Sunny Road

LOST IN TRANSLATION: emilie simon en australie

2010-10-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

Arriving a tardy 40 minutes late (at 8:10pm, gosh golly, my oh my) to a gig after meandering through an unfamiliar Brisbane park to the Powerhouse, we were surprised to be greeted by an usher. The usher was to show us to our seats in between songs; it was all very rock and roll.

Attending Emilie Simon’s Brisbane gig was one weird musical experience. It was very much the opposite experience to seeing the long grey strands of what remains of Neil Young’s hair follow him around the main stage at The Big Day Out ’09. That day his old school, perhaps excessively extended, intros and outros to songs seemed to be underappreciated by the crowd of 18 – 25 year olds even if everyone felt privileged to see him.

For those of you who don’t know, Emilie Simon’s music probably fits in somewhere between Radiohead’s Kid A and The Presets’ Beams, at least in its electronic influence. And given that her on stage costume looked like something out of Final Fantasy, it was a surprise that most of the audience appeared too old to appreciate her haunting cover of Come As You Are... not that she played it (much to my disappointment.)

The only reason I can think of to explain the average age of the crowd is that in Australia, Simon’s music is probably best known through the So Frenchy So Chic which is advertised by the ABC/SBS. Although her single, Fleur De Saison, did get some airplay on Triple J a few years back.

The muted atmosphere and short set were probably unfortunate side effects of the demographic although, given the seating arrangements, the organisers seemed to know what they were in for. There were some positives though; a clear view from a comfortable seat and excellent sound quality. However I can’t help but think how good it could have been... maybe I’ll just have to go to France to see her.

Skip to the end: Shock! Horror! Australian people don't get French music.

The Chicken or the Eagle

2010-05-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that, like other Australian institutions, Monash University is a bit confused about what it is that they actually do. In an engineering class we learned that the key to the Wright brothers' ground breaking aviation design, was to realise that a bird’s wing does two completely different tasks. One is provide thrust, and the other is two provide lift. By separating these functions in their design, by having a propeller and a wing, they were able to achieve flight.

Universities do two completely different things as well. One is to impart a sufficient amount of knowledge and know how to students so that they can become professionals in their given field. In this sense some people think of them as ‘degree factories.’ The other objective is to complete research and learn cool new stuff, which people generally believe, will enhance humanity.

Now, why is it that the people who do the research, are also the teachers? Has no one else thought it odd that they effectively have two jobs? Furthermore, it is obvious that most people are either going to be good at one or the other. From a student’s perspective, I don’t care what my lecturer is researching, although I have a rather large vested interest in them being able to teach me something. Strangely, universities (like mine) seem to be fixated on completing ground breaking research to attract more students via their reputation rather than worrying about the quality of teaching that their courses provide.

So what comes first? The teaching or the research? They are obviously both important although if everyone could just learn things straight out of books then the ‘teaching’ would be pointless.

For me, this is only one of many questions universities have to ask themselves if they are to have a clear direction and purpose. For example, are they supposed to make money in their own right or should their graduates be helping the economy enough so that governments can fund them? Are they supposed to be teaching students the relevant knowledge they need to perform a job or are they just sorting them via a series of assessments to help companies choose who to employ? And the big one, what in particular should they be researching? In a place where you can learn almost anything, where people research almost anything, it is no surprise that you constantly hear of funding disputes when there is no common direction for the university as a whole, well, aside from worrying about what other people think.

Skip to the end: A bit of a rant about how lecturer's should be teachers and researchers should be researchers.

Decomposing Kevin

2010-05-20T05:37:00.000-07:00

What with the first match played in Melbourne’s new football stadium being in his name, talk is bound to turn to the future of Kevin Muscat and how slow his legs have to get before his quick thinking can no longer compensate (or should that be overcompensate?) Even though next season has the lure of playing in derby matches, and the Asian Champions League again, he is going to have to retire eventually. As seen earlier last season, his absence is clearly a missing link in the chain that is the Victory.

A major part of Ernie’s [Merrick, the manager] game plan is to be able to counter attack quickly, generally with balls to the feet. For this to work well, the defence has to be very good at reading the play. This means that they can intercept an opposition attack and have the vision to start there own, all within a short space of time. Rodrigo and the Princess [Vargas and Leijer, the other central defenders] are alright at this although big Kev has had over a decade of experience at doing it, generally with a lot less time on the ball, and it shows.

The other main thing that Muscat brings to the (shoddy) table is his ability to infect other players with self belief and, possibly more importantly, his knack of riling the opposition and putting them off their game. The latter characteristic is seen by many as a fault, and I must admit I’m at odds with it at times, but the difference between Muscat and a true maniac is that he leaves it on the pitch... well, mostly. Like a race driver, sometimes his single mindedness pays off and he’ll look like a genius, and sometimes it won’t and he’ll appear to have a few screws loose.

Worryingly from a leadership perspective, there are really only two other players in the team with significant experience in Europe, and even then it wasn’t necessarily at a higher level. Archie [Thompson] and Brebner are good players but neither seems like captain material and Archie obviously can’t play balls to himself, try as he might.

On top of this Ernie and his mates are going to have a tough time finding a replacement because it is hard to imagine the future captain being a non-Australian unless they have the reputation of a deity... or they frequent all night functions.

Given that you would no doubt want around half a decade left in the tank of this new recruit to go with the experience, the age bracket is quite tight; late 20’s to early 30’s at a stretch.

So who does this leave as a potential new back seat driver? To my mind, there are two main candidates; Patrick Kisnorbo and Vincenzo Grella. Signing either of them for next season appears extremely unlikely, although you would hope that they are the type of player that is at least being sounded out for a return in a couple of seasons time. At least both of them are from Melbourne and Merrick has coached Grella before (although using that logic we might be able to sign Kennedy and Bresciano as well... errrr, yeah, it could happen.)

The other possibility is to hand Leijer the armband and wait until it fits him properly after a couple of trips round the sun. This wouldn’t be the worst idea as he already has a strong affiliation with the club and has many years ahead of him. If this happened I still reckon the Victory should be looking for an internationally experienced defender or defensive mid to add some balance to the squad.

If they weren’t earmarked as being captain they wouldn’t have to be such a long term solution either. Who knows? Maybe older players with a world of experience such as Edgar Davids and Samual Kuffour might be interested in starting a new and would add a well known name to the big V team sheet. Even players like Aaron Mokoena or Celestine Babayaro might do wonders for our defence with their worldly powers.

However such speculation is fanciful as they may have the same amount of interest in joining a team fashioned by Muscat as Christophe Dugarry would. But the point is that it’s the added experience that we need.

For now though, Kevin’s experience will have to do... even if he turns into a Zimmer wielding elder.

Skip to the end: A blog about Melbourne Victory captain Kevin Muscat. It may not make any sense at all to non fans, so, errr, sssssssssssssorrry about that.

The Opposite of Bubbles

2010-05-03T06:21:00.000-07:00

Image: A giant antibubble (from antibubble.com)

Most people associate bubbles with being shiny spheres of infantile joy that float off on an autumn breeze. Either that or having to do the dishes. If only they could see beneath the surface when filling the sink maybe they would notice that there exists bubbles of a different nature, a different disposition. There exists a type of bubble enshrouded by a dark ring, a type of bubble that can sink.

Antibubbles, as the name suggests, are the opposite of common, garden variety bubbles. So instead of having gas inside them they are actually filled with liquid. However they do rely on gas to form their shell. Somewhat ironically, this is what the water inside floats on. The last feature of antibubbles is that the medium they pass through is liquid and not gas. Essentially they are a shell of gas with liquid on the inside and liquid on the outside. As such, when viewing antibubbles they appear to have a dark ring around the outside due to total internal reflection (1).

