The bus did not stop for me

The lovely James Hunt invited me on his radio show 'For Folks Sake' two weeks ago, where we chatted about my short stories and how hard it is to be an existential cat. He also asked me to compose a short story while on air... so here it goes! 

You can listen to the podcast here, and follow James here.

The bus did not stop for me

I waited 36 minutes at the bus stop and
it did not stop for me. I waited 12 more minutes
and it felt like an old party I could not attend. Fists clenched
from the cold, I thought it was funny how
if you grit your teeth hard enough they will move inches
but not mountains, leaving a taste of bloody accordion and-
if even the bus did not stop for me, who am I to blame you for
not moving hills and taking my pulse?
Nursing myself back home is not an easy task. And -if even
the bus did not stop for me who am I to blame you for not
following with gritted teeth, trying to taste novocaine
but only licking on rusty blood clots? It's cold outside and
like an old party I can't attend, I await
at the bus stop of a city stranger than me.

Rambling midnight thoughts on honesty

Alfredo Jaar

I'm writing again and it suddenly feels like I can breathe again -the way a city breathes after the rain cleanses the crisp morning air. I used to write a lot. I used to fill notebooks all the time, I used to write on the margins of my books and my receipts and it felt both addictive and relieving. Then, when I ran out of papers I used to write on coffee shop napkins and on my phone. And after a while the only words I ever laid down on paper were 'jasmine tea, potatoes, tomatoes, milk'.

Sometime last year, the idea that words aren't enough started forming in my mind and it never quite left it. Are words and beauty enough for a lifetime? Is anything ever enough for a lifetime? Writing is an organic relationship between the hand and the mind, but there comes a certain point when the hand  starts hiding little things from the self, like a mischievous kid hides stolen objects. 

All art relates to perception not nature, but what if your perception was clouded by your nature? Laying out words is laying yourself naked, on a cold bed, for everyone to see. Being naked and unashamed is a hard truth for everyone to bear, but especially the self -some truths are so true they are terrible to admit. Hiding little secrets behind a word or a chapter is easy -having your deepest thoughts exposed the way the sky is exposed sounds like a betrayal. Though, perhaps it feels better the way pouring sweet words over a healing wound feels good, or the way the sand feels good when it remembers the saltiness of the water. 

You have to make it a rule to always be honest, especially towards yourself. It's the only way your words will come out right, and I understand now that this was a frightening idea for me. You cannot write if you cannot be honest with your own words: the moment you start becoming scared of your own self is the moment words cease to exist as a means to life. Looking back, I realize now that not allowing myself to write down the truth was denying myself assertion over... over what? Over ego, perhaps, sense of pride, feeling of shame... and the frightening idea that some people will not understand the anatomy of your naked mind, laid out there to be judged and touched by every passerby -beggars, and lurkers and vendors; and cruel minds.

Without prejudice, without watering down my words, without editing for fashion... Raw honesty is the only catharsis. Fearlessness starts with the taming of your own truth. It is not easy, my mind is bruised with secrets and desires but I know better now -wounds heal but do not follow. 

So, from now on, honesty. It's very scary because I know that I see myself in a fully disparate way than others see me, which is painful to admit for it means that no one can ever really know you the way you know yourself. But for now -I am writing again.

Response to 'I want the real thing'

I finally ventured myself to the Richimix Jawdance spoken words night last week, and felt inspired to write this as a reponse to a piece called 'I want the real thing', performed by a very shy guy with trembling hands -his voice wasn't, though.

Unknown

Response to ‘i want the real thing’

You say you want something real
so real you could fall asleep next to;
I ask: ‘aren’t your own ghosts good company enough?’
she will smile and bear your insecurities, you say
like broken twigs collected for a birdnest,
she will mend your crooked teeth and your
crooked heart but, what is really crooked is
your chin
and please, please, let me tell you that you needn’t be afraid
of a crooked chin, it might break down but it will not
spill glass over wretched nights.
She will dip your sorrows into a white pillow, you say
I ask: ‘aren’t your own hands big enough for you?’
you want to play an orchestra of four hands
but the piano bears two without harm
you put her voice in a microscope
but up close human vocals are as ugly as spilled coffee
next to a drunkard on the 243 nightbus.
The girls in pantyhose wait
it’s the same as before, it’s the same as the other time
your sighs are as heavy and distant as the moon
she will reflect them in tune, you say
I ask: ‘don’t you tune your guitar by yourself?’
you say you want the real deal, the wars, the pain,
the parents, the house and the champagne,
I ask: ‘is it still real if 
the drugs are wearing out 
and your hands stop shaking
and your eyes are closing and
is it still real if time has eaten you?'
I fall asleep on a white pillow and rejoice, but I guess
not everyone finds pleasure in little things such as
a lone head on a big pillow

