Our voice? Can you hear it?

How do I approach voice, compared to the first post in this blog? Looking back now, my more essayistic styled approaches to the subject of voice and culture, seem naive.  However, looking through the creative posts, you can begin to identify a journey of understanding and growth.

Through an article titled Writing Other, I made clear my opinion on the rules and regulations associated with writing someone from a different disposition. I highlight the importance of listening to the voice of minority writers, something that has always been pressed upon me as important, especially in the recent few months attending Emerging Writers Festival, in which their opening presentation was based on great aboriginal storytelling and encouraging aboriginal writers and youths to have their voice be heard. This cry for minority writers is an important one to open up to, being a queer writer myself, I understand the need for my voice to be heard above others with an experience unlike mine, but it’s also an important observation on the notion of censorship. To listen is as equally important as speaking, but we must do both to fully appreciate the gift that is writing culture in Melbourne, and through the internet. I sternly question if using another person’s voice makes it your property, and how you must do extensive research to avoid humiliating and possibly harmful association.  “If you aren’t prepared to do that work, then don’t even touch ‘other’’ I forcefully state. Looking back on it now, that statement, while still holding a lot of gravity, may not be as binding as I once believed. People, no matter where and who they are, are still people. Specificity remains at the heart of good writing, but emotion can be relative no matter distance or difference. I end the sentiment on this statement. “There is never an end to learning”. This thought encapsulates my blog. I consider it a chronological display of my awareness growing, and there is never going to be an end to that.

https://culturevvulture.blogspot.com/2018/08/writing-other.html

One of the most interesting displays of learning is the comparison of my first attempt at writing a voice unlike my own, with a piece I wrote inspired by a poster I saw hanging in the women’s bathroom of RMIT. The story is a split point of view piece. One character, an Australian, is fed up with seeing so much Chinese culture displayed in her city. She graffiti’s “speak English” on a Chinese advertisement. The second character is a Chinese exchange student, who responds to the writing with her own graffiti, condemning the first girl’s ignorance.  The piece ends with a final character who was intended to be the perspective of an uninvolved outsider. The piece was to be an observation on the culture of the university, rather than any racial statement.  The first and last perspectives were easy voices for me to write because they were native to me, however, the exchange students voice was difficult for me. I don’t have too many friends from outside of Australia, how was I to write their accent? How could I portray through voice who this person was? My answer back then was to limit the English vocabulary, which now I think is more negative than positive.  I tried to use simple language to emulate that of a second language speaker, but enough to not appear like a stereotype of eastern characters.  This assumption was based on my own learning experiences with a second language, and how little I am able to express myself in that dialect. That notion now feels uninformed.  Many exchange students I have worked with have an amazing grasp on the colorful way to use the English language, and many of them are not beginners.  Since then I have discovered a new way to attempt that voice, with my submission piece to cha. Rather than limiting vocabulary, I know look more towards sentence structure. In English, the sentence order is not strict, but we follow a pattern of Subject>Action>Object>Place>Extra Subject (I ate dinner at the pub with my friends) whereas, in many Asian languages, they follow the structure of Subject>Extra Subject> Place>Object>Action (me and my friends went to the pub, dinner we ate.) Sounds like Yoda in English, but it’s a structure, that I can employ in my writing, even just for the more experimental experience.

https://culturevvulture.blogspot.com/2018/09/talk-english-to-me.html

It’s clear to see that I’m more comfortable in my native voice, but it’s one I try and avoid when I’m writing, especially in fiction. I try to write in a hybrid American- Australian tone. This subject not only drew me out of my knowledge of writing other culture, but also submerged me in awareness of my own locality, and prompted me to raise questions as to why I wasn’t using this voice as an asset? Was it perhaps because most of my literary digestion involved American voices? Perhaps it was to do with my fear that if I wrote a book with an Australian voice, that people might not understand or like it. I know realize that not every piece of literature needs to be worldwide reachable. It’s okay to write for my local industry, and it was more than okay to write for myself.  I titled a piece ‘The Aussie Handbook’ which was intended to be an amusing reflection on Australian culture, whilst also commenting on the social climate, all in an easy three chaptered manual for foreigners to blend into Australian life.  It was freeing to be able to over exaggerate the accent, and use local jargon to my heart's content, to bring to life a piece of writing that was as sarcastic as it was serious. I felt that because I was Australian, it made sense to play into a stereotype because I was naive enough to get it right. Still, my attempt at writing Australian voice raised questions. Why was it the voice I used when I wanted to inflict humor into a situation? Do I not take my native voice seriously, or am I still under the impression that no one else will?

https://culturevvulture.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-aussie-handbook.html

I am left at the end of this road, with a hundred new paths to follow. My voyage into exploring and experimenting with voice, both global and local, has only just begun. 

Habitus ll

At the start of the semester, I defined habitus as “the economized guide to narrowing down everything into a box.”

While I don’t find that description entirely wrong, I am amused by my grim point of view.

I describe myself as disliking writing that is “heteronormative and conforming, but my style is very cookie cutter.” I describe myself as loving vivid characters, but falling back on old troupes, and that perhaps is where my habitus as mutated the most.

