From time to time, when letting off steam about being constantly stared at, someone (it’s usually a man) will say: -

“Well waddya expect.  You’ve got PINK hair.  Hullo??”

Which shows that some, at least, of the Westerners I meet in China, think I have pink hair because I WANT people to look at me. These are, once again, usually men.

Because any foreign woman in China understands how it feels to be scrutinized,  from head to toe and all places in between, by elderly men, young kids, curious contemporaries, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and All. It’s very, very difficult to try not to feel somehow violated. Women seem to react to  being stared at in a completely different way to men.

 Though everyone has their tolerance point, men seem either not to notice the staring, or to bask, somewhat, in it. Then when it gets uncomfortably intrusive they tend to get angry.  It’s probably this, coupled with the fact that foreign men are, on the whole, bigger, hairier and more unpredictable than their female counterparts, which results in them not having to go through the same experiences as women.

So I dyed my hair bright, shocking, neon pink not long after I arrived because I couldn’t shake my seemingly irrational conditioning that this behavior signaled something bad.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a country, however, where people stare so blatantly, extendedly and so imperviously as they do in China.  My conditioning led me to think that being stared at in public was what happens in those nightmares when you turn up for some event with no clothes on. Or you were behaving, or looking, in some way not socially acceptable. 

So, try as I may, I could not rid myself of the idea that there was something wrong with me: did I have parsley in my teeth? Was my skirt tucked into the back of my knickers? (oddly enough, the day I actually paraded through the city in that state I found that no-one affords it even a flicker of a glance. Which means not one soul took pity on me as I sashayed through a city of 8 million people displaying my g-string and, consequently, bottom cheeks to a goodly percentage of that 8 million).

So finally, when I realized I was actually becoming reclusive, I marched in to the village hairdresser with a neon ribbon in my hand, pointed to it and to my hair a few times and he got the message.

From the minute I walked out of the hairdressers, I stopped fearing people were staring at the parsley, or my knickers. Or my bum-cheeks.  Now, every time I was surrounded by a ring of impassive faces silently staring, I would know exactly why – they would be staring at my hair. There was a reason for their behavior which didn’t involve the idea that I was, in some way that everybody but I knew about, transgressing in some way.  Nah.  They’re just staring at the hair.

 End of reclusive period.

But the thing is that now, over time, I have come actually to be, for the first time ever, perfectly happy with my hair.  Not that I ever give it much thought until I see the roots are growing out again. Pink has just come to be the colour of my hair – the same way ‘mouse’ used to. (“Mouse” was what my father actually wrote when he filled in a box marked “Colour of Eyes” in my first passport application).

Not that it stayed mouse for very long. I’ve always had a need – doubtless due to my father – to change the colour of my hair frequently.

By now however, and for most of the past half a dozen years, it’s pink.

Now in China the fact that I have pink hair does not actually outweigh the other thing about me that causes people (quite literally!) to walk into lampposts: I’m a foreigner.  Foreigners are strange.  Middle-aged foreign women are the strangest species of all.

 Foreigners aren’t judged on their differences; assumptions aren’t made about them based on the way they look.

So it gives me great pause to wonder: what’s it going to be like going back to where I’ll be part of the majority and no longer a seldom-spotted species about whom or what nothing is really known?

Is the way different people will see me, in a culture that makes a snap judgement within the first few seconds of seeing a person, going to effect me? Marginalize me? Label me in some way?

Will it matter?

I've just read the preceding post. Wow! Didn't that turn into a whole heap of old cobblers, then?

THOUGHT: - but it IS proof that I do think about my friends.

Coming Back

Have been doing a lot of thinking lately - after all, we DO have 2 New Years celebrations under our belts here in China. Double the chance to feel the remorse.

So that's why I'm doing this again, guys, remorse plain and simple. But equal parts love, affection and and a sincere need to let all the people who have touched my life know just how much I think of them and how grateful I am to have had the chance to have met them - whether for an afternoon or for an eon. And also, if you had not already realised this, that I am almost pathologically unable to keep up a correspondence. (Hang in there: - the point, I promise you, is going to come along any time now.)

Now I also chucked a tantie this afternoon which, I further promise, is still well on the way towards coming to the point. Chucking a tanty, (spelled it both ways as I've no idea which is correct) for those with furrowed brow, means throwing one's toys out of the cot; having a dummy-spit; making an exhibition of oneself; having a fit; or anything else approximating the act of having hysterics. (I can just hear Chazza in Oz saying to herself "Being a Drama Queen, you mean.")

Well yeah, so under various names, I was indulging in the odd spot of tears, jumbled mumbling about throwing myself underneath the 707 bus (I HATE one of the drivers), and littering snotty, wet tissues. On the river bank, yet.

