Vancouver Drift

when all your friends become acquaintances, and your family doesn't see,
just pick up a copy of miles davis ~ kind of blue and walk to walmart in the snow.

One thing I am starting to learn about the world and our/my position in it, is that our lives are influenced by deterministic forces beyond our control. We are shaped, constructed in a society that barely knows us but vies for our control. Our lives are very shallow in this state of affairs.

Television, and now the Internet dictates, while we wait, anticipate. Here, in Vancouver, a staple of this daft determinism are yoga pants. T&A and Lululemon tracksuits, the new prisonwear for daily life. Slap a 9 digit number above your breast and call me Bubba. Lovely.

As these, obviously atheletically inclined, consumers run in the marathon we know as life in a capitalist world, I sink further into my depression; wondering how it would be possible for me to be part of this world without being, at least slightly, depressed.

The solution, although bleak, is to seek and realize our capability for agency. To see past the sexual overtones, undertones, midtones, the phoney lives on tv, the phoney lives replicated from tv ( oh baudrillard! ). What do we do when the map envelopes the reality? Resist through pockets of space where we can find agency ( Foucault, tell me more! ). Yeah, I know, vague notions of salvation of reality, but there is possibly power in the vague. In fact, it might be the critical factor in salvation.

I know now that I cannot stay in one place for longer than 8 months. In fact, I don't believe I have since I left home. So 5 years, of displacement in country to which I was a stranger. I digress. .. which is to be expected.

But I think it is a necessary to always be on the move. I move a little, drop off the material possessions and baggage that I have collected on the way, find a new spot, and then repeat. It's not a perfect solution, or maybe not even a solution at all, but it is a path. But I'm still waiting, to break on through.

A few more months, a little more work, a lot more procrastination, and I'll be heading to Japan; a much needed move. I feel the need to disappear once again (hm.. this drifter paradigm of mine might be a clue to my inability to maintain relationships, but it's time for me to stop thinking).

mr miyagi is dead.

the walls of my past come falling down.

nostalgia sets in.

missing times past, loves lost.

at age 73

you died

to think of all the advice

you never got to give to me.

don't worry, i will move on, i will grow on,

bye mr miyagi.

rock on.

Since Christmas and the New Year are fast approaching, and the pensive fog has birthed a state of contemplation in me, I have decided to construct a list of things I wish were different about me.

I wish...
1) ... I could write with the eloquence and non-challant-ness that i see in may other of my friends' blogs. some people just have a way of writing that makes you want to read more. simple and complex ideas, wrapped up in elegant prose. poignant diction complemented with original metaphor.

2) ... my soul could be satisfied just for awhile. i wish that i had the direction that I see many others have.

3) ... I could gain the courage to step out into the world and let the torrent of the batter my person, i wish i had the courage, to test myself to withstand.

4) ... I could find the love I had once a small glimpse of.


5) ... I was harder working, so I could finish my essays before they are due (without me being tricked into it)

i wish i was a little bit taller i wish i was a baller i wish i had a girl and if i did i would call her too short. whatever happened to him?

it's not that i don't have free time. i do.
but i think the problem, is,
that i am very high maintenance in terms of leisure and rest.

it seems like i need an adequate amount of sleep, a few hundred hours of worthless tv, and a whole lot of food before i can function. these activities are my gasoline. monogamy with academics is rather impossible for me?

leisure, maybe it's not as overrated as we sometimes think.

This film was a documentary about the children in the red light district in Calcutta. Zana Briski, a photographer from New York decided to live among the women of the red light district. According to Zana, it is quite uncommon to see photographs from this area because many of the people working in this sector are embarrassed and do not like getting photographed by strangers; this is why she felt it was necessary to live amongst the women to gain their trust.
While living among these women, she started to get close to their children, the children of prostitutes. Not a teacher by profession, she offered to teach a photography class for the children, which were very excited. She gave each of them cameras and instructed them. In a way, it was like seeing through the eyes of the children.
She started to see the plight the children were in. Many of these girls would become prostitutes, and the boys would turn to crime if they continued to stay in the red light district. This was a generational problem. For example, Puja, one of the girls in the class came from a Bhraman family with the mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all involved in prostitution. There was little question to whether she would also become a prostitute. By teaching the children about photography, Briski hoped to impart some skills to them, which would make them more appealing to boarding schools.
Getting the children into boarding schools would be very tough because the schools have a bias against children from the red light district, and the majority would not admit children from the red light district. In order to raise the funds needed to send the children to boarding school, Briski displayed their photographs in galleries as well as on an Amnesty International calendar. This shows one way the children were acting to help themselves earn money for boarding school.
When Briski managed to get three of the girls into the boarding school, there arose some complications with Puja’s (on of the girls who got accepted) grandmother. She did not want to have any conflict with Briski, so this is how she resisted. She said that she’d let her go willingly on any other day, but the day that they wanted to Puja to leave was a Thursday, and if she does anything special on a Thursday, something bad will happen. This form of resistance reminded me of the women that used the ghost stories in the Javanese factories to protest working conditions. It is in a different context, but I think an apt illustration of resistance, albeit against Briski, who wanted to help Puja. After Briski left, Puja’s grandmother withdrew her from the Sabera boarding school. Of the three girls, only one ended up staying at the boarding school.
Although I admire Briski’s heartfelt disposition towards the children, I question whether the best solution is to remove the children from their families and put them into boarding schools. From the results of Briski’s attempt, only one of the girls stayed in the boarding school. Her documentary would have more credit if they explored the role the child played in the household. Was the child essential in someway to the running of the household? Would her extraction affect the parent’s financially or culturally somehow?

