We Are Sailing

Two weeks ago, without Frenchie's company to pay for a taxi drive from Changi Airport to our humble abode, I decided to rough it and re-live my student youth by taking the bus.  That's right, the helpfully signposted, easy-to-understand Singapore bus.  This turned out to be an utter delight as for 70 minutes I was treated to a tour around lots of Singaporean neighbourhoods that I had never seen before, including the 15kms of East Coast Park, a beach stretch happily imported (sand and palm trees) and designed for all your water sports and coastal leisure needs.


There was roller skating (my new favourite), biking, sand-castle building stations, sea kayaking, wake-boarding, kite boarding, wind surfing - all the double-barreled sports you could ever ask for!  There was yet another alternative view of Singapore's only skyline, and what's more, all these things were available with a backdrop of container ships, which Frenchie loves more than any other kind of mass transportation vehicle.  Surely, this was the place for us.

So, forgetting that I was weak, lazy, allergic to sport and had recently retired from the Li Hi lifestyle, I organised a weekend of action packed, seaside fun for Frenchie and I.  First stop was the right car park.  We picked the wrong one, obviously, and were quite disappointed when the National Sailing Centre of Singapore told us they didn't 'do' sea kayaking, but only wind surfing, as this made little sense to us: if a sailing centre does 'surfing', then surely they should do 'kayaking' also, especially if they don't actually do anything with the word 'sailing' somewhere in its double barreledness.

Determined, despite this initial set back, we set off to promenade along at least 5km of the 15km stretch, and a calming, early 20th century voice in my head said, 'how lovely: we've avoided the silly energetic activities, and instead are having a gentle walk along the seafront with our husband.  The clouds are beautiful, the breeze is delightful and all the town's out and about doing family-type things.'

Before I transformed entirely into my late-Victorian self, though, we stumbled across the Mana Mana beach resort, only to discover that we were entirely unequipped for sea kayaking.  Did Frenchie have swimming trunks on?  No.  (Cue re-enaction of the 100 Years War whereby England insists that she told France multiple times that trunks would be a good idea, and France claims not to have heard/understood because England speaks too quietly).  Did either Frenchie or my Li Hi self have a hat to ward off damaging sun rays?  No.  Did I want a new pair of water sports shorts and a Magnum ice cream to throw on the shop floor because Frenchie was treating himself to presents and was not indulging me, his wife, who should be treated at every possible opportunity and on a regular basis?  Yes.

So, having bought the shop's entire stock, and tiptoed away from the quickly melting chocolate splodges, we retired to a food court to sit in our waterproof hats, waterproof shorts, sun block and life jackets to mull over about whether we actually did want to go sea kayaking or not...

Obviously we did, sillies.

Sea kayaking with Frenchie was a lot of fun because he insisted on doing all the paddling, allowing me to lie back, sunbathe and sea swim.  I tried to offer to help, but he was adamant that he could do it all by himself.

Really insistent.

I offered many times to help.
 
At one point, I did have a small panic about the impending Great Shift and tried to swim to one of the container ships and escape to a life of piracy and adventure, but they were too far away and my arms got tired.


Swim, little Ems!  Swim!

This was all so much fun that we vowed to return the next week to re-live Frenchie's outdoorsy childhood by hiring what Frenchie sold to me as a vehicle of great nostalgic wonder and freedom; a boat of delicacy and wind-through-your-hair-ness bound to make me feel like Mrs. Ainslie on a weekend getaway.  This boat was called a Laser, and we booked one for the following week, only to find out that it was a boat of death threats, panic and fear.

Looks so innocent: actually boat of trauma.

In the taxi to the beach, our conversation went a little something like this:

Frenchie: I cannot wait to go sailing.  I 'av loved sailing since I was a leeetle boy.
Me: Me too!  How exciting that I married a man wealthy enough to own a boat!
Frenchie: ... zat is not -

Me: So romantic and charming and handsome and manly!  Sigh  Yes, so happy to have married such a manly man.
Frenchie: ...Yes... a boat...

