On Eating to Become More than Who You Are

My 'research' yesterday consisted of catching up on the latest episode of 'Poh and Co.' on SBS on Demand, continuing my viewing of an older Aussie foodie program called 'Surfing the Menu', distractedly watching 'MasterChef' while making dinner, and then switching to the ABC when I realised that Annabel Crabb was interviewing Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on 'Kitchen Cabinet'. What a leisurely research life! To add to your culinary envy, I will admit that I also went to a fabulous local exhibition on the weekend that consisted of photographs of people cooking in their kitchens in the Greek city of Kos, and in my neighbourhood of Marrickville.

Author's own image at the entrance of 'The Community Kouzina Project' exhibition,
part of Open Marrickville

The photographer, Eleni Christou (who also happens to be an anthropologist and a resident of Marrickville) told me that she was interested in seeing whether her neighbours only cooked the food of their own cultures, and was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not the case. She also recounted tales of visiting the Vietnamese stores on Illawarra Road, and hearing Greek women talk over okra. This was all very heartening for me as well, given that my recently-contract book project, 'Bonding Over Food: Becoming Ethically Convivial in Australia' is interested in mapping the potential of food to facilitate genuine inter-cultural encounters. 

At the same time, I wonder if 'we are what we eat' is a convenient yet ultimately meaningless shorthand for the acceptance of multiple cultures (and their values). Perhaps those who venture into exotic food territory, in terms of both their eating and cooking practices, do not become open to inter-cultural understanding just by virtue of trying a new spice. However, food can open doors if we want, and are in the right social conditions for those becomings to take place. These transactions may begin in a commercial realm, such as in a farmers' market, and then become habitual. Habit can then lead to conviviality, which is everyday rather than reliant on one-off tokenistic events such as 'Harmony Day'. 

I have never consciously eaten to become more than who I am, but my culinary adventurism has certainly paralleled my interest in cosmopolitanism. It helps that I have class privilege, and live in Sydney's inner west. It is perhaps at this intersection of mobility and habit that we start to eat to become more than who we are.

Smells Fishy: Cosmopolitanism in Australian Suburbia

I came to live in a BIG city, not an ethnic ghetto

The Palm Sunday rally in support of refugees, Sydney CBD

With apologies to all those who are offended by the words ‘ethnic’ and ‘ghetto’ placed next to each other. I will not call on my right to be a bigot here; rather, I will call upon that form of postcolonial political correctness aptly termed ‘strategic essentialism’. Perhaps my new inner-city latte leftie status renders that defense null and void! Truth is, at the ripe old age of 30, I still like to think that ‘cosmopolitanism’ is not merely the preserve of the intellectual and cultural elites. And, I only have anecdotal evidence to prove it. What a bad scholar!

So, almost six months ago, I made the brave decision to abandon my North Wollongong apartment (with roomy bedrooms, a living area where you could distinguish the kitchen from the dining and lounge rooms, a balcony of real proportions, and only minutes to the beach and university). You see, I craved to live in a ‘big city’ - it was almost as though the ‘small’ places I had lived in thus far in Australia (Brisbane and Adelaide before Wollongong) were bringing on some kind of premature maturity. Again, I intend to cause no offense to all those south-east Queenslanders who consider Brisbane the big end of town!

During my eleven months in Wollongong, I would make frequent weekly and weekend trips to Sydney to get my big-city fix. I fondly remember those days of getting misty-eyed at the sights of the tunnels of Central Station, or heaving a sigh of relief on reading the ‘Welcome to Sydney’ sign when approaching the Sutherland Shire on my drive down from the Gong. In all fairness, the suburb of Thirroul, just eight kilometres north of Wollongong, is probably more ‘gentrified’ than the Shire, but the latter’s proximity to inner-city Sydney mattered more in those days. I think it is time for another apology - pardon me, current and former residents of Sutherland. Your beaches are formidable, but they are just not for me!

I am certain that I saw much more of the Sydney metropolitan area in those days of living in Wollongong. I wouldn’t hesitate then to catch a late train back from a Sydney Festival gig at Parramatta, or hop on the line to see friends in Chatswood, or drive ‘all the way’ to Ryde for a seminar at Macquarie. In the last few months, nestled ridiculously close to a major inner west train station, I barely venture beyond a two-kilometre radius of my tiny one-bedroom unit. When the coffee shop across the road from my place displayed a ‘closing down’ sign, I was mortified. Now I would have to walk a few hundred metres further for my morning fix! Yet, I was also half-happy at turning into a smug Sydneysider. I had heard that this was a stereotype I could use in public, and even wear as a badge of honour.