Fiction: A story in 150 words

©Suzanne Zhang, MAMCO Geneva Switzerland

Hunting ghosts

Your eyes are shut. You came prepared, but not for this. She warned you that it would be difficult. You're brave. This time you will succeed. If not, you have eternity to succeed. People often believe it is a tragedy to have forever, but you know finite things are worse. They have no hope to cling on and end up fading away...

Your eyes are shut. And slowly, like watercolours dissolve into water, it happens. You’re neither here nor there, neither standing nor floating, neither aware nor unaware… You dream of a colour you didn’t know existed, its warmth wraps around you like light –or is it darkness? You don’t know, you’ve never seen this color before. Your cheeks are burning; they’re frozen. They irradiate splendour. It is sweet and good. You finally succeeded. You can finally let go. It’s okay, your eyes are shut.

On L.Pierre's 'The Island Come True'

The well known Arab Strap’s mouthpiece Aidan Moffat offers us a fourth release under the name L.Pierre, The Island Come True. After waiting six years since his last album Dip in 2007, Moffat’s sound evolved. It grew bigger, darker and, at some points, lighter. The album borrows its name from a chapter in  “Peter Pan” by J.M. Barrie, and just like Wendy, Moffat’s sensibility is growing.  Pianofortes and children’s lullabies walk hand in hand (Dumbum) while tumbling drums (Drums) rejoice at the sound of seagulls (Kab 1340). The rhytm is throbbing and at the sound of Moffat’s keynotes forests, wild bushes, secret mountains and rivers awake to accompany him in his tracks. The tone is fantastic, avengeful, fearless and sporadically strange. Coupled with the creaking sounds, L.Pierre’s album The Island Come True is definitely a voyage back to Wonderland, but this time with an armed heart.

You can listen to Harmonic Avenger (personal fave) here, and buy the album here.

Collective dynamics of small world networks theory

On bumping into undesirable people in London, on a fine Sunday morning

Being on a holiday away from London and thus having an infinite amount of free time on my hands, I decided to revisit a classic, one of my favorite film : 2 Days in Paris, by Julie Delpy. The film, if you haven't seen it, is as funny as it gets -although more enjoyable if you are fluent in both English and French. It it set in Paris, and follows couple Marion and Jack (franco-american couple) for two days.

One thing that caught my attention in the film was Marion's monologue on the 'Collective dynamics of small world networks theory' (cf video above). Although she doesn't believe in it, and although I was dubious at first, I have to admit that times have proven me wrong. It is incredible that in a city as big and diverse as London, you always end up bumping into people you know. Granted, everyone in their twenties hang out in the same spots and your chances of running into your neighbours on a holiday trip increase if you stand under the Big Ben, but why is it that we always have to see those people? 

Bumping into people you love is one thing. Bumping into old hook-ups who never answered your call and people who have wronged you (Or, the opposite, *gasp*!) while you are taking a casual stroll on a lazy Sunday is a terrible offense that should be punishable by law. This may not occur to you very often, but it does to me. I have bumped into people who were in London for only one day, parents of high school friends, teachers, old hook-ups (the number of these appearances are extremely high and I suspect a serious case of stalking), ex-friends, and even animals (There is a black dog that I always bump into around Shoreditch). 

2 Days in Paris

What I am trying to say, though, is that if you pay enough attention, you start noticing that your mind is subconsciously looking for the familiar. You don't accidentally bump into that old lover of yours at the food market. In a crowd that big, some energy pushes you to the familiar. In a room full of strangers, it will make you hear the voice of the one person you know in a louder volume. It will make your eyes search for people you know, acknowledge their locations and your feet will subconsciously take you to them. If you pay enough attention, you notice that encounters are coincidental -but you noticing it comes under your brain's frenetic and unconscious search for the familiar. 

So, next time you are out and about, try and and focus -see how easily your brain tricks you into going back to the familiar. 

Fiction: A story in 150 words

Unknown

I used to think that I was a person whose mind and body were interconnected as a whole, and I used to believe that this defined me as a human being. My mind possessed thoughts, ideas and feelings, whereas pain, exhaustion, physical reality and survival instincts were my body’s realm. When someone would ask me who I was, I would calmly reply, “ I am one”. But this was before.