Image: Ordinary garden variety bubble

Over the past decade a group of scientists from Université de Liège have published several papers with theories explaining several interesting observations made. According to one of their papers, “this unusual object was first reported by Hughes and Hughes” in 1932 (2).

One of the researchers, Stéphane Dorbolo explains, “The antibubble is fascinating because it is not a (sic) stable object as "normal" bubble can be. Moreover it is a very smart manner to separate two miscible liquids using only air. I do think that there is still much (sic) things to discover about this beautiful and so easy to do (sic) object.”

Despite being somewhat intriguing, very little research has been done into the mechanics of antibubbles (1). This is probably a result of their discrete public profile and hitherto lack of practical application.

“The first time I have heard about antibubble is through a colleague who found it on internet. After that, we notice that no serious works have been performed about these particular object (except a Nature paper in 1934),” elaborates Mr. Dorbolo.

Image: creating antibubbles with a beaker (2)

So how are these instable creatures formed? It is not precisely know what combinations of fluids and gases are eligible but a common way to make them involves water with a little bit of detergent (which from now on shall be referred to as just water) as the liquid and air as the gas in the shell. The process itself is very simple yet due to the relatively unstable nature of antibubbles it is highly dependant on certain environmental conditions. The basic method is to simply pour water into a body of water, it is that simple! The catch is that for the antibubbles to form the water has to have the right amount detergent in it, it has to be poured at the right height and at the right rate. Furthermore it apparently helps if the body of water has a ‘clean’ surface and any voltage differential between the body of water and the water being poured should be avoided (2). The reason for this will be discussed later.

Image: Antibubbles forming underwater. Notice the wire connecting the body water to the bubble water (1).

Whilst intact, antibubbles will rise slowly in similar water due to the buoyancy of the air shell. However, if the water used in the bubble is made slightly denser (by adding salt for example) than the body water, then bubbles can be made to more or less ‘float’ in the water or even sink. Floating or hovering antibubbles are interesting because, since they go with the flow of the fluid around them and have no other forces acting on them, they can be used as a rough visualisation of the strain of a fluid element in a flow. In the photos across, antibubbles are observed interacting with a whirlpool in two different ways. Depending on where the antibubble is formed it may either form a horizontal coil following the whirl (b & c) or become vertically elongated in the eye of the whirl (d) (3). Given antibubbles are naturally spheres, and unstable ones at that, it is interesting that they can form these shapes.

Image: Antibubbles interacting with a whirlpool (3).

When sinking however, it has been shown that antibubbles will quickly meet their demise (2). Irrespective of their size or the velocity at which they are falling, antibubbles will reach a critical depth where a combination of the hydrostatic pressure acting on the bubble and the atmospheric pressure at the surface will cause the shell to rupture. The result of this can be seen in the figure below. The small air bubble that was the shell rises to the surface whilst the bubble water mixes with the body water and forms a couple of vortices (1).

This is similar to the way a normal bubble would burst. Notice that the strength of the shell is compromised by air being pushed to the top where the pressure is less. As such, antibubbles will always self destruct from the bottom. Unlike normal bubbles, the shell of an antibubble is quite compressible and once it is thin enough the tails of the surfactants in the water get close enough for Van Der Waals attraction force to become significant and then the whole structure collapses.

Image: Antibubbles popping due to hyrdostatic pressure (1).

Since this drainage of air also happens over time regardless of depth, it limits the lifespan of all antibubbles (4). An antibubble spontaneously popping due to age is shown below.

Image: An antibubble bursting due to aging (4).

However, there are many other factors that can burst your bubble before it gets too old. As mentioned previously, antibubbles are susceptible to potential voltage since it results in the air shell becoming unstable. This is because it acts like a capacitor with concentric electrodes (1).

Another, more obvious way to pop a bubble is with a pin. The figure above right shows how the shell is forced away from the point of rupture (like when a water balloon bursts) whilst the water inside goes in the opposite direction, back towards the pin (1). This results in vortices similar to the result of a depth related pressure failure.

Image: An antibubble that was resting just under the surface being popped with a pin (1).

So what’s the point of all this? Like a lot of scientific investigation, there isn’t one yet although it does represent a new way of mixing liquids so it could have an application with drugs for example. Another example of where knowledge of antibubbles may be applied is in calculating void fractions. A void fraction represents the amount of air in water, and since antibubbles are filled with water, anyone visually calculating a void fraction needs to make sure they aren’t counting antibubbles as bubbles.

On the web –
www.antibubble.org
www.antibubble.com
www.youtube.com/stephanedorbo

Note: For better quality images see original sources.

Reference:
1. S Dorbolo, H Caps & N Vandewalle. Fluid instabilities in the birth and death of anitbubbles. New Journal of Physics 5 (2003) 161.1–161.9
2. S Dorbolo & N Vandewalle. Antibubbles: evidences of a critical pressure. www. arXiv.org. 2003.
3. S Dorbolo, H Caps, N Vandewalle, G Delon & D Terwagne. Antibubbles in a cyclone eyewall. www.arXiv.org. 2009.
4. S Dorbolo, N Vandewalle, E Reyssat & D Quéré. Aging of an antibubble. Europhys. Lett. 69 (2005) 966

Skip to the end: A brief investigation into antibubble research.

The Dangers of a Walk in the Park

2010-05-02T02:55:00.000-07:00

Two words. A mixture of seven vowels and eight consonants, a mixture most people would rather not think about. Bloody diarrhoea. While there is a small amount of glamour in hardship, none of it is conveyed by those two words. Perched on a relatively comfortable toilet seat in Melbourne’s inner east, I realise that maybe this is as close as I’ll get to the experience of almost 70,000 people who fought in Papua New Guinea in World War II – despite having just completed the 96km walk across the Owen Stanley ranges, where much of the fighting took place, known as the Kokoda track.

As a legacy of tales from the war, the track has the reputation of being extremely difficult. Unfortunately, in recent times its notoriety has been augmented by several deaths. On the 17th of April last year Samantha Killen, a 36 year old Victorian woman, reportedly died from either dehydration or asthma only days into the walk. Less than a week later on the 22nd of April, Chris Frost, a 26 year old New South Welshman, died from a suspected heat related illness. Then on the 11th of August, thirteen people died when a plane, that was chartered to fly to the Kokoda end of the walk, crashed into the side of a mountain in bad conditions.

According to No Roads Expeditions General Manager, Doug Dent, “April is the busiest time of year to do the trek, especially around ANZAC day.”

So should the many walkers currently over in PNG be worried for their safety? And what makes the track dangerous?

Mr. Dent, who completed the track at the age of 65, claims “we don’t actually have many people sustain an injury.”

Image: Michael and Linasa crossing one of the many rivers.

However, in order to get a first hand perspective of the potential dangers, I walked the track from late September to early October last year along with three other walkers paying to be there, and four No Roads guides who were paid to be there.

As you would expect, most people walk the track with friends or family. I went with an old school friend, Dean Baker. Turning 23 the day before we start walking, Dean is a fifth year Science/Engineering student from Melbourne. He is generally fit although his coeliac disease could cause him problems trekking; he can’t eat gluten or he won’t be able to process food for up to a week, resulting in diarrhoea and lethargy.

When we booked our trip we knew there could be up to 20 people in our group. Whilst this isn’t as many trekkers as allowed by some other companies, we both felt it was more than ideal. So we were both relieved to find out that there were only two others in our group, as were they – our first slice of luck.

It was explained to us by the No Roads representative, who met us upon arrival at Jacksons International Airport, that other people had paid deposits for our trek. However, they pulled out due to feeling under prepared after reappraising the dangers of the walk.

