, redolent of the changing of the seasons. And they epitomise English gardening: you have to sow them many months before anything happens. You have to PLAN.

So, I sent off for some bulbs: 100 crocuses, 70 daffodils, 50 tulips. I have grand visions of my front garden being a field of English flowers, in miniature: in February, crocuses; March, daffodils; April, tulips; and then, it will be time to plant foxgloves and poppies, ready to bloom for summer.

We planted the bulbs last weekend. My partner lifted the grass / lawn (an aggravating operation that the word 'lift' belies); I mixed potting mix with the soil and placed the bulbs in their randomly appointed spots; we finished by walking over the lawn, stomping the grass back into place.

Now, we wait.

Gardening with the Seasons (Part I)

2008-10-14T21:35:00.003+01:00

Gardening in the northern hemisphere, with seasons is completely unlike gardening in tropical Brisbane. Yes, you read right here, breaking news, paradigm shift, etc.

I have a very laissez faire approach to gardening. This is because (1) I grew up in Brisbane and (2) my father is the most amazing gardener ever and his approach always seemed very ... at ease.

Whenever I asked my father for gardening tips, he would look at me, shrug and say something helpful like, Are you watering it?

My mother spent her time discouraging me from gardening. On my visits home after I moved out, I would occassionally take cuttings of plants or uproot seedlings for my own garden. My mother would follow me around the garden telling me not to bother, that if I wanted whatever plant it was I was collecting (usually herbs), I could just come get them from her house. She also used to berate me if I went to the store to buy herbs (especially mint), when they grew in such lush abandon in my parents' garden. I often found myself trapped into giving answers that would permit my mother to berate me for one reason or another:

Um: What do you cook to eat?

Me: [shrug] Lots of things, pasta, rice, noodles.

Um: Do you cook Viet food?

[Here, it becomes a choose your own adventure]

Option 1: Say yes and demonstrate your goodness

Me: Yes, I made goi cuon just the other day.

Um: Oh. Where did you get the rau cai*? (*A miscellany of green - lettuce and herbs etc)

Me: I bought them from Hong Lan (local Asian grocery store).

Um: Why did you do that? What a waste of money! You could have come here for them.

Me: [splutter.]

Option 2: Say no and demonstrate your badness

Me: No, I just come home.

Um: Then you must not miss Viet food very much because you don't come here very much.

Me: Sometimes I go to my sister's house.

Um: She never calls me when you go there. I never see you.

Me: Yes you do.

Um: You could just move home again if you miss Viet food so much you have to visit your sister for it.

Me: [splutter.]

Option 3: Demonstrate how downright evil you truly are.

Me: No, I just come home.

Um: Then you must not miss Viet food very much because you don't come here very much.

Me: Sometimes I go to my sister's house. Or a restaurant.

Um: What?

Me: Er, sometimes I go to a restaurant.

Um: Why? What a waste of money! Just come here.

Me: Sometimes it's too late to come here. (My parents go to bed very early)

Um: What do you mean? What time are you eating?

Me: Er. Sometimes, quite late.

Um: How late?

Me: Er. 8. 9. (I do not have the faculty of lying to my mother to make my life easier.)

Um: That's not very good for you. What time do you go to sleep then?

Me: Um. 11. 12. Depends. (Well, I can lie a little)

Um: [splutter.]

That was a bit of a tangent. I miss my mum. I even miss her nagging that I used to find so aggravating. Now she's just sweet as all-get-out to me on the phone, because I am so far away. Wish she'd just nag me again.

I intended to tell you about how I planted bulbs. Next post, then.

Thoughts of Cycling in the Fall

2008-10-10T15:09:00.002+01:00

Summer is gone.

I sat in my office today, my poor katoosh frozen. Our central heating is yet to be turned on, even though temperatures outside are less than 10 degrees. I can barely feel my fingers and I certainly cannot feel my toes.

Autumn is here.

My cycle to work now involves the sunlight glaring in my eyes, occassionally through mist. There are just as many cyclists now as there were in summer, but more of them are brand new (uni) students, taking up the whole of MY cycle path.

I grumble, grouch and ding-ding my bell, to no avail. Especially the young women: they hold their position as they come towards me, archly ignoring my presence in front of them. I'm on the left. You're on the right. We are about to have a collision if you don't move. Sometimes I jump onto the grass, and they give me a surprised innocent look, and I hate them quietly. Sometimes, I peddle onwards, aggressively bowing my head like a bull ready to charge, and wait for them to skid sideways, making affronted noises and giving me upset glares. I'm in the right, sweety, and I have years of practise in judgemental self-righteousness on my side.

Really, I am quite a considerate cyclist. Honest. I cycle kindly with pedestrians, rarely dinging my bell; more often, just calling out or taking a wide detour, especially around dogs and children, for whom I slow down to near-walking pace. I'm less nice to the 'Boot Camp' groups who inexplicably drop onto the middle of the path to do sit-ups and push-ups, or start running backwards without looking behind them. To them, I ding-ding away. I glare at their instructor, dressed in camo gear. I want to shout to the participants: Buy a bike, guys! Why are you paying these sadistic, demi-military men to shout abuse at you? Cycle to work - it's actually rather fun!

I cycle defensively with cars and only aggressive, dangerous drivers cause me to display my anger, by means of rude gestures or shouted obscenities. I have tapped on a car window, after the driver sped up to use the left lane to overtake me who was coasting down the middle of the right lane, set to do a right turn. They had to stop at the light, so I tapped-tapped on their window and said, "That was dangerous and stupid", and to which their reply was a sheepish look. Usually, though, I just swallow my annoyance or think mean thoughts, but do nothing. A car is lots-of-tonnes of metal, and a bike is not. If you're going to be aggressive and dangerous, I'd rather let you then hold my own and be dead or injured, because that's not really that much fun. And anyway, it will make me even later for work than I already am.

But I really have no patience for inconsiderate cyclists. None at all.

I can't wait until winter, when only the committed cyclists will still be peddling away. These rubbish cyclists, with no sense of cylcing etiquette, will have wimped their way onto buses to get to uni. The cycle path will be mine, all mine. [herein insert maniacal cackle.]

Old Age

2008-10-02T21:39:00.002+01:00

Everyone my age is bemoaning their age. I teeter ever closer towards being thirty. I'm not worried about how old I am but sometimes, something jolts me and I think about age, about time passing, about memory, and, as ever, about me.

My eldest nephew is 18. I did not do anything for his 18th. Did not send him a card nor even an email. Oops. In my defence, I thought he was turning 17 this year. Obviously, I am wrong. He finishes high school soon. He has a girlfriend. He's probably, you know, doing the dirty. We are friends on Facebook and I am loving how proud and subversive he is about his Asianness. He tags 'FOB' rolls (banh mi thit aka pork salad rolls; FOB stands for Fresh Off the Boat. I only learnt that a few years ago, from Sume). He is surrounded by Asian faces in his photos; I wonder, if I had as many close Asian friends when I was in high school as he has, would I have been as comfortable with my Asianness as he appears to be with his?

This does not make me feel old. It makes me feel the passing of time. Although, perhaps, I am just playing with words there. I don't feel any negativity, is all I am saying. When people say they feel old, they are using old as a perjorative. Yes, I feel my age (though I don't often behave it, so I am told). But I don't feel it as a bad thing. I feel the weight of history, when I discover my nephew is 18. Eighteen!?

I remember his birth, quite clearly. I remember the first few photos of him sent to me by his proud parents. I am astounded 18 years could have passed. I have to resist doing things such as sighing about what a cute baby he was (and he was) and remarking on how he was as small as a teddy bear, once (I have the photograph to prove it).

I lived with him and his parents for a short period of time when I was the age he is now: the age of asserting adulthood. That time feels both far away and not so long ago.

When I was his age, a newly discovered older cousin told me, sighingly, how he remembered me when I was as long as his forearm. My tart, witty response? I don't remember you from then.

When I was his age, I threatened his father, my eldest brother, that I would jump out of his moving car and then telephone our father if he took me to a function and left me there on my own. I did not want to go. My brother promised to remain at the function with me.

When I was his age, I lied to my parents about not crying when I phoned them on Tet to say hi and chuc mung nam moi and what are you doing and do you miss me and yes, it's cold in Melbourne.

Things have not changed so much. I still resort to snarky comments when I cannot think of how to make conversation with someone because they say something to which there is no response (and to pre-empt you: no, polite but ambiguous silence is just not an option (for me)). I still use guerilla tactics on my siblings when I don't want to do something they want me to do. And I still lie to my parents, partially through pride, partially through not wanting to let them know I'm sad or struggling or sick or ... anything negative, really. Ha. I ain't so grown up. But I must have, right, because ...

He's 18. Can you believe it?

Head Hunted

2008-09-30T17:50:00.002+01:00

Work etc has been rather busy. Life etc has been rather busy. I am not holding up my own on the blogging front. But, winter draws near. There is hope.

***

I recently answered a head-hunting phone call: very intriguing.

Head-Hunter told me that someone had referred me to them - except the job they are recruiting for works from the corporate perspective and I am quite happily entrenched in the individual's perspective. They won't tell me who the referring someone is. And I'm curious. Very curious. Although I also wonder if they just look up people of my number of years "post qualification experience" (PQE) and then phone up. It's brave of them. Lucky I was feeling patient.

I've never been head-hunted before. It's an odd feeling.

Other odd phone calls I have received recently (these ones at home, rather than at work):

Oddity number 1
Phone rings.
Me:- Hello?
Ambulance Chaser:- Hi! Have you or anyone in your family had an accident in the last three years.
Me: No.
Ambulance Chaser:- Are you sure? Because we can -
Me: Yes. I'm sure.
Ambulance Chaser:- Oh okay. It's just that we -
Me: Thank you. Bye.

Oddity number 2
Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Opportunist: Hi! We were wondering if, in the current economic climate, you needed assistance.
Me: Sorry?
Opportunist: Well, the current economic climate is not good for the average person.* We were wondering if you might need any help.
Me: Help? Um. No. Thanks.
Opportunist: Debt! Do you have debt?
Me: No.
Opportunist: Mortgage, loans, credit card debt?
Me: No.
Opportunist: Car loan? Home loan?
Me: No.
Opportunist: Really? No credit card debt? We could help you by -
Me: No. I have no debts.
Opportunist: Oh-kaay. [disbelievingly] Thanks anyway.
Me: No problems. Bye.

Weirdos.

*I don't think I qualify as the average person. Or do I? I don't know.

A solo ride

2008-09-09T07:23:00.000+01:00

I did a long(ish) solo cycle ride over the weekend. My first, ever. I've been on longer rides, but always with other people. I did my own navigating (a rare thing; see my last post).

These are my statistics of the event.

Kilometres travelled: 36.32
Miles travelled: 22.7
Time taken for the ride: Three hours (give or take).

Hills ascended: Three (oof).
Hills descended: wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Number of times I had to stop to check the map: At every juncture, um, maybe fifteen? Then, I checked the map obsessively during lunch.

Wrong turns taken: only one! Although, it was a biggie ... I turned right, instead of left, when leaving the Stately Home (see below) to cycle back home again. I realised after no more than a kilometre, so I was not well on the way to Scotland before I did an about face and cycled back past the little family of ramblers to whom I had just called out, "Hi there! Bike behind!" and to whom I now said, "Hi again! Silly cyclist coming back!" Mum and Dad grinned and kids waved.

Number of stupid cars who cut in front of me: One. Red. Driven by a blonde woman with a shoulder length bob. I'd recognise her again. Harrumph.

Number of nice drivers who shared the road with me: Lots. Yay them.

Number of steam-rollers passed: One, with me grinning a most amused grin, and the driver waving at me.

Amount of (rooibos) tea ingested: one thermos, or four cups.

Stately homes visited: One.
Regency dances viewed: Four.
Roses smelled: Seven (Pilgrim was best and Graham Thomas came a close second).
Time spent meandering around the Stately Home's grounds, having lunch, reading my book, drinking my thermos of tea, admiring the gardens, feeling jealous about the gardens, resisting buying a book from the second-hand book store nestled in the Stately Home's cellarium and contemplating whether I should cycle home soon because it might rain: Three and one half hours.

Punctures incurred: one
Punctures fixed: none
Spare carried: Thank goodness.
Tyre changed: YES!
Time spent considering whether I could fix the puncture, giving up and changing the inner tube instead: 45 minutes.

Offers of help declined: One

Times I considered catching the train home: Only once, initially, when I discovered where the puncture was on my inner tube (Right at the valve. Was that repairable? I had to phone a friend to double-check. The answer was no. My heart sunk.) But the train station was two miles from where I currently was, plus my home station is about two miles from home. That's pushing a bike a total of four, painstakingly slow, miles. I thought I'd rather spend ages trying to change the tyre before giving up to catch the train. But no! I am competent at practical things.

Number of nice old people who offered me their soap and water to wash my mucky hands: Two. And the old dude apologised for not offering to help because I "looked very professional changing the tyre". I beamed. And the old lady said,"He would not have been any good, love" and winked. Bless. I did not ask why they were carrying soap to visit a Stately Home (Gift horse. Mouth. Don't Look.)

Number of children who stood around giggling at my attempts to change my inner tube: Six. Go away children! You're not making it any easier.
Number of children who leapt about me and my bike and my worldly possessions (novel, check; beanie, check; thermos, check; emergency chocolate, check) scattered on the lawn: Two (but it felt like twenty). I discovered my puncture in the parking lot of the Stately Home, just prior to my homeward cycle, hence the abundance of people.

Number of trout in stream: One! Large! Spotty!

Photographs taken: None. I had no space to carry the Fuji camera (and my partner had the Ricoh) - I really need a pannier rack and pannier bags, but, because I am vertically challenged (who you callin' short, huh?), I cannot fit a pannier rack onto my bike (the seat is not high enough and a pannier rack attaches to the wheel nuts as well as to the joist thing holding the seat up.). My, there sure were a lot of qualifying clauses in that last sentence. I'm working on raising my seat, but I currently have the seat at just the height when, if I am at a stop, I am on my very tippiest of tippy-toes to hold steady, and even so, I regularly tumble. Gracefully, of course.

I Got the Post-Holiday Blues

2008-09-02T21:30:00.004+01:00

Stockholm was incredibly relaxing. As was our long hike inside the Arctic Circle. I came back feeling refreshed and like I really had a proper holiday. Probably not everyone's idea of a holiday - hiking through thoroughly breathtaking landscape, all I need in a rucksack on my back (my pack weighed between 11 kg and 13 kg most days, my partner's between 13 kg and 17 kg) and eating cous-cous and noodles every night.

I find walking / hiking / tramping , especially in difficult terrain, very meditative. I am inside the moment of walking, of picking up one foot, and placing it down again, of ensuring each foot is placed solidly. Glimpses of flowers distract me, but the most profound of my thoughts is, "Oh, that flower is so pretty (or cute or blue, whichever is most appropriate)".

In one patch, we walked for approximately five kilometres over uneven stony ground. It could have been moraine, except that I think moraine involves bigger rocks. These rocks ranged in size but the average size was a square foot. For most of the walk over these rocks, I watched where I placed my foot, ensuring also that I did not place a foot onto the middle of a rock too often, as that would cause a slow ache to develop in my arches. I know this from previous walks, where I have been neglectful of my arches, plonking them unthinkingly on rock after rock, only to find myself in perplexed discomfit weeks later. It seems like the best thing to do is put a whole foot on a rock. No, the best thing to do is balance toes and heel between two rocks. Or, at least, mix up the toes-heel balance with whole-foot placement. I concentrated on my walk.

As a fleeting thought crossed my mind - "Ha! This is perfect ankle sprain territory" - I looked up to make the observation to partner, and stumbled. Only a little stumble. Not one he even noticed, lost as he was in his own fugue of rock-walking concentration. Thereafter I resolutely tried not to think about spraining my ankle, right in the middle point of the walk - the point where going forward to its conclusion involves as much distance as going back to the start.

We were the few - perhaps the only, ever - Australians on the walk. We met a pair of Swedish walkers who, after my "Hej" and smile, launched into rather a lot of Swedish. All I had learnt (bad, bad me) was "Hej" (Hello) and "Tack" (Thank you). I kept saying "tack" like the German "tag". I have a few accents that I do: Italian (thanks, Latin!) and German (in which I can fluently say, I am hungry: "ich haben hunger". I practised that long and hard because it contains all the guttural Germanic sounds that I find so difficult to make). And whenever I am somewhere that does not speak English as the main language, I have a strange, barely suppressible desire to say, "minasan, suate kudasai" ("everyone, please sit down", in Japanese).

When I smiled and apologised for not speaking Swedish, one of the walkers repeated what he had said, but this time in German. Then he apologised, in English, and repeated what he had said in Swedish and German, in English. What had he said? How are you? Then he apologised that he did not know very much English. Then, in English, he went into great detail about the walk that they had done. Then, we had a conversation in English. His English was great, but he kept apologising for it, leaving me no space in which to apologise for my lack of Swedish; my oversight was more culpable, I thought, than his non-native-but-otherwise-perfect-English.

Foolishly, he asked me which direction we came from. I am not good with compass direction points. My partner was not then present, on a brief exploration of our rest area. So I told we had come from our last landmark, Tjakta Pass. He told me he had come from the west. I don't think either of us really understood each other - he failed to understand me because I mispronounced Tjakta (he later identified it and said something entirely different to what I had said) and I failed to understand him because I did not know which way west was. Still, we were both just talking for the sake of talking to someone other than our respective walking partners. I further confused him by announcing that our next destination was Salkastugorna - when we were already there. I am not the navigator. My partner is. I am absolved of all responsibility.

Me and Our Tent: Taking in the sights at one of our campsites.
I have no idea which one, or why I am not doing something useful.

Since being back, over a month now, work has made a quick meal of that mellow refreshed feeling one gets from a great holiday. Now, I'm all wound up again. Everything is very busy. I am still chasing my tail post holiday. My tail gets longer, but I get no closer. I do know which direction I'm going though: round and round.

Manga Me

2008-08-21T18:20:00.000+01:00

By way of Galaxy, I have Faced My Manga Self:

Yes, I really do grin like that. I have many photographs to prove it. I hacked off all my hair, so now it does do random jagged things. And my glasses are orange.

The most amusing thing about doing this little avatar thing was that I had to go look in the mirror to remind me of what I looked like. Although my hair is black, I decided making it shiny grey was more suited to my personality.

Then I thought, well, that's casual Oanh. But what about Lawyer Oanh? So I went back and made another avatar (but I forgot to give myself a mole, although now I have bags under my eyes and I'm not grinning quite so maniacally):

And that's what I look like at work. My hair's a bit neater, see, and I wear jackets.

What's in a name?

2008-08-17T22:32:00.004+01:00

A crowfoot flower, tenaciously among the rocks.

I hate people who don't listen when I slowly spell my name for them: Oh, Ay, En, Aitch. "What? En, Ay, Oh?"; No! Oh [wait for them to say, yes?] Ay [wait for a yes?]; En [wait for another yes? they get impatient] Aitch. That's all. Then they say, "Okay, why did you not say your name was Ann?" Hmm, because it's not. My name is Oanh. It starts with an Oh. And is pronounced wun. Shall I spell it for you, again? "Oh, sure. That's unusual, isn't it?" Mmm, I murmur, without saying anything else. It's too much hassle to say, no, actually, it's not unusual. I have been patient, really, I have. Patient all my life.

I don't expect anyone to know how to pronounce or spell my name (okay, my family and friends I do expect to know). Hell, I even crack pretty good jokes about my name (if I say so myself). My best was when I rang my best friend in high shool and her father picked up the phone.

Me: Hi, Mr BestFriend. Can I speak to BestFriend? It's Oanh.

Mr BestFriend: Which Oanh? ho ho.

Me: The only Oanh of course. chuckle chuckle.

Mr BestFriend: Ha! That's great! [Aside and shouting] BestFriend! It's only Oanh on the phone!

Of course, sometimes I got sick of my name. Random people, usually men, usually on trains, would ask me my name and I would tell them: Two point four. I thought I was being pretty funny. They did not bother trying to chat me up any further.

I also used to lie - colourfully - about my 'ethnic heritage'. You know, in response to the "Where are you REALLY from?" question.

Sometimes, I would be an Inuit princess, seeking refuge in Australia from having to marry my sister's brother because she died, which was a custom of the tribe that I would one day lead. I was here, learning martial arts and survival skills, and I would return when I was strong, to overthrow my father, to re-create the matriarchal society we were supposed to be. That was my favourite story.

Sometimes I was just apathetic. Yes, I'm from China. It's a big place. Yes, I eat dogs. And lounge about smoking opium. Sure, I will amend the feng shui in your house. You should place the lucky dragon plant in the turtle corner well away from the phoenix roof. Not good for the monkey vibes. Although, it is the year of the oscillating octopus, so perhaps you should completely obliterate the turtle corner.

Or I would reply to people who called out, "Konnichi Wa!" with Origami! Toyota! Mitsubishi! and they would look at me, failing to appreciate the extent and sheer scintillating brilliance of my wit. Some of them even went on to speak more Japanese to me. Bless their misinformed hearts. Needless to write (but I'm going to write it), I did not date any of them.

And you know what? None of these people I spun stories to ever commented on my Aussie accent.

I used to want to change my name. To something easy. Something 'Anglo'. Something that, when a relief teacher was taking class I did not have to say, Here-ah when there was a puzzled pause.

I had one relief teacher who was extremely discombobulated to discover that I was named 'one'. I was sitting in the front row, first desk. He was a young teacher, and it did not help that my classmate (front row, second desk) piped up that he was 'two'. The poor, young relief teacher assumed we'd been allocated numbers, so he proceeded to call us by the numbers that our seating arrangements would have assigned us. We all tittered quietly but did not correct him. When the principal came in to check on how he was doing, our class got a stern scolding. Me, especially, for allowing it to happen (I was Class Goody-Two-Shoes (otherwise known as School Captain). The relief teacher never then did believe me that my name actually, really was Oanh. I had to ask the principal to affirm that, "Yes, her name really is Oanh", for the relief teacher to accept any more words that came out of my mouth, asserting anything at all.

Actually, I have strong recollections of wanting to change my name to Karen. I cannot now recall why the name Karen. She's not in any books that I can remember from my childhood.

I've been happily Oanh for a while now.

Photos on Holiday

2008-08-13T21:43:00.003+01:00

I have a new camera. Well, it's a few months old now.

It is a Fuji Finepix S9600 - it's an almost-but-not-quite SLR. It's pretty darn heavy, weighing in at about 750gms without batteries inside, which is somewhat contrary to my plan to get a camera to take hiking with us. It's also pretty bulky, having a massive, don't-mess-with-me zoom. But it's the best on the market for what I want.

We took it with us to Sweden where we spent a mere weekend in Stockholm and then proceeded to hike through Swedish Lapland, inside the Arctic Circle, where there was 24-hour daylight.

Mountains, lake and bridge: Everything Swedish Lapland has to offer.

What does round the clock daylight mean for photography? The wrong light, always. Never that slopey-angle orange toned light of dawn or dusk, always that overbright, overhead light that makes playing with the exposure of a photograph complicated.

Also, because we were impatient fools, we forgot to set the camera to store photos on its highest quality setting. Many of our photos (and there are many) were a bit disappointing. Not because we are not brilliant photographers (ha!) but because we used the second highest quality setting. That edge of great images was just ever so slightly lost. Woe, woe, woe.

Just means we have to go back.

My partner is the landscape photographer. I do not seem to have an eye for landscapes. Rather, I am the details photographer. You can always tell who had the camera at what stage because there will be a series of landscapes, some with Oanh in, (my partner has the camera), then a series of close ups of flowers and a shot of my partner looking off in the distance or mucking about with the tent or otherwise keeping himself occupied while I contort myself for the perfect shot of a flower in situ (I have the camera, of course).

Another reason why I am not the landscape photographer is that I have an unerring ability to render my horizons ... slanted. There are any number of series of photos where the horizon or ground gets slowly, inchingly, straighter. Even with the camera set to display lines, I manage to take slant-angled horizon photos. Just a talent.

I am also the director of photography. While my partner holds the camera, I sometimes say, "Make a photo of that!" Or I am trying to take a photo of something but my height prevents me from making the shot that I want, so I hand the camera over to my partner and ask him to take some shots from his height. Occassionally, we have a bargy over who took which photo.

When I was travelling with my sisters in Viet Nam, we each had a digital camera and together, took rather a lot of photos. One photo in particular, The Accountant really liked and proclaimed that she took it. We were on a walk alongside the beach at Vung Tau. In the background numerous Viet flags fly. In the foreground walk my sisters, my mother, my aunts and uncle and cousins, all spaced out in a very aesthetically pleasing fashion. I argued with the Accountant, trying to tell her that I took the photo, but she refused to believe me. She insisted that she took it. Finally, I resort to stabbing at the figures in the photo - "Look! There's the Vegetarian! There's Um! There's Y*! And Vuong**! Where am I? There YOU are! You CAN'T have taken the photo!" She conceded that perhaps she was wrong.

* pronounced ee - means aunt on my mother's side

* pronounced yurng - means uncle who is husband of aunt on my mother's side

My partner and I cannot have such clear proof of who took what photo, although a negative version of this argument occurred over a photo of what I thought to be nothing in particular.

Me: What's this of? It's really weird framing.

My partner: It's of you!

Me: Me? Where? I'm not in this picture.

My partner: [pointing at a blackish shape on the left hand side of the picture, beside some bluish shapes] There you are. It was Alesjaure. You were chillin'.

Me: What? Oh yeah, Oanh like a rock. There I am indeed. So you took this photo? It's one of your crappier photos, man.

Of this photo, my partner and I have the following conversation:-

Me: Oanh has the camera! Nice buttercups. Lovely depth.

My partner: I took this photo.

Me: No!

My partner: Yes, I did.

Me: Oh. Okay, perhaps.

I have to concede that he could be right. He proclaims no proprietory interest in any of the other close-up-of-flower photos. His certainty in respect of this one causes self-doubt.

The following are definitely photos I took:-

My favourite of the myriad wildflowers (fjallblumen, lit. mountain flowers) we saw. I'm naming them 'Bog Cotton Flowers'.

Extreme close up of some very delicate wild mountain flowers.

The Joys of Blogging

2008-08-07T21:35:00.003+01:00

Subtitle: What's with twinkies?

A few months ago, Wandering Chopsticks suggested a food swap. What a brilliant idea, thought I with full enthusiasm. So I started collecting her goodies for her, and she for me. When she asked what I wanted from the US of A, I was a little bemused. Nothing, really. I have discovered that I am a hideously incurious person. This surprises me, because I think I have a lot of intellectual curiousity. I just don't have any need to see or taste or experience particular things. If they come my way, I will investigate them with all the curiousity and abounding enthusiasm (quite a lot) I have, but if you want to know what I have been dying to try, or see, or experience? I don't know. I'm just not really like that. In addition, I have never been to the US, so I do not know what it has, that I cannot get in the UK or Australia. Oh, except for groovy t-shirts without exorbitant postage costs. But I tangentalise.

This is what the wonderful Wandering Chopsticks sent me, and which arrived shortly before my holiday:-

I have been working my way through the box of goodies. Clockwise from the lychee jellies, we have Fudge Shop Grasshoppers, Brussels Cookies, butterfingers, lemongrass, Nestle Crunch, Twinkies, gunpowder green tea and curry powder so I can make some ca ri ga. Somewhere in there too are some loofah seeds. And what's the blue thing drapped over the Brussels Cookies? Read on, read on...

The first thing I chose to eat was the only thing I asked for: twinkies.

My curiousity about twinkies has two origins. The first (not in time) is from an episode of (I think) The Family Guy, in which an apocalyptic event wipes out the world and the family of The Family Guy live on in a twinkie factory; twinkies obviously being impervious to apocalypse.

The second is my awareness of "twinkie" as a perjorative for people of colour. I was so much more aware of racial issues in US and UK culture that I knew the insult "twinkie" and "coconut", before I knew the insult "banana". And if you're not in the know, the common thing about all the above is that they are white on the inside.

The first time I heard the term, "banana" was when a friend in university, laughingly said to me, "Bet you're such a banana you don't even know what one is." Because I did not know what one was, I could have no feeling except perplexity about her comment. My bemused look was enough for her, still laughing, she explained, "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I'm one of your few Asian friends, you know."

I think about these terms every now and then. And you know what? I can't get worked up about it anymore. The terms just make me roll my eyes, either actually or figuratively (depends where I am).

Still, I'd never eaten a twinkie, and I have eaten plenty of bananas and coconuts. And I want to taste the thing impervious to apocalypse. Maybe it will make me impervious, too?

There was another good reason for trying the twinkie first: it was pretty squished on arrival. Clearly, cross-Atlantic travel does not suit a twinkie.

