Like how, for many years in the 90s – and still now, every so often – Bangladeshis were always painted in the news as women-stealing dirty thieving criminals. No other race (aside from any other labourer race) was ever pointed out for their crimes; no other race had “XYZ, a Chinese/Malay/Indian criminal” attached to their heading. Even though they were often exploited and they made up a very small percentage of Malaysia’s official crime.
I had to deal with continuous questioning from my teachers and peers about my race. I was told multiple times to “go back to my country”. I was expected, at eleven years of age, to atone for the sins of my countrymen (however small they were) – and to be thick-skinned whenever I heard another slur, whenever I was blocked out of receiving what I deserved. I had politicians report year after year about how “those Banglas” were blue-eyed horny men out to get “our women”. I still hear those sentiments now.
Were there boycotts then? No. No one gave a damn. Instead, when I went to the BRATs workshop in 2003, I asked Tan Ju Eng of The Star about it, and she told me it was their responsibility as a public service. A “public service” that singled out an entire race and caused much personal strife and tension. No apologies.
And what about 2001, when there was plenty of demonization of young people and youth culture supposedly over Black Metal? Alleged groups of youth stomping holy books and sacrificing goats at rock concerts? Condemnation of anything remotely Pagan? And the hysteria about hip-hop and “sex parties” that soon followed? There were the odd articles supporting young people, and I remember one magazine taking Harian Metro to task for using photos of their gig and claiming it was a sex-fest. But were there boycotts against Harian Metro or any other press that sought to sensationalise youth? No.
Every so often in the Malaysian papers I will see anti-gay sentiments, anti-Semitic sentiments, anti-nonMalay-Muslim sentiments, all sorts of rubbish. And yet no one’s ever found it fit to call a boycott. Why? Because you won’t then have an opportunity to harp on Twitter (or wherever) about how you’re doing it right by publishing 4 pages?
If you’re going to proclaim big things like a boycott, be consistent. No need for hypocrisy.
And while we’re on that…
Dear Jacqueline Ann Surin,
If you’re going to fuss about Kosmo using personal details then may I ask why you saw it fit to eavesdrop on a private conversation between myself and Asha Gill in 2005, and then publish to the world in Off the Edge that Tiara Shafiq, university student and webmistress to Asha Gill, was holed up sick in her dormitory? You used it as an anecdote for Asha’s open heart, but neither Asha nor I had given you permission to publish that.
I had people in university asking me about it. Granted, it wasn’t the most humiliating thing ever, but it did make me sound like a young kid unable to take care of herself. The Malaysian reading public didn’t need to know that I was ill, that Asha was trying to coax me out of bed. I thought Asha had told you, and I let my annoyance known at her; she was very surprised and told me that she hadn’t told you directly, only that the phone conversation happened at the same time as the interview. The interview was with Asha not with me!
It’s funny that we were both at the 2006 AWAM Writers for Women’s Rights event; I think you might have worked out who I am. I understand you are well-respected within Malaysian journalists and creatives. I myself wouldn’t have kicked such a fuss – for what point really? – but your article about Kosmo being “sensationalistic” felt very ironic and somewhat hypocritical after that experience.
I’ve been reading up a lot about race relations, cultural representation, and appropriation – which would be evident if you’ve seen the past few entries on here and on The Merch Girl . (Speaking of which: I seemed to have gained the niche of Politically Noisy Burlesqer Harping On About Appropriation, Damn You Weirdo.)
I’ve read a lot (and am still reading – it’s still a drop in the ocean), and thought about it in relation to my experiences, and I’ve come to a realisation:
People tend to talk about the Other as though it was a Person or Thing, with its own characteristics and needs and foibles. Quite what those characteristics are, no one knows, except that it’s Different and Other and Difficult to Deal With.
But really, the Other isn’t a thing. It’s a space.
People get sent to the Other Space if they stand out enough from the status quo to make the rest uncomfortable. If there’s something that makes them stand out. Even in the freakiest, most uncomfortable groups, there is always a Space for the Other.
Think of it as a circle with an outer ring orbiting it, crossing over in parts but never really fully included. Like Saturn’s ring squished in in parts, merging with Saturn. The people in that ring are still considered part of the group to some degree, but they’re never really included. They’re not at the core.