Meeting Damien O’Neill and Michael Lewis at the airport in Port Moresby turned out to be rather appropriate. Damien, 39, and Michael, 42, are both flight attendants from Brisbane. They both appear to be fit for their age. Whilst Damien is medium height and stocky build, Michael is slightly taller and a bit thinner.

Waiting to leave the hotel to go have dinner, we browse the day’s newspaper. Whilst the front page story details how around 60 people broke out of the local prison, the page three news is of more concern; “Australian dies walking Kokoda Track for charity.”

Later at dinner, Michael receives a text message from his wife alerting him to yesterday’s tragedy. Paul Bradfield, 38, died in his sleep on his wife’s birthday. He was walking the track to raise money for Camp Quality, who had helped his family whilst his youngest daughter was battling leukaemia.

Worryingly there were reportedly no signs of him having any difficulties during the day. He just woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe.

I nervously ate as much of my food as I could.

It turned out we had all received much the same instructions from loved ones: don’t die.

In light of the news, we discuss why we are all doing the trek. Damien says he’s doing it “mainly for the challenge.” This seems to be the same reason we are all doing it as none of us have any direct link to those who fought.

“If you don’t do things then you just end up sitting at home,” adds Dean.

The next day we actually start walking and I start to feel much more relaxed.

Simon Euki, 28, is the leader of our group. Like the other three guides he grew up in the hillside village of Kagi, halfway along the track, although now lives in Port Moresby.

I am encouraged by the sight of his build. Admittedly he is a fair bit more muscular than me, but he is still quite light and skinny.

Walking up the first hill, an ascent of more than 400m in altitude, I follow in the footsteps of 24 year old Linasa Ben, our pacesetter. He later explains to me that he weighs around 55kg and up to 58kg when he gets “fat.”

At the top of the hill there’s a slight wait of a minute or so for Damien. He weighs around 100kg and I soon realise that if I were carrying an extra 35kg everyone would be waiting a lot longer.

Image: Going up hill on day 2.

Michael explains, “If there’s one thing about Damien, it’s that he’s determined. No matter how slow he has to go, he’ll get there.”

Both Dean and Michael end up weighing 80kg, although before the walk they weighed 82kg and 86kg respectively.

Along with my weight advantage, my training has held me in good stead. Climbing 64 stories of stairs, once or twice a week, in tropical Malaysia has prepared me well.

“People tend to become dehydrated in the first couple of days because they’re still acclimatising to the humidity,” Mr. Dent explains to me later.

He also tells me that dehydration is a problem because it can lead to loss of concentration, which can in turn lead to sprained ankles and the like.

Despite this, “some people get on the booze the night before walking,” he says.

Not of his own doing, Dean’s preparations were hampered by falling off his bike, resulting in four stitches in his knee. This was only four weeks before the walk.

Michael’s preparations were hampered by a back problem.

“Six weeks ago I couldn’t walk.”

He explained that after doing a few too many sit ups, he woke up the next day with his spine visibly out of place and had to go to the doctors. So getting to the end of the first day in good shape was quite a relief.

The guides, by contrast, walk the track roughly once every two weeks. “If I were walking by myself it would take me three days,” says Linasa. It is taking us seven.

At the first campsite we meet another No Roads group going the other way. Their Australian guide, Richard Godden, reinforces to us the dangers of our already remote location. “If you need CPR you’re gone for. By the time we call the insurance agency and find an available helicopter, if the weather’s not great it could be 48 hours before they get to you.”

Day 2 was the hardest day of the walk, or so we had been told. Over 1300m of ascent, divided into two sections of gruelling uphill.

On that day that Dean got seriously bad cramps in both his legs. “I couldn’t bend my knees so I had to kick a root each step to get them to unlock.”

On top of that, we had pizza for dinner that night which he couldn’t eat. Fortunately he could eat some of the rice that the guides were eating.

Kila Dannis, 20, and Tobias Beliki, 22, were the other two guides. They did a lot of the cooking. Often they would go ahead of us to prepare lunch for when we arrived. In that sense it was the quite a luxurious hike.

Both of them wore only one shoe for most of the hike, not even a boot. Kila explained that he had a blister and he found it more comfortable not wearing his dilapidated shoe.

In some way this made me feel better about my own blisters which had been forming on the outsides of my toes.

Image: One of my blisters at the end of the walk.

Due to their jobs, our guides don’t get to spend that much time in their home village of Kagi. So we spend most of day 4 at the village, much to the relief of my feet.

This day exemplified the other reason people do Kokoda, perhaps the most import one of all. It’s fun.

Keeping a bunch of local kids entertained was quite a cultural experience as well as fun; playing cricket with energy we didn’t know we had, watching them climb on the roof to get the ball, making paper planes that couldn’t hack the tropical rain, watching them make planes out of leaves using razor blades.

As with any hike there was a lot of joke telling and innuendo to help get us through the day and enjoy ourselves.

“I’m forcing it in now because I know I’ll want it in an hour,” Dean said over breakfast. I couldn’t help but smirk.

Image: My right eye swelled up over night in Kagi.

By day 5 any sense of fear or being daunted had gone. We had reached the highest point, 2190m above sea level; it was all down hill from there. That afternoon we slid down the steep hills with almost reckless abandon in the downpour. The combination of fatigue and relief made it hard not to laugh at every slip.

Not everything was a laughing matter though as slip ups can prove costly. On the night of day 6, Michael got bad dysentery. At the end of the day’s walking, he just wanted to have a shower. In a minor lapse, he got some of the water in his mouth, just a few drops was enough.

It was painful watching him struggle through the final day.

When we finally got to Kokoda on day 7, Linasa ended the walk with his customary “packs off.” Those two words were always accompanied by an element of relief, but none greater than that day. This feeling of accomplishment had to be the reason thousands of people do the walk each year.

Ironically, the town of Kokoda seems more dangerous than the rest of the walk. There are shops there and all of the stock is kept behind bars, behind the counter as is customary in Papua New Guinea. When we’re going to bed Linasa reminds us to make sure we don’t leave anything outside the guesthouse.

“There are too many primitives,” he says.

Back at the hotel there is a sobering reminder of what we have just been lucky enough to achieve relatively incident free. The headline of the day’s paper is “Kokoda death.” Phillip Brunskill, a 55 year old New South Welshman, died from a suspected heart attack the day we finished walking.

During the war over 15,000 people died in the area. According to plaques placed as memorials, the “incidence of sickness [was] three times that of battle casualties.”

Image: One of the plaques at the memorial in Port Moresby.

It was in order to avoid sickness that I was taking my malaria tablet on my last night in Port Moresby. It was a tired and stupid decision to take it with plain tap water.

Skip to the end: A slightly updated version of my previous article about the potential hazards of the Kokoda track in PNG.

Exchange II: The Adventure Strikes Back

2010-02-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

I’m starting to think that expensive things seem attractive
by virtue of knowing that they are expensive. As a part of my marathon 65 hour journey to my new exchange location, INSA Lyon in France, I was forced into spending a night in London. Having already spent over 12 hours of waiting at Heathrow Airport, I couldn’t be bothered finding a hotel so I decided to lash out and stay at the exorbitantly priced Sofitel which was only a short walk away.

Having never actually stayed at an expensive hotel before, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Sure I’ve wandered through some of the most expensive hotels in south-east Asia (Raffles, The Empire, Traders, Eastern & Oriental) but I assumed staying in one would be completely different. Unfortunately I was incorrect.

Whilst all of the aforementioned establishments have some sort of grandiose aspect to them to help justify spreading your wallets legs wide open for them, an airport hotel doesn’t exactly have the same seductivity levels to me. I don’t understand why anyone (unfortunately including myself) would pay a lot of money to stay there. But that’s not the worst of it.