One day, the body that I thought I had control over ceased to share my thoughts. Worse, it betrayed me. I remember my cold body lying on the bed, in the surgery room, naked, scared, ashamed and trembling. My mind wasn’t scared, but my body was. It felt things that I did not feel, and as a result, I did not recognize the feeling and was simply left aghast, not knowing what to do. It felt and did something my mind didn’t order. For the first time, it had thoughts of its own, feelings of its own.

Now, when people ask me about myself, I reply, “ I am a mind and a body, and I cheat everyday to make them one”.

A Rant

Art College 2.0: How to cope with being an art student

Think graffitis on washroom walls. Think electric blue beanies and oversized velvet cardigans paired with washed out dungarees. Think late night coffees (and perhaps drugs), and acrylic paint or tobacco and empty canvases. Oh, and think creepers as well. Think overdraft, recession, Dalston & Peckham's hip kids instagramming their unmade beds, and some nonsense facebook status à la Damien Hirst's dead shark. Also, think 9000£. An art degree has never seemed less appealing these days, especially when the fees tripled last year. Who would want to go to an Art college anyway? Who would want to go to university to study film instead of getting a real degree? A lot of people, actually, including me. This year's Ucas figures show some signs of recovery from last year's 15% drop in creative design and art courses applications. The number of students hoping to apply for art and design next year is up by 2.4%, and I happily applaud this figure.

Could this small rise in art-related applications signify that the arts are not as dead as we want them to be? Could it mean that people are finally taking us seriously? Perhaps. I come from a background where going to an art college is usually frowned upon. An art degree is not a serious degree, not a real one. Science and business are. You can imagine my surprise when I came to London and discovered that the creative industry was so vibrant and omnipresent in our lives. With multiple art colleges spread across London, art students are everywhere. You can usually spot them at a small and independent cinema because Tarantino is just so much better on a small screen (right?), or strolling around markets on a lazy afternoon because markets are so alternative and underground. Am I right? I am not trying to say that art students are pretentious, rather that there are certain stereotypes that they (and I) love to live up to. Just try us. Bring us to the cinema and you can be certain that your movie will be ruined by 'The color gradient in this scene is shit' and 'This is fucking bullshit because... but from a visual point of view it makes sense because...'. Not to say that non-art students cannot be critical when it comes to films, but they simply wait until the end to discuss it; whereas we get thrown out of cinemas and bars because we've been debating the futility of an english pie with a very angry boy for too long (true story). Or bring us anywhere else and you'll find yourself plotting ways to (artistically, of course) end our lives. Don't worry, we get threats everyday, especially when we hang around museums and warehouses for too long.

Unknown

All sarcasm put aside, my main problem with art degrees is the connotation and stereotypes that surround it. Why is there such a pejorative connotation attached to the word 'art college'? Why does it always have to be contrasted with science and say, mathematics? Why all this nonsense about creative vs. logic, right hemisphere vs. left hemisphere? The answer is that there is a gap in education that no one is willing to fill. We are taught, from an early age, that you either go into art and humanities or you go into science and business. That your brain is either wired that way, or the other. This is particularly present amongst countries such as Switzerland or France. If you are not good at maths but can draw a hand with six fingers (=creative genius), it must mean that your brain is wired in a creative way, it functions in a more artistic way as opposed to a logical one. What you have, then, is a conflict between nurture and nature. Are you not creative enough because you are a doctor at core or because no one has ever taught you to use your imagination? Are you bad at maths because you are, at the very core, an artist; or are you bad at maths simply because no one pushed you to work harder? Granted, we do not all have the same learning capacities. Some learn faster, some are slow, and some are less logical than others. This does not mean, however, that once a preference is shown to either the arts or the sciences, we should push someone in that direction. Intelligence is fluid, and reveals itself in different ways. And one thing that does stimulate intelligence is learning skills in a wide range of topics, from the arts to the sciences.