I have this to say about twinkies: ugh. No thank you! Awful airy sponge thing on the outside, terrible tasteless but too sweet "cream" on the inside. I could not finish one. (Sorry, Wandering, for the waste.)

I have also scoffed all the lychee jelly things. I miss them from Australia. My mother used to have loads in her cupboard for the kids (and me) and we'd just randomly pull one out, tear off the foil top and squeeze into our mouths. It's not the sort of thing I have in my own household, but I devour it when I find it in someone else's.

The other things are still waiting to be eaten. I have to eat my sweet things in short bursts.

The curry powder has found its home on my overflowing, disorganised spice shelf, and has already successfully fed my friends, who loved ca ri ga. Thank you, WC for the curry powder and the recipe! I did ask for the curry powder, but it doesn't count as American food (per me).

And the blue things? I had told Wandering Chopsticks that I was off to Sweden. So she knitted another beanie and scarf for "her Iron Boy". My partner and I took her directions and went looking for him in Stockholm's Gamla Stan (old town). We did have some trouble, not because WC's directions were poor, but because, well, all the buildings were the same colour, they all looked like grand churches (except the one that looked like a grand palace) and they all seemed to have courtyards.

But we found him:

Wandering Chopsticks writes about what I sent her ...

Bullets prior to a Holiday

2008-07-09T13:14:00.002+01:00

I am off on holiday very shortly.

Holidays are supposed to be wonderful and relaxing. The lead-up to holidays, however, suck. I am trying to make sure all my files are in order and that anything that has a deadline while I am away is dealt with, and anything with a deadline shortly after I return is dealt with. This has led to later nights than I wanting to be working and general short-tempered-ness, and indirectly, stress about not being sufficiently prepared for my holiday.

Last night, I was still at the office late, trying to take care of some personal things. My boss poked his head through my door and said, "Ah, you are still here? I thought I could hear you charging around." That's me, I charge about the place. I am a small person, but I move like an elephant. There are about five steps between the office where the printer is and mine, and I leap up the steps when heading to the printer, and I galumph back down them again, sometimes leaping all of them without bothering to ascend gracefully or quietly. Especially when I think I am still the only person left at work.

I have been watching rather a lot of Jane Austen. I find it really intriguing that, now I am familiar with the English landscape, I recognise the cleverness and the interaction of Jane's characters with their landscape, and how the landscape informs who they are and what they do. Many of Jane's heroines love the outdoors - Lizzie Bennets goes for long walks, Marianne Dashwood stands on cliff edges looking out to sea off the wild Dorset Coast, Bath is a foil for a lot of folly. And now, I've been to these places. I have a friend living in the Peak District (where Mr Darcy's house is), and he visited the house where the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice set Mr Darcy's house. "Ooh! You visited Pemberley!" cried me. "No, I visited Chatsworth, but that's where it was filmed." "You visited Pemberley," I insisted. A look passed between my partner and the friend. A look that from my partner was, "Leave her be, take it no further, just back down," and from the friend, "um, er, um."

I have watched Jane Austen on DVD (Persuasion and Becoming Jane - not quite JA, but pretty darn near to it) and on YouTube - Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility (YouTube versions were BBC Masterpiece series). I find very amusing that, although obvious breaches of copyright, many of the video-posters have a little note saying "No breach of copyright intended." That's not going to help. I don't help, either, by watching.

Charging about the place is not moving like a Jane Austen heroine. Luckily, as much as I enjoy Jane Austen (Persuasion is my favourite, if you're wondering), I have never wanted to be a Jane Austen heroine. Nope, not even Lizzie Bennet.

I'm off on holiday now. See you in a few weeks.

Weekend Wokking II: Tuber Coconut Curry

2008-06-29T00:12:00.006+01:00

Ha! And I thought I could do a blogging event monthly. It is surprisingly difficult.

This month's feature ingredient is the humble potato. My favourite piece of 2008 trivia is that 2008 is the UN International Year of the Potato. What a wonderful accolade for this most simple, and rather ugly, of vegetables. Can you just imagine the procession celebrating the 'tater?

Although we currently have an abundance of potatoes from our veg box, I have not made anything very exciting with them in the last month. We've mostly been eating boiled potatoes with various veges for week-day dinners. I did make a rabbit stew, but I was not so happy with how it turned out. I did not take a final photo, and binned all the preparation photos.

I got inspiration for my recipe from this source. My recipe is pretty darn similar, except that there are variations based on what I had in my kitchen and how I wanted this flavoured.

For the curry

4 or 5 medium potatoes, quartered
1 sweet potato, diced into pieces roughly the same size as the quartered potato
1 zucchini / courgette , diced into pieces roughly the same size as the quartered potato
1 yellow capsicum / pepper, diced (you get the drift)
1 onion, diced finely
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon shrimp paste (mam ruoc)
1 can (375g) of coconut milk
1 1/2 teaspoons of mustard seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons of garam masala
1/2 teaspoon of tumeric
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspon ginger powder (or use fresh if you've got it; sadly, I did not)
a pinch (or more) of cayenne pepper
water
a nice big stockpot

For the rice

2 cups (or one cup per person) wild and brown rice
half a dozen cloves
water
a saucepan
a clean tea towel

What to do

Saute onions and garlic in a little peanut oil until the onions are translucent.
Add the shrimp paste and fry for a few minutes.
Add all the spices and fry until fragrant and formed into a nice paste. If the spices are starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, add in tiny amounts of water.
Add can of coconut milk. Usually, a the coconut milk in a can separates into two parts, one more liquid, the other more solid. The solid part gathers at the top of the can. Instead of mixing it in, spoon as much of this out as you can, saving it for later in the recipe, and use the more liquid milk. Cook this with the paste until a consistent dark orangey, browny paste is formed.
Add the potato and mix in with the paste.
Pour in enough water to cover the potatoes. I usually pour water into my now empty can of coconut milk, which serves the purpose of using all the coconut goodness and cleaning the can so I can happily put it into the recycle bin.
Let this simmer for about 10 minutes, then add the sweet potato. If needed, top up with water to cover all the potatoes.
Cover and let simmer until the potatoes are soft, but not mushy. The way I test mine is by pushing a fork gently in. There should be no resistance and nor should the potato crumble. If the potato does crumble, all is not lost. Just finish off the last few steps quickly and on lower heat, rather than leisurely.
Add the zucchini, capsicum and the reserved slightly more solid coconut milk. Mix in into the rest of the curry. Turn the heat to low and let the whole thing simmer for a while.

To cook the rice This is my current fail-safe way to cook rice without a rice cooker. Although these instructions are separate, I usually cook the rice right after I have thrown the potatoes in, during simmering time. Another way of ensuring your rice is ready when your curry is, is to do the rice first. After all, it can sit there, waiting, whereas sometimes you do not want the accompanying dish to wait on the rice, e.g. stir fries!

I have mentioned before that I am not accurate with my measurements. I am happy and comfortable in the kitchen, so I do not need exact measurements for successful cooking (except for baking. I have learnt my lessons - no estimates for baking!) My rule of thumb for rice is almost literal - about a thumb's breadth of water on top of the rice. When I was a girl and my chore was to put the rice on for the family, I was always perplexed by my mother's instruction to check the water level by plunging a finger in and measuring to the first knuckle. I mean, surely everyone's hand size is different? But somehow, this has always worked for our family. And I still use it now, with all different types of rice - jasmine, basmati, brown, wild, red, camargue, arborio - and I've only had the occasional rice mishap, usually because of temperature of the cooker, rather than water. The only caveat to the above is that brown rice does require just a little bit more water, and basmati, just a little bit less.

Boil the rice, covered, on medium heat for about 15 minutes.
If you want to flavour your rice, just add the flavourings with the water. For this dish, I added some cloves. I also like to add cardamon pods, when having basmati rice and curry.
Check the rice occassionally to ensure that not all the water has evaporated. I am always perplexed by instructions not to look in on cooking rice. I always look in and have only had occassional mishaps which I don't think were caused by my checking the progress of the rice. In my rice-cooking world, checking is vital.
Taste test occassionally, as the 15 minutes approaches.
When testing a grain of rice, you want it a bit harder than al dente at the point where there is very little water.
If, when you check the rice, you find that there is still a lot of water but the rice grains are soft, drain the water, place over high heat with the lid off for a few minutes and do the above step.
When there is barely any water left, turn the heat off and place a clean tea towel on top of the saucepan, replace lid and then leave the rice to sit for at least 5 minutes.
Check that the rice is done - slightly softer than al dente is what you're after.
If you have to do other things at the tea towel part, it's fine. I have left rice sitting like this for 15 - 20 minutes, and it's still turned out well. I have also been impatient and left it barely any time at all, and it's been fine.

Tuber Coconut Curry and Wild Rice!

As a bonus, because this post is late, I cooked roast potatoes for dinner tonight. One of the advantages of an electric cooker is that an electric oven walks all over a gas one.

Roasted is the best way to eat potatoes. No, wait. Chips are. Roasted comes second.

Do you need a recipe for roasting?

Chop potatoes up. However many you want.
Chop other veges suitable for roasting up. Other suitable veges are carrots, pumpkin, brussels sprouts, zucchini / courgette, parsnip, mushroom, cauliflower. Heck, you can roast just about any vegetable. The size that you chop veges will depend on what it is and when you intend to throw it in with the potatoes. I chop carrots to about 150% the size of pototoes. I add mushrooms, brussel sprouts and courgettes near the end of roasting time.
Quarter an onion - keep the 'tail' of the onion intact so the whole thing doesn't fall apart.
Throw in a whole head of garlic, too, if you've got one sitting about. Tonight, I sadly did not. For the garlic just separate the individual cloves and rub them together in your hands to remove most, but not all, of the papery skin.
Liberally pour olive oil over the mixture of potato, onion, garlic and whatever other veges you're using.
Crack on some pepper.
Toss together.
Bung it in the oven (temperature medium high, unless you're in a hurry, then crazy high) and go find something else to do for about 40 minutes to an hour.
Ta da! Roasted veges.
To get a nice crisp edge, I cheat by grilling my potatoes for about five minutes prior to serving. This is a bit better for my heart than using heaps of oil and butter, which is how most of the roasting recipes I've seen tell me to get that crisp edge.
Serve with other yummy things, but, most importantly, lots of condiments. In the photo below, we have tomato sauce, chilli sauce, wholegrain mustard, Colman's mustard and spiced carrot chutney.

*****

I'm submitting this recipe to Weekend Wokking, a world-wide food blogging event created by Wandering Chopsticks celebrating the multiple ways we can cook one ingredient.

The host this month is White on Rice Couple.

If you would like to participate or to see the secret ingredient, check who's hosting next month.

Comfort food: chao ga (rice congee with chicken)

2008-06-23T17:29:00.000+01:00

After my last post, I am struggling to write new posts. Below is something I drafted a while ago, and had not quite got around to pressing the 'publish post' button. It is appropriate because it is a recipe for the ultimate comfort food - chao ga (rice congee with chicken).

I have mentioned before that when I am feeling sick, I want to eat chao - rice congee. If I am at home, my mother would cook this for me; although after I moved out of home, I did not tell my mother when I was sick because she would berate me. Because somehow, I am to blame if I catch a cold.

More than a month ago now, I had the flu. It was awful. For one day, I was in bed tossing and turning, moaning deliriously. I could have been a heroine in a Jane Austen novel, and soon the man of my dreams would leap onto his horse to ride hastily with news for my family of the dire state I was in. In reality, the man of my life telephoned work to tell them I was ill and to ask someone to re-arrange a few appointments for me.

When I recovered, I had a lingering cough, so I did not telephone my mother to speak with her for a while. After a few weeks passed, and with the cough still present, I had to call my mum. So I did. The phone rang and rang. It's terrible of me, but I was glad she was not at home. So I rang my brother to have a chat with him, but he was not at home either. Next, I tried my sister. Thankfully, she was at home, otherwise I would have got all morose.

I hoarsely chatted to my sister, coughing and spluttering occassionally. She asked me about the cough and I told her that I had been so sick that I had taken a week - an entire week! - off work, and that I spent most of the time in bed, unable even to read. She commiserated. Suddenly, I blurted out, "But don't tell Um! Don't tell her I was that sick. She'll worry."

On one of the days I was home from work, I made a huge pot of chicken congee. I think it cured me (minus that lingering cough).

For the congee:-

200gms chicken (whatever part suits you. I used breast, but thighs would also have been great).
Garlic
Ginger, about a cm of, sliced
Carrot, one, diced
Fish sauce, splash
Jasmine rice, a cup of, or thereabouts
Water, a lot

Coriander for garnish
Ngo gai (perennial coriander, also known as sawtooth or Thai coriander. I don't know why it's called Thai coriander because coriander coriander is also used in Thai cooking, and ngo gai is used in Thai and Viet cooking (and possibly other cuisines, I just don't know). Probably has other names too.)

How to cook it:-

In a decent sized saucepan and on medium heat, saute the garlic in as small amount of oil as you can manage.
Toss in the rice and stir it quickly around the saucepan.
Pour in enough water to thoroughly cover the rice.
Add your chicken, ginger and carrot.
Pour in enough water to cover everything.
Let the whole mixture boil briskly for about ten minutes.
Extract the chicken. Let it cool, then tear into strips and put back into the saucepan.
Turn the heat down and let the chao simmer until the rice grains have taken in so much water that they cannot take anymore. You cannot leave the saucepan - you can wander away but you must not forget it. You will need to keep topping up with water, so have some pre-boiled water handy.
When the chao is the consistency you like - my Ba and I are at the extremities of the chao consistency spectrum: he prefers his rice grains a bit al dente and his water a clearish broth; I prefer my rice grains thoroughly soft and the chao water thick with the broken up, water sodden rice grains - add a splash of fish sauce. For the way my Ba likes chao, the simmering part only takes about 15 minutes. For the way I like chao, the simmering takes an hour.
Turn the heat off, let cool for about 5 minutes and then serve into nice bowls, with garnish, cracked pepper and soy sauce.

Easy as!

Although, given that I crave this when I am sick, it is sometimes just too much effort and I will pout instead. Does not work to make my tummy full, but makes me feel a bit better.

Loss

2008-06-19T22:41:00.004+01:00

I have some dear friends, who were outrageously joyous with their first pregnancy. Sadly, my dear friends lost their newborn baby. I have no words sufficient for their loss.

They are both the most beautiful people I know. They are both people who have many friends, and many people, the world over, are thinking of them and mourning with them, now, as I write this.

I got the news while at work. Today, was a thoroughly terrible day at work; my neat plans for what I needed to get done were completely derailed by an extremely complicated and extremely urgent matter, in which lawyers from three different departments at my firm were roped into advising the client. I worked through lunch, which is a pretty rare occurrence for me. After lunch, I logged into my email. I have been checking my email assiduously, waiting for their news. There, was the most heart-wrending email I have ever read. I read it twice over and burst into loud, wracking sobs.

It was a brave, beautiful email.

I did, and could do, nothing for half an hour. Then I rang my partner. Then I rang a mutual friend. Then I gritted my teeth, dried my eyes and got on with my working nightmare of a day.

There was enough to keep me busy and distracted, but when I sat in a telephone conference with the client, in the space between words, my mind drifted away from my work and my thoughts drifted over to my friends. It was hard work reigning myself in. Sudden tears would have been incomprehensible.

I worked to an ungodly hour, for me, tonight. And when I finally packed it in and cycled home, I cycled in a hazy blur. I'm not sure, exactly, what I am crying for. My friends, I think. How much they must hurt. The senselessness. The unfairness.

I am at home, alone, tonight. I have cast about for whom to call, and who to talk to. But what I really want is to sit in silence for my friends. I want to sit with other friends, who know these friends, and we will sit in silence together. And that is all we can do.

None of it, absolutely none of it, is adequate.

Please don't comment on this post. I don't feel that it would be right. I know that you, too, on reading this will feel sorry and awful and sad. And that's fine. And normal. And maybe it's unfair of me, after needing to reach out like this, not to let you reach back. Just spare a silent thought for this loss. That will be enough. Except that nothing, really, is enough.

Book Meme

2008-06-12T21:15:00.003+01:00

I found this meme while rooting around the archives of The Hidden Side of a Leaf -a blog I stumbled on because I liked the blog title. I was sort of hoping it would be a photoblog, but was nevertheless pleassantly surprised to find that it was a book-blog.

I have not written a post for a while, especially not one about books. Partially, this is because I have not been reading as much as I would like to. Partially, this is because I feel like I should review 'Growing Up Asian in Australia', but I do not think I am capable of it. No distance, you see.

So, a meme to jolt me along.

The breakfast table read:

On weekday mornings, I am invariably running late. I sometimes lackadaisacally flick through the various magazines we get delivered to our home - The Economist for news and then all the magazines that go with all our memberships: hiking magazines, human rights magazines, history magazines, wildlife magazines. I just look at the pictures. Sometimes, especially in the Economist, I stare at the advertisements, trying to understand what it is that they are appealing to. Usually, there is a picture of an actor posed somewhere luxurious - the colours and background are muted and neutral, but the actor is in sharp focus, doing something iconically that actor-ish. I cast around and around the advertisement looking for the luxury item I am being sold - sometimes it is a chain of hotels, sometimes, an airline, sometimes luggage. All the advertisements look the same, and I cannot imagine myself wanting to stay in that hotel, or use that airline, or carry that kind of luggage.

On weekend mornings, I read the backlog of magazines with slightly more attention, although of late, my news-reading has been marginal, at best. I fear I am turning into an old lady: I go for the book and movie reviews, then cooking, then gardening. My news, I now read online throughout the week, through an RSS feed, through blogs.

The to-go read:

I like to have a paperback with me wherever I go. It has to be light and thin, but it does not have to be light-weight reading. At the moment, my to-go read is Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev by Robert Dessaix.

My to-go reads often don't get read when I am on the go. I have excessive ambitions about what I can read when I am on the go. Thus, Twilight of Love was my to-go read sometime last year: I picked it up, threw it into my bag but somehow it ended back on the shelf. It was quite exciting to pick it up again and discover a postcard slotted in there as book mark - a postcard from Winchester, one of our first UK tourist visits.

The bathroom read:

When I (or someone more pragmatically minded and ingenious than me) finally invent(s) my magic book protector-cum-page-turner, I will read in the bathroom. Otherwise, I will not.

The read-aloud:

Occassionally, I read poetry aloud, to myself. Poetry is meant to be read aloud.

My current book of poetry is by Bryan Thao Worra. In quiet moments, I pick up my copy of The Other Side of the Eye, which has been inscribed in the front by Bryan (thank you, Bryan, for your lovely note) and read a piece, firstly to myself, and, if no one is around, aloud. I try to mimic how it would be presented, guessed from photos of Bryan: his gestures and the shape of his mouth. I wish I could see him read his own poetry, in person.

The main read:

My main reads change. I have a lot of main reads at the same time. They change and they accumulate. I will have a main read, and then get a to-go read, which becomes a must-finish read, thereby converting it into one of the main reads.

The most recent was The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth, a man who is much, much too clever. The Golden Gate is a novel in iambic tetrameter. Now, really, Mr Seth, must you? It is excellent, and funny, and sad. And even his autobiographical note is in iambic tetrameter. And chuckle-worthy.

The work read:

I read all the time at work: letters, cases, articles, pleadings, journals.

I often get aggravated by the things I read at work, for a variety of reasons: because I disagree with it; because the writer has confused effect and affect (argh!); because it is poorly written; because the author is someone who makes me sigh in frustration. So many reasons.

My recent aggravation came from a facsimile, the gist of which was, "We're just writing to let you know we represent the guy on the other side, 'kay?" What was aggravating about that? It was headed URGENT FACSIMILE TRANSMISSION. No, that communication is not. Reception telephoned me, rather than dropping the fax into my pigeon-hole for me to pick up at my leisure as would usually occur, to tell me I had an Urgent Fax. Naturally, I stopped doing what I was doing and traipsed over to Reception to collect the Urgent Fax, only to read its complete mundanity. Stupid people. Learn to prioritise and look the word 'urgent' up in the dictionary. I am tempted, but not rude enough (and I have other things to do), to fax back a letter with the heading FOR THE IMMEDIATE ATTENTION OF: and a photocopy of the relevant page in The Oxford English Dictionary. Churlish, yes. Unjustified? No.

The travel read:

I like to have a mix-up for my travel reads: I like a collection of short stories, a non-fiction and one or five novels (depending on length of travel and activity/ies to be engaged in). Sometimes, one of my novels will be a children's story or (gulp) romantic fiction by Katie Fforde. Ms Fforde is fantastic for long-haul flights and my (no-longer) secret, guilty, pleasure read.

My current collection of short stories is The World and Other Places by Jeanette Winterson. My current non-fiction is Wanderlust: The History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit (although I have to admit to such a long pause in reading it, that it almost qualifies as ceasing to read it altogether, except that, in my head, I'm still reading it) and Flights of Fancy by Peter Tate, which sort of also belongs in the short stories collection because each chapter is on one bird, and I feel I can read chapters in whichever order, at my leisure.

New category - the audiobook:

I don't get along with audiobooks.

I tried when I first started driving a car, and was reading less because I was spending less time on public transport. It did not feel right, and the voices annoyed me. Plus, I found my mind wandering.

I tried again recently when I was really, really ill for a week at the end of winter, beginning of spring. I listened to old-school mysteries because I was too sick to read. I'm not sure I'd do it again, though.

*****

Do you like this meme? Do you want to do it? Go right ahead. And let me know in my comments.

Weekend Wokking 1: Asparagus

2008-06-01T13:14:00.005+01:00

So, Wandering Chopsticks has a blog event: Weekend Wokking.

Now, I love blog events, but I'm crap at entering them because, well, they occur too frequently. And frequency is not one of my blogging strong points (had you noticed?). But this event is MONTHLY. I can do monthly. Perhaps...

What I can't do, is use a wok in the UK. This is because we left our wok back home. It's a proper steel wok, that my partner got given as a present when he moved out of home. When I moved out of home, my brother and his-then-girlfriend-now-wife gave me a rice cooker and a 25kg bag of rice. One of my sisters gave me a block of knives (without telling my mother because giving knives as presents is a Viet no-no).

Also, we do not have gas - we have a weird electric stove top thing. The first night that I cooked on it, I was very upset: my rice noodles overboiled and spilt all over the stove top and I freaked out about whether or not the stain would come off. All throughout dinner, I was very, very quiet. This is not a good sign with me. I am a chirper. I chirp away on most occassions. Being quiet is indication that Something Is Wrong. I tried to be chirpy and happy because it was our first home-cooked dinner, in our new house, but I was already worrying about not getting our bond back for having ruined the stove top.

There's a happy ending: the over-boiled rice noodles water just wiped away real easy like.

Since moving into our new house, we have got what I always wanted but never bothered with in Australia and did not get in the little flat - organic veg box home delivery. In Australia, we enjoyed our regular traipse down to the Green Markets so much that getting a veg box home delivered would have spoiled the fun. In the little flat, there was no way the veg-box would actually get delivered to us, and no guarantee that someone else would not take our veg-box goodies.

One of the (many) wonderful things about veg-box home delivery is the seasonal produce. And currently in season, in the northern hemisphere, is asparagus.

Did you know asparagus makes your wee smell funny? And, though it makes everyone's wee smell funny, only about 40% of the population can smell the asparagus-wee-smell. Don't believe me? Surely you believe wikipedia? So, for all those participating in Wandering Chopsticks' Weekend Wokking for May/June, there will be a confluence of asparagus-smelling-wee. Great, huh?

Wandering Chopsticks informs me that a wok is not necessary for Weekend Wokking and, therefore, my entry follows below. It is a pretty pathetic entry, because I only had this weekend. Had I a whole month, I might have come up with something more interesting. I did not do anything special with the asparagus - just cooked it ever so slightly, to enjoy its full, fresh flavour. So, this probably doesn't count as an asparagus recipe, but I'm submitting it anyway. Just to get started.

Weekend Fry-up with vege sausages, asparagus, grilled tomato, eggs over-easy and a kohl-rabi & snow pea salad

Weekends are for long breakfasts. I love hot cooked breakfasts. Weekday mornings are for eating something nutritious and then rushing to work. Weekend mornings (if we're not rushing to some fun activity) are for lingering over breakfast, newspaper spread out, chilled music playing.

What you will need for two breakfasters:-

The Fry-up

Sausages
One medium onion, sliced
Eggs (one per person, or more if your persons are greedy)
Tomato (half per person)
Fresh asparagus spears
Non-stick saucepan or griddle, if you're brave. I covet griddles, but have not yet purchased one.

The Salad

Dressing: wholegrain mustard, extra virgin olive oil, cider vinegar, cracked pepper
Cherry tomatoes, a handful, halved
Kohl-rabi, about the same amount as your cherry tomatoes, diced
Snow peas (mange-tout for the British, and maybe elsewhere too, I don't know!), roughly same amount as cherry tomatoes, cut into little bits
Red capsicum (or red pepper for you English and Americans), same amount as cherry tomatoes, diced
Lettuce leaves (I used baby gem, but any will do)
A bowl

What to do:-

The key to a good fry up is timing. I used vege sausages, which take longer to cook on lower heat than meat sausages, so bear that in mind if you're going to replicate this with meat.

Make the salad first. In the bowl in which you will mix your salad, take a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and mix with a teaspoon of oil. When well blended, add a dash of vinegar and whizz like a maniac. Now add in your halved cherry tomatoes, diced kohl-rabi, snow peas and capsicum. Grind some black pepper in.

Wash the lettuce leaves and leave to dry.

Salad.

Slice onion, and fry with a small amount of oil. Before the onion gets translucent, add the sausages and let fry on a low heat, checking and turning every now and then.

Halve a tomato and place cut side down onto the saucepan. Push it about it bit to make sure it doesn't stick to the pan, but otherwise ignore.

Wash asparagus. Holding firmly in the middle, break off the woody end. Wherever it snaps, thus is your asparagus. If the whole spear bends, you do not have good asparagus.

When the sausages are brown all around, add the asparagus spears. Cover saucepan with a lid so that the asparagus cooks through in a steamed fashion. Remove and place onto pre-warmed serving plates.

Flip tomato onto its round outside. Push sausages, onion and tomato to one side, so that there's enough room to fry some eggs. Break eggs carefully into saucepan and don't let them mix with the sausages, onion or tomato. When the albumen has turned from translucent to white, turn the heat off and flip over to get that over-easy feeling.

Arrange your plates: lettuce leaves on one edge, forming a bowl for the salad. Asparagus on the other edge, sausages etc in the middle. Serve with crusty bread, chutney, chilli sauce and soy sauce for the egg, if you're me.

Have understanding partner on hand, who will wait while you take some photos of breakfast before digging in. Understanding partner will laugh at the soy sauce. This is permissible, provided it is done with a measure of affection. No mockery allowed.

Breakfast!

****

I'm submitting this recipe to Weekend Wokking, a world-wide food blogging event created by Wandering Chopsticks celebrating the multiple ways we can cook one ingredient.

The host this month is Wandering Chopsticks.

If you would like to participate or to see the secret ingredient, check who's hosting next month.

Growing Up Asian in Australia - the Book!

2008-05-17T19:49:00.003+01:00

Last week, I cycled to the post office to pick up a parcel: a collection of stories, of which my Conversations with My Parents, is one.

The collection is called "Growing Up Asian in Australia", edited by Alice Pung and published by Black Inc. Books.

When I opened the parcel, and saw the book, I wanted to ride home immediately to start reading it. Instead, I had to ride to work and start work. I was bursting with impatient excitement for lunchtime, but I did not know where to go for lunch. If, as would usually be the case, I had a sandwich, I could just head to the Common and read my book on a park bench. Sadly, I needed to buy something to eat, so I decided to go 'next door'. I did not want to go any further afield, because that would reduce the amount of time I had to read my book. The main problem with having lunch next door, is that other work people are next door. I did not want to talk to anyone.

Luckily, no one I was actually friendly with was next door, and all I had to do was chirp "hi!" to some people, take my own seat at my own table and stick my nose into the book. There, I was transported to a world of stories - some comic, some poignant, some familiar, some less so. I was a bit discombobulated when a work mate said, "What are you reading?" And I mumbled into myself with eyes far away, so unlike my usual work self, "Just a book", showing her the cover and hoping she won't take it from me to flick through, to find me in there, to force me to be pleased about my inclusion in the collection with her, whom I care nothing for, when I have not told most of my friends nor indeed any of my family, except one of my sisters. Thankfully, she says, "hmm, interesting", in a way that indicates she finds it very UN-interesting. I walked off without saying anything else.

I'm not exactly sure why I haven't told many people. I told my sister as an afterthought, at the end of a telephone conversation, about two months after I knew my piece was included. I told friends at random, and I'm not even entirely sure who I've told, and who I haven't.