My habitus has stretched and quivered, and still, there’s more room to grow.  I have traveled, but it must be blindingly obvious to some people that my roots are firmly planted in rural country, a place which I disliked writing about for those two exact reasons, the place is a land of heteronormativity and conformity. But like other writers before me, like Tim Winton, the Australian outback can be more than that, it can be whatever I want it to be. It was only limited by my imagination and self-restraint.

The most surprising thing I discovered was not shocking differences, strange practices, and alien views that clash with my own. The most shocking discovery was that the people I interviewed over this semester, who where designed to be ‘foreign’ to me, where extremely normal. These people were almost ordinary even, in a sense that, they didn’t stray far from the people I had already met in my life. They were ‘normal’. They blended in with my idea of what is consistent in a person’s nature. Even their views, which I assumed would be on the other scale to my own more liberal-leaning views due to their more conservative countries, where not dissimilar to views from Australia.

I realized that maybe through media, maybe through easier access to each other, maybe by sheer humanity or DNA, we are more familiar than we are distanced by differences.

We all fell emotions, we all have a grasp on the world around us, and what role we play in it. I feel foolish now to face what my expectations of these people and what their respective home countries would be like. I didn’t expect my HKBU partner to swear. I didn’t expect my partner from the Netherlands to have such strong opinions on social media. Afterward, it made sense to me to view them as their own person first and foremost, and their nationality as secondary. We may have used different words but in the end, we meant the same thing.

From a writing perspective, I felt pressure ease. The characters I’m writing might be from Hong Kong, or Russia, or America, but its still Hong Kong, Russia, and America in 2018, or the future. I’m still writing about people.  Naturally, I’d still need to do research to understand the nuances of particular people, but they can be and should be, painted by their personality first, not by their nationality.

HKBU Interview

In my interview, I focused a lot on the personal aspects of her life. I discussed mostly her relationships and her family life in Macau.  My work is inspired by her personal history with her ex-boyfriend and her grandfather’s pets. Her grandfather kept ten snakes, three of them pythons. The image stuck in my head, of a black python slithering across the wooden floor of a kitchen, and my story blossomed around that strange energy.  I was surprised by how laid back she was, and how much she swore. I was under the impression that she would be more conservative with her language, so when she told me “Melbourne is a bit shit” I was pretty shocked, but kind of delighted. I am disappointed that we didn’t end up being wonderful friends. I had hoped, like some of the other students, that we would become close, but for whatever reason, technology incompatibility, or personal disinterest, it just didn’t happen. I was expecting her to be a writer, but as it turns out, she’s not so big into writing. I changed all of my questions, that was in relation to writing as more general questions about her life. 

Story Outline

The story is based around three main characters and their owners, Moxie, whose owner hasn’t fed her in a while, Ritz, whose owner is always busy, and Sady, whose owner won’t leave their house. 

The cats all leave their subsequent houses one day to go to their favorite hangout spot, the alleyway, where among the trash they like to play in, they find something very strange. They find a finger, then a hand, then an arm. They pay it very little mind.

They then return home, tracking their dirty paws across town. Sady isn’t allowed in by her owner, and is scared away when loud noises pull up outside her house, Ritz finds her owner, and is immediately looked at, and washed, and rewarded. Moxie goes home alone, her owner still hasn't come back. 

This story is sort of a play on cute horror and is written in a way to tell a story around characters, rather than the characters telling the story. Since they are cats, the narration will mostly be in third person, detailing actions rather than feelings and thoughts. The style is inspired by an australian author, Cate Kennedy, from her story in which a story is told from the perspective of a child who is on the spectrum.  The story is told around him, because of his age and mental state, readers understand more than the character.

The Aussie Handbook

Preface

G’day, I’m here to teach you how to be a true blue Australian. This is a mixture of hard yakka, ‘aussie aussie aussie, oi oi oi’, Bunnings snags on a Saturday and Frank Walker from National Tiles.  

After reading this manual, you’ll be able to talk the lingo with your mates, track down a Shelia, and blend seamlessly into the stitch work of Australian Life.

*Note, this applies nationally, but some places, like Queensland and WA are dog’s breakfast, and follow their own set of formalities.

Chapter One- The Aussie Gene Pond

What does it mean to grow up an ‘aussie’? Most minds drift to a convict hand-me-down with that accent, a slur they reckon originated from being maggoted all the time.

You have to look far back to find where ‘Aussie’ DNA came from. If you’re blonde maybe you have some Scandinavian. If you have lithe long fingers maybe French. How you look might matter a little bit, but if you’re a mixer or a traveler, it doesn’t matter, so long as you know the words to ‘Wheels on the Bus’.  Australia thrives on its multiculturalism, and its banter. That means we have lots of people that live here, and we are still racist about it. But Aussies are laid back so don’t take it personal.

Chapter two- Making Mates

In Australia, we call not giving a shit ‘down to earth’. Calmly and politely not giving a shit is the epitome of being a man in Australia, that and being either surfy or bushy, which is why Chris Hemsworth is our choice for national dreamboat.

Being the ideal Aussie woman includes not taking anyone’s shit but being quiet about it.

We Aussies don’t give a shit so much that we don’t even need a government. We all reckon they’re pisspots and drongos. Bill Shorten looks like a cane toad, and Malcolm Turnbull looks like a muppet. They don’t do much except spend taxpayer’s money, decide to build shit and then backtrack, oh and finally legalize gay marriage, after a stupid plebiscite that half of us didn’t even vote on. We don’t vote unless there’s a sausage sizzle on.

