I know what I want

Horses are probably my favourite news topics at the moment. It was a hot day, and standing in a sandy riding ring watching El Caballo Blanco’s head riding master and his daughter put a horse through its paces was the highlight of my day. It was after the interview that I had a clear vision of what I really want out of life.

I’m going to be a journalist in a big busy city, and maybe move into public relations, and when I have enough money to buy a farm I’ll semi-retire and keep horses. It sounds so perfect. And no, it probably won’t be in New Zealand.

I keep wondering how much being an immigrant has shaped me. If I hadn’t been brought to the ends of the earth as a child, would I harbour such nomadic tendencies? There are a multitude of places I want to go, but nowhere in particular I can see myself staying and settling. The prospect of settling actually terrifies me. I imagine I would settle someday in the future. Aside from the farm with a couple of horses, I can’t really imagine any other details though. I know women are still expected to get married and have babies. My aunts and cousins and my grandma on my father’s side have asked me enough about my non-existent boyfriend. Luckily, my grandmother on my mother’s side has too many grandchildren and I’m still a long way down her line.

I was driving h…

I was driving home tonight after a late shift at work. The sky is starting to grow dark earlier these days. In a couple of months, it will be next to pitch black. Some stretches of the road were so empty and devoid of any movement that for a moment, it felt as if I were the only person in the world, driving along. Street light after street light passed. That got me wondering where I would be driving to if I were the only person in the world.

And then, of course, a line of headlights appear in the distance.

Why is the drive home always so much more fun?

 

New Year’s resolutions

I don’t remember the last time I posted. I have been tempted to write several times, but I have had nothing of note to say.

It might seem a bit late to make New Year’s resolutions now, but I believe it’s never too late to do a good thing, and besides, Chinese New Year was only yesterday.

So here goes:

1) I will make time to blog every day, and not every post will be whingy.

2) I will attempt to post outfit pictures once a week.

There will be other resolutions, such as eat more healthily, learn some useful things instead of stuffing my head full of trivia etc. but since none of those things seem likely, I’m not going to fool myself and list them. If I make too many resolutions, by the time I get to the end of the year, I’ll already have forgotten that I’ve made them.

This year will be the first year of my life since toddlerhood that I haven’t been in an educational institution of some sort. It’s not as exciting as it sounds. Work is very much like school, except the hours are longer, they don’t tolerate laziness, and you get paid for it.

Mommy and Daddy Rulz have to keep reminding me I’m lucky to have a job straight out of university, and I have to keep on telling myself that too. I wonder if life is always more exciting in your mind, and you can never reach that state of perfect contentment because everything falls short of your youthful ideals, so in the end, in order to stop feeling so depressed, you have to lower your standards and settle for something you never really wanted. It’s like all those crusaders who went to the Holy Land thinking it would be a land of milk and honey, and all they found was sand, but they had to be happy with that because it was holy sand.

I’m not quite ready to give up on my dreams yet. When I drive home, I look at my suburb, at the neatly mowed and slightly yellow lawns, at the station wagons parked in driveways and the housewives putting out their rubbish while their children play, and I see a living hell. It’s not that people shouldn’t want that kind of peaceful white-picket-fence life, but it’s just not for me.

I’m not willing to settle for this.

New Spring

Lovely weather again today. Too bad there’s so much work looming. At least the sunshine is making me feel less depressed these days.

Portmans’ hat and dress, Just Jeans hat, and ASOS shoes.

Liquorice all-sorts

I’m really into bright colours right now because I feel I need something to help me stay on top of everything that’s been piling up. Looking good makes me feel better about myself, which, really, is what this blog is about. This top reminds me so much of that Prada collection (can’t remember what season or even the year) and I love how it looks like liquorice all-sorts. Back when I was little, I’d always wanted to try those colourful sweets even though my mother never let me. Then I discovered I didn’t like liquorice so I wasn’t really missing out on much. But I still like the colours.

