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Things will be very quiet here for the next couple of months. Between holidays and very buy works schedules I have no time or energy for blogging but I am sure that I will be back soon.
Read More......After 35 days of my 37 day alcohol free challenge I am certainly feeling very refreshed physically and the results on the weighing scales are not too bad either as I weigh in at 75kg. That weight really seems to be my bottom limit now unless I drastically increase my training or change my diet. I would like to reach my ideal weight of 72kg but I see that happening any time soon.
I have been learning a lot of Japanese lately but I am not sure that my progress will be so apparent in Japan the week after next. Basically my vocabulary has increased significantly (I must know about 1000 words) but my ability to express myself in Japanese is still very limited. My reading these days is either in Dutch or French. I finished a short novel in Dutch yesterday and I am currently working through two books in French. During the summer holidays I will probably read more novels in English though as it is still far more pleasant to read a novel in one's native tongue.
Classes will start again in September so I must start thinking of which evening courses I will do. I think that a course in Japanese or Spanish at a high level would be good to give those languages a boost. First though I think that I am going to enjoy the summer vacation.
There is an interesting thread on the Property Pin about the welfare gap that has developed in many western countries between the generation in their forties and fifties and those in their thirties.
As the Ireland faces the consequences of the property bust it is clear that those most likely to have bought at peak prices are in their twenties and thirties while many of the older generation cashed in nicely during the boom years. I think that it is a mistake to try to apportion generational blame as economic circumstances are largely out of any individual's control and anybody with the right to vote can influence which politicians make decisions in his name. My observations from the outside are that Irish people of around my age should look at their own actions during the property boom. I know of many people who were engaged in property flipping or of gratuitously increasing the selling price of their house if they sniffed a greater profit. In my view many people smelt that something was amiss but ignored the obvious and joined in the collective madness.
One thing that I will say in relation to this is that a paradigm shift is needed in people's attitude to entitlement. For example, the Irish state gives a free travel pass to retired people so that they can travel without charge the length and breadth of the country. Of course this is a nice retirement perk but is it really necessary to give the rich older generation free travel while the poorer younger generation pays the full whack. The assumption that older people are poorer and need to make do on a state pension is just wrong. Clearly there is a sector of society that needs a helping hand but universal benefits are not the way to do this efficiently. Ireland will have a major challenge tackling this thorny issue because the main political parties are full of those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. In the Euro elections Irish people made a move to the left to punish the government. If Ireland wants to get its house back in order a younger centre right party is needed. Perhaps Fine Gael can be that party but I very much doubt that it can be anything more than a replica of its larger revival.
At the moment I am developing a mini-obsession with Kanji, the Chinese characters imported into Japanese. One little thing I have been doing is matching Kanji to my family's names. Most Kanji have several readings and a Japanese person will know which one is meant based on the context of a sentence. When Kanji are used in names a Japanese person will not know for certain how the Kanji should be read. That makes it quite convenient for a westerner to take a Kanji for their name and then decide themselves how it should be read.
Western names are normally written in the syllabic Katakana script. My name would be written as E-I-DA-N which is エイダン. My name means little fire so I can take the kanji for little and fire and say that this is my name 小火. A Japanese person would read this sho-hi or sho-ka in a normal sentence but names are more flexible so I can just say that the Kanji meaning is 小火 but it should be read as エイダン.
So here is my family in Japanese:
Aidan - 小火 (little fire) read as エイダン
Aga - 清 (clean, pure) read as アガ
Luna - 月(moon) read as ルナ
Daisy - 雛菊 (daisy) read as デイジー
Nadia -望 (hope) read as ナディア
I think that the next step must be to get some t-shirts printed, I am sure that there must be plenty of kanji t-shirt specialists out there.
Just as there is a thin line between love and hate or pain and pleasure it seems to me that the difference between a superiority complex and an inferiority complex is marginal. Lacking an arsenal of psychological definitions I must say that I am often dumbfounded as to whether somebody is acting in a superior manner because of an inferiority complex or if their behaviours are linked to a real feeling of superiority.