There are some people that do tend to float on the other edges of the circle, closer to the ring than to the core. But they’re still more a part of that circle, of that planet, than the ring folk will ever be. They’re sympathetic to the Other, but they are not The Other.
Even within cores there are sections for the Other. Even within the Other rings there are cores and rings. It’s possibly infinite, and very fractal-like.
I’ve always been in the Other Ring for every group I’ve been a part of. Even when I was part of the “mainstream”, I was still the outlier. It didn’t matter if the group was made up of Malaysian students, or NaNoWriMo writers, or young pagan hipsters, or burlesquers, or internet freaks, or whatever. My identity as a person has always ended up as the Other – I’m not sure whether it is by coincidence or by design. It also explains why I’m so passionate about anti-discrimination, why I’m always trying to link rings and circles together, why I notice when people push others into the Other – because it’s the life I lived. It’s what I know.
So perhaps of looking at the Other in terms of personality, let’s look at the Other in terms of the space they occupy.
Where is the ring of the Other in relation to the core? How far away is the ring? Which parts are squeezed in and which are stretched out?
Is there easy access between the ring and the core? Are there people floating in between?
Do people transition between the ring, the core, and inbetween?
Who chooses who goes in the ring – the person itself, or the group? Are people given a choice in the matter? Is the choice conscious?
What structures are in place that reinforce the shape and location of the ring and the circle? Are those structures solid or malleable? Are there hidden passages?
How visible are the people in the ring to the people in the circle? Or vice versa? How visible are they to the people outside their planet?
Is it possible for someone to not be in any rings, circles, or planets whatsoever – to just float in space?
How do we push others into the ring and what do we do with them? How are we pushed into the ring? Do we push ourselves in?
Is it more desirable to be in the ring, in the core, somewhere in between?
I don’t have any sort of graphics software on this computer, but if someone can get what I’m trying to visualize, feel free to make some sort of picture or slideshow, and share it with us. And if anyone else has come up with similar theories about the Other being a space that people/things/etc get placed into (I don’t think it’s just limited to people; anything could conceivably be placed in the Other ring in relation to its group) do share.
Also, this is the tail end of the International Blog Against Racism Week – I didn’t set out to write something just for it, since I’ve said as much as I could say already on my two blogs, but after writing this I thought it could be a good meta-topic, in a way. Go check out their del.icio.us profile and read some :)
So today there has been a major storm over Amazon’s weird decision to remove the Amazon rank of books related to themes of GLBT sexuality, feminism, or sex education. There’s up to the minute updates (and flailing) through the Twitter hashtag #amazonfail and I particularly like Jezebel’s roundup of related links.
I like Amazon as a resource, and have kept extensive wishlists on there, though I’ve never really bought anything because shipping wasn’t very reasonable. There were some mentions of Amazon alternatives scattered around the Internet, but no collective resource, so I decided to start my own.
Please share these links (those above, and to this post) and fill up the form! Hopefully this will be of help to anyone seeking other sources of books.
I just received a letter from the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman. We met briefly at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit Youth Forum a couple of years ago; I had asked a question about trying to create change in oppressive conditions and he shook my hand and wished me luck.
Anyway. He got wind of my efforts to obtain Australian residency, and he said that he could possibly get the Brisbane City Council to sponsor my request. They’ve noticed my track record with arts and community efforts, and they want to make a point of supporting people who willingly give back to Brisbane life.
They do have a condition, though. They want me to use my skills…in timber mills.
Yeah. Apparently the Brisbane timber mill industry is suffering major because people are being more eco-friendly and not buying any more fresh wood furniture. Problem is, there’s all these trees taking up space (and choking other trees), and the timber mills can’t cut them down because they’ve got too much timber sitting around in their mills. TOOMANYTREES! And of course, this is costing them money – about AU$500,000 per acre, apparently.
Campbell Newman wants me to be project manager for a campaign on supporting the timber industry, so that the timber mills can produce more construction-ready timber and go through their backlog (har har, geddit, ‘backLOG’). Then they can clear out the older trees taking up space, so that the new trees an breathe. The environment is improved, people have furniture, timber mills make money. Tada!