So I rang my Firstborn. Who, having been brought up wisely and sagaciously, said to me wisely and sagaciously that I was a bit of a tool. Well, not in so many words; and not until he had listened to my woes and metaphorically blown my nose for me and wiped my face. But he did make me realise that instead of bawling on river banks I should be talking to the people I love, or at least hold in affection. Or regard. Whatever:- the people I don't want to lose touch with. Ever.

But hey, you guys all know me. I write one day out of the blue and then not again for 3 years. Or I start writing regularly and, just when we're in the middle of something, I disappear. I've probably started the slide down into one of my Troughs of Despond. And I tell myself that no-one wants to hear the maudlin ramblings of a self-pitying boor. And then I get right down in there and wallow around in the bottom of the trough for a while and know for certain that the conversations I come up with down there will be despised by all.

So by the time I'm back on top again I feel ashamed that I've dropped out of touch with so many of you. Then I cunningly put it off until I'm really going to be Miss Ray of Sunshine and dazzle everyone with the sheer wit and brilliance of my golden tongue....and then whoops! It starts all over again. So by the time I'm really leveled out again so much time has gone by - new babies have been born, facchrissake. People have had birthdays and got married and graduated and moved to other countries...and we've lost all sight of what's happening in each other's lives.

Right, now: - almost - but not quite - at the point here:- See the thing is that, though I stop writing TO people (or ringing them; or Skyping them; or texting them; or returning their calls; or Windows Messaging them....sigh...yeah, I know) I never stop writing, as nearly everyone of you will know. Oh, its crap. But at least it proves - even to me - that a) I'm still alive and b) I'm still (moderately) sentient.

And Now...The bit you've all been waiting for....(bugger! If I could figure out how to do a drum-roll soundtrack I'd slot it in right ...HERE>>>) THE POINT>(fife and piccolo?)

Rather than continue to take up disc space in My Notebook I'm going to continue to do all that stuff here. And I'm going to inflict it on you! Yep, now in the comfort of your very own Cyber-cafe, Starbucks or room, I'm going to keep in touch.

And the great thing is that you can touch me back: because if you want to interject with a timely update on Aunty Nora's heelspur you can do it. And if you just want to say "Hi" or start to talk about stuff we can. Yeah, I know, you'll say that FaceBook and QQ and Forums(and hey, what about that slick new invention email?) and all that stuff clog the airwaves (actually, does this medium make use of airwaves? ), this is just going to be us and not someone I went to school for one term with in the Third Grade. Or who sits in one of the little offices down the corridor at work. This is just going to be us...my interesting mates and me.

BUT WAIT....There's more.....BONUS POINT>>>>> Have you ever wished you could maintain a correspondence without all the pesky bother of actually corresponding? You can, with # MHOTS. Ever wondered what that strange woman with the pink hair is up to, but just don't have the time to actually ask her? Well, wonder no more with #MHOTS. With #MHOTS I will actually (if I can figure out how to do it, that is) actually.... alert YOU when I have a Thought!!!!

The beauty of the new, improved #MHOTS system is that all my news, doleful drivel and communicative antennae will be beamed your way whenever I post.....AND YOU DON"T HAVE TO EVEN READ IT ! Yes, that's right, folks. This is a no obligation deal.!!! YOU call the SHOTS!!!

(Bloody 'ell, that's too tiring.) So yeah. What all that's about is that I've now made two resolutions to revive this Blog but in the hope that it'll provide the space for a running conversation. Also, even if you never read it, each time I post you'll know I'm thinking of you and, if ever the urge takes you, you can scan a few lines if you have any desire to share the minutiae of my life - or if you get a sudden phone call to say I'm coming to visit and you want to quickly bone up on where I'm living and what I've been doing so we can skip the "So. What have YOU been doing with yourself?"s and get right into things.

But, more importantly, I really do want you to use this space to talk back to me because, even when the black dog is chowing down on my frontal lobe (or wherever Bi-polarism is located) I'll still come here to write.

So don't say "She never writes" again. This'll be where I'll write.

# MHOTS is not a registered trademark and any relationship between the title of this blog and anything Mao Zedung said is not to be wondered at.

PS And yes, am going to Edit the "About You" stuff. Sound like a wanker.

Hey there TFD-ians - We're Over Here.

GG and I were chatting last night about her leaving TFD, and about all the good 'uns who have already left. While its all very well to take one's bat and ball and go home, in some ways its like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face: - one sheds the problem-people, but, at the same time, one also loses the good people.

When I first joined TFD there was a good crowd and though, we are all from different places in life, we all managed to entertain, enlighten, amuse or get up one another's noses in a much less stressfull way than the way things are now. Most of those people are now gone or only pop in on the odd occasion and hey, we miss you.

So we were wondering if we could set up a space of our own somewhere where we could all still chat and muse and ask for help. However, knowing first hand how long and how expensive it is to set up a web-site, we thought perhaps those who wanted could continue to keep in touch here for the time being?