When I first arrived at LHR I met a lovely Mauritian man on the train. We had a brief conversation and when we were parting ways he pointed out that he was staying at the Sofitel. At the time I thought it was weird, why would I care where he was staying?? I wasn’t exactly about to have intercourse with him. But it has now dawned on me that it is part of what you’re paying for; to be able to tell people that you’re spending a stupid amount of money on something you don’t need to spend the money on (like I’m doing now, I may as well get my money’s worth.) Some people shorten this and just call it a ‘status symbol.’

This wouldn’t bother me so much if you got a lot for paying a lot, but you really don’t. It seems to me that most of the money goes into the fine furnishings and appearances rather than any sort of service. These are the sort of things that you may want if it was your actual home (there was actually a brochure in the room selling most of the room) but you don’t really get to experience their long lasting quality in a one night stand. More alarming than what you get is what you don’t get. Relatively basic luxuries like movies, meals and drinks all cost extra. Bear in mind that these are things you would normally get for ‘free’ when flying cattle class with a non budget airline. Surely it wouldn’t be hard to squeeze these things into what I’m sure is an already slim operating margin.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I am now starting my second exchange at L’Institut National des Sciences Appliquées in Lyon. I am doing this Lyon/KL exchange combo in the opposite order to what my friend Alex did. So far I think she has prepared me well as far as not expecting too much, i.e. everything to be magical here. Because it would be possible to get that idea in your head based on people’s reactions to you telling them you’re going to France. It’s interesting because when you tell people (in Australia) that you’re going to Malaysia, they instinctively ask why you are going there. With la France, par contre, people tend to get a lot more excited for some reason. Anyway, as long as it’s not all about telling people you’re staying there I’ll be happy.

Skip to the end: I'm in France and slightly annoyed at myself for staying at an expensive hotel on the other side of la manche.

Riding the Swing

2010-02-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

In an online response to an opinion piece in The Age about the impending Altona by-election, I stumbled across a novel idea; that voting for what you believe in isn’t necessarily the best idea. Now, this may seem like a stupid idea unless you find yourself between a gun and a hard vote, but given that this is (hopefully) not the case in Altona, you would be right in thinking that this is not what I’m talking about.

I’m referring to the idea of voting for a political ‘climate’ rather than any particular person or party per se. The good people of Altona and its surrounding suburbs find themselves residing in a ‘safe’ Labour seat. However, some people such as Randal from Point Cook, are not overly thrilled with the State Government’s performance regarding infrastructure and what have you. I get the impression that Randal is not overly keen on the opposition either and yet, he proposes voting for them. Why? Because, as he points out, if Altona were to become a swinging seat (in the political sense, not the waiting room chair of an unscrupulous establishment sense) both of the major political parties would start paying a lot more attention to it. The competition would spur on efforts by both parties to actually work towards sating the electorate’s hunger for improvement.

If such political competition were to arise in Malaysia, “Malaysia boleh” (literal translation is Malaysia can) could become more of a reality and less of a Russian space trip. As far as I’m aware, Malaysia is as close as it has ever been to an actual two party system pending the outcome of a court case. These are potentially exciting times for Malaysian politics, even for the ruling party. Hopefully, they will rise to the competition by bettering themselves. As such, they could win over more ardent supporters as opposed to voters who see no other option.

Whether or not this competition actually improves the situation is another thing. Obviously competition can lead to instability, like in Ukraine in 2004, and worse still, violent repression, like in Iran last year. Furthermore, competition doesn’t magically render politicians any more competent at what they do. As Sacha Baron Cohen once said to Tomasz Starzewski, “you can’t polish a turd.” For what it’s worth I believe that Malaysia and Altona ‘can,’ but whether they will or not is another thing.

Lastly, if you want to sit down and have a little think about whether you should vote based on morals alone, or vote based on what will benefit you directly, I’d recommend watching a German film called The Edukators.

Skip to the end: For some unknown reason I've started writing about politics when I'm somewhat uneducated in the area. Still, that hasn't stopped me writing about things before.

The Democratic Republic of Used Cars

2010-02-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

Whilst sick recently, I have been scouring the used car market for my own amusement and have noted that the value of decade old cars seems to be largely related to public opinion or demand. The price is almost solely based on what people are willing to pay for them rather than any intrinsic value of the car. Thus, the attribution of value is largely democratic.

Purchasing a used car is also somewhat like voting in a democratic election. You seemingly can choose whatever you want however you don't know what you are choosing. There is no way of knowing what design work went into building a car just as there is no way of knowing how the mind of a politician actually works. Furthermore it is almost impossible to predict how your car will perform once chosen. You must base your decision almost on reputation alone and what is reported in the media. There is also an obvious restriction on the choices available to you in that you cannot control which cars go on sale at any one time. Such is democracy, there are really only a couple of viable options to choose from.

2000 Toyota Corolla, roughly described by Jeremy Clarkson as the only car without a soul.

In my searching I found a few bizarre elections in the used car democracy. Since the cars are so old, their value has seemingly no or little relation to their original list price. As such, a few conservative options end up costing the same or more than better equipped ‘unfashionable’ vehicles. A 2000 model Toyota Corolla for example, costs the same as an Alfa Romeo 156, Volvo S40 or Ford Fairmont Ghia of the same year. This is really weird since the latter three vehicles were worth at least twice as much as a Corolla when new. The other odd thing is that the latter three are safer than the Toyota. They all at least have ABS and dual front airbags whereas the Corolla only has a driver airbag and no driving aids. I would have thought that this basic level of safety would be a priority for most car buyers these days. So what is driving the value of the Corolla? Believe it or not, it is the image car of the four. Whilst Corolla drivers probably don’t care what they look like meandering down the street, they are paying for the reputation of it being a cheap and reliable car. Ironically it is this reputation that makes it sort of expensive.

Corolla alternatives from left to right: Alfa 156, Ford Fairmont Ghia, Volvo S40

There are even odder examples of cheaper cars becoming comparatively expensive. The 2001 Jaguar X-Type SE with a 2.5 litre engine and automatic transmission was $70,350 when new. Bizarrely, it is now the same price as the Jaguar S-Type SE with a 3.0 litre engine and automatic transmission from the same year which was originally over $25,000 more expensive. The odd thing about this is that you would normally expect vehicles from the same manufacturer, of the same era, to have the same reputation for build quality and vehicle performance. Furthermore, Jaguar clearly would have tried to make the S-Type a better car than the cheaper X-Type. My only explanation for the current similarity in price is that people don’t like the retro styling of the S-Type, either that or they are prepared to pay a premium for the X-Type’s four wheel drive system.

So how does this all relate back to democracy? With the Corolla, I believe it shows that given the uncertainty involved in buying a car, people will tend to stick to what they know. Conversely, I think it also shows that people don't necessarily know what is available to them if they looked a bit harder. This may be a long bow to draw, but I believe people have a relatively fixed mindset which they apply to everything in life. Admittedly this mindset will change with age/time, but a conservative person will always make conservative decisions just as an ambitious person will always make ambitious decisions and so on.

Skip to the end: A small, possibly ridiculous comparison between used cars and the workings of democracy.

Enforcers of the bubble

2010-01-12T05:13:00.000-08:00

They (the mythical people used for unscrupulous referencing purposes) say that time away makes you notice the differences... err.... between your country and others... or something like that. Anyway, upon my return to the country of sunburn I couldn’t help but notice a peculiar element to my own society; the perception that everything should have a safety net and, in general, the removal of responsibility for the individual.

The comparatively orderly freeways were the first thing to leap out at me. As a driver you really don’t have that much to do, especially if you’re on cruise control and there’s not much traffic. Furthermore, we have advertisements telling us that, should we creep over the speed limit in our boredom induced state, it will be ok. Why? Because the police will catch us before anyone gets hurt.