Since I have the talent to combine things, I could use my arts skills and networks to create a festival around timber milling. A Wood Festival. Like Woodford minus the Ford. Get songs about wood. Make stages out of wood. Everyone plays on wood instruments. I’m sure the burlesque-rs can make a joke about “giving you wood”.
Hmm, should I take it or not? Honourary citizenship would be great, but I know absolutely nothing about timber mills. Or whether cutting down old trees in favour of new ones are even a good idea environmentally.
Who should I ask – the agent? My parents? My Aussie friends? Dilemmas!!
April Fools!!!!!
Honourary citizenship doesn’t come THAT easily. And why on Earth would I work with timber mills?
So apparently my aunt – one of the sisters of my dad – is an Australian citizen. I did not know this before. This changes everything, as she is now able to sponsor me for Permanent Residency. So I may not even have to get the Temporary Grad visa – I can jump straight to a PR, and live on the Bridging Visa while I wait for that to show up.
Even on the Bridging visa, I can only go overseas for 3 months max. As my Student visa is no longer valid (because I am not a student anymore), if I go home now I’ll need a tourist visa to come back – and there’s no guarantee I’ll be approved of a tourist visa, Bangladesh passport and all (“getting another visa” is a bad reason for a Tourist visa). So to make my sister’s wedding in July I can’t really leave too early.
My flight ticket has been changed (for the gazillionth time) to mid-May. This gives us enough time to apply for the visa(s), head to my sister’s wedding, and come back within 3 months.
I am flat broke. I only saved enough to last me to this week, and I haven’t found a job yet. I do have the option of casual work (depending on whether ICTE need more Aussies) and there’s also opportunities to sell ads for the Burlesque Magazine and/or do VA work. But nothing that’s enough for living expenses yet. I’ll need to find a job that covers my expenses and lets me bugger off for three months (or at least doesn’t get offended when I have to quit in the middle of May).
I also may need to find new digs at least till May, or work out something with Mark so that we’re not on each other’s toes for the next couple of months.
I don’t even know what’s going on with my visa anymore. Every other moment there’s a twist. If visas weren’t so fundamentally boring this could be a movie!
I first heard of Suzi Blu from people like Goddess Leonie and the SARK forum ladies who rave about her a lot. I was particularly touched by a post she did on “loving your vulva” since it came so close to my Vagina Monologues experience.
Today she did a rant about people in her private Ning for art classes who are apparently spamming the other members with ads. I’m not in any of her classes now, so I don’t know how bad the spam problem is, but I can see two sides to this:
One the one hand, unsolicited spam is annoying. I know of places that have guidelines against self-promotion – for example, Seth Godin’s Triiibes Ning. You can ask people to join you, but not so much drive-by “HEYHERE’S MY PRODUCTTHEEND”. there needs to be engagement with the audience.
On the other hand, Suzi and some of her commenters did acknowledge that the advertisers probably felt that everyone else were “friends” and so felt more open to share.
Again, not being in this Ning, I don’t know the level or engagement or spam that’s happening in there.
What confused me most though was Suzi’s claim that the advertisements take away business from her. She does online art classes as her main means of income, and apparently the ads for other art classes take away students from her.
I don’t see how that’s necessarily true. I’ve done an online class (Goddess Leonie’s) and currently I’m doing two classes – circus with Vulcana and burlesque with Scoundrelles. I’ve done multiple classes with multiple places at the one time. No one place or person can teach everything, and if I have the time and money to do more than one – hey, why not?
I left this comment asking for clarification:
I’m not in your classes at the moment so I don’t really know how bad the spam situation is, but I am confused about the idea that they take business away from you. Obviously they’re marketing to people that have already patronised your business. Why can’t people take more than one class at once? Perhaps they feel that people who like your work would like theirs too, and want to share.
Perhaps as a way to alleviate the situation would be to make an Open Thread where people can advertise themselves, but leave it at that. No other option. This could be a fortnightly thing or so. That way, people who want to share their efforts have an outlet, those who aren’t interested can just ignore the thread, and the spam levels are reduced.
