Tae Think Again

Here at This is How She Fight Start we like to pride ourselves on always being slightly behind the bleeding edge of the perpetually onrushing buzzsaw that is the 24-hour News Cycle. It’s the Ridcully approach to information management: if it really is important then people will still be talking about it a few days after the fact, and if they’re not, well, it can’t have been that vital anyway. And so it is that I eventually come to put down some thoughts on the Scottish referendum, a mere week after the fact. Next time I’m planning to discuss whether or not we should abandon the Gold Standard.

Atlas

The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

Dung Kai-cheung, 1997 [Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall 2012]

(June 2014)

  

Hong Kong is a pretty special city. I’ve only been a couple of times, and at this stage of my life I imagine actually living there would fairly rapidly end up with my appearance in local newspaper stories with the word ‘rampage’ in the headline, but as a place to visit it’s really like nowhere else I’ve been. Even trying to begin to unpack the various interweaving narratives of globalization, (post)colonialism, trade, capital, and belonging that wrap around every stone of the city is a herculean task, and one I’m certainly not up to in a 700 word blog post.

  

Boxers and Saints

Gene Luen Yang, 2013

(March 2014)

This is phenomenal.

We See a Different Frontier

Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad (eds), 2013

(December 2013)

Right, let’s get this out of the way straight off: that’s a pretty weak cover. I realize it’s probably aiming for some jerry-rigged bioengineering kind of thing, but I doubt “failed experiment to crossbreed a sickly croissant with a camper van” was the effect anyone was after. Never mind, move past it; the stories are what matter and I’m pleased to report that they’re really very good.

  

You Better Not Cry

Japanese lawmaker Taro Yamamoto got himself into a bit of hot water not so long ago, following the most ill-advised letter since the Children’s Television Workshop’s dalliance with Cyrillic in 1983 as part of a well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous attempt to ease Cold War tensions between East and West (“One! One Mother Russia! AHA HA HA HA!”).

Crossing the Same River

Day One

Incheon Airport – Starbucks refusing to either give or sell us hot water for the baby’s milk because, “Environmental,” despite my observation that it’s just an Americano coffee without the coffee, and thus less work for them. This does nothing to improve my general mood. Shortly after this Son #1 pisses on the play area floor, to similar effect.

Day Two

Heathrow Airport Arrivals Hall – standing in the queue to buy the necessary sugar and caffeine loaded beverage, observe magazine promising “Exclusive: Kate’s Post-Baby Weight Loss Regime” This adds a piquant dash of novelty to the standard post-flight loathing for all humanity. (That’s right, Fucknuts, close as you can. The nearer you stand to the conveyer, the quicker your bags will arrive. It’s magic like that).

From the Ruins of Empire

The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia
Pankaj Mishra, 2012
(July 2013)

Very persuasive argument against anyone who may still be clinging to outmoded notions of the benefits of empire and the supposedly more benign repercussions of the White Man’s Burden. A fair few little points to quibble with, but should still be required reading for every white, English-speaking adult.

It’s also very readable, which is a minor thing in comparison but worth noting. I’m increasingly reading my non-fiction in parallel with other stuff, just to give my head a break, but that was completely unnecessary this time. Good stuff.

Two Funerals…

1.    It’s what she would have wanted

I have no truck with the notion of an afterlife. If you do then good luck to you, but being of a somewhat lazy tendency myself I’ve always had to fight against my natural urge to put off until tomorrow what I really should be doing today. The prospect of putting off until the next life what I should be doing in this one strikes me as a step too far – I’d never get anything done.

I ♥ Kimigayo

I mean it. I love Kimigayo. I know I may have spoken about it before with a certain degree of cynicism, but I take it all back. Kimigayo is great and the politicians who advocate its inclusion in school events - and the compulsory standing of all present during its playing - are benevolent, wonderful people whose insight and wisdom we can all learn from.

In which I bitch about TV commentators being shit

Which is rather like complaining that water is wet, I know. But Christ on a bike, did you see the Olympics’ closing ceremony on NHK? Just fucking useless. Take a fucking bow.

Faster, Higher, Stronger

It’s a sad time in any man’s life when he realizes he’ll never represent his country at his chosen sport. Or any sport for that matter. However inept he might be, I think that every man likes to think that if he gave up everything and dedicated himself totally to a single goal for four years, he’d be able to get to the Olympics. However, I’m of an age now with some of the more ‘experienced’ athletes in London, which means that making it to Rio would be really pushing it.

Bring me my Arrows of desire

This clip. Have a look. It comprises an impressively large number of things I can’t fucking stand. The petty middle-class jingoism we English do so very well. Hyper-idealized cod-religious guff about a place that never has and never will exist. Smug, self congratulatory pride in an idea which is well past its prime, if you can count centuries of subjugation and conquest as ‘prime’. Small minded, Little Englander parochialism played out in the faded grandeur of an empire which was obtained, like all empires, through the murder and exploitation of millions.

The Opium War

Julia Lovell, 2011
(June 2012)

More imperial (mis)adventure. Her Majesty’s Government as military-industrial drug pushers. Obviously this is one of the more morally suspect episodes in the history of the British Empire, and it’s not exactly short of competition in that respect.

Britain's War Machine

David Edgerton, 2011
(April 2012)

The idiosyncrasies of the English education system mean that I’ve not been formally taught History since I was 14 years old. I’ve tried to make up for lost time since then, but I can’t recall that much from school. The Norman Invasion, The Spanish Armada, and The Somme were pretty much it. No WWII, though.

Wider Still and Wider

It’s almost that time of year again. We all have to file into the sports hall, bow, stand, look solemn, bow some more, sit, listen to interminable droning from various random dignitaries, bow again, stand, sit, clap (maybe), bow, stand, sit, stand bow, bow bow, clap (maybe), sing stand (are we still standing? I forget) bow listen bow sit stand clap (maybe) stand bow bow stand bow, bow bow bow bow…

Congratulations kids! You’ve finally graduated High School! Six years of spirit-crushing tedium are almost over, but not yet; we have to celebrate first. With more crushing tedium.

Celebration Japanese style. This is how we do it.

The Importance of Context

I know I’ve harped on about this before, but it really is so essential. The prior experiences you bring to any situation inevitably colour your understanding. And as I’ve also said before, that’s good and necessary. That’s sometimes called learning, and it would be nice if more people did it. It would also be nice if more people realized the limitations of their understanding; that their prior experiences aren’t necessarily shared by other people. Take, for example, this oft-quoted trope I regularly hear from otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people –

“Japan is a small country.”

No. No it fucking isn’t.