--> on a side note, the photographs taken by the children were amazing. above is one of them taken i think by suchitra.

--- this is a modified journal entry i am handing in for my sociology class. it's terrible writing because apparently my writing prowess has been reduced to that of a grade schooler. i've never been a great writer, but this week my brain is actually fried.

-----

This Saturday, I went out for my friend’s 21st birthday. We went to a club in downtown Vancouver. Some of the guys that we were with were Vietnamese gang-members. This made for an interesting expedition. When I go to clubs with my friends, I am usually not concerned about which gang the club is affiliated with.
I started to wonder about immigrant culture in Vancouver, where a lot of the gangs are racialized. There are your Vietnamese gangs, Punjabi gangs and the Hell’s Angels. I’m sure I’m leaving many out, and giving a very thin description, but I don’t know much about gangs in Vancouver. What I do know, is that they are a thriving part of our black market economy, specifically the drug trade. I have always wondered why, at least the stereotype is, that Vietnamese have a higher change of joining the criminal underworld.
My contention is that it is partially the result of an immigrant culture. A large majority of the Vietnamese population were originally refugees. This was the case with one of guys I was with. His family came here without anything and had to work hard to make a living. Even though jobs were available in the formal sector, many Vietnamese youth see the relative poverty that they have to endure and want to change their situation. The fastest way to do that is through the informal sector. And in Vancouver, the informal sector is the gang controlled drug trade. This was the case with the guy I met.
The second guy I started talking to at the club kept repeating, “I don’t like this club. Too many shootings. Too many gangs here”. We left an hour later in a black SUV tinted SUV. He had moved to Vancouver from Edmonton to “work”. As we were driving down Broadway, he remarked how he couldn’t wait to get rich and “roll up in a nice ride” to a club instead of being driven around by the other guy, his boss. It seems like the prevailing attitude in this informal sector: get rich quick.
We drove from the club in search of food, but were distracted by a party by some of their friends. When we arrived at the apartment, we were greeted by a shirtless Vietnamese guy with a dragon inked all over his back. I declined the Ecstasy he offered me and sat down on the couch where the rest of the people were glued to a 60 inch television watching a movie with no sound. They were all high. The guys met were pointing out which of the girls on the couch was “theirs”. The conversations revolved around girls, tattoos and working out.
Overall, it was not a typical evening for me. The evening however, was an eye-opener to a culture I normally would never see, although it is growing within my city. It just made me aware that even in our city there is so much class and race diversity which shows up in both the formal and informal sector; the latter of which is hard to measure because it is underground.

If my life had eras (and i contend that it does), this would be the era of discontent. or the era of stagnant water. There is nothing exciting happening in my life this year. I mean, I am graduating, but I have not graduated yet. I might be doing JET and going to Japan, but I am not doing that yet.

So where am I? I'm in between. in between realities that might or might not be. Lost in a foggy city where I can't even see past 30 feet. I'm on buses where all the pretty girls are on cellphones talking to pretty boys, coffee costs the same as a small meal, and i am earning negative monopoly dollars.

I have at least 6 more months of this. I have no drama, stagnant ambition, and a craving for baileys. i wish i had some money to waste, but then i'd probably be an alcoholic wishing for more money to waste away.