O.K., so: the biggest draw-back here is that at the moment, this being my space, its only set up to publish posts from me. Its interactive, so people can make comments and converse once that's done, but it means that no-one else can make the original post. I think there is a way around this, but first we need to see if anyone is interested?

I also remembered - after I had been cut off for some strange reason - but did not get to mention to GG, that there is still that Book site I once (rather cheekily) advertised on TFD. It has only just started and, at the moment, only Nigel and I have done book crits. and put them up. But that, too, is an interactive site. Anyone can post or comment. So anyone who is into books might be interested in that, too? I would love to hear what people think about the books I have mentioned. Also, we would love to start a Reading Club as well so that all of us could discuss the same book. So that's another possibility.

I'm sure that people have their own favourite site and fora so it would be great if they
could share those here for us. As you'll see, I have put up a couple next to this box, but only a couple are interactive.

So this is only a feeler which I promised GG I'd put up today. We would love to hear what the rest of you think? cheers.

New Punishments for the Unemployed

I was wondering when it would happen: politicians in Australia are currently conducting their squabbles and playground alliances with ever-increasing desperation as public confidence slides into a steady decline. Knowing The Voters main concerns are Public Health and Education, these two areas have lately been approached with the same lack of understanding or competence which seems embedded in our current crop of Pollies so now they are thinking of dragging in yet another well-mauled bone of contention...Dole Bludgers.



The Education and Health debates are turning out to be rather more complicated than expected and objection to the most time-wasting and ludicrous changes has been met with more organised and determined opposition than Government, it seems, was prepared for.



This is rather unfortunate for Prime Minister Rudd who subsequently has inadvertently allowed more than a mere glimpse at the steel fist hidden beneath his warm and fuzzy mittens.



Never dreaming that his bluff would be called our smiling, family-friendly leader assured the nation that recent proposed changes would not be carried out unless 100% co-operation was received from all the States and Territories. His hurt bewilderment when one State dug in its heels therefore in a bid to halt the proposed scheme, soon turned to petulance and then foot-stamping obduracy as he was sullenly forced into revealing that his previous We're-all-in-this-together statement was actually a big, fat, porkie. Damn! With his latest admission that - sucks! boo! - He's the Boss and what he says Goes! the whole nation is questioning his Nice-guy image.



Fortunately, when the Nation is divided there is always that fat smelly red herring ever-ready to be pulled from any Aussie leader's bag of tricks:- The Unemployed.



The trouble with proposed changed to Health and Education is that there are a lot of very cluey, dedicated people called Experts, who can be wheeled out to talk sense. People with degrees and accreditation as well as experience are unfortunately thick on the ground and can reveal the glaring faults of which the pollies - who all tend to be ex-lawyers rather than Doctors or Teachers - were unaware.



But picking on the DB's (Dole Bludgers - Aussie-speak for those who are unfortunate enough to find themselves living below the poverty line) is a safe move. The starved and huddled masses are a mob of uneducated yobbos whom everybody loves to hate. They have no-one to represent them. They are not protected by a Union. They have zero credibility and it is doubtful any of them would even understand the word, due to it being polysyllabic. Best of all, its always Open Season on the DBs.

Now the rationale given out in simple English on the Media was that Western Australia is booming, there are lots of jobs in Industry and Mining there, and so all the under 30s can go and get jobs there instead of the Dole.

Now the beauty of this statement is that it contains enough sub-texts to please everybody.

Those who are still concerned about the Yellow Peril sweeping down to our shores by the boatload see it as a way of plugging the gaps those dreaded Chinks, Towel-heads, Illegals (substitute whichever Peril suits the speaker) would be jumping into before they used their wages to draft in thousands of friends and relatives.

The Send 'em into the Army and Make Men out of Them brigade might grumble a bit but would concede that sweating it out in the mines is almost as good as bloodshed and a uniform to make people into Real Men. (Usually the noun "people" translates as "men" for these types so the problem of whether unemployed women also need to be transformed into Real Men does not arise.)

Those who belong to the rabid anti-female Dad's Groups can use this as an assorted kit-bag of weaponry: this is a deliberate plot hatched by the Feminist groups who run the country to further disadvantage men; it will provide a way for the Courts to garniture wages for child-support to undeserving mums; more females will use men to deliberately get pregnant so they don't have to go down the mines.

But the real beauty of this proposal lies in the fact that every single person who has a say on the matter is a taxpayer:- and the feelings of our honest taxpayers who resents their hard-earned money being used to support those living like kings on their taxes have been aired on every chat show, talk-back and forum in the country.

The corollary to this, of course, is that the unemployed themselves, not being taxpayers, have no right to an opinion. Or, if they succeed in being heard can be easily shot down in flames with accusations of self-interest, partisanship, or not-so-hidden agendas.

