I grew tired of cynical people long ago, when I was around two years old in fact. By that meek and tender age, I had already discovered that cynicism is among one of the most horrible temperaments that a person can possess. Cynics sit on an unusual kind of seat which is wobbly with doubts, but unto which their backsides are firmly planted, never rising to venture into any of the wondrous places within the human heart. I do feel sorry for such people however, knowing that unless they change their ways, they will never be able to experience the joy of embracing anything in its entirety.
When I informed my school careers advisor that there were three things that I would like to do in this lifetime, she wasn’t impressed with my choices. I would like to travel to Mongolia, I told her, I would like to become a nun, and I would like to find God. “Do you believe in God?” I asked her.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “but I don’t think you should joke like that about your future.”
“I’m deadly serious,” I told her.
“Apologies if I sound somewhat cynical,” the careers advisor said sarcastically, “but travelling to Mongolia, becoming a nun and finding God are not concrete career paths. Becoming a nun is not economically viable these days. You are a smart girl, and It would be sad if you didn’t utilise your intelligence to find a real job.” She was also serious, but did not possess enough spirit within her wrinkled heart to be as deadly serious as I.
Ignoring her advice, I booked a flight to Mongolia, departing the day after I completed my exams. I found a placement working with children. The woman who ran the children’s home where I worked was a nun of her own style. I didn’t entertain much attraction towards most of the other nuns that I met; they seemed as cynical as my careers advisor. This nun, however, dressed in saffron robes and told me that she didn’t belong to any religion. She was a nun of spirituality, with scriptures that held no borders, like Mongolia’s fenceless countryside.
“Can I join your club?” I asked her, attracted to her style of renunciation.
“Sure,” she replied, “but unlike the other churches around here, we don’t give money or free opportunities, we make you work! This might explain why we don’t have many followers!”
So work I did: sleeping on the floor, feeding babies in the nights, disciplining wild, snotty-nosed children. The babies vomited on me, one of the children threw his full potty at me, another bit me until I bled. After the initial stage, we grew to like one another. We would walk to school together, hand in dirty hand, and then I would walk them home again, past mounds of rubbish that piled up under the great sky.
At the end of the winter, when it was no longer so cold that you would freeze to death if the car broke down, I drove out to the countryside with my nun friend.
She stopped the car, and we climbed out to scale the mountain, our faces exposed to the icy gusts of wind that lingered from winter. At the top of the mountain, looking out onto the valley below, lungs filled with the thin air, I thought of my careers advisor. Mentally, I composed a letter to her and wrote it onto the mountain side with my blood:
Dear careers advisor,
The wind is not a cynic, even if it is mighty cold. Mountains aren’t cynics either; they simply stand and watch as life passes by.
I’m standing atop a mountain now, with a vast blue sky above me, the vengeful wind tormenting my uncovered ears. Everything is silent and frozen and empty, and if I were lost here alone I would almost certainly die. The only thing that could possibly fill the space around me is God. Under such a sky as this it is impossible not to believe so, because human beings are nothing here.
Do you believe in God yet? I hope that you do, but I don’t expect so. Perhaps you need to climb this mountain in winter and freeze to death to wake up with a clearer mind. It would be a lonely death and no one would find your body. You wouldn’t even be able to breathe in the earthy scents of the countryside with your last breaths, because ice has no smell, and when the world is frozen, there are no worldly perfumes mingled with air.
Thank you for your considered advice, and for increasing my own determination to reach my career goals.
Sincerely,
Yours under a blue sky (in red ink).
A quaint barber shop window in Wyoming, USA, where small towns
still carry the air of a western frontier.
The Comfortable Chair
96 Lygon Street, East Brunswick
The Comfortable Chair, or ‘Comfy Chair’ as it’s affectionately known, lives up to its name. Nearly every inch of the establishment is fitted out with an old and comfy couch, similar to a giant share house lounge room. Patrons can rest their weary bums on the weary sofas and travel through time.
Well, almost. The walls are papered with newspaper and magazine pages from the 1940s through to the eighties. When conversation lulls, a gaze at the wallpaper will provide excellent inspiration. There is the front page of The Age declaring ‘Sir Winston Churchill is Dead’, and stories following the 1954 Royal Tour accompanied by photographs of a youthful Queen Elizabeth under captions such as: ‘It gives the nation a great feeling of pride to see her Majesty smile.’ There are antiquated ads for cigarettes and the latest movies like ‘Catch 22′ and strangely non-antiquated articles detailing the debate on whether to pull Australian troops out of the Vietnam War.