I wrestled with whether to give my full name to the piece, or a link to this blog. I kept most of the wrestling to myself, although I did precis my thoughts for my partner. As usual, he helped me order my thoughts, and come to a conclusion.

Reading through the book gives me the same odd feeling I have mentioned before, when viewing a migrant exhibition: a depressed sort-of lassitude mixed with urgent inspiration. I can do this, people are interested in my stories. But I don't have time. I'm not good enough. My writing is mundane, imprecise, amateurish. My stories are so similiar to all these. It will bore everyone. I'm just flailing about the place, pulled in a myriad directions. I'm not that passionate about my family. I'm not that passionate about my work. I'm not that passionate about my self, or the struggles I've been through to become happy about being me.

I love my family. But they deserve their privacy.

I'm okay with my work. And not stupid enough to jeopardise it on my blog.

I'm reconciled with my self, and if I'm completely honest, quite happy about being me, and for most of my life have been so. Hell, I never struggled very hard. I had a big, accepting, loving family. I went to school in a large multi-cultural community, where if you called me chink then I called you whitey, and we were square. The cuts never cut much deeper than skin, because I have a reserve of strength, because I fought, because I was me, and I have always been okay about that.

Don't buy the book for my story. You've probably already read it, and if not, just click on that handy link up top. But do buy it for the whole collection. There are some duds - there always are in any collection - and your duds will differ from my duds, because, you know, we're different people and we have different tastes.

How to get your lawyer off-side

2008-05-07T18:08:00.001+01:00

[telephone rings]

Me: My Law Firm, Me speaking.

Client: Hello. Could I please speak to Mr Oanh?

Me: Yep, that's me.

Client: Could I please speak to Mr Oh-arn-huh? I'm sorry, I cannot pronounce the name.

Me: That's fine. It's a difficult name to pronounce when just reading it. It's me.

Client: But I need to speak to Mr Oh-arn, I think.

Me: Yep, that's me.

Client: I've got a letter here from Mr Oh-arn, a solicitor.

Me: Yep, that's me.

Client: Oh. [pause] You're my solicitor?

Me: Yep. [What I don't say: But I sure as hell don't want to be anymore]

I am much less helpful than I could be in this telephone conversation. I have guessed who the caller is, and I know why he is calling. But, because I am riled, the rest of the conversation goes something like this.

Client: Um, well, I've got this letter.

Me: Yes?

Client: And um, well, it's very long.

Me: Yes.

Client: Um, well, um, I think, um.

Me: Have you read the letter?

Client: Um, well, no.

Me: No?

Client: It's very long.

Me: I see.

[silence]

Client: Hello?

Me: Yes.

Client: So, what do I do now?

Me: Why don't you start by telling me who you are?

Client: Oh. I'm Mr Sexist Client.

Me: Okay.

Client: So, what do I do now?

Me: Read the letter.

Client: Oh.

[silence]

Client: Hello?

Me: Yes?

Client: The letter is long.

Me: Yes.

Client: Um.

Me: [sighing] Basically, the letter is our terms and conditions for acting on your behalf. At the end of the letter, I ask you to telephone me to make an appointment. I assume that is why you are telephoning me? Would you like to make an appointment? [what I'd rather say: Would you like to instruct some other solicitors? You know, ones who are male?]

Client: Oh. Um, well, do I have to come in?

Me: I could advise you over the phone, but I would prefer to meet with you in person, at least initially. You don't live that far away from our offices. We are easy to find and have car-parking out front and are near a bus stop, if you do not drive.

Client: Can't I just sign the contract, and you sign your part?

Me: No. You could just sign the contract, but I won't counter-sign to say that I have advised you, when I haven't. Either you come in, and I advise you and then counter sign, or you find another solicitor who would be prepared to counter sign when they haven't advised you. I do not know who to refer you to in those circumstances.

Client: Oh. Can I come in today then? How long will it take?

Me: I'm busy today. I'm free tomorrow. It will take about an hour.

Client: An hour?

Me: Any time tomorrow afternoon that you're free to come in?

Client: Okay.

[we make a time that suits us both]

Me: Thank you for calling, Mr Sexist Client. Please read the letter, and see you tomorrow.

Me, after placing the handset into its cradle: Bloody hell. Stupid client.

Smoke starts streaming from my ears, and nose. The pupil of my eyes are probably blood red, and I bet I could whither inanimate objects with a glance. I have to take many deep breaths before I am calm enough to telephone our receptionist to book a meeting room. Most. Aggravating. Client. Ever.

Update: I had my meeting with the client. Usually, I am fairly conservatively and severely dressed, with my hair pulled back into a ponytail. But I decided to go all out for this client: I let me hair down, and brushed it; I wore a blouse and unbuttoned the buttons a little lower than I would normally; and I used a pink highlighter to take my meeting notes. Take that, Mr Sexist Client.

He was, in the end, actually quite nice. But I'm still annoyed.

Requiem for an Olympus C750

2008-04-29T21:53:00.005+01:00

En route to the UK, my partner and I paused in Borneo to climb Mt Kinabalu - South East Asia's highest mountain. We were in Malaysia in the wet season. And boy, was it wet. We traipsed about Kota Kinabalu in the lovely drizzle. The drizzle is warm in South East Asia. It's near the equator after all. The UK drizzle is, at the moment, cold. It is hard to describe as 'lovely'. Matter of fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and call UK drizzle downright miserable. But I digress. Kota Kinabalun drizzle was a relief from the excessive heat and humidity. It sizzled off our hot skin.

The start of our ascent of Mt Kinabalu was from a tourist resort at approximately 1500 metres. When we arrived, the rainforest drizzle was more of a downpour. We were overnighting at this tourist resort and then starting our ascent the following morning. I had our lovely Olympus camera, a hand-me-down from my sister, which I bore much affection for (the camera, that is; well, I bear affection for my sister too, but that's de rigeur). It was encased in a Crumpler Sporty Guy 0.6 (can't find a picture of it on the interwebs, but it pretty much looks like this). I do not think that I have waxed lyrical about Crumplers on this blog before, so here I go.

I love Crumpler bags. Let's get that out of the way first. I am not objective. Their advertising is silly (at least it is in Australia) and it was a company started by two Geelong cyclists. They have adorable names for their bags, such as The Wonder Weenie (no longer being made), The Seedy Three (their original) and the Barney Rustle (an updated version of the Wonder Weenie and which is my everyday bag). Their logo is a stick man with wild hair. Their bags are made out of what they call 'Chicken-tex'. It is waterproof. Their bags - or at least the Barney Rustler - is waterproof inside and out.

I know this because, a while ago now, I put a 600ml bottle of water into my Barney Rustler without properly securing the lid and all the water came out. At the time, I was on the bus, heading into the city. I only discovered the water when my phone rang and I tried to locate my phone. I put my hand into what felt like a sink full of water. Withdrawing my hand in surprise, I began to quickly extract the usual contents of any bag I carry - wallet, keys, novel (oh oh), diary, phone (still ringing), miscellaneous receipts, pens, highlighters, water bottle (now mostly empty, usually full) - scattering them all over the seat beside me. As we were pulling into a stop, I leapt out of my seat and ran to the exit door calling out to driver, "Please wait!" (thereby attracting the attention of everyone who had not already watched me whipping random items out of my bag) and decanted the water in a slosh onto the road. My bag was only wet on the inside. No water had seeped outside. And if I had wanted to, I could have saved that water. That's how waterproof the Barney Rustler bag is. I got bemused stares and a few smiles from my fellow commuters as I returned to my seat. Oh, and one soggy novel.

Back to the main story -

The Olympus camera was inside a Sporty Guy, artfully worn around my neck and diagonally across my body in the time honoured way of tourism. Because I believed it to be inside a waterproof case, I just kept it about my neck while wandering around the rainforest. I did not take it out to take any photos, because then it would have got wet. I could have tucked it inside my lovely red raincoat, but I did not do that. Later that night, I took the camera from its bag, only to discover that the bag was waterlogged. So, the Sporty Guy is also waterproof inside and out. The camera is a wee bit bigger than the bag. The bag, therefore, does not close properly around the camera. Water seeped in at the edges and then stayed in, bathing the camera for goodness knows how long. Unsurprisingly, but sadly, the camera died. We mourn the passing of the Olympus C750.

It took me ages to buy a new camera. I um'ed and aah'ed and Googled this and that and read heaps of reviews. Eventually, I just went to the little camera store near my place of work, which I knew to be more expensive than the 'high street' chains but from whom I got great service. Great service and an independent store meant I was happy to pay a little bit more for whatever I ended up buying. I bought a Caplio R5. Mostly, I bought it because, for its size, it has a great optical zoom - 7.1 x - and its macro function was very impressive. I took lots of photos of my index finger in the store. I take rather a lot of photos of flowers, and the macro function is my favourite camera function.

The Caplio's case.
Two demonstrations in one: my love of macro and the little Crumpler guy.

I've had the Caplio R5 for almost a year now, and I don't love it as much as the Olympus. Matter of fact, I don't love it at all. I just tolerate it, and it, me. I do continue to be impressed by its macro funtion. And it is very compact: fits nicely into my hand. The Olympus was bulky. But that was just part of its charm.

And one other problem with the Caplio: my partner dropped it, so now there is a dust speck on the lens, which affects how we frame photos and also means we have to digitally manipulate photos before posting onto the web or printing. And that's a hassle.

I am contemplating purchasing another camera. But one part of me - the frugal part - is tsking about it because the Caplio works fine, and, if I'm honest, pretty well. Except in low light. It's really rubbish in low light. Another part of me - the gear geek part - really wants a new toy to play with.

I thought I had decided that I would buy the Fuji Finepix s8000 - it has an 18 x optical zoom. But the reviews are less enthusiastic then I would like them to be and Amazon.co.uk don't sell it at the moment. Had Olympus' monster zoom camera got anywhere near the rave reviews of the Fuji Finepix, I would have bought it with barely a bat of the eyelids. On reading more reviews, I shifted my loyalties over to the Fuji Finepix s9600 - it has a 10x optical zoom and the reviews are very positive. And Amazon sell it. But Amazon don't sell the memory card. So, I am back to deferred position again, and thinking about what camera to purchase.

Do you have one you would rave about?

Caveat: I don't want an SLR. I hike and I don't want to carry a lot of gear. Because I need that precious weight for my food.

A Bokashi Update

2008-04-23T18:20:00.003+01:00

As I alluded to in my previous post, I am now living in a house, with a garden. This means that my little flat bokashi experiment has been hijacked. However, I did use bokashi quite successfully in my little flat for about a month and a half. I know you are all desperate to hear how that went, so I am selflessly updating you.

Bokashi is excellent waste management in a small space. I had my two bokashi buckets stacked on top of one another in our hall, just outside our kitchen. When I filled the first, I then swapped them around so that I was filling the most accessible bin.

It did not smell at all, unless I opened the lid to put more veggie scraps and bokashi bran in. The smell that the bokashi and food-waste mix did release was a sweet-sour pickly smell, and the bran continues to smell of guinea pig, but only ever so faintly. I kept the bran in a tupperware container because that's neater than a bag.

It took us about three weeks to fill one bucket. We are two people, but we eat a lot of fruit and vegetables and we probably cook at home 5 out of every 7 nights.

What did I pit in the bokashi bucket? Pretty much the same as what I would put in a compost heap, actually. Mostly fruit and vegetable scraps. In a compost heap, I would refrain from putting in onion and garlic, however I quite happily put this into the bokashi. I also eat a lot of citrus - probably five lemons a week - and oranges and mandarins every day. A few mouldy oranges and lemons went into the bokashi, without a hitch, even though people warn against throwing in mouldy veggies.

I have always put citrus peel into a compost heap, even though it is recommended not to do so. Usually, I refrain from putting citrus in until the worms are well established, i.e. when I open the lid, the critters are squirming everywhere (ew). Then, I will happily chuck in citrus peel because, they'll be fine. I would also occassionally, but not very often, throw onion and garlic skins into the compost.

An aside about worms:

When I was young, I used to believe that worms regenerated themeselves, so that if you chopped one worm in half, it became two. I think this belief may be my brother's fault, or the fact that I watched way too many horror movies in which creatures which were symmetrical in shape regenerated if you split them (on their symmetry axis). I also knew that worms were good, so whenever I found worms in the garden, I would cut them in half, expecting that they would regenerate and become two. There's still a bit of me that unthinkingly goes to halve worms that I find, in the expectation that I am somehow helping.

I did put some - but not a lot - of cooked food scraps in. Probably the main thing I put in was leftover minestrone soup, which I strained and then put the remaining cooked carrot, celery, potato, lentils and pasta into the bokashi. I put no meat scraps into the bokashi, nor bones of any kind.

I also put in a lot of tea bags. My bokashi leaflet told me not to put tea bags in, but I googled around (without much luck) and then emailed Al the Bokashi Man who gave me some great advice. (Thanks, Al!) I decided the warning not to put tea bags in was because of staples and the plasticated labels a lot of tea bags have. Very few of our tea bags are like that. Most of the tea bags I buy use recycled paper and are compostable. So I tossed in tea bags. Probably at least two per day, more on weekends.

You have to keep tamping the waste in, and topping up with bran. I would toss a little bit of bran in each time I put waste in, and then a layer of bran once a week or so.

I de-juiced the bokashi whenever I remembered to. This was usually every 2 - 4 days (give or take). Each time I de-juiced, I got about a cupful of liquid, which I diluted (very roughly 1 part juice to 10 parts water and oops, a bit more) and used this to water my windowsill herbs in pots and my one fern.

The fern was unhappy, but I think it's been unhappy for a long time (needs a new pot), whereas the herbs loved the bokashi juice. The leaves of my mint, oregano and laxoleaf became at least three times bigger. My rosemary, too, loved the bokashi juice. My chives did not - possibly because it was really difficult to water the chives without getting the diluted juice onto the chives themselves. I can now safely say that it is not the advent of spring and warmer weather which made my herbs (bar the chives) happier because I have never before seen them so abundant.

Happy mint

Happy oregano and rosemary

Just prior to our move, the first bokashi bucket was probably ready to be transferred ... somewhere. I deferred the decision, hoping our application for the house would be accepted because then I could just dig it into the yard. And that's exactly what I did.

The veggie etc scraps had been pickling for about 3 - 4 weeks, in pretty mild temperatures, and I had forgotten to dejuice for one and half weeks, while we moved. When I opened up the bucket, the sweet-sour smell was overpowering, but not unpleasant. This was lucky, because I managed to spill some of the waste all over our laundry room floor in trying to clean out the bucket. Note to self: clean bucket outside.

There was also a lot of white mould everywhere - on the lid of the bucket, on the tops of the veggie scraps, on the side of the bucket - but I had read this was not of concern, so I did not let it concern me. The Picky Vegan suggests using a layer of cardboard to deal with this issue, so I may try it next time.

In a few weeks, I will plant some late veggies, and some flowers. I'll let you know how that goes!

From here on in, I will have a yard and a compost bin to add my bokashi to. I intend to continue with the bokashi, because I think it could speed up the decomposing process and I like digging holes in the yard. However, even if I had not moved to a house, I would have happily tramped down to the local allotment on a nice sunny Saturday, looking for someone to take my beautiful bokashi waste.

Update to the update: I bravely put into the bokashi the bones of one whole baked Scottish rainbow trout. Let's see what happens...

Bun Bo Hue - The Recipe

2008-04-09T17:57:00.004+01:00

After extracting ingredients and instructions from my brother in law, I went to acquire the items that I did not have at home at the Asian grocery nearest to me. I wandered around and around the aisles - it's only a small store, but I find its logic incomprehensible. I picked up my ingredients and went looking for the stock cubes. I just had to see them, and ponder why and whether to use them. I found the cubes. One for pho, one for Bun Bo Hue, one for Bun Rieu, one for canh chua (sour soup). And they were hilarious. Their ingredient list? Salt, MSG, spices. All of them listed those three ingredients and nothing else. Definitely not going to buy stock cubes (but thank you for the offer, Hedgehog).

What you will need if you want to make Bun Bo Hue

For the eating:

Noodles - I used pho noodles because that's what I had in the cupboard and I wanted to use it up, but thick round rice vermicelli is best.

Thin slices of beef and meatloaf that you can buy from most Asian grocery stores. It's called cha lua in case you want to buy it. I didn't because there was plenty of meat on my soup bones and we don't eat that much meat. You can also add liver (ugh) and blood cubes (also ugh), but not having them is okay too. I'm a laissez faire kinda diner.

Herbs - you will need holy basil, spring onions, coriander

Bean sprouts - it ain't no Viet noodle soup without bean sprouts! I have a Viet-Australian friend who shares my family name - but, no, she is not related to me, really and no, we're definitely not sisters, or twins and nor do we look like each other although we do both have long hair and wear glasses - and who cannot abide bean sprouts. I find this thoroughly shocking.

Fish sauce.

Shrimp paste mixed with chilli and lemon.

Nice large soup bowls! Chopsticks, spoons, etc. Oh, you will need serviettes or tissues handy, as this is a runny nose kinda soup.

For the soup:

Beef (or pork, if you prefer) stock bones. Oxtail is best (I channel my bro-in-law) but I again just used what I had in the freezer.*

Lemongrass - mince some finely (about half a cup full) and some chopped into approximately two-inch long sticks. I tend to mince mostly the thick white base, and use the long leafy bit of the lemongrass for the sticks, with a few of the thick white base bits.

Chilli - depending on taste and fieriness of chillis, three or five finely minced.

Shrimp paste - this will stink out your fridge once you open it, so I store mine in its glass jar, inside another plastic container, thereby jailing its pungency.

Oil. I use olive, but any would be fine. Except perhaps sesame or peanut.

Chilli oil - for cheating with (all will be made clear).

The three essentials: onion (one), ginger (thumb-sized knob), garlic (um, half a clove?) - charred

About two litres of water.

A big stockpot

A frying pan

Another saucepan for pre-parboiling of stock bones

How to make it:

Parboil the stock bones first; boil on medium-high heat until a brownish froth appears. Then wash the bones in warm water and discard the boiling water. Set aside until its grand moment.

Char onion, ginger and garlic.

Using the flat of a large knife, squash the lemongrass sticks. This releases their lovely flavour.

In a little bit of oil, fry up about a teaspoon-full of the shrimp paste with about a quarter of the minced lemongrass. Don't let this burn (add little bits of water if you're worried that it will). Add stock bones and fry them in the shrimp paste for a bit. Add the lemongrass sticks, onion, ginger, garlic and water and bring to the boil. Turn heat down and let simmer for an hour or so.

Fry minced lemongrass and chilli in about a tablespoon full of oil and add to the stock. The soup should have a lovely red tinge. If it doesn't, add some more chilli oil. Red tinge, ta dah!

Simmer again on even lower heat for as long as your patience or hunger will permit, and taste the stock. If too bland, add some fish sauce but remember that fish sauce also gets added at the eating part so don't over flavour the stock. You want it to taste of your lovely ingredients.

The soup is ready when the meat on the bone is soft and tender, and falls nicely away with only minimal persuasion on your part.

Assemble your bowls and eat with relish.

As I was eating, I couldn't quite remember what Bun Bo Hue was supposed to taste of. I could not call up any memories of eating Bun Bo Hue with my family. I don't think I've ever ordered it in a Viet restaurant (I find pho on the menu difficult to resist if I want to eat a noodle soup). But my version was yummy. The household food-critic (my partner) declared it delicious but that pho was better. As always, he is right.

*So, why all this 'using up'? Because I'm moving!** Woo hoo! To a house! With a yard! Hurrah!

** Post-lude:

After such a promising end to my last post, I neglected. I am sorry. I'm rubbish. The reason I'm rubbish is still the same, but in addition: I was moving and then I did move. From my little flat, into a house. I'm off internet connection for a bit, and I have photos to go with this post, which I will update later. I'll also respond to comments from the last post, later. Later.

Bun Bo Hue

2008-03-29T17:01:00.004Z

Bun Bo Hue is a noodle soup from the region of Hue, the old imperial capital of Viet Nam. When in Hue with my sisters, we completely forgot to order any Bun Bo Hue from anywhere to eat. We were much too excited by the vegetarian banquet put out before us, and at another restaurant, distracted by the flags that they gave to each table of Viet Kieu. They gave us the Stars and Stripes of the US, before we had even said anything. I looked at it for awhile wonderingly, and then, while the waitress was out of the room, got up and went over to the display of flags and exchanged the Stars and Stripes for the Australian Union Jack and Southern Cross combo. I plonked that flag down on our table , and my sisters affectionately shook their heads at me. Another table watched my progress and then did the same: exchanging their Stars and Strips for the red and white maple leaf affair of the Canadian flag. We all giggled conspiratorially together when the waitress came back and looked from our table, to their table, and then over to the flag table. But she neither frowned nor smiled, so what we had done must have been a neutral act.

It also rained the entire couple of days that we were in Hue, so we did not wander the streets very much; we were chaperoned by our grumpy tour guide from monument, to temple, to imperial palace grounds, to hotel, to market, to restaurant. I found our tour guide extremely difficult to understand: the Hue accent is mellifluous, gentle and musical; the words flow together. I need sharp distinctions in my Viet words to know what is being said. After all, my family speak Viet in sharp ringing tones, like the fishwives they all once were, or were descended from. Initially, I frowned at our tour guide, listening as hard as I could, and then I would look over at my eldest sister, who also looked like she was struggling to understand. If she was struggling, I had no chance. Eventually, I gave up. I wandered away from our guide a number of times to read signs in English, and I don't think she liked that very much. I also had my lovely red raincoat, so the rain was but minor hindrance to my explorations. She did not like the rain, and she would rush us from one shelter under turned up eaves to another, or from the van door to the inside of temple grounds. I wanted to wander and explore the grounds themselves, not merely the inside of buildings. So I did. My sisters tried to tell her to leave me be, but she would try to call me in to listen to her guiding. I told her that I was happy exploring on my own and that I had trouble understanding her because my Vietnamese was very poor. It was easiest for me to surreptitiously tell my sisters that I would see them shortly and wander away, into the rain, where she would not follow.

As we drove away from Hue, shortly after lunch, I cried out, "Oh no! We did not eat Bun Bo Hue in Hue!" My eldest sister said, "We can stop." I replied that I was much too full. Her response? "Eat it in Sai Gon, it will probably be better anyway." And we all chuckled, suspecting this to be true. I was not overly impressed by Hue, but I think that was the fault of our guide, and not of the town, which has much crumbling imperial and colonial granduer to recommend it. Another time, I will visit and I will not be shackled by no grumpy tour guide!

I decided to try to cook Bun Bo Hue recently. So, it being roughly three weeks since the last time I had spoken to my parents, I telephoned my mother. I informed her of my intention to cook Bun Bo Hue and asked her what the ingredients were. I had done a brief internet search to try to locate a recipe, but failed.

I did find some interesting information, however. A number of sites (don't ask, when I google, I open loads of links and then close them again. I only remember the ones that were useful, and sometimes, not even them) referred to Bun Bo Hue as 'spicy pho'. I thought this was odd, and much pleased when I read Wandering Chopsticks' comment that Bun Bo Hue is not pho. I like her comment a lot:-

Mini-rant here. No it is NOT pho. Calling bun bo Hue a variation of pho is like saying fettucine alfredo is a version of spaghetti. Sure it's easy to reference a more popular dish when trying to describe it, but in both cases: different noodles + different flavors = different dishes entirely. OK?

Tangentially, I also found this and this. The first is a recipe from Khmer Krom Recipes for a soup remarkably like Bun Bo Hue, but of Cambodian origin, and the second is an interview with the author of the website, Mylinh Nakry, by another blogger on Cambodian food, Phonmenon. I am probably going to get myself into trouble here. Oh well.

Mylinh Nakry, of Khmer Krom Recipes, says:

Vietnamese people loves this Khmer Krom soup so much that they changed Khmer Krom recipe name to Vietnamese name *Bun bo Hue*, and never gives us any credit which is no surprise to me since they also took our land. On 6-4-1949, French government illegally gave *Kampuchea Krom*( now know as South Vietnam) to Viet Nam. Hue (now know as Central Vietnam)was part of Champa that Khmer Empire was once ruled Champa and most of South East Asia.

She also makes this claim of Bun Rieu and pho, and probably some other dishes as well, except that I don't know; I was looking, and then started to feel a bit silly. I cannot speak to her claim about the origin of Bun Bo Hue, or Bun Rieu, or pho. I do not know enough about the history of food and politics in Viet Nam and Cambodia / Kampuchea. I am prepared to accept that the borders of the region of what is now known as Viet Nam that borders what is now known as Cambodia were porous, and that cultural exchange, including inter-marriage, linguistic exchange and food exchange would have occurred. Perhaps one cuisine influenced another; more likely, the exchange was both ways. I am not prepared to accept that when Kampuchea Krom and Champa existed, one culture and one people and one food type existed and then continued, unchanged, to now, or to 1949. Nor am I prepared to accept that the Vietnamese people who first made Bun Bo Hue appropriated a Khmer Krom dish, and renamed it, in the same way they appropriated the land. It's just not that simple.

Maybe they made something like it. Maybe the Cambodians used a spice, or herb, that the Vietnamese had not before and they thought, "Gosh, that's tasty. Why don't I chuck me some of that into this here soup I be making?" (Although perhaps not in a fake Aussie/Irish brogue.) Probably, the people who lived in the Champa kingdom are the ancestors of the people who live there now and their diaspora. As now, there were some indigenous and some not. But eventually, if you just keep living there, you belong there. Who were they? Cambodian? Viet? It would be fiendishly difficult to disentangle what 'belongs' to one culture / ethnic group or another. And for what? A claim to authenticity? Nationalism? Parochialism? To what end?

I'm very pleased that Mylinh Nakry feels strongly about her cultural / ethnic identity (however she would describe it) and applaud her attempt, via her website, to bring some attention to how Cambodian cuisine has languished in the shadows of its neighbours. But not in this simplistic way, that is so potentially damaging. I also don't condone the hateful, and hate-mongering, and indeed contemptuously ridiculing, comments posted to Phnomenon's site about Mylinh Nakry either. I got myself kind of lost in it. First I was mildly amused, and then outraged, and then, just saddened.

Whatever its origin, it's a delicious dish. And I, because of my ethnic background, know it as Bun Bo Hue.

Back to my story.

When I spoke to my mother, to ask her the ingredients of Bun Bo Hue, she asked me if the local Asian grocery store stocked stock cubes. Perplexed, I said that I thought they did. She told me to find the one for Bun Bo Hue, and to use pork feet instead of beef bones in my stock. I said, "But don't you make it from, you know, lemongrass and chilli and other things?" She replied, "No. I never cooked you Bun Bo Hue. Or if I did, I probably made it from the stock cube. Ask your brother-in-law. He knows how to cook it." I was flummoxed. Had I never had Um-cooked Bun Bo Hue? I wracked my memory, and decided it was probably true. I had eaten Bun Bo Hue with my family, but rarely. More likely, we would have had Bun Rieu (which is on my list of things to work out how to cook). If we wanted to eat Bun Bo Hue, we would ask my sister in law to cook it. After further miscellaneous chit-chat with my mother, I rung off.

I then telephoned my brother in law, to ask him. I did not telephone my sister in law because she is more difficult to track down. After a chat with my sister, and telling her the true reason for why I had called, I spoke to my brother in law. He is the pho cook in the family. He also used to work in restaurants and can roll spring rolls at an alarming speed. We competed once (I'm a mean spring-roll-er myself, from way back) and he won easily; he rolled four for every one of mine. "So you want to cook Bun Bo Hue?" he started. "Yep", said I. "With pork or with beef?" "With beef!" It is, Bun Bo Hue after all (bo means beef). "Okay. Well make sure you have oxtail then. That's the best meat. Nothing from the shoulder, okay?" I made agreeing sounds although I was already going to disobey him. "Next, if you go to the Asian supermarket, you can buy stock cubes. You can get Bun Bo Hue stock cubes." "What?" I burst out. "That's what Um told me to do! I don't want stock cubes. I want the ingredients!" "Oh, okay," he conceded, "I just wanted to make it easier for you."

Stock cubes! I can't believe my family use stock cubes.

And on that note, this post is long enough already. Next post will be the recipe. Promise.

Instructing barristers

2008-03-19T19:37:00.000Z

What's with the pink ribbon tied round a bundle of documents? I thought it was a quirk of Queensland lawyers, but the ribbon has turned up in the UK as well! I guess we inherited more than the queen, our political and legal system, a good smattering of our education ...