The relationship between a foreigner and his host country is always complex and in this domain these types of behaviours can be readily observed. As a foreigner your history is basically a clean sheet, for good or for bad. In your own country you may have had a certain position, your family or your schooling may have bestowed privileges, even your accent may have meant something to people. When you come to a new country many people have to leave that behind. Nobody knows nor cares about the details of what you were, they care about what you are and what you can become.
For some people this new start is invigorating. They embrace the ability to redefine themselves, they reshape themselves to meet the needs of the new environment and before long it is hard to see that there was ever another version of this person. The before only reveals itself when they speak their mother tongues, when they are amongst their own. The new society forgets that this person is a foreigner, the highest level of integration.
In my life in The Netherlands I see very few people who match the above profile. Most of us find it harder to let go of our past certainties. People come to this country for all sorts of reasons, from asylum seekers to drugs tourists, from the employees of Shell and international organizations through to love and family immigrants. Many of the foreigners are in this country by chance, the host country is a fact and not a choice.
Faced with this situation people from poorer countries seem more likely to demonstrate an inferiority complex towards the Dutch. Although they sometimes resent some of the cultural proclivities of The Netherlands they rarely seem to shun them actively. Complaining about the host country is done amongst your own, to the outside world you are a good burger, drawing attention to yourself is unwise. Of course I have most experience of observing Polish people in this context. I sometimes find them overly deferent towards Dutch people. I sometimes wish that they would speak up and not always agree to doing things in the Dutch way. At the same time the immigrants from poorer countries do seem to integrate far better than their rich world counterparts.
In The Netherlands there are also many immigrants from rich countries. The Hague and Amsterdam in particular have thousands of well-paid international foreigners. Many of these might be described as reluctant immigrants. The tides of international economics or politics have washed them up on Dutch shores. The Netherlands is certainly a manageable and familiar host country. Everything is available to live an international life without needing meaningful interactions with the host culture. It is precisely because of this lack of real contact with the host culture that a curious superiority complex seems to emerge. Living in an expat bubble the language of contact with the Dutch is English, any news consumed about Holland is through English, the children go to international schools etc. Without learning anything beyond the superficial about the country around them many people seem to go down the road of stereotypes and generalizations. The Dutch seem to be the 'other', the only acceptable Dutch are those who have travelled, who have been internationalized.
I sometimes wonder at the arrogance of the expat superiority complex. The Netherlands is a wealthy, advanced country so where does this haughty attitude towards the host culture come from? My own theory is that some of the superior behaviour derives ultimately from an inferiority complex. In the beginning the expat is full of the adrenaline of being in a new country, earning a master of the universe salary and playing the international citizen. However, the longer you live here, the more years you and your family put in, the more cracks start to appear. It starts to get ridiculous that you are living a parallel life to that of your Dutch counterparts. Maybe then a defensive feeling starts to emerge which manifests itself as a superiority complex.
To speak for myself I have always been an immigrant of the 'poor country' ilk. Maybe I am also somewhat too deferential towards Dutch mores and too willing to defend the way things are done here. Although I mix happily with Dutch people in social settings I often feel more comfortable with the foreigners like myself who have become Dutchified, not part of the expat bubble and yet not quite Dutch either. It was ever thus for me though, wherever I lived I was always outside looking in with my nose squashed against the window pane.
I watch the film "In Her Shoes" at the weekend on television, it was certainly better than most films of its type. The film featured a couple of poems prominently. One of the poems was "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop which I had not come across before. I am always heartened when poetry is used to good effect in movies because, at its best, no other medium seems to bring poetry so richly to life.
This poem is very interesting because it portrays the authors inner struggle with her emotions. On the one hand she wants to convince the reader that losing is an art that you can master. She outlines a strategy whereby you start by losing something insignificant like keys and gradually your tolerance grows so that you can afford to lose something as large as a continent. The last stanza gives her true feelings away. Losing a friend that you love is not an art you can master, it always hurts. You can imagine the poet stabbing her pen in to the table as she writes the last disaster.
This is a very fine poem and reminds me once again how little I have discovered of that great continent that is American poetry.
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster
