Back around the time Nui Xiji was writing verse, I worked as a performing arts and English teacher at a state high school. Of course I jest about the timescale, but it seems like several lifetimes ago. One of the highlights (amongst many) of that earlier career was a trip to Europe in the summer holidays in 1989/90 with a select band of students who were tasked with performing before a wide variety of audiences.
That is no easy feat for a bunch of 17 and 18 year old students and while they had all studied drama at school and had shown an aptitude for the subject, for most it was the first time overseas. We had spent the better part of a year fundraising and developing the kind of show that could be adapted to suit the circumstances, a mixture of mime, movement, short play extracts, improvisation and monologues. It was quite eclectic and interesting to watch, not overly long, as I wanted to leave the punters hankering for more when the curtain dropped.
On our European leg of the trip, we had flown into Charles de Gaulle in Paris, ready to meet the coach for the short journey to the hotel. I was in charge of some extra baggage, including a small bag containing a parachute, an object that we used as part of the show. After a sleepless flight from LA, I wandered through customs and arriving the other side, realising that the bag was still on the carousel. This being in the blessed days before September 11, I was able to swan through the customs area unopposed and retrieve the bag. But on attempting to go through for a second time, a sharp-eyed officer asked me to show her the bag and its contents.
It occurred to me at that point that I might be in trouble. For who comes through customs on an international flight carrying only a small bag and a parachute. I was ushered into a small side room. The officer could not speak English so I had to proceed in my poorly remembered French.
"Je suis professeur dramatique," I said gingerly (I should have said "de theatre" but my mind was a fog)
"Je dirige un voyage scolaire," I added hopefully. There was silence in the room.
"J'ai oublié ça." I pointed to the offending bag.
That seemed sufficient and I was released. I noticed my interrogator was smiling as I made my way through the gate.
I think that today I would have been spending at least 24 hours in a police cell as officers tried to break down my story.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Niu Xiji was a poet of the Five Dynasties period in 10th Century China, a time of political upheaval. Niu was born in Longxi (present day Gansu) and lived in the region later known as the Former Shu kingdom. With the fall of Former Shu, Niu went to Luoyang. Not many of his poems are extant but here is one translation that shows a remarkable talent. Love poems are not easy to write.
Green Skirt
Where the mist has torn
The hills are the colours of spring
The sky is whitening
Not many stars are left
The fragment of moon is going out
But your face in the early light
Glitters
Now we must separate
After all the words
Nothing is eased
Turn your head - I have something to add
You will remember
My skirt of green silk woven loosely
The new grass will remind you of it everywhere
Green Skirt
Where the mist has torn
The hills are the colours of spring
The sky is whitening
Not many stars are left
The fragment of moon is going out
But your face in the early light
Glitters
Now we must separate
After all the words
Nothing is eased
Turn your head - I have something to add
You will remember
My skirt of green silk woven loosely
The new grass will remind you of it everywhere
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Saturday, August 25, 2018
My previous post had a haiku within a pictorial context. Most haiku can stand alone, drawing the reader into the moment. Some are made even richer though by knowing something of the background to the poem, whether it be the life of the poet or the times it was written in.
Consider this one by the 18th Century Japanese poet, Yagi Shokyu-ni.
The "forget-me" has bloomed,
but ah!
I cannot forget old days together.
It is a beautiful moment of recognition and recollection. But if I told you that it was written on the anniversary of her husband's death, which it was, there is yet another level of meaning, bitter-sweet as it is.
Sometimes it is good to know just a little more.
Consider this one by the 18th Century Japanese poet, Yagi Shokyu-ni.
The "forget-me" has bloomed,
but ah!
I cannot forget old days together.
It is a beautiful moment of recognition and recollection. But if I told you that it was written on the anniversary of her husband's death, which it was, there is yet another level of meaning, bitter-sweet as it is.
Sometimes it is good to know just a little more.