I recall being the junior solicitor in a matter that I had done quite a lot of work on - prepared the witness statements, the bundle of documents, the brief to the barrister. I did not attend the first day of the trial because the partner in charge wanted to see how the new barrister we briefed performed, and because we expected it to settle. After the first day of what was looking to be a lengthy trial, she asked me to attend the rest of the trial as instructing solicitor instead. She had guaged the barrister's ability and had given him the nod.

So I turned up on day two, having read through the partner's scrawled notes of what happened on day one. No settlement offers made - barrister on the other side had suggested we withdraw. Partner in charge had politely declined. I introduced myself to my barrister and went to introduce myself to the instructing solicitor on the other side and his barrister. As I stepped from my side of the bar table, both opposing solicitor and barrister turned away from me. I raised an eyebrow at my barrister who looked a little taken aback; I did a half shrug and took my seat. I had a whispered conference with my barrister and then left the courtroom to go find our client.

When I came back from my short and harried lunch, only the opposing barrister was seated at the bar table. I smiled at him and he ignored me, so I sat down at my seat conscientiously rifling through my papers and re-organising the mess my barrister had made of our bundle. The opposing barrister was struggling with his own bundle, tied with the lovely pink ribbon that seems so popular in the legal world. He finally turned to me and said, "Miss, Miss?" I ignored him, pretending to be engrossed in my own bundle. He slid his chair over closer to mine and said, "Sorry to interrupt -" right up close. No more ignoring. I looked up and said, "Yes?" He passed over the bundle, lovingly bound, and asked, "Could you untie this? I don't have any nails." "Neither do I." I said, flatly, holding up both my hands. "Sorry." I said, not meaning it. "My name's Oanh, by the way. Sorry I did not have the opportunity to introduce myself properly this morning." He shook my hand and said his name. I then proffered the pair of scissors that I had in my briefcase.

Some barristers need instruction on simple courtesy, and a little feminist tutoring, too.

Bullets of Spring

2008-03-12T18:41:00.001Z

When ever I read another blogger's bullets, the They Might Be Giant's song, Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love, starts running through my head. Specifically (Freudian?) this bit runs through my head:-

Bullets from a gun

Bullets through the atmosphere

Here they come

John, I've been bad

And they're coming after me

Done someone wrong

And I fear that it was me

Sapphire bullets

Bullets of pure love

Actually, that's pretty much the entirety of the song.

It is spring! There are yellow daffodils and purple and white crocuses everywhere. Blackthorn is out, magnolias are budding and the robins, with their proud orange chests, are back.

Even though it is spring, it is still bitterly (according to me) cold. It still looks like winter outside my office window becuase the sawn off tree has no buds and the tree beside it looks like whoever waters it has been doing a rather poor job.

Our herbs on the kitchen windowsill are, however, very pleased to greet spring. My oregano leaves are almost a centimetre in diameter, the mint is growing new shoots everywhere and my laxoleaf's leaves are the biggest I have ever seen them. My Hungarian black chilli also has lots of new, pretty purple flowers.

I am trying to ascertain the effects of Bokashi juice on my herbs. They've been watered with Bokashi juice twice in the last three weeks. Unfortunately, the watering coincided with the arrival of (ever-so-slightly) warmer weather and sun, so I don't know to what I should attribute the enthusiastic growth.

I'm inlcined to attribute it to the Bokashi juice, except that I know the herbs did this last year too, sans juice.

The Bokashi is otherwise going swimmingly, thanks for asking. We have almost filled our first bucket, and will need to move onto the next one.

It only took us three weeks to fill our bucket. We are obviously not your average family. My partner hypothesises that our accelerated filling of the bucket is because we prepare almost all of our meals from scratch (i.e. no pre-packaged stuff). I think it is because we are greedy and eat too much.

Um & Soy Sauce

2008-03-07T22:16:00.000Z

Recently, it was my mother's birthday. But I did not call her, because I forgot. Luckily (for me), my family don't really celebrate birthdays - at least, not on the actual day. Birthdays occur when they're celebrated, so when they're not celebrated, they don't occur. Make sense? I think so!

I call my mother Um. This is not a common thing to call one's mother, even if one is Vietnamese. It is more common to use Me or Ma, or even Vu, which really puts your mum in her place because vu means breast.

When I was young, I knew I was different from the Aboriginal, white, Greek, Italian and Lebanese kids at school, but I did not realise that I was different from other Vietnamese kids, until we talked about our mums. Or asked for soy sauce. These were the two greatest differentiating factors between me and other Viet kids. Perhaps there were a few others.

Um is pronounced like Oom. Or like mmm, but you start with your mouth open. It is sometimes used by Chinese/Viet kids as a title for distant older relatives, the same as Bac in more mainstream Viet. It's a term of distant filial respect. In my father's family, Um means mother. This is to avoid confusion with my father's mother, who was the supreme ruler of my father's (rather extensive) clan. Everyone called my paternal grandmother Ah Ma, and calling anyone else Ma or even Me would have been just too confusing. I guess. Now, my mother is Ma to all her grandkids and Um to all her kids, in-laws included (well, the ones who speak Viet at any rate).

I have a strong recollection of my first "but you're Viet and you're different from me!" experience. I would have been about 6 years old. My Um had sent me to the corner shop to buy some soy sauce. I knew the particular bottle like it was a close friend. (It kind of is, actually. Soy sauce, that is. Steamed white rice and soy sauce, now that's comfort food!) I wandered around and around the narrow aisles, looking for the particular bottle my mother preferred. Eventually, I gave up and went to the counter and asked where they kept yi tam. The woman behind the counter looked at me. There was another woman with a young girl at the counter. The young girl was about my age and she looked over at me like I was some strange specimen, speaking another language.

The woman behind the counter asked me what I wanted and I repeated, yi tam. The other woman said, I think she's Uncle #5*'s daughter. She's after si dau. Si dau is the more common term for soy sauce, but I did not know that at the time. I said (because it was true), I don't know what si dau is. I want yi tam. The other woman's daughter looked at me aghast. You don't know what si dau is? I said to her, No. Why should I? The other woman went and got me a bottle of soy sauce - it was just the bottle I was after. The daughter said, That's si dau. And smartarse me said, No it's not. It's yi tam. We both just looked at each. I thought the girl was very stupid. She must have thought the same of me.

(*Uncle #5 (Bac Nam) is what everyone who knew my dad, except people who were actually related to him, called him. Actual relatives called him by whatever the family relationship was. He was not any Viet person in Australia's fifth uncle, because very few of his extended family emigrated from Viet Nam.)

I took that bottle of yi tam home and showed it to my family and told my story about how strange the people were in the corner store. Um laughed and laughed. So did most of my older siblings. Ba too. Everyone laughed at me, and I honestly had no idea why. I learned, shortly afterwards, a salty lesson in diversity.

Um told me all the different names for yi tam and I was astounded. In the north, they tend to call it nuoc tuong (which is rather confusing because it literally translates as sauce water, or if you're being pedantic, water sauce). Some call it si ieu and some si dau. Me? It's yi tam and nothing else (although I will no think you're stupid if you call it si dau. Swear.)

NT and Wandering Chopsticks both expressed curiousity about why I call my mother Um. I'm no good at being brief in my answers, so this is my answer. I am also no good at staying on topic.

Compost-ing

2008-02-17T22:43:00.006Z

When we moved to England, I knew that we would be moving to a smaller place. One of the things that I hoped living in a smaller space would do, was to make me reduce my tendency to hoard things, to rationalise my consumer desires and to become a bit 'greener'. For starters, we would not have a car, and we would not be buying one. For another, we would be hanging out with my family less, so we could consume less meat. To be honest, that was about the extent of how I thought the way we lived our lives day-by-day would change in coming to the UK. I can be a bit blithely naive sometimes.

One of the first things that shocked me about the UK was how many chain stores there were, how enormous the supermarkets were, and how I could not find a greengrocer. It was awfully hard finding a cafe, that was not Costas or Nero or Starbucks. Like a country bumpkin, I stood in one humungous Asda (ultra-supermarket) and just stared at how large it was. It was, perhaps, my old local supermarket (which was inner-city and reasonably large) squared, or maybe even cubed. It was, like, really, really BIG.

Initially, we bought fruit and veggies from the supermarket and bemoaned the packaging. Everything was wrapped in plastic and/or came on a plastic tray. For the month or so that I was jobless, I wandered the streets collecting groceries. I found one greengrocer but he was about a mile and a half from where we were living, and not particularly good. We found an organic supermarket and greengrocer but they were on a farm, about two miles from the nearest train station, and not a very popular station at that (the train only stopped there at random times, when the driver felt like, I suppose). We visited once, trekking across a cow field and getting our shoes all muddy, to buy our groceries. We did pass a quaint church and a toll bridge across a lovely patch of water. But it wasn't really going to become our regular grocery shop.

Then we moved into our Little Flat, and I got A Job, and convenience became the key priority. I found a supermarket nearby work, which I would visit in my lunch times because I had not yet made friends with my workmates and did not have a lunch time companion or three (is that a violin I hear?). I started buying groceries randomly - whatever would fit in my bag, whatever caught my eye, whatever was on special. I would place on the conveyor belt an onion, three tins of tomatoes, lentils, laundry detergent and ginger beer. The next day, I would buy yoghurt, a bag of apples, a bag of parsnips, cleaning cloths and two boxes of veggie sausages. This went on for a good couple of months, until my workmates starting coming to the supermarket with me, because it was clearly the funnest thing to do at lunchtime. Eventually, I felt sorry for them and started having lunch with them and not frequenting the supermarket so often.

And our waste! Vegetables surprised me by going rotten much more quickly than in Australia. The potatoes I bought would sprout green tendrils, which meant I should not eat them, or feed them to my partner and, at the time, only friend in England. If he died, who would I talk to? Broccoli turned yellow and carrots went floppy. Did you know it was really difficult to find cauliflower which was not already brown at the edges? (Well, it was. I tried. I *love* cauliflower.) There I was, thinking that the cooler weather meant veggies would last longer. Alas, not so. Food miles made their detrimental effect on the food itself, and not just the environment, felt.

The cooler weather did enable butter to be left out of the fridge. That was very exciting.

In Australia, I did not worry too much about throwing out organic waste (rotten fruit and veggies) because we had a compost bin. It actually took us about a year and a half - and a birthday present - before we composted in a bin. Prior to that, we'd just been collecting the waste and occassionally digging a hole directly into the garden. This is what my parents had always done, and I never quite understood the wonder of the black plastic compost bins. My parents would collect all organic waste - cooked food, meat and seafood - in various buckets and bury it in the garden. I tried to do this when I lived in a share house (I ended up digging a deep hole and just adding to it, or collecting organic waste and taking it home to my parents). Burying compost is all well and good - but you need time. And neither of us had much of that. So the compost bin was a godsend. (Actually, it was sent by my partner's mother, together with red worms and a pitchfork. Probably one of the best birthday presents, ever.)

In England, we do not have a garden. We live in a Little Flat. I have never lived in a flat before. Our Little Flat does not have a balcony. Composting in a bin, or at all, is not possible. We mulled over the idea of getting an allotment for a while, but our weekends were jammed with rambles (hikes / bushwalks / tramps) and jaunts to London or elsewhere. I had, unconsciously, assumed that any flat we lived in would have a balcony and so I could get a worm farm for my balcony. Alas, no balcony = no worm farm. All our organic waste went into the bin.

This worried me for a long time. I spent long days surfing the internet for various indoor composting techniques. Everything came back to either the worm farm or some strange new-fangled thing called Bokashi. (Actually, there was also this electronic composter thing, but it cost 300 US dollars, would need to be posted to the UK from the US and just seemed ridiculous. It was not an option.)

Last year, after much discussion and net-surfing, we decided against both. The worm farm would still be too large for our Little Flat, and the Bokashi system still had the problem of what to do with the end result of pickled rotten veggies (yum yum!) Bokashi also had a problem of whatever those enahnced microorganisms were. I understand worms. I don't understand enhanced bran and molasses. And nothing I was reading helped me to understand. So we resorted to collecting our organic waste and giving it away to a hippie workmate of my partner's, who had not one, but two, compost bins. I also bought a compost bin and gave it away to another of my partner's workmates, as a bribe so we could occassionally dump our veggie scraps on her.

This system worked fine and dandily until my partner's workmate, inconsiderately, hurt her back and could not take the veggie scraps because she was not able to carry very much, and also not very often in her garden. In the habit of collecting veggie scraps, my kitchen bench had three plastic bags of rotten vegetables, the decaying process happily kicking in and organic juices seeping out of the plastic. It was, in a word, gross.

So I started reading about Bokashi again. And this time, one year on, many more people have it and have used it, and can attest to it. Since entering the blogging world, I tend to trust bloggers' reviews of products. I can guage how similar I am to them, or their process of thinking, by reading happily around their archives and deciding whether or not what they say can apply to me. I tend to search reviews on the internet and specifically on blogs.

And here's what I've found.

Basically, the Bokashi system of compost requires enhanced bran, and a plastic bucket with air tight lid (but preferably two of them). You put your scraps in a bucket, and sprinkle magic bran onto the scraps as you go. Once you've filled a bucket, you put the lid on tight and ignore it for at least two weeks. (Well, okay, you can't *completely* ignore it, because you have to drain it of juices every couple of days.) At the end, you will have pickled rotten veggies, which can be added to your compost bin, or directly into your garden. This end product is a problem for us - but I had the epiphany that it is a not dissimilar problem to the bags of veggies scraps seeping brown juices onto my lovely, almost always clean, kitchen benchtop.

Initially, I avoided Bokashi Man because, although he's a blogger, he was a seller of the Bokashi bran and plastic buckets. I thought he would be commercial. But eventually, I returned to his site and had a proper read. He is full of useful information, and is not just trying to sell his product. Indeed, he directed a person from New Zealand (we Aussies call them Kiwis, but I think perjoratively, so perhaps I should not) to another site from which they could purchase the product. He's also a decent read, once you get over your stupid prejudice (if you're me).

I also found very useful Clean Air Gardening and I think it, more than anything else, persuaded me, because it has week by week accounts of the whole Bokashi saga. Clean Air Gardener seems to drink as much tea as I do, his tea bag count in his Bokashi is of supreme interest to me.

I also liked Compost Guy because he's making his own magic bran. Maybe one day I will too. And when I do, Compost Guy, you will be my guru.

There were other random sites that I visited and which pushed me over the edge into Bokashi-mania. A tip I picked up, and which had completely eluded me until I read it, was that people in allotments would welcome my pickled rotten veggie scraps. Yes, even complete strangers would welcome me, carting my bucket of organic waste, with open arms and would not look at me askance for being so worked up about binning veggie matter. So, if my partner's workmates were not at home, or on holiday, or their bin was too full with their own veggie scraps, I could wander down to the nearest allotment and charm my way into someone else's veggie patch. Hell, I'd even dig the hole to bury it in, because I know how to do that sort of stuff.
I just haven't for a long time, that's all.

The final nail in the coffin, however, was that I could order the whole Bokashi system from Amazon, to whom I have already disclosed my personal details and who I know deliver reliably. Bemoaning the UK postal system is a whole other post.

So, I now wait excitedly and somewhat impatiently for my Bokashi. I know you too await with baited breath my next update. Don't. You already know it might take me forever.

Now it really is the New Year.

2008-02-08T22:03:00.000Z

It never feels like a new year until Tet arrives, and speeds away again. Chuc Mung Nam Moi to all my friends out there, the lurkers (I know you're there!), the folks who stumble here looking for banh canh recipes (sorry, kids), and the randoms who post such intriguing comments as this informative snippet on my post about the ao dai:-

I like to wear comfortable dresses which I like to buy from Brooks Brothers and Old Navy stores through couponalbum.com

Good for you, buddy. I decided not to delete the comment. When I first read it, I was very confused. Then I giggled. Ms Couponalbum.com, you amuse me for the left-fielded-ness of your comment. If we were having a conversation, I would have raised my eyebrow at you. But I am not fooled. I have not visited those websites.

This morning, I telephoned my family to wish them Chuc Mung Nam Moi. I had received, through my email, a notice for all and sundry to descend on my parents for the usual Tet festivities (food, bau cua ca cop, food, other card games, more food). Sadly, due to the lengthy commute, I had to decline. I have been trying to telephone my parents for the last few days to have our usual chat (time in our respective locales, weather, health, cost of phone call, hang-up), but without success.

I telephoned from my mobile, at work. 10am my time, 8pm theirs.

My brother answers the phone. "Hey O," he says, completely unsurprised to hear from me. "Hey bro," I reply, as if I don't miss him madly and as if his brief, prosaic emails to me don't bring tears to my eyes. "Happy New Year!" We both say at the same time. And then, because we have been brought up terribly politely, "Huh? What?" also at the same time. I give up on this game first, "Is everybody there?" I ask. "Yep," he replies, "It's really noisy." I laugh. I can hear in the background all my nieces and nephews squealing away, and talking over the top of each other. "Who's winning?" I ask my bro. "Grump is. She put some money on bau and it came up triples!" "What's happening now?" "Ba's trying to teach them cat te." "Who's he teaching?" "All the little ones: SpiderBoy, Grump, Princess, MyGirl."

Cat te (I have no idea if that is the correct spelling) is my father's favourite card game. I do not remember when he taught me; it seems as if I have always known how to play. Like riding a bike, I don't ever expect to forget. The eldest of the little ones listed above is 5. Cat te involves six cards, and playing tricks by suits, and a pot of money in the middle, called the 'heo' (pig), which is collected by the winner. It is a difficult game to describe, and requires demonstration. I like it for its flourish at the end game. I cannot imagine any of the little ones grasping the idea of the game. It's difficult enough teaching them the rules of 'catch'. Ba is an impatient man, but unnervingly patient when it comes to kids and card games.

My mother comes onto the phone. We deal with the important things first: (Are you well? Yes I'm well. What's the time there? Morning, and you? Night. How's the weather? The weather's sunny, and you? Oh it's been raining here non-stop!) I tell her that I have been trying to call, without success. She tells me that, due to the incessant rain*, the phone line has been playing up. The only way to get her is to ring my parents' mobile, or to ring my brother's mobile who will then ring her and tell her to ring whoever rang him. I have no idea how ringing my brother is an efficient way of getting onto my parents, but Um seems to think it is. I don't bother trying to get her to explain. I wish her a happy new year, and she wishes the same to me and my partner. Then she says something like, "Oh, I think that I... Old man, talk to your daughter," and the phone is handed to my father. I assume she has gone off to check how some food is going, but I cannot say for sure. I have the same brief conversation with my father.

*Yay! Brisbane, Rain. Yay!

I can hear my siblings in the background, and distinguishable voices float out at me. That's the Big Boss laughing, and the Accountant telling a story. I can hear the little ones clamouring for my father's attention. I can tell my father is distracted from our conversation as the card game is still going. I say goodbye, as I am at work and shouting Vietnamese in my office. It's not billable.

After I hang up, I sit still for a while, and stare out the window, re-composing Lawyer Oanh, as opposed to Daughter Oanh. I smile at the clear picture I have of my family in my parents' living room, seated on the ground playing cards, and scrambling noisily over each other whenever more drinks, more food or trips to the bathroom are required. I wish I was there. Suddenly, I begin to cry.

Unfortunately, my tears roughly coincide with a knock on my door, and I have barely any time to become Lawyer Oanh when The Boss walks in. I do not initially look up at him, but I know I will have to. I am one of those people who, when they cry, end up with red splotches all over their face. I still have tear tracks on my cheeks, my eyes are all red and swollen, my nose is running, and even my forehead is splotchy. I just know.

I take a deep breath and look up at him. The look on his face almost makes me laugh; he was just about to say a cheery hello, but has been arrested by my tear sodden face. I manage to hiccup out, "I'm okay. I just rang my family for New Year. I'll be fine in 10. Can I come see you then?" "Of course, of course," he says backing out, "Everything's really okay?" "Everything's really okay, Boss. I just miss them because it's the New Year." He looks at me oddly, and does not leave my office.

This means I have to compose myself in front of him. How aggravating. I take a deep breath, take my glasses off and rub furiously at my eyes. I put my glasses back on. I normalise the conversation for him: "Any new claims, today?" "No," he says, "The mail's pretty boring, actually." I can tell he is relieved and ready to pretend he did not glimpse non-Lawyer Oanh.

Then he says,"The New Year?" I smile at him. "Yes. It's the Lunar New Year." He still looks uncertain. Inwardly, I sigh. "Chinese New Year. But the Vietnamese have it too, and we call it Tet, or the Lunar New Year. I'd rather not call it Chinese New Year. Because I'm not Chinese."

Y'all have a good one.

Me and Hot Beverages

2008-02-03T17:48:00.000Z

Just before Christmas, I sat late in my office waiting for the cleaners, so I could wish them a Merry Christmas. As I sat there I started thinking, what if they did not celebrate Christmas? What if I upset them? And I did not have anything to give them, either, because I had been avoiding the shops in the lead up to Christmas so I didn't have any chocolates or other sweets to proffer with my cheery Christmas wishes. Heck, I don't celebrate Christmas. I decided I would wish them a happy break. And then I wondered, do they get a break over Christmas?

After all this navel-gazing, I did not end up wishing any of the cleaners a happy Christmas / couple of days break / accidentally insult them, because no one came to clean my office while I was sitting there. I gave up, half relieved, half disappointed.

I like our cleaners a lot. We get along like rather apologetic houses on fire. Most evenings, if I'm here when they come round, there are a series of apologies. They knock on my office door, and I call out, 'yep?' which is what I call out whenever I hear a knock on my door, whether it's partner, trainee or cleaner. They all get a, 'yep?' The door opens a crack and a head peers in furtively. The head could belong to any of the cleaners who come through: the one collecting dirty mugs, the one who empties the bins, the one who wipes the surfaces, the one who vacuums. Immediately, the head will apologise and begin to retract away. "No, no," I call out. "Come in. Sorry I'm still here." They say sorry again and start doing whatever it is that they're there to do. When they leave, they apologise one more time for good measure, and I refuse to accept it and offer my own apologies. Usually as I leave the building, I see one or all of them again and say a cheery 'Good night!' and they say the same to me.

If the head appearing round my door is the person who collects mugs, she will say, "Any cups?" Sometimes she says to me, "You! Your cups! How many today?" I like the way she asks: it is playfully accusatory. I am guilty of collecting mugs. I have my first hot beverage in the morning before work; usually a cup of black tea. After the black tea, I have a cup of herbal or green tea. The herbal or green teabag stays in the mug and gets hot water added to it as the day goes on. At some point around lunch time, I have a cup of coffee. After lunch, I frequently have a mug of hot chocolate. Sometimes, when I forget to bring a water bottle, I have a glass of water. If I remember, I return my mugs and glasses to the kitchen as I go about my day. If I don't, the mugs collect on a little side-table I have, which is for my non-work things. I never, ever, put mugs or cups on my work desk. Because I will undoubtedly knock them over when I reach for the phone, or a file, or the Green Book of Relevant Legislation.

The mug-collector has started to learn to read what my collection of mugs means about my days. If I have no cups for her, she says, "Bad day, no time for drinks?" And I will concur, or I will chirrup, "No, I had time today to return everything to the kitchen."

Recently, she poked her head 'round the door and startled me. I looked wildly around for my mugs - there were three. I picked them up to hand over to her and noticed that they were all half-drunk. "Ugh," I said, "Sorry, they're disgusting." She looked at me amusedly and pronounced, "Today, you had a very bad day." I grin at her, "Yeah. Too many interruptions!" She shakes her head at me and says as she leaves, "Tomorrow you will have a better day."

Hot Lemon Fritters

2008-01-28T21:42:00.000Z

I may have, in the past, mentioned my poor dessert making abilities. I blame this mostly on my imprecision as a cook. It is therefore a joy to find a dessert recipe I can muddle, and have something edible at the end. I find myself curiously craving sweet things and desserts in England. A meal seems incomplete without 'pudding' (whenever anyone says pudding, my brain starts playing a part of Pink Floyd's The Wall: You can't have your pudding if you don't eat your meat. I get a faraway look in my eyes, and people just assume I'm mesmerised by the idea of pudding. Nope, just listening to imaginary music.)

My partner got this recipe book as a birthday gift many years ago, and it was one of the few recipe books that made the trip to England with us. Many of the recipes have stood us in good stead. We had a joyous dinner party at our home in Brisbane with the pumpkin and eggplant tagine, and it makes a regular appearance at our dinner table, with variations aplenty: parsnip or sweet potato instead of pumpkin, and (a personal favourite) okra instead of eggplant.

We had some friends over for dinner, and I decided to cook pho again, as they had expressed an enthusiasm for it. I wanted a light dessert to accompany my pho. If you are not familiar with them, Vietnamese desserts are rather odd; beans, agar agar and coconut milk don't leap out at one as dessert foods, if one grows up with steamed puddings and ice-cream. Or so I am told. Matter of fact, Vietnamese desserts are strange for me, too. My father did not have a sweet tooth, and my mother was much too busy to make sweet things if my father was not going to bother eating them. The first time I remember my mother making something sweet was when I was about 7 years old; her children were finally out of her hair enough for her to labour over something sweet.

The dessert she chose to make was red bean and some-kinda-nut 'che': a kind of soupy dessert, which you can have hot or cold. I must have inherited my tastebuds from my father because I hated it then, but am prepared to tolerate it now, if only to make my mother happy. There are some Viet desserts I like, in particular the tri-colour bean dessert drink (layers of yellow bean, red bean, green jelly, coconut milk - which is really four colours but no need to be pedantic, now), but not many. I have yet to find a che that I like.

So, not only do I not know how to make a Viet dessert, I don't especially enjoy eating them. Hence, I delved into the Moorish cookbook, looking for something complementary, and relatively easy (because I am a dessert wimp).

I found hot lemon fritters with cinnamon sugar, and though they weren't perfect, they did work remarkably well. Naturally, I fudged the quantities, but here is the recipe, cribbed from Greg and Lucy Malouf's.

For the fritters:-

250ml milk (I used soy milk, because that's what we had in the fridge)
70g butter (the recipe called for unsalted butter but I can't stand unsalted butter, so salted it was!)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (I just used normal olive oil)
125g plain flour (couldn't work out how to vary this one, so plain flour it was)
finely grated zest of two lemons (my lemons were quite large, and I'd already used half of one, so I zested one and a half lemons)
3 eggs (nope, no fudging there)
1 tablespoon of honey (or thereabouts)
1 teaspoon or orange-blossom water (or thereabouts)

Zest of one and a half lemons, waiting patiently for its moment.

You will also need to make cinnamon sugar. This is very easy: supposedly you need 150g of caster sugar and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. I guestimated the amount of caster sugar. Measuring cups etc are for the weak. You basically just mix this all together.

Cinnamon sugar: the photo is a tad dark because I don't like using the flash on my camera.

To make the fritter batter, start by melting the butter with the milk and olive oil over a nice low heat.

When this is done - the recipe says when the liquid froths up but mine never did, possibly because of the soy, possibly due to the alignment of the moon and the stars, who knows - add the flour and lemon zest, and beat with a wooden spoon. This done over a low heat, but I found I needed to remove the pan occassionally as my heat seemed too high (the flour was cooking before it was blending into the liquid.)

My milk, butter and olive oil mixture can't be bothered frothing up.

Mixing in the flour and lemon zest: much vigourous stirring is needed.

Once the mixture has become smooth (ish) and ceases to be liquid, beat in the eggs, one at a time. Lastly, add the honey and orange blossom water.

Egg in the mixture.

That's it. You should now have a pancake-batter-like batter, that smells encouragingly of egg and lemon. The batter should be left for at least an hour - I left mine overnight. The next day, the batter had thickened up nicely.

To cook the fritters, heat a lot of vegetable oil in a deep saucepan. I test whether my oil is hot by holding one wooden chopstick in the oil, against the bottom of the pan, and checking to see whether bubbles form. If bubbles form quickly and vigrourously, it's hot enough. If they don't, wait and test again whenever your patience has run out. This is my method for testing the heat of boiling oil for all my deep frying needs.

The recipe says to carefully place teaspoon-sized blobs of the batter into the oil. I tried this initially but found the batter would balloon out, as below.

Hot oil and cooking batter.

Ballooned fritters.

Eventually, I got annoyed at carefully placing blobs, and just started pouring the batter in. This had the desired effect of the right sized blobs creating themselves, and the collateral effect of not ballooning. So I recommend just slowly pouring your batter in. It won't form one enormous fritter, because the batter just won't hold together. Instead, it will of its own accord form the right sized balls. Good, well behaved batter.

It's cooked when it's golden brown.

The final result: some balloons and some balls, all tasty.

The recipe recommends rolling the fritters in cinnamon sugar and eating with custard. I just brought the batter and the plate of cinnamon sugar to my guests, and we all had fun rolling the batter in the cinnamon sugar - each to his/her own discretion as to the amount of sugar - without custard, because custard is a strange creature that would only make a very rare appearance in my household.

