Random scribblings, Chinese tim tams, Chinese signs and flag-waving
Exhausted is bit of an understatement. I was about to write that I have the most shocking case of Panda Eyes from the last few days of work, but upon seeing myself in the mirror, I've decided I look more like a Wraith from Stargate Atlantis ..... or death warmed over. I wonder what the origin of the phrase death warmed over is, it's quite odd when you think about it.
A while back I posted my Random Scribble Challenge which quite a few people were kind enough to answer. amaliestar got introspection, guacamole and cinema and her challenge response is here. cubestorm got destiny, beluga whale and engrish and her challenge response is here :) Both are delightful!
I've locked myself in my office with my door closed the past few days because I've just been buried with work and deadlines, staggering home like a zombie in the wee hours of the morning and then staggering back into the office again later the same morning. I opened my door just a little bit today and to my shock as soon as people saw the door open, they came in with lunch invitations. It was very heart-warming and cheered me up despite my exhaustion.
Furthermore, even London Guy was nice even though I had to kick him out of my office twice today because I was busy .... At lunch he went out and came back with a gift for me. Chinese Tim Tams of all things! I know it sounds odd, but it's true. This time they're real and not pirated ones. When I stared at the packet, a clearly sceptical expression on my face he said: "Look, they're genuine! They say Arnotts" :) And indeed they did. I'm sure he wanted me to open them then and there to offer him one but I said I had to take them home first to take a photograph :)
They're Vanilla-flavoured. In Chinese they have been given the transliterated Chinese name of 添点 tian dian (pronounced tyen d'yen). It literally means 'increase a little' but the name isn't intended to have meaning, it's just supposed to sound like 'tim tam'.
It was a very sweet and thoughtful gift. He stopped by before going home today to tell me that because the England World Cup match tonight is on at 3am Beijing time, he's going sleep from 9am to midnight so that he can watch from 3am :)
Today's funny sign that was put up in my apartment block was this one:
.... "preventing others to be beaten by your dog"? Good grief :)
nerdy2 who is German wrote an absolutely fascinating post here about World Cup Fever in Germany, seeing German flags around everywhere and how that makes her feel given the memories of a rather dark past that the sight evokes. It was very thought-provoking for me because for Australians, flags and patrotism are very low key things.
My family doesn't own an Aussie flag. I have an Australian flag key ring on my bagpack. Aussies will do things like wear the green and gold, have Aussie flag pins and fake tattoos painted on their cheek at sporting events. They might wave the flag around at sporting events but having a flag on your house is not that common. For my own part, I think I'd feel a bit weird waving an Aussie flag.
Nonetheless, it's interesting for me that flag-waving feels kind of cheesey and smacks of over the top jingoism but for Germans it evokes very different things.
I found a few articles about the subject.
From The Age: Latest outfit flags a trend in patriotism
Sales of the Australian flag are up. Karen Kissane finds out why.
IT WAS a hot Friday night and the half-a-dozen young people were as drunk as lords, cheerfully so, as they ambled along Fitzroy Street in St Kilda.
Two of the men had Australian flags tied around their necks like capes. They were a bit too drunk to notice that the national emblem was dragging on the pavement behind them, a grubby casualty of the trend towards patriotism as fashion accessory.
Patriotism is spiking. The Australian flag is outside more public buildings and suburban homes than ever before, according to Melbourne's oldest flag manufacturer, Evan Evans. Sales have increased three-fold in the past five years, with the most notable rise among private rather than corporate buyers.
The flag can be seen fluttering on everything from taxi roofs to construction machinery. It is also being employed by younger generations in a more personal way: wrapped like a blanket or shawl around tennis fans, painted onto faces at the cricket and on the almost-bare bottoms of G-stringed demonstrators in Washington protesting against sheep mulesing.
Melbourne University historian Professor Graeme Davison said: "I was pondering the significance of wearing the flag as an article of apparel versus raising and saluting the flag, as we used to do. Doesn't it mean that the nation is no longer an object of veneration, external and above oneself, but an aspect of personal identity, at the service of the self?"
Perhaps this explains what happened at the Cronulla race riots in Sydney, where "Skip" men wrapped themselves in flags and called themselves "Sons of Anzacs" while rounding on people of Middle Eastern appearance. Prime Minister John Howard refused to criticise them - "I would never condemn people for being proud of the Australian flag" - but Treasurer Peter Costello labelled their actions a desecration: "The Australian flag represents … what is good about our nation, and it is not something to be wrapped around you as you are battering somebody in the street."