At the moment I am listening to The Great Courses, Great Minds of the Medieval World. The course lecturer, Prof. Dorsey Armstrong maintains that for her, one sign that a sophisticated civilisation has arrived is the fact that one can choose to be a professional poet, and make a living from it. While she is probably half in jest, I would agree on the broad sweep of the statement, for surely a civilisation has reached some kind of golden era or zenith if its citizens have the time and ability to critically reflect upon their condition as human beings, in writing.
I have rarely met any professional poets who did not have a mainstream job to support themselves though I did encounter one last week, a woman who writes and teaches haiku for a living. My ears pricked up of course as this is an area of interest to me too though I am next to certain I could not make a dollar from writing them. But she does apparently and her work, from what I have read, is very good.
Looking over some of the poems that have won accolades at NHK's Haiku Masters today, I came across one that was very clever and had that lovely ring of truth about it.
The poet is Ken Sawitri, from Indonesia and the category is photo haiku.
I have rarely met any professional poets who did not have a mainstream job to support themselves though I did encounter one last week, a woman who writes and teaches haiku for a living. My ears pricked up of course as this is an area of interest to me too though I am next to certain I could not make a dollar from writing them. But she does apparently and her work, from what I have read, is very good.
Looking over some of the poems that have won accolades at NHK's Haiku Masters today, I came across one that was very clever and had that lovely ring of truth about it.
The poet is Ken Sawitri, from Indonesia and the category is photo haiku.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Australian politics at the Federal level has been unstable for about a decade now. Every so often, though far too often, a Prime Minister is overthrown, not by the concerted efforts of the Opposition Party, but by the Government itself. Since 2007, no one Prime Minister has served out his (or her) full term; the latest casualty being Malcolm Turnbull, today.
The last few days in Canberra have been the most extraordinary political circus, a case of nobody really knowing what was going on though there was plenty of speculation as to why it was. It seemed that the glowering mean-spirited conservative Peter Dutton was likely to unseat the Prime Minister, having made a wounding assault in a party room vote last Tuesday. The past few days saw the very essence of power slip from Turnbull's grasp, but in the end, the departing Prime Minister seems to have pulled off a little coup of his own. By holding up a second spill for a vital 48 hours, he appears to have engineered the defeat of Dutton and the election of Scott Morrison. The conservatives have been thwarted, for the time being.
During the early stages of the Cultural Revolution in China, Mao used far more indirect means to attack political opponents. "Pointing at the mulberry to revile the ash", drawing attention to one thing in order to attack another, was a more subtle ploy than the direct attack employed in Canberra this week. It's better, of course, to try to come to some kind of consensus about an issue, policy or direction in the first place, but people who go into politics tend to be ambitious and often as not, vastly inflate their capacity.
We have an actual election involving the people (ie, the electors) next year, so yet another Prime Minister may emerge, if the new incumbent cannot bring home the bacon.
The last few days in Canberra have been the most extraordinary political circus, a case of nobody really knowing what was going on though there was plenty of speculation as to why it was. It seemed that the glowering mean-spirited conservative Peter Dutton was likely to unseat the Prime Minister, having made a wounding assault in a party room vote last Tuesday. The past few days saw the very essence of power slip from Turnbull's grasp, but in the end, the departing Prime Minister seems to have pulled off a little coup of his own. By holding up a second spill for a vital 48 hours, he appears to have engineered the defeat of Dutton and the election of Scott Morrison. The conservatives have been thwarted, for the time being.
During the early stages of the Cultural Revolution in China, Mao used far more indirect means to attack political opponents. "Pointing at the mulberry to revile the ash", drawing attention to one thing in order to attack another, was a more subtle ploy than the direct attack employed in Canberra this week. It's better, of course, to try to come to some kind of consensus about an issue, policy or direction in the first place, but people who go into politics tend to be ambitious and often as not, vastly inflate their capacity.
We have an actual election involving the people (ie, the electors) next year, so yet another Prime Minister may emerge, if the new incumbent cannot bring home the bacon.