Easy, and quite yummy. A good accompanient to pho.

Lessons Learned

2008-01-22T17:34:00.000Z

1. When attending at work, on a Monday morning, somewhat earlier than I usually am but not earlier than I should be, and staring out admiring the church spire that I have never before seen from my office window, my thought should not be, "Oh, I've never noticed that I had a view of the church spire before," but rather, "Oh, my goodness, what on earth happened to my tree? And poor Mr Squirrel and his nest?"

It was not until after my cup of tea, as I looked into the distance wondering whether something so rectangular could still be called a spire, that I realised my tree was hacked off at window height - right below the squirrel's nest. I had spent happy otherwise-billable minutes watching a squirrel dart into and out of his* nest, presumably storing up precious nuts for winter. I hope the tree-loppers gave him sufficient warning to move his goodies, and his home, before so brutally demolishing all the top branches. Now the tree is all ivy, and not tree at all, and I have no squirrel to watch nor tits (little sparrow-like birds) to gaze at in contemplative or procrastinatory moments.

* I don't know for certain it's a him. I just prefer giving an animal a gendered pronoun, rather than calling him, "it". I do have a tendency to anthropomorphise. Although I do not seem to have qualms calling babies and young children, whose gender I cannot readily identiy, 'it'. I think I need to re-examine my pronoun usage. In my defence, babies and young children grow up to articulate their own identities; animals and inanimate objects (which I also tend to anthropomorphise) rarely do, at least not comprehensibly to me.

2. When it is winter in England, and you are all warm and snuggly and able to walk about in a t-shirt inside your heated home, it does not mean you can walk outside (for example to the shops for some mozzarella cheese) in the same t-shirt with nary a jumper, nor a coat, nor a hat. Gloves and scarf would have been uneccessary, however, as it was only 11 degrees, and not single digits. Gloves and scarves are only necessary for single digit weather.

I still forget that the temperature inside is not at all reflective of the temperature outside. In our home in Brisbane, the weather outside came right on inside. Some winter nights were rather chilly, but hardly life-threatening. The wooden walls did nothing to insulate us. In our flat in England, there is double-glazing (two panes of glass on the windows), and brick and mortar walls, and strange 'night-storage' heating, which doesn't quite seem to work (the storage part; the heating part works fine).

We had no appropriate* cheese for our dinner of pizza, and as I had just arrived home from work, I voluteered to go down to the local corner store. Somehow, the fact that I had peeled off my layers (windproof jacket, fleece jumper) did not alert me to the cool weather outside. I just put my shoes on again and walked out. It was a fast walk to, and from, the shops. I suppose I could have gone back inside for a jumper and coat once I had exited from the flat, but the cold didn't really hit me until about 10 metres from our front door. And then I realised I was an idiot. But an idiot who was getting more acclimatised to the cold. So, plus and minuses.

* We had nettle and garlic flavoured cheddar, and parmesan, either of which would have been fine if I were lazy, but I was feeling all energetic-like.

3. I feel that lessons should come in threes. Sadly, there is no third lesson.

I cooked pho!

2008-01-13T16:04:00.000Z

I knew that leaving Brisbane for England would mean that my cravings for Vietnamese food was unlikely to be sated without a visit home. When I emailed my sister to remind her of the date that I was arriving in Australia, and asking her to arrange a family get-together for the following day, her response was to ask me what I wanted to eat. We decided that we would have goi cuon (transparent rice wraps) for lunch and then pho for dinner.

The entire time I was in Brisbane, I ate. I had breakfasts, brunches, lunches and dinners organised, visiting some old haunts, hanging out in newly married friend's houses and stuffing myself silly with my family's cooking. Um cooked everything she knew I liked, often all at the same time. Ba, too, joined in the cooking and made some of my favourite dishes. I ate the noodle soup of my region (bun nuoc leo) for dinner and breakfast, together with caramelised prawns, steamed crab and rice. On another day, I had banh xeo (crispy pork and prawn pancakes), spring rolls, more caramelised prawns and my mother's special deep fried chicken that she makes for the kids, but that I always end up eating. Um had bought a box of mangoes, and kept lamenting that the dragonfruit in my father's garden (which fruited in riotous abandon last year, right after I arrived in England) would not even flower while I was home. After finishing the main dishes, and while I still sat at the dining table nattering away to my siblings, Um would pull out a mango and start peeling it. I could not say no.

I am back in England again, in the cold, and contemplating what to do to celebrate tet this year. Last year, we were not settled and mostly friendless. This year, we are settled, and we have friends, and I would like to have a more noisy Tet. I love cooking for people, and because it's winter, I decided I would cook pho.

I have never in my almost 30 odd years cooked pho for myself. And I have lived away from home pretty much since I was 18. As a matter of fact, I do not cook all that much Vietnamese food. I tend to rely on my siblings and my mother for that. To ensure I do an okay job, I had to cook a trial batch, which is what I did last weekend.

First, I had to collect the ingredients. Most of the spices I have on hand. Our spice cupboard was magnificent in Brisbane, and it took about 6 months for the spice cupboard here to mimic the glory of the past, but it does. So I knew that I would have cinnamon, star anise, cloves and coriander seeds at home. I also had rice noodles from a previous stock up trip to the Chinese grocers. All I needed was the fresh stuff: bean sprouts, basil, coriander, spring onions, and limes. I knew I could not get the one herb that makes an average bowl of pho, better and a good bowl of pho, perfect: ngo rai. I don't know what ngo rai is in English. I've seen it referred to as Thai coriander (in Cairns, Queensland, which made me bristle with silly affront), thorny cilantro or perennial coriander. Oh, and the beef bones and beef to make up the rest of the soup.

Getting the beef bones was remarkably difficult. My partner had intended to do our grocery shopping at Sainsburys (an English supermarket) while I was at work, so I emailed him my list of ingredients that I would need. He was informed that Sainsburys are not permitted to sell meat on the bones, and that everything comes to them pre-packaged. I had forgotten to tell him that oxtail could be substituted for beef bones.

The next day, I went to Waitrose (another, slightly more upmarket, English supermarket - even the supermarkets in the UK are class structured. Shamefully, Waitrose is my favourite supermarket). I went to the butcher counter and asked if they had beef bones. I was told the same thing as my partner: that everything came to them pre-prepared and packaged. I asked for oxtail. The butcher counter guy looked at me apologetically and gestured towards the customer whom he had just served: I just sold my last one to him! I looked over at the other customer, and brief thoughts of violence occurred. I smiled at the butcher counter guy, and assured him it was okay.

I then went to an 'International Food Market and Halal Butcher'. Their meat counter was much more prosaic, and less surgical, than Waitrose's. When I asked for beef bones, the butcher said: Fish bones? No, I am a butcher! (My Aussie twang clearly lingers). I spoke more clearly and the butcher walked over to where large hunks of meat lay: Which one do you want? Surprised, I asked him if he had anything smaller. He looked at me strangely and picked up one of the smallest pieces and weighed it. Only one kilogram. Four pounds fifty. I looked uncertainly at him: the piece of meat was twice the diameter of the thickest part of my thigh. I said: Um, do you have anything smaller? You can have it for four pounds, he said. I was not concerned about the price; just what on earth I would do with a kilogram of beef bone. Okay, said I, but can you cut into maybe four smaller pieces? He quickly hacked at the meat, and it fell expertly into four large chunks: Like this? I thanked him and took away the meat.

At home, I used two of the chunks, and froze the other two, safe in the knowledge that if my first pho venture did not succeed, I had another two chunks with which to try again.

My pho recipe comes cribbed from the internet - matter of fact, it was how I found Wandering Chopsticks, when I googled 'pho recipe' more than a year ago. Mostly, I needed a recipe to double check what was in the broth. I knew that onion, ginger and star anise went in, but cinnamon, cloves and coriander seeds surprised me. Last time I ate at my brother in law's, I checked his broth: there were the cinnamon and the cloves. I tried to telephone my brother in law to ask him for tips, but he was not at home. I rang another sister instead, not for cooking tips as she is such a terrible cook she once burned chao, just to chat because I get despondent if I ring my family and come away having spoken to no one. The joy of a large family is that you just ring the next number and then the next, until someone answers.

Here is my recipe, although it is mostly Wandering Chopsticks', and I suspect she is a better cook than me. I think I have said on this blog before that I am a bad recipe follower. My recipes are imprecise, because I am. I substitute and I don't measure ingredients. And I don't know how much a pound or a quart is.

For the broth, you will need:-

Beef bones: I used about 500 gms for two people. Although my soup would have fed four. I suspect that if you cook this for more people, you just increase the water and the beef bones, but don't increase the other flavourings. I'll report back on that one, as I intend to cook pho for at least 15 people.

One surprisingly large onion. (Your onion does not have to surprise you with its largeness, but mine did me.)

Also, you can add garlic: half a clove is a good amount. Somewhat unusually, we were out of garlic at home, so none went into my stock.

A decent knob of ginger: about the length of your thumb and at least twice as thick.

One carrot: chopped into finger sized chunks.

One or two sticks of cinnamon (my stick was very long, so I just used one), a handful of star anise, some cloves and some coriander seeds: dry fry these before throwing into the stock.

A fry pan for dry-frying, a stock pot for cooking stock in, and another pot for parboiling.

All the flavourings (except the beef bones, which is too hideous to be photographed).

To cook it:

Chop the carrot up first. Leave it wherever you chop it.

If you, like me, are not fortunate enough to have a gas cooker, prepare the onion and ginger by sticking it under the griller, almost touching the element. Leave it there while you do everything else, but remember to keep an eye on it, and perhaps ask your partner to turn off the smoke alarm. If you're using garlic, do the same with it as you do the onion and ginger.

Start boiling a lot of water. I initially used two litres (but ended up using much more). Throw the carrot into the water, and leave it well enough alone.

Wandering Chopsticks and Viet World Kitchen gave me a tip I had not heard of before: parboiling the beef bones, rinsing and then using in the stock. This is to get rid of impurities, so that one gets a nice clear soup. My mother used to make me stand at the pho stock pot, scooping out the muck as it rose to the surface. It was peaceful work, and I enjoyed it.

I followed this tip. And you know what? It works brilliantly. No muck to scoop off, so it meant I could wander away from the stock pot to read my book! I highly recommend parboiling the bones, for oh, maybe five minutes (until the meat goes white, and the water gets frothy) and then rinsing the bones quickly in warm water before throwing back into the stock pot.

I parboiled my bones in a separate pot, because I knew I would have plenty of time to do the dishes while the stock bubbled away. This meant I could have some water on the boil (with carrot!) and that I could just rinse and throw the bones straight into the water.

Then, dry fry all the spices and throw them into the stock pot too.

Check that the onion and ginger are nicely burned. If there are any too-burnt bits, peel them away, and then throw onion and ginger into the stock pot.

My gently simmering stock.

Let the whole mixture boil for a couple of minutes, turn the heat down and then do the dirty dishes (chopping board, parboil saucepan, breakfast/lunch and too many mugs of tea leftovers). Stir the stock, turn the heat down again, and wander away, preferably to read a good book (but not so good that you forget the stock).

I had a jug of boiled water ready at all times to top up the stock if it got too low, and also to refill my cups of tea while I read my book, but that's a less integral part of the recipe. Check the stock every now and then, and stir.

I perhaps boiled my stock on too high a temperature, as the water got dangerously low (it no longer covered the bones!) after about one and a half hours. After topping up, I turned the heat from mark 3, down to mark 2, and left it again for another hour. Even mark 2 was a little too high, so I turned it down to mark 1. Basically, it needs to simmer ever so gently. You don't want it just keeping warm, and you don't want it boiling. You want the water to burst occassionally with a bubble. Mark 1 worked for me.

All up, I let the stock simmer for about four hours. In the last hour, I prepared the fresh stuff to go into our bowls (rinse bean sprouts, basil and coriander, chop limes, thinly slice red onion and spring onions, arrange nicely on plate). My partner sliced a 250gm sirloin steak super thinly, because he's good at that sort of thing. I cooked the rice noodles last, using the same element that I had cooked the stock on. While I was rinsing the rice noodles, I moved the stock pot back to the element and let it boil over.

All the fresh stuff.

The finished soup.

I have not bothered to tell you how to cook the rice noodles. Just follow the packet instructions.

Fill bowls with noodles - but don't overfill, because the noodles expand while you're eating.

The sliced beef is then cooked in a ladle held in the stock pot, and the soup is spooned into the noodle bowls.

Table setting for pho, with fruit bowl and stack of magazines, miscellaneous correspondence and one Christmas card.

Each person adds the herbs and sprouts as they wish. My family uses hoi sin sauce as the dipping and flavouring sauce. I am yet to find a brand of hoi sin sauce here that I like.

The verdict? My pho was a success. It was such a success, I forgot to take a photo of the finished product, with herbs and sprouts. My partner and I just dug right in. We ate it the following day for dinner, and it was still delicious.

Close up of my bowl, sans herbs and sprouts.

A reflective moment

2007-12-31T17:31:00.000Z

It's the season to be reflective. So this is me reflecting.

What a miserable blogging year I had. It started off oh-so well, with a blog every week. Every week! And then I discovered (in no particular blameworthy order) Facebook, Online Scrabble, and English summers. There was also the minor matter of my ongoing work-life crisis*, which I am still contemplating whether or not to blog about.

*That's crisis in the current newspaper language. In that it's been stop-start since the beginning of the year and no one is probably going to get hurt, who has not got hurt already.

So, Facebook. It's a great timewaster. I joined just prior to my "becoming a UK solicitor" exams, and spent hours prettying up my profile, loading the books I'd read and movies I'd seen this year and searching the likely and unlikely suspects whom I thought would have joined Facebook. There was a cacophony of internet squeals as old friends from high school and my uni years found me, and kept thinking I was in London. I'm in South East England. Not London. Following on from the internet squealing, I made a number of treks up to London where 'real life' squealing was indulged in, as well as delicious (but rather expensive) meals. My tummy and my heart swelled, and then I returned to my everyday life, one weekend and many pounds poorer. I have, more or less, kept in contact with these rediscovered friends. I am at best a sporadic correspondent (hard to believe, I know), so the mere fact of contact every few months or so is a reasonably good thing.

And then Online Scrabble (or rather, Scrabulous) found me. I don't remember how it all started (the whirlwind of the romance, you see) but, rather quickly, I found myself playing at least 5 games simultaneously. Indeed, I have not played less than 5 games simultatneously since I started playing Scrabble online. This is probably not all that many in comparison to other people. But my time is not my own. From the hours of 9am until 6pm most days, I am required to account for at least 100 six-minute blocks of my time (except for lunch). "Playing Scrabulous" is not a billing code for which I can, ethically, charge clients. I am learning to accept that I will not play a move in every game, every day. And I'm okay with that.

English summers came upon me as a strange, and very pleasant, surprise. Living in Queensland one is not privy to the joy of daylight savings. I guess when one is close to the equator, and generally without seasons anyway, the length or brevity of the day is not really that pertinent. But oh! the length of the English summer days! What joy, what bliss! All those hours to fill with hills to walk on and food to eat and drink to imbibe and friends to visit and music festivals to attend. I had a fabulous but exhausting English summer, in which every weekend - and most weeknights - was filled with some activity. This seeped into English autumn as well, because the trees changing colour was just oh-so exciting, that I had to be out there *looking* at it. And here I am, in the middle of English winter, still pondering the joys of seasons. I love the cold. I grin maniacally as I cycle to work, infecting or disturbing my fellow non-car commuters with my four-year old joy at the frost, the biting cold, and the hope for snow.

And here are some maunderings about me & my work, or my work & my life, or my life, which is mostly my work:-

I remember being quite passionate and *into* my work when I initially started in full-time employment. My job then was more research oriented. I then started work in a private practice firm - I had previously worked in a private practice firm as receptionist / research clerk / general dogsbody and quite enjoyed it. I would have wildly fluctuating levels of enjoyment of my work, but I was also given a lot of freedom to do what I wanted if there was nothing else for me to do. Some days I would be holed up in the library researching, or typing madly, and others I would be surfing the net or reading a novel.

In full-time employment, I worked efficiently and well (I think) and liked best researching an area of law to make a legal argument. My favourite piece was a successful submission to an appeal tribunal: my written argument was incorporated, almost wholesale, into the tribunal's judgment. It was also a great piece of work because I overcame some major personal issues with the client and the facts presented to me, to make that legal argument. I knew when I was able to do that, that one of my major concerns with being a lawyer - the extent to which my prejudices would affect my work - was overcome. That was a great moment for an articled clerk.

I also liked the client interaction and just fitting the facts of their problem to a legal solution. It was, mostly, satisfying work. But there were lengthy periods when I questioned the value of what I was doing. Who was I helping, and why?

Then, I started working in commercial law. Although the work was pretty dry and there was very little client interaction, I found the mechanical work satisfying in its odd way. And it was very clear who I was helping and what I had to do to help them. I was helping a company make more money. Simple. I could put up with it because I knew it was short term, and I got given smaller pieces of research to keep me interested in the law (my bosses knew I liked doing research, and that was supposedly rare). It was like doing factory process work: satisfying when it's done for the simple reason that it is now done. But there's no bigger meaning behind it. Or what bigger meaning there was, was much too long-term and big to be comprehended.

I am now in an area that I believe I want to remain in. But I am not always happy. As a matter of fact, I am sometimes bored. Part of this is my own fault, and not the fault of the work. I could engage myself in it, but I don't. I think some part of me has changed, and I don't love doing this as much as I used to.

The things I like about being a lawyer is fitting a factual problem to a legal solution. What I don't like is that you may not agree with the outcome that you are assisting your client to obtain.

I did say something in a random conversation with my boss which surprised me as being both accurate and true (in that I did beleive it). I said that there is no reason why the people whom we help have to be deserving of that help. If they have the legal right, than we can assist them to assert their right. They don't have to be deserving people. Money should not be the barrier to people asserting their rights - but it often is.

It is very clear who I am helping now - each of the individuals who come my way - and why. It is tangible. But sometimes, I don't agree with it. And sometimes, I don't like it. And sometimes, I'm bored of it. Each of those feelings happens to me every day. And each work day seems to involve some navel gazing on my part. (Navel gazing is also not billable time, in case you're wondering).

Working in the law, on the side of the individual, is not satisfying work. Because you have an almost insurmountable opposition (the case law, the legislative law, the sheer weight of resources on the other side), but you have to believe that your meagre presence is worth something. That asserting a legal right, even if the odds are poor is important to the whole legal structure.

I believe this, and yet it is a hard pill to swallow. To put it into practise everyday is hard.

My 2008 looks set to be more of the same. I don't expect to come to conclusions about how I feel about my work. I do expect to post more often. Let's see how I go.

Happy New Year, all and sundry.

The Bluest Eye

2007-12-19T22:01:00.001Z

I finished this book on the train from one client meeting to another. For many reasons, the book struck me and I hope I was as moved as Toni Morrison wanted her readers to be.

This struck me:-

We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humour. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used - to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only agggressive; we were not free, merely licensced; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.
[p163 of my edition]

There are some books, and films that make me quiet inside. And there are others that have my mind racing. Incomprehensibly, this book did both, at once. As I walked through icy winds from the train station to my workplace, I thought about these words. I thought about being not good, not free, not strong. I thought about how I delude myself into thinking I am these things.

I thought, also, about another passage that struck me in the book. That struck me because it sounded like it could be about me - or at least (or worst?) an eloquent articulation how I am feeling about myself at the moment.

[H]e found misanthropy an excellent means of developing character: when he subdued his revulsion and occasionally touched, helped, counseled, or befriended somebody, he was able to think of his behaviour as generous and his intentions as noble. When he was enraged by some human effort or flaw, he was able to regard himself as discriminating, fastidious, and full of nice scruples.

As in the case of many misanthropes, his disdain for people led him into a profession designed to serve them.
[from page 131 of my addition]

I could keep on in this vein. I could keep typing out passages in some kind of homage to Toni Morrison's ability to hold a mirror to my view of myself, and of the world. I would be doing so mostly to impress upon you the need to experience Toni Morrison's ability to hold a mirror up to yourself. You will probably find different things that hit you where it hurts, that make you confront some ugly truth you don't want to admit about yourself. But you will find them.

The first novel I read of Toni Morrison's was Song of Solomon. Someone gave it to me thinking it was a rendering of the Biblical love story of Solomon. And certainly, it was something like that. (Not that I am overly familiar with Biblical stories, but I suspect Toni Morrison is.) I know, when I read Toni Morrison, that I will be horrified and saddened, and rendered so much more human because of my horror. But I have never before been so discomfited - and not because of the incestuous rape of a character by her father - but by the way she has implicated me - the reader of a piece of fiction - in the act.

I could more succintly say what all the above ramble means: You, too, should read The Bluest Eye.

More Randomness (Eight more, to be exact)

2007-11-21T22:49:00.001Z

Hedgehog has tagged me to do an 8 Random Things meme.

The 8 Random Things meme has a rules list. I don't like rules, especially the kind that suggest chain lettering. I guess that's what memes are: chain blogging. Anyway, I'll post the rules (cribbed from Hedgehog) but I'm not abiding by the rules. So there.

"Rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged."

Seeing that eight is the number of children in my family, I am going to tell you a random thing about each of them in order of seniority.

1. My eldest brother is the shining child of the family: a first born, a boy and born in the year of the Dragon. All things must go well for this brother, or else he betrays his lucky birth. Thus far, all things have been going pretty well for him. My eldest bro and I bookend our family well: he can do, and has never done, any wrong. I have been rebellious and troublesome since before I could even speak. My father's affectionate term for my mother is: Mother of [my eldest brother's name]. In contrast, my mother's term of annoyance for my father is: Father of Oanh.

2. Next in line is the Black Belt. The Black Belt is born in the same creature year as me (I baulk from typing Chinese Zodiac but I cannot think what else to call it. In Vietnamese, I would say he was born in the same year as me, but that suggests he is my twin.) This means that he is exactly twelve years older than I am. What else that might mean, I do not know.

3. Finally, a girl! I have great admiration for my eldest sis. She brought me up, is a wonderful mother and amazing cook, and she sure knows her own mind. Much like all the women in my family, actually. But eldest sis has been the one who has forged all the paths for the rest of us. By the time my parents got to me, they were too worn to fight my stubbornness.

4. Another girl! Next sister along is the most independent. She lived for a long time with my grandmother and grandfather, rather than our parents. She always held an aura of mystery for me, when I was young.

5. Another girl? This sister was the tomboy of the family. She and sister above pushed my uncle into the river. And held him there. When I was in primary school, it was her task to walk me from home to school and safely back again. She was impatient with my drifting, meandering ways, and my much shorter legs. She often arrived home without me and would toss her head disdainfully when my parents asked after me.

6. What? Another girl? Although this sister was closest to me in age, she felt the furthest away. She always seemed so much more mature than me. I put it down to her being girly; she, to me being pigheaded. I'm right, of course. After adolescence, however, we became, and have remained, quite close.

7. My brother breaks the chain: one more girl and a row and we would have all been princesses. Instead, he is spoiled rotten. This is very lucky for me. I would have made a crap princess.

8. And along comes me. You already know all about me.

I ain't tagging nobody. And no rules are gonna make me, either.

Also, I am going to be absent awhile (I know I've been pretty absent for ages now. Sorry.) I will be home, and filling my guts with my family's cooking: goi cuon, pho, banh xeo, bun nuouc leo, banh canh, crabs, and fabulous Brisbane food of all cuisines!

I am a Nerd!

2007-11-11T19:26:00.001Z

For a long time now, the tags list has been really bothering me. I much prefer a tag cloud. Del.icio.us first introduced me to the wonders of tag clouds (gmail having already introduced me to tags) and Wordpress has a tag cloud function. It has been annoying me that Blogger doesn't. Annoying me so much that I contemplated switching blogging platform over to Wordpress. However, I am attached to Blogger and Google otherwise runs my life, so I could not quite make the leap.

Although I was an early uptaker of e-mail and all things internetty, I sort of plateaued. I never learned any html (I cut and paste from other sites). Then I got my partner. When computery-type things go wrong, I plaintively say his name, elongating his single syllable into two. If things are really bad, I use three. Sporadically, and without much commitment, I google to find simplistic me a tag cloud maker. As you can see, just over there to your left, I have finally been successful.

Should you also wish to make a tag cloud and have otherwise not done so, here is the link.

I was so happy with the result, I thought I would make a thank you comment. So I surfed my way over to the original post. Plenty more people have been there before me, with their two cents: 370 of them. Mine seems pitiful, and possibly bothersome, so I haven't commented. Here, and this, seems a better forum to thank the tag cloud maker.

Phydeaux3, should you ever find your way here: Thank you. The list was really ugly. I like the cloud much better.

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Another Book Meme!

2007-10-28T19:16:00.000Z

Tagged by Lotus Life, who seems capable of magnificent motherhood, full-time work, study and blogging, while I struggle with work and blogging. I suck. But I forgive myself.

1.Hardcover or paperback, and why?

Paperback, all the way. Hardcovers are too heavy: you can't throw them into a bag to take with you, or slip them into a coat pocket, or justify lugging them up a mountain.

In my early university years, and when I was an Arts student, I used to wear a big beige coat that had two enormous pockets. In one pocket, a notebook, my house keys and wallet. In the other pocket, a beat-up paperback and a lollipop. I loved the freedom of those days, wandering the university campus at my leisure, unburdened by a bag and heavy books. I was into Beat literature at the time, so it felt very bohemian to be so unencumbered. The lollipop was to keep me going because I was too poor to buy food: the sugar sufficed until I got home.

I became known in my Classical Mythology class as "The Lollipop Girl". I did not know anyone in the class, so I used to sit alone, up front. The first few tutorial sessions that I went to did not suit me, so I changed. And the first time I introduced myself to my new tutorial class, one of the other classmates piped up with: Oh! You're Lollipop Girl. It's good to know your name at last.

2.If I were to own a book shop I would call it…

Ugh. I'm crap with titles / names. I would probably ask everyone I knew for suggestions, or some random conversation would titillate me and that would become the book shop name. And it would be rather convoluted, and probably not very catchy. Kinda like the title of this blog.

My bookshop would also be a tea room & cafe, pho kitchen, laundrette and cinema. Everyone who wanted to could hang out there for as long as they liked, with nary a purchase required. The tea room would have bird cages, but without birds, because I can't abide the thought of birds in cages. Maybe the bird cages would double as lamps. Long benches and chaise lounges and comfy arm chairs and cushions and lots of little tables would be dotted all over the place, and bookshelves of all sorts and sizes randomly abound. Turning a corner would confront one with a new vista of books and great chairs on which to sit.

And it must be a second-hand book shop. I will know every book that has come into the shop, but I will resist the temptation to alphabetise or categorise them, wishing instead serendipitous book discovery on my customers. I sort of want my book shop to have a cat, but I don't like that cats kill wildlife. So I'm torn on the cat front.

There will be tea of every imaginable description, and teapots, collected from charity stores, of all kinds. Oh! And the coffee paraphernalia. Lots of that too.

My cinema will be cosy and have sofas and side tables. I will show an eclectic selection of film: from anime to horror, art-house to thrillers, with a smattering of period drama thrown in.

And there will be a laundrette because every one needs clean clothes.

3.My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…

I really like a particular quote from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The quote is about both Atticus and his relationship with his children. It is written initially in high-faluting language and then ends in a great twist of simple childish slang, jerking us straight back to Scout's perspective.

Jem and I were accustomed to our father’s last-will-and-testament diction, and we were at all times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.
"Huh, sir?"

Like a lot of lawyers, I suppose, I love To Kill A Mockingbird. I identified quite keenly with Scout, and Jem was definitely my older brother, who is wiser and kinder than me, and whom I worship. Scout is a reading, blustering, naive and occasionally thoughtless, but mostly decent-hearted, tomboy. There's a lot of me in her.

4.The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…

Roberto Calasso. He is very much alive, and must have a lively, inquiring mind. He is the archetypal polymath, I think, and I would melt in his presence.

5.If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be…

Eh. I probably would not bring the SAS survival guide. I'd bring my Ba.

Book-wise: I really find this prompt an incredibly difficult one. I just can't get past the idea that if I'm on a deserted island, I probably did not plan to be there so I wouldn't know what book I will have with me. And it will have to suffice, won't it? It's somewhat contrary, because I don't have any difficulty hypothesising about an author whom I would like to lunch with, or detailing my imaginary bookshop/tearoom/cinema.

I know that the idea behind the prompt is what one book could I read over and over again, and which would keep me from going insane all on my putative lonesome; I just can't think of one that would fit that bill.

6.I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…

held my books and kept them dry in the shower! yeah!

