Hongcouver

Warning: the following contains stereotypes and generalisations. Please do not be offended. Remember: not all opinions are mine; I am a descriptive writer and an anthropologist. ;-)

"We want here a white man's community with civilized habits and religious aspirations, and not a community of 'Heathen Chinese' who can never assimilate with us, or do ought to elevate us, and who can be of no possible value to a state in any capacity other than that of drawers of water and hewers of wood."

- Benjamin Pearse, British Columbia's surveyor general from 1872 - 1872

So Vancouver is generally seen as a very multi-culturally-comfortable city. People from all across the world flock here to live in one of the most liveable cities on the planet. And in the broad scheme of things, everyone is welcome.

Immigrants are not a new phenomenon to this area. Let's not forget that George Vancouver arrived here on a boat himself. Strangely though, as with many areas in the world that were taken over by the White Man in or around the Golden Age, there are definitive boundaries to this broadly advertised xenotolerance, that have surprised me in the last couple of weeks.

Canadians are a friendly people. That is a massive cliché, only because it is true. There is an almost Asian tendency to apologise, an American sense of customer service and an unexpected (by a Dutchie) level of politeness and cheer in almost everyone here. Btw, I think staying here for a while is definitely making me a better person, if only for those three things, but more on that some other time.

Now to get to the crux of the matter: There are a LOT of Chinese people here. Not at all illogical, with the Great Communist State so close by on the other end of the pond, but still. It's striking. Vancouver is nicknamed Hongcouver for it. Some families have been here for generations, some have just arrived. Most of them well integrated and fluent in the language, some not so much. Many Chinese have a tendency to stick within their own communities while abroad. Hence, all the lovely China Towns in all metropolitains, but sticking to your own group can cause friction. Therein lies the problem. 'Canadians' can become vocal in their dislike of the Chinese, and consequentially all things Asian. (Gosh, where have I heard this before....)

The most heard complaint is that wealthy mainland Chinese are driving up the housing prices by buying million(s) dollar properties in cash, living there only for a short period of time before moving back to China, renting out the house for a high price or stationing their UBC-going kids in it, leaving them in charge of the Ferrari. Really; if you see an obscenely expensive car in this city, chances are pretty high a very young Asian boy is driving it.

Xenophobia is of all ages (see the 19th century quote at the top of this blog), and of all places, unfortunately. Still, naively, I had Vancouver pegged as a beacon of multi-culturalism (yeah...naive). Actually, I was quite shocked to hear some very obvious racial slurs on the streets of Van, directed at Chinese. From a cyclist, ignoring a stop sign, yelling "get out of the way you f-ing Chinese", to a man on the bus swearing under his breath about his two neighbors happily chatting away in Chinese, and another man explaining to my mother and me that the situation in which a woman stupidly left her car in the middle of an intersection after a hit and run was obviously due to an ESL-problem (English as a second language).

Anyway, a very positive thing about having East Asia this close is the abundance of good 'Asian' restaurants to balance out the North American establishments. Starting a night out with a smoked meat Poutine and ending it with high-end sushi is completely possible (and, evidently, delicious).

Click for further reading on Chinese immigrants in Vancouver

The 4 stages of living in a new country

This blog is also featured on: http://thinkwriteshare.com/ 

Moving abroad is an interesting experience. Euphoria, frustration, boredom, anxiety, elation, it’s all there and you will experience it again, and again, and again, if you’re insane enough to decide to move abroad multiple times.The only good thing about it is that after the second time, you know what’s coming.  Don't get me wrong, moving abroad is awesome, and I think everyone should do it at least once, if only for the interesting things you will learn about yourself. Don’t even get me started on the emotional roller-coaster that you’re going to have to sit through before you leave, so let me just focus on the first weeks of your stay in this Great New Place.

Stage 1: Getting organised

Right, you’ve totally figured out how to get from the border (airport, boat, bus, car, train) to wherever you’re staying and are braving your jetlag or general travel tiredness to get there. You feel greatly accomplished when you do. Yes! You did it! You’re here. You let out a sigh and fall asleep (or don’t. Darn jetlag).

And then the fun starts. You’re not here on holiday so a map, a hotel, and your credit card are not going to cut it. You need a home, a local cell phone, a bank account, insurance, student or employee identification (including the jetlagged picture that will haunt you for the rest of your time there), you need to report to the authorities and you desperately need a trip to IKEA. Alright. Breathe and power through it.

Stage 2: Shiny and new

Everything is awesome. Your house is awesome, your new friends are awesome, this is the coolest thing you have ever done. And the whole world seems to think so too; your school has an introduction week, your work organises socials for new employees, your roommate drags you to 3 birthday parties in one week, the local restaurant even has a special of your favourite food. These activities generally include making random new friends (everyone is awesome!) and drinking cheap or free booze. What’s not to like?

