voyageur

Bob: Does he want me to, to turn from the right or turn from the left? (Lost in Translation)

I am re-watching Lost in Translation for the first time in a very long time. A very long time. And that is not due to some sort of animosity to the movie. On the contrary: It is a movie that has a lot of meaning for me and I think is brilliant. It not only captures the feeling of culture shock that is inherent to moving between two or more cultures but it also captures the feeling of alienation so well. The Japanese director cries for more intensity and all we do--metaphorically--is act, act out and perform what we know will fill the part. But are we really ourselves?

Joy's comment last week has sparked a lot of thoughts. And I admit that the first time a read it I was hurt, I guess, mostly on a professional level. Comparing myself to a bigwig who doesn't even live in the country whose language he is aiming to perfect was on a very superficial level mean! It also conjured up my worst fears. I am teaching English and literature in Canada on a secondary and post-secondary level. I have build up the reputation at both the college and the university to be a fair but mean ass of a marker. I can mark a page now in about 4 minutes and will still find enough to complain about to turn it bright red. But I cannot make a mistake without loosing my face. At least that is the way it feels like. As soon as I make one, everybody will blame it on my ESL status. I will loose against other people. I will not be able to follow my dream. The wrong move, the wrong advice and it will affect my career choices. The importance of perfection had never been as forcefully clear to me as it has been in the last year.
I have a good friend and teacher who has had more influence on me as I can give her credit for. She is Greek and the most thoughtful and eloquent Canadian critic I know. Another writer and critic has called her editing sagacious. But I also know that living in two languages and working in one on a highly professional level creates a schizophrenic self. I doubt that she has slept more than 6 hours any night in the last 10 years. I also know that in her perfectionism she has given up her private self and private life completely. And I find that part scary.
I am more than painfully aware of every mistake I make. Whenever I am tired a German accent sneaks through more forcefully that I want. Whenever I notice that I run out of words I blush and deflect. Whenever I make a mistake my stomach turns into a knot. I go over all of these situations over and over again. They have become a mantra.
I know that I cannot make mistakes if I want to follow the career path I am on. If academics are prone to have what they call the impostors' syndrome, I am prone to develop a double impostor. The schizophrenia of living and operating in two languages. The role model for every ESL student I have. The critic who knows so much about writing and (Canadian) literature for everyone else. I went to a lecture this week given by a highly acclaimed director with a specialty in Shakespeare. And man, did he pull things off. I had had a thirteen-hour day with seven oral exams before I got to the theatre. And two mojitos [I have to look up how to spell mojiito, I am not sure. I had too much wine]. He used words I have never heard. He also used word that I have heard and wasn't sure what they mean anymore. He was witty, eloquent, and simply brilliant. And I was jealous and painfully aware that I will probably never reach that state of language usage. I was, put boldly, send back to square one and about to give up. I know I am okey at the things I am doing but I am also aware of my limitations one might say.
Lost in Translation eloquently captures for me what it means to live out a hybrid, schizophrenic self. The moments that we overcome alienations (and John is a big part of that), but also the moments that are and ever will be completely lost. I remember watching it for the first time with a wonderful, amazing, dear friend of mine who I think shares many of my feelings. We both did our degrees together; we both went to Victoria together. This amazing academic is pursuing her doctorate on the other side of the world. But we were watching this movie together in a little cinema in Osnabrück on a spring night like this. Both of us were moved because it captured the situation we have chosen to live in. The constant pressure, the constant battle, the gratification and the painful awareness that matching desires to lived reality has lead to choices that create a hybrid self. Lived postcolonialism? Lived hybridity? Bhabha might agree. What do you think Spivak would make out of it?
The movie is almost over and I am slightly drunk. For once I will not spell check this or read over it again. Let those mistake I make stand out. Let them be the scars I have chosen to display (at least for once).

Charlotte: I just don't know what I'm supposed to be.
Bob: You'll figure that out. The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.
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Stills Photographer: Are you drinking, no?
Bob: Am I drinking? As soon as I'm done.

Pictures taken from (http://www.filmweb.no/bilder/multimedia/archive/00096/Scarlett_Johansson_i_96704o.jpg)

Who do you go to ...

Imagine a cafeteria during dinner time. The air is stale with the smell of windex and Cantonese chicken. The lined-up, battered blue plastic trays shuffle in rows of two towards the culinary rabbithole. Plates clink, metal rubs against metal, and the whitenoise blends today's gossip and news into a succulent chatter. I balance exams, lecture notes, laptop stalking through the rows of bags, upside down chairs, food scraps. I am on a mission.

Track down, brief, duck, get out. After eleven hours, escape is all I can think. But when do wishes turn into reality? It is confession time.

Feet shuffle, and the dreaded Aarrgh ... could I talk to you for a second sounds next to me. Juggling my coffee mug on top of the pile of laptop and paper, I come to an unexpected halt. The blushing teenage boy is umphing his way through the next part as I peak around the corner behind which he is hiding. At least I think it is a blush. Could you take a look at this, clutching his arms tightly to his body. I don't get it, not even after a hastily added What can I do about this? And then I spot them: large brownish patches on milk-fed English teenage shoolboy skin. They unevenly crown hands, forearms, neck and one leg. A face scrubbed red hides more. I give him the everything is swell grin and try not to giggle while I ask the dreaded but somewhat inevitable question: Eh what? Blushing, more shuffling, awkward pause. Who do straight teenage boys confide in when they've accidentally used tanning lotion instead of moisterizer? Accidental use--probably, but not without a grain of doubt. Well, I say, you will have to wait until it wears off. Don't try bleach. I shake my head in wonderous amazement and leave.

The Rites of Sping: The Full College Experience

6:17 am and I am stalking through ankle-high mud. It is not pitchblack anymore, but the wee hours are grey and I can barely see the hand in front of my eyes. Hobbeling along through the British Columbia wilderness, the procession of mummified pilgrims reminds the onlooker of a romantic painting. The mist that has crawled up from the valley seizes the banks of the high trail meandering towards the beach. One more corner and the ruins of a temple will rise through the mossy hills.

But this architectural fantasy of ruined arches and pillars will not turn up. This is the full college experience. But it is as grotesque as any gothic fantasy. Two-hundred droopy-eyed students and twenty yawning facult members in an attempt to make this year more memorable are hiking down to the beach to celebrate the first day of spring. Never mind that this celebration is a fairly Western notion. Why not Persian? After all, we are a multicultural campus.

to be continued tomorrow ..

Canada is the greatest nation in this country ( Former Toronto mayor Allan Lamport )

I am off to Ottawa on Monday ...