I’ve seen the Open Thread idea before on other sites and blogs, and it’s worked well. You have the one day or one thread for sales and ads, and the rest is information or discussion. People who have something to promote get their chance to reach their target audience, people who are interested in similar things can check out the ads, the rest can ignore it. Simple.
I didn’t know she replied until Sam, a Suzi Blu reader, came to this site and emailed me saying she supported me. Apparently Suzi’s response was rather “uncalled for” (her words).
I went back to the blog and saw this reply:
Well, Tiara, I teach more than one workshop. In fact, several students are in all 3 of my classes at this current time so saying hey man, they took one of your classes they are done with you let me take it from here, is asinine. Worse, its toxic. Youre saying since I taught petit dolls my students will not want to take figure drawing or composition or art therapy or whatever else I decide to teach? You cant see how someone promoting those same classes on my site isnt taking business away from me? Or no, thats right…they’ve already ‘patronized’ me. Silly fucking me. Not only am I not allowed to make a consistent living I have to worry about your living too.
I am not promoting art teachers. I am not myspace or facebook.This is not a debate. Art teachers can “share their efforts” off their own sweat and blog and videos and energy they put together in their own corner of the world, not in mine. I am here for beginners. to help them draw and make beautiful paintings. Seriously, Tiara, darling, don’t ever come back here again. Don’t read my blog, dont comment. Your arrogance is obnoxious.
Stop sending me inane comments.
and she closed comments.
Uh. I didn’t think it’d be that bad.
I’m not selling anything and I never said that she can’t get more people into her class – just that different people offer different but related things. One person can’t be everything to everybody.
I’m interested in art therapy, but not in figure drawing – so I can’t take any of her classes? I don’t see her doing a class on burlesque choreography but I see someone else is – can’t I do her class and the choreography class too? I hope she’s not advocating holding a monolopy on online arts students!
I posted it on Twitter and had someone comment on this as an example of scarcity mentality – the idea that there’s not enough, you can’t share or else you’ll get hacked. I’ve heard of the term before but this case cements it for me.
I’m more confused than anything. For all we know, Suzi’s having a really bad day and I became the unfortunate target. I’ve certainly done that to a lot of people! I don’t wish her ill will, just peace and clarity. But it is certainly shocking – someone I had expected and heard to be all about openness and peace and joy and love through art is absolutely lashing out in her shadow self.
As a little girl I was obsessed with stage magic. Seriously so. I still have stacks of books about doing all kinds of magic tricks – cards, coins, mentalism, even a big textbook with complicated classic stuff like “Make The Woman Float Through A Ring”. When my family travelled to Australia for business, I’d ask to go to a magic shop, and we’d pick up a few tricks along the way. Most of my tools are gone from various house moves, but there’s still a few replicas.
When I was about ten we went to see David Copperfield live. Oh that was an EXPERIENCE. I desperately wanted to be the girl he floats on stage (didn’t happen) but at the same time I had so much fun watching real stage magic live. It was one of my first theatrical experiences and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I stopped doing stage magic after a botched attempt for a school party. I’m now tentatively looking at it again. Still, some tricks entertain me again – especially those that make you go “HOWTHEHELLDOESTHATHAPPEN”.
Obviously, being performance magic, there is a method to the madness – so all the people decrying magic for not being 100% authentic – “omg stooges! omg cameras! omg misdirection!” – are rather missing the point. It’s like complaining that the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park weren’t real. It’s the effect that makes them extraordinary – that, for a few minutes, you’ve watched an unusual miracle.
This post was sparked by a few Criss Angel videos I just watched. I’ve heard of the guy but never saw his stuff until just now. They are freaky. He takes some classic magic tricks – saw a woman in half, pulling something out of nothing, etc – and subverts them through modern settings and implausible areas. He does a lot of stuff in public, which just makes the illusion even stranger.
Here are three extremely mind-freaky videos; they may not be safe for work, or indeed safe for your sanity:
Apparently there was a trick that involved Criss naming a few household items and predicting which the audience would choose. I’d like to see that one – the audience-interaction ones (even those that ultimately rest on mathematical principles) are my favourite!
