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Friday, September 17, 2010

Pomo Kopi



This is a simple nasi lemak, with the nasi (rice), sambal (chili paste), ikan bilis (fried small fish), and a small slice of thin omelette. The otak otak (fish cake) was extra. This particular nasi lemak was served on a banana leaf, and purchased from Kopi O, one of a number of new second (or third) wave Kopitiams.

Kopitiams (literally "coffee shop" in Malaysian/Singaporean Hokkien) are small self-seating eateries that serve a traditionally very limited menu (coffee, tea and Milo with various combinations of condensed milk or sugar, kaya toast, soft boiled eggs, and some cooked food items like nasi lemak).

The first wave of kopitiams were independently owned, non-airconditioned shopfronts that were ubiquitous in the commercial streets of the Singaporean "heartlands" (any place outside the Central Business District or CBD). Generally, the kopitiam was frequented by locals, and developed a reputation based on the quality of its coffee, and its kaya toast (it really takes a tour of kopitiams to realize how many variables must go into making a good version of the "simple" dish of kaya toast, which is basically kaya - a pandan flavored egg curd - with a pat of butter between two slices of toast).

This current wave (more on whether it's third or second wave later) of kopitiams are often set up by owners of particularly successful versions of the original kopitiams, retaining the names, limited menu, and, usually, the kaya recipe and probably coffee roasting technique, of the first instantiation, as well as the generally low prices (around $1 for kopi, and $1.50 for kaya toast) but in chain form. These new kopitiams have appeared in air-conditioned malls all over Singapore, and are fast approaching (and perhaps in Singapore have surpassed) the blanket coverage of foreign coffee chains like Starbucks. In addition to changed locations, generally the furniture is different (wooden or metal chairs instead of plastic) and the menu is printed up on pearlescent paper or a wooden board rather than on A4 laminated paper or a backlit plastic board.

The new wave of kopitiams offer a slice of "heartland" life for nostalgic second- and third- generation Singaporeans and PRs (children who were born well after Singaporean independence), and their indulgent parents, who might well be just as comfortable in the non air-conditioned versions with plastic chairs, but are happy to tag along to the cooler - literally and metaphorically - mall, and have a familiar kopi while their kids ask them questions about what's so special about Malaysian/Singaporean coffee that gives it that unique taste (turns out they roast the beans with sugar and wheat or corn).

As for whether these are second or third wave, it's arguable that the foreign cafes (e.g., Starbucks, Coffee Bean) were a "second wave" of coffee shops, though there is only a vague resemblance to the menu of the traditional kopitiam (espresso instead of coffee, no local hot foods, an abundance of pastries), and the prices would scandalize ($5 for a latte? $3 for a biscotti?!) first generationers.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Ecology as ideology

It's really the implicit premise of ecology that the existing world is the best possible world, in the sense of it's a balanced world that is disturbed through human hubris. So why do I find this problematic? Because I think that this notion of nature - nature as a harmonious, organic, balanced, reproducing almost living organism which is then disturbed, perturbed, derailed through human hubris, technological exploitation and so on is, I think, a secular version of the religious story of the Fall. And the answer should be not that there is no Fall, that we are part of nature, but on the contrary, that there is no nature. Nature is not a balanced totality which then we humans disturb. Nature is a big series of unimaginable catastrophes.
- Slavoj Zizek in The Examined Life, dir. Astra Taylor

It is difficult to hear this bit of thinking from Zizek and not immediately jump to its refutation (this is not true because...) or a Plan For Action (if this is true, we should do...). However, I think it may be worth taking time to unpack "nature is a big series of unimaginable catastrophes," especially the "unimaginable" and "catastrophes" part.

Unimaginable

Zizek elsewhere has noted that there are two kinds of events that we are incapable of imagining. He borrows some terminology either from Freud or Rumsfeld. I shall inject a third frame/metaphor, that of sight and distance, just because.

There are "unknown unknowns" (Rumsfeld) or "trauma" (Freud) - as I understand it, things that we cannot possibly imagine because they are too far outside our field of vision and are in fact blocked from our vision. It is the nature of the geography of our thought that render them unknowable. They are beyond the horizon.

There are also "unknown knowns" (Rumsfeld) or "the unconscious" (Freud), things that we adhere to or know that we cannot see, that are right in front of our nose, or perhaps even behind our noses. Unlike the unknown unknowns, which are geographically hidden from us, these things are unseeable because of our particular physiology. It is theoretically possible that with a corrective step (a pair of glasses, or therapy) we might be able to see them.

So I think it's worth noting, when Zizek says that the catastrophes of nature (or Nature?) are "unimaginable," he may mean both that they are unforeseeable and/or that they are completely foreseeable, if only we had the right attitude or orientation.

Catastrophes

There is something about the word "catastrophe" which is both terrible and wonderful. It is very much focused on results and not on causes. By which I mean that a "catastrophe" is something huge and possibly irremediable that happens to people, and fundamentally contradicts our values, disrupts our way of life, and ruins our institutions. However, there is nothing in the word "catastrophe" which suggests its source, which is left deliciously ambiguous (unlike say "massive fuck up" or "act of God" or "horrible accident" or "unspeakable evil" - which convey both the scope of an event's effects and define its source).