Whilst I don’t want to condone breaking the law, the lack of need for a driver to judge what is a suitable speed seems to be indicative of our soft edge society which seems to take away the need for an individual to possess sound judgement. Think of alcohol and gambling. For some reason it is the vendor’s responsibility to decide how much money you want to give them. Imagine if they had this sort of arrangement in clothes shops or car yards. “I’m sorry sir, you can’t take out a loan to buy this car because it depreciates too much and you will lose most of your money.” Or, “Excuse me but you’re not allowed to buy this shirt because it really is quite horrific and you may be subject to psychological hardship because of it.” Granted alcohol and gambling are branded as addictive, whereas pouring your hard earned down other drains for equally benign reasons is regarded as stimulating the economy. But shouldn’t people who are supposedly sound of mind enough to vote be able to judge what to make of themselves regardless of the effects, let alone the country.

Speaking of mind issues, I’ve concocted a theory that this deferral of responsibility away from the individual could actually be bad for them. Maybe you are more likely to do stupid things if, in the back of your mind, you’re thinking that there will always be safety cameras to stop you crashing, or night shift medical staff to pump your stomach. I heard in a documentary once that people would drive a lot safer if they had a big spike sticking out of the steering wheel in lieu of an airbag. People would be much more aware of the risks they were taking.

I also think that risk taking has gotten a bad name when it shouldn’t have. People take risks all the time but they prefer not to think about them like that. Like crossing the road; people just want to think that the man is green which means that nothing can happen to them. But this isn’t the reality. Deciding what risks to take is an essential part of being an adult, pretending they don’t exist is called being a child. So, the more decision making and consequences taken away from individuals, perhaps the more infantile they become.

Skip to the end: A minor rant about individual's responsibilities that may lean towards anarchism.

Leaving the place of the darndest things

2009-11-30T05:38:00.001-08:00

Well, the time has come to bid farewell to Subang Jaya... for now. Returning home after living overseas always seems to give mixed feelings. On the one hand you're obviously excited to be going back to what you know and miss. But on the other hand, you're leaving a place you've just begun to feel apart of.

Before leaving I managed to acquire (with the help of a friend) a book which I first saw in a book store in Borneo; Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things. It just goes to show that I've still got a lot to learn about Malaysia. Not that I know that much, but I was just surprised to see a book like this even on sale.

Here's something I definitely wouldn't have heard someone say on the street. Selangor Chief Minister Mohd Khir Toyo said, "Malaysian men are easy to service. [Their] libido lasts only five minutes. A shorter period would mean more customers and that makes it more lucrative for the sex workers to conduct their activities here." This was supposed to explain why there are foreign prostitutes in Malaysia. Coming from a country where an aggressive handshake can have an effect on your political career, this sort of comment seems otherworldly.

Whilst it seems Australians can be very sensitively politically correct about charities, political correctness didn't seem to bother one Malaysian politician. Kelantan Chief Minister, Nik Aziz Nik Mat is quoted as saying, "Only women who are not pretty (kurang rupawan) should be employed by the State government, as these women would not be able to get rich husbands who can support them financially."

From my experiences these quotes don't represent the views of the Malaysian population but are more of a very tenuous link. Speaking of tenuous links, try figuring this out:

"All bloggers are liars, they cheat people using all kinds of methods. From my understanding, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women. Bloggers like to spread rumours, they don't like national unity. Today our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise we will have a civil war. Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else."

And all because of bloggers.

Skip to the end: I left KL and read a book about Malaysian politics.

Bamako...

2009-11-30T05:36:00.000-08:00

It almost seems like a city. It’s definitely not a quaint country village of mud-brick houses and women singing as they collectively pound a harvest of millet. There are lots of people, noise and things happening; I notice some goats trying to have sex as I walk down the street.

Given my experiences in Ouagadougou I didn’t think it would be hard to change money. The first time I had wandered around the centre-ville I went to a Western Union who didn’t change money, and another place that didn’t have Euros. Kind people at both establishments directed me to places that didn’t seem to exist; such seems to be the way in West Africa.

Now on my second outing (after having retreated to the less stressful confines of my accommodation with some actual Juicy Fruit) I stumble into an Ecobank which even has Bureau d’Échange written on its exterior. Alas, they are a new bank without any money changing facilities as of yet. They direct me next door... who are closed.

Venturing back to surety again, along the dusty, bumpy thoroughfares known as streets, I am surprised by the relative lack of people trying to forcefully incite me to make a purchase. I pass a beggar whose ailments appear stronger than he. I wonder what he hopes for.

Crossing the road a friendly voice penetrates my insular thoughts. I am reminded that you need to cross quickly as the roads are busy; I am reminded that people still live here.

Skip to the end: Describing a day in the Malian capital.

That's a Krabi joke!

2009-11-30T05:02:00.000-08:00

I did it. I recently bought a tie from Thailand! Whilst north of the border, me and my esteemed colleague, Lee 'is my first name and I'm not in any way Chinese' Taylor, couldn't help but notice the number of mildly amusing place names that the country where you don't even vaguely joke about the king has to offer: Bangkok, Krabi, Phuket and Phi Phi Island (pronounced pee pee).

So, doing our best impression of 'Aussie' tourists, sitting on the beach sipping at a 20 baht long-neck of what we assumed to be very bad goon (after being surprised to discover it's distinctly non beer like qualities), we tried to come up with stupid things to do in places that weren't afforded names of such obvious comic value.

Here goes:

-Buy a new jumper in New Jersey.
-Go out by yourself in Barcelona.
-Reserve a place to stay in Bucharest.
-Annoy some Buddhists in Budapest.
-Tell your girlfriend to hurry up in Russia.
-Block a river with a hampster in Amsterdam.
-Explain that it's actually your girlfriend's drink in Serbia.
-Explain to your travel buddies that you've arrived in Syria.
-Find someone to con in Osaka.
-Agree with someone in Yeman.
-Piss someone off in Hanoi.
-Tell people that you've left, albeit ungrammatically, in Saigon.
-Buy cheese from Delhi.
-Purchase a folder from Manila.
-Commit beastiality in Kathmandu.
-Shake your arse in Djibouti.
-Be friendly in Nice.
-Have a bite in München.
-Watch the tennis in Tennessee.
-Study Islam in Whyalla.
-Finish a meal in Dunedin.

Anyway, you get the point. I best stop now.

Skip to the end: Some krabi place name puns.

NEWS: Temperature tests to ease brochure fear

2009-10-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Monash University, to the south of Kuala Lumpur, has introduced mandatory temperature testing to deal with the general fear that has swept the campus.

It is believed that the fear outbreak originated from a brochure being handed out by one of the student political parties.

The 'Passion' brochure said the following under the heading of WHAT WE'LL DO: "We promise timely and efficient execution in all our divisions so that YOU will ultimately be taken care of."

The party also promised "Shopaholic Rehab" and cooking competitions for women, although there was no mention of the much rumored ironing, cooking and cleaning triathlon which was also popular in the Deep South in the 50's - where the party reportedly emanated from.

Since students affected by fear generally have a temperature above 38 degrees Celcius, the university has implemented mandatory temperature testing at campus' entrances.

Due to invasion of privacy laws, the mandatory testing will be entirely voluntary.

Students with a high temperature reading will be asked to return home for a cooling off period.

Looking for something to do...

2009-10-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

The thing about Brunei, that is really quite inescapable, is that there's not much to do. No matter which way you turn you're confronted by... well... not much. This can be distressing at first but you learn to make your own fun, like watching a friend getting beaten up by a durian milkshake or lighting fireworks on the beach.

So, inane of something to do, a list was made. It was conceived in a second floor hotel room of a downtown BSB hotel (appropriately named Brunei Hotel) over two nights of mild inebriation with Hancock or EPL droning in the background. It was a list of me and my subordinates'/travel buddies' life goals... well some of them anyway.