Still, I ventured into foreign territory - Manly, Cockatoo Island, Kings Cross - mostly for street photography-related escapades. I even attempted a short drive to Kogarah to get specialised Indian grocery items and conduct ‘ethnographic research’ for a research article. Last Saturday, I took the train to Parramatta to attend a community briefing on proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act. Yes, I was a little skeptical that the session was intended for ‘subcontinental communities’, as opposed to being directed to the residents of Parramatta and surrounds at large. Still, someone was doing something and I was willing to cross the mighty inner western frontier to get to it.

I know I am too new here to complain about the ethnic ghettoisation of Sydney. I do love this Harbour city - public infrastructure issues, dirty politics, and all. I like the idea of ‘having the option’ to travel to this or that suburb to sample food and click away to urban photographic glory. However, when the opportunity came up over Easter to travel with a friend to the Villawood Detention Centre, I cancelled at the last minute. I could give you a million reasons for saying no - ranging from not being emotionally ready to not knowing anyone inside (I have since arranged to register as a ‘Villawood Vollie’ and go through an induction process). Most of my reasonable excuses at the time were reflective of a geographical and psychological inertia that I have come to inhabit since moving to Sydney. Memories of lives past punctuate once in a while to interrupt and disrupt this tendency towards inertness.

Perhaps I am over-reacting in conflating this with the sort of inaction or apathy that has contributed to bringing down socially progressive political regimes in certain parts of the world. But then again, the personal is political, and I moved to the big smoke so I could partake of its largesse - the concerts and the marches, the holes in the wall and the Victorian tea rooms, the groovy festivals and the daggy train stations. Sometimes I overhear the most cosmopolitan conversations at my local Vietnamese grocery store or onboard a train to a suburban destination. Maybe those of us who inhabit the proverbial cultural centre sometimes become so contained as to become a ghetto unto ourselves. While there is no harm in living close to one’s kith and kin, there is a lot to be gained from occasionally moving through seemingly uncomfortable frontiers, if only to see how the bigots live up there.

Is the 'Hipster' the New 'Flaneur'?

A photobook sent to the author by an anonymous sender

She walks along Glebe Point Road, wishing she could live in one of those adorable terrace houses and be walking distance to Gleebooks, Central Station, and the eccentricties of Newtown. Such wishful thinking involves conveniently glossing over the high cost of rentals in the area, her new job in a regional city, and the bittersweet memories of traversing those paths with a past flame. As if on cue to dispel such thoughts, she fishes out her recently purchased Diana F+ camera (an analog camera manufactured by Lomography), fires the attached flash, and aims at a shop sign advertising Asian groceries.


She hopes the apolitical hipsterdom epitomised by her Diana is at least partially overcome by the ethnic marking of her subjects. Most of all, she tries to reassure herself that her resurgent interest in street photography and reflective shop windows in urban spaces is not a mere affectation, and not too ironic for her self-righteous academic alter ego. Something tells her that this poetics of the personal is imbued with the political; that her roaming of the streets as a woman (of colour) armed with fancy cameras is nothing short of an overthrow of the power relations of the public gaze. She is a voyeur who looks as well as appears. Both John Berger, and Germaine Greer would approve!


But she can't say the same for her folks who would rather she have a roaming companion at all times, or her close friends who would admonish her for taking late trains and wandering into 'dodgy' suburbs. She dislodges her discomfort with this thought by turning to her own version of worry beads - the camera reel dial, and turns it to prepare to shoot a passing cyclist with a wicker basket full of fresh veggies. Even hipsters eat bok choy.


She recalls trying to make herself invisible at a Vietnamese grocery store near her new apartment. Perhaps it was the sheer size of her Canon 600D that made the store owner abandon his ledger book to come ask her if she was looking for something in particular. 'Coffee', she answered, recalling the velvety texture of the ca phe da (iced coffee) she had tried in Marrickville before officially moving to New South Wales, and wondering why she didn't carry a camera around then.


Perhaps she was trying to make memories again, to feel settled in her new surroundings, yet unsettled enough to reawaken her creativity. Perhaps she wanted to be a slightly belated backpacker of sorts so as not to miss out on the youthful joys of leisurely exploration. Perhaps she also wanted to appropriate the streets of inner city Sydney, and its 'ethnic' suburbs such as Parramatta and Harris Park for the solitary coloured woman; to proclaim that we don't just walk around in groups or pairs, that we don't always have spouses and prams in tow. Perhaps she wanted her photographs to tell the tale of the contemporary flaneuse - a woman who cares about her mind and her accessories, but doesn't just visit the shopping mall.


On the train ride home, the iPad replaces the camera, and the researcher takes over. I find out that the flaneur of 19th century Paris was male, privileged, and known to be a 'connoisseur of the streets'. There has been recent interest amongst feminist art historians and literary scholars suggesting that there were also female equivalents of the flaneur during this era, but that the worlds they inhabited (and hence their viewing lenses) were different from those of the men. In the contemporary western world, the idea of flanerie appears to be undergoing a resurgence, particularly in the blogosphere ( see, for instance, Modern Flaneurs) and in street and fashion photography.