Monday, August 20, 2018
Twenty years ago this month I first went Japan. The occasion was the anniversary of the Sanda City and Blue Mountains Sister City relationship. Somehow, the choir I was a member of, Crowd Around, was selected to represent the Blue Mountains at a special concert. We were a non-audition SATB community choir so I guess that this was a considerable honour. Since I was the choir President (a title with no real power), I was hopeful (though in jest, to be truthful), that I would be presented to the Emperor. Alas, no.
But this was a wonderful week away in which our home-stay families spoilt us rotten and we got a small taste of Sanda and environs, including a lightning tour of Kyoto. I didn't know it at the time but this trip was the start of an enduring relationship with Japan, including a three year stint teaching English at Yes School in Sanda. So I owe much to Janet Swain (our choir director) for grabbing the opportunity when it came. I am also grateful for the chance offered by Stephanie Swoll, an American living in Sanda and whose school it was that we worked at. If not for Stephanie, there would have been no job to go to.
The evening concert took place in the outdoor amphitheatre of Fukada Park in Flowertown (also an evacuation site) and we performed half a dozen songs. Also on the same program were a Korean choir and a local symphony orchestra. The evening was very warm and I remember looking up into the audience and seeing hand-held fans swinging in the semi-darkness.
Below is a shot taken just before our performance on that hot August night. The glass building in the background is the Museum of Nature and Human Activities, adjacent the performance space. The photo is pre-digital and has deteriorated over time.
But this was a wonderful week away in which our home-stay families spoilt us rotten and we got a small taste of Sanda and environs, including a lightning tour of Kyoto. I didn't know it at the time but this trip was the start of an enduring relationship with Japan, including a three year stint teaching English at Yes School in Sanda. So I owe much to Janet Swain (our choir director) for grabbing the opportunity when it came. I am also grateful for the chance offered by Stephanie Swoll, an American living in Sanda and whose school it was that we worked at. If not for Stephanie, there would have been no job to go to.
The evening concert took place in the outdoor amphitheatre of Fukada Park in Flowertown (also an evacuation site) and we performed half a dozen songs. Also on the same program were a Korean choir and a local symphony orchestra. The evening was very warm and I remember looking up into the audience and seeing hand-held fans swinging in the semi-darkness.
Below is a shot taken just before our performance on that hot August night. The glass building in the background is the Museum of Nature and Human Activities, adjacent the performance space. The photo is pre-digital and has deteriorated over time.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Do you have a preferred time to be alive in human history? Are you happy with the present, with its mod-cons, medical science, instant connectivity and high standard of living, or would you trade these undoubted benefits for a different era? Would you be happy to sheer off half your life expectancy for the chance to live in Georgian or Victorian times in England, a place where, if luck blessed you, you might end up at balls, driven by horse and phaeton through dim cobbled streets, certain of your nation's place in the sun.
As a younger man I often pined (that really is the right word) for the chance to hang out with the Romantics, somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century. Unlike now, one might write with a great lucid verbosity and compose verse with a flourish of high sounding language. Today this would be pretentious but then, you were assured of a reading public, holidays in the Lakes District and Italy, and female admirers. Poetry could be a profession if you were good enough, though I suspect my verse would fall short and I would "fade far away into the forest dim", contracting pneumonia and expiring promptly.
Today I was listening to a podcast on the Venerable Bede, the English cleric, scholar and intellectual of the 8th century. Bede's time, about which he wrote, was difficult. Plague consumed most all of the monks at his monastery at Wearmouth, except he and one or two others. The Viking invasions were yet to come, but for most people, life was threadbare and contingent. Only 2% of the population were literate and death was a constant handmaiden. Yet, the certainty with which people believed in God, where they had come from and where they were going, made the present more bearable. Their lives were meaningful in ways we cannot understand.
You know by now that this is one of my themes (surely, idee fixe - ed.) and that modern living has done a remarkably good job of stripping the meaningful from the life bit. People search in all kinds of ways to get meaning, but it is not found in extreme sports, composing buckets lists, taking drugs, pumping iron or becoming a celebrity. There are thousands of ways modern people seek meaning and for the most part, it alludes them. I am not chastising, moreover, I find it sad that we have thrown out those ways of being which better suit our condition, in favour of the gross distortion of contrived happiness that is consumer capitalism.