7.The smell of an old book reminds me of…

other old books: The Life Line Book Fest! I have posted on this over here.

8.If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…

I usually want to be a character in every book I am reading, although not always the lead, and usually someone who is already remarkably like me but better in some way.

9.The most overestimated book of all time is…

The last Harry Potter. Enough said.

10. I hate it when a book…

has lost pages in the middle and you did not know about it when you bought it.

I once purchased a second-hand novel by Richard Brautigan, without realising that it was 'seconds' rather than second hand. My partner started reading it first and churned his way through the first 100 or so pages only to find pages 101 - 157 (or thereabouts) missing. I have never seen him so upset with a book in my life. He threw it across the room, then retrieved it, only to tear at it and, dramatically, bin it. I'm glad it was not me who started reading the book. I'm not sure I would have been so restrained.

I'm craparama at tagging. But I think Katie over at Minor Revisions should give this one a go, to distract her a little from her woes, and also Galaxy, if she can incorporate it into her current segues, and N.T if she can be bothered - (in my comments, as her blog is not a talkie-one).

Sugar Bananas

2007-10-08T21:39:00.000+01:00

[Warning: This post is all about bananas.]

Wandering through Brick Lane on Sunday with my partner and a friend, we cross the sprawling pavement sellers of myriad goods, commenting on how chaotically like South East Asia it was to be wandering along a crowded street, dodging bikes and touts. Ahead of us, boxes of bananas were stacked up, and a woman calls out: "Normal bananas! Baby bananas!"

I walk past glancing curiously but with no intention of buying anything. "Baby banaNAS!" I take a few steps past her and then say to my partner: "Sugar 'nanas? I have to look." I walk back and look down at the boxes of bananas: they were indeed little, about the size of my thumb. I stop. I pick up a little bag of bananas. I peer closely at their skin: yes! It is thin, strongly indicative of the super sweet sugar bananas of home. I put the bananas down. I have had a huge lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant on Kingsland Road and I am much too full for bananas. What's more, I don't want to have to carry them all over London, before heading back to where we live in Southern England.

I look over at my partner and friend, who stand amidst the chaos, waiting patiently for me. To the woman standing near the boxes, I say: "How much for the little bananas?" "One pound," she replies. "For each hand?" I ask, confused. Each hand is bagged separately, but some have only three fingers, and some have more than ten. "For the box," she says dismissively.

I am heady with glee. One pound for a box of precious sugar bananas! For the many months that we have been in England, I have been eating cavendish (mostly fair-traded), not even my preferred lady fingers, which we used to buy at the Green Market from a man and his bewildered son, who grew them on their farm out near Gin Gin. In the supermarkets, you can only get cavendish - or dark green lady fingers. No thank you! We eat bananas almost everyday, on our morning cereal and muesli.

I rush over to my partner. "They're only one pound for the box! AND they're sugar 'nanas. Can I have a pound?"

He hands me a pound, wordlessly, and I run back to the stall.

Beside me, a man caresses one of the little bananas and leans in to me: "These ones are good," he says conspiratorally. I look down at the box he indicates, his hand resting proprietorally upon the lovely yellow bananas, still green tipped and the skin so fragile I can almost see it bruising under his fingers. I reply assuredly, my own hand on the box I want, "These are better."

Transferring my box of sugar bananas into two bags, I return to my partner and friend. "Look!" I say, with joy. "Aren't they cute? And they're sugar bananas."

Sugar bananas are tiny bananas. They are, perhaps, the smallest variety: no more than 3 or 4 inches. They are a brighter yellow than cavendish or lady finger, but because they ripen quickly and their skin is no more than a millimetre thick, they are often brown. The flesh, too, is more yellow, a creamy transluceny with clearly visible, but tiny, seeds. My mother likes hers mushily soft - I prefer mine slightly green tinged and harder. It is a battle, at home, of whether the sugar bananas will last long enough to be as ripe as my mother likes, before they have succumbed to my greed.

I am reminded of my mother when we were first able to get sugar bananas in Australia. She came home from the markets triumphantly nursing a large bag of bananas that looked much too ripe for my palette. My mother would often come home from markets with treats for us: bags of sugar plums and rambutans for me, if they were available; durian, mangosteens and custard apple for my sisters. The first time Um brought sugar bananas home from the markets, I was disappointed not to have sugar plums or rambutans. "Don't you remember these?" Um said to us. "I do!" One of my elder sisters took some bananas from my mother and started peeling. I wrinkled my nose at the over ripe smell, and wandered away.

At dinner that night, my mother uses a spoon to slice bits of banana, eating them with her rice. She breaks off a banana to give to me and I say no. "You used to love these," she admonishes. I shrug, a little sulky that I had not got rambutans instead.

The next day, I am looking for fruit to eat. My mother suggests I eat a banana and I say no. She sighs and says, "There are greener ones in the rice bin, but don't eat them all." In our rice bin are many more hands of the little bananas, and none of the lady fingers I think I prefer. I take out one, mostly green tinged, but with bits of yellow. It is kinda cute. I can eat it. I poke its skin and it browns straight away, which does not please me. Nevertheless, I peel and eat it. It is wonderfully sweet and much more pungent than other bananas. I take out another. And another.

My father saves some of the smaller bananas (he hides them from all of us, deep in the dark recesses of the pantry), he dries them out and tries to collect the miniscule seeds. A few years later, we have our own sugar bananas growing in our backyard orchard. I don't know if they come from the seed, or if (as he is wont to do) he has asked for a cutting from the sellers. They don't fruit as often as the larger banana, but they give my mother greater joy. Our house ceases to have lady fingers and I eat only the tiny bananas. Cavendish begin to look obscene, and much too large to be eaten.

Slowly, since living away from home, cavendish drift into the norm. They are the easiest to obtain, the most widely available, and the only ones with fair trade stickers. Even lady fingers have faded from my memory in this green and pleasant land. But, for this week only, fair trade, locally produced succumb to the pleasures of sweet tiny 'nanas. I can eat four in a sitting. Oh, joy.

Walking Home Again

2007-10-01T22:24:00.000+01:00

I had a couple of experiences which jolt me with surprise about how I view my safety.

1. Walking home from work

I walk home from work through a large expanse of park, called 'The Common'. I find this an exceedingly pleasant way to end my working day. With the long summer hours, I can even walk home when I have had a late day at work. I tend to change my working shoes into running shoes, and I leave my work shoes at work, under my desk.

Other uses of The Common are fellow walking-commuters, evening-exercisers, dog-walkers and youthful layabouts. I say hi to the exercisers and dog-walkers, but my fellow walking-commuters ignore me (and I them), and I am much too uninteresting for the youthful layabouts.

A couple of weeks ago I was walking home and otherwise meandering inside my own head. There were three youthful layabouts, two female, one male, sitting on a park bench. As I passed, one of the girls said something, which I knew to be aimed at me, but which I did not quite hear. The tone was derisory. I chose to ignore her. Then she spat at me. Frothy white goop landed at my feet; I stepped over it and kept going. Behind me, the boy shouted something I could not make out and all three started laughing. When I got home, I was shaken. No one has ever spat at me before. I have had racist comments yelled at me. I have had sexist comments yelled at me. I have been grabbed, and held, by a mentally unstable man - I did not feel threatened by him and managed to extricate myself. I have had a broken bottle shoved into my face, also by a mentally unstable man, and again, I did not feel particularly threatened (although I was scared). The spitting was just uncalled for. And it made me feel unsafe. (I half knew the man with the broken bottle would jab it in my face).

2. Walking to the shops

I walk to and from the grocery stores. Not too long after the above spitting incident, I was walking home with my shopping. Picture, if you will, a young east-Asian woman in a pinstripe suit with a grocery bag under each arm - one bright orange, one hessian - just minding her own business and perhaps frowning a little as she carried her heavy groceries home. Going in the opposite direction, on the other side of the road, were two young women and one young man. The young man shouted something at me, which sounded like: ra ra ha ha ra. And then there was laughter. I stopped. I went to turn towards them to say something - anything - back. Except I did not know what. And the thought that ran through my head? This is not a nice area. I've heard of cars being burnt here. I walked on in fear. About a few metres later, I got really angry. I hate it when fear prevents me from defending myself against inanity.

3. Running through the Common

I occasionally (I've done this once, but I would like to more, hence the choice of word) run through the Common on my way home, for excercise. Usually when I run in the Common (on weekend mornings) I stick to the large paths. My partner on the other hand has waxed lyrical about how lovely ducking into the woods themselves are.

On my first afternoon run, I took the large paths, then darted off on a walkers only path. I ran up beside the lake and saw a lovely path into the forest, that twisted enticingly out of view. I took it. I ran until I came to a junction where three paths crossed. I chose one that veered off in the direction of home, as it was about roughly time to circle back again. The path I chose got narrower and narrower, and windier and windier. I leapt fallen trees and dodged nettle as much as I could. Then the blackberry bushes grew so close together I had to use my hands and shoulders to clear my path. I had turned so much I no longer knew which direction I was facing. I heard laughing voices in the near distance. I freaked out, did an about face and retraced my path back to the junction, back to the walkers only path, back to the nice large open concreted-over path. Heart thumping more from fear than from the exertion, I jogged on home again.

Not only had the laughing teenage voices reminded me of my earlier unpleasant encounters, I realised that no one knew where I was. My partner knew only that I was running home, via the Common. He would not expect me for another hour, would not start to worry for perhaps another two hours. I know that I would not, in his position. Work would not realise until the next day, and no one knew which direction I headed off in anyway. Only my partner and work would note my absence in the short term.

When I lived in a share house and went running in the early mornings, I drew a map of my planned path and my expected return time for my housemates. I almost always returned before any of my housemates even aroused themselves from sleep. Only one housemate, in my five or six years of house sharing, even saw my map. But I felt much better with the thought that, if I did not return and there was a note to say where I had been, someone would think to come looking for me.

When I lived with my parents, the rule was that I would inform them if I would not be home before dark. In my early university years, my mother got used to me walking out of the house calling out not to expect me home before her bed time. I once overheard my mother on the telephone to my aunt, complaining about how I was always out and she had no idea where. I tried a few times to tell her I was at a library until it closed, but she did not believe me. I think she wanted to believe that I was out with boys, taking drugs and partying hard, rather than holed up on the fourth floor of the law library with casebooks, or the second floor of the arts library with journals. At worst, I was in a cafe or movie theatre with friends. My juvenile delinquency never did get off to the right start.

I have got lazy. I do not do the little things anymore that make me comfortable doing activities which otherwise put me at risk of the nebulous thing out there that is dangerous to young women. I forgot to live in fear, because I have my mobile phone and my partner is well-versed with my habits. But the fear has come back in this New Place, so I need to find my parameters again.

Clearing my head

2007-09-21T21:09:00.000+01:00

At the beginning of this year I made a wee promise to myself in relation to this blog: I will post regularly. Up until the last post, I was doing reasonably well; not frequent but at least regular. Then it all fell apart.

I don't have any good excuses. It just happened.

Partially, I have been distracted by thinking about my future. It means I am unable, and unwilling, to think too hard about anything else.

I don't like posting when I have not thought something through and much of what thinking I did do this month was only half thought. I will probably find this post unsatisfactory when it's done, but I have decided I should write, and post, irrespective. It will be what it is, and then I will be back here writing posts that will interest you and satisfy me, again.

Partially, I have been focussed on the mundane aspects of existence. Eating, sleeping, working. And repeat. It does not make for exciting writing, nor is it overly inspiring. I spend my workday planning what I will eat for supper. I spend my time cooking my supper thinking about my workday. I spend my time eating my supper feeling sleepy. I sleep dreamlessly and wake unrefreshed.

Partially, I have been obsessively on Facebook. I am learning to regulate myself - but I do have an addictive personality. It's frightening when the first thought on getting home is: I wonder if so-and-so has played their move in our Scrabble game?

Partially, my partner and I have been making the most of English summers. This means disappearing Friday evenings, or early Saturday mornings to some public-transport-accessible part of England and happily rambling about, and not arriving home until late Sunday, when we have vegemite on toast for tea.

And partially, I have not written on this blog because I have been missing my family too much. When I start thinking of something that I could write on this blog, or something about my family, the corners of my mouth edge downwards and my bottom lip juts out. This blog is too much about my family, and too much about Brisbane. I haven't worked out how to move it on yet, or if I want to. I'm just avoiding confronting the emotions by avoiding the space. It's a tried and true coping mechanism.

Autumn Leaves

2007-09-02T19:30:00.000+01:00

English summers are much like Brisbane winters: the sun is bright, the skies are crisp blue and the temperature is mild (in the mid teens Celsius; I haven't a clue Fahrenheit). And both are short-lived. I do love Brisbane winters.

In a few days, it will be autumn here. I am looking forward to autumn, having never experienced it before. My sisters’ favourite poem/song when we were younger was ‘mu thu la bay’ (In Autumn, the Leaves Blow). It is an epic poem about a young, beautiful girl who falls in love with her tutor. He has to leave her in the autumn. Like all good Viet poems, he goes off to war and dies. He never comes back for her, and in autumn, with the leaves falling off trees and blowing around her, she remembers him. Autumn is a poignant and nostalgic season.

Intellectually, I understand this and I recognise the symbolism. Viscerally, emotionally, the images of autumn do not evoke much response in me.

In my formative years, I read the autobiography of Jill Ker Conway (The Road to Coorain and True North). I mentioned it in a book meme. I loved how the landscape and environment grounded and influenced Jill Ker Conway's life and writing. I also interrelate with my environment; I have always personalised my living and working space, and find my moods affected by weather.

My lack of understanding of the English landscape, flowers and plants somewhat disorientates me, and at the same time reminds me that I have to learn, rather than refer to innate knowledge. I am eternally curious about berries and fruits and plants. When we walk in the countryside, I pick and squish and smell and peer. My partner continues on ahead and I chase him every few metres: I linger as something catches my eye, then I run to catch up. I was so happy to find acorns, in their cups, at the height of summer. I had never before seen an actual acorn - the symbol of old England is the gnarled and majestic oak - and the acorn speaks of mysterious connections. I am finding my place in this landscape of soft grass, nettle and acorns.

From early childhood, I wondered how my father related to the Australian environment and the ways in which it was different to Viet Nam. Of all my father's children, I have the vaguest memory of him as a vibrant man. For more than half my life, my father has been ill. But I can call to mind images of my father striding along a beach, or casting out a net and hauling it in with regular, assured movements, or the graceful swing of his arm as he cuts up fish, or the way his huge hands cup fluffy baby chicks, the same hands that will wring their necks in a few months' time. It was wonderful to see my father in Viet Nam, in land that he knew innately. He rested, elbow on the prow of our long tail speed boat, and he looked out at the Mekong. He looked like that land owned him, and he knew its ways. He squinted at the sky and said: It won't rain tomorrow and everyone - local Viet and Viet Kieu alike - believed him. And he was right. I can't describe how much Ba belonged to the Delta area, how he seemed to stand more erect and the pride of the land swelled around him. He shrunk again in Sai Gon, and then back home in Brisbane. But I got a meagre glimpse of who my father was before he came to Australia and I knew that the landscape infects my father, too.

*****

The leaves outside my office window are turning yellow and dropping off. I watch them curiously, and a little nervously because I want them to turn yellow, and then red, and then brown, and then (and only then) may they drop off. They don't mean much to me, these autumn leaves. But I am in a phase of transition now and I wonder if I will attach to autumn the fluttering emotions that currently affects how my identity is swilling into formation here.

The Bureaucracy

2007-08-22T22:07:00.000+01:00

I have been filling out forms, lately.

I am terrible at filling out forms. Especially important ones that relate to me. I am very good at filling out forms for other people. After all a lot of my daily work involves form filling. (The life of a lawyer is a glamorous one, my friends.) From when I was young, I filled out forms for my parents and translated for them: Social Security forms, mortgage forms, citizenship application forms, medical forms. You name it and I have probably filled it out.

The form currently occupying my time is my "Becoming a UK Lawyer" form. It has more illegible crossings out on it than any I have filled in so far. I peer at the question and think: What do you mean? Does that apply to me? I recall having similar difficulties when applying to become an Australian lawyer. Perhaps it is the last way the system can weed out the unsuitables: If you cannot fill out this form, buddy, you're probably not cut out to be a lawyer.

The section on forms in the UK that bother me the most are the 'diversity' questions. A limp appendage to the rest of the form, this part comes last. There is a tick box (yes/no) for whether one has a disability and then a blank space where one can be artful in the description of one's deviation from the able-bodied world. Next, is my favourite question:

Please describe your ethnic background.

Instead of a few blank lines, like the disability question, there are 8 or so tick boxes.

They are:-

1. White / Irish
2. White / British
3. Indian
4. Pakistani
5. Bangladeshi
6. Chinese
7. Mixed Race
8. White / Other

I am flummoxed by these choices. I am exceedingly reluctant to tick the "White / Other " box. So I don't. I'm not white. But I do fit into a lot of 'Other' categories. Instead, I write in the empty space: Vietnamese. There, I am recognised. That part of my form will probably just be discarded as it cannot be inputted into a database and will therefore count as "no response".

I love the Mixed Race choice. You just tick it and then there's nowhere for you to say what mixture. It is as if, once you are a mongrel, the ethnic heritages that go to make up YOU are irrelevant. Mixed Race is a category of itself. And perhaps it is: an additional layer that is more than its composite parts. Nevertheless, I expect the parts that make up the whole are important to the individual. Important enough to be put on a form, anyway.

Rain

2007-08-15T21:34:00.001+01:00

I have started to complain about the English weather, instead of being my usual chipper self. It has rained, almost without cessation since late May. I can recall two weekends of good weather in the last two months.

My umbrella, a farewell gift to me from my former place of work, could take the battering no more. Admittedly, it was neither wind nor rain that was my brolly's death knell. I sat on it. I heard a little crunching sound, which I blithely ignored. The very next time I opened up my umbrella, one arm flopped sadly. Although the brolly still protects me from the rain, the broken arm taps a staccato rebuke upon my head.

My trouser legs are not protected by any umbrellas, broken or otherwise. The bottoms of my jeans get saturated whenever I walk in the rain, which is almost every single day. Unaccountably, my right leg is better at avoiding puddles than my left: my left trouser leg is wet to mid calf; my right only to my ankle.

If there is rain, Brisbane is never far from my mind. Whenever I wake up to rain, my first thought is: I hope that's falling in the catchment area. This is one of my more unrealistic thoughts. I catch myself before the thought fully materialises and chant a little reminder: You are in England. Someone else is living in my house in Brisbane and it's their job to hope that any rain falls in the catchment area.

Existential Angst

2007-08-12T23:43:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do. I am a little aggrieved that I still experience this level of adolescent angst about my place and value in the world. Surely I would have (should have) grown out of this? Surely one reaches a point in one's life where one can say: Righto. Here I am and this is what I do and I am content.

Part of my problem is that I just don't like full-time working. It's not that I am innately lazy (at least, I hope not).

There is so much that I want to do, and learn, and read, and write, and observe, and muse, and create - and full-time work does not allow me the time to do very much of it, and sometimes, it does not let me do any of it.

And sleep. I resent sleep too. Why do I need so much of it?

Made in Viet Nam

2007-07-31T21:40:00.000+01:00

Today I am wearing all clothes made in Viet Nam (with the exception of underwear, socks and shoes). My t-shirt, which I've decided is fancy enough for work, is a turquoise North Face t-shirt and it has a label "Made in Viet Nam." My suit was tailor made for me in Hoi An.

I and my sisters had a ball getting clothes tailor made for us. The lovely tailor was surprised to discover we were sisters; the three of us are a sample of the different-ness of the girls in my family. Though I am youngest and brought up on nutritious Aussie food (har har), I am also shortest, and darkest, with a mop of unstyled long black hair usually pulled back and away from my face in a pony tail, although wisps escape to pester me and dismay my otherwise tidy appearance. My eldest sister is willowy slender with lustrous black hair cut in a becomingly jagged way. My other traveling sister has quite pale skin and light brown hair, also layer-cut as is the fashion.

I am a bit casual about my appearance, and even more so when traveling. My two sisters are much more coiffed and presented. It took us a couple of hours to get ready in the morning: I showered first and was ready in about 15 minutes: I put on one of the three quick-dry trousers I had packed and whichever t-shirt came to hand. Each of my sisters spent what felt like a lifetime getting ready, while I itched to go exploring. I found myself doing stretches and exercises to kill the time while I listened to the shower, then the hair-dryer, then each of my sisters crossing the other's path back and forth from bed to bathroom.

It was quite a revelation for me. I am separated from my sisters in the family by a brother. Until we were teenagers, I shared a bedroom with my brother. Until my brother got embarrassed by his younger sister hanging around, I spent most of my play-time with him. I briefly shared a bedroom with my sister but she could not stand my untidiness and sleep-talking. One of my elder siblings (I can't remember which) saved her by marrying and moving out: then she and I got our own bedrooms. I was about 12, my sister about 15.

Our travel photos are perfectly illustrative of our differing styles. Like good Viet-Kieu tourists, we took a photo of all of us outside every monument we visited. In most of the photos, I am in exactly the same outfit (especially in Ha Noi, where it was cold, so I am in jeans and the one jumper that I brought with me; and in Hue, where it was raining, so I am in jeans and my red raincoat). Each of my sisters, however, were in different outfits, in different pictures. I trawled the thousands of pictures we three had taken: only rarely are my sisters wearing the same clothes twice. Although, one of my sisters took greatly to an outfit made for her in Hoi An and wore it quite a few times.

When we got to Hoi An, we went hunting for a good tailor. The decision of which tailor was made randomly, I think, and based upon who was nicest to us. The tailor we chose was so nice that her brother drove us to a restaurant for dinner, where I forgot that I was not supposed to give money away and promptly gave some to a young girl who asked and we were then accosted by a whole bunch of kids, one of whom became tearful when I said I had run out of coins (it was true, I had no more coins). The restaurant proprietor shooed the kids away, and my sisters and the proprietor looked at me very disapprovingly. I looked ashamed, and felt a bit silly, and then secretly pleased because I'd fallen for a trick that was written in the Lonely Planet Guide! I'm a sucker like so many other people, which makes me kinda in a book!

We spent about three hours at the tailors, getting measured up and choosing fabrics. I was a great disappointment to the tailor. I wanted three trouser suits in conservative fabrics (black pinstripe, navy-ish and beige-ish) with conservative cuts. I wanted one matching conservative dress and one matching conservative, slightly above-the-knee skirt.

The tailor kept trying to persuade me towards a more fashionable cut, a more revealing skirt, or another item that was funky and young. In the end, she chose to cut my clothes rather tightly, and slit the dress either side so that it was halfway up my thighs. I asked her to let out one of the trousers, and had every intention of asking her to let out the others as well, but her brother rushed my trousers to their factory out of town, and rushed it back again in minutes. I felt bad so I just took the other trousers as they were. I'm yet to wear the dress, although the suits are worn in random rotation every day of the working week.

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

2007-07-25T18:44:00.000+01:00

I don't know why, or how, I came to Margaret Atwood so late in my life. She seems to be the perfect author for me and, as prolific as she is, I seem to have read much more of her non-fiction, than her fiction. I read Cat's Eye on holiday.

One of the things that struck me most about this novel was its insightful portrayal of relationships among girls and women. The protagonist, Elaine Risley, is a successful painter who returns to the town of her childhood, teenage and early adult years to attend a retrospective of her work. Alone in Toronto, she begins to reminisce about her life, and in particular her friendship with Cordelia: her nemesis, or a foil, or the example of what the protagonist herself could have become.

This post is not a review. Atwood's work is excellent, and I highly recommend her if you haven't read her already. Like much else on this blog, this post is about ME.

Cat's Eye got me thinking about my relationships with girls and women. I was a resilient child; I grew into a resilient adult. I had a large family and network of siblings and cousins of both sexes. At home, I was closest to my brother in age and, as a child, in games. I don't remember my very early childhood years but my mother's anecdotes tells of a brash, outspoken, cheeky and rather confident brat. I haven't changed much. I am hoping any child I may have will not be like the young me (I'd like her to be much better behaved!).

The first primary school that I went to had kids from a mish-mash of many and varied cultural and ethnic groups. I formed friendships with almost everyone: Indigenous kids, Islander kids, fellow Viet kids, Chinese kids, Lebanese kids, Greek kids. They were all girls.

Even in early primary school, I knew we weren't 'cool'. We were generally excluded from games of 'tiggy' (a chasing game) and I, in particular, was banned from 'catch and kiss' (I had punched the last person who caught me, before he could kiss me, because he grabbed me around the waist. I did not play by the rules.) We spent our lunch hours in one corner of the playground. There must have been a reason for that, beyond mere choice. After all, the monkey bars and the swings were in the diametrically opposite corner of the playground. I remember playing on the monkey bars and swings AFTER kids had left school for the day. So there must have been someone preventing me from doing so. I have no recollection of who they were, nor why. Although I'd be quite happy to take a racialist stab in the dark.

In grade five (aged eight), we moved from inner city, mixed class, multi-cultural, to outer suburbs, blue collar, mono-cultural. I and my brother were the only two Asian kids the school had ever seen. The school I attended was a very small school, which was a shock to me. Previously, there would have been more people in one of my classes, than in the entire school. It was not large enough to form cliques, so most of the time, everyone played with everyone else. But there was the occasional spat. I got into fights a lot. I have previously posted about one particular not-quite fight.

Grade 5/6 was when the social outcasting bullying set in: I would have been 10/11. My brother was in grade 7, the last primary school year, at the time. At that age, everyone was at markedly different stages of physical development. I was still small and weedy and childlike. So was my brother. Some of the girls who were my friends had begun to develop breasts and hips, and a giggling interest in boys (still germ-filled in my eyes). Some of the boys had a swagger and were heads and shoulders taller than everyone else.

One rainy lunchtime, I came out of class to sit with the usual circle. As I fought for a space between two people, they turned their backs to me, shuffled forwards and closed me out again. I got up and went to sit beside someone else, also in the circle. The same thing happened. I persisted and sat there eating my lunch in a strangled silence. A few of the group got up and moved. Then, one of the girls came over to me. She had, a few weeks earlier, declared that she was my best friend. She whispered that everyone was unimpressed with me because one of the boys, whom another of the girls liked, might have a crush on me. That boy was my brother's best friend, and he was, of course, full of cooties. While she was talking to me, her head swiveled back and forth; she was watching how the other girls were reacting to her talking to me. "I hope you don't mind," she whispered, "but we've all agreed not to hang out with you", and then she scuttled back to the group, who were by now all facing towards me, hands menacingly on out-stuck-hips.

I remember being bewildered, and not saying anything, but feeling that it was absolutely necessary that I did not move; that they move. So I just stood there, looking back at them. I may have looked sad or fearful or confrontational. I don't really know. It did feel like I had done something wrong, but I was definitely not going to say sorry. And they had not exactly done anything to allow me to lash into them, as Craig had. They whispered together, giggled together, and then left. After they had gone, I deflated, and slunk off into the library.

The next day, I did not bother. I went to join the kids in the junior school and sat with kids 2 to 3 grades below me. I played on their swings and monkey bars and fortresses. I played chasey and skipping rope games again, instead of sitting around gossiping at lunch.

Though my friendship with the older girls re-ignited, it never felt true afterwards. I was wary. And if they shut me out, I defended by disappearing off to have more fun with the younger kids. Some days I just played their games, which were much more fun anyway.

In high school, three girls one grade older than me decided I would be fun to pick on one term. Wrong choice. They gave me a nickname (midget), because I was short, and I hung out with girls, one in particular, who were at least a head taller than I was. One of my friends became quite friendly with them, which was fine by me. The three would be sweet as pie to me when my friend was around and horrid to me when she wasn't. My friend did not understand why I didn't want to spend time with them, like she did.

I had quite quickly developed a reputation at high school for being arrogant - I presume because I was reasonably confident in my abilities, and tended towards cold silence when angered. I do recall being hurt by them, but I always did my utmost not to show it. When they taunted, I stared at them and waited until they left. If I was walking by, and they would begin to taunt, I would stop and look at them, stubbornly standing still until they went quiet. Then I would move again.

I broke my silence, once.

I was walking along the crossover area between the grade nines and grade eights, going to class, I think. I was by myself, as frequently occurred. Ahead, I saw the three girls, surrounded by a bunch of guys, one of whom was my friend's boyfriend. One of the girls called out: "There goes lonely little midget. When is she going to get a friend?" I stopped. I turned towards the girls. My friend's boyfriend said: "Oh, leave her alone. She's alright." I spat at him: "I don't need YOU to defend me. I'm FINE on my own." I started to walk off when one of the girls began laughing: "I know what gets midget. Someone CARING about her. Not so tough now, are you midget?" I straightened my probably already ramrod straight back and kept walking.