Stage 3: Confusion

Wait. What have I done? Did I actually just move here? In the name of all that is holy, why?! That’s crazy! How could I have been so stupid! I miss my dog/climate/mom/apartment/friends/job/that very specific pair of shoes that I forgot to pack!

Stage 4: Settling

Finally, generally after a couple of weeks, the ‘I live here’-vibe sinks in. You no longer feel the need to move around the place like a tourist. You no longer look intently out the window on a bus, you lose the map that was in your jacket pocket and find yourself behind your laptop (ie: Facebook) at 11am or binge watching a new series for three evenings in a row, instead of being outside for the sake of being outside. You are no longer on holiday. This is also the moment that might lead you to not do anything touristy anymore. You know: living in a city for three years and not even having visited that one famous museum, or climbed that one obvious hill. As long as you know this is a risk, and are willing to remind yourself of that sometimes, you’re fine. You have time. You’re at home here. 

Again, with the perfect sunsets.... *sigh*

Vancouver sunsets

Vancouver is a typical North American metropolis, with its high rise buildings, its shopping malls, its grid street plan (including numbered avenues), and its array of restaurants ranging from fast food chains to insanely expensive haute cuisine.

What's not so typical about Vancouver is that it's surrounded by the Canadian Rocky Mountains on one side and the Pacific ocean on the other. It sits in this comfortable little bowl that makes the climate comfortable (warm and wet, to Canadian standards) and the views magnificent. More specifically; from almost any major street in the city you'll be able to see the North Shore Mountains and/or the Strait of Georgia. The city has about ten beaches from which the sunset views are beautiful. One of which is three blocks from my house.

Now I wasn't  raised in a really mountainous area (yeah, Holland is pretty flat) so the mountains here keep taking my breath away, especially at sunset. The weather here has been holding up really well this last week so I've been lucky enough to have seen some pretty spectacular sunset views that combine the beautiful calm waters with some amazing green islands and mountains.

My roommate keeps telling me that it won't be too long until the clouds and the rain completely take over and we won't be able to see anything for a good five months. Ah well, better enjoy it while it lasts. Wait, why am I inside?

Settling in

So, on to more mundane things.

My jetlag has left me by now, but it's been replaced by a massive cold. Let's hope that's gone before I have to audition for any choirs...

I've been settling in quite well. Got myself a phone, a new gym, a favorite supermarket, an almost seamless accent, stuff like that (, eh). I've moved into my shared apartment, at a corner of Maple Street. Really, if you are to move to Canada, then you should be living on a street called Maple, I'd say.

Went to IKEA the day before yesterday, with my Dutch friend Annika, to buy a bed and all other sorts of stuff that one ends up buying at IKEA. Thank the universe for IKEA. Most North American furniture stores sell heavy, dark, and expensive (not to say plain ugly) things. At least at IKEA, I could walk straight up to the Poäng and move on.
IKEA workers have been striking here since May already, and the schoolyear is starting soon, so the place looked like a giant storm had gone through it taking everyting cheap with it. I was actually lucky to find a half decent mattress, but not much else.

The weather has been holding up well, it's supposed to be very nice this week as well. My classes don't start till the 23rd, so I still have some time to enjoy it.

Canada

At certain moments in life it's really worth trying to oversee one's experiences and be thankful that all of them, the good, sad, exciting, scary, boring, difficult, and really easy things, have happened to you, because otherwise you would not be where you are now and you would be an entirely different person.

Six days ago, I moved to Canada. Discovered I wasn't happy where I was, so made a plan, quit my job, booked a ticket. You could say that was a brave thing to do, that I'm doing something a lot of people think about but never do. You could say I was cowardly running from some things in my life, and that I'm stupid for throwing my savings at something like this. You could say it was inevitable for me to move abroad again at some point.

There's probably some truth in all of that. I try not to think about it too much and just go with it. I do know that there have been several moments in the last days; watching the sun sink into the pacific ocean, venturing out to make new friends, being overwhelmed by the sheer power of a glistening mountain view or a quiet night city skyline, playing pool with some awesome strangers in a gaybar in the middle of the night; that I know I'm in the right place.

Samurai Baseball

I fell in love with baseball seven years ago. With Japanese baseball that is. The game, the colours, the fans, the synchronised cheering; I fell in love with it all. When you spend a summer in a typical Japanese family in Osaka, odds are there will be baseball on tv every night during dinner. We cheer for the 'Hanshin Tigers', Osaka's number one baseball team, except for the fact that we don't usually win much. The best thing about the Tigers is the fans. The Tigers are famous for their fanatic devotees, about which many an anthropological study has been conducted (see WW Kelly). I did not know this at the time, but a couple of years after spending my first summer in Japan I wound up studying my team in University in Leiden. Some years after that I went back to Japan and saw my team play 'live' in Osaka against their arch enemies; the Tokyo Yumiori Giants. Life takes the strangest turns sometimes.