If you are familiar with the swiss or the french educational system, you will know that after a certain number of years in the curriculum, you are forced to choose between a Bac L (diploma that focuses on literature and humanities), Bac S (diploma that focuses on science) or Bac ES (diploma that focuses on economic sciences & humanities). The positive aspect of these different diplomas is that it helps the student focus on what he likes and is good at. The negative aspect is that it reduces his ability to succeed. The dichotomy between science and art is such that it is now seen as 'nerdy' to study science while it is considered 'pretentious & lazy' to study art. Can't we ever have people who are creative geniuses yet still capable of logical thought processes? These two aspects of the same coin are always dissociated, when instead they simply imply an intelligent person who is able to see past this division in the education world. By constantly polarizing the arts and the science, the education system is not only strengthening the stereotypes we have around these two fields, but also discouraging people from doing one or the other. People should be able to reach their potential. As someone who failed all her math exams throughout high school, I am convinced that I could have passed all of them had I not been fed this idea that 'it's just not the way my brain works. I'm more creative. I am doomed anyways, no need to study for that exam'. Looking back, there is a lot more that I could have achieved, and it is a shame that the education system nowadays is still perpetuating the arts/science dichotomy. I mean, it's not that hard to be good at both, is it?

A ticket to nowhere: Airports & Home

On airports, and feeling at home 25 000ft up in the air.

© Suzanne Zhang

As human beings, we are programmed to find a nest and call it home. At first we are born into a house that we learn to call home, but just like birds who have to leave the nest, we are forced to leave it too. What follows then is a quest to find our own home. Some people find a home in a city, an apartment, a café, or a group of friends. Others are left to wander because nothing feels like 'it' yet. High standards or doomed wanderers?

I often feel like I belong to a group of nomads, changing homes every now and then, building new houses for the heart and then leaving it for others to find it. But I don't want to. As a person who was constantly rejected by all the places I have wanted to call home, I want to find roots. Create my own roots, actually. I find beauty in calling a person home, but I have learnt recently that you should never make homes out of human beings. Home is the one place where you know it's just 'it'. Is it so awful to want to belong to a place?

I was born Chinese in Switzerland, and my whole identity is built on this dichotomy. Not asian, not swiss. I can never fully belong to either of these two, no matter how hard I try. A heart in exile, a person on the verge of belonging someplace. And so over the years I have learnt to call places home, but none of them warm my heart as much as airports. I have a fascination for airports, it is the only place where I feel it is acceptable to feel what I feel. Airports are sacred places. Liminal places like airports are places that are nowhere in particular, and yet everywhere. No one belongs there, everyone is a stranger in exile, everyone far away from home -and yet, so close.

Unknown

No one belongs anywhere in airports. People come and go. Everyone in an airport is either about to embark on an adventure, or have come back with a bag that still smells of exotic flowers and home. You don't carry your past in a luggage, you carry white shirts and linen skirts. You don't carry your troubles and your past homes in your luggage, you carry excitement and a sense of belonging. Airports are places that move, no one stays there permanently, everyone goes somewhere. They are home to no one, except the nomads. Airports have no rules, no traditions. They smell of nothing and resemble nothing. Just large white corridors with large white areas of seating space. 

Embarking on the plane is the best part. You are finally free, free from geographical space, from the limits that your 'home' impose on you, free from yourself. Up in the air, it's simply you and the peach-colored sky, you and your books under the anesthetized light, you and your apple juice that tastes like clouds and freedom. No one is there to remind you that you haven't found home yet, no one is there to remind you that you are a nomad. It is simply you and the silence of the sky. 25 000ft up, you feel like you belong somewhere, finally.



Watch this: A very good short film called "Where's home? A film about third culture kid identity" for more on airports and finding home.

Girls, Girls, Girls & why I don't like you anymore

How the show Girls by Lena Dunham lost its potential, and why I don't like it anymore.

      Being in your twenties is hard, but being a girl in your twenties is even harder. It's a time when we're all trying to figure life out, trying to fit in somewhere, and we're all in our existential phase, which doesn't really matter actually because nothing matters and life is pointless and our very own existence is irrelevant and devoid of meaning. Right? Add to that a fear of aging and botox, late night texts from drunken strangers and you get our life. Most of the time it sucks and we're trying really hard to figure everything out, but it's  almost never like in the movies where people have sex with their underwear on and STDs don't exist, so our life is a blur of cigarette smell, bad decisions and self-doubt. Which is what I liked about the pilot of Girls. Finally, the main protagonist is a fat college graduate! She is not pretty, not thin, not rich, and most of all she is annoying! She is simply trying to figure out her life and failing because well, life is scary and it's hard to get a job when you have an art degree (which is actually my main concern once I graduate, given that I have an art degree). In the first episode, Hannah (played by Lena Dunham) is high and broke. And unemployed. Needless to say, I recognized myself in her. She even made me feel better about myself because, well, her life kinda sucks. She can't afford rent, eats cupcakes in bathrooms and has a creepy relationship with a guy that is even more creepy. 