You know an ‘Aussie’ is being authentic with you if they call you a cunt. If you get called mate, you’re being patronized, either because we reckon you’re a wacko, or we hate you.

Common phrases you might hear from an aggravated Australian:

‘Oi mate, can ya settle down?’

‘Oi mate use ya blinkers’

‘Oi mate, hows it goin? That bloke's a bloody wacko’

And of course, all manner of swear words. Aussies swear, just not to our Grandma’s.

Chapter Three- National Pastimes

There aren’t too many holidays we celebrate like we do with Australia Day. Especially if you came from the 80’s, you must have a great sense of national pride. You don’t want to go out and buy a new pair of thongs, or an esky, because that’s too commercial, but you might buy a sticker for your bumper, or a flag to proudly flap outside your house, might even wear it as a cape, because we are all superheroes, even though the Aborigines want their day back.

But hey, we still respect them and all that, like at the footy we make sure to include a smooth blend of their culture and our culture into our uniforms.

Footy is the next big topic, so study up. No sport is like footy, it unifies us as a country. Even if you don’t watch it, you’ve gotta have a team. If it’s Collingwood, you will have to endure jokes about not having teeth, so don’t pick them. Pick a team from a place where you feel resonates with you. The tiges, the bombers, the blues, the doggies, pick wisely and never change because changing teams is un-Australian.

Next get used to drinking. If you’re a bloke, you better learn to like Corona or Carlton Draught. If you’re a woman, you may also sample this masculine drink, but a Cruiser is probably more acceptable.

We love the drop. If you don’t drink then there must be something wrong with you.

Conclusion

Good on ya if you finished the manual. Remember above all, be yourself, but a quieter, less foreign version of yourself. Seeya out there.  

Research

Some writers research in order to write. I write in order to research topics that interest me. Especially if I can meet with other people, in forums from illness support groups to phone sex hotlines, and learn what people know best.

--Chuck Palahniuk

Inside the brain of a Nihongo Gakusee at all times

おはよう ございます (Hello)

                                                       

                                                        My name is….なまえ (Name?)

                                                                

                                                              なに  (What?)

                                                                                     

                                                                                        Can you speak Japanese?

                                            

                                                      Can you speak にほんご

いいえ ちょつと (No…a little)

                                                      

                                                 

 What is the value of knowing?

                                                                   

                                                    In オーストラリア? Nothing

                                                          

                                                                                                           In 北海道? Everything.

              

                   In writing? In ぶんがく? (わたし せんこう わ ぶんがく です。そお です か。)

いい

(Is good)

                              No

              いいえ

                                                                Is fun?

                               はいそおです

                           ....Still. By no means sensei. Still, you understand a little bit?

Shhh

There can be a great value in silence. Silence makes people uncomfortable, especially around here, wherein our culture silence doesn’t indicate politeness or respect, it indicates a wrongness, a judgment, an alien. It’s rude to not make small talk, it’s rude not to answer. It’s rude to keep to yourself.

Cate Kennedy, in her collections of short stories, wrote brilliantly on it. In Dark Roots, she published a story called ‘Angel’, which was about an immigrant who understood the silence, let it guide her into our country, and how it ultimately lets her down.

Silence is valuable though. When you are silent, you have the opportunity to really listen to the world around you. When you are quiet, the noise comes singing back to you. When you say nothing, someone feels as though they have to say everything. The unease bites them in the ass and they spill everything that you might want to know about them in one big mouthful.

Silence is scary, and people hate it, but you can use it as a tool. Sharpen the silence and aim well, and people will tell you volumes about their lives. It can send a message. It can end a relationship. It can be the beginning of love. It can be the end of it. 

Bio

Georgia Couchman is a 20-year-old mess of a creative writing student from RMIT University.  She is in her second year of her bachelor’s degree. Georgia likes her literature like she likes her wine, bitter and cheap. Most of what she reads is found second hand, but she prefers to read romance and horror, or something that combines the two. Her two literary heroes are Stephen King and Charlotte Bronte, but she reveres anyone with a book to their name. She has written and edited posts for NERDS4LIFE, a blog exploring current pop culture trends. She spends many of her nights pretending to know how to use a typewriter, forgetting to drink her tea, and annoying her pet cats Mac and Luna.

Talk English To Me

It's been a long day at uni. My last lecture droned on forever. Not to mention, I've been put into a group project with people who have accents. I don't mind, but it's annoying.
I sit down on the toilet.
My eye drifts, as often it does when I'm occupied by other business.
That's when I see it.
It's an orange poster. There's some clip art of a city skyline on it, and it was full of unidentifiable chicken scratch. Fuckin chicken scratch everywhere, with weird symbols that I couldn't understand.
Who the heck even invented this weird language. some of the symbols sharp and complicated and impossible.
It was clearly an advert for some event. How did they expect people to come to their shit if they don't speak clearly? Or is it 'Asian' only. Isn't that racist? Why in the middle of my English speaking university, do I have to be affronted with this crap in the bathroom stall?
The pen was out of my pocket before I had given it a second thought.  I leaned forward, mid-piss, and wrote.