This year I found myself in another of such experiences. I went to see a baseball game two days ago, together with my two host-sisters and my host-mom. The experience is worth sharing with you. Baseball is not a male oriented sport here, so we were bringing our girl-power to the new Kyocera Dome in Osaka. Unfortunately our Tigers were fighting the Giants in Tokyo so we went to see 'the other Osaka' team (which obviously takes precedence over any Tokyo team), the Buffaloes. They were playing the Lions. I wondered why you would call your team 'Buffaloes' in a competition where Tigers and Lions are around too...the odds were against us this evening.

The Japanese take their baseball very seriously, like they take most things in life. Japanese baseball is meticulously planned at six in the evening, so ensure that the supporters can come in straight after work and the game ends in time for the last train (Japanese baseball games have a time limit).The dome was beautiful, the blue plastic toy chairs with too little leg space for a foreigner were slightly uncomfortable, the suspense was omnipresent.
Cheerleaders and mascottes with massive cartoon heads were intoducing the players. When the commentator mumbles something non-japanese sounding you'll know the next player will be a Gaijin (lit. outside-person, used to describe all foreigners). Most professional teams in Japan have at least one gaijin player, coming from American or Australian competitions, and they are usually worshiped as tall oddities amongst fans. In comparison: the Tigers' Japanese star batter is 1.69m in height. A 1.98m, 105kg tobaco-chewing American pitcher might look a tad scary to them. These gaijin players often have a translator accompanying them during practice and games, to make sure they understand what's going on. They always look slightly baffled when being interviewed for Japanese tv-shows (worthy of blogs of their own), donned with a general 'what am I doing here?' expression on their face.

We were led to our seats by a girl in a red t-shirt that said 'Security'. These security people are positioned all around the dome during the game. She has a whisle around her neck which she will sound when a foul ball is hit in her direction, in order to warn the spectators to mind their heads. The stadium commentator will say something like: 'Foul ball coming your way, please be careful, Go-chui kudasai!' The word 'security' takes on an entirely different meaning here.

The bellies of the cheerleaders reflected all available light, since tanning is a fashion no-no in Japan. The dome was slowly filling up with salary-men in cheap suits carrying laptop bags coming straight from work for a Kirin-drenched night out with their colleagues. At foul balls you will see them crawling on the floor to find it, most with their sleeves rolled up, some with their jackets still on because they are either too junior or too senior to take them off this early in the evening. Little kids wearing their own baseball outfits carry little plastic bats to clap along with the songs. Make no mistake, grown men and women will be just as enthousiastic in incessantly clapping their bats and waving their scarves at precisely the right moments: that is, when everyone else is doing it too.

The big screen on the other end of the dome showed flashy advertisements between innings and slow motion replays of players donned with sparkling words like 'Good Play!', 'Struck Out', and 'Timely!'. The seating area next to the screen on the other end of the field is reserved for the die-hard fans, the Japanese hooligans, so to speak. This fan-base is very well organised and again, taken very seriously. There are different ranks one can belong to, including those of Small Flag Waver, Drum Player, Trumpet Player, Crowd Conductor and Big Flag Waver. I imagine the Big Flag Wavers are the coolest, because there were only two of those at this game. The hooligan side of the stadium decides which song is sung when and for how long. The rest of the crowd joins in. Every player has their own song (some even have two) which will be performed by the small brass band, accompanied by all the excited fans present. Some songs have dances, too. While walking up to the plate players get everyone to wave their scarves counter-clockwise above their heads or clap their bats in a certain rythm. Battle cries will come from all sides at exactly the same time. Sometimes I wonder if everyone has an earpiece I don't know about...

The game is exciting and the home-runs are fantastic. I am enjoying every second and every sausage-on-a-stick of it. While my host mom was listening to the Tigers lose against the Giants on the radio next to me, the Buffaloes beat the Lions; 9-4. Anything goes in the Japanese jungle.

Food

Food is everything.

I'm not even kidding...if you ever plan on going to Suriname, make sure you like eating:

Chicken

Rice

Fish

Bitter vegetables

Madame Jeanette peppers (HOT!)

If you don't like them, too bad. Every single meal you will eat in this country will have at least two of these in it.

Since the muslims and jews can't eat pork, and the hindoes can't eat beef, chicken is basically what you get. Since the Surinamese invite everyone over for dinner and keep track of what their guests can and can't eat, all stores sell chicken, and only chicken. (or fish)

The only ethnic group that sells pork are the chinese.