Its difficult to comment on what is the most inane aspect of this latest scheme:-

Is it the fact that The Coalition sees The Unemployed under 30 as being, collectively:-
a) knuckle draggers - probably with copious tats., multiple piercings and perforated septums,
b) predominantly male
c) either single or willing/able to abandon their families
d) unskilled
e) unemployed because they relish living life on $250pw out of which to pay rent, school fees, feed and clothe themselves and dependants ?

Or is it the fact that, for the last few years, as Centrelink keeps on advising more and more men to go to WA to reap untold riches, no-one has yet addressed the problem of where and how to accommodate them? Or how to force employees to take on permanent workers?

Returning workers who have been taken in by the hype have returned in droves with tales of being forced to live in shared accommodation with card-carrying ferals; having to buy tents at inflated prices in which to live in WA's sweltering heat; camp sites which run rorts that would make a Pollie blush; contracts signed but inability to find somewhere to live; inflated prices on everything from rents to food; and reluctance to give contracts which enable workers to more than two days a week.

After the initial news release on this morning's news a spokesperson has now hastened to reassure a largely tax-paying and indifferent public that the Send 'em To The Mines strategy is not yet carved in stone and that further consideration and comments will take place.

Let's hope so. On the face of it, this is one of the most short-sighted, risible plans - on so many levels - that has yet been floated.

But then, what do I know about it? I'm currently unemployed.

Gettin' Good and Mad

Most of my friends know the bones of my life story - sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest and subsequently expelled from my boarding school at 16, raped at age 17, married to an alcoholic batterer who also raped and sodomised me as his "right"... and being bi-polar. Running away with my two kids across three continents finally to arrive in Australia with nothing but each other. Boo-hoo, poor me material.

They also know how I used those experiences and was accepted with open arms by Queensland Dept. of Mental Health; ran myself ragged giving talks while on the Dole and studying; liaised between patients and staff at a local psychiatric ward; ran support groups; did suicide interventions; made docos; communicated with politician Julia Gillard etc. As long as I was a volunteer.



When it came to paid work I wasn't qualified.

I took all that with me when I went to China and found that in a country of huge dichotomies, high suicide rates (never published), depression, high rates of mental illnesses, abysmal education standards, women-as-less-than-other (strongly and officially denied), I was certainly qualified. It all came together.

I've got awards I was given, yellowing on my windowsill in incomprehensible Chinese. But, most importantly, I've got the words of my students: "Cireena, you taught me how to be a woman", "Teacher, you gave me a meaning in my life", "My teacher, You showed me what it meant to be a man", "Until I took your classes I had never realised that I had choices", "You taught me about truth and honesty" , "I learned to love life through you".



I know perfectly well that I'm not alone in getting these kinds of responses:- its what teaching is all about. But to me it proves that what I was doing was working.

Then, once again, I come to Australia and I'm not bloody qualified.



My whole reason for going to University as a "Mature" student was to gain qualifications and credibility that would make my life experiences useful. It was certainly not because of scholastic/corporate/personal ambition. I went to Uni through six of the most difficult years of my personal life because I want to help where I know I can. An ethos that has been devalued by every beauty queen who breathlessly announces she wants to "make a difference" to the poor little kiddies of the world or whatever.

Discovering Seventeenth Century writer Margaret Cavendish was all part of that because it showed me how long women have been living my life and fighting against it. Indeed, how my life, in comparison, looks like a Sunday School picnic. Through Margaret and on behalf of millions of women down through the ages and across the worlds, I hoped to gain a Voice.


But I'm stymied. Time is running on and I'm still just a whisper in the wilderness.



I love knowledge. I submerge myself in learning. So going on to get higher qualifications is not something that daunts me. But knowing that I need those further qualifications before I can even THINK of being taken seriously, however, is starting to get me good and mad. Because the pathway to those qualifications, it appears, takes me directly away from the life experiences that I want to keep building on.



Until I have those magical, door-opening, strings of letters I do not figure in The Great Scheme of Things. To get those strings of letters I have to retire from The Great Scheme of Things.



Each year spent in scrabbling for those letters takes me further and further along my life journey. Women who have turned a certain chronological milestone on that journey are unemployable.



Where the hell is the magical trapdoor that drops me out of this labyrinth of 21st century bureaucratic bull shit and says "You want to do something worthwhile? O.K. Go through door Door Number 2."?



Since the turn of this shiny new century I have returned to University, got myself a couple of degrees, learned new skills, become a teacher, travelled to The Middle Kingdom, gained valuable insights, won awards, turned some peoples lives around, gained insights, had valuable experiences, gathered up knowledge, and considered I was finding myself a place in the world that would make sense of my life.



Instead I have been catapulted me back to where I was 10 years ago: - unemployed, broke and disregarded.



I reckon that's enough to get anyone mad.