I have no answers, but like Larkin, tend to stop by at old churches. I am less sure than he that "the ghostly silt" has dispersed, but it seems true enough that we need to recapture something of that certainty, that lost wonder.
As a younger man I often pined (that really is the right word) for the chance to hang out with the Romantics, somewhere at the beginning of the 19th century. Unlike now, one might write with a great lucid verbosity and compose verse with a flourish of high sounding language. Today this would be pretentious but then, you were assured of a reading public, holidays in the Lakes District and Italy, and female admirers. Poetry could be a profession if you were good enough, though I suspect my verse would fall short and I would "fade far away into the forest dim", contracting pneumonia and expiring promptly.
Today I was listening to a podcast on the Venerable Bede, the English cleric, scholar and intellectual of the 8th century. Bede's time, about which he wrote, was difficult. Plague consumed most all of the monks at his monastery at Wearmouth, except he and one or two others. The Viking invasions were yet to come, but for most people, life was threadbare and contingent. Only 2% of the population were literate and death was a constant handmaiden. Yet, the certainty with which people believed in God, where they had come from and where they were going, made the present more bearable. Their lives were meaningful in ways we cannot understand.
You know by now that this is one of my themes (surely, idee fixe - ed.) and that modern living has done a remarkably good job of stripping the meaningful from the life bit. People search in all kinds of ways to get meaning, but it is not found in extreme sports, composing buckets lists, taking drugs, pumping iron or becoming a celebrity. There are thousands of ways modern people seek meaning and for the most part, it alludes them. I am not chastising, moreover, I find it sad that we have thrown out those ways of being which better suit our condition, in favour of the gross distortion of contrived happiness that is consumer capitalism.
I have no answers, but like Larkin, tend to stop by at old churches. I am less sure than he that "the ghostly silt" has dispersed, but it seems true enough that we need to recapture something of that certainty, that lost wonder.
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Sunday, August 12, 2018
I have had an abiding interest in Chinese history for a while now. I have just finished yet another podcast survey course from ancient times to modern (From Yao To Mao by The Great Courses) and would love to start the same one again. There is a simple reason for wanting to repeat or reread courses, programs or books in Chinese history. It is very long and broad and deep, going back thousands of years with a clear line to the present, most unlike anywhere else. It is demanding and unwieldy and therefore difficult to remember.
I guess China scholars tend to focus on one period, or a part of a period, becoming experts in that field. To go much beyond is to invite confusion. Imagine going to an international car show where every manufacturer and every model of vehicle is displayed. You have one day at the show and you will probably be tempted to make your way through the many pavilions and exhibitions, occasionally lingering at a favourite car or car maker, but pushing on relentlessly, collecting brochures, overhearing sales patter, sitting behind wheels and watching fragments of video presentations. You arrive at the exit come days-end exhausted, perhaps exhilarated, but somewhat overwhelmed by information.
There is an adage which goes, "the more you know, the less you realise you know," a saying that smart people know to be true. It is certainly true of Chinese history. I will keep plugging on, arriving at a place one day far from now that I will know to be only the starting point.
How about this for a timeline! The first date on the top left below the Xia reads 2,000 BC.
I guess China scholars tend to focus on one period, or a part of a period, becoming experts in that field. To go much beyond is to invite confusion. Imagine going to an international car show where every manufacturer and every model of vehicle is displayed. You have one day at the show and you will probably be tempted to make your way through the many pavilions and exhibitions, occasionally lingering at a favourite car or car maker, but pushing on relentlessly, collecting brochures, overhearing sales patter, sitting behind wheels and watching fragments of video presentations. You arrive at the exit come days-end exhausted, perhaps exhilarated, but somewhat overwhelmed by information.
There is an adage which goes, "the more you know, the less you realise you know," a saying that smart people know to be true. It is certainly true of Chinese history. I will keep plugging on, arriving at a place one day far from now that I will know to be only the starting point.
How about this for a timeline! The first date on the top left below the Xia reads 2,000 BC.