If someone invites you over for 'tea' or 'something to drink' or 'a meeting' or 'a church service' you can bet on there being food of some sort. I'll give you an example:

On the 21st of June Wilbert and I were invited to join the Bisshop in his trip to Lelydorp where he was to lead a confirmation ceremony. After the ceremony he would drop us off on the way back to the city at our (my uncles) friends from the market's (Nita) house at Pad van Wanica. After being welcomed there with food, they took us to meet Nita's parents, where, ofcourse, we were welcomed with food.

At about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when one of Nita's daughters dropped us off at home, we'd had more to eat than both of us had ever eaten in one day.....

06:00 Breakfast: Sandwich peanutbutter, orange juice, water
10:30 Second Breakfast: 1 Potato ball-like thing, 1 Plate of food containing Bami, Nasi goreng, White rice, Yellow rice, chicken, coconut stuff, sambal, beansprouts, long green beans (kouseband) etc., 2 glasses of gross softdrink, 1 piece of pie, 4 tiny pieces of cake, 1 beer.
11:45 Lunch: 1 eggroll, 1 kroket, crisps, shrimp crisps, more gross fernandes softdrink, 4 glasses of coke, 3 glasses of water, 1 plate of roti (flatbread, chicken, pepers, HOT), 1 plate of pineapple (with salt, ew)
13:00 Lunch 2.0: 2 glasses of coke, 1 coconut (water/milk & flesh), 1 piece of cake, 1 plate of roti (HOT), 5 fish ball-like-things
13:30 Tea: 1 piece of chocolate cake, 1 glass of fernandes.
We were able to convince Nita that the huge portions of macaroni waiting for us were really a little bit too much. So she made us a big bowl to take home with us. And a couple of babanas, and some other fruit, and some left over roti meat. Fortunately most Surinamese food is great, sometimes it's just a little too much :)
And every time we come to a different household we get overwhelmed by the amount of food offered to us. And most of the time, you get a full meal, and when you ask the host why they are not eating anything they'll say: "I've already eaten"
Yes so have we...about 5 times already today :D

Paramaribo

Sorry guys, not much blogging these last two weeks.

I'm trying to get as much of my dissertation work done before Wilbert arrives, next Saturday (YAY!).

And actually, dissertation wise, it's going quite smoothly! I'm spending most my time meeting new people and getting more phonenumbers from them to contact even more people. All of these people that I meet give me books, articles, pamphlets and other sources of information for me to read through and understand this society a little better. I'm starting to feel like I'm already 'getting' some of the aspects of this multi-ethnic and multi-religious community and I find myself reading, talking and thinking about it all the time. Fortunately I still think it's very interesting :)

Yesterday and today were the first two days in which I actually tried to put some concrete words in my computer. Yesterday I made a draft contents page, just to try and sort my thoughts out a bit and make an outline of the eventual report. Today I'm trying to do some actual writing and put some of my findings to paper (computer). My little flowered notebook is my treasure right now, everything I think of, speak or read about goes in there. Every person I speak with has his/her own page and at least a couple of key words about that person and what he/she told me or that I still have to ask them.

The Bisshop of Paramaribo has been my greatest help until now. He's such a nice man and he really tries to help me wherever he can. Thanks to him I'll be speaking with the head Pandit of one of the two Hindu denominations here (Arya Dewaker) about his involvement in interfaith issues next week.

I've already seen and done too much here to tell you all about it now, especially since the Dutch national team is playing Iceland soon and I still have to make my way to a bar in this tropical rainstorm that's been going on for about 2 hours now...

For now I'll give you a link to my Facebook album with some of my pictures made in the last two weeks.

Enjoy :)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84367&id=565292619&l=8e80f3d561

Suriname

I'm here! We've made it! Ánd my internet is working. My uncle is only here till 4 o clock this afternoon, I have to wait here for him now, so I have very little blogging time. But I'll share with you my first impressions:

The trip was great, the crew is lovely, my uncle brought cheese and leverworst for the bustrip to Paramaribo, we stopped at the first bar to pick up some Parbo's (beer) and had a very nice first impression of the country. Also the warm tropical blanket hugging me when I stepped out of the plane made me feel at home. I love it.

Rich and poor live side by side on the road to the city. Huge drug-mansions provide shadow for little wooden huts or unfinished houses with smiling people inside.

It's very strange to travel 9 hours by plane, to a place that looks hugely different from holland, but still see billboards in your own language, you can speak dutch to everyone. Weird, but nice.

As a wonderful surprise two of my stepfathers friends welcomed us at my uncle's hotel unplanned. They live here and drove me and my stuff to my new home. And took us out for drinks and some food after meeting my landlady and her family.

Tante Joyce is the sweetest landlady I've ever met (and the biggest). Apparently her granddaughter Rani has been asking for me for over a week. I'm meeting her today. I've brought her a big stack of dutch Donald Ducks :) Many have told me she sings the Surinamese national anthem all day. I love her already.

Joyce has put me 'close to her heart' in the biggest appartment attached to her house. Right next to her own patio. Maybe I'll move to the back of the garden in two weeks, when the people who live there now move away.

Accross from the garden lives a dutch music teacher. He's here for a little while and has already invited me to come to a choir practice he's leading coming thursday. A Mozart mass apparently. I'm there, duh.

It's hot here. Think of some place hot, and multiply it by two :) I like it, but my body has to take some time to learn the right sweating times and quantities....

My appartment is BIG and empty and lit by two huge lamps on the ceiling. I share my bathroom with at least one Gekko. His name is Mr Tjitjak. (Pasar Malay for Gekko) I like Gekkos. I used to stare at them on the ceiling when we were on holiday when I was little and I couldn't sleep. I don't count sheep, I count Gekko's. Haven't seen one in my bedroom here.

I have to go! The city calls. More blogging later!

Love from the green banks of the Suriname River.

Koninginnedag

On the 30th of April Holland turns orange. Our national colours and those of our royal family are everywhere and we celebrate our country, our royal family and our Queen mum's birthday. (Since our current Queen's birthday is in winter, they figured it would be best to keep the date where it was)

Queensday, as it is called, is actually a very interesting national holiday. One that, by the way, provides excellent subject-matter for discussing the phenomenon of civil religion. All over the country there are fairs, fleamarkets and outdoor concerts, everyone is supposed to be happy, Dutch and outdoors.
The Queen and her family visit a different city every year, this city is then completely transformed into the centre of our monarchy for the day. The royal family looks at local clubs doing their tricks on the streets, local trades are shown, the princes always participate in some stupid oldfashioned game and they all shake 3000 hands along the way. The Queen gets flowers, kisses and children's drawings for her 'birthday' and the whole shindig is broadcasted nationwide.

Sadly this year, the general talk about what the princesses were wearing, which prince made an idiot of himself during the games, and what kind of a hat the Queen was sporting this year was interrupted by the horrible, broadcasted live on tv, view of a black automobile ploughing its way through the crowds in Apeldoorn, monarchy capitol for the day. This attack on our royal family has left 8 dead so far, including the man who deliberately drove his car through a crowd of orange coloured men, women, and children.


So back in Glasgow our day started happily, by planning a small Queensday party (or Dutch Day, as Steph calls it) at my flat, until my mother calls me and says she just saw a car drive through the crowd and hit a war monument, live on tv.


Our little Queensday celebration went along as planned (unlike most of the bigger celebrations in Holland, which were cancelled) by making dutch pancakes and playing silly games in my kitchen. (Since the Scottish weather and landscape does not encourage running with eggs outside) My laptop was there too though, constantly following the news and hearing about one, then two, then five deaths. It was a strange day.

Meh

The title of this blog can be interpreted in many different ways.

'Meh' accompanied by some serious shoulder-shrugging can be understood as an expression of ultimate disinterest, boredom, or even outright desperation.

An elongated 'Meh' combined by the mental image of sheep is better understood as a, as many a postcard in this country will tell you, Scottish Traffic Jam.

In whichever way you want to interpret the concept of 'Meh', it expresses exactly the way I feel right now. Downright disinterested, bored, desperate livestock.

I HAVE to finnish my essay (yes I am even resorting to the use of capitals ánd am throwing in accidental eastern europeans).
But I don't FEEL like doing it. Nor am I convinced of the point I'm making and am thus not capable of putting the words into any plausable order to make it.

That combined with a strong force within me to read Harry Potter and that whole swine flu thing (funny how it's okay when it's on a different continent and not so funny when it's around the corner keeping a newlywed couple in hospital), I'm not really motivated.
BUT, I WILL finish the thing tomorrow. I promise(d myself).

Meanwhile, read the beautiful story in the post below (no you haven't seen it, yes even if the date says last Saturday, I only posted it today, as yet another attempt to forget about my essay) I love it. I want to publish it. (Karen's doing the illustrations) Although I don't want it to be frowned on by Christians. If only because it's just cool. (See, usually I'm capable of forming an argument, not today, noooo not today)

But actually, life is good. Only three weeks till Suriname. (would you help me in asking the Cosmos to keep the swine flu away from there?) It's just those very last study straws that are breaking this camels' back. (Camel, sheep, sperm whale, whatever)

Maybe I should just go to sleep.

