leibster award: in which we ask intriguing things of each other

A few weeks ago the swashbuckling Sarah of Bookshelf Pirate – fellow St Andrews almuna, book worm and blogger – nominated me for a Liebster Award. As far as I can tell, it’s like a very interesting update of the chain letters you used to send in school, without the playground gossip and infighting, and a fun way to keep in touch long-distance! The rules are as follows.

1) Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog.

2) Answer their 10 questions.

3) Nominate your blogger friends and give them your own 10 questions.

Thanks Sarah for nominating me with such kind words! Here are my answers…

What flavour of tea defines you as a person?

The only type with any kind of personal resonance is good old-fashioned builder’s tea: Tetley with milk and two sugars. That’s the kind my Gran would give me with a slice of toasted white bread slathered in salty butter (Scottish Grandmothers, driving the obesity epidemic singlehandedly), as well as to my dog in a little bowl! The perfect antidote to cold, fever, drowsiness, jitters, shock, and homesickness, for me it’s the taste of comfort and familiarity.  I was roundly mocked on my first summer home after university for drinking  herb and mint teas “just like a student”. 

That said, green tea is becoming an addiction...

If you were to become a super villain, what would your one weakness be?

My weakness would be the ability to envision the world from everyone’s perspective, to the point of immobility. I’d have my prey captive, tied in chairs back-to-back with the saw/ laser/ steamroller approaching them, when they’d begin, “But Sophie, what you’ve got to remember is that from where I stand…” and before long I’d be second-guessing my villainous plans and sympathising so much that I’d have no chance but to press the big red stop button.

What is your favourite poem?

This is like trying to choose my favourite friend! So many poets spring to mind – Larkin, Ovid, Catullus, Rumi, Cummings, Bukowski, Neruda, Breton, Yeats, Duffy – so I’ll post one here from a poet I don’t know anything about, but love nevertheless. I think I found it on the back of a worksheet in high school and liked it ever since.

C Major

When he came down to the street after the rendezvous

the air was swirling with snow.

Winter had come

while they lay together.

The night shone white.

He walked quickly with joy.

The whole town was downhill.

The smiles passing by –

everyone was smiling behind turned-up collars.

It was free!

And all the question-marks began singing of god’s being.

So he thought.

A music broke out

and walked in the swirling snow

with long steps.

Everything on the way towards the note C.

A trembling compass directed at C.

One hour higher than the torments.

It was easy!

Behind turned-up collars everyone was smiling.

Tomas Transtromer

You can only eat the cuisine from one nation for an entire year. Which do you choose?

The beautiful goodness of tomato ramen

Right now I’ve got to say Japanese! Before coming here my knowledge only extended to sushi and sashimi, but now my favourites include nabe (a delicious kind of hotpot), shabu-shabu (thinly sliced meat and vegetables instantly cooked in boiling broth), tempura udon (battered king prawn with thick noodles in broth), tomato ramen (tomato broth with ramen, chicken, melted cheese and whatever else you fancy), okonomiyaki (omelette stuffed with layers of cabbage, bacon, shrimp, rice wafers and barbecue sauce), chicken nanban (fried chicken with tartar mayo), guidon, tonkatsu and oyakodon (all combinations of meat and egg over rice). That’s not to mention the sushi – which is cheaper, fresher and tastier here of course! Are you drooling yet?

Tempura udon for lunch at school

If you could live a happy and healthy life without ever needing to sleep again, would you give it up to save time? Or are you a contented bed bug?

I think I’d save it for weekends – I’d miss dreaming too much to give it up completely! I read a book once where a character savoured sleep so much that she could taste it, “like good bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich” and I can understand that perfectly! Plus it’s what happens either side of sleeping that’s interesting ;)

Rainbow fairy lights or white ones?

White for ambience and general classiness – but you’ve gotta break out the rainbow ones at Christmas.

Fairy lights galore!

Are you a good driver? Are you an honest judge of your own driving abilities? What do you family and friends have to say on the matter?

Much to my dismay, I’ve yet to take my driving test. It’s number one on the to-do list when I get home. In the mean time, I pride myself on being an excellent listener, chat partner, and music/ snack provider for my designated drivers.