My initial response when I first watched Girls was excitement and amazement. It had so much potential! Normal people! Normal girls! Normal sizes! Normal (awkwardly disgusting) sex scenes! Ugly boobs! Eating food in secret! It was the first time someone said on TV: "hey, let's make a series about our life because well, it sucks and that is pretty funny". The show got all the girls of the world on edge; it made everyone wonder: what was gonna happen to the annoying Hannah? And beautiful Marnie? And Jessa, isn't she oh-so-liberated and the perfect image of the modern feminist? Well, at first, yes. There is a scene, before Jessa is supposed to have an abortion, where she is sitting in a park, talking with Shoshanna about what being a "lady" means. This dialogue is perhaps what made me fall in love with the show, because it seemed to me that it had happened to me too many times in my life. Jessa accuses Shoshanna of reducing her to a lady, saying she has to do this and only have sex a certain way. Jessa then says "I do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want, with who I want" (something along those lines) and I thought that was simply brilliant. Finally, someone said that, on the TV show, and actually meant it, as she later has a miscarriage while a random stranger is fingering her in the bathroom. Go Jessa. This is what life is about.

The part where I started to lose the excitement and the anticipation was when, after 5 episodes, I still couldn't recognize myself or any of my friends in the show. I know the race issue has been tackled by the press and Lena herself apologized for it, but I still find it hard to believe that a woman graduating from an liberal arts college and living in New York has no black, asian or latino friends. I myself am asian, and my group of best friends counts black people, mixed raced people, asians, latinos etc. Not once did I recognize myself, as an Asian who was born abroad, in the series. Oh, unless you count that asian secretary working with Hannah, but that can't count because her english was too bad for her to even say the word 'coffee', and she was a bitch, right? So I had to watch a whole series centered around four white girls, all middle-class it would seem, going on about their daily lives with their casual sex with (once again) white guys. Sure, they're all broke but they all work in art galleries or are actors, so life's pretty cool I guess? Why can't we never see a bored girl working for the government? Why can't we never see someone work as a finance analyst? A lawyer? Why do we always have to give the girls jobs that are so girly?

It is only in the second season that Lena Dunham introduces a black person (fair enough, the girl takes criticism from the press quite well) in the show, as Hannah's boyfriend. Okay. One black person. Fine. What about the rest of us? The rest of the 'girls' who watch the show with avidity, only to find out that its exclusivity lies in the fact that everyone in the show is 'white 'n' wealthy' ? After doing some research about the actresses in Girls, it seemed that they were all there due to nepotism. All of them are daughters of artists, wealthy mean, well-known sculptors etc... Which angered me because the show was supposed to be about normal girls, trying to make it in new york city. Where do us, normal girls, stand when we learn that? What's it supposed to tell us? That the show is actually not about us? But about Lena Dunham and her raging desire to show her boobs every five seconds? I'm all for naked girls of all shapes and sizes on tv (thank you Game of Thrones for doing that!), but I don't know anyone who gets naked that often in front of other people. Hell, I haven't even seen my roommate's boobs yet. It seems to me that the show is not only about Hannah, but a lot about Lena Dunham as well. The characters on the show are becoming whiny, annoying, and irrational (the gay best friend having sex with Marnie? What?). Yes, Hannah, I get that high school was not easy for you because as you like to say it so often, you were fat and ugly, and you are scared all the time, but guess what? So are we. And I don't find myself or any of my friends (who happen to be high as well -and broke, mostly) to behave in that annoying crazy girl way. Granted, the others are not as annoying. Jessa, for example, is the character most of my friends and I related to, because she was so cool and carefree, but even that has changed. Her on screen time quality has declined and her storyline is becoming...weird. I can only guess that it was written by someone who was high on crack and who thought it would be totally coooool to have her marry that irish dude from the IT crowd.

So, Girls, after being an avid fan for the first season and then realizing that you had lost your potential, I can only say that you were fun while you lasted. You made me feel better about myself at times when I couldn't afford milk and couldn't afford to lose my self-respect by texting that oh-so-cute idiot. You made all those hollywood rom-coms cry in shame because no one actually wakes up with make-up and wavy beach golden hair, but sweaty mascara and bad breath. I think it is time for us to see other people, like maybe asians or black people. I hear they're pretty nice. Sorry, it's not me, this time it's actually you.