F.Y.I. I've not been drinking or anything, I've just been listening to Nakariakov for too long. It makes me jumpy and ridiculus. Classical music can do that to a person. (Camel, sheep, whale, whatever)

Genesis

A couple of days ago I came across the blog of a former co-student of mine from Leiden. Last March he had written a post especially for International Women's day. For the occasion he had rewritten Genesis. I was impressed. I asked him if I could translate it into english and post it on here, and voilà, here it is. It looks long, I know, but bear with me, you'll be happy you read it.

See it as an early Beltane present :) May Love, Light and Prosperity be upon you.


EVE

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, 'Let there be light'. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God called the light Day, and the darkness was called Night. Then the first day was at an end. God was tired and went to sleep.

The following day God created the heaven and the sea, the mountains and the rivers, the beach and the forrests. And God got excited, and created the fjords, the canyons, and the barren deserts. And God saw that it was good.

On the third day, God got up and looked at all the beautiful things. They were still a bit empty. And God created the fish in the sea, the birds in the trees, and the little creepy crawlies in the sand. And God saw that it was good.

Gods creating skills improved so God created the horses and the elephants, the sabertooth tigers and the dinoaurs, the armadillos and the tapirs. And to crown it all God created the sperm whales. And God was tired but satisfied, and the fourth day was over.

But on the fifth day God felt a bit lonely. God wanted someone to talk to, a friend. And God created man, and called him Adam. And the fifth day was over, and God went to sleep only after saying 'Good night' to Adam. And God thought that it was good.

Adam watched his reflection in the water. He was quite pleased with himself. He had a nice full beard, white teeth, clean nails, and muscled arms and legs. 'I am so beautiful,' thought Adam, 'I must look like God. God has created me in His own image'

And Adam walked around, and he saw the creepy crawlies in the sand, the birds in the trees. He saw the sabertooth tiger and the armadillo. 'I am like God,' Adam said, 'but you are not, because I can talk, and you can't. That means you have to obey me. I am the perfection of Creation.' And Adam was very pleased with himself.

Then he felt something under his foot. It was a little crawly animal, but now it was dead, because Adam had stood on it. Adam got cross. 'Why are you in my way!' he barked. 'Now you have soiled my foot, created in Gods own image! Now your dirty little black corpse is on my sole!' And Adam went to the river to wash himself.

When he arrived at the river he saw a fish. He grabbed the fish with his hand. 'What are you doing in my river?' Adam asked. 'This is my river, God promised me this river. He also promised me the land. So all animals must obey me.' He ate the fish. And all animals were scared.

God called for Adam. 'Adam, I want to talk to you, you don't understand!' But Adam didn't hear the call, because Adam was too busy bossing around all the animals. God was sad. God had created someone to talk to, but felt lonelier now than ever before. 'I've made a mistake,' God thought. 'I have given man the gifts of speech and thought, but I did not give him the ability to listen nor to love. How do I make up for this?'

God thought. 'What if I make a second human... one that can love and listen, and can teach Adam how to do that?' And God created the second human, and God called her Eve. She was even more beautiful than the first one.

Adam saw Eve. She was beautiful beyond words. Adam went to her. 'I am Adam,' he said, 'and you have to obey me, because I was created in God's own image.' Eve looked at him. She smiled. 'It's okay,' she said. 'Go to sleep. The sixth day is almost over. Now it is time to rest.'

Adam didn't understand what she meant. Her smile scared him. Who was this? 'Who are you?' he asked.

'I am Eve,' said Eve. 'I would like to be your friend. I would like to hear your stories, if you'll listen to mine.' Adam didn't know what to say. She was stunning. Her eyes seemed to look straight through him. Her hair was long, and her body was so round and so much more beautiful than his. All of a sudden he was ashamed of his own scrawny and square body and of the hair on his face and his chest. For the first time in his existence he felt ugly.

'Go away!' cried Adam. 'I don't want to see you, I want nothing to do with you!' That was a lie. He wanted nothing more than to be with her, look at her, and touch her strange body. But he was afraid to say so. 'Go away!' He cried angrily. Eve was scared, and ran away. She cried. Why wouldn't he listen to her stories? Why did he scare her so?

God called them, but was not heard. Adam and Eve were too involved with themselves and eachother, they were no longer able to hear God.

'How can this be?' thought Adam, 'She looks just like me, but still she is so different. We both have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. We both have ten fingers and ten toes, we both have a bellybutton. We speak the same language but still we cannot understand eachother. Why will she not accept my autority? Why is she more beautiful than me!?'

He went to her. She had stopped crying. She had gotten hungry and had taken a piece of fruit from one of the trees. It was delicious. Seeing how much she enjoyed this foreign fruit infuriated Adam. How could she take pleasure from something he didn't know? Why hadn't she first asked permission to eat from that tree?