Would you go into Outer Space if given the opportunity?

Absolutely. My plan is to wait till I’m old and it’s commercially available, like a bungee jump or deep sea dive. Then I’ll go see the sun rise on the earth and be jolted out of my old-person habits, assumptions and cynicisms. Plus if it goes disasterously wrong, I’m old anyway.

Do you prefer reading/ writing outdoors, in public spaces, or at home in the peace and quiet?

Reading is best done in peace, quiet and warmth: either in a sunny patch of a sheltered garden, or lying in front of an open fire. My favourite place to write, particularly poems, has got to be public transport – trains preferable, buses tolerable. You have just enough distraction to be stimulating rather than irritating, an end-point to motivate you, and a window of unused time to feel completely free and relaxed. Try it!

What’s the best book you read in the past year? Why do you recommend it?

Around this time last year I was writing my dissertation on media coverage of the Congo conflict, and reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver to try and enhance my knowledge. I’d recommend it to anyone, but especially if you’re interested in the region, colonialism or anthropology. It follows the family of an American Bible Belt missionary who move to a village in the Congo in 1959 just as it is transitioning into the post-colonial era. She can fool you into thinking you’re reading only about home or guilt or loss – hefty themes in themselves - when boom! You realise you’ve somehow acquired a far more nuanced understanding of power and oppression along the way. Aside from that, Kingsolver’s ability to inhabit the voices of all five women in the family as they age is extraordinary and utterly convincing (she displays this virtuosity in her other fantastic novel, The Lacuna, too). I’ll definitely be re-reading it soon.

And now I present my (12, not 10) questions for the next round of nominees! Johannah, Francesca,  Kayla, I like you and your writing very much and, if you have the time and the inclination, would love to know what you think.  Or, if you have only one or neither, no worries - just an invitation :) 

Sarah, I’d love to know your answers to my questions too in the comments section.  And that goes for anyone reading this post!  Or you could just answer a select few – whatever floats your boat.

1. What is your earliest memory?
2. If you could live in any period and place in the world, where and when would it be? You’d be the same person and your family, opportunities etc would be generally the same too. (When we played this at Christmas my uncles answered unequivocally and gloweringly, “Scotland in the days before the smoking ban.”)
3. What would your last meal be?
4. What’s your favourite book?
5. Name eight people, dead or alive, fictional or real, who you’d invite to your ultimate dinner party.
6. What is a law, custom, common assumption or norm you would change: why and how? (It can be as serious or as trivial as you like!)
7. Describe your perfect day.
8. What is something you have learned in the past year? (It can be a skill or specific interesting fact, but general realisations about yourself or the world are more fascinating).
9. Name three qualities you most admire and three you most despise in a person.
10. Which three places do you most want to go in the world?
11. When do you feel most yourself?
12. Name a skill/ ability you have and wish you didn’t, and one you don’t have and wish you did. And, one you do have and do enjoy or value, just to end things on a positive note! 

lazy links: valentine edition

It's Valentine's Day this week and Japan is doing what it does best - appropriating non-Japanese holidays and adding slightly odd packaging (This picture was taken by another Miyazaki ALT). 

On Valentine's Day in the West, generally men give women flowers, chocolates, dinner dates, jewelry, and women might reciprocate with a card, a gift... or new lingerie. It's consumerist, mass marketed extravaganza, but one between two (hopefully) loving people nonetheless. 

In Japan it's a little different. As with so many things here, Valentine's Day involves group obligation, hierarchy, respect, hassle, and putting yourself out to be nice to your community - for women, that is. Yes, it falls only to women to buy chocolates and gifts for their sweethearts and giri-choco or 'obligation chocolate' for their co-workers and bosses. As a result, the holiday seems to be widely resented and less popular co-workers are left with 'token' chocolate, rather than a heartfelt gift. However, in a stroke of genius, chocolate marketers came up with White Day for 14th March, when men can pay back their benefactors in kind. 

