I’m not a nervous person by nature, and rarely star-struck. As a former journalist, I interviewed big name pop stars like Fergie, Muse and Silverchair without breaking so much as a sweat. So it’s with some humility I have to report that my voice had a serious case of the shakes today as I chatted to the author of, what must be, my all-time favourite teen book series: the Obernewtyn Chronicles.
Note my grimace-of-a-smile; what happens when I get nervous and self-conscious.
Today Australian writer Isobelle Carmody graced my tiny (but excellent), local bookstore. She was friendly, warm, and her talk thoughtful, funny and interesting. And in discussing her latest children’s book, shared a touching story related to her affinity with one of the characters who, like her, is timid by nature:
As a kid, Isobelle used to head to the library to hide from the mean kids in her school (a fitting place for a future writer). But when the library was, for some absurd reason, closed for a period during the day she had no choice but to hide in the grubby school toilets, where there was nothing to read but back door graffiti – sometimes about her. She would hide and fanticise about all the amazing things she could go out and say to those bullies who were waiting for her outside. A big impressive speech that would not only stop them from ever picking on her again – but actually make them want to be friends with her.
And though she never screwed up the courage to make such a speech, one can’t help but feel her multiple writer’s awards and legions of crazed fans (myself included) is redemption enough.
Carmody had some lovely things to say about writing. Which she does prodigiously. She claims that despite a couple of still unfinished book series, she’s never once had writer’s block. (Her fans are so impatient there’s a Facegroup group called “Isobelle Carmody HURRY UP!” imploring her to finish some of her loved series like the Obernewtyn Chronicles, and Darkfall. She tells us she’s too joined this group.) For Carmody, writing is a continual passage of discovery, and in writing, even in fantasy writing, offers her deep, new understandings about the big questions that underpin our reality. In Obernewtyn, the central question that drove her to write the series, even as a teenager, was can people change? Are our natures fundamental or can they shift? There are also themes of power and control which make this series more than your average teen tale of adventure.
In talking to Isobelle, I rambled fan girl style about how much I treasured the series. As she signed my well-thumbed copy of Obernewtyn, and noting that I was, ahem, significantly taller than many of the other tikes in the autograph line, asked how old I was when I first read the series. “13,” I answered, “and I’m 26 now.” I impressed on her how my friends also dearly loved the series – many of whom, like me, are now writers or journalists.
Elspeth, Obernewtyn’s central character, is particularly loved by me as an excellent female character: intelligent and strong, but also complicated, conflicted, and flawed. And she drives the narrative. I suppose she fits into the “bad-ass” category, but she’s by no means two-dimensional.
Thank you, Isobelle! And as an added note, I don’t think you should ever finish the Obernewtyn Chronicles. Reading the last book would be like saying goodbye to my childhood.
Aside from simply being a captivating reality television show, one of the best things about MasterChef is that we get to see non-White Aussie faces on Australian television. During prime-time. On a commercial network!
(And if you really want to amp up the diversity, I believe we even had a Chinese gay guy.)
The ethnic contestants literally bring more flavour to the show (yup, I said it) often drawing upon their cultural heritage, and paying homage to the family kitchen they grew up cooking in. You have to give the show – or maybe Australia in general – credit that when it comes to food, we’re all about multi-culturalism.
Even some of the Caucasian contestants find strengths in ethnic cooking. Take white-as-white-can-be Courtney Roulston who said her parents regularly took the family to Chinatown to eat, so sometimes she identifies more closely with Chinese food than she does “Aussie food” (whatever that is). And was paid the highest compliment when Kylie Kwong tasted her authentic Asian banquet and commented, “this girl’s surely lived in China!”
However things get tricky when, for example the ethnic dishes get a little “freaky”. Take last night’s episode, which featured guest judge Maggie Beer. She was giving us amazing faces like this when she was loving something:
But looked highly troubled when she came across the duck egg yolk custard served up by Adam Liaw:
While Matt Preston accommodatingly said of the dish, “The flavour of the custard is very confronting to a Western palette because it is kind of like yolk of a hard-boiled egg that’s been left around for a bit too long.” However Gary was a little more to the point, “You know what, we’re all Western palettes here and, I don’t like it.”
