Oh well, if everyone else thinks it’s ok…

Kate McCulloch, a woman dense enough to want to be Pauline Hanson:

“Look, scores of people are coming up to me and saying, ‘Good on you, Kate … you’re saying what we’re too scared to ‘cos of racial vilification laws, but we all think it.’ I would like to keep our place like it is and I guess [joining the] Liberals would be natural,” she told the Herald.

I wonder if the same conversation happens amongst groups of would-be thieves?

“Oh man Steve-o you fuckin’ rock! Robbing that fuckin’ bank man! We’re all too scared by the fuckin’ pigs, but goodonyamaaaaaaate…“

[sirens can be heard in the distance, edging closer and closer...]

The obvious solution is…

I recently read a story about the “growing dangers” of hybrid cars, namely that hybrids are are too difficult to hear for blind pedestrians, and pedestrians who can be distracted by, I shit you not, cell phones, music devices, and kids. So what are the US lawmakers’ solution? A two year study, and possibly require Auto makers to make hybrid cars louder. Yep, those big brains over in America thinks the best way to deal with quiet hybrids is to make them louder. Wow, what qualifications are required to be a US politician? Common sense isn’t one of them.

Here’s what the NSW Police is doing. Scroll down to the bottom — some of the best public service ads I’ve seen.

On Return

I’m afraid I’ve become one of those people.

You know, the type that goes overseas only to complain that “it’s not like back home blah blah”. Except in my case it’s the other way around; “It’s not like that in Japan….”

And it isn’t: public transport is expensive and shit, it’s more dangerous in parts of the city (like at the Town Hall bus stop at 2am when the Riot Squad showed up), and even the produce is not as good as I remembered it to be. All week I’ve been eating tasteless vegetables and wondering what went wrong — admittedly my vegies were bought at Coles, but I used to shop at Coles and it was fine two years ago.

That and all the other things added up, and I’ve been talking up Japan so much that even I wanted to tell myself to just get the hell back over there if I like it so much!

I’ve got the post-holiday blues bad, that’s for sure. Let’s hope I get a job soon so I have a distraction from how un-Japan everything is.

(Apologies for the lack of activity here, evidentially I’ve been too busy whinging and have been neglecting this blog.)

Things I have learnt since coming back to Sydney

Sydney is annoyingly large geographically.

The trains worked better than I remembered.

But the seats are just as uncomfortable as I remembered them to be.

Sydney is more expensive than Tokyo, no lie.

I live out in the freakin’ sticks, and I need to get the hell out of the Shire as soon as I can.

But given how expensive everything is, that is highly unlikely.

What’s In A Name?

1. Think about your own name. Did you ever have trouble spelling it as a kid? Does your name bear any resemblance to something unfortunate that haunted you through school (and possibly beyond)? Does your name have any stereotypes associated with it?

2. Names seem so straight-forward. It was probably the first thing you leant how to say and spell, it’s possibly one of the words you will hear and say most often in your lifetime — beaten only by hello and goodbye; or in my case: fuck.

3. Consider my name. By birth in Hong Kong, my name is Kung Chun Hin:

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4. When I was seven, my family moved to Australia. I remember a conversation I had with my family, talking about what English names my sister and I should take on. I first wanted “Peter”, but Mum thought that “Peter” was a name for triad punks (nevermind that my Dad’s name is the Dutch version of “Peter”). Anyway, such was my level of English (zero) and imagination (sizable, but not in English) that my next choice was “John”, and so it stuck, and I named myself “John Chun Hin Kung”.

5. Over the course of time and several run-ins with, err, less worldly Government officials, I took to hyphenate my middle names; apparently when confronted with “John Chun Hin Kung”, some people couldn’t figure out which was my middle name and which was my surname. So my name became “John Chun-Hin Kung”, which is what appears on my passport.

6. Just before I came to Japan, I stopped by Hong Kong to visit family, and to get my Hong Kong permanent ID card, which gives me the Right of Abode in Hong Kong. The officials there were very helpful; they understood that some Western officials were, err, unhelpful and easily confused. So the name on my ID card was “Kung, John Chun-hin”.

7. When I got to Japan, Japanese officals were far more strict about how names were recorded, and my name became “Kung John Chun-Hin” (note the lack of comma after my surname). This was fine, it’s close enough to my passport and how I’m known in Australia. The trouble only came to bear when I was getting married.

8. According to government officials here, “John Chun Hin Kung”, “John Chun-Hin Kung”, “Kung, John Chun-hin” and “Kung John Chun-Hin” were all different people. Order and punctuation were very important, any deviatiation could cause terrible confusion. And if you have ever dealt with Japanese beauracracy, you’d know what I mean. If not, imagine you have no legs, and you were placed at the end of a long gravel driveway and told to crawl to the house. It gets old pretty quick.

9. And it gets better — it’s generally custom for the wife to change her surname to match mine, but since Japanese uses Chinese characters, does she use my romanised surname, or the original Chinese? I would prefer Chinese, but then that doesn’t match any of our documents so far, so that would cause that “terrible confusion”. Luckily for us, the changing of her name is a custom, not a requirement.

10. Add to this a new dilemma — it has become popular for the Chinese to keep the order of their names, and add their English name to the front, so in my case that would be “John Kung Chun Hin”. I really like this, it keeps the original order while conforming to Western standards. And officials now are more aware of non-Western names, and it’s a lot easier now than it has ever been. But because of a choice made in necessity when I was a teenager, I’m stuck with the name that was shaped by others. And one’s name is, in the end, all that one has; everything else can be lost or stolen or given away, but a name stays true. I just wish I could have the name that best represents me.