I need a change. I need some drama. I can't keep watching reruns of Joey and Dawson's Creek dammit. Naka is probably smashin her head on a desk right about now. Now you know how it feels you crazy canuck.

baaah. (usually at tiems like this, i will tend to do something stupid that gets some action into my life). wait for an update. maybe the era will get a new name.

so i am sitting in fog now. surrounded. encroached.

some crazy fog out there man. it's like when i was 10 and so much nicer and in london. it's definately a sign. this weather is telling me, buy more dress shirts. 1 is good, but you need more.

dress shirts, a nice mid length coat, and a coffee in my left, newspaper in my right. in search of cobblestone.

you know what, i'm pissed. i have a blog, but most ppl that read this don't. or don't update as frequently. it's like a one way relationship. i wanna consume as well.

3 more weeks of school. the longest weeks. i have an urge to do a harry potter marathon. i've only seen the first one. but i need some escape, some hot chocolate, and maybe a lil'lady to watch it with. or you know, a bunch of guys beer and pizza.

Ever think about it this way? Each time you go out to buy a new sweater, or the latest designer label handbag, you spend about what? $40-$80? I don't know about you, but I am an impulsive buyer. I don't shop a lot, but when I do, I do it to make myself feel a little better. get a new coat, look pretty sharp, i'm feelin it.

Now, if you watch world vision, it takes about $30 a month to help a kid get basic necessities such as food and water and shelter so that he can one day make you those shoes or whatever product you wanna buy to make you happy.

Now, this is not a guilt trip on your or me. What I am trying to get at is a little more fine-tuned than the obvious worldvision kid with flies in his mouth. What I am getting at is quite centered on the individual.

I am just wondering why buying a new sweater to wear to the peacock parade makes me happier than feeding and clothing a child for a month. think about it. it's quite a commentary really, on our culture at large. OUR culture. and I don't know what to make of it. Is it because we are so far removed from the rest of the world? but then, how about these imagined communities? the plea to common human dignity?

might not be so common after all. je ne comprend pas.

over the past few days, i've been very vocal about my views or nonviews.

i see so much rash hypocisy coming out of my mouth that i only realize the day after.

i am calling for more silence, more listening, weighin reason. too often we talk but never listen.

Those who know me (and I'd like to think i was one of those) would have to agree that my life has been fraught with religion. Now becareful here. Reflections of the self run amok. For Those who are atheist know me as conservative, religious. And Those Christians (not to be exclusive of other religions, but this is the one I have closes ties) that know me, see me as quite liberal and even anti-religious, anti-christian even.

How interesting this is. Partially, it is my nature. My nature to always come from the other end. Socratic or was it Plato's? dialectics. I speak for the other side when no one will. Why? because the other side is as equally valid as this side. I can't help it. I'm not ecstatically RARARA even if I agree. But I do believe that besides this partiality, which is minimal at best (confined to rational discourse with the goal of coming to some in between point thru the rigid societal binaries).

Most of the fault lies in the perceptions of others. I am guilty of this as well, but I do step back most of the time. And if I have stepped forward, I'll take two steps back. So in all, I'd say it's your fault! haha.

Back to religion. My life is fraught with religion. I guess it would serve us better to qualify that statement by saying that religions have influenced my life from the time i was born, to the time i was indoctrinated into the christian church... to the time i left the church and the time i came back somewhat to the church, and to the time i just can't be bothered (i'm bothered a little) by the church anymore.

i will not qualify the church, because my fingers are tired. another day.

But where was I going with this? I have been influenced mostly by elements of christianity, buddhism, hedonism and post-modernism. the -isms seem to outnumber the -anities. in variety anyway. these elements have shaped the way i think about life, and the actions to which i back up with my rational-sentimental-conservative-liberal thoughts with. Now, that's a lot of isms and one big anity that lend much influence to my actions as well as my conscience. a little much for that cricket of consciousness squatting on my right shoulder if you ask me.

Post-moderns, constructivists and feminists argue, all, that all these values have no natural basis. constructions that can be deconstructed, and reconstructed. well, that's great. so everyone can be accepted and happy and all that rest (i sound cynical in this sentence, but i don't mean to be, i'm just tired of praising deconstruction). One the one hand, we (when i say we i mean I me and those around me) are immersed in a great conurbation which espouses all these values. lovely pluralism.

but even in a field of flowers, where the soil accepts all types, pansies, roses, tulips, daffodils and petunias, the flowers still compete for nutrients. not all survive. some seeds that fall are decimated by the sun, others are given life. the rains quench the thirsty and flood the rest. hobbe's state of nature in nature. hahahaha. i am somewhat a geek as well as all the rest.

it's so hard to be a votary to any specific vein of thought. is it kosher to use christianity as salvation and lament, a hint of hendoism for pleasure-seeking, buddhism when i get tired of God, and post-modernism to make non-sense of it all.

identity pluralism. i am all put into one. but none at all.