Wednesday, August 08, 2018
Hiroshima Day Commemoration 2018 has just passed but its powerful memory lives on. I went to Hiroshima 16 years ago on a short vacation from teaching duties at Yes School in Sanda. I was hunting through some old letters we sent back to Australia in 2002 and publish an extract below. I think it sums up my complicated feelings about this awful event. Lest We Forget.
April 2002
"Nobody can enter this city without the knowledge, buried sometimes deeply in the psyche, that this is a special place. I entered Hiroshima with something of that feeling that I had when I first came into Dachau. Passing through Dresden I had the same sensation. How can I explain it?
We had no bookings for Hiroshima and I was a little worried. This was a city of over a million and we had a few listings for accommodation in our travel guide, but no detailed map. Nadia tried the first couple of hotels on our keitai but they were booked solid. The youth hostel was full. It was getting dark and the traffic was heavy. Finally, we secured lodging in a minshuku, very close to Peace Park. A little expensive, but very central.
In our meanderings, we had crossed several rivers and seen the cherry trees in full bloom. We were overjoyed – the city looked beautiful with large boughs weeping white petals into the rivers. On another wide boulevarde, trams ran up and down. Hiroshima felt European on first glimpse.
After settling in (our room had a tatami floor and roll up beds!), we set out for a brief evening foray into Hiroshima. We passed through adjacent Peace Park, which is the central symbol and rememberance for the catastrophic atomic bombing which took place on August 6th, 1945. This single incident informs both the past and present mindset of residents here – there is no avoiding the singularity of it.
I remember in school debates (about the merits or otherwise of dropping the bomb), that the central argument advanced by the affirmative ( a line also propagated by the Allies in WW2, then and since) was that it saved millions of lives. A necessary evil to stop a greater evil. This argument is shot to pieces by more recent scholarship that demonstrates that Japan was very close to surrender anyway and that the real reasons for dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had more to do with American fears of the Soviet Union than the defeat of Japan. A demonstration of US power for its new post-war foe.
It is impossible not to empathise with the people of Hiroshima, whose personal circumstances changed forever at 8.15am on that clear morning, over fifty years ago. I wonder whether the Americans gave thought to the 20,000 Koreans who had been forced into service and who perished in a flash. Or the ten of thousands of women and children who dived into the river to drown, so painful were their burns. I doubt it.
I could go on, but no. We walked through the park to the cenotaph, past the peace flame(that will not be extinguished until all nukes are gone from the earth), towards the monument to children who perished in the conflagration. This is really a tribute to Sadako Sasaki, the brave girl who died from leukemenia a decade after the war ended. Many of you will be familiar with her story; her abiding belief that if she folded a thousand paper cranes, she would be healed. Fifty of those cranes are in the adjacent museum – tiny, delicate, colourful. Ten years ago I walked to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels and wondered what the fuss was about; today I would go on my knees to Hiroshima to see these jewels of the heart.
Sadako fell short of folding the thousand cranes before she died, but ever since, children from around the world (though especially in Japan) have been folding them and laying them at this monument.
Very close by the monument, though across the river, is the remains of the Industrial Progress Hall, the gaunt shell and skeletal dome a mute reminder of the fatal blast. I can't even begin to describe the impact of Hiroshima on the traveller; I can only say, come and see for yourself. I'm starting to think that it might be the single most important place on the planet."
April 2002
"Nobody can enter this city without the knowledge, buried sometimes deeply in the psyche, that this is a special place. I entered Hiroshima with something of that feeling that I had when I first came into Dachau. Passing through Dresden I had the same sensation. How can I explain it?
We had no bookings for Hiroshima and I was a little worried. This was a city of over a million and we had a few listings for accommodation in our travel guide, but no detailed map. Nadia tried the first couple of hotels on our keitai but they were booked solid. The youth hostel was full. It was getting dark and the traffic was heavy. Finally, we secured lodging in a minshuku, very close to Peace Park. A little expensive, but very central.