So, a week in Australia, and what have I learnt?

Koala shaped chocolates, with exception to Caramello Koalas, are really hard to find.

However Koala shaped everything else is everywhere.

The old crows that work at Myer at Miranda are still as rude as I remembered them to be.

And on that note, people still stare at me in Miranda. Yes, I’m short and have black hair and I don’t look like you, Ms-born-in-the-Shire-die-in-the-Shire-middle-aged-”but-still-young-at-heart”-shivelled-up-crow, so stop staring.

Happily, I don’t get stared at anywhere else. That’s progress for ya.

But most people now think I’m Japanese. Or at least a foreigner. Including Flight Attendants. Who are Australian. Even with my accent, which I have back, in full force maaaate.

Speaking of progress, a funny thing happened when we walked through the city on our first day — neither of us felt like we’d left Japan. Because walking down George St all we saw were Asians — everywhere! Where did they all come from? Did I just not notice before? It felt like we were walking through Roppongi on a Saturday afternoon than walking through Sydney.

Did that sound really racist?

Speaking of Asians, I can now no longer pick where in Asia someone comes from. The cross-breeding of fashion and trends from different Asian countries have done away with that — although you can still pick a Chinese family from the amount of noise we make in public places. Especially restaurants and places where we can take photos of each other.

And on fashion, I have somehow become more metrosexual. It pains me. And provides my sister with an unnatural amount of amusement.

And I missed Chinese food far more than I realised. Though I don’t miss the way it accumulates around the waste line.

Another surprising thing about Sydney — the trains were working ok. They mostly came on time, they were relatively clean and fast. Unfortunately they were really expensive, but you can’t have everything.

Food in Sydney is also expensive. As are drinks. And film, electronics, games, books, hotels, ferries, and just about everything else. I think it might actually be cheaper to live in Japan.

Sydney Airport staff are great — efficient, friendly, and helpful. Why can’t the rest of the damn country be like that?

I miss my dog. And my friends. And my ex-coworkers; though I don’t miss the work so much. But most of all my dog, who’s pushing 13 and has gone deaf and kind of blind. God I love that little guy, I hope he hangs on long enough for me to see him next time I come back to Australia.

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So what’s this about not flaunting your language skills?

1. From today’s Herald:

2. “Asked if he was impressed by Mr Rudd’s language skills, Mr Downer, a French speaker, said he was not one to flaunt his talent with foreign tongues.”

3. Oh, nice comeback. But then…:

4. “I did the French language course and Mr Rudd did the Chinese language course. I did mine in two months and he did his in two years, that could say something about him and me or something about the two languages. I think the former but that sounds a tad partisan.”

5. Well, it might be “a bit partisan”, but it didn’t stop you from saying it now, did it?

Aspirational Nationalism

1. Does anyone know what this means?

2. I may be an immigrant, and English may be — technically — my second language, but I dare say I wield English far more deftly than any number of English-as-first-language speakers. But it’s been a week or so since I came across the term “Aspirational Nationalism“, and I still don’t quite understand what it means.

3. Could it refer to a country that is aspiring to become a nation? Or perhaps a nation’s people aspiring towards unity? Or, a nation of people aspiring to become wealthier, regardless of who they have to step on; thus united by their servitude to capitalist whoredom?

4. Not since Kim Beazley dropped “Boondoggle” from his impressively vast vernacular* (which, if I remember correctly, was to describe another Howard government pork barrel promise) has a phrase so confused the general public. Though “boondoggle” is at least a word — a proper, recognised word — and not some political-PR-department-constructed wet dream:

5. “But what they might mean bolted together in this way is a mystery, although there is a certain iron clang to the construction which suggests it might sound better in German.”

6. As always, well said Mr Carlton.

* – Pardon the pun.

Much Excitement!

1. I’m finally coming home! Well, for a visit anyway. I’ve booked my tickets, The Girlfriend and I will be in Sydney between September 15th to September 25th, in time for my sister’s birthday, as well as seeing Christian Lingberg play with the ACO. Happyness!

2. (Incidentally, 15th September was also the day I first set foot in Sydney, 21 years ago.)

The Big Flop and the Big Durian

1. I have been rather lax the last couple of months, and I have no excuse besides laziness. So, a quick update on life matters.

2. Firstly, my long awaited trip to Kansai this month ran wildly off course and unfortunately had to be aborted mid-trip. It was disappointing, but Kansai is only a two hour train trip away, and I’ve been told November is the best time to go; as the country slips into Autumn it dresses itself in a brilliant red, a breathtaking sight. Not sure the finances will cope but a November weekend in Kyoto is a possibility.

3. Secondly, I won’t be coming back to Sydney this NYE after all. Plane tickets were just to expensive to justify the short time back home, so now I and a fellow teacher here will be going to Indonesia instead — climbing Anak Krakatoa, visiting Yogyakarta and the nearby Merapi volcano and getting under the influence for Christmas and New Years in the Big Durian. Molten rocks, millenia old Javanese temples and cheap cheap beer, oh my!

4. I’m working right now to expand my photography portfolio, and am planning on launching a web store in the near future to sell my prints. I think I’ve got some nice images now, and the cost of entry is so low there’s no reason not to try. More on that as it comes.

5. Not much else to report I’m afraid — weekend antics notwithstanding (and I ain’t talkin’ about that). All is well in the night.