So if you're looking for something to do, here's some suggestions (in no particular order):

- Start your own record label.
- Have a boy and a girl (human offspring).
- Finish a marathon within the allotted time of a race.
- Stay in a relationship for at least six months.
- Buy a synth... asizer.
- Learn how to drink wine and coffee (not mixed though).
- Design and have erected one's own energy & water self sufficient house.
- Drink a dozen coffees in one day.
- Own a really nice and/or expensive watch (circa $5000 AUD).
- Start one's own business.
- Never be classified as obese.
- Own a house, a nice one too, in inner-east Melbourne.
- Become a doctor.
- Be fluent in four languages.
- See the Aurora Borealis.
- Work in/go to Antarctica.
- Travel the UK by bicycle.
- Drive left to right (or west to east if you want to get technical) over the US.
- Get paid to play live music by someone you don't know.
- Own a Corvette Stingray.
- Organise an event with 1000+ people.
- Go in a car race.
- Be a newsreader.
- Buy a pair of super expensive shoes (~$1000 AUD).
- Go to a World Cup final.
- Learn the bass guitar and join a funk band.
- Attend all four Grand Slams in one year.
- Get something published in something that's sold.
- Take the train from Hamburg to Pyongyang.
- Learn French.
- See the pyramids.
- Go to Europe.
- Purchase an SLR camera.
- Go on a six month holiday after the age of 30, but before retiring.
- Hike with fireworks to the top of a mountain and release them into the wild.
- Become a wine critic (for one's own pleasure).
- Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
- Finish a triathlon.
- Live in South America for a year.
- Learn to jive.
- Become a psycho... logist.
- Learn Spanish.
- Learn to eat seafood.
- Learn to appreciate alcohol.
- Live next to the beach.
- Finish a university degree.
- Acquire a marine vessel/boat.
- Drive the figure eight around Australia.
- Learn how to cook really well.
- Live in Cairns.

Skip to the end: just a list of stuff to do.

The Manual: How to deal with incest, rape, paedophilia, abortion, drug addiction, dysfunctional relationships, depression and suicide.

2009-09-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

There are no sirens, no screaming, nor yelling. Somehow a 38 year old’s foolproof suicide attempt failed. Somehow a 36 year old’s dysfunctional relationship of four years and the drug addiction that came with it is all over. Somehow an 18 year old mother’s newborn child survived a difficult birth and microsurgery. Somehow a 16 year old’s parents failed to notice their daughter’s abortion. Somehow a 13 year old thought it was normal to have a sexual relationship with a man six years her senior. Somehow an incestuous paedophile, who abused his granddaughter between the ages of 9 and 11, lives with himself somewhere in Bendigo.

There are birds chattering and the faint noise of passing cars, like waves gently making their way into shore. Somehow Debbie Jennings, 39, sits before me outside her East Geelong home. She looks like she could be any hairdresser; jeans, a simple black jumper, eye liner, mascara and shoulder length hair. “Sitting here talking to you, I’m amazed I’m here, I’m amazed I want to be here.” We are sitting on a couple of old chairs in the gravel of her car port, surrounded by an assortment of furniture and a shopping trolley. Inside, her vivid artwork adorns the walls of her modest unit.

SUICIDE

Her hair was abnormally short when I first met her in early 2008. Debbie had just survived a suicide attempt which her doctor could only describe as a miracle. “There was no medical explanation as to why I had survived,” she explains.

In the couple of years leading up to her suicide attempt, Debbie was forced to face her demons after a life time of suppressing them. At the age of 36, her destructive relationship of four years came to an end and she acknowledged that she had become a drug addict. At the same age, she finally told her family about the abuse she had suffered as a child at the hands of her grandfather, which they refused to believe at the time.

“It’s probably the hardest time, is being off the drugs, these two years. You band aid things with drugs.” “Coming off the drugs ... everything’s raw, everything comes back, and that’s when all the traumas come back, because nothing is shielding them.” “You actually have to face (them), and that’s when the grandfather thing came back, the flash backs came back, the nightmares started, my world crashed, my family crashed.”

She speaks calmly and pauses for thought every so often. Seldom did she pause to wipe her eyes; she did this in much the same way she would pause to light a cigarette.

“All I want is to have a normal brain, to live untraumatised, to have a normal train of thought, which I’ll never have completely, but just to wake up and to want to get up, to wake up and to want to live.” “It seems probably so simple to some people, but it was such a hurdle to me, it was just something I’d never think I could grab. That’s why you go to suicide, because it’s just too hard, it’s too hard to deal with.”

GROWTH

After accepting her fight to continue to live, Debbie started the “enormous disgusting task” of untangling the crossed wires in her head.

Her artwork didn’t always grace every room inside her unit. “My psychologist made me realise something. I never used to sleep in my bedroom, I always used to sleep, even (last year), on the couch. I put it together when I was talking to her and I said, ‘that bedroom was another world.’” “And I said to the psychologist, ‘why is that?’ The bedroom was the naughty room, it was the dirty room, and naughty things happened in there. When I put it together, throughout my whole life my bedroom has been messy, and when I accepted what the psychologist said I cleaned up my room and I slept in it ever since.” “It was very hard to clean up but I knew I was getting better. I could do it when I wanted and I could do it myself.”

“Moving on, it’s easy to say but to do, it’s very difficult. It was like a full time job,” so much so that she has been writing a book about her life. There is so much more to her story, but like the working title of her book suggests, she is ‘Just a Girl.’

“I’m no hero for surviving it, you just have to.” “It’s not a choice.” “You can live without your eyesight, without your hearing, but not without your mind.”

SERENITY

“Now I’m serene at everything, and when I became serene, everyone came back wanting redemption.” “When I started to heal was when I let go of any revengeful thoughts, anger.” “There’s no point, it’s been done. It’s about me healing from it. No one else can heal me; a judge can’t heal me, money can’t heal me, compensation can’t heal me.” “Karma comes back around. They have to live with that for the rest of their lives; they know what they’ve done.” “You just leave it to their own conscience, and that’s a beautiful karma.”

It is only through this healing process that Debbie has been able to make sense of her life. “I thought I’ve been put here for a reason and I’m starting to see what it is. It’s helping people live through trauma.” “There is no bloody manual, hopefully my book is the manual, and that’s why I wrote it, because I would have loved to have read something like that.”

“No-one can fix your own brain but yourself.” “The moment I loved myself is the moment everything started going right.” “It sounds really clichéd.”

Skip to the end: Nothing to do with Malaysia at all really, a profile of one of my neighbours from when I lived in Geelong last year.

David's World

2009-09-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

Why would someone not want to be cooled down when sitting in 60 degree heat in four layers of fireproof clothing from head to toe for over an hour? And why would they pay around $100,000 AUD for the experience? I don’t know, but I feel as though I should because I would do it too.

In any case, David Wall seemed pretty disappointed that a blown engine robbed him of his chance to sit in the hot seat this weekend and race at the Merdeka Millenium 12 hour race here at Sepang. Instead, we are sitting in a prison cell-esque room. It is far removed from the opulent setting where one might imagine a racing driver to relax.

Features of the room include four walls, a floor and a roof, all in Malaysia’s finest concrete; not the German metal he desired. David is sitting on one of the Eskis that is strewn around the room, along with a few bags, pillows, a clothes rack and a coffee earn. It’s 10 p.m. and he seems quite tired even though he didn’t get to do his sitting today.

Despite this he seems quite happy to give a surprise interview. Twenty minutes prior I had talked nicely to the guardian of the tunnel and simply walked past the guardians of the gate that lead to David’s world, as though I belong here. He truly belongs here though, and he’s practically been here since he was born.

“I’ve been at race tracks since I was two weeks old,” he explains.

