Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Kaitakitanga
Back in the UK, my cousin shows me an old news article. "Have you seen this?" I haven't. It's quite interesting.
Triggered by the recent strange events involving 'the Urewera 16' and the armed defenders, the Guardian has published a feature entitled The Maori Resistance. Its a long article, so I'll pull out the bits that leapt out at me:
Though 'much of the very iconography of [NZ's] state is maori', the Waitangi Tribunal is basically overworked and impotent,('it's decisions are non-binding') and the UN is 'unimpressed' with the government's Foreshore and Seabed Act. In the 1960's the NZ government claimed there was no race relations problem at all.
Reading about race relations in my homeland seen through the eyes of a middle class left-leaning Brit is fascinating, like seeing one's own image on closed circuit TV. Familiar, yet bizzare (or zarrebi?). Overall it confirms my conviction that we have a long way to go to harmony in Aotearoa, and it is Pakeha who need to be doing more of the listening and making more of the sacrifices.
This is old news for some, but I've only just found out about the Wellington part to the story. Wellington readers might be interested in seeing the footage of the dawn raid on 128 Abel Smith Street. Terrorism? We fix bikes and read poetry in there. Oh brother.
Triggered by the recent strange events involving 'the Urewera 16' and the armed defenders, the Guardian has published a feature entitled The Maori Resistance. Its a long article, so I'll pull out the bits that leapt out at me:
Though 'much of the very iconography of [NZ's] state is maori', the Waitangi Tribunal is basically overworked and impotent,('it's decisions are non-binding') and the UN is 'unimpressed' with the government's Foreshore and Seabed Act. In the 1960's the NZ government claimed there was no race relations problem at all.
Reading about race relations in my homeland seen through the eyes of a middle class left-leaning Brit is fascinating, like seeing one's own image on closed circuit TV. Familiar, yet bizzare (or zarrebi?). Overall it confirms my conviction that we have a long way to go to harmony in Aotearoa, and it is Pakeha who need to be doing more of the listening and making more of the sacrifices.
This is old news for some, but I've only just found out about the Wellington part to the story. Wellington readers might be interested in seeing the footage of the dawn raid on 128 Abel Smith Street. Terrorism? We fix bikes and read poetry in there. Oh brother.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Hurdling the Language Barrier.
Comfortably back in a country where I can speak (almost) my mother tongue, where visiting the library provides an embarrasment of riches, I reflect a bit on the struggles and joys of learning French in France.
Bravo for the experience of going somewhere where you don't speak the language, and trying to learn from scratch. I'd love to write about this in French, but two months with little writing practice... I'd be here all night!
France, was in some ways an easy place to try my experiment. For one, not many people speak english, and even less like to. Lots of opportunity to practice speaking. Second, there is the abundance of French words (debut, hotel, sautee...) and phrases (de ja vu, haute cuisine, en passant...) that have passed into English. I learned quickly however that there are 'false friends' - 'Chef' for instance means not only the one who cooks, but any sort of boss, a 'crayon' denotes a pencil, and the 'curiosities' of an area can be major attractions.
The huge gulf between spelling and pronunciation also provides a barrier for the cold-start immersion learner. To try to hurdle it, I taught myself a few phonetical symbols to get my head around the French vowels and dipthongs.
Much to the delight of my friends, I could never master the 'r' sound. When I tried to imitate the strange growling gurgle of my teachers, I would usually end up sounding like I was trying to throw up. Some days I practiced the sound, but the motion of pulling my tounge downward inside my mouth caused me to feel nauseous!
Why do I like the language? Well, as popularly observed, there is the sexy, exotic sound to it, but that impression faded the more I learnt (perhaps it was because many of my early sentences were about dumping rotten grapes into a huge trailer). It seems like a powerful language, like Arabic, where one is capable of both the most soothing sounds and equally harsh guttural utterances.
Then there is the great French literature... I aspire to, but may never read Moliere, Apollonaire, Proudhon, Derrida (pictured), Focault, Rosseau... the list could go on and on. But at least I can say I can enjoy and understand the mighty Asterix in the language it was written in. Mais oui! Ah yes.>
It makes sense to me too, to 'miss out' the ends of words as the French do. In conversation, any ambiguous meaning can be sifted through other cues, and so shortening words is no real problem. In print, however, it makes sense to have the full word.
And I'm not sure whether it was just mon amis, the company I was with, but I learned many colourful phrases. To be egotistical is to have 'the melon', presumably for a head. To be really hungry is to have 'les croc', to have fangs, or 'le dalle', a stone block. Curiously, modern urban French slang involves switching the phonemes in certain words, an itbay like igpay atinlay. So 'bizarre' becomes 'zarrebi'.
Can I speak French now? Not really. Could I return to France and use my melange of French, hand signs and the odd stray word of Spanish to make myself understood about day to day matters, even make people laugh with me, not at me, and understand someone who speaks slowly and clearly? Yes. One thing I believe now is that communication depends on patience and creativity much more than simple language profiency. So why learn other languages at all? To be able to say "Ils sont fous ces romains"*, of course.