Alternatively, you can travel back to your childhood as you place your beer on a table that is actually an arcade game; said games including Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and Galactica. All to a soundtrack that spans almost as many years as the wallpaper.
Drinks start at $3.50 for a pot of Coopers pale ale and go up $13 for their range of Cocktails. Tapas plates start from $6.50 and Pizzas from $5. Thursday is student night with jugs starting at $6.50 between 5-6pm and increasing in price as the night wears on. So make sure the first round is on you
Filed under: Creative Non-fiction, Get Creative, Red Letter Days, Travel, Vietnam
She could hear the rooster’s crowing and smell the intoxicating salty scent of the ocean as she opened her eyes. It was still dark outside. She brushed her teeth and tucked her increasingly unruly hair under her filthy old hat and headed out the door to meet her trusty tour guide.
It was 5:30am in Mui Ne – a small fishing village on the south-central coast of Vietnam. At the driveway she was greeted by Vinh, a Vietnamese university graduate who had offered to show her around in exchange for some English practice. She swung her leg over his motorbike and held on tight for the journey ahead.
Off they roared, out of the alleyway and onto the main road, which was silhouetted by coconut palms. In the darkness, she glanced up at the sky. It was still full of bright twinkling stars, and to her right she recognised the Southern Cross – a beacon of familiarity in a land so foreign. With the crisp morning air lashing her face, she stretched her arms wide and let the air glide between her fingers. She felt alive for the first time in months.
Suddenly she could see the Pacific Ocean. Shadows cast from the pre-dawn light danced across the waves, beckoning her to play with them. The incandescent outline of salty sea puddles stretched for miles along the shore, like a snail’s slimy trail.
The motorcycle veered up and over a hill and all at once the scenery changed. They were surrounded by enormous sand dunes. It was like the deserts of Arizona meeting the seas of the Caribbean. She jumped off the bike and ran up the dunes, sinking deeper with every step.
The sun was beginning to rise and as its first rays caught the ripples of the dunes. She was overwhelmed by the beauty before her. For a moment, everything seemed clear.
We go through life worrying about each ripple, without appreciating the overall majesty of the dune. The journey is not about climbing to the next level, but about appreciating the overall picture – the gift of being on this Earth, if only for a moment in time.
Tearing herself away from the sunrise, she saddled the bike and they took off. After several minutes of speeding down the highway, only slowing for the occasional goat or cow, they arrived at the White Dunes.
Accompanied by a friendly desert canine, she hiked to the top of the dune and did a 360-degree swivel. The dunes stretched for miles – like white marble meticulously carved into the Earth. She turned to her guide and tried to explain how she felt. No luck, so she gave him a grin and the universal thumbs up.
Back in Mui Ne, she sat on the beach and watched a group of children playing makeshift volleyball in the sand. As the waves lapped the shoreline and the palm trees bent to shade her. She felt a tremendous sense of gratitude to be alive and enjoying her morning in paradise.
Stray dogs eagerly awaiting a few cuts from the market butcher in
the highland town of Nebaj, Guatemala.
A fresh fruit and vegie market in Havana, Cuba. A rare find in a
country where most fresh produce is exported. Even when you stumble
across a market, the selection is pretty grim.
Los Milagos in the Mexican precinct of Pilsen – bursting with
religious icons and other cultural paraphernalia, Chicago, USA.
As dawn softly breaks, shards of sunlight stream through loose bamboo walls. Shaking off a dream, the warmth gently wakes me.I feel them watching me before I open my eyes. Giggles, unsuccessfully stifled by tiny hands clamped tight over tiny mouths, waft up the ladder of the rickety hut and into my consciousness. Eyes closed, I am relieved to hear laughter in this land.
I roll over. The thin hut floor creaks in protest. The giggles abruptly stop. A few moments pass. Patter, patter. Small bare feet approach the ladder. I roll over again. The second creak sends the footsteps scuttling back in the direction they came from. I want to take my time in waking up. Time to reflect on the weeks I have been in this beautiful land.
***
Yesterday I sat under the Piggy Tree near the market in Baguia. Deep in the interior of East Timor, Baguia is a village carved out of the dense forest and steep shaly cliffs. The village straddles a small mountain ridge that is dwarfed by Timor’s highest peak, the imposing Mount Matebian.
Above me, hung piglets. Vertically from the trees branches, the piglets swung in harnesses made from dried palm fronds. Grateful for shade, I had stayed with them. While they waited for their middles to be squeezed and tested for plumpness, I waited for the tropical afternoon rains and the glorious cool that they bring.