David entered his world through his father, Des, who has been racing for over 30 years. His world consists of making the hot seat go as fast as he can, and to never stop.

“I’ve basically raced from the time I was 11, in go karts, to the time I am now, which is 26... I’ve raced every year and haven’t had a year off. So, the plan is to keep continuing like that.”

So how do you practice sitting without a seat? “It’s basically a focus thing, there’s not really anything you can (do to) train for it. Really the only way you can make it better is (your fitness.) Over here the heat’s an issue, so when you get half way through a stint you start talking to yourself, it’s sort of funny, you don’t talk out aloud, you keep telling yourself, you know, stay focused, what ever makes you keep your eye on the job... That goes back to fitness training, if you’re fit enough you don’t get quite as fatigued as you would if you’re not fit.”

Aside from going to the gym, the other activity that takes up David’s time is his job as a civil contractor. “Unfortunately it’s still full time. One day, if I could make a living out of motor sport, that’s the... agenda of the whole thing. But like anyone I’ve got to pay bills, so at the moment I have to have a full time job.”

Given the cost of mere participation in motor sport, David is lucky enough to have an understanding wife in his world.

“My wife, Amy, her motto is whatever I spend on motor sport she gets to spend the same. But... I’m a long way ahead of what she’s spending, but ahh, I think I’ll just leave it at that,” he says with a slight chuckle.

His wife and motor sport are about all that is taken into account with his daily routine: “I go to work... during the day, then I go to the gym until 8 o’clock at night, then (I) normally come home, spend an hour, relax with (my) family. Then... the next day... (I) do the same thing. It’s the same thing like that for months on end. The joy you get when you go to a (race) meeting is you get to relax and you don’t have to train. It’s basically my life.”

Any possible threat to David’s life posed by the dangers of the hot seat is clearly over-ridden by his sheer determination to succeed. He had a major accident at Oran Park in Sydney’s west once, and carried on competing the very next day.

“I blew a left front shock, and went in backwards into a concrete wall in a Porsche in fourth gear, knocked myself out for two minutes, the whole deal, but I basically raced the next day with a head ache.”

However, he likes to put such accidents into perspective compared to everyday life.

“To me you’re actually safer on a race track than you are driving down the road to get the milk.”

David’s everyday life revolves around getting the milk for his family as well as racing. Although as far as his personal pursuits are concerned, he has a clear philosophy.

“If I had a dollar and I had to spend it to get a drive, or I had to spend it have dinner that night, I’d buy the drive.”

Who is David? Where did his world come from?

Skip to the end: A brief look at the inner workings of a Australian GT driver, David Wall.

Truly Nature?

2009-09-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

The feeding of the animals seems to be one of the ways to draw a crowd, but I see no art in it. However, the practice of tourist boats vying is undeniably prevalent. Whether it be eagles in the sky or fish in the sea, they know where to go. The wait of expectation is all so unnatural. I’m slightly put off but I do it anyway, still, nothing beats an elephant charging towards you. One must do what one must for one’s food. Although is it better to see than imagine? I never imagined seeing a monkey steal a bottle of fruit drink and knowing how to open it.

Skip to the end: How long can you feed wild animals for before they lose their wildocity?

NEWS: Woman ends sticky relationship

2009-08-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

A Melbournian woman ended her hour-long relationship with a tube of super glue yesterday.

The woman, Ellen Feely, and her partner were on holiday in Malaysia when she decided to end things.

"It was just getting a bit too much, he was getting a bit too clingy and it turned out to be quite a sticky situation," she said.

Friend Claudia Kowalski, said she believed Ms.Feely had the better side of the relationship.

"If you ask me, she had him wrapped around her finger. But in the end she turned to hard liquor to get rid of him," she said.

The super glue declined to comment.

High End of Town

2009-08-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

It’s just after 2pm but there’s no sunlight, the roller shutters are firmly closed. His brother and father had recently decided that it was time for lunch and had ventured out into the day and across the street in search of something to eat. There’s a knocking at the door upon their return. They have brought lunch back with them although it cost more than normal - their eyes are burning. Even in the short time it took Suresh* to open and close the shutters he started to feel nauseous. There’s a large crowd outside on a Saturday afternoon, although the only people coming into Suresh’s shop are looking for respite, not high end fabric.

It’s now almost exactly a week after the anti-ISA (Internal Security Act) demonstrations, the tear gas has cleared up along with Suresh’s nausea, and natural light makes its way back into his fashionable textiles butik on Jalan Tuanku Adbul Rahman. However, there is still little sign of the shopping frenzy that habitually precedes Hari Raya each year. Suresh, a well dressed middle aged salesman of Indian appearance, theorises that people have been put off shopping on this normally busy street by the same reason his brother has gone to work in a different store today; a fear of reprisal of the demonstrations.

“It’s affected business all week, we’re 50% - 60% down on sales. It’s supposed to be the peak sale period, it’s the critical time,” Suresh proclaims in a downbeat tone. “We only had two to three hours of trading last Saturday, which is normally the busiest day.”

“I don’t understand why they didn’t protest somewhere else that didn’t affect others, like in a stadium, but now it’s not looking so good.” Suresh put this in the context that normally at this time of year everyone is buying their cloth to send it off to be sewn before the start of Ramadan, because once Ramadan starts the tailors stop taking orders.

On a slightly brighter note, Suresh said he had seen none of the physical damage to property that Minister Datuk Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin has made reference to and that “business has picked up slightly over the past few days.”

Whilst another shopkeeper in a carpet store down the street towards the Sogo shopping centre said that he had seen police beating people as they were detained, Suresh’s views were more reserved. “Based on what (the police) were given they did ok, they didn’t kill anyone.” “I was a little bit scared but I felt safe because I was inside.” Outside, thousands of anti-ISA demonstrators and general shoppers were running from police as they used ‘water’ cannons (with some sort of noxious element in the water) and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Even so, Suresh’s thinks that the problems were not caused by the police. “It’s more of a government problem.” “If you ask the general population, people who read newspapers, people don’t want ISA.” “They just take all your rights, for however long they like, they can question you but they don’t even have to. It’s just like Guantanamo Bay.”

Skip to the end: I interviewed a shopkeeper on the street where there were some demonstrations recently.

Six Malaysian ones, Half a dozen Australian others.... well half of that anyway.

2009-08-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Arriving in Malaysia from Japan, my first impression was that this country is a lot more like Australia. For a start, the highway signs here are a familiar shade of green, not to mention being in English. I’ve been here three weeks now and I can confidently say that taking comfort in the colour of street signs is a completely delusional thing to do.

In that time I’ve learned to appreciate Malaysia as a completely unique place. Whilst there are other majority Muslim countries where English is an official language, (such as Pakistan) I still find this a good indication of the multicultural nature of Malaysia. However, since I’ve been here I have been shocked by some aspects of this society. That said, after getting over the shock I realised that similar sorts of things happen in Australia.

The first issue I had with Malaysia was the traffic. Lane markings, like a lot of things around here, seem to be for ‘display purposes only.’ And maybe car makers should think about making indicators and seat belts optional extras for this market since no one seems to use them. In my first week, I was content to survive a taxi ride in a rural area on the way back to Kota Bharu airport from the Perhentian Islands. The driver went to overtake a van and a truck at the same time because they were slowing down. Surprise, surprise, they were slowing down for a reason – the truck was turning right. I think the driver felt bad so he took us for a brief stop at a Buddhist temple (pictured above). Whilst this sort of traffic incident seems pretty common here, my girlfriend told me of a near fatal accident that happened right outside her house that would almost never happen here. A car was apparently doing burnouts on the road when I car come round the corner and smashed into the passenger side, luckily no one was in that seat. I can't imagine people doing burnouts here in their front wheel drive Protons with half the power of Australian cars. I don't think it would be culturally acceptable either.