"Speak ENGLISH. It's a universal language."  I underlined it twice for good measure. I clicked the pen and shoved it back in my pocket.

-

"Take a quick break class, see you here in ten minutes,"
I leap out of my chair, I  need the girl's bathroom.
There was one person in line in front of me. I avoid her eyes and look at the ground. I could have held on until I got home to the apartment, but I was too desperate now, so desperate that I accidentally took my pen.
I heard a flush and quickly slipped in and sat down.
I saw the usual orange ad for the rooftop bar on the door. I looked again when I saw black angry scrawl written on the side.
I breathed in. Speak English? Isn't that what I do all day while living here? How many times have I been asked to repeat?
I finish what I'm doing, and stand, opening my pen.
I draw a long arrow to the other side and write.
"That's rude.  How many second languages do you speak? Grow up."
I close my pen and go back to class.

-

I'm keen to go to the toilet and see my handiwork the next day. A part of me feels bad. Will anyone knows it was me? Could they recognize my handwriting? Maybe I should take the poster down.
I stride in and look at the wall.
Ugh.
How rude? I bite my lip. I'm annoyed, but I can't help the hot flush of embarrassment churn in my stomach. I pull out my pen. I want to write something back, but nothing comes to my head. I draw an annoyed face with another arrow. still no words.
Whatever. If I don't go now I'll miss my train.

-

Finally. I can go. I've been waiting in line for ages. RMIT should get some more bloody toilets. I sit down in the furthest stall and take note of my lavatory entertainment on the door.
I notice it's all in Chinese. I also notice that there's some aggravated conversation in black and blue pen.
"Speak English..." I sigh. How ignorant. I didn't think RMIT would be like this since it was so liberal.
I read the clap back.  All the arrows are confusing, but it's funny. People are so strange. I wonder if they knew each other. I want to write "AMEN" on the poster, but I didn't bring a pen today.
I wash my hands. Maybe I'll take a photo next time I'm in here.

-

The next week, the poster is gone.

((This is inspired by a poster I found in the toilets of the NAS a few weeks ago.))

lens eye

her blue eye was a lens

it focused on the beauty

with her filter cleansed

camera never forsaking fidelity

she focused on the beauty

of the silent world that day

she was filming a bronzed daisy

and turned before it could decay

the silent world that day

parted for the steps of an old lady

whose eyesight sunk away

with no friend, husband or baby

the steps of an old woman

and the creases in her face

such familiarity was inhuman

 made the lens halt its pace

the creases in her face

in the reflection of the camera

when aside her own was placed

became a hologram of the future

the reflection of the camera

a faded grey nonentity

the lens eye rotated to see her

but the woman had lost clarity

the lens faded into a nonentity

a blind observer of life

her lens eye was the penalty

of hiding in the light

a blind observer of life

inside her empty home

watching and not doing keeps you safe

but it keeps you all alone

inside her empty home

she focused on the beauty

of the blue iris in the chrome

when she closed her lens eye

Interview

Preferably naked

 I love being naked. I love feeling everything breathe and stretch and glow. I love the shivery warmth and the kisses of the cold brushing against my arms and legs intermittently.

I love how vulnerable I feel, yet, comfortable and safe in my body. There’s a calmness to knowing that you are okay with how you look. And when I look into the rippling glass, there’s a me who looks back, and there’s something otherworldly in my eyes. The expression of someone else looking in, of assessing and admiring with disconnectedness, but understanding.

I can feel the air hitting every inch of my skin as I step forward, one leg up and over the half wall and sinking into a pool of swirling galaxies. I love bath bombs too. I love how they froth and bubble and vanish in my hands, the more intricate ones bobbing back and forth in the water like a firecracker.

                                                                      Firecracker

My best friend says I’m a firecracker. She says that I’m a strong woman, but when I get angry it’s like watching the fire burn low on a string, a pause of tension where I’m processing my feelings.  Then suddenly, I’m a molten red explosion, beautiful, but loud and overwhelming.

I don’t get angry very often, so just like watching firecrackers, it’s a special occasion. My anger is quick, but soon is fizzled up and swallowed by darkness and silence.

If my best friend is right, and I am a firecracker, then I must have been left in the rain, because right now there is nothing to burn. I wish I could light up, and give a show, but there’s nothing that can ignite a passion or anger inside of me.

It was over six months ago, but I’m still not the same. It’s all because of the people I’m done with.

                                                                   The people I’m done with

I’m done with you. That means no touching, no speaking, no nothing. That means being on the other side of the planet. That means radio silence.

Being done with you is hard.

What can I give you, when I haven’t got anything left? Why is it that I’m supposed to forget you, and yet, there’s more to me that I want to give away?

I’m done with your friends too. Your friends were once my friends, but you can have them. A few of them have tried to speak to me, but they just link back up to you, and I can’t have any links, only severed strings.

You seem to have a poison that is spreading through every part of my body, it’s burning through my toes and fingers, racing through the pulse of my throat, my lips and eyes are clouded by it, even my once long and beautiful hair has been scorched, chopped from the neck down. It’s a bad poison, but now I feel buoyancy. Lightheaded.

To combat the lightheadedness, I put on music. I thrash around in my bedroom hoping to jumpstart something inside me, but it comes up hollow. I listen to something miserable instead, hoping to bring tears and then I could just be over with it, but I remain icy and hard.