Where is the rise in patriotic fervour coming from? And, perhaps more importantly, where is it going?
Bruce Merrett of Abel Flagpoles and Flags said sales had been steadily rising for three years. "Since September 11, patriotism has increased probably four-fold," he said.
Jim Hilbert, managing director of Carroll and Richardson Flagworld, said his company's sales this month were at a 40-year high and 50 per cent higher than at this time last year. "We don't understand why. Maybe it's to do with the Cronulla incident or the Commonwealth Games, or the terrorism-cum-Bali scenario, where people are turning to patriotism to express their feelings."
Mr Hilbert has noted the rise in interest among young people. "There used to be a phenomenon with the boxing kangaroo flag, but now kids are wanting to put Australian flags over their shoulders."
Professor Davison suggested the Australian flag has risen in prominence as that other obvious focus of loyalty, the image of the monarch, has declined. "It is also reinforced by a culture in which logos, brands and icons are ubiquitous."
Two Eltham Secondary College girls at the tennis this week, Bonnie McLeod and Amy Voisey, both 15, bought flags and wore them even though no Australians were playing in the Open that day. "We just wanted to get dressed up and have a bit of fun," Bonnie said. "And you are making a statement that you are proud to be Australian."
Elizabeth Kwan is a Canberra-based historian whose book Flag and Nation - "which looks at the changing relationship between Australians and their national flags, plural" - will be published in May. She points out that Australians have fought under several different flags: Britain's Union Jack, a red ensign, and the blue ensign we now know as the national flag, the status of which was formalised by prime minister Robert Menzies only in 1953.
Dr Kwan attributes much of the current rise in patriotism, especially among the young, to the activity of conservative lobby groups and policies of the Federal Government. She said the Flag Amendment Bill, passed in 1996, had made it more difficult for future governments to change the flag. The Howard Government had also declared a National Flag Day (September 3), she said, allowed a video that portrays the virtues of the current flag to be distributed to schools, and insisted that schools install flags and flagpoles and have regular ceremonies around the flag.
Dr Kwan said Americans' preoccupation with their flag, "Old Glory", began in the 1880s as their cities were flooded with non-English-speaking immigrants. She wonders whether the same thing might be happening in Australia, as our migrant intake has shifted from mainly Anglo-Saxon to larger numbers of people from Asia and the Middle East.
"Groups pushing the anti-change-to-the-flag line have an attitude of hanging on to what they see as the old Australia, an Anglo-Saxon Australia," she said.
Professor Davison says a key question is: What does the flag represent?
"If it unambiguously represented civic virtues or values of liberty, justice, fairness etc, it would be harder to appropriate it in a racist or sectarian cause," he said. "But if it is just the badge or logo of my mob, as against yours, then it can acquire more of a tribal rather than properly national significance. I think that perhaps something of this kind is now going on, and it is assisted by the difficulty in a post-imperial but not yet republican context of assigning definite civic qualities to it."
For citizens such as Bonnie and Amy, the flag and its symbolism are fine just as they are. Amy said: "I think it's good because it says we don't mind being friends with other people, having alliances and stuff."
Howard's way: multiculturalism is out, assimilation is in
In Britain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has called for a national "proud-to-be-British" day to celebrate what Britons have in common. He singled out liberty, fairness and responsibility as defining British values. As we all know, only Britain is defined by these values because no other country has discovered them yet.
In France, an MP wants to make teaching the national anthem part of the school curriculum so children learn about liberty, freedom and fraternity. These values being uniquely French, of course.
In Australia, NSW Premier Morris Iemma wants to create "Australian values" units in public primary schools to teach children about Australian values such as respect, responsibility, decency and a fair go, because only Australians are defined by these values.
Given the recent race riots in Britain, France and Australia, it's interesting that politicians are looking to national values as a cohesive force to unite their citizens who are drawn from different cultures around the world.
In Australia, where celebrating multiculturalism is a national pastime, there's nothing like nationalism, patriotism or national identity to get politicians excited.
Prime Minister John Howard used his Australia Day speech to tell migrants they were expected to enrich Australia's national journey with their "loyalty and patriotism".
He said: "Within limits, all Australians have the right to express their culture and beliefs and to participate in our national life." He didn't spell out the limits.
In the context of the Cronulla race riots, he reaffirmed Australia's commitment to racial equality, "coupled with an absolute determination to ensure that all sections of the Australian community are fully integrated into the mainstream of our national life".