The girls moved on from taunting me; they probably found another target.

University was different: there were no obvious cliques at university, and the cool girls who would have done all this alienating stuff just did not seem to be around. But they were back again at the very first job I started. Silence and staring does not work so well when you have to co-operate together on projects. I just pretended I was part of the group during working hours, and ate my lunch with other people or by myself, and let the sniggers behind my back be just that: sniggers behind my back. My clothes were not as nice, and I did not like the same movies. If they couldn't be my friends, they were nevertheless work colleagues. They might not like me, but they were definitely going to respect me.

The cliquey work girls did respect me: they sought my advice and assistance when things went wrong. And I would give them my advice and assistance, and raise an eyebrow and sigh when they excluded me from invitations to lunch or nights out.

In a moment of blogosphere coincidence, Minor Revisions has a wonderful piece on this intangible form of bullying, called "Why don't you like me?" I like Post-Doc's mum's advice: (paraphrasing): There are too many people in this world and they can't all like you. And there will be worthwhile ones who do like you.

That's good advice.

I can hear my defensiveness as I proof-read this post. I am defensive. It does hurt to be excluded. But if people don't like you, that's their problem: just as long as they respect your work. Now, I figuratively stand still and stare people down: I stare them down with my work.

Doubling Up

2007-07-21T10:07:00.000+01:00

I have to own up. I have received some awards, for which I feel very flattered, and a little taken aback. Because I get taken aback, I try not to think about it. Then I get hit with the same award.

I am a rocking girl blogger.

I am totally chuffed.

Thank you to fellow rockers, Kirsty, from Galaxy of Emptiness, and Hong Lien, from The Lotus Life.

And, er, I have to own up to having received some other awards earlier on in the year when I was still struggling with getting internet connection, a job, a home, that sort of stuff.

I was so flattered and a wee bit flabbergasted by the award I, um, pretended I did not receive it.

That's not entirely true.

I just did not further publicise that I received the award(s).

I was amused, however, that both award givers said almost exactly the same thing about me: [paraphrasing], "Oanh doesn't post frequently, but when she does ..."

So, thank you, to Sume from Ethnically Incorrect - one of the very first kindred spirits I found on the web - and Legal Eagle - who unleashed my inner law nerd into the ether.

I'm going now before my feet twist into a knot, together with my ducking head and I disappear into my own inability to accept compliments.

Conversations with my parents

2007-07-12T21:07:00.000+01:00

Conversations with my parents are not especially long.

Prior to leaving Brisbane, my father fell sick again. I ditched appointments and farewell lunches with friends to sit in hospital with him, listening to him regaling me with stories of his childhood.

Many years ago when Ba fell very sick the first time, and we had not been talking for ages because of what he perceived to be my wayward behaviour (I moved out of home before I was married - gasp!), I sat in hospital with him until the wee hours, when the nurses would regretfully kick me out. Some of his hospital time coincided with my exams, so I took my books into his hospital room and sat beside him, studying my exciting law texts while he slept. Once, he shook me awake - I had slumped over my text books, resting on his tea tray - and told me to go home. His first illness was the turning of our relationship. I liked being in the hospital with him because it was one of the few ways I could express that I was a dutiful daughter, even though my values were not his. We did not talk much, initially. Then I began to ask questions about his life in Viet Nam, questions I'd never really asked before. He would talk and talk at me, but only when we were in the hospital room together. I would go home and scribble frantic notes.

The most recent bout of hospital time, I sat listening to him tell me about how much he liked school when he was younger. He paused and said: When you are in England, you must telephone your Um & me every three weeks. Promise? I was bemused by the precision of the instruction, and said: Yes, okay. Every three weeks.

I have not quite kept the every three week rule: I am a bit absent-minded and time slips away from me.

My first conversation with my parents was very brief.

Me: Hello Um. It's me Oanh. (Actually what I say is: it's your child. I don't always say my name, which seems silly given how many children my parents have, but they always know it's me. I wonder what my siblings say to identify themselves?)
Um: Is that you, child? [aside] Old Man! Your daughter is on the phone!
Me: Yes.
Ba: Oanh?
Me: Yes. Are you well? (not knowing who I am speaking to, anymore.)
Ba: What time is it there?
Me: (I tell them the time). What about you? What time is it there?
Ba: (He tells me the time. I don't tell them that I have worked it out). Are you cold? Is it cold there?
Me: Yes. It's cold. Are you well?
Ba: Where are you calling from? A phone box?
Me: Yes. We are still staying in a hotel.
Ba: Well, this phone call must be costing you a lot of money. Are you well?
Me: Yes. Don't worry about it. It is not costing very much at all. And you? Are you well?
Ba: Yes. I am well. Your Um is also well. Is there anything else? Are you okay? Your partner, is he okay?
Me: Yes.
Um: I am well. Are you cold?
Me: No. Not really. It is cold here.
Ba: Well, goodbye then. Call again.

The phone dies before I even say goodbye. I stand shocked in the phone box, staring at the receiver in my hand.

My next three conversations with my parents follow exactly this pattern. I find it somewhat funny. I never get the opportunity to tell my parents I miss them (in Vietnamese, the word for miss is the same as the word for remember) or that I love them. I am not even sure exactly what words I should use to tell my parents I love them in Vietnamese. I have never told them. This worries me, because I am so far away now. I feel I should tell them, but I don't know how.

I had the following conversation with one of my nieces, who has previously appeared as Grump on this blog. She is starting to talk in complete sentences.

Me: Hi Grump! How are you.
Grump: Good. I ate pasta today, so I get to have some special (dessert).
Me: Hey, lucky you! Do you miss/remember me?
Grump: No. Oh. Mummy is telling me to say yes. Should I say yes?
Me: [laughing] No. You don't have to miss/remember me. What did you do today?
Grump: Well, I was playing with my cousin until Mummy told me to come talk to you.
Me: Oh. Well, why don't you go play with your cousin again?
Grump: Okay. Bye!

My family do not waste time on sentiment.

My mother is currently grilling me on how I obtain Vietnamese groceries. She lists what the family have been eating, and how she remembers me at every meal, particularly when she cooks my favourite dishes. We had crab the other day, she says. We all missed you. Then she says, This weekend, I am cooking banh xeo. You like to eat banh xeo so much. We will remember you.

I had the longest telephone conversation with my parents, ever, this morning: about ten minutes. The ritual is completed first: time, weather, health. I half expect my father to harangue my mother to hang up but I get in first and tell them that we have a telephone deal where it only costs me about six Australian cents per minute of chatter with them. I then plough on and tell them that I hope my sister is showing them my photos, which I have posted to a website. My mother says no. Then she remembers something: Your sister says you have been walking a lot. I have to agree to this. I do walk a lot. My mother tells me not to. I try to tell her that I am walking for fun, but then I just let her lecture me and I make listening noises. She then tells me about her weekend, how great Bunnings [a hardware / homewares store] is. I listen.

Then she says: Is that all? Do you want to say anything else? Here's my chance! I think about which words to use, how to tell her I love her without sounding too formal, or ponderous. No? Okay, call again. Bye. And she has hung up, and I have missed my opportunity.

In another three weeks, I shall try again.

Sweet Potato and Okra Curry

2007-07-01T17:54:00.000+01:00

It was only a matter of time before I started posting recipes.

****

One largeish onion - diced
A couple of cloves garlic - diced
One tin of tomatoes
A teaspoonful of garam masala
A teaspoonful of ground tumeric

One large sweet potato / kumara - diced
A handful of okra - topped and tailed

Plain yoghurt to accompany the meal (or you can chop some chives into it, like I did)

I used elephant garlic from the Isle of Wight's Garlic Farm. Elephant Garlic is enormous! It is much milder in flavour than usual garlic and is fabulous roasted (but it takes an awfully long time). It is a lot more liquid than usual garlic and seems to have a somewhat bitter aftertaste. This is not a problem when roasting, but it does seem to be a problem when saute-ing. I don't usually mind bitter flavours, but because I used about half a head of garlic, the bitterness was overpowering the other flavours. I dealt with it by adding some palm sugar to take the bitter taste away.

Saute the onions, and when softened and translucent, add the garlic. Throw in the garam masala and tumeric and fry into a nice paste. To prevent burning of the spices, you can add a little bit of water to the mix.

Add the tin of tomatoes and stir into the spice/onion/garlic paste so that the colour becomes consistent. I love this part: I find thoroughly enjoyable watching the colours merge, and the consistency of both sets of ingredient change to something altogether different.

Once the tomatoes and paste have unified, throw in the diced sweet potato. Cook without a lid so that the sauce reduces, but if it's getting too dry, add a little water and perhaps put a lid on, so that the sweet potato cooks through. I like mine still a little bit crunchy.

Towards the end of cooking, add the okra. Put the lid on to cook the okra - it's cooked when it changes from dull green to bright green.

Serve with rice, accompanying yoghurt and, if you're me, soy sauce. I eat soy sauce with almost everything.

Homesick (second instalment)

2007-06-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

I miss our Green Markets, under the beautiful Port Jackson figs at Davis Park, West End. I miss the stall I dubbed 'the crystal cave hippies' with their gorgeous carrots, silverbeet and occasional broadbeans, all handed over with long-fingered purple sparkly nails and a smile. I miss the Islander man with his root vegetables, and the banana guy and his young, bewildered son. I miss the lovely old Greek couple who bickered even as they tipped home-grown and sun-ripened tomatoes into our shopping bag. I miss the happy hippy organic folk, who chirped away at me as I collected our weekly groceries and who invariably gave me an extra peach, or some cherries, or a handful of snow peas.

I miss the smell of chai, simmering away. I miss watching all the satisfied people sat under trees eating their scrumptious breakfast of scrambled eggs on rye with tomato chutney and rocket, or French toast with berry compote . I miss the people whom I bought free-range eggs from: I thought they were a cult, with their matching t-shirts and singsong sales pitch.

I miss the abundance of sprightly flowers, which I frequently bought to spruce up our house.

I miss my fellow market-goers: the regulars,like me, for whom it was their weekly shop; the gasping newcomers darting their heads right to left, and back again; the cyclists wobbling away with their fresh prizes. I don't miss the people who insisted on taking their dogs shopping with them. Or the little girl who stuffed a Paris Hilton type dog into her shopping bag. I don't like dogs all that much, but that's no way to treat a sentient animal. I miss the buskers and the young children boogying away in front of the one-man band (I don't miss the one-man band cacophony, although I admire his energy). I particularly miss the woman with her husky voice who channelled Janis Joplin, off key and out of harmony, but -oh!- the gusto.

The vegetables in England are droopier. They have travelled a long way to be here. (I wonder if I am droopier - I too have travelled a long way to be here.) I had expected that, because of England's colder clime, fruit and vege would last longer. But they do not. Broccoli goes yellow after a week, and the stem gets all bendy. Carrots flop.

We try to source locally, but it is difficult because fewer things can grow locally, and the market does not support them. We have to be willing to give away half of our weekend to buy local food.

I am learning what is seasonal; in Brisbane you rarely have to worry about what is seasonal (no seasons, you see). I've been delighting in fruit and vegetables that prefer cold: broadbeans, blueberries, okra; and the joys of strawberries and cherries as we hurtle through summer. I'm eager to see what autumn brings, and what we will eat in the fallow months of winter.

I have eaten many more potatoes here, in the last six months, than I have my entire life. Rather too many of them have been in the form of chips.

And I am slowly forming my impressions of the people at the local farmers' market. They are less characterful, so far, then the Green Market folk - but that may be because I know them less well. Before long, I'm sure they'll all have epithets, and I hope some of them will start to recognise me.

On Blogging

2007-06-20T19:05:00.000+01:00

While I was transferring some of my photo-blog posts over to this, my talkie-blog, I found something I said early on in my blogging days:
"Is this about books or pictures? I really wouldn't know. I keep having a lovely internal discussion about web-blogs. I won't replicate it here - I would have to spend some time composing an essay." That was on my photo-blog.

I said this on *this* blog: "Clearly, I have somewhat altered the purpose of this blog, by mere fact of this post. Who knows what it will bring."

I started this blog to document my family story. I stopped because I got a computer in which to store my family story and because it was difficult writing and delving into that story in such a public environment as a blog. The blog started becoming about race and identity - because that's a key theme in my family story. Then it kind of evolved (devolved?) from there to be generally about me - this was the fault of writing some things about LAW. I'm not quite a Blawg (law-blog) - nor do I want to be - but I am a law nerd and I do love the law, so I think about it a lot. And sometimes, I just needed to shout out about the law. I think the fact that I started writing about books also drifted the theme of the blog away from race and identity.

I still am very interested in race and identity; it's just hard work thinking about those issues all the time. And somehow (and so far), in the UK, it's less of a concern. Perhaps this is because I AM a foreigner here. So whenever anyone asks me where I'm from, Australia is the answer. And people permit me to respond with 'Australia' (they're kind like that). They don't proceed to ask me where I am *really* from (not like in Australia ...). I am not bothered about clawing for belonging here, because I do not belong. I belong elsewhere, but the clawing there has been suspended.

Rather, I continued with the blog because it was a wonderful exercise in writing, and I let more of myself onto it. I think if you read this, you know me pretty well. I am still reasonably careful not to reveal too much (ie. my address), but sometimes I wonder about the extent to which we are worried about privacy.

One of my greatest bugbears is when a client won't tell me something, using rights-wielding words such as "that is my private information." I have no qualms explaining to people WHY I need to know the answer to the questions I am asking. I have a duty not to go blabbing about their personal affairs to all and sundry, and, indeed, I have a duty not to even tell anyone that they have come to me for legal advice. I want to scream at him/her: I am your legal advisor: you must tell me everything that is relevant (and I am a wee bit better placed than you to judge whether it is relevant). So can I have that information now please? It's not me pruriently prying into your private life. It helps me to advise you fully - and you do want that, don't you? Because I don't want it to come out in court and have me standing there smacking my forehead for not knowing about whatever it is that was oh-so private.

I wonder how 'private' such details as my home address or phone number actually are, when I tell you in florid detail how I feel about a book, or how an individual has treated me. Surely my thoughts and feelings are more private than my contact details? But I don't intend to reveal my contact details. *I* have consented to revealing information about myself. But the people around me have not.

I am also reasonably careful not to write about my employer, or my clients (except to rant in a general way about their existence). I am careful when writing about my family, and friends. And I let my partner vet anything I write about him.

As I have said before, I consider myself to have a digital persona: she has bits that are more exaggerated, or under-emphasised than the me-in-real-life who gets on with her daily life: her household chores and her paid work. We are the same person, but our representation is slightly different. Equally, my representation alters depending on whether I am in a social environment or a professional environment, or with my family, or with my partner. We're all me, but I'm not a lawyer when I'm with my parents, and I'm not an aunt when I'm at work (except that there's a picture of one of my adorable nieces on my workspace). The digital environment is just another place where, though I am still me, I won't behave as e.g. Oanh Lawyer or Oanh Girlfriend.

I did discover that as I wrote, my categories and labels became fluid. I could not really separate race, from law, from gender, from literature. They're all part and parcel of how I see the world, and how I want to explore that in my writing.

Ah, but I digress.

Why do I blog?

The pre-dominant reason is because it is structured writing. Of a different kind to what I do in my daily work, and different again from my dead-tree journal writing (although a lot more like it).

I don't have the kind of blog that tells you what I am doing and thinking moment-by-moment (because I find those blogs riveting for a while and then just mind-numbingly boring). Taken to the extreme, it's Twittering. Which is an inane phenomenon, according to toi (that's me in Viet - bada bam bada boom). I don't even have, anymore, a themed blog. It just is.

I do like each post to be unified - to begin, and to end - and to be *about* something (even if that something is mundane).

I also enjoy the phenomenon of the blogosphere - my commenters and the places I comment; how my thoughts are enriched and expanded upon by others; how things I haven't considered are brought to my attention. I love that I am connected to people all over the world from where I am: the obvious places (Australia, UK, North America), the less obvious but still 'I get it' places (Viet Nam, Malaysia, Philippines) and the bizarre: Uzbekhistan. Granted, the visitor from Uzbekhistan might have been a friend checking in on me while she was travelling - but I don't know that for certain. And my Uzbekhi visitor might not visit again but s/he found me! How did s/he find me? Did s/he get something of value or did s/he roll her/his eyes (just another Viet-Australian lawyer in the UK moaning and groaning about books, movies, identity, and law. ho hum.)

I have many more regular visitors than I have commenters. I am, naturally, very curious about them. Who are you guys? How did you find me? Will you stay? (This is not a plea for you to de-lurk. You are more than welcome to continue lurking; I don't mind. I lurk on plenty of blogs. I am curious though.)

But it is also the commenters in the blogosphere who have me the most worried. On my own blog, I'm yet to encounter trouble - but I'm worried about it. On other blogs, I occasionally get myself bogged down in the comment stream - you get sent off in all kinds of directions - and then you just have to stop. I find the endless comments exhausting. Like the moment-by-moment blog, I am initially riveted and then I am drained. Like watching a car crash, or a pub brawl: it's fascinating, but ultimately does not add anything to my character (or shames me with my own voyeuristic tendencies).

I also get worried about how my time gets sucked into the whirlpool of other blogs - what I like to think of as the Charybdis of the blogging world - and my own blog writing. I think of myself sometimes as Scylla - blogging monster of many heads, grabbing ships of inspirations and sailors of ideas, spitting them out again with vim and some venom. Sometimes, I am Ulysses (or any other mythical Greek sailor who did not make into the canon): I have to navigate a path between Charybdis (reading too many blogs, sinking and disappearing off the edge of the world) and Scylla (self-destructive castigation about blog writing).

I think there is value in blogs: the reading and the writing win out over the inanities, misinformation and time-sucker. But then, I'm biased - because I am a blogger and I think I'm here to stay. There is a world of rubbish out there: rubbish which is equally present in published media whether it be newspapers (here's looking at you, News Ltd) or novels or non-fiction. There is also a panoply of wondrous stuff - more than you will ever read. You find your place, like you do in the real world, and then you enjoy it, learn something and hopefully enrich others too. But the best part is: it's you who makes your blog world - you don't have to be a passive absorber of stimuli: you can create and participate. (I'm so Web 2.0.)

Inspired by Sophie at Sarsparilla, Pavlov's Cat, a snippet from a very brave post by Galaxy and as challenged by Cee, many moons ago.

Home Sick

2007-06-12T19:46:00.000+01:00

I miss many things about Brisbane, my family being number one on that list. Inextricably linked with missing my family, I miss the food: my family's cooking, the proliferation of fabulous food places near my home, and the Green Market every Saturday.

I have been ill last few days. Given that we arrived in UK in the middle of winter and this is my first major flu-like illness, I've done quite well. But I woke one morning with the most horrific sore throat: each time I swallowed, it felt as if I was choking on razor blades. Behind my right ear, some cruel pixie was hammering away; all my muscles had liquified but, inexplicably, my joints had become rock-hard.

Everything I ate that day was like cardboard; chewing was a chore and swallowing was distinctly unpleasant. When the food hit my belly, I felt queasy. For lunch I had a salad baguette, but the cursed sandwich-maker drowned my salad in mayonnaise. It was horrid. I passed the rest of my day in a moochy fuzz, which took my workmates aback as I am usually cheerful. I got two bad phonecalls in the late afternoon: one of which effectively destroyed my client's case; the other intimated that the next day would be a flurry of frantic activity in which I would need all my wits about me. I put the receiver down and put my head in my hands, tears pooling just behind my eyes (I suck at being sick).

The best way to deal with feeling so bad is to mock oneself; I wailed: I want my mum! My workmate looked over at me. Oh! she said. What brough that on?

When I am sick, I want to eat chao. Only one person makes it better than my mum does, and that's my eldest sister. When I was a wee thing, I often came home from school all scraped up - I got into a lot of fights. Occassionally, the whole household (me included) had to pull an all nighter to meet a clothes deadline (we were a home sweat shop). My eldest sister would cook up a pot of chao thit (meat congee) which we ate to keep us going, and so that Um did not have to cook a proper dinner.

I can recall quite clearly a particular occassion when I arrived after a rather unpleasant walk home and being told that I would have to neatly fold the mountain of cotton t-shirts in the living room. I was very good at looking pouty when younger (I still do a good line in pouts these days), so when my bottom lip stuck out and my eyes got all mournful, my eldest sis said: There's chao thit in the kitchen. Get some and then come help.

I sat myself down at our octagonal dining table with a large bowl of chao and a porcelain spoon. The rice had been cooking all day and was a soft gelatinous mess intermingled with pinky grey gems of pork mince and dark green rectangles of thorny cilantro, slices of spring onions and sprigs of leafy coriander were liberally sprinkled on top. I added pepper, chilli and soy sauce as I went. Each spoonful revived me. I said to my sister, who was working nearby: I don't know what you put in this. It's like medicine. Um lovingly turned my words into a family anecdote: it is about her appreciative youngest daughter, and her skilled eldest one.

That is still my iconic chao memory. Every chao I eat now is an echo of that perfect bowl: little me at a table, legs swinging and my petty woes peeling away from me as each spoonful of hot, nourishing mushy rice slides down my throat, filling my belly with comfort and love. If anyone got sick, chao started simmering alongisde our usual dinner. We also had chao as late night suppers. There were many video nights that my siblings and I had when we were in our teens, which comprised chao in between b-grade horror movies and Hong Kong martial arts flicks. We got fancy with our late night chao: it became chicken chao, fish chao, crab chao - anything we could think of to add to the pot got thrown in. Some worked and became family standards; some were salutary lessons in mixing flavours.

None of the chao that I cook ever tastes as good as Um's or my eldest sister's, but it's what I make for myself when I'm feeling poorly. The best chao is made with leftover rice. Because I do not eat rice everyday, I have to make chao from scratch*; I'm too impatient for it to turn out the mushy consistency I like, and that is so wonderful on sore throats. Often, I make a clear soup instead - but it's chao that I really want, and chao that will heal me.

* There's a Viet word for uncooked rice, that distinguishes it from cooked rice. I am not sure there is an English equivalent.

Belated BIFF 2006 Round-up

2007-06-07T21:17:00.000+01:00

Well, the time draws nigh when, if I were in Brisbane, I would be getting all excited about another BIFF: Brisbane International Film Festival. Seeing that I won't have the opportunity to see any BIFF movies this year, I shall mark the occassion and dampen my nostalgia with this extremely belated post.

Let me start with our selection process. You see, BIFF runs for 10 days and shows “more than 200 films” (from BIFF's promotional). I have been doing this ever since I turned 18 (some of the movies have not been classified by the Office of Film and Literature Classification – Australia's resident censorial board – and so one must not be of tender years and disposition to watch). My first ever BIFF, I saw five films. Each year, it increased as I got more money. Then, for my 21^st, my delightful family got me a you-can-go-to-every-single-session Gold Pass. Plus they gave me some spending money so that I would remember to eat, too. Most years, I fall sick following BIFF – too many late nights, too little food = immune system kaput.

The very first thing to do is ascertain what you can afford money-wise and time-wise. These days, money is less of an issue and time much more so. Back in the good ol' university days, it was the other way around. I keep telling myself that I will take my annual leave during BIFF – but it seems like such a waste. I'm just hanging around the city, after all.

Next, you purchase the BIFF programme. Sure, there's a free one – but it doesn't tell you anywhere near enough information to ensure a well informed and suitably discriminating choice. I nevertheless pick up a few of these free ones and drop them off to friends and acquaintainces; to encourage them.

Then, you make a list as you read the programme cover to cover. The list should have three symbols (you may chose what symbols you wish, but I prefer the following):-

* - must see

@ - really want to see

~ - want to see

The way I ascertain my must sees / really want to sees and want to sees is a combination of factors: director (very important), whether I predict wider distribution, country of origin, synopsis, reviewer. No one factor takes precedence over another. Although predicted wider distribution will usually rule out a film pretty quickly.

Last, you try to convert your list of movies into a workable timetable. This is the tricky part as you juggle clashes and (sigh) working the 0830 to 1800 grind. In 2006, we had the aid of a spiffy Excel spreadsheet – colour co-ordinated and all.

I have a few film buddies, and they sometimes derail my choices. This is okay – it's part of the fun. One of the joys of BIFF is being told by a fellow film buff, or even a complete stranger, how great a film was, and when it's next on. Then the balancing act of whether to remain with the well thought out timetable or throw caution to the wind and exchange tickets. I've seen some real gems in the 'throwing caution to the winds' fashion.

And then, for about two weeks, you rarely eat at home, you rush from work into the cinema, from one cinema into another and then stagger home, exhausted from the visual and emotional stimulation. Then you wake up and start it all over again. Oh, and you have to drink plenty of coffee and eat lots of chocolate. Sadly, halfway through this year's BIFF I had to give up coffee. I was a tetchy zombie for a good part of BIFF.

But I suppose you are more interested in the films?

This is a list of my highlights.

I'll let you google the synopses and give only my impressions. If you saw / will see any of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The expected delights:-

- Jan Svankmeyer's Lunacy

I have loved Jan Svankmeyer ever since I first saw Conspirators of Pleasure. He has such a tactile appreciation of how humans interact. This one showed lots of slabs of steak and sausages rolling about and working their way to empty skulls to flesh them out, as a thematic structure for the madhouse goings-on of the plot.

- The Cave of the Yellow Dog

By the same director who made The Story of the Weeping Camel, this is another vehicle for a nomadic Mongolian family to show off just how incredibly cute their children are. My favourite part is where the young girl – who is effectively the lead – keeps trying to bite the middle of her palm (part of a lesson her mother teaches her). “It seems so close, yet you cannot have it,” Mother says. And Mother is right.

- Everlasting Regret

By Stanley Kwan, he of 'Lan Yu' and 'Red Rose, White Rose' fame. Mesmerisingly shot, stylish and quiet – one gets a keen sense of the main character's desperation and sheer determination. You could compare it to In the Mood for Love if you were being lazy.

The quirky joys:-

- Executive Koala

A koala in a business suit, who works for a rabbit (also in a business suit), goes on a killing rampage in Tokyo. The finale battle scene where everyone revives, hugs each other and then fireworks go off is inanely delightful or delightfully inane. I'm not sure which.

- Princess Racoon

By Seijo Suzuki, who also did Pistol Opera, this stylised mythic opera with hip hop, blues 'n' roots and a fabulous ultra-pop duet is sheer aural and visual over-stimulation. And the golden frog that says “kerop, kerop” like all Japanese frogs do is hilariously weird.

- Men at Work

A Turkish film about four men who go on a drive somewhere (we never do know where), see a big phallic rock and decide it must be toppled. Their heroic attempts come to naught but they recruit passers-by in their obsessive quest, in the meantime revealing much about themselves. Wonderful dialogue.

The sublime films:-

- Into Great Silence

In 1982, the film-maker approached a monastery in Switzerland - Le Grand Chartreuse-, reputed to be the most ascetic in the world, for permission to film on location. The monastery said they were not ready and that they would call. More than a decade later, they do call the film-maker to say: We are ready now. With very little dialogue and intermingled with three repeating quotes, the audience enters the contemplative life. We watch monks pray, chop wood, have lunch and garden. And we watch them play on the side of the mountain. I used to want to become a hermit. This film only flamed that fire.

- The Play

Women in a village in Turkey decide to put on a play about their lives, and in the meantime explore facets of themselves and gain a heart-warming self confidence. Feminist consciousness raising in a very grass-roots fashion indeed.

- Book of the Dead

By a Japanese animator, this film could not be described as coherent, but was certainly beautifully crafted.

- Bashing

This film opened my eyes to a phenomenon I was unaware of: the approbation received by Japanese who had volunteered in Iran, were kidnapped and then released unharmed. Returning home from this ordeal, a young woman finds herself discriminated against: in her work, on the street, at a convenience store. She is spat upon and alternately lectured and ignored. An interesting exploration of ideas about selfishness and patriotism / parochialism.

- Death of Mr Lazarescu

A Croatian film about a man who is dying and trying to seek help. We are privy to the incomprehensible hospital bureaucracy, and its callousness. Being somewhat familiar with hospitals, it is sad to say that there is little difference between a former Communist country and Australia.

The Disappointments:-

- Terry Gilliam's Tideland (don't bother): some fabulously fantastic images. Otherwise a story lacking in something – I think it was heart, but it could also have been convincing plot (even within the surreal realm it established) or characters you cared about.

- Mongolian Ping Pong: could have been charming and just wasn't.Oh, and it took too long.

And the interminable:-

- The Neighbour no. 13: overwrought and meaningless horror, with an attempt to stuff meaning in.

- Longing: A German movie I can't for the life of me work out why I chose (director perhaps?); my partner insists that it was my choice and, unfortunately, I am honest enough to admit that it probably was. I have this to say in my notes, made during BIFF: Waste of energy. Should have slept.