The jungles of East Timor tumble down the mountainous interior into a magnificent blue ocean. Ancient coral reefs create a kaleidoscope of blues that disappear into the deep navy of the Timor Sea. The people are slight and eclectic. Over a dozen indigenous groups of Malay and Papuan origin exist in this Eden. Intermarriage between the various tribes and Portuguese and Chinese settlers has created a unique diversity in physical features, but despite various ethnic backgrounds, the people are one.
Past the Piggy Tree sat a group of boys. There was a hardness in their eyes. They’ were not boys, but little men. The first generation born in a peaceful East Timor for over 400 years. They missed the years of Indonesian occupation, the years of unimaginable brutality that normalised death and fear. They missed the uninvited Japanese troops in World War II penetrating the jungle, and the women. They were born in a land of incredible beauty, resilience and abject poverty. Despite the hardship of life, it seems the fighting spirit of the people and the memory of past struggles have made the people hard, but happy.
The piglets didn’t like the rain. They squealed as the slipped and swayed in their harnesses. The boys laughed. Fresh and clean their skins had soaked up the moisture. They looked alive.
The market stopped for the shower. Patterns of colourful flowers and shapes peeked through carefully stacked potatoes and carrots. The traditional cloth or tais acts as a barrier between earth and vegetable, and folds over as protection from the rain. Behind the Piggy Tree, three generations of women sat under a single banana leaf. Their fragile frames swimming in faded batik sarongs imported from Indonesia. Whatever they made that day would support their families for a week.
***
I open my eyes. The air is thick with ancestors.
Silent, the children stare from the protection of the Uma Lulik, a sacred place for worship of the dead and the centre of all village life. They stop giggling and seem to be waiting for their first glimpse of a malai (foreigner). There have been no foreigners in Dare Lare village since a Portuguese battalion sought food and shelter here thirty years ago. The children are understandably excited. Afraid enough to seek the comfort of their ancestors, they peer through the low hanging roof of the Uma Lulik.
We had trekked to the village after the market in Baguia. One hour by foot. Through thickets of jungle, permeated by streams and banana trees, lay a cluster of huts, Dare Lare.
I have seen many villages like Dare Lare travelling through East Timor. I have been welcomed countless times into people’s homes and lives. I have shared simple meals with curious children and hard working women, and listened to the lore of the elders. I have travelled through some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen and into villages whose hospitality is matched only by their inhabitants’ strength of spirit.
It is time to get up. I climb down the ladder and the children gasp. They step further into the protection of the Uma Lulik. ‘Ba nebe?’ I say in their direction, laughing. Where are you going? They start giggling as I climb into their hideaway. The beginning of another incredible day in East Timor.
Being single can be tough anywhere, but in Korea it can be downright confusing.
No sound of mail dropping onto the doormat. No carrier pigeon beating his wings against my apartment window bearing joyful messages of love. Not even a flippin e-card. Nothing. Zilch.
I had begun to think my admirers had forgotten about me. Not even Beckham (who I like to think of as my cheeky bit on the side) bothered to send me a card, not that I care though, I’m still waiting for his voice to drop and what with his recent fall from grace he’s no longer the catch I thought he was.
However, while I was bemoaning my lack of romantic appreciation and wondering how indeed the world could be so cruel (AGAIN), one of my students pointed out a cultural difference that put a smile on my face and stopped me from heading for the two litres of ice cream I keep in the freezer for ‘emergencies’ of this nature. It turns out that on Valentines Day in Korea it is the GIRL who buys presents for the guy!
What the?
I was thinking this was perhaps another example of Korean male chauvinism, the guy gets the presents, the girl gets to cook dinner and wash up, that kind of thing. However, I was wrong. Apparently my time will come next month on March 14th, which is known in Korea as ‘White Day’. On White Day guys return the favour and buy the girls the presents, normally candy and flowers.
Hallelujah! I was simply being insecure, of course my admirers hadn’t forgotten me! They’re just aware that I respect the cultural differences between Koreans and Westerners and, not wanting to look stupid, decided to wait until White Day to send me a gift. Phew, I can sleep easier now.
The story, however, doesn’t end there. While investigating my lack of gifts, (for obviously a trauma of this gravity requires seeerious investigation) I discovered that Korea has many ’special days’. Now whether these days can really constitute as special isn’t really for me to say however I do think the motivations for creating such days may have been a little dubious. In the UK we moan that Valentines day simply exists to line the pockets of retailers and to strike fear into the heart of the average British male who’s single brain cell malfunctions with all the stress and causes them to think a pink teddy from a card shop is an acceptable gift (it isn’t, and neither is a voucher from a high street shop that can buy nowt more than two pairs of tights..but let’s not get into that…)
In Korea they go that step further. Here goes..