Maybe I need warmth.

                                               

                                                                                Warmth

I love baths. They make me warm. The water is invasive, and laps at any part of me that I give it. But it is warm, and I haven’t felt truly warm yet this winter.

The hot water is melting me. It hurts but it’s a relieving feeling. Maybe I’ll join the glitter and the lavender scented pink foam, and I’ll go down the drain and become something new.

I look at my reflection in the water. She knows me, and I know her, and we share a knowing look.

I slide as deep into the bath as I can. I feel like a small crab nestled in a shell, water covering my mouth and prodding my nose. My hair lazily floats around me like golden seaweed.

Baths are good, because there are bubbles and wine, and they make me think deeply about aspects of my life.

I take a photo of them, post it on Instagram, and pretend my life is great. My reflection tells me that one day soon it will be.  

Full Hearts

I squeeze my hands till red marks appear as the line dwindles. There are four people in front of me, all waiting to board the hovering ship just across the glass doors. I wonder if they saved up for it, I wonder how long they have worked. Together our dreams will be a reality we will finally get to go.

          Aboard the ship, I watch the waves crash. I’m hoping to see a dolphin until I remember that they went extinct five years ago. I never got to swim with one. Or swim at all, the water has been too filled with nuclear waste since I was born. The past is the number one place I wish I could visit. And since I know I never can, I write myself into the world that once was.

         I draw myself sitting under trees that I am told used to line the streets. I write poems about hearing the birds sing and dawn and almost believe I can hear their chirps ringing in my ears. But here is where fiction leaves me.

         My reflection in the doors frowns at me, telling me of a future that no one had the motivation to nip in the bud. I am the child of questions with no answers, of living in a wasteland that is host to nothing except divine dying. I frown at the never-ending sequence of events that dug out my grave, and I look on gravely as if I had nothing at all to do with it at all.

        At any cost, let me know I’m a gift; not a burden, give me a touch of hope in this gilded off sign. I make peace. I forgive myself, my mother, my father from bringing me into this mess. 

       I pray for the earth to find salvation, for all humans to leave this world with full hearts. 

Haven

I know every stone on this pathway. Every twist and turn of dirt. I know every dip and ravine in this small bush. Every wet creek lapping at the moss.

          I walk this pathway every morning. It’s the shortcut to my town, connecting my desolate farmland to cars and shops and people. I go to work, collecting papercuts from the dusty library books, and I take them home through the pathway, letting the wood of the trees kiss them better.

I used to think the small bush was magical. It certainly holds an energy of its own. You enter, and you can feel the life humming around you, you can hear it in the buzzing of crickets, smell it in the wildflowers that grow here, and the eucalyptus.

         I could ride my bike to get through here quicker like I did when I was in school. Back then, it felt like the small bush was chasing me, every shadow held an evil man with a knife or a crazed woman with a gun. I’d pedal through every winding corner, feeling the cold breath of the ghosts at the back of my neck, only safe until I was skidding down my driveway.

        Now I like closing my eyes and feeling the motion of wandering all through my body. There’s the tree that I hid behind when my mum tried to make me do the dishes, years ago. Here’s the bark beneath my feet that gave me my first splinter. Under the sun that is interrupted by leaves is where I bathed in childhood and lost the cold of other people.

       Back then, I was terrified of darkness and lived jumping out of my own skin. Now I like the cool of the shade and welcome the reprieve from the socializing, the interactions, the smiles that prick at my skin. Where is my safety, if not alone, without a tree trunk to anchor me? The prospect of sunlight, unfiltered, hitting my cheeks is enough to slow my pace and quicken my breaths.

       Once, my mum took me to the next town over to buy oranges. She wanted to make freshly squeezed orange juice and had heard about the brilliant crop just a fifteen-minute drive away. The drive there made my stomach hate itself and I leaned my head back just enough relieve my back, wincing as we turned another sharp corner. When we got to the farm, there were paddocks just like ours and sheep that gazed plaintively over the fence at me as I sat down to put my head between my knees. Those were turns in the road that made me long for my sanctuary; there was no relief from movement and no filtering of feeling.

        I heaved but nothing except a thin line of saliva dribbled down my chin. My mum was there with me, I remember, she pats my back the way a mother would to a newborn child. I remembered her shadow looming over me, shielding me from the claws on sunlight. When I was steady enough to stand up, we walked to the spot where a couple of people were reaching across baskets of oranges.            We bought a couple and I brace myself for the journey back home where my stomach betrayed me once again. The journey wasn’t even worth it, the orange was a tad too sour and the skin was too hard.

      “Mum, we should plant our own,” I said as I spat out the seed of the orange into my palm.

      “It’s not that easy, our backyard’s too small,”

       But I know a place.

       I sat by it now. The seed that was once in the pit of the ripe fruit, now resting within my palm. I stuck a thumb into the soil and placed the seed in.

      Watching the earth takes patience. There’s an awful lot of waiting before that first tender, tendril springs into the air. But when it does it was really not what I expected. Sure, It’s an orange tree. But that’s it. I envisioned the moment they grew and I proudly grabbed mum to show her. I could picture the pride in her eyes, not quite believing her own daughter could create such a marvel. That was until         I actually saw it and realized it was just a tree. And an ugly one at that. I had ruined my beautiful haven with my creation, it didn’t fit in here. Too bright for one thing. I loved this place for its unassuming mess of plants and flowers.