'Why didn't you ask me if you could eat from that tree?' cried Adam. 'That is not just any tree, that is a sacred tree! The fruit is forbidden to eat, God has told me that in person!' Eva jumped. She didn't know that. But how could something that tasted so good, that was sweet and sour and thirst-quenching, be forbidden? Didn't God allow them the good of Creation?

'Now God will always be angry with us,' Adam spoke with a strict voice. 'With us, and with all future generations. And that is your fault. From now on you must obey me, so you cannot commit a sin again. From now on you are my posession. If you refuse I will kill you, like you were a creepy crawly. If you follow me, I will be good to you. Whichever way, we have to flee, away from the tree of God, because God does not want to see us anymore.'

Eve was scared. She did not want to die. He looked dangerous, and strong. She did not want to fight. She wanted to know him, she wanted to see what was hidden behind those cold eyes. Maybe, if she followed him she would be able to teach him, little by little, to listen, and to love.

'Alright, I'll go with you,' she said. And Adam and Eve left the place where they had met, and fled. They ran from an angry God that they were imagining.

And God saw how Her children ran away, and cried silently. But God knew that parents must learn to let their children go, and that sometimes they cannot hear their parents voices. And God knew that they were not perfect, but She hoped they would learn to understand each other, learn to love, and that they would not hurt each other too much.

And Adam told his children the story of the sacred tree, and of Eve's guilt, and of the angry God. Eve averted her eyes, and said nothing.

And the children related the story of the tree and the fruit to their children, who then told their children, who told their children thereafter. And none knew how it really had occured.

This story was originally written by Aike Rots, in Dutch. http://aikerots.blogspot.com/2009/03/eva.html

Dundee and Arbroath

After those texty-posts I'll give you guys some pictures to stare at again :)

Two weeks ago Caro, Karin, Meri and I went on a little day-trip to Dundee and Arbroath. Dundee was a sweet little boring town, with a couple of churches we wanted to see. Strangely all of the churches were closed....ánd most of the kebab stores we wanted to visit were also :)

From Dundee we took a trainride right along the coastline to Arbroath. The weather was beautiful (very different from what the forecast said...hence the Wellies) if not extremely windy...ah whatever, most pictures are nice and 'dynamic' because of it.

Try finding a street in Dundee without penguins ór closed churches...impossible.

Arbroath was simply astounding. The century-old Abbey ruin that dominates the tiny sea-side town is huge and impressing. For those of you with historic interest, try Wiki-ing: Arbroath Abbey and The Declaration of Arbroath.

Me and the huge Abbey Church ruin.

"..for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."

The dude that wrote the Declaration of Arbroath is gifted...he should've worked on Braveheart. :P

North-easter coastline of Scotland. I really want to go to the red sandstone cliffs in the background some time. Those are also the cliffs the Abby is made out of.

Chillin' in the sun

More pics from our trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=71940&id=565292619&l=30fe5a0ccf

Moment of Enlightenment

Just to share with you a small part of the wonders I sometimes have to read for my classes. I read this while the last 2,5 minutes of Coldplay - Fix You was playing in the background.

Murray Rogers, Anglican priest who has spent over forty years in Asia and the Middle East, on those he encountered of a different faith:

"I gladly share, without fear of disloyalty to Christ, their treasures of experience, their perceptions of the Mystery, their ways of breathing the Reality beyond all name and form. 'I' and 'they' have almost disappeared and in their place it is 'we'. No longer am I driven to fight crusades to bring 'them' over to 'my' side, as if Christ were on 'my' side. Fanaticism, including Christian fanaticism, is seen to be what in fact it always is, an appalling insult to the Divine Mystery lying beyond and within creation."

Strengthening your faith

"Will this world SURVIVE?"

it says, on the front of the little flyer the lady's hand is holding out to me.
I am walking home from class with a big bag of groceries and I see a lady walking towards me on the sidewalk. Just a normal, friendly looking lady with a bit of an eccentric coat on. When she is within 2 metres range of me she magically conjures a flyer out of nothing and stands still next to me. I yank my iPod out of my ears and listen to her.

I do that. My mom calls me when she sees 'religious' people walking up to our front door. "Selmaaaa, you take them." I enjoy talking to them. Or letting them talk to me. I don't know why. I'm interested. Not in becoming a Mormon/Jehovas witness/Hare Krishna/whatever, but in why they are.
Just before this encounter with the lady in the street we had talked about the 'strengtening of your faith' in class. Public displays of faith are not primarily to prove something to others or to convince someone else of your beliefs. Their primary function is to strengthen you own faith. New (voluntary!) women converts to Islam need some time to come to terms with their own religiosity. Wearing hijab (a headscarf)in public for the first time needs conviction. It means showing the world that you are a muslim. You are muslim. You remind yourself of that.