*14th January- Diary Day- when you exchange diaries so that you can plan the year ahead. Obviously the Koreans must anticipate a major New Year hangover and therefore the first two weeks has them drunk, disorganised and diaryless.
*14th February- Valentines Day- guy gets pressies.
*14th March- White Day- girl gets pressies.
*14th April- Black Day- all single people moan about the fact they are single and eat black noodles called Jjajangmeon.
*14th May- Rose Day- another day that has florists rubbing their hands with glee.
*14th June- Kiss Day- you get to snog the face off your beloved today, however it isn’t prohibited on the other days of the year. Perhaps they have a special type of kiss for Kiss Day, the mind boggles…
*14th July- Silver Day- you exchange gifts of the silver variety.
*14th August- Green Day- modern life is stressful- get yourself to a place with greenery today.
*14th September- Music and Photos Day- couples take photos of each other or you gather all your friends in a nightclub and take photos.
*14th October- Wine Day- you gotta get yourself and your better half to a fancy restaurant and drink red wine today ( there needs to be a special day for that?!)
*14th November- Movie/Orange Day- go watch a movie with your boyfriend and then, erm, drink orange juice ?
* 14th December-Hug Day- because it’s cold in December we should all hug each other to keep warm. Think penguins.
Apparently the majority of Koreans don’t have a clue when these days actually are and it took one of my students to look on the internet for me to confirm, however it is strongly believed that the rampant consumerists who created these crazy days were targeting that most naive, gullible and impressionable of creatures, the high school girl.
So what did I do on Valentine’s? What any self respecting singleton should- went out for lunch with a girlfriend, ate to excess, increased my waist size by at least an inch and then went home and felt sick. A job well done – and I get to do it all again in a month on White Day!
So many Young Australians pack their bags and head to London with a Working Holiday visa in their pocket. Lance Richardson delves into why they do it and why some don’t want to come home.
Homer wrote in The Odyssey of The Land of the Lotus-Eaters, a place where people take up a narcotic lotus and fall into addiction at the expense of their past and future. It’s an analogy for many things – not least, I think, of the temptation to expunge responsibility and remain a child. My lotus was my working holiday in London.
At first glance there is something oddly perverse about the pairing of ‘Working’ and ‘Holiday’ on those British visa forms. Surely, one thinks, the embassy has got it wrong. Surely a holiday denotes a stretch of time absent of work, and work denotes a stretch of time absent of holiday. Surely, together, they cancel each other out and you’re simply left lying in bed wondering what it is you’re supposed to be doing.
But it quickly becomes clear that Holiday is almost certainly a misnomer. Somebody’s made a typo. Call the embassy. Because shouldn’t it really say something like Working Travel Experience? Anybody who’s ever been ferried to the beach by their parents and then gone backpacking with friends on a budget will know what I mean. Holiday and travel are often different kettles of fish: holiday is automatic, safe, battered flake with chips; travel is cast from rough clay and boiled over an open fire, and the fish in this case are piranhas waiting to bite off your extremities.
So with this in mind, why bother with the oxymoron that is the Working Holiday? Semantics aside, the obvious answer is, of course, because it’s fun. It’s fun to experience a different environment, to stretch out your cultural legs and match three-dimensional reality with movie fantasy, a holiday from life as you know it.
One reason young Aussies flock to London depends more on the Working aspect of the supposed holiday. Sarah, a friend of mine, took the opportunity to go to London and cement her ambition as an interior designer. Something indelible remains of the image of Australia as a bucolic backwater, devoid of satisfying jobs, against which the allure of international opportunity is a strong temptation.
Most interesting, however, is the Working Holiday as a convenient diversionary tactic. I speak from experience here. Those late teenage years when you find yourself suddenly considered an adult, independent, can seem nebulous and lacking in forward motion. Without university or any reasonable short-term goals, it’s easy to stagnate in a haze of anxious indecision. A Working Holiday provides an alibi for two years of meandering or fantasising, an escape clause from the pressures of career and responsibility.