Presumably, being fully integrated into mainstream Australian life means taking on Australia's dominant cultural pattern, which Howard defined as Judeo-Christian. Not only that, he said Australians had "drawn back from being too obsessed with diversity" allowing them to appreciate the values of the national character.
What does all this mean? Beneath Howard's woolly words the implicit message is: Australians, regardless of where they or their parents migrated from, are expected to completely integrate into mainstream Australian society, which is largely white Anglo-Saxon, and if they don't, they will not have enriched society with their loyalty and patriotism.
So, multiculturalism is out and assimilation is in. Surely, a progressive nation would acknowledge that racial harmony is not about making migrants conform to the host community's norms, while conceding they make lovely, spicy dishes. It's about the host community and migrant communities interacting with each other in a way that shapes each community in new ways and creates hybrid entities.
And what about people like me in Howard's Australia? With a British-Indian background, presumably I can keep my British values, but must dilute or drop my Indian values so I can "fully integrate".
According to Howard, Australian values include respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, a commitment to the rule of law, equality between men and women, egalitarianism, tolerance, fair play and compassion for the needy. If only the Government lived up to these values. Nonetheless, they are hardly unique to Australia. Other nations also hold these values in some shape or form.
But when Australian values are sold to us wrapped in the Australian flag, patriotism, or even its ugly brother, nationalism, become the overriding messages. Anyone who dares to criticise anything about Australia is automatically labelled unpatriotic, shamefully denigrating the nation. Don't even think about dragging in that dead cat and putting it on the table.
Once, Australians were uncomfortable, even embarrassed by extroverted expressions of patriotism. An understated laconic style was more the Australian way. But now it's all about flag-waving, hand-on-the-heart, anthem-singing defiance used as a practical measure of nation-building.
But what if you find the national anthem an archaic dirge, or the national flag a colonial relic that fails to symbolise what Australia has become? What if you think flags and anthems say nothing about love of a country? Are you being unpatriotic?
Is it unpatriotic to feel even a twinge of unease during celebrations of a national day that marks the foundation of a convict colony in a stolen land?
Critics of negative elements of Australia's character and history are accused of denigrating the country and of being ashamed of it. If it is all right to feel pride about the positive elements of national character and history, then it is also all right to criticise and feel shame about the negative elements.
Everyone should maintain a critical edge. Howard's rhetoric about Australian values is pure politics. People should not hesitate to criticise elements of the Australian character that could be improved or condemn unsavoury episodes of Australian history. If you really love your country, maybe it's patriotic to be unpatriotic.
Sushi Das is a staff writer
A while back I posted my Random Scribble Challenge which quite a few people were kind enough to answer. amaliestar got introspection, guacamole and cinema and her challenge response is here. cubestorm got destiny, beluga whale and engrish and her challenge response is here :) Both are delightful!
I've locked myself in my office with my door closed the past few days because I've just been buried with work and deadlines, staggering home like a zombie in the wee hours of the morning and then staggering back into the office again later the same morning. I opened my door just a little bit today and to my shock as soon as people saw the door open, they came in with lunch invitations. It was very heart-warming and cheered me up despite my exhaustion.
Furthermore, even London Guy was nice even though I had to kick him out of my office twice today because I was busy .... At lunch he went out and came back with a gift for me. Chinese Tim Tams of all things! I know it sounds odd, but it's true. This time they're real and not pirated ones. When I stared at the packet, a clearly sceptical expression on my face he said: "Look, they're genuine! They say Arnotts" :) And indeed they did. I'm sure he wanted me to open them then and there to offer him one but I said I had to take them home first to take a photograph :)
They're Vanilla-flavoured. In Chinese they have been given the transliterated Chinese name of 添点 tian dian (pronounced tyen d'yen). It literally means 'increase a little' but the name isn't intended to have meaning, it's just supposed to sound like 'tim tam'.
It was a very sweet and thoughtful gift. He stopped by before going home today to tell me that because the England World Cup match tonight is on at 3am Beijing time, he's going sleep from 9am to midnight so that he can watch from 3am :)
Today's funny sign that was put up in my apartment block was this one:
.... "preventing others to be beaten by your dog"? Good grief :)
nerdy2 who is German wrote an absolutely fascinating post here about World Cup Fever in Germany, seeing German flags around everywhere and how that makes her feel given the memories of a rather dark past that the sight evokes. It was very thought-provoking for me because for Australians, flags and patrotism are very low key things.
My family doesn't own an Aussie flag. I have an Australian flag key ring on my bagpack. Aussies will do things like wear the green and gold, have Aussie flag pins and fake tattoos painted on their cheek at sporting events. They might wave the flag around at sporting events but having a flag on your house is not that common. For my own part, I think I'd feel a bit weird waving an Aussie flag.