- Corpse – in which I did fall asleep. You probably won't get the opportunity to (it is an Australian surreal film, made in the mid-70s), but if you do, avoid.

Rick Stein's Seafood

2007-06-01T21:46:00.000+01:00

Months ago, when I told a friend we were going to Cornwall for my partner's birthday, he suggested in awed and hushed tones that I try to make a booking for Rick Stein's restaurant, which was in Cornwall, somewhere. The friend is a gourmand. I like food but I'm a little lax with my celebrity chef knowledge. However, always amenable to suggestions about where to go for good food, I googled Rick Stein and discovered that he has not one, but four, restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall, UK.

That's a bit excessive, thought I.

His website is very good, with pictures and menus; I had a good look around and decided that, for the occasion, I should book Seafood, although the fish&chippery was probably more our style.

I left it a little while but my friend's words reverberated hauntingly in my ears: if you can get a reservation. It was a month and a half before our planned holiday. I had not asked work; we had not booked anything. Oh, how much effort is an email? I berated myself and sent one off.

The reply came back: Why, discerning marm, we do have a reservation - but only at 9:30pm. Would you like to make a booking? If so, please telephone us and provide a credit card number.

I should have known: my instincts are rarely wrong. I really did not like the tone of that email (I've paraphrased). I thought: oh, how ridiculous to have a reservation but only at 21:30, and to require a credit card for the booking. I already feel the restaurant is not for the likes of me - but the recommendation is in place. I telephone and give them my credit card number.

Thereafter, we make our accommodation bookings and it is nowhere near the restaurant but we have a hire car for the weekend, and Padstow is really not very far from our accommodation.

The roads in Cornwall are more twisty and turny then we expect.

I have packed a nice dress to wear. I put it on. I stand in front of the mirror for a while; I walk down into the lounge and sit there, trying to gauge if the dress is okay. I walk outside to ascertain if I will be warm enough. I won't. I return to my room and put on tights. The dress is pale, and my tights are black. It looks all wrong. I remove the dress and put on my jeans, and a black shirt. There. I look fine. Not very elegant but fine. My partner looks lovely and I tell him so. He grimaces at me but the compliment is returned.

On the fateful night of The Booking, it is drizzly. Visibility is poor and I am reading the map. Both things mean that we are bound to get lost. Luckily, we only miss one turn. The journey however has been tense, with both of us craning our necks forward, wary of other cars, wildlife and the wet road. When we finally reach the restaurant 45 minutes later, we discover that the car park requires all-night payment, and we have not brought small change.

Never mind, I say, I will ask the restaurant. We go in and are skeptically greeted at the door. I smile and say that I have a booking. The maitre'd does not smile and looks my name up on his computer. He permits us to enter the restaurant with a disdainful gesture. I smile again and say: "I'm terribly sorry but could I get some change for the car park?" The maitre d' continues to look unimpressed but tells us it is unecessary and that no one will check in the poor weather. I am rule abiding and a little torn, but the maitre d' looks like he has no intention of giving us any change. We go to our table.

Beside us on one side are an interesting couple. I think they are old friends catching up: there is sexual frisson but of the safe kind mixed in with a little jokingly unsubtle innuendo. They also strike me as landed folk and/or country posh. She is beautiful with long dark hair and an aristocratic nose. He is also reasonably attractive but with a weak chin - something I associate with the middle child in a posh family (too many costume dramas for me). He wears a pink shirt, with cuff links; she is wearing a wrap-around dress. They both drink a lot.

On the other side are another couple, who strike me as travellers. I am pleased to see the man is wearing jeans and a t-shirt; the woman travel (quick-dry) trousers and a fleece jumper. They are eating crab and laughing. I like them instantly, and more so when he proffers her a crab claw with the words: "here, have a paw."

I am too self-conscious to take any photographs especially as all the wait staff seem to descend on us. We are served by at least six different staff, only one of whom smiles at us. The maitre d comes to take our drinks order and his top lip remains disdainful as we order only one glass of wine; I ask for water for both of us. Another waiter brings the drinks to us, and places them on the table almost as an afterthought. He flounces off. I wonder where to.

Our order is taken by a surly waitress. We have ascertained that we are both feeling overwhelmed and out of place, so we take the easy option and go for the tasting menu of 6 main dishes, dessert and petit fours. In comparison to the better-than-you attitude of the staff, the tasting menu is on a tatty piece of A4 paper. I think about pocketing it so that I have a list of the dishes for future reference. However, I don't wish to ask the staff if I may take it and have them patronise me further for being a hick. And I don't really want a souvenir of the place.

The meals themselves were reasonably good, but most do not follow Rick Stein's model of "good food, cooked simply", which I see as we leave. No it wasn't! I say to my partner, pointing at the sign. The crab and rocket salad was lovely, and the steamed mackerel was also very good - but a little salty. None of the other dishes stand out but I do recall that the main fish dish of pollock was a bit tough, and drenched in some creamy sauce. That's not what either a good fish or good cooking of that fish should be like; fresh fish is silken and crumples on your tongue and fish should be set off with a sharp, but complementary, flavour.

Dessert - panna cotta - was decidedly disappointing.

To be fair to Seafood, we were a little out of sorts and perhaps did not choose the best dishes for our tastebuds. But rest assured, we won't be dining at Seafood again (especially if I am required to book more than one month in advance). Rick Stein still has three other eateries in Padstow with which to redeem himself, and my vote is on the fish&chippery next.

links

2007-05-30T14:47:00.000+01:00

Two things I don't do very often:

1. Post frequently.

2. Post blogs that link you to the things that I have been looking at, in close proximity to when I actually look at them.

Number 1 I am trying to do something about, sort of. Well, I've created a rule for myself such that I post *regularly*, rather than frequently. I think I'm doing OK, but it does make my posts a little more conversational, and a little less narrative / essayist. I prefer the latter, but the former will suffice. Until I can merge the two.

Number 2 I am about to change now. I don't think I will continue with this, however.

For the people who read my blog and are interested in my law side:

Austlii is in funding trouble. I could not have survived law school without Austlii. I especially loved the transcripts of High Court cases, almost contemporaneously with when the case was being argued. I followed the case of McBain (about a single woman's right to IVF, kind of; actually more about constitutional law issues - woo hoo!) like it was a serialised television progamme. There sure were some cliff-hanger moments ...

Thank you to Legal Eagle for drawing that to my attention.

If you wish to assist Austlii to keep its services free, you can contribute here. I certainly will be, as I am of the view that, now I am earning, I can give back. I am sure there are doppelgangers of my young law nerd self lurking at the library computer terminals avidly following the advocacy, banter and witticisms of Australia's best lawyers. Oh, and you may use Austlii for educational purposes too but, like, whatever.

For those of you who read me for my Viet side:

VietK - whom as far as I can tell is neither a Queenslander nor an Australian and therefore has shamed me somewhat in being more abreast of what's going on in my hometown than me - has blogged about one of the stories at an exhibition at the Qld State Libary, featured in the local rag.

For those in Queensland, please go see this exhibition and then report to me. I am so annoyed that I am not in Australia right at this very moment!

I hope there are other reasons to read me than my law-ness and Viet-ness but today I feel compartmentalised.

chao.

Update
Blogger has been doing something funny. It kept chewing bits and pieces of this post - so some of you may have a random garble. I disclaim all responsibility.

Google is taking over my life

2007-05-27T20:55:00.000+01:00

I have google analytics and I like to look at it every now and then. Sometimes I forget it's there but recently I received an email telling me they made it all fancy-schmancy. And it's great! It's much more understandable for non-technological me, and right on the front page it has what I am really interested in: the keywords people have been using to find my site.

For a long time now, this post has been the biggest hit. This makes me sad, because it means whoever is reading, or contemplating reading, that wonderful book cannot find a more prolific writer's review of it. I google it to check, and there it is, me at the top. (yes yes vicious cycle, I know. But honestly, I don't do that a lot. About every 6 months or so).

The one that is making the most hits of late are split into two: Ghosts and banh canh - and like a tensely run race, those keywords keep leap-frogging each other.

I love my banh canh story. I hope the people googling recipes for banh canh stay to read my story. I aim for more posts like that one, and fewer babbly ones like this one.

My reviews are not particularly objective - I like to put myself into my reviews. I would expect that if people wanted something useful in a review, or some literary criticism, they know where else to do searches, rather than using google or other web search engines. I am trained in literary criticism, but I prefer to provide my emotive responses in this blog. I also enjoy reading emotive reviews. I'm not such a sucker that I don't know the difference between a critical review, and an emotional review - or indeed the parts of a review that are critical and those parts that are emotive. Ideologically, I am a perspectivist (as well as the other things I have declared in the past) - so pointing out my position and perspective is vital to how I present most of my ideas.

I am really pleased that no ew-y people have come by this site by typing in unsavoury things. I'm not going to type any here because then that gives them the keywords - but those of you sensitised to the exoticisation of Asian women will know what I am on about.

For a small period of time, someone had found my site by typing in keywords that suggested to me they were not looking for the types of things I write. Nevertheless, they had a fine old look around my site, but did not seem to revisit. I trust they found something worthwhile ...

Warning - Illustrations!

2007-05-16T23:12:00.000+01:00

Just in case any of you have me on RSS: You may be bombarded with posts - I am transporting posts from my photo-blog to this one (and back-dating them), with the intention of binning the photo-blog.

All will calm down, eventually.

In case you aren't on my RSS and want to have a look at the old posts, you will find most success by using the 'Illustrated' tag, just over there, to your left.

thanks!

Paradise Now

2007-05-16T21:47:00.000+01:00

I finally watched this film, over the weekend.

The highest praise I can give to a movie is that it is well made. I remember one of the best ever comments on an essay I wrote was: "well written." That was all, and I was beaming. Since then, whenever I read a book, or see a movie, that I thought was particularly good, I think: "well written / made". Not really the most useful review, however. (Not that this post is a review, except in so far as it says: It's good. I reckon you should watch it, if you have not already.)

This film is about two young men, who are given a suicide bombing mission. The mission does not go to plan. As a result, the audience is presented with an insight into why each of the young men (but one in particular) has decided to accept the mission. It is a tense movie, exploring the issue from a number of angles. The film is set within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the young men are Palestinian.

I like the myriad ways one can read the title. Paradise Now: could be a statement that where we are at the moment is paradise, or an impatient demand for change, or ironically drawing attention to the poverty and despair of one's current situation. These meanings come to play in the film; it is what makes the film so very interesting.

The complex reasons for why one of the young men, Said, chooses to partake in the mission are laid out carefully, and subtly. There is talk - Said persuades the mission leader to take him back - but there is also demonstration - Said asks his mother questions about his father. The reasons are so much more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were some very powerful images: Said, with bomb strapped all around his chest, staring into a bus and deciding whether or not to get on; Said leaning against his mother's window, watching her prepare food; Said's friend (I've forgotten his name already!) torn between what he believes, and being a good friend.

The film reminded me of the reasons why people choose to do extreme things for a cause, whether removing oppression is possible without violent means, and of my own family's attitude towards war.

One of the main reasons that Said chooses to participate in the suicide attack is because of his father. Although he has reasons connected with the overarching conflict, his greater concern is his family's dignity. Said's friend's decision is much less complicated, and much more passionately intertwined with the conflict: he is oppressed and he hates his oppressors (that is simplifying it somewhat - after all, there are good reasons for why he hates his oppressors). There is also a young woman - she is the first image of the film that we see - who is the daughter of a martyr and who passionately believes in non-violent means of change. She makes an argument that you may be familiar with: the value of showing to the world the criminality of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and the poignancy of being seen as victims, rather than aggressors.

I do not know suficient about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to brave an opinion. But I do understand that there may be reasons worth dying for, even if I do not think I would ever believe in anything enought to die for it.

In university, I demonstrated. When I asked a young woman to join me (in a peaceful Reclaim the Night march), she refused and proffered the following reasons: her parents had emigrated from an Eastern European country to Australia for fear of persecution for their political activity. In Australia, her parents had been persecuted for their past political activity in the Eastern European country. She would not participate in public political demonstrations.

I recall being surprised by this, and (because I am egocentric) relating it to myself: my parents emigrated from Viet Nam because they did not think they could make a life under the incoming communist party. They were not engaged in the political dimensions of the war around them; I always understood their reasons to be very simple. For the entirety of my father's life in Viet Nam, there was violent conflict - Viet independence from the French, WWII, the American-Viet Nam War, the Viet-Sino War, the Viet-Cambodian War. My father was a nationalist - but he was also very principled and he thought everyone was corrupt. He was quite disengaged from the political aspects of the wars: it did not matter what they were about, they always inhibited his making a life for himself and his family. All my parents wanted was a good and peaceful life in which they and their children could prosper, one they did not think they could have in Viet Nam. It was only when the American-Viet Nam war occurred, and when the Viet Cong won political power that my family felt it was unbearable to continue trying to make a life in Viet Nam.

It is more complicated than I am currently explaining, and probably more complicated than I - or even any of my family members who made the decisions - understand. But the reason my family left Viet Nam was not because they held a political view that communism was wrong.

I believed that my family was pacifist. This was borne out when my maternal grandmother, normally mild-tempered and sweet, threw a riotous tantrum and threatened to cease speaking with her second-youngest son when he indicated that he wanted to join the Australian Defence Forces.

It surprised me then to learn from my father's reminiscensces that he had wanted to join the South Viet Nam army, before he was married to my mother. Ba told me he thought it was a way to get away from the hard work of farming and fishing. Because Ba is a dutiful son, he asked his mother and father for permission. From what my father has told me about my paternal grandmother (Ah Ma) and from what I know of literary tropes, Ah Ma was a stereotypical dowager empress type: strong-willed and manipulative. Although Ba was not one of Ah Ma's favourites, she appreciated his hard-work and general aptitude at most of the things he tried his hand at. Ah Ma found a family with a marriageable young woman (my mother!) and married my father off to her. (I will tell that story in better detail another day.) Now, my father could no longer join the army as he had a wife, and would very soon have children, to support.

During the American -Viet Nam war, my father's primary concern was how to keep his growing family fed. He did what he needed to do: during the day, if he was found, he assisted the South Vietnamese army; at night, the Viet Cong. He tells me of occassions where he would build a bridge during the day, and dismantle the same bridge at night. Mostly he spent his time evading either army and working with whomever would take him on.

I have always known that my family are not strongly politically motivated. The paramount value in my family is the continuation and prosperity of the family. When I watch movies like Paradise Now, I am moved to wonder what would motivate me to take extreme action, or even actions that are politically dangerous in a more oppressive political climate than the one in which I grew up (Australia). I am much more politically and ideological interested than my siblings, but I think I would behave more like my father (preserve at all costs) than like Said in Paradise Now.

I have participated in protests and demonstrations: anti-war ones, feminist ones and a few feminist anti-war ones. I recall one particular march from my early university days, protesting the introduction of voluntary student unionism. I did not know anyone else on the march, and I looked different: I wore all black (I almost always wore black, back then. Not goth black, just kind of boring-please-don't-look-at-me black). I befriended the people nearby me: a young woman in flowy skirt and wild red hair, and a young man in brightly coloured clothes. The march was mostly peaceful but I somehow found myself in a group that was attempting to storm the administration block. When I realised what was occurring, I tried to leave. As the crowd surged forwards, I was edging out and away. People shouted at me, and I shouted back - such articulate things as: No! Stop! Stop it! Let me go! I'm not part of this! The brightly coloured man called me a coward. This hurt, but I kept trying to leave. I did finally extract myself and I ran away from the demonstration and into the safety of the library where I stayed in a quiet corner with my favourite journals until I felt I could emerge. The students 'occupied' the admin block for two days, and I think a lot of them found it very exciting. I wondered then how many actually believed taking the admin block would aid their cause, and how many were there because of the momentum and peer pressure.

I am wiser these days when I choose my demonstrations. If they might turn violent, I do not attend. I believe there are other means for me to effect change, and have my voice heard.

I am not suggesting that participating in demonstrations is akin to being a political martyr or a suicide bomber, but it is doing something which may have a detrimental effect on oneself for an ideological cause. My family would never understand if negative consequences were visited upon my head for a political or ideological reason. When Ba and Um gave up so much to ensure my prosperity, how can I do otherwise but ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain?

I'm going through changes*

2007-05-09T13:07:00.000+01:00

The web is a wonderful place.

I am finally catching up on all my blog reading which, much like my blog writing, has dipped into near non-existence of late. Slowly, slowly however I am clawing my way back into the ether world.

I also finally got myself organised and have a feed-reader thing. So now, I have my people onto you. Or those of you I know about.

One of the blogs I enjoy but don't visit with sufficient frequency - What We Said - had an interesting post about name changes on marriage by Emily. In response, Span posted on her own site the following post.

Name changing on marriage is a no-brainer for me. Mostly because I have no intention of getting married. But also because in Vietnamese culture, women do not take their husband's name on marriage.

I was always very confused when people called my mother Mrs (my father's family name). Who were they talking about? And they were always very confused when I explained what my mother's family name was. Who was I talking about? Why was my name different to my mother's? And anyway, what difference does it make when there are only about 25 family names in Vietnamese?

Um was not the avant garde of Viet feminists, retaining her name because she held some belief that she was resisting her status as chattel in a married relationship. No, my mother is very much not a feminist. I recall her saying to me at an early age when I was fighting with my brother that I was not supposed to argue with him because he was male, older and stronger. She also told me at the same time she was asking me to desist from battling my bro that when I married I should always defer to my husband in an argument otherwise he would not remain my husband. I was, oh, I don't know how old - maybe 6 or 7. Salutary lessons for a 7 year old - how to keep the husband you don't have by subjugating yourself and your worthless opinions.

No, my mother just did what tradition and culture dictated.

Traditional Viet weddings symbolically pass the woman over to her husband's family. The groom comes to the bride's house and asks her family if he can take her. The dowry that he must bring represents a form of payment for the wife, who will become the husband's newest acquisition in his working household. Husband and wife together offer tea to all of the woman's family to thank them for looking after her up to that point in her life. Then husband and wife trundle back to the husband's family and offer tea to all of them to ask them to accept the wife into the family. It's time consuming.

Even though this ceremony passes the bride into the groom's family, the bride retains her father's name and does not take on her husband's.

If I were to marry, there would be a lot of baggage about whether to change my name. The answer, if you're curious or had not already guessed, is that I would not. I like my name. It took me a long time to become reconciled with it, so I'd like to keep it, thanks. And I am not disappearing post marriage. To not, follows Viet culture. To do so, would be to follow the mainstream of which I am now a part but which is too patriarchal a gesture for my liking. (That is not to say that Viet culture is not patriarchal; it is.) I expect that I would discuss the issue with my partner, too. Although I suspect we both already know the discussion will be brief.

Some of my acquaintances get defensive about not keeping their name on marriage around me, presumably because I am an unapologetic feminist. I bandy "feminist" about like I'm comfortable with it. Because I am. But it does not mean that I judge people for their decisions. At least, not all the time.

I am curious about why people do, or do not, change their family name. The rationale that an entire family should share the same family name for unity's sake strikes me as insupportable. I agree with Span's reasoning. I met a family who had a plethora of surnames: Mum & Dad each kept their families' names and, when the first child was born, a coin was tossed to decide which surname that child would take (Dad's as it turned out). The second child took the Mum's remaining family name, thereby carrying on her name, too. I do not know what happens if there is a third child. They were a delightful family unit.

I do not understand why the article Emily refers to says that the woman should ensure that her female children carry her family name? Why not any of the children, or half the children? How does ensuring the female children carry the woman's family name undermine the tradition? I have wondered about this myself: if my partner and I were to have a child together, whose family name would the child take? I am inclined to think the child should have my partner's - because there are fewer of his names floating about the world than mine. And if we were to have a child, that child would probably be the first of his family's next generation, whereas it would be - oh, maybe - the 30th (give or take) of my family's next generation.

And in any event, why does the decision whether or not to change one's name on marriage affect the decision regarding what name any child of the relationship should have?

I agree with Emily that choice is relevant, but more than that - thinking about the issue is what is important. I would prefer we lived an examined life, and if there is value to the individual of doing what the mainstream dictates, fine. And if there is not, then an analysis of the reasons for acting one way or another will provide the solution for an alternate path.

* that's a song. Not a reference to me. I think I'm staying the same.

100 Things you probably don't need to know about me (51-100)

2007-04-28T19:26:00.001+01:00

51. I am irrationally afraid of slugs. Please don't tell me they are like snails, but without the shells. I am *irrationally* afraid of slugs.

52. I also don't like maggots, worms, caterpillars and other things without legs or that move as if they don't have legs. For some reason, snakes are okay. Snakes don't make my skin crawl or my heart jump. Slugs, maggots, worms and caterpillars all do. Like I said: irrational.

53. I like compost. I worry about how to compost when living in a flat. I know worms are necesary for compost. But they still make my skin crawl.

54. I sing silly songs, like "oh little wormy, why are you so squirmy?" or "bed time, bed time, it's time to go to bed - TIME!". For some reason, silly songs come out of me in flowery abundance just prior to bedtime.

55. I am an appalling singer.

56. But I have a lot of enthusiasm.

57. I talked a lot as a child. I sang, too. Almost non-stop, according to my parents and siblings. I only stopped when I had a book to read.

58. I talk a lot, now. This is why my blog posts are so long, and sometimes, why my comments run on and on.

59. I take things literally. I am a 'concrete thinker'.

60. I still sometimes take phrases literally. I also like to have phrases explained to me.

61. I love language. I love words, their meaning and their etymology. Once upon a time I was going to grow up to be a semantist.

62. I love languages. I keep picking up another language to learn. I have tried to teach myself Esperanto (oh!). It was fun but I did not follow through.

63. I don't follow through rather often.

64. I always follow through on promises I make to people.

65. But not on my many and varied projects.

66. I like to think of myself as a polymath.

67. I'm not.

68. I often forget my family members' birthdays.

69. My excuse is that I have a lot of family. But really, that's not a very good excuse, is it?

70. Although most people think I am an extrovert because of my self-confidence and ability to talk to complete strangers, and probably for other reasons too, I am an introvert.

71. No, really. I am an introvert.

72. I am an egomaniac.

73. And a megalomaniac.

74. I've been practising my evil laugh for when I take over the world.

75. The pragmatic side of my megalomania means that I am obsessive compulsive.

76. Have I mentioned that I am a lawyer?

77. Democracy is not the most efficient way to make decisions.

78. But then, the value of efficiency is questionable.

79. Unless you are deciding where to eat dinner. Then efficiency is important in direct proportion to how hungry I am.

80. In social relations, tyranny can work.

81. I believe that the ends cannot and do not ever justify the means.

82. Otherwise, I probably do not believe in any absolutes. I'm not sure though. I might believe in more absolutes than this.

83. No, I don't believe that Thou Shalt Not Kill is an absolute.

84. Maybe sometimes I do believe that the ends justify the means.

85. Ice cream will always make me happy. (That is connected to the last, but it's difficult to explain how).

86. Kurt Elling sings in wailing tones: "Ice Cr reeeam!" followed by a panicked "Sea Lions! Sea Lions!" I really like that song.

87. I am what I call an "oscillating sociable vegetarian". Or perhaps I am a social omnivore. Anyway, I eat meat in company, I will cook meat for friends and family, and I eat meat in restaurants (what is called the Paris Exemption in Peter Singer's & Jim Mason's The Ethics of What we Eat).

89. Tofu is great. I love tofu.

90. Of the meat I eat, I much prefer red meat - beef, 'roo, lamb - to white - pork, chicken. turkey, duck.

91. I once heard pigs squealing and screaming while a family member (of the pigs', not of mine) was being slaughtered for a feast. This was a horrible sound. I'll post about it.

92. I really like fish. But I prefer little fish, not big fish.

93. I also prefer little fruit and vegetables to big fruit and vegetables.

94. Bramley apples are disturbingly large. Although they make delicious apple crumble.

95. I am not very good at obeying recipes. For this reason, my baking adventures do not always have happy results.

96. I am not very good at obeying lots of things - rules, people I don't respect, & so on - even though I am a lawyer.

97. If you google my full name, you find me. Otherwise you find a lot of other people who could be me, but aren't.

98. I google myself regularly. See no. 72.

99. I'm small.

100. But vicious.

100 Things you probably don't need to know about me (1-50)

2007-04-18T18:41:00.000+01:00

1. I don't post very regularly, although I would like to. I have good reasons and stuff.
2. I was born in Viet Nam and emigrated to Australia as a refugee when I was very young.
3. I insist that I am Viet-Australian. I will become very offended if you think otherwise. Asian-Australian suffices if you cannot pick my Viet-ness, but I have issues with the term.
4. I started this blog to write my family story because I did not have a computer so I needed somewhere to save everything.
5. Then I got a computer.
6. This blog has changed rather a lot since it started. Especially since I got a computer.
7. Some of my favourite posts are on my photo-blog, which was dying a slow death. Then my camera died. Now the photo-blog has died an abrupt death.
8. I really love living in Brisbane, Qld, Australia.
9. I don't live there anymore. I relocated with my partner to sunny England. I variously refer to her as the Mother Land and Eggland, depending on how respectful I am feeling. You may decide which term is more respectful.
10. I am a law nerd. Oh, and a lawyer. But mostly a law nerd.
11. I tie myself up in knots thinking about things, especially about people. I believe everyone is entitled to respect but I have real issues with certain things.
12. Race things.
13. Feminist things.
14. Identity and anonymity on the web type things.
15. Probably plenty of other things too; I just can't think of them right now.
16. Real issues.
17. I am the youngest of a very large family.
18. I have loads of nieces and nephews. They all make it onto the blog at one time or another.
19. I am concerned that they have not consented to being portrayed on my blog, and also that they may not like how I portray them.
20. Nevertheless, I post blithely on.
21. I fictionalise other people in my life who make it onto my blog. Characteristics get exaggerated or merged with others, so that I can write about them but not have them too readily identifiable.
22. I think it is silly to feel offended if you discover that a blog you read is all fiction.
23. I am appalled by people who are rude (to the writer or to other commenters) on other people's blogs. Thankfully, no one has yet been rude on mine. I am not sure how I will deal with it.
24. I take criticism badly. But I won't let on.
25. I have spurts of enthusiasm when I post a lot and when I read a lot (of blogs). Then I get dejected because there is too much out there and I will never read it all, and I will never write very well, and what's the point anyway of adding my measly voice to that enormous ever-expanding ether.
26. That's one of the reasons for why there are occassional hiatuses in my posting. But only one.
27. And then I post again because I enjoy being in this world so much.
28. I don't own a television. Nor do I want to own one.
29. This is not a criticism of people who do own and watch television. Matter of fact, I really enjoy reading blogs about television.
30. I am much happier when I don't see much advertising and when I don't read 'women's magazines'.
31. I studied Latin and Ancient History to honours level. I was particularly keen on empresses.
32. I have now forgotten almost everything I ever learned.
33. I have been described as "unrelentingly optimistic". I like this description.
34. I have been described as aggressive. May I refer you to number 10?
35. I have been described as "unnormal". This was by a guy in high school whom I had a crush on. I laughed in his face when he said it. That made me feel a bit mean.
36. I have been described as an ice queen. I think this is a funny and very inaccurate description. It was by a guy in high school who may have had a crush on me. I concede that I may be haughty. But hardly an ice queen.
37. I will, and often do, talk to anyone and everyone. I have frightened people in lifts by being friendly. I have no qualms walking up to total strangers at parties, introducing myself and launching into a conversation.
38. My closest friend in the whole wide world (and it's getting wider for me these days) told me I was tactless. She is right.
39. Empathy is my strong point. It is also my weak point.
40. I wish I could say that I studied law because I admired Justinian's codification of the laws way back when. Mine is a much more prosaic reason: I studied law because I had the grades and did not really know what to do with myself. Justinian came after the time in Ancient History that I was really interested in.
41. I made a bid for freedom and independence immediately after high school, by moving down to Melbourne. Eight months later, I returned home again. I think this is one of the bravest decisions I have ever made.
42. I don't know where home is. I call lots of places home and it all depends on context.
43. A lot of things depend on context, don't they?
44. I love books. I love the physical object and the ideas they contain.
45. I am an avid watcher of films.
46. My partner is not Asian.
47. I have issues with how to describe my partner in the real world and on this blog. I would prefer just to use his name. I've thought of a couple of pseudonyms for him, but none of them are right, and he has not endorsed them. At least, not with sufficient enthusiasm for me to believe that he does not mind being referred to in that way, on my blog.
48. But it's MY blog.
49. I use to want to be a writer. Then I grew up. Then I got a blog. It's a beautiful story, with a happy ending for all.
50. I was not sure I'd make it to 50. Now I'll have to make it to 100.