*These romans are crazy
Bravo for the experience of going somewhere where you don't speak the language, and trying to learn from scratch. I'd love to write about this in French, but two months with little writing practice... I'd be here all night!
France, was in some ways an easy place to try my experiment. For one, not many people speak english, and even less like to. Lots of opportunity to practice speaking. Second, there is the abundance of French words (debut, hotel, sautee...) and phrases (de ja vu, haute cuisine, en passant...) that have passed into English. I learned quickly however that there are 'false friends' - 'Chef' for instance means not only the one who cooks, but any sort of boss, a 'crayon' denotes a pencil, and the 'curiosities' of an area can be major attractions.
The huge gulf between spelling and pronunciation also provides a barrier for the cold-start immersion learner. To try to hurdle it, I taught myself a few phonetical symbols to get my head around the French vowels and dipthongs.
Much to the delight of my friends, I could never master the 'r' sound. When I tried to imitate the strange growling gurgle of my teachers, I would usually end up sounding like I was trying to throw up. Some days I practiced the sound, but the motion of pulling my tounge downward inside my mouth caused me to feel nauseous!
Why do I like the language? Well, as popularly observed, there is the sexy, exotic sound to it, but that impression faded the more I learnt (perhaps it was because many of my early sentences were about dumping rotten grapes into a huge trailer). It seems like a powerful language, like Arabic, where one is capable of both the most soothing sounds and equally harsh guttural utterances.
Then there is the great French literature... I aspire to, but may never read Moliere, Apollonaire, Proudhon, Derrida (pictured), Focault, Rosseau... the list could go on and on. But at least I can say I can enjoy and understand the mighty Asterix in the language it was written in. Mais oui! Ah yes.>
It makes sense to me too, to 'miss out' the ends of words as the French do. In conversation, any ambiguous meaning can be sifted through other cues, and so shortening words is no real problem. In print, however, it makes sense to have the full word.
And I'm not sure whether it was just mon amis, the company I was with, but I learned many colourful phrases. To be egotistical is to have 'the melon', presumably for a head. To be really hungry is to have 'les croc', to have fangs, or 'le dalle', a stone block. Curiously, modern urban French slang involves switching the phonemes in certain words, an itbay like igpay atinlay. So 'bizarre' becomes 'zarrebi'.
Can I speak French now? Not really. Could I return to France and use my melange of French, hand signs and the odd stray word of Spanish to make myself understood about day to day matters, even make people laugh with me, not at me, and understand someone who speaks slowly and clearly? Yes. One thing I believe now is that communication depends on patience and creativity much more than simple language profiency. So why learn other languages at all? To be able to say "Ils sont fous ces romains"*, of course.
*These romans are crazy
Friday, November 2, 2007
Unexpectedly
I did not intend to go to Rouen. I'm glad I did. It is pretty and rich in history.
It has more cathedrals per square inch than anywhere else I have been. The one pictured was the tallest building in the world between 1876 and 1880.
I busk by the ruins of the building where Joan of Arc was executed.
I find a quote on a sculpture
'O Jeanne, sans sepulchre et sans portrait. Toi qui savais que le tombeau des heros est le coeur des vivants' O Joan, without a sepulchre and without a portrait. You know that the tomb of heroes is the heart of the living. - Andre Malraux.
Drunk French youths buy me a chocolatine for breakfast, and give me the nickname 'solamente' (solitary)
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Things I learned in Paris
1) There are three types of trains in France with three types of cycle policy
a) the TGV - the high speed trains, (Train Grand Vitesse). Using them is unavoidable on some routes. The guards may fine you or threaten to throw your bicycle off the train if they find you with such contraband luggage. I ask why this is so. 'French Law' says one. Why though? 'It is forbidden' he repeats. Someone else tells me my bicycle is more dangerous than the massive sacks others are carrying. 'someone could put their leg through it'. Right.
b) the TER run on the provincial services. They love bikes.
c)the CoRails have an ostensible no-bike policy but will let you take bikes, I hear, if you wrap the item up and make it not look like a bike.
I have a vivid memory of sprinting around the Paris St Lazare (pictured, above, by Monet) station wrapping up my bike in salvaged clear polythene (no one would sell me single rubbish bags, only packs of twenty for more money than I possessed, ripping open salvaged hairties to help bind my package, ready for the last train to Rouen. In the end no-one even asked for my ticket.
2) The magnetic strip on your visa card can fail, leaving you with just 25 euros* to get back to the UK. I found nowhere I could get money out with just the card number and the right ID. Internet booking seems promising but it seems you have to swipe your card to pick up the tickets! Luckily....
3) Fellow travellers will lend you 5 euros to help you buy a ticket if they stand in line with you, watching and waiting that you don't run off and spend it on meths.
4) You can't sleep in French train stations. Unlike the hospitable Frankfurt train station, they close from 1am to 5am.
5) It's hard to do touristy things when you are finding out the above.
*1 Euro = 2 NZ$ approx.
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