      Why had I gone and changed it?

Stolen Dogs

My best friend Amy and I haven’t spoken in 3 months. It was probably to do with her new boyfriend, and the Uni she got into and the apartment she’s planning on moving into. Year 12 was long gone and she was starting a new life and leaving me behind. 

           Her Facebook posts for the last week sound a lot like this:

         “Someone has stolen my 4-Year-old Jack Russel Terrier! Please anyone if you see him, call me, or my family, or the police. His name is Harry. Please, please, bring him home!”

            I feel awful for her, even though she had told me she didn’t want to be friends anymore. Harry is a good puppy. I reach out to her, not expecting an answer.

Amy. I know you said you didn’t want to talk to me, but I wanted to make sure you were okay after losing harry?

           I’m fine. I just want to find him.

           Ok. Sorry to bother you.

           It’s fine. It’s nice of you to ask.

           I hate how formal it sounds. How disconnected. How strange.

           Did you want any help looking for him?

           I don’t know. We already have a pretty fair effort going. All I can do now is keep checking the pounds and hope he comes home.

         Are you sure? I really want to help. I know what Harry means to you.

         ...

        Please.

       Ok.

Saturday, 7 am, I shower quickly, dry my hair, put on a strawberry red crop top with blue high waisted jeans.

        I grab my keys, and shut my bedroom door, locking it.

        My brother won’t be awake yet. I walk through the living room, and see Mum asleep on the couch, a half bottle of beer still in her hand. I take it off her. I walk out the door, to my Mum’s Hyundai, flip the red P plates on, and head towards my best friend’s house.

        I see people out walking their dogs early. That’s where Amy and Harry would probably be if someone hadn’t nicked him.

        I arrive at her house and see her already standing outside, dressed in a cap and her boyfriends’ shirt. I step out and meet her in a hug. She looks stressed and tearful.

       “Thanks for coming over here, Tars,” She says, and I hold back a smile at my nickname. It wasn’t a good time to be smiling.

        “Have you heard anything? Any news?” I ask, looking at her dark circled eyes. She shakes her head, crosses her arms over her chest and looks out into the street.

        “Even if he did run, we haven’t heard anything from the neighborhood. There are two Jack Russel terriers at the pound. Neither of them had collars or microchips, so we need to go down and see if they’re Harry.”

         I nod encouragingly and squeeze her shoulder. Her mouth twitches into a feeble smile, and she makes her way out of my grip to my car. I follow quickly after.

“No, that’s not him either,” Amy says, her voice becoming brittle with emotion. She turns away from the cage where some strangers dog was starring back at us with hopeful eyes. Amy’s own eyes were just as watery. The staff woman looked at us with sympathy and led us back through the door, away from the lost dogs.

         In my car, Amy bit her lip and cried quietly. I had seen her cry only a handful of times during our friendship. One time when she broke her wrist playing basketball. One time when Grace Silvey called her a fat bitch in the playground of year eight. One time when the boyfriend she had broke up with her because he was moving states.

        I tried to put my hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.

      “It’s okay, Amy,” I tried to soothe.

       “I just want to go home,” She bit back. “I just want my dog back.”

       We drove back in silence. At her house, I tried to speak again, but she was out of her seat before I had a chance. The car was silent, and I was by myself again.

I step through my front door at 1.30, to the angry look of my hungover mother, and the bewildered look of my little brother.

       “What is it?” I ask tensely.

       “You are in big trouble,” Mum seethes,“The neighbors came over complaining about the noise.”

       “What noise?”

         Just as it falls silent, I hear a loud bark coming from my room. I dash over to my door and quickly start unlocking it. Hearing my movement on the other side of my bedroom, Harry starts to yap, and scratch on my door.

        “What are you doing, silly dog?” I whisper, bobbing down so I can step into the room.

          My bedroom stank of shit and piss. Harry starts barking louder and louder.

         “Shut up stupid dog!” I hiss trying to hold him. It was okay. I could fix this. I could clean the shit out of the carpet, and then turn up to Amy’s house claiming I had found him. It would still work.

          Harry looks at me, beady dog eyes glinting in accusation. He knows what I have done.

          Suddenly, his tiny body jolted alive with a shock of energy. He ran around my room for a circuit, before pushing open my poorly closed bedroom door.

         “Stop!” I cried, watching as Mum opened the front door with her cigarette in her mouth and lighter in hand. Harry beelined past her and out onto the road.

          I chase after him, hands outstretched, just touching the hairs of his tail before watching him run.

         My heart beat painfully in my chest. I breathe heavily in, and heavily out, as the dog turns a corner and disappears. 

Multilingualism

Language is a beautiful thing. I have always been envious of people who grew up in multi-cultural households, people with Chinese mums and Spanish dads. With mixed brothers and sisters and grandfathers and grandmothers. I always wish that I could be bilingual, but my family are all born and bred true blue. I know how to count to 10 in Indonesian, the fruits of my labor in both high school and primary school, and a smattering of Japanese from my learning practice through university, but that's about it.