I was also shocked recently to learn that a Singaporean Muslim women was to be caned for drinking. Part of the reason this was shocking is that I believe it to be reasonably common for some Muslims to drink here. However, Malaysia’s hard line stance on drugs, especially narcotics, might not be such a bad thing compared to their quasi acceptance in Australia. One of my flatmates learned over the weekend that a girl she went to school with had been charged with murder for reportedly stabbing someone in St Kilda. Whilst nothing in the media has stated that drugs were involved, it is seemingly probable from all reports.

The third incident that has shocked me of late is the police reaction to protests on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Whilst this seems like a strong reaction to me, it is nothing compared to the Iranian government’s one to the post ‘election’ rallies. And in the other extreme, Australian governments have a history of simply ignoring whatever protesters have to say. It took around 30 years for an apology for the treatment of the Stolen Generations to be forthcoming, and this was just an apology (albeit a significant one). So, maybe Australia isn’t entirely the mythically wonderful place to live we make it out to be, it’s just what we’re used to.

Skip to the end: Some things shock, but it's partially just due to one not being used to it.

Because of the Chimes

2009-07-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

I’d always wondered who invented car chimes. You know, the ones that just start beeping at you because you didn’t get into your car with your seatbelt already on and all of the doors shut. The thing that puzzles me regarding the inventor, is that at same stage they have decided, “Yeah, if I had this car, I’d want it to have this ‘feature’ because it’s just such a nice sound.” I still haven’t found out who the mastermind behind car chimes is, but I’m now quite confident they are Japanese.

Being a first time visitor to the land of the rising sun, I was expecting the unexpected. Surprisingly though, Osaka & Kyoto turned out to be completely different to what I had expected. I was expecting to have language difficulties and to unintentionally commit some sort of major faux pas. Instead it is the smaller, less obvious things that can really surprise you. In my head, walking the streets of Japan was going to be like partaking in an orderly stampede through a hospital – There were supposed to be people packt like sardines in a crushd tin box, the hygiene standards were supposed to be such that I could lick the pavement and it would be minty fresh, there was supposed to be a lot of noise whilst seemingly no one speaks.

Errantly wandering towards the Tsutenkaku Tower in search of our accommodation upon arrival, my preconceived dreams were shattered. Quiet, it was eerily quiet, although it was a Sunday night. And there was practically no one around. Next thing I notice is that they don’t actually scrub the city twice daily like brushing its teeth. Yes, there was no rubbish, and by any standards it is a clean place, but it’s no hospital ward. And there’s a smell, a smell that comes and goes, a smell that I’m sure locals don’t even know exists because it’s just the smell, and everywhere has its smell. Still, it was more than enough to put me off licking the footpath to see if it was actually minty fresh.

The next day something else shocks me. It was not the toilets, I could deal with them, it wasn’t even the shower which would periodically turn off after 20 seconds, it was the chimes and general electronic noisery. A word of advice, don’t walk into a Japanese games arcade unless you really, really, really want to play one of the games. It’s a full on assault on the ears, the mashing of upbeat electronic jingles, a few decibels up from a fighter jet taking off. Chimes are everywhere though, you can’t avoid them. Some of the ones at the train stations and subways were actually quite entertaining; they were just so silly in a place where everyone seems so serious. The main chimes I remember however, was the ‘crossing the street noise.’ You could hear it everywhere. You could be enjoying a Zen rock garden, over 500 years old, and the faint bip beep, bip beep, bip beep would still be seeping in through the temple walls.

The other odd thing I found in Japan, was that the people weren’t as quiet and reserved as you might imagine. At least a few complete strangers would walk up to us everyday just to practice their English. One thing I should mention is that it’s quite rare to see other westerners unless you’re in a ‘tourist central’ area. The funny thing is that every time you see another westerner there’s this look that goes on where you both effectively say to one another, “what are you doing here?” in an accusatory sort of way.

Luckily, the Japanese generally don’t give you such a frosty reception. They seem to be extraordinarily nice and helpful. In fact, we probably would have missed our flight to KL if it wasn’t for a benevolent individual at the train station who walked up to us, told us that the airport train had been cancelled, and that we could get there on a private railway two minutes walk away.

I guess that in some ways, I did get what I expected – Japan is a completely different place to Australia and well worth visiting. On the other hand, I now realise ‘expecting the unexpected’ is a stupid saying and I really should have just said that I didn’t know what to expect.

Skip to the end: Japan is a different culture to Australia

NEWS: Man and Doorway at an Impasse

2009-07-22T04:18:00.000-07:00

A Ballarat man in his early twenties was found to be incompatible with a Japanese doorway earlier this month.

Upon arrival at his accommodation in Osaka, the man was shocked to discover that the doorway to his room would not allow for the top half of his head.

"I repeatedly tried to walk in, but every time I tried the doorway would not let my head past," said Lee Taylor.

After several hours of intense negotiations the impasse was resolved with a compromise reached.

"In the end the doorway let my whole body through under the condition that I bow to it every time I walk through," said Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Taylor made his way into the room safely. (Pictured)

The Departure Lounge

2009-07-20T20:33:00.000-07:00

Technically it was going through customs at the arrival lounge of Christchurch airport, but unfortunately for one passenger on flight DJ62 it was the last place she saw. After collapsing next to the baggage carousel, my friend Adam (a final year med student I was traveling with) and a few others tried in vain to resuscitate her for about half an hour. As another friend, my girlfriend and I sat there, watching on, waiting, the reality of what we were witnessing began to sink in.

Whilst the majority of Australians have a religion to turn to when dealing with death, for the 18.7% (2006 Census) of us with ‘no religion’ it really is the great unknown. It seems to me that death is something that we’re shielded from in the Australian mainstream. No-one seems to talk about what actually happens after you die in the media, you never really see people actually die on the television, and if you do actually hear about someone dying they seem to become ‘top blokes’ after death. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I found watching this person die quite shocking.

But maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked. I remember last year Mitch, a friend from work, was showing a group of us some videos taken from US Air Force planes of ‘targets’ being ‘neutralized.’ Naturally at the time I was appalled and was slightly concerned that the man in the same room as me had the desire to seek out such footage. Looking back at it though, it wasn’t as though my friend was actually killing the people. Death happens all the time, and should be accepted as something natural, inevitable.

Even though death should be accepted and not turned into some sort of myth, it should definitely still be feared. A recently made acquaintance, Tom, went to Vietnam before coming here to KL. He told me that whilst getting the taxi from the airport just after arriving in Hanoi he saw blood and bodies on the streets from road accidents. Whilst this might have desensitised him slightly, (although it probably just shocked him) he had every right to feel afraid, later on in his voyage, when the bus he was on was overtaking cars on the wrong side of the road, forcing the oncoming traffic off it. As an atheist I believe death is the ultimate fear, just as Muse says. It is an infinite abyss of nothing. All of your experiences, past, present and future, cease.

And this extreme ailment can come at any time. As Rimmer said in the Red Dwarf episode, The Last Day, the most warning most of us get about death is “Mind that bus! What bus? Splat.” With this in mind, I’m going to state the obvious that we should all make the most of our time as living terrestrial beings no matter what faith you are and no matter what views about death you have.

And thus, I’ve decided to travel to Malaysia to spend five of my valuable months. I am obviously hoping to have a great time but I think whatever happens, these months won’t exactly be going down the gurgler. Experiences and knowledge will be gained. My esteemed Yr. 12 maths teacher, Mr. Frost, once told me that knowledge never made anyone happy. This seems to be true but at the same time it does add interest to your life, a bit of colour. So that concludes the story of why I chose to go on exchange.

Oh, the other reason is that Monash gave us some money to do it.

Skip to the end: Life's short, make the most of it - travel.