After all, "nature" is constructed by us, and is not fully outside us. It is fitting that it be a series of "catastrophes" which could be read as coming spontaneously through no fault of our own, or advertable, our responsibility to prevent, or at least prepare to mitigate.


Sunday, September 12, 2010

Coming Out / Inviting In

Jamil and Hassan

I feel inspired after reading this piece by Lebanese Muslim Australian narrative therapist Sekneh Hammoud-Beckett. The piece explores her work with gay Lebanese Muslim "Jamil" and his (str8) brother Hassan. Hammoud-Beckett explores the problem with the model of "coming out" as the normative framework through which gay men are expected to express or experience authenticity in their lived sexual identities. She explores a different framework: "Coming in" or "Inviting in," which is a way that Jamil repositions his experience of sexual identity in order to reconcile with his brother.

As Jamil speaks, as quoted from Hammoud-Beckett's piece, "Even if I don’t tell certain members of my extended family about my sexuality, I don’t view myself as in the closet, in a dark place that I must escape from. Far from it, this ‘closet’ is full of precious things, like things you could never afford to buy! It’s my treasure chest. The way I see it, rather than me needing to move out of the closet, to make my sexuality public to everyone, including my grandparents, instead I get to choose who to open the door to, and who to invite to ‘come in’ to my life."

I LOVE this idea. Of being complete in and of myself, already fully integrated (not visioning my life from a perspective of victimization). This feels especially true in my own exploration of some of my own multiple, 'core' identities; in particular, being gay, Asian, and Buddhist. The normativity of the idea of "coming out" has, over time, lost much of its meaning for me.


Staying In

Perhaps it can be 'inside here' that I choose to remain, where liberation can be found. It's raining outside... I'm not 'closeted' per se, but private... being close to the source of Me and cherishing it as a treasure. Only few will get to see, and only those I invite into my life, this 'treasure chest' of my sacred self. This, of course, does not pertain only to my experience of my homosexuality, even though that may seem, of all the facets of my identity, the most obvious one I would choose to be more calculative about either 'outing' or inviting people in to see...

The pressure here becomes less of my need to 'come out' and encounter stereotypic, pre-set ideas of what it means to be Me in all my myriad forms... whether it be the politically conservative, non-English speaking, "Asian" community, or the sex-crazed, drug-obsessed, limbic-driven "gay" community, or the gender-bashing, hyper-leftwing, anarchistic "queer" community, or the quietist, insular, pacifistic "Buddhist" community, or the privileged, elitist, self-indulgent "uni" community... etc. etc. etc.

There is no "out there" to come out to that can be the most accurate reflection of my selfhood. Indeed, there is no inherently existing self that can "Come Out" anywhere to begin with. That is part of this (urban) myth of coming out as authentic self-expression.

At least as interesting is to "invite people in." Not so much to 'see the true me,' but rather, to co-construct a space in which the interaction of the expedient Self and Other becomes a synthesis of identities in a framework of intimacy, rather than ostentatious publicity. Inviting my non-Buddhist queer friends to see the part of me that experiences my sexuality in stillness, and that imagines their own receptivity beyond defensive, ironic posturings... inviting my straight friends to see the part of me that holds another man's hand, while cherishing the opportunity to imagine their own relational vulnerabilities... inviting my Buddhist friends to understand my ambivalence (at best) toward heteronormative spiritual spaces while seeing that they too, like myself, are doing their best to alleviate one another's sufferings... inviting my American friends to see my life in Australia, while understanding each other in shared vernacular...

In each circumstance, some new part of me is revealed ('outed'), and yet, the very rubric by which I am measuring these encounters is precisely that of an invitation to create something new together, on terms that assume my wholeness to begin with... The house has already been built...

And when you are invited into someone's home, it is not at all appropriate to insult the host.

Intellectual Masturbation

This metaphor:
Of "intellectual masturbation."
As an insult...?

I’d like to work through this metaphor, in a sort of intellectual masturbatory exercise in itself. However, my intent here is not to jerk my brain off to some sort of epiphanic jism, but instead to revel in a more Daoist circulation of intellectual, libidinal energies; A meditative “edging,” a love-making with the holographic delineations of my own consciousness that has not conclusion, decision and execution as its goal, but rather the pleasure of ruminating as alone reason enough for beginning.

Here the ‘conclusion’ is the process of the rub and tug of mental play, ‘decision’ the diversity of pause and periodic punctuation across and in between sentences, and ‘execution’ the beginning of this rumination that has no end. Indeed, on some level, intellectual auto-eroticism (sometimes with a friend or few) without the dogmatic certainties of ego-orgasm (we know well the violent excesses of fanaticism and fundamentalism), may well be the very ‘yes!’ of life. To engage in wistful brain-play, to be constantly challenged, to always have our preconceptions de-stabilised (yet that we are relaxed), to always be stimulated by the fresh (without undergirding our fidelity to our previous lovers), to be tired but not drained, calm and yet enlivened.