I can’t believe this year is almost over and that I’m going to be 22 in less than a month. Time is a scary thing. You’re always wondering where it went and why it sometimes seems to drag on and then the next moment, it’s gone and you can never get it back. And this year it’s extra scary because this time next year, I’ll be out there in the workforce, actually doing stuff that matters. I don’t feel I’m ready, like I’m still a teenager but all of a sudden with adult responsibilities. Do people ever grow up, or do they simply pretend to grow up on the outside?

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I’ve been so tired and stressed and overwhelmed with work and study lately that I haven’t been thinking much about what I’m wearing. This is actually the first day that I have kinda thought about it.

I got this dress from ASOS sometime ago but the weather’s never been nice enough. We actually had two snow storms this year as opposed to none. Today it was finally nice enough to not snuggle in a big big coat.

I’ve been trying to have days where I don’t wear anything black. It’s been way too dreary lately.

I’ll post some snow photos later. It’s not particularly exciting if you live in a place where this happens regularly during winter, but for us here in Christchurch, New Zealand, it’s the icing on the quake.

Mainstream and minority

To follow on from my previous post. This experience has taught me a lot about the media landscape in New Zealand, and possibly in any country where there are minorities (which is every country). A journalist’s job is to inform, to educate, to hold the powerful to account and to enhance understanding of the world. This has only made me more determined to be a journalist who is accessible by the mainstream and also by minorities.

The next topic to tackle: Mainstream media and the minorities. The fact is, there are many minority groups living in New Zealand. Last year, there was a seminar about the separation between mainstream and ethnic media. One of the questions is why there is this separation. Don’t we live in the same country? Don’t we pay taxes to the same people? Aren’t we subject to the same issues and laws? Then why aren’t we reading the same news? The thing is, separate media means separate communities, and separate communities breed discrimination.

The dilemma of objectivity

Journalists are meant to be objective. Or so they say. When you can’t even settle on a definition for objectivity, it’s hard to be objective because you’ve just got no idea.

So I was getting my radio story edited today. I thought I had a really interesting thing going. It’s about how the Islamic world played a pivotal role in preserving ancient Greek scientific knowledge when most of those works were destroyed in Europe during Christianization. This knowledge was re-transmitted to Europe, along with some new Arabic knowledge, during periods of contact such as the Crusades.

My teacher said it was too complex an idea and not really suited to ‘mainstream New Zealand’. That got me thinking. One, what is mainstream New Zealand? I have no idea. And two, I wanted to become a journalist because I wanted to inform and educate people about things they might never have considered. Like the fact that the Islamic world had a lot of influence on what we see as western culture nowadays.

My teacher said that people don’t need to know about this world history to do well. Maybe they don’t need it if they want to be a good accountant or a good public relations manager or a good chef. However, I do believe that people ought to know about world cultures and how they are all interconnected if they are to be good citizens of the world. It’s not like I’m going on about Crusader family trees here. This is acknowledging where our culture comes from and why the world is the way it is today. We wouldn’t have to study algebra if someone in the Middle East didn’t invent it during the Middle Ages. We wouldn’t have rock music without Islamic influence. The guitar is derived from a Middle Eastern instrument called the ‘qitar’.

This is not something that should only concern academics. This is about being part of a global community. You can’t do business with someone if you don’t have at least a slight inkling of what they’re about, and increasingly, we’re living next to people who aren’t born in the same country as we are.

My teacher told me my job as a journalist was to see things objectively. However, is objectivity even a possibility? I judge what’s a good story and what’s not. I use my understanding of the world and my background to make these judgements. From where I stand, the preservation, reinterpretation and re-transmission of classical knowledge by the Islamic world is a very important thing because I can see the role it’s played in world history. It’s not just about terrorism and jihad (which has been mostly misinterpreted in western media).