The same can be said of those that go from door to door or dance and sing in the streets. We usually think they are doing it to gain converts. And at one point you might think: "Don't they get tired of it? Probably no one ever says, Yeah sure I'll become a Mormon tomorrow".
But that's not the primary point. The simple activity of going out and telling others what you believe makes you aware of your own religiosity. It strengthens your faith. You think about what you believe, about God and the world and about how you think you could make it a better place. Or at least about how it has made the world a better place for you. Why not listen to them, let them speak? As long as the message is about love and peace, why not?

She smiles at me, the lady with the eccentric coat. I take the flyer from her and say "Thank you".

"Don't worry', she says,'The front sounds a bit ominous, but it has a good ending"

And for her it does.

Scotland map

As I just came back from Holland with a massive cold, resulting in stabbing pain in my ears during the flight and fear of permanent damage (since I still can't hear much)I have decided I'm ill until further notice.
Obviously I had enough of lying in my bed after one day, so today map-making has made it's entry: Hurrah!
The little gadget posted below is just to show you where I've been doing the things I've been blogging about and to recommend nice places to visit, eat, sleep etc. It's still a work in progress, so not all of what I want to show you is tagged yet (especially nog in Glasgow city) I'm also working on putting in pictures of the different places. Have fun looking at my world :)


Grotere kaart weergeven

Winter in Glasgow

The most hilarious snowman ever.

It seems as if Spring has now officially taken over! Hurrah!
A couple of weeks ago (or was it even last week..?) that seemed very far away indeed.
Here are some pictures to show you what Glasgow looks like in winter and how creative people get with snow....

Botanics

I love the look on his face! And the leaf-hairdo :-)

View from my window

Januari, visitors!

Glasgow central station....zie de verbazing in mijn gezicht. Wát?

The other half of Januari was filled with visitors! Hurray! My boyfriend and my best friend were here, with only 24 hours in between :)
I need to read a LOT for class now, so I'll just give you an impression of the fun through some pictures.

Me and my uni

Hurrah! Coooos!



Hihihihi

Pollok house

Rest and be Thankful valley

Fortune telling fish and Christmas hats!

Tarbert and it's castle :)

The lovely couches at the Hub

I am in love with those couces...with couches in general. I don't have a couch in my appartment. I could cry....

Januari, academia

Wow...that month flew by...

In between all that time that I had people over (tell you about that later)my classes started again.
I am now taking an extra curricular class in Religion in Society. I wanted to take this class in stead of my Sacred Texts class, but since I was told in September I wasn't allowed, I didn't.
Unfortunately i found out in December that i could have taken my electives outside of the department, but that by then it was too late to do so. Sucks to be you, you're stuck with hermeneutics...thanks.

So now, just to piss off everyone in my department :), i'm taking it anyway! I can't use the credits for my degree, but the actual information discussed in class will be 1000 times more useful for my dissertation than random rambling about God in literature. (no offence :) it's just not my thing)
The Religion in Society class is actually an anthropology of religion class, with some sociology thrown in. Oh wait, wasn't that what I wanted to be doing all the time now? So I'm enjoying it :) Very much so. It's just good to be in a class where you actually know the names that pass in the conversation (Durkheim: check, Geertz: check) minor annoyance is that most of the other people taking the class haven't taken classes in religion or anthropology before. But they are all very nice and do see all of it with social science eyes, which is a welcome change from the horde of theologians that I spend most my time (classwise) with.

Before the start of the first class a student came in (I was obviously already there, excited :)) and said: I wonder if there is actually going to be a religious person in this class, that would be so interesting. (as a sidenote: this guy is ruthlessly atheist, thinks everyone who remotely believes in anything is an idiot and is, as far as I can see, definitely gay (or latently so.) Now read the previous scentence again, adding the image described above....)
I said: Well I'd rather that there isn't. That would be a welcome change of scenery for me.
This new classmate then could hardly believe there would be anyone within a university who can seriously ask in class, after reading a text on religious pluralism, how that text could be used to prove Christianity's superiority over other religions. (Which obviously happened in my first semester...I stared at him)
So! I love my social science detox moment of the week, my classmates are nice and more importantly: of the same age as me. The teacher is good (ie, fills most of her class with examples from her own research in...uh Peru(?)) and friendly. I think I have to go and talk to her about my dissertation research.

About that dissertation...my plans are starting to become more concrete. I have a supervisor now and she is very enthousiastic about sending me to Surinam for two months to look at the Inter-faith relations in paramaribo. Score :)
Hopefully accomodation and ethics board permission follow this month. That would mean that I'll be moving back to Holland in May, only to 'move' to Surinam at the end of that month. I'm already dreaming about sunshine and Roti.

Soko,soko!