In our meanderings, we had crossed several rivers and seen the cherry trees in full bloom. We were overjoyed – the city looked beautiful with large boughs weeping white petals into the rivers. On another wide boulevarde, trams ran up and down. Hiroshima felt European on first glimpse.
After settling in (our room had a tatami floor and roll up beds!), we set out for a brief evening foray into Hiroshima. We passed through adjacent Peace Park, which is the central symbol and rememberance for the catastrophic atomic bombing which took place on August 6th, 1945. This single incident informs both the past and present mindset of residents here – there is no avoiding the singularity of it.
I remember in school debates (about the merits or otherwise of dropping the bomb), that the central argument advanced by the affirmative ( a line also propagated by the Allies in WW2, then and since) was that it saved millions of lives. A necessary evil to stop a greater evil. This argument is shot to pieces by more recent scholarship that demonstrates that Japan was very close to surrender anyway and that the real reasons for dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had more to do with American fears of the Soviet Union than the defeat of Japan. A demonstration of US power for its new post-war foe.
It is impossible not to empathise with the people of Hiroshima, whose personal circumstances changed forever at 8.15am on that clear morning, over fifty years ago. I wonder whether the Americans gave thought to the 20,000 Koreans who had been forced into service and who perished in a flash. Or the ten of thousands of women and children who dived into the river to drown, so painful were their burns. I doubt it.
I could go on, but no. We walked through the park to the cenotaph, past the peace flame(that will not be extinguished until all nukes are gone from the earth), towards the monument to children who perished in the conflagration. This is really a tribute to Sadako Sasaki, the brave girl who died from leukemenia a decade after the war ended. Many of you will be familiar with her story; her abiding belief that if she folded a thousand paper cranes, she would be healed. Fifty of those cranes are in the adjacent museum – tiny, delicate, colourful. Ten years ago I walked to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels and wondered what the fuss was about; today I would go on my knees to Hiroshima to see these jewels of the heart.
Sadako fell short of folding the thousand cranes before she died, but ever since, children from around the world (though especially in Japan) have been folding them and laying them at this monument.
Very close by the monument, though across the river, is the remains of the Industrial Progress Hall, the gaunt shell and skeletal dome a mute reminder of the fatal blast. I can't even begin to describe the impact of Hiroshima on the traveller; I can only say, come and see for yourself. I'm starting to think that it might be the single most important place on the planet."
Tuesday, August 07, 2018
I had my first solo mission of guiding on HMAS Onslow last Sunday. Onslow is a decommissioned Oberon class submarine now stationed at the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour. As for me, the last few months have been a training period of sorts, largely consisting of being buddied-up with an experienced guide. I have also been studying some of the Museum's manuals, which present a kind of dry introduction to each ship (or boat). They tend to lack the kinds of storied experience that comes with having served in the RAN.
So imagine my surprise and joy at being on first station (the gangway to the Oberon) when a former submarine commander presented himself as a mere member of the viewing public. I stepped aside and let him amswer questions and essentially conduct an impromptu tour of the boat, a boat which he had actually served on. One doesn't get much luckier, I was later told by a fellow guide.
So now I have a few stories and a more hands-on idea of how to go about making the Oberon come to life for those who have never served on a submarine. Most people tend to wander through the boat without much of an idea, so maybe I can help to make a difference. Stories about human endeavour will always be of interest and sometimes, they can inspire people to make changes in their lives for the better.
HMAS Oberon
So imagine my surprise and joy at being on first station (the gangway to the Oberon) when a former submarine commander presented himself as a mere member of the viewing public. I stepped aside and let him amswer questions and essentially conduct an impromptu tour of the boat, a boat which he had actually served on. One doesn't get much luckier, I was later told by a fellow guide.
So now I have a few stories and a more hands-on idea of how to go about making the Oberon come to life for those who have never served on a submarine. Most people tend to wander through the boat without much of an idea, so maybe I can help to make a difference. Stories about human endeavour will always be of interest and sometimes, they can inspire people to make changes in their lives for the better.
HMAS Oberon
Friday, August 03, 2018
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