It’s funny how we automatically associate a foreign word with a familiar word. For example, even though when I concentrate, I can imagine the Japanese hiragana ‘chi’ as its own creation, but at just a glance, I can’t silence the voice in my head that says “five”.

Another amusing thing to note is how, due to Melbourne's melting pot of culture, or how we integrate into our societies, no matter where you come from, you surely know phrases in other languages, even if you don't realize you've learned them.  Bon Appetit, Ciao Bella, Sayonara, Gluten Tag. 

I can imagine that being multi-lingual would be an asset in a writer’s toolkit that would prove to be valuable. Not only do you have multiple streams of literature to read, you have the ability to mash them together. The downside? Readers would be a niche audience, and meanings from one word in one language may not always translate into another.

I’ve heard that Melbourne has its own subculture of half-Asian half-Australian people. They sound like a club, they even have their own hashtag on Instagram. #Halvers #Mixers. Banding together to feel selective rather than unwanted. Romanticizing being unable to fit into either culture. Certainly not a first.

I can imagine what their households would sound like to me. Garble. A whole new language created for only that family, some English, some other thing entirely. Spanglish, Japenglish, you name it.

Twice the language, twice the vocal power. 

Writing Other

Would you be angry if I wrote about you? 

What if I write only bad things? Change the way people look at you?

What if I wrote only good things about you, can I use you then? Take your voice and make it my own?

Let’s forget good and bad for a minute and focus on if it’s truthful or untruthful. Let’s forget that even and get down to the bare authenticity.

Would you be angry if you had a story to tell and I told it for you, but some of the details weren’t right, and I didn’t really understand you? Your motives, feelings, and actions unclear to me, yet still I write you, and people read you.

Would you be angry if I my voice was louder and clearer than yours, but not as honest, and people listened to me? If I became you, but not a real you, a one-dimensional figment of imitation with no real guts inside me?

Let’s start again, with those questions in mind.

Who can write whom? Speaking quite plainly, anyone can. But just because one can do something, doesn’t mean it should be done. Writing culture ethically comes with a set of moral complexities that one must discern before touching ink to paper.

Writing ‘other’ comes in a loop. This loop consists of:

à I want more ‘other’ culture in literature (PoC, LGBT+, disabled, customarily alien)

àIn order for there to be more ‘other’ culture in literature, I must write it

à I am not ‘other’ so I don’t know how it works.

à I want more ‘other’ culture in literature.

So on so forth.

Naturally, writing ‘other’ means knowing ‘other’ to the best of one’s capabilities. Getting as close to ‘other’ as is culturally acceptable. Don’t just study how ‘other’ sits in place and space, understand the nuances that ‘other’ has, what led them to where they are, and where they are headed.  Breathe it in for a long time.

If you aren’t prepared to do that work, then don’t even touch ‘other’. For you, stick to what you know best because the only thing worse than having no literature is having misconceiving, superficial, and implausible literature. People are fragile, the land is fragile, and history is fragile, prone to scattering itself to the wind away from you if you don’t handle with care.

Second, no matter how much you know, if the ‘other’ wishes to speak, then you must do nothing else but listen. Your voice may enable for the other to have a pedestal to shine on, but it is ultimately not yours. If you are not indigenous to the land, disposition or state of being, you have no business in speaking over the top of someone who is, unless you are giving them a platform to showcase their story. Buy the books, read the stories, listen to the authors. Always be mindful of supporting and appreciating the native literature alongside the alternative.

And if it is your culture? If you are the ‘other’?  Still, take these morals in your stride, but let your genuine experience guide the way. There is never an end to learning.

Mutate Habitus

Habitus—the economized guide to narrowing down everything into a box.

Habitus— the key to understanding how everyone who lives in that box has an individual experience.

Habitus—the chicken pen that you live in, the hand that feeds you grain, the other feathers in your coop, the place you sleep at night, the foxes that watch you.

.

What is habitus? A way to define or to show that definitions mean nothing? Everything is habitus, the people, the parenting, the food, the culture, the body.

I inhabit my body while my body inhabits its habitus. It is multiple, I am a first child in a nuclear family, I am a queer with very few queer friends. I stand with my chin tall. I’m not overly beautiful, but not overtly ugly. I consume media with a majority of my generational peers.  I can’t afford lunch, but I’ve been overseas. I’m expected to get married and have children.

 I am a writer in a big city.

How does my writing engage habitus? Through aesthetic values, I brand myself in my individual style, cut and copied from writers before me.

I dislike long and overbearing sentences that hold no information in them that is gleaned to me as interesting. I prefer short. Punchy.

I like multi-faceted characters. I try and write interesting and relatable people with an edge of humor. I like moral conflicts in a story and try to avoid having my characters ever be too 'good', by the traditional standards.

I dislike heteronormative and conforming, but my style is very cookie cutter. In my state of old habitus, consistent conforming to the norm was key to a good story. Over and over again a recycled romance is spun in my hands.

It’s unsurprising, considering in my old habitus all I would ever consume was paranormal YA romance. We are talking twilight levels of straight teens with angst issues. It was good if it made me feel good.

I have changed habitus. Schooling has changed my habitus, though I feel like the potential to change had to already be under my skin. An appreciation of arts and culture from my mother perhaps?

