Bolong (NaPoWriMo #2)

The tofu man’s cart rattles along dimly lit roads,
Calling out to those in want of warm ginger soup.
He clatters a bell piercing through the song of crickets and toads.
In the shadows, a young lady emerges around the loop.
She smiles as he ladles a generous serving into a bowl,
And hands cupping the dish, lets the steam rise up into her face.
It might rain; there is a sound of plopping liquid as she gives it a taste.
Dropping a coin in his palm she hurries away, and to his horror he sees his soup trailing behind,
Through her back from a big gaping hole.

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For a poem based on exotic mythology, I was inspired by a trickster spirit my mother told me about, in the form of a woman with a hole in her back. Bolong means hole in Indonesian, and I suppose it would be a fun (but scary for the victim obviously) prank to play on anything requiring the digestive passageway. I am behind on 30 poems for NaPoWriMo with 10 left to go, but congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge today! I will continue writing the prompts – there is lots of inspiration just not enough time – and hopefully this is not a total faux-pas.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Copenhagen: A Summer Exchange

Copyright thebookybunhead 2012

From the moment I stepped out of the airport, I knew that my second time in Europe as a professional ballet exchange student would be no less than wonderful. Everyone was very welcoming and even Copenhagen itself seemed to greet me with its warm colours and lively streets. The next two weeks would be spent dancing with the Royal Danish Ballet and exploring the sights and sounds of the city!

We had ballet classes in the morning, one with students of the school, and one with professional dancers of the company. It was nice to have the variety of levels and intensity every day, as well as to meet many great people. We also took some other classes such as repertoire and Pilates, with Bournonville being particularly fun as a trademark Danish style with its charming expression and agile steps. It was an inspiring and exciting experience to take company class and I admit it made me feel impatient that apprenticeship starts a year earlier there!

We watched company rehearsals, and though it was too early in the season to see a performance, we got a tour of the beautiful, golden, traditional theatre and saw excerpts of ballet pieces in an annual outdoor show that promoted the Det Kongelige Teatre. It became chilly after sunset, yet the audience of thousands stayed sitting on the grass wrapped in blankets until a standing ovation at the end of the night; it was a kind of cultural appreciation I was quite impressed with.

Throughout the afternoons walking the streets of Copenhagen, we discovered many parks, observatory towers, and pretty buildings, and realized it was impossible to walk a few minutes without snapping pictures of a cool fountain or statue. I had the chance to ride in a canal tour, go to two of the oldest amusement parks in Europe, look at art (including a Degas exhibition) in a couple of the many museums that offer free access, and just enjoy the street and night life.

I once read that Denmark was named the happiest country in the world, and I can say I easily believe it with the relaxed, “go-with-the-flow” atmosphere I felt during my stay. Everyone I met was so nice that I often forgot I was a foreigner, at least until Danish was spoken, which I found out has absolutely no resemblance to English. I was sad to leave but was looking forward to bring back everything I had learned to grow more as a dancer and a person in my final year at NBS! Between the ballet and the excursions with friends, I had a grand time in Copenhagen and hope to visit again someday.

So, this is part of why my summer was packed to write as much as I wanted. The first month of gr.12 has been so busy but I’m really hoping to get this blog up and active again.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Shakespeare Quote: Short Response

Credit and link at end of article.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, ‘twere all alike

As if we had them not.

This quote states a purpose of man’s life through a religious metaphor and explains the importance of sharing the ‘light’ with others instead of keeping it to oneself. Just as a torch’s purpose is to shed light on other objects, humans are called to be God’s instruments to spread goodness around the world. It is important to not limit one’s virtues to thoughts and ideas, but to show them in one’s actions in life. To continue with the theme of light, having a match in a dark cave and leaving it unlit would produce the same result of not having a potential light source at all. A person with virtues left unshared might as well be a person with no virtues at all.