The conversation whilst getting into the boat, however, went a little like this:

Mana Mana Man: don't touch the boom, please.
Me: but it's about to decapitate me.
Frenchie: don't touch ze boom, Emma.
Me: but - !

Once in the boat

Me: I'm so glad you know what you're doing.  I am pooing my pants.  The boom is out to get me.
Frenchie: ... know what I'm doing?  I don't know what I'm doing.  I 'av not sailed since I was a leeetle boy.

So, turns out that despite the above charming and convincing pose, Frenchie had in fact not sailed for a significant period of time, and so the initial part of the trip was spent with me rupturing a disk in my spine because I was so tense staring unfalteringly at the boom that was bound to swing violently my way at any moment and knock me unconscious into the water where I would get sliced into a thousand pieces by the rudders of other boats and kite surfers.  This paralysis was interspersed with me throwing myself onto all fours in the middle of the boat as Frenchie yelled, 'Get down!  Get down!' at me, like a WW2 officer, whilst I adopted a foetal position, protecting my head as if sheltering from shellfire during a Normandy landing.  On top of this, the boat was quite small, so at the slightest incomprehensible unbalancing, it threatened to capsize and we had to lean back in the removing-skinny-jeans-when-calves-are-a-little-bit-fatter-than-normal pose, or hunch forward in the just-a-few-more-minutes-and-I'm-sure-this-poo-will-want-to-come-out pose.

It was all very stressful (but to be fair, Frenchie did a very good job).

Luckily, we're going back next week and this time, to avoid Frenchie holding the rope between his teeth whilst navigating, I am going to be in charge of the rudder.  That's right.  Me.  The girl who cries when learning how to reverse park or when trying to figure out how aeroplanes get off the ground, or apples fall from trees.

Excited!

Who's in Charge?

So.  This post is entirely not about Vietnam, Singapore, or any other South East Asian or Australasian destination, just a short rant, accompanied by some pictures.  Apologies for the false advertising in the blog address.  I'll name the next one emmagetspissedoffwiththepatriarchy.blogspot.com.

Now I know that a lot of people might be boooooooooooooooored with me going on about that outdated feminism thing, some so much so that they have begun claiming that feminism doesn't exist if I bring it up at the dinner table in an effort to wind me up into silence, but here's a thought I had as a teacher today...

Secondary school is a time where young people learn a great deal.  Before they learn a great deal, teachers have a lot of fun times inside their heads being amused by what they don't already know and by the ways they express themselves.  This week, a 14 year old boy shouted at his friend in one of those awkwardly loud voices at the precise moment when everyone in the class did 'thinking faces' in silence rather than 'discussion voices' to create general hubbub: 'because rabbits are bigger than chickens!'.  Another child shouted, near-hysterically at a group member across the table: 'I know what you're trying to say but it's so difficult to say it in words!'  Yet another confidently told me (having watched the entire movie, completed many comprehension quizzes and spent six weeks studying) in a levelled assessment that half way through the play, Juliet decides to break up with Romeo to do what's best for her family.  And today, a young man looked at a piece of scrap paper I had given him with a quiz printed on one side, showed me the mumbo jumbo on the scrap side and said, 'sorry, what am I supposed to do with this?'  We did a workshop on how to turn a piece of paper over, and it was like the Age of Enlightenment had dawned in his teenage world. 

Young people are so wonderful and I am very privileged to work with them, but what's true is that between the ages of 11 and 18, they still don't know what to do when their laptop battery dies when they are sitting next to a plug socket, they need clear explanations as to why 'little rolled clusters, like sausages' is a sexual innuendo, they think that Queen Victoria was queen of all Europe and they pronounce the word 'distraught' as 'distraughted' and spell it 'distrort' despite you repeating the word to them slowly and clearly and accepting that it's a funny old spelling and so spelling it out for them at least three times.  There are unlimited things that kids simply do not know.