My students have been handing in homework late because of chocolate-cooking activities (hand-making the treats is popular here), but save for a surprise sent in the post, I'm drawing the line at leaving a box of sweets in the staff kitchen. For first time in 3 years I'll be aloooooone on V Day, and most likely will be celebrating with machination, intrigue and cold blooded revenge. In other words, I have a date House of Cards.  
As such, and in an effort to streamline my bookmarks page, my Valentine's gift to you is a round up of my favourite things from around the interwebz of late. 

If you have not seen the first season of House of Cards, do not read these recaps via texts from someone's mum. 

I used to find this type of post on badly translated signs a little mean, but hilarious. Having spent 6 months grappling with the language and telling people "Watashi wa nihongo ga tabemasen" ("I do not eat Japanese"), I just find them hilarious. 

Speaking of signs, someone has been trolling the London Underground  recently.

The best ever combination is the cast of Game of Thrones and their cat doppelgangers . 

"There are two aspects to the ebook that seem to me profoundly to alter the relationship between the reader and the text. With the book, the reader's relationship to the text is private, and the book is continuous over space, time and reader. Neither of these propositions is necessarily the case with the ebook. "
Why e-Books are a different genre from print .

I'm a sucker for awesome photographs of random subcultures . 

The best rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody I've ever seen. 

And finally... every couple's Valentine dilemma. 

Tumblr, Girliness, and the Blogger Generation

One of the amazing things about growing up in the noughties was being part of the blogger generation. The angst and pangs of being a teenager and forming your own identity was offset somewhat by having access to countless sub-cultures, communities and support networks. And, whatever you think of the Yahoo takeover, tumblr was one of those corners where you could find kindred spirits over just about any subject - from Unhappy Hipsters to Chicks With Steve Buscemeyes to Local People With Their Arms Crossed. 

Celebrity face mash-ups aside, these spaces have given voice to people who are oftentimes marginalised in the popular media, like LGBT communities, or those with mental health issues, for whom the human connections to be found through blogs and tumblrs can constitute a lifeline.  

So, what are we to think when these supposed channels for counter-culture end up conforming almost completely to the paradigms presented to us by the mass media: does it lend those paradigms validation, or just indicate a kind of auto-repression?

This is what occurred to me when I stumbled upon the immensely popular Just Girly Things, which consists basically of pretty photos and an overlaid caption in white.  Often parodied, things which are apparently girly range from the predictable - 

to the utterly random -

Some posts express sweetly old-fashioned and original ambitions - 

And indeed, there is room too for members of the aforementioned oft-marginalised communities - 

But I guess what I found most surprising, perhaps naively, was how much the preoccupations of the blog, followed and reblogged by thousands of young girls, mirrored so closely those of mass media. Weddings and wedding gowns, being skinny, being tan, being like other girls, buying shoes, and being generally unabashedly materialistic - 

 

Celebrities are still regarded and held up aspirationally, but so are the girls out there doing the exact same thing as you.

Sometimes, the ideas portrayed about what it is to be 'girly' and by extension, a young woman, are downright worrying. 

Everything Cosmo ever told us was important seems to have been noted down, digested and spat out in a new, grass-roots, hipster-style form. Can we talk of certain stereotypes as being repressive if they are not only absorbed but regurgitated by young girls?

If even in the most permissive and open-ended creative digital spaces, young girls are fashioning codes or standards  for themselves like Just Girly Things - in which ‘Just wanting a boy to hold you’ translates as ‘What you should want is a boy to hold you’ – what does that say about the way traditional female ideas are perpetuated?

Now, I appreciate that teenagers are always going to feel the pressure to conform and to express that in their creative output, whatever that may be. And both the nature of tumblr as a medium, the nature of the average adolescent, and the varied expectations of girls mean that contradictory messages are somewhat inevitable… 

Yet these digital spaces prompt us to remember, when discussing the portrayal of women in the media, that we should look also to their own representations in order to understand its effects. This approach discourages viewing ‘the media’ as a conspiracy rather than an umbrella for actors with countless motivations and influences. And it highlights the biases and presumptions that underlay our own representations and constructions of female identity.

Then again, there's no accounting for why these are apparently girly things - 

Okay, I may have made that one up. 



All images sourced from Just Girly Things. Except the last one.