And that’s the thing. How do you judge something that you instinctively don’t like, but you’re not sure whether it’s simply something you’re not used to, or is it – can it be said to be – objectively bad?
Last semester in my Chinese language class, we were running through a grammar point involving the word 比 which is used to compare on thing to another. One Italian girl in my class used the word in an sentence, proclaiming: “Italian food is better than Chinese food.” It was sentiment shared by all the Italians in the school, and sort of annoyed me.
Can you really, objectively claim, that Italian food is better than Chinese food? On what basis can you make that claim?
When my (Chinese Malaysian) father travels overseas, be it to South Africa, Egypt or Europe, the first thing he does when he lands is heads to the first Chinese restaurant. Because for him, and possibly 1.3 billion other people on this planet, Chinese food simply tastes better. But it’s not really better, they’re just used to it, so for them it tastes better.
While it may be difficult to pick the winner when comparing Chinese to Italian, is it easier if we were to ask which food is better: Chinese or Filipino? Italian or German? From these comparisons, it becomes evident that though it can be difficult to claim one to be objectively better than the other, there are qualities we can objectively draw out, for example one is more varied, more complicated, more sophisticated etc. And from this – could we then claim one food is better than the other?
After all, there’s a reason why it was Iron Chef Chinese, Iron Chef Italian, Iron Chef French and Iron Chef Japanese, rather than Iron Chef Scandinavian or Iron Chef Uruguayan.
When it comes down to it, I think when you’re in another country, another culture, another subculture even, and you’re trying something that is highly treasured by those people, and has been for a long time, one should be very careful before you slap the “it’s just bad” tag on it.
ninemsn
Every Christmas, do you have to listen to your tipsy uncle brag about those supposed family ties to Monacan royalty or the war heroics of great-great-great-grandpa so-and-so? Why not put those woolly stories to the test by using your next holiday to head to the country of your family’s origin and trace back your ancestral roots?
Was super excited to meet an employee of Baidu at a party over the weekend, who kindly offered to let me have a look around the office yesterday. And what an office! It’s a giant complex in Xierqi, brand-spanking new (they moved in last November) and custom-built for the company.
Entering from Tower A, you look in and see a huge, glass, multi-level building that wraps around a central garden, with a little river, and a buzzing cafeteria at the bottom level. Offices aside, there are also ping pong tables, sunlight filled loft areas and a gym. The reception area features giant, white, globular structures in the shape of the company’s logo: a bear’s paw mark. These are meeting rooms, while others sleeping pods! Security passes are required to enter different parts of the complex.
My friend and I had lunch in the cafeteria, and I was kind of exploding. I mean the place already felt like a little techy kingdom, but then to be in the cafeteria which was filled with thousands of YOUNG, INTERNETY CHINESE employees was doing my head in. (Baidu have about 7,000 staff members across the country, with 5,000 alone in this head office.) My friend even slipped once and said “the university” rather than “the company”.
And she tells me the work culture is great. Unlike the traditional Asian workplace – they’re not expected to work super long hours. Their work is task-based, and they’re rewarded for working efficiently, and creatively. And how is this for perks? Last year their team-bonding retreat was held in Thailand, and this year … Italy!
Story goes, the company’s founder was a Peking University graduate (one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities) and headed to the States to study, then worked for the Dow Jones, and for a technology company in Silicon Valley. Upon returning to China, he hired some students from his old university, and now has one of the country’s most successful companies on his hands.
Robin, who’s on the other side of 40, and kind of hot. And by nerdy tech dude standards, REALLY HOT.
Baidu just celebrated its 10th birthday, with a search engine market share here in China at the 60% mark. Although this may have changed with the recent Google withdrawal – yes, Baidu may be the one and only winner of that recent event.
I love the story behind the name Baidu (百度):
‘Baidu’ was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one’s dream while confronted by life’s many obstacles. ‘…hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood.’ Baidu, whose literal meaning is hundreds of times, represents persistent search for the ideal. – Robin Li
Like Google, Baidu has plans to take over the world, so if this is the first you’ve heard of Baidu, don’t expect it to be the last.
In defense of (sometimes) dutiful Asian daughters
Musings of an Inappropriate Woman
While my experience in life does not reflect that what Hugo discusses (my Chinese parents gave me the independence to make my own decisions) it is a story that has come up among my Asian girlfriends.