What they do know, however, is the answer to this question: 'Who was in charge at this point?'  I have to have this conversation every single time I teach a new text in order to talk about social and historical context, to talk about power balances, to talk about character relationships, to talk about 'voice', to talk about empathy, to talk about imagery, to talk about writer's intention, and you know what?  Without a shadow of hesitation, every single child aged 11-18 can confidently, without preparation or revision, respond with 'The men'.

They don't know where that knowledge has come from; they don't know why It is Like This.  You ask them who is 'in charge' in their house, and a lot of them will say, 'MUM', but you ask them who is 'in charge' in life and they say 'MEN'.  That fact is something deep and ingrained into their inherent understanding of life, and in my job, all I seem to do is confirm this fact, through great works of literature.  Just to show you that I'm not making this up, let's have a look at the texts I've taught this year and the men in charge (and if you are a teacher of any subject, I challenge you to do the same):

Greek Myths: Zeus



King of Shadows: Shakespeare



Short Stories: Travis, The Mean Sheriff, Mr. Maloney (though he gets his comeuppance), the crazy and unreliable male narrator



Advertising: MEN



War Poetry: MEN



The Sorrow of War: Kien and other Vietnamese MEN

 (This is Bao Ninh, the author, rather than Kien the character, just to clarify - there are three narrative voices in this text, one of which may possibly be his, or all of them... whatever you decide)

The Quiet American: Fowler and other white MEN



Regeneration: MEN

Hedda Gabler: Brack and other Norwegian MEN (eventually)



Death and the Maiden: Chilean MEN (to begin with and then eventually)



Poetry from Other Cultures: Korean fathers, Vietnamese patriarchy, white South African MEN, Jamaican MEN, Pakistani patriarchy

Macbeth: medieval Scottish MEN



Romeo and Juliet: Lord Capulet, Lord Montague, Tybalt, Romeo





A Midsummer Night's Dream: Oberon, Theseus, Egeus



Of Mice and Men: the Boss and all the men who own/are mean to Curley's Wife



I'm the King of the Castle: Mr. Hooper



All My Sons: Joseph and Chris Keller



It is quite literally exhausting.  It doesn't matter what time period I'm teaching, what country, what genre of text: Q: 'Who is in charge at this point?'  A: 'The men!'

The only texts that buck the trend are the Cuban poem Mother and Holes, where the Warden is in charge.  Thank goodness, even though she is mean and eventually outsmarted by a teenage boy.  Let's take a moment to thank Sigourney Weaver, as the Warden, for being a heinous bitch and putting it out there for female authority:



That's right, Sigourney: deny them water.  Deny those convicts water.  They deserve it for being born part of the oppressive force.  Deny them water in floral.  Deny them with that braid.  Abuse that new-woman power.  They've got it coming to them.

Let's get back on track! I don't want to present an argument that suggests that there are no women in the texts I teach and that I don't spend hours and hours and hours of my life talking about women's issues like pregnancy and misogyny and objectification and female empowerment and maternal instincts and gender neutrality and taking on masculine traits and discussing why it's inappropriate to make lewd comments about the woman licking an ice cream in the Magnum advert.  But check out that list of topics: any conversations that do focus on the significant women in the text - here they all are: Curley's Wife, Hedda, Paulina, Kate Keller, Annie, Mrs. Kingshaw, Lady Macbeth, Juliet, Helena, Hermia, Titania, Sarah Lumb, Mrs. Maloney - focus on how these women fit the social expectations of their time, or break out of them.  Breaking out of them might make them 'in charge' temporarily, but by the end of the play./novel/poem/article/advert/film, this always ends badly (Hedda, Lady Macbeth, Juliet - suicide; Curley's Wife - death; Mrs. Kingshaw - loss of her son; Annie - broken engagement) or with the  restoration of the patriarchy and a wedding/traumatic repression of voice.  Regardless of any 'breaking out' that may be happening, the mere concept and need to 'break out' or 'rebel' or 'refuse to fulfil' necessitates that there is something in charge to 'break' or 'rebel against' or 'refuse', i.e. the patriarchy!

In the texts, I teach, the children look up, essentially, and what they see is male.  And they know that it is good and right and proper and the Way Things Are.

Is this a curriculum issue, or is this society, or is this just me?

On the plus side: my job looks very cool when you put it into pictures like this, regardless of the gender of the protagonists.

Done.  Thanks for reading.

ThurSkate

Hello. This week I have decided to consider taking up roller derby.  For those of you who are not American, or have not seen the film Whip It, roller derby is a sport introduced to me by my dearest friend Courtney, who communicated its wonder through the medium of fancy dress parties and pseudonyms.  With such an introduction, I was sold. 

As far as I understand (and admittedly, at this stage, I don't understand very much), this is a sport that involves being kick-ass and aggressive on quad roller skates, skating around and around in a circle and elbowing other people out of the way, like pushing in the lunch queue, to earn points by over-taking members of the other team.

Wow. Think of all the ingrained behaviours that this sport will allow me to subvert!  

Ingrained British behaviour: "Oh dear, that looks awfully boisterous. I think I'll sit this one out and have a cup of tea. Monopoly's my competitive sport, what, what!"

Roller Derby behaviour: "Bring it!"

Ingrained British behaviour: "Let's just wait patiently behind these ladies until it's our turn. I do love a good queue. It gives one such precious time to reflect on the beauty of small things."

Roller Derby behaviour: "MOVE, bitch!"

Exciting!

The reason for considering such a new skill is due to the impending months of thumb twiddling/friendlessness that is likely to accompany the Great Shift, which is the name I am giving to my move from Saigon to Brisbane via Singapore, which, were it included in a work of literature, would represent many a thing, like my transition from Northern to Southern Hemisphere, one person to two person meal preparation and, if there turns out to be nothing better to do, strategic baby avoidance to strategic baby expelling.  So multilayered.  I thought this Shift would be a great time to invest in all those things that I've always wanted to do, but never had the balls/time/opportunity: write a book that no one will read, paint a picture to hang in the downstairs toilet, learn to make my own bassoon reeds and, of course, join a roller derby team. 

Roller derby, I think, is the sport for me. It will allow me to build a friend-base of like minded, aggressive, intimidatingly sized, tattoed women and it will allow me to nurture one of the following doppelgängers (you have to have a sort of, beasty stage name to be a roller derby-er):

1. The Killer Queen

2. The EMMAncipator

3. ExtrEMMAsis

4. Danger-Dechans

What do you think?  Votes cast on your preferred form of social media, please.  Once I have my name, all I have to do is skate confidently and really fast. This is a small barrier to my success, I feel, especially as this week saw the inauguration of my new all-inclusive club, ThurSkate, which takes place at this magical Vietnamese roller disco:

Wow!  I mean, really, WOW!  Once we had discovered this venue of great wonder, Shining Shamrock, Slender Laurel, Poker Face and myself, the founding members of ThurSkate, ate barbeque and jumped on our scooters, whizzing through the Saigon night for our first try at quad skating. 

Oh, what a joy it was!  The skates: amazingly old school and smelly.  The staff: completely bemused by our presence.  The clientele: at least ten years our junior. The music: oh, the music!  For a long time I have not been blessed with the intensity of Vietnamese disco beats this roller disco had to offer and yea verily, it was entirely appropriate to the setting, including the brief moment where the Vietnamese lyrics stopped and the singer introduced the chorus with a determined, 'fuck you'. If I'd understood the rest of the song, I'm sure this would have made sense, but as it was, this unexpected little expletive broke my concentration and I fell onto my bum, arms wheeling madly like a panicking seagull.  

Check it out!  The scene is so disco, you can't even differentiate people from awesomeness.

My bruised bum was the only casualty of the evening, though; the rest of the night was spent going round and around and around and around on skates, staring at my toes and the floor about 50cm in front of me, and holding my arms out in a sort of unstable scarecrow pose. 

I, for one, think I'm going to be ready for roller derby in no time...