Breeding a new habitus becomes easy when you welcome change. The re-calibration of my habitus was a smooth transition from the comfortable to the unknown.  Consuming new media, from cultures, bodies, and mind vastly different to my own.

The next step to transformation of habitus would be movement of self. Consuming more media that influences the creative output is a way to travel the world without leaving my environment.

However, confronting things and experiencing a consciousness unlike my own is how I would want to mutate my habitus.

Review: Labour for Love by Mia Corazon Aureus

Mia Corazon Aureus’ Labour for Love is a touching creative nonfiction piece published in Cha, an Asian literary journal, following the adoption story of Filipino Titang, who was cast out of home by two different families before she found a home, and finally had to move away from her own son to work.

The value of family is the tissue that holds the story together and makes for an intriguing and heartwarming read. Titang says at one point while referencing her movement through foster homes that her culture is “not kind to kids like me”, a statement that is specific to her Filipino heritage, but is also a sentiment felt globally. Adoption is a universal experience, which ties us to the piece empathetically, but it also adds to that with cultural distinctions that make it raw and authentic.

A moment that piqued our interest in the story was when Titang reached for the narrator's nephew, taking him into her arms and being the reassuring influence not only for him and the other characters but also for us as readers, showing her own learned and instinctive maternal influence. The writer grapples in the text with an unspoken ambiguity regarding the character's undernourished soul, due to her being unwanted in the early part of her life, and finally realizing and actualizing her potential to find redeeming qualities in herself as the mother she lacked. There's a sense in the text of Titang learning of self-love and self-respect to fill the missing piece in her life - that awareness of self that is so longed for in all of us as humans. This deepens our sympathy and empathy for the character and draws a link between us all as children of the world.

We all agreed that the symbolism laid bare in the stylised nuances of Titang’s characterization were extremely effective. We pinpointed beats in tone through which the author portrays the characters, and creates a sense of personal imagery and personality. Their personalities are infused into their actions, like the use of the motif of the colour blue for Titang’s character, which allows us to experience her character on a different level because of her obsession with the colour, along with other specific images that Aureus peppers throughout the piece.

One aspect of the piece that took away from its impact was the plain nature of some of the sentences. Occasionally, the specificity lapsed because of the lack of interesting language, meaning that we were taken out of the character’s story. The pace and story also lagged slightly in the middle. While the overall story was still captivating, it felt that during the section where she begins discussing her partner that the personalization of the story that was so touching fell away. While those elements of the story still provided interest, it didn’t feel connected to the rest of the story.

This touching story showed us how creative nonfiction work should make us feel, simultaneously heartbroken by someone's specific story, but the heartwarming sense of comradery between us all universally.

Find Mia Corazon Aureus’ Labour for Love by clicking here.

Written collaboratively by Georgia Couchman, Rhys Westbury, and Callie Beuermann.

There is Much to Learn From Our Differences

It’s a phrase you hear often, “learn from our differences”. A beautiful sentiment, but perhaps a rose-tinted one. Ideally, we would all learn from and love our differences. Skin would not separate us. Land would not discern us. Accent would not alienate us.

It a beautiful place to live, in the world of the ideal.

There are many people who share and practice to the best of their ability this sentiment. Everyone with a good heart would like to believe that this sentiment applies to them. They do not discriminate, do not alienate, love every life for its flickering possibility. However, that is a glossy idea. We are all holding hands in a circle singing about peace.

Truthfully, there is a discomfort in cosmopolitanism. Behind closed doors, different is another thing entirely. Different is scary, ugly, unusual. Different is uncomfortable. When we face ‘different’ it’s often with hesitation.

The people who want to hold hands and braid flowers into each other’s hair feel uncomfortable when truly met with different. In other places, people don’t wear shoes, people don’t use toilets, people eat horses. These are different, and not something one wants to accept.

The peace advocate thinks, ‘why would they do that? Is it poverty? Is it tradition? Is it choice?’ The answer is, it doesn’t matter. It’s different, scary, ugly, unusual, but it’s theirs.

The first step of learning from difference isn’t acceptance. It’s the opposite. It’s being confused and horrified.  It’s okay to feel these things. Coming to terms with different can take time, but once you become comfortable being uncomfortable, different settles next to you like an old friend.

The answer is not to meddle. We can share our ideas, our technology, our love, but we should never force them onto the other. We are not the savior. 

If their tradition is to not wear shoes, we might be disgusted, but we then must accept and adapt.

Sometimes we too must walk without shoes.

Amid feeling disturbed by difference, we look at the ‘other’, the foreign, and we recognize that while we are different, we are still made up of the same stardust. Right now, our hearts are beating at the exact same pace as someone else’s in the world, a beautiful rhythm that does not discriminate. People sometimes take that for granted.

Learning involves separating yourself from your situation, a level of objectiveness that not everyone is capable of achieving. It involves being unassuming and admitting that different isn’t wrong and conformity isn’t right. It involves seeing outside your body, not always knowing the answer, not always feeling comfortable and safe.

You may not always like different, you may try a new food for the first time and hate it. Yet you will have gained something valuable; perspective, a new lens to view the world in. While it is vastly huge, the world is still a small place, and while we all may feel like small cogs in the machine, we all have big stories to explore. 

Every encounter is an opportunity to learn. Every meeting is a possibility to show love. Once realized, the world becomes easier to swallow.