Nonetheless, it's interesting for me that flag-waving feels kind of cheesey and smacks of over the top jingoism but for Germans it evokes very different things.
I found a few articles about the subject.
From The Age: Latest outfit flags a trend in patriotism
Sales of the Australian flag are up. Karen Kissane finds out why.
IT WAS a hot Friday night and the half-a-dozen young people were as drunk as lords, cheerfully so, as they ambled along Fitzroy Street in St Kilda.
Two of the men had Australian flags tied around their necks like capes. They were a bit too drunk to notice that the national emblem was dragging on the pavement behind them, a grubby casualty of the trend towards patriotism as fashion accessory.
Patriotism is spiking. The Australian flag is outside more public buildings and suburban homes than ever before, according to Melbourne's oldest flag manufacturer, Evan Evans. Sales have increased three-fold in the past five years, with the most notable rise among private rather than corporate buyers.
The flag can be seen fluttering on everything from taxi roofs to construction machinery. It is also being employed by younger generations in a more personal way: wrapped like a blanket or shawl around tennis fans, painted onto faces at the cricket and on the almost-bare bottoms of G-stringed demonstrators in Washington protesting against sheep mulesing.
Melbourne University historian Professor Graeme Davison said: "I was pondering the significance of wearing the flag as an article of apparel versus raising and saluting the flag, as we used to do. Doesn't it mean that the nation is no longer an object of veneration, external and above oneself, but an aspect of personal identity, at the service of the self?"
Perhaps this explains what happened at the Cronulla race riots in Sydney, where "Skip" men wrapped themselves in flags and called themselves "Sons of Anzacs" while rounding on people of Middle Eastern appearance. Prime Minister John Howard refused to criticise them - "I would never condemn people for being proud of the Australian flag" - but Treasurer Peter Costello labelled their actions a desecration: "The Australian flag represents … what is good about our nation, and it is not something to be wrapped around you as you are battering somebody in the street."
Where is the rise in patriotic fervour coming from? And, perhaps more importantly, where is it going?
Bruce Merrett of Abel Flagpoles and Flags said sales had been steadily rising for three years. "Since September 11, patriotism has increased probably four-fold," he said.
Jim Hilbert, managing director of Carroll and Richardson Flagworld, said his company's sales this month were at a 40-year high and 50 per cent higher than at this time last year. "We don't understand why. Maybe it's to do with the Cronulla incident or the Commonwealth Games, or the terrorism-cum-Bali scenario, where people are turning to patriotism to express their feelings."
Mr Hilbert has noted the rise in interest among young people. "There used to be a phenomenon with the boxing kangaroo flag, but now kids are wanting to put Australian flags over their shoulders."
Professor Davison suggested the Australian flag has risen in prominence as that other obvious focus of loyalty, the image of the monarch, has declined. "It is also reinforced by a culture in which logos, brands and icons are ubiquitous."
Two Eltham Secondary College girls at the tennis this week, Bonnie McLeod and Amy Voisey, both 15, bought flags and wore them even though no Australians were playing in the Open that day. "We just wanted to get dressed up and have a bit of fun," Bonnie said. "And you are making a statement that you are proud to be Australian."
Elizabeth Kwan is a Canberra-based historian whose book Flag and Nation - "which looks at the changing relationship between Australians and their national flags, plural" - will be published in May. She points out that Australians have fought under several different flags: Britain's Union Jack, a red ensign, and the blue ensign we now know as the national flag, the status of which was formalised by prime minister Robert Menzies only in 1953.
Dr Kwan attributes much of the current rise in patriotism, especially among the young, to the activity of conservative lobby groups and policies of the Federal Government. She said the Flag Amendment Bill, passed in 1996, had made it more difficult for future governments to change the flag. The Howard Government had also declared a National Flag Day (September 3), she said, allowed a video that portrays the virtues of the current flag to be distributed to schools, and insisted that schools install flags and flagpoles and have regular ceremonies around the flag.
Dr Kwan said Americans' preoccupation with their flag, "Old Glory", began in the 1880s as their cities were flooded with non-English-speaking immigrants. She wonders whether the same thing might be happening in Australia, as our migrant intake has shifted from mainly Anglo-Saxon to larger numbers of people from Asia and the Middle East.
"Groups pushing the anti-change-to-the-flag line have an attitude of hanging on to what they see as the old Australia, an Anglo-Saxon Australia," she said.