Republished from English class 2012. Photo courtesy of J. Devaun.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Jack Diamond: A Brief Biography of a Canadian Artist

Source of photograph: utccanada.ca

Canadian Jack Diamond is an internationally acclaimed architect known for his simple and artistic designs. He was born November 1932 in South Africa and immigrated to Canada in 1964. He studied at various universities and received several degrees: Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Cape Town in 1956; Master of Arts degree in politics, economy, and philosophy from Oxford in 1958; and Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962. He founded his own company now Diamond and Schmitt Architects in 1975.

From then on he has created many structures around the world including the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton; the Jerusalem City Hall in Israel; the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto; the Harman Centre for the Arts in Washington, D.C.; and the Southbrook Vineyards Winery in Niagara Falls. His works in progress include an addition to the famous Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg Russia (now completed). He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1995 and given the Order of Ontario two years later.

Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, Canada
Source: dsai.ca/projects/four-seasons-centre-for-the-performing-arts-canadian-opera-company

Jack Diamond believes in creating buildings that are not for flashy display; but that are useful for the people using them. He thinks not only appearance, but functionality. “We were just interviewing for a project at a university in the United States,” he said. “The president asked us, ‘Have you ever designed a building that causes a car crash? Because I’m looking for an architect who’s going to design a building that causes a car crash.’ There’s a kind of group who is looking for a building that will snap your head, literally grabbing attention. But does it have any deeper ability to contribute to the life of the university, to the life of the faculty, to the experience of students, to its connection to the grain of the community? Do any of those matter at all? Diamond + Schmitt does not do car crash.” Whether people agree to his designs or not, there is no doubt that Jack Diamond is a master of his art form.

New Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia
Source: dsai.ca/projects/new-mariinsky-theatre-russia

Republished from a Geography research assignment in 2010. Being a dancer, I chose to display two performing arts theatres, but Mr. Diamond does a very wide range of work.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Sahtu Dene: Canadian Aboriginals and Uranium Radiation

Interview: The Dene People

Q: I am joined today by a member of the Sahtu Dene tribe from the community of Deline in the Northwest Territories. First of all, thank you for coming. What can you tell us about your community and the meaning of your names?

A: The Dene is an aboriginal group living in the northern boreal and arctic regions of Canada. Dene is the common Athabaskan word for people and Sahtu is our name for Great Bear Lake, the fifth largest freshwater lake in Canada and ninth in the world. Deline is located 300 miles from Yellowknife with a population of 800 and means “where the river flows”.

Q: Deline was featured in the film Village of Widows after discovering the devastating effects of radiation poisoning from uranium mines. But let’s start from the beginning, when and where did mining start?

A: Port Radium was owned originally by Eldorado and secretly became a government-owned mine in 1942. The men started work in 1932, mostly working as labourers and carriers for the unrefined pitchblende ore. From 1934 to 1939 we mined radium and between 1943 and 1962, uranium. It was seen as an exciting job opportunity and everyone was eager to participate.

Q: The Canadian government didn’t tell you of the dangers and effects of the substances?

A: Not at all. As far as we were concerned, the stuff was gold; it was worth a lot of money. I remember some of the young men joining training programs where they suffered radon gas exposure and cleaned up toxic hotspots without any protection from masks or even shower facilities. We did not know about the ore being health hazardous until 1945 when the government finally warned us about health and people started becoming sick.

Q: However, from what I understand, not only workers were affected by the effects. How did the radioactive ore spread through the community?

A: Like I said, we knew nothing about the dangers of the ore mined from Port Radium; before the mine, there was no industrial presence in our area. The men carried around sacks of the ore and tailings so it got into their clothes, into their skin. At one point we sewed some of the sacks to make tents and we also filled sandboxes from the fine sand-like tailings. Radioactivity went into the animals, our food source, our lake, and drinking water. The substance surrounded us and became a part of our lives, so unfortunately really everyone was affected.

Q: The toxic substance must have a huge impact on the environment and land as well; how much of it is in your land and how has it affected your people?

A: Waste landfills and lake dumps are everywhere. The tailings were dumped around the site and over 1.7 million tons of uranium waste was dumped north of Great Bear Lake. Our land, animals, and people have now been living with radioactivity for over 70 years. The first death of a radium mine happened in 1953, and an ore transporter in 1960. Since then there has been many deaths from poisoning, cancer, and other sicknesses. There are many single mothers now in Deline, and the generation of young men in this village is the first to grow up without knowledge passed on from their grandfathers, fathers, and uncles.