This was my own tacit thinking when I grabbed a visa and headed for London, selected for its proximity to Europe as well as its appearance of a cultural Mecca. All my favourite writers had intimate experience with London – to live there, even for a short period, seemed like an opportunity to connect with like-minded people in an environment I found exhilarating. Australia and I had never quite got along in this respect; I hoped London would prove a better fit. This led to a naïve imagining of myself as a sort of Dorian Gray, capable of stowing away my cardinal Australianess in favour of something else, acquired, controllable and distinctly European (something to do with confidence, perhaps). I reasoned that if you control the base elements you’ve gone a long way to controlling outcomes. This is only a short step from feeling like your future’s being shaped rather than shaping you.
My goal was quickly decided then: to use the Working Holiday as an opportunity to reconfigure myself – everything else would hopefully follow in painless compliance. So I got a room in a share-house near Holland Park. I landed an interesting job working the world-class museum circuit thanks to a prominent agency that earned more from my exertions than I did. While on assignment I distributed tickets beneath a Chihuly chandelier. I greeted John Galliano in a Vivienne Westwood retrospective. I watched a technician maintain the priceless lapidary of the Rosetta Stone while my hippie boss, in candid admission, declared that though he may have been high at the time, he did in fact dance in a nightclub with both of the Minogue sisters simultaneously. Basically, I submerged myself in a series of low-responsibility positions that fostered a feeling of achievement while actually leaving me in the same limbo of aimlessness that had sent me abroad in the first place. I awoke each morning excited, glad to be a Londoner, but increasingly aware that I was wearing a costume in a game that could never really be won.
I suspect it’s not until the day your visa expires, however, that you realise just how much you’ve come to rely on the specious sense of achievement. With the parents remarking on how much your accent’s changed, and the formidable approach of an uncertain future, it’s easy to feel nostalgically attached to a surrogate home where everything’s ‘easier.’ Certainly on this point I’m not alone – take Nadine, for example, a friend who found herself illegal and handing out nightclub flyers in a vain attempt to stay an unofficial citizen. Or Sarah, the interior designer: ‘I felt I had made a life for myself in London and that I had fully immersed myself into my life, my work and my friends,’ she says. ‘I was happy and I was not ready to come home. I did not want to come home . . . to step back in to my old life.’
For a while the lotus consumed my thoughts; this unfettered life in London was my real life; the Australian me was all a prologue, a test-run. For myself and others who take the visa as a diversionary tactic, it’s easy to fall for this illusion, and it can last long after you’ve made the obligatory voyage home. Even now I miss London – in terrible, homesick pangs – but I’ve gained valuable perspective in retrospect. I didn’t lose the experience gained in England on the return flight to Sydney. If anything, it led me to seek out similarities here and I’ve found things in places I wouldn’t otherwise have thought to look. As with Sarah, now working in interior design in Melbourne, the Working Holiday actually illuminated an entirely new direction. ‘It made me a better person – I only had to let it go and embrace the uncertain future to realise that.’
So you’ve been travelling for a while and you’re running low on funds?
Beginning to contemplate a return to the comforts of home? Don’t be ridiculous!
Here are some tips to help you earn some quick cash while staying under the bureaucratic radar…
Offer your services
Most accommodations will have cleaners, front desk staff and sometimes even chefs and bartenders. If your bank balance is feeling the pressure, offer to help out for a few weeks in exchange for free rent or food. Not only will this save you money, but it will also allow you to get to know the staff and locals, lending you a deeper insight into the culture, language and region.
Get your hands dirty
Mushroom picking, fruit picking, and tree planting are great ways to make cash while you travel. Some things to be aware of – firstly, these jobs are often in isolated regions. Find out if you’ll be given accommodation and if you need to take equipment and supplies. This work can be very hard on the body, with long hours, tough labour and dirty surrounds, so be prepared to work hard!
Share your linguistic expertise
English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, and demand for teachers is high. Don’t be intimidated if you don’t have any language teaching experience – in many cases being a native English speaker is enough. There are loads of websites with advice for ESL teachers, and even online courses (TEFL) if you’re that way inclined. You could place ads in local papers, libraries, windows or wherever you’re staying, or offer to teach the person who owns your hostel in exchange for rent. Alternatively, offer a language exchange so you can learn the local lingo.
Be sneaky
Go to local cafe, tactfully inform the manager of your circumstances and ask for a cash-in-hand job. It’s useful to have a good understanding of the local language here, to ensure that your pay, hours and duties are well understood on both sides. Employers can see cheap labour in a visa-free staff member – you don’t want to end up washing squat toilets for $2 an hour! But remember you’ll be working for significantly less under the table.
Get out on your own
Find a couple of friends and start a business mowing lawns, pruning bushes, washing cars, minding kinds – whatever you can think of. Hand out flyers in the local area with a sob story and an outline of the services you offer and you’re on your way!