If I decided not to cover something because it’s not what mainstream New Zealand wants to hear or read, then isn’t that called not being objective? And how do I decide what people want to read or hear or see anyway? Don’t I have to use my judgement for that? And isn’t my judgement going to be influenced by the way I’ve been brought up, my religious beliefs and the people I’m surrounded by?

I am a Chinese New Zealand journalist. I have biases. I see the world in a certain way. The best version of objectivity I can reach is to acknowledge that I have a certain viewpoint and I see things in a certain way that might not be the same as ‘mainstream New Zealand’. I am not an opinion-less robot and I have certain sentiments. And then it’s up to my audience or readership to decide whether they agree with me or not.

Dreaming of summer

I’m back, mes amis! I may have gone MIA for the past month and a half, but I assure you, I am still alive, if not altogether sane. The past month and a half has just been crazy. I’ve been interning at the local newspaper office. They became too busy after two large aftershocks and sent me to the weekly community papers.

I got put on a paper about an area I’ve only been to once during school camp when I was twelve, and then I had a car crash –minor– on the way to that area. (This outfit is pretty much the exact outfit I was wearing when I had my fender-bender.) Afterwards I spent two hours running around in a carpark of a remote little supermarket in a remote little town trying to get people to talk –and they didn’t like talking. You know all those glamourous reporters on TV shows and in the movies? They’re fantasy, like Harry Potter and elves and vampires.

However, I got a lot of experience, learned how to get on with the job despite trauma, and became more sure of myself. Plus, I get paid, which is very good because ASOS has been having sales. I dreamed about hot dry summer days with lots of sunshine while shopping for cute little dresses that I dream of wearing when the time comes. I’m counting down the months, I tell you. (It’s a little less depressing than counting down the days.)

Judge me by my own merits and faults, please.

I’ve been called a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party even though I’m advocating an end to the one party system and for the establishment of democracy in China. I’ve been told that I have blood on my hands. I’ve been told that I am brutal and inhuman.

Why? Because I’m Chinese and because I happen to not agree completely with these Tibetan Independence lobbyists. I do not deny that The Chinese Communist Party has committed terrible crimes against Tibetans as well as just about everyone else in China. However, I do not wholly support Tibetan independence because a) that won’t help everyone else living under the current Beijing Regime and b) what’s going to happen to the non-Tibetans in Tibet if it does become independent? That’s a question that has not yet been answered.

I am not so interested in nationhood. I am more interested in human rights, regardless of race.

Messages from @TIBETANS on Twitter: (emphasis is mine)

@F_Le_Rulz regardless of ur supports our RIGHTFUL struggle remains “Independent TIBET” ur hand with blood, we dont need Chinese Support.

@F_Le_Rulz Chinese means Brutality, has NO Human face, CCP China Govt.one of Evilest in Human History. Tibet freedom struggle is our RIGHTS.

@F_Le_Rulz Yes, Chinese means ignorant, Brutal & lie & Tibetan have nothing to hide or loss, truth & justice is our destination. Struggle on

I do not think that putting all Chinese in the same category as the people running the Communist Party is a very just thing to do. Nor is it true. We Chinese vary from person to person, just like any other race in the world.

I remain confident that there are many moderate Tibetans out there who don’t think that all Chinese are murderous lying brutes and just want to live in peace, harmony and freedom with their neighbours, whatever race they might happen to be. It’s usually the radicals who are the loudest. I mean, we’ve all heard of Osama Bin Laden and his ilk, and yet his kind only makes up a minority of people living in the Middle East.

The lesson? I guess it means that one shouldn’t judge an entire category of people based on a select few. I’ve been judged because of what the Communist Party has done, but I won’t judge all Tibetans based on what I have encountered on Twitter. After all, people vary. We’re individuals, not united superorganisms.

This exchange with @TIBETANS has only reminded me further that I need to judge people based on their own individual merits, if I must judge them at all. Ideally, I wouldn’t be judging anyone, but I’m not perfect.