Q: In addition to hiding the health dangers of the ore, is it true that the government did not tell you what the uranium was to be used for?

A: Yes, we had no idea that the uranium we were mining and transporting was to be used in the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb. When we realized our work was used for objects of mass murder, we were horrified. Hearing about the absolute destruction dropped onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki made us want to take back all our work and despise our sacrifices even more. Had we known that the ore was making bombs, we would have never worked produced it. Until this day, we feel regret for contributing to that disaster.

Q: You must have felt outraged that the government neglected your health and denied you the information that would’ve saved many lives. The Dene people were unjustly used for labour; what actions were taken after your meeting with Parliament in Ottawa in 1999?

A: Well let me just say that white miners were as uninformed and abused as we were. We realized that the government did not care for any of us, so we went to Ottawa to ask for major cleanup of our community and an apology for the cultural, economic, spiritual, and emotional damage that they have caused us. It was a small victory for us to even get a formal meeting with the leaders of our country. They didn’t grant us our wish at the time, but we raised significant awareness and were closer to getting the improvements we wanted.

Q: I know that your tribe visited Japan and attended the memorial of August 6, 1945 as a way to pay respect and restore inner peace with the Japanese people. Why did you feel the need to go and what was it like to visit Japan?

A: We felt it was our duty to offer them our condolence, and it was necessary for our inner peace to apologize and make amends with the people whom we hurt. It was a very emotional trip; we cried when we saw footage of the explosions and the suffering that we caused. We lit lanterns and talked to many people; by the end we knew we made the right decision to come – it was a releasing and gratifying experience.

Q: What accomplishments have taken place at Deline now, and what are the Sahtu Dene’s visions for the future?

A: In 2007 we succeeded in negotiating with the government and earned a contract of 6.8 million dollars to help clean up the wastes. There is still a lot to be done to get rid of the radioactivity in Deline, and we will continue to fight for our rights as people. We are still trying to understand how something so bad could come from our Mother Nature; we celebrate the world we live in and pray for a better future.

Q: Thank you so much for your time; this has been such an eye-opening conversation. We wish you all the best!

Republished from 2010 Geography class. It is a hypothetical interview inspired by viewing 1999 documentary Village of Widows by Peter Blow.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

A single bazaar booth

Much bigger and sunnier than what I’ve written.
Source: http://pinterest.com/pin/481111172662500062/

In the dampened smell of barbecue leaking
out the Chinese restaurant door
The little woman sits in a booth under
four oversized umbrellas
Gathering mannequin hangers as mother asks,
“How much for this shirt?”

“Usually 20, but I’m closing now, so have it for 10.”
She speaks Mandarin.
Mom nods for the purchase as the roar of clouds echoes down the street
The lady folds the elegant beaded garment, smiles, hands us a plastic bag

We say thanks and turn around
Rain pours down.

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Life is hard, I realize that regardless of our evolution into society, it will always be a survival of the fittest. We work to live and we live to work, but we musn’t forget to be generous and kind to each other because those moments are what we remember through time.

Happy birthday to my mother who never turns a year older!

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

World Heritage Sites: Nature and Culture Conservation Unite

Courtesy of famouswonders.com

MACHU PICCHU: A UNESCO World Heritage Site

A world heritage site is a place in any country of physical or cultural significance that is protected from major industrial changes. A list of world heritage sites is created and monitored by the World Heritage Programme and the UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization) World Heritage Committee, which is composed of 21 state parties. The program was officially founded on November 16, 1972, with several organizations contributing to its ideas and campaign. By 2010, 911 sites have been listed, with about 700 cultural and 180 natural. Sites such as the pyramids in Egypt, old cathedrals, and the Great Barrier Reef are recognized as treasures to the whole world and humanity, and so are preserved so that everyone can enjoy them.