Professor Davison says a key question is: What does the flag represent?
"If it unambiguously represented civic virtues or values of liberty, justice, fairness etc, it would be harder to appropriate it in a racist or sectarian cause," he said. "But if it is just the badge or logo of my mob, as against yours, then it can acquire more of a tribal rather than properly national significance. I think that perhaps something of this kind is now going on, and it is assisted by the difficulty in a post-imperial but not yet republican context of assigning definite civic qualities to it."
For citizens such as Bonnie and Amy, the flag and its symbolism are fine just as they are. Amy said: "I think it's good because it says we don't mind being friends with other people, having alliances and stuff."
Howard's way: multiculturalism is out, assimilation is in
In Britain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has called for a national "proud-to-be-British" day to celebrate what Britons have in common. He singled out liberty, fairness and responsibility as defining British values. As we all know, only Britain is defined by these values because no other country has discovered them yet.
In France, an MP wants to make teaching the national anthem part of the school curriculum so children learn about liberty, freedom and fraternity. These values being uniquely French, of course.
In Australia, NSW Premier Morris Iemma wants to create "Australian values" units in public primary schools to teach children about Australian values such as respect, responsibility, decency and a fair go, because only Australians are defined by these values.
Given the recent race riots in Britain, France and Australia, it's interesting that politicians are looking to national values as a cohesive force to unite their citizens who are drawn from different cultures around the world.
In Australia, where celebrating multiculturalism is a national pastime, there's nothing like nationalism, patriotism or national identity to get politicians excited.
Prime Minister John Howard used his Australia Day speech to tell migrants they were expected to enrich Australia's national journey with their "loyalty and patriotism".
He said: "Within limits, all Australians have the right to express their culture and beliefs and to participate in our national life." He didn't spell out the limits.
In the context of the Cronulla race riots, he reaffirmed Australia's commitment to racial equality, "coupled with an absolute determination to ensure that all sections of the Australian community are fully integrated into the mainstream of our national life".
Presumably, being fully integrated into mainstream Australian life means taking on Australia's dominant cultural pattern, which Howard defined as Judeo-Christian. Not only that, he said Australians had "drawn back from being too obsessed with diversity" allowing them to appreciate the values of the national character.
What does all this mean? Beneath Howard's woolly words the implicit message is: Australians, regardless of where they or their parents migrated from, are expected to completely integrate into mainstream Australian society, which is largely white Anglo-Saxon, and if they don't, they will not have enriched society with their loyalty and patriotism.
So, multiculturalism is out and assimilation is in. Surely, a progressive nation would acknowledge that racial harmony is not about making migrants conform to the host community's norms, while conceding they make lovely, spicy dishes. It's about the host community and migrant communities interacting with each other in a way that shapes each community in new ways and creates hybrid entities.
And what about people like me in Howard's Australia? With a British-Indian background, presumably I can keep my British values, but must dilute or drop my Indian values so I can "fully integrate".
According to Howard, Australian values include respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, a commitment to the rule of law, equality between men and women, egalitarianism, tolerance, fair play and compassion for the needy. If only the Government lived up to these values. Nonetheless, they are hardly unique to Australia. Other nations also hold these values in some shape or form.
But when Australian values are sold to us wrapped in the Australian flag, patriotism, or even its ugly brother, nationalism, become the overriding messages. Anyone who dares to criticise anything about Australia is automatically labelled unpatriotic, shamefully denigrating the nation. Don't even think about dragging in that dead cat and putting it on the table.
Once, Australians were uncomfortable, even embarrassed by extroverted expressions of patriotism. An understated laconic style was more the Australian way. But now it's all about flag-waving, hand-on-the-heart, anthem-singing defiance used as a practical measure of nation-building.
But what if you find the national anthem an archaic dirge, or the national flag a colonial relic that fails to symbolise what Australia has become? What if you think flags and anthems say nothing about love of a country? Are you being unpatriotic?
Is it unpatriotic to feel even a twinge of unease during celebrations of a national day that marks the foundation of a convict colony in a stolen land?
Critics of negative elements of Australia's character and history are accused of denigrating the country and of being ashamed of it. If it is all right to feel pride about the positive elements of national character and history, then it is also all right to criticise and feel shame about the negative elements.
Everyone should maintain a critical edge. Howard's rhetoric about Australian values is pure politics. People should not hesitate to criticise elements of the Australian character that could be improved or condemn unsavoury episodes of Australian history. If you really love your country, maybe it's patriotic to be unpatriotic.
Sushi Das is a staff writer