My Saigon

Of course, I am on holiday again. As a teacher, this is what I get paid to do. This time, it's a holiday to celebrate the Reunification of North and South Vietnam and also a day that, up until this point, I had thought was all about cider, cramming onto motorways to get to beaches, pub lunches and royal weddings. Turns out that for all those anti-royalist countries, May 1st is for the labourers, who get a day off, not a day that gives Brits yet another reason to complain about the weather.

So, since I'd been labouring very hard since the Easter holidays (two weeks ago), and complaining at length about the weather (it is super, super hot at the moment), it was time for me to be reunified with Frenchie and spend five days doing... well... pretty much nothing as it happens.  Definitely worthy of a blog post!

Now, 'pretty much nothing' obviously translates as 'some cute stuff intermingled with lots of nothing', so here are the highlights of those five days...

1. Reunification Day, the day honoured by the Spice Girls song, '2 Become 1', involved fireworks. This meant loads of people riding their bikes to the nearest street/bridge/highway they could find, parking, blocking everything off and standing to watch the fireworks under lots of Vietnamese flags that had been hung from houses and the backs of bikes and taxis. I was eating barbeque and drinking cider in an attempt to cling onto my home culture at the time, but never one to miss fireworks, I went out onto the street, nodded appreciatively at all the flags (what's not to love about this over-sized, patriotic bunting?) and rocked back and forth, toe to heel, toe to heel, saying, 'ooh!', 'aah!', 'excellent!' in tribute to the fond memories that many a St George's girl and close family friend of the Sheppards has of my father. ('Boom!', 'gosh!', 'did you see that one?', 'kablowee!'). What was especially heartwarming were the nods of approval I received from many a Vietnamese Dad. They knew this universal Father-and-Fireworks choreography and recognised it as right and fitting for the occasion. Well done, little Western girl, you have harnessed the power of gunpowder to transgress cultural, language, age and gender barriers... Wheee!  That was a banger!  Kaboooom!  Excellent!

Then I ate more barbeque. At a place called Quàn Ut Ut, just to give it a shout out. They have an amazingly anti-vegetarian logo:

2. I took Frenchie to visit the rubber plantations of his ancestors. In this version of the story, Frenchie's ancestors are Catherine Deneuve and Vincent Perez.  Frenchie, who has seen rubber trees before (quite a lot) was more entertained by me falling off my stationary bike into gravel and submissively waving my legs in the air like an inverted tortoise as the bike fell on top of me in slow motion, accepting my fate.


He also enjoyed the strangely familiar scene of a lorry driver driving with his hand brake on.

"Oo would do a stupid thing like zat?" Frenchie scoffed.  "Me, I av never done anything so stupid in a camper van in Australia.  Quel con, zis Vietnamese lorry driver. Ee definitely did not learn to drive from ze French!"

As the eight week countdown to my departure from this blessed country begins, the trip also gave me the opportunity to take stock of all the things I will and will not miss. 

Will miss

Cattle, grazing wherever the heck they like.

10p ferry rides

My motorbikes - they have all been so good to me, even the one that left me permanently scarred.  Good times. 

Rubber trees - so peaceful

Rooftops

 All the lines and angles you can find in urban spaces

Will not miss: detest

- mosquitoes - I got bitten seven times on this trip alone and twice whilst writing this blog

Monster trucks - much bigger than bikes and very scary

- the police - like those naughty, corrupt boys in classrooms that you're not allowed to outwit because their parents have some sort of authority over you.

3. We visited the long ignored HCMC Museum of Fine Arts. There were many beautiful things, mostly the building itself, which Frenchie would like to turn into a hotel, and I would simply like to live in and wander around in a yellowing wedding dress with a fan and a small bell with which to ring for tea/gin, depending on the time of day.

Obviously, life would be no fun if all it contained was colonial beauty, so I was glad when Vietnam threw a few of these choice morsels into the mix...

Propaganda Tin Tin

Works of sublime talent and beauty by leading Vietnamese artists:

... no words...

Thanks, Vietnam!  You sure know how to put on an exhibition worthy of this blog!