Machu Picchu is a creation of the Inca Empire before the Spanish Conquest in the 15^th century. It is often called “The Lost City of the Incas” and is believed to have been built for the emperor Pachacuti. It stands 2,340 m above sea level and is located in the Urabamba Valley in Peru. It is made with polished dry-stone walls, in the classical Inca style, with three primary buildings: the Intihuatana, the Room of the Three Windows, and the Temple of the Sun.

Its giant walls, terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments. [1] The natural setting, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, encompasses the upper Amazon basin with its rich diversity of flora and fauna. [1]

The estate was started around AD 1400 but abandoned a century later at the time of Spanish colonization. Although known locally, it was brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. [2] In 1981, Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary and in 1983, a World Heritage Site. In November 2010, Peru and Yale University reached an agreement in which all artifacts held in Yale from Bingham’s collection in the 20^th century were returned to a Peruvian university.

Works Cited:
1. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/274
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu

Published from Geography class 2010.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Balzac and The Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie: Book Review

Two boys are sent to rural China to be reeducated during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. There they discover a suitcase of banned foreign books and befriend the beautiful daughter of the local tailor. That’s it in a nutshell. A charming novel that is easy to read but may be too short and simple to hold much weight in time.

The story reminds me of a folk tale with a fair amount of whimsy in the narrator’s voice and the setting of the countryside and mountains that creates some beautiful imagery. At some points, the poetic language can begin to sound like a fairy tale, but that is often cut short by bits of history and realism in the cruelty of the authorities against intellectuals and the dire conditions the boys must endure to return home. It is also worth noting here that the book contains some graphic scenes in violence and romance that can cause offense or stomach queasiness.

An aspect of this story that has me on the fence is the characters. Our main heroes and heroine, to me, are the typical ‘kind but somewhat misunderstood’ good guys. They are not completely bland but not captivating in a “I LOVE Harry and Ron and Hermione and I want to be their friends!” kind of way. The supporting cast contains an old hermit and a by-the-book friend with glasses who evoke stronger feelings in the reader towards them than the main characters. The overall mildness of the characters, however, does create ordinary voices that we can relate to and make it hard to label a villain, which is true in real life. Still, I think I would’ve liked a little more depth to the characters so I can remember their individual qualities months after reading about their adventure.

The adventure itself, is quite unique and fun. It is a coming of age story, and also one that celebrates culture, specifically literature and music. The discovery of banned books and folk songs changed these characters’ lives and makes me grateful for the range of resources from all over the world we have access to today, especially now thanks to the internet. Although history is not my favourite subject, I think it is important to understand our past because it shapes our perceptions on life and our roles in society. In the end, that’s what this book is about.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a relatively quick-paced and enjoyable read, if you like the premise. As I’ve mentioned before, there is an ordinariness to the plot that portrays life as it is without the melodrama, which some like and others don’t. It’s a nice little book and I would recommend it – I recently discovered that they made a movie from it, which may be interesting to look at – but if you asked me if this is one I would read over and over again, honestly, probably not. Except maybe the ending. I won’t give it away, but yeah, the ending is pretty great.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Around the World in 8 seconds (NaPoWriMo #28)

Art by Bill Zindel

Today I met people from
San Francisco
England
Germany
New York City
Spain
New Zealand
Cuba
Australia
In one room.
Talking.
Dancing a universal language.
Traveling more of the world through smiles
Traded internationally in the hallways.

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I had school on Sunday, and it was great. Sounds crazy, but it really isn’t. Today was the first day of a big dance festival with professional ballet academies from around the world. It is all SO exciting, I can’t believe it’s here, and I promise myself I will enjoy this week to the max.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead

Funny with a pinch of truth

After returning from a farmer’s market, my mother started telling us about a family obstacle course event that was being promoted there. It was a fundraiser to help kids suffering with addiction. The listeners nodded their heads, but most eagerly did the littlest sister, who with eyes bright with understanding said, “Ohhh, like to video games and computers right?”

I want my childhood back. And yet there’s something so true and foreboding in that innocent remark. It’s a good family car moment I want to remember.

Thanks for reading,
thebookybunhead