I switch off from all devices and take a look at my co-passengers. I realise that I am still possibly distant yet curious, the classic yet updated flaneur. I also reason that Baudelaire's notion of modernity (and its association with flanerie) is as applicable to contemporary Sydney as it once was to an urbanising Paris. This is because my world, and that of many other men and women of my generation constantly on the move for work, love and travel is inherently 'ephemeral, contingent, fugitive'. Our acts of looking through the course of these journeys are still intertwined with our race, class and gender identities. But perhaps these acts, and the ways in which they are documented, are a little bit freer now. And, there is newfound creative pleasure in such ambivalence.

Harmony Mart: A Photo Essay (Part 2: Lines and Curves)

Harmony Mart: A Photo Essay (Part 1: Seeing Red)

Moving on...

It is with a heavy heart (and an over-stimulated mind) that I prepare to bid farewell to this blog. My PhD project, the starting point of this creative laboratory, is all done and dusted. The endless thesis corrections and revisions are out of the way, and the documentary is set for a couple more public screenings. My life too, has moved on from first gear. I'm happy to be be able to drive under better visibility conditions.

Since submitting, I realised I didn't need a break from writing. Academic writing, maybe, but not all writing. It also dawned on me that as my path became more visible, I wanted to be more visible too. Without hazard lights on that is. So I began contributing to independent publications, online and offline. Here is a sample of what I wrote:

Musings on a Coloured (Not Classic) France: The Alliance Française French Film Festival

From Solitaire isolation to Facebook education

Race and Hyperbole

And I want to continue contributing to portals such as Kill Your Darlings and On Line Opinion, to add to the diversity of voices that often get submerged in the ratings rat-race of mainstream media. There is so much I still want to learn and express, experience and ascertain. There is not an iota of doubt that I will be using my pen, or key strokes, or even iPad-esque key touch in the future to inscribe and prescribe.

There is another matter that is becoming more visible. And that is the potential for another major writing project. One that is unapologetic and sarcastic, serious and funny, yours and mine. I am adding layers of detail to its bare bones as I type, and hence cannot bare its fledgling self to the world yet. But you will be the first to know and read. Rest assured, I will treasure this over-exposed image as long as I live and write, and use its deep hues and abundant light to etch another story.

Catharsis in the Dark

When I first watched Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long in a small theatre by myself over the Christmas break, I thought it was the dark intimacy of the cinemascape, combined with thoughts of family and recent emotional turmoil that caused me to bawl. Also noteworthy are the now questionable facts that I rarely cry, or only do so when 'stuff' has accumulated. Although getting teary in public remains taboo, I'm wondering if the enclosed darkness of a cinema hall really constitutes a public place. For my tear glands of late, apparently not.

I cried again today while watching Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, even if it was only in sniffles. However, this time, I was watching with a good friend, in a larger space, after a surprisingly good birthday-week, and with no emotional baggage that I could put my finger on. Perhaps I was drawn to the film because a friend had pre-informed me of its visual make-up. What was this make-up? A combination of Gothic undertones, Indian patterns, African brights - all shot in a Monsoon Wedding style of home-videoesque closeups and amateur pans. I think I was seeking a visual connection of sorts, if not a catharsis. Maybe I have come to expect it everytime I enter that dark space because I have alloted these movie outings the space where I can acknowledge life-affirming details. Is this space inner or outer, public or private, well-lit or dark? What I do know is that it fuels my passion for both the real and reel world(s).

Foretold Beginnings

Back to Living

I was alive but not living
Not noticing the colour of the leaves in my backyard
Or the texture of the wood in my office
Or the varying temperatures of my own body.


And now with each new burst of spring
Tiny parts of my spirit are beginning to swell
With the joy of being and breathing in this universe
Feeling its heart beat in my own chest.

Silhouetted

Short-sighted

A Lit Night

Circular Thoughts

I'm tired of possibility and in dire want of the real thing. But the absence of possibility is also a dormant possibility of possibility. And its presence in the thick of things always signals bigger possibilities. Perhaps this 'bigness' and 'thickness' is what I'm after. For small pleasures in my everyday life are only creating room for greater ones. And these small joys are so fickle. They leave my heart craving for more.

My fortune for the day says: "The heart is wiser than the intellect".

The Busker who thought I was Mad

I have developed this photo fetish of late. Flipping open my phone camera. Disregarding anonymous glares. Discovering the joy that is everyday life in momentary flashes. The question now arises - will this newfound love survive the rigours of a routine alternately boggled down by work and longing? I hope it endures for as long as it gives me pleasure, and brings a smile on the face of the occassional busker on an otherwise cold and sombre evening.

Shaping Light