Learning to act right (42)… building stereotypes from nothing

Torrey Orton

July 21, 2014

 Once more again with feeling…

Repetition is the heart of learning almost anything. Noticing that one is repeating certain experiences is the heart of capturing unconscious learning in motion. Until captured by awareness the unconscious process unfolds with certainty and produces actions assumed to be right automatically…which is what a habit does.

Repeated experiences are based on sufficient uniformity of actions, circumstances and purposes to survive generalising over time. That is, an effective habitual response requires a consistent experience base. The test of an effective habit is it works for me, and maybe others.

 Once more, the Fertility Control Clinic

So, back to the frontline at the Fertility Control Clinic. My colleague T., the regular security guard, with more than a year’s experience 6 days a week at the Clinic, has acquired an unscratchable itch about certain classes of arriving patients. The itch is their perceived resistance to him executing his security role to his standards of adequacy (which independent observers class as high).

The routine is supposed to go like this: for each arrival at the Clinic (an action sequence of about 3-5 minutes duration depending on how far down the street they come into view, repeated at unpredictable intervals about 15-18 times a morning over a 90 minute period) he walks towards them to escort them past the Catholic anti-abortionists and then up the pathway into the Clinic*. At the Clinic front door he unlocks the door and admits them to reception, turns around and leaves, closing the door (and so relocking it again). Patients usually come in pairs – a patient and her partner, family member, friend, etc. – which makes a small crowd at the door.

 Unintended injuries
 

Here’s where the stereotyping begins to be built, and then reinforced and embedded. A proportion of arrivals do not notice T. is getting out keys while walking towards the door and saying, “I’ll open the door”. They may miss his call because their English is weak, because they are apprehensive about being there in the first place, because his English is accented, because they do not know his role though he’s clearly marked as Security, and so on….with the overall consequence that he is unable to effectively, from his viewpoint, play his role correctly – to care for patients until they are safely inside!! This is seriously angering. The people he’s supposed to protect unwittingly make it difficult for him to do so to his standards of service!! A classic unintended injury.

The backwash of this injury to his professional self-regard has hardened into stereotypes, the effect of which is to raise his blood pressure well beyond appropriate levels, while not affecting his presence  and conduct to all patients. When he sees suspect patients (from his developed stereotype viewpoint) on the street horizon he’s already expecting trouble for him which he cannot, so far, prevent because the situational variables reduce everyone’s capacity to respond ‘rationally’. There are few patients, or protestors, arriving at the Clinic who are not in a heightened state of some kind.

 

There is very little room for altering the context to allow new perspectives and awareness to arise. There is no relationship with the patients other than offering a kindly reception, including obstructing their harassers (an emotion priming activity). There is no room (?) for engaging the patients about their potentially, from T’s viewpoint, injurious behaviour towards him because the relationship is too fraught with implicit intent and brevity of exposure. So, the injury is incorrigible, unmitigatable…the very stuff of hardened emotional arteries set in permanent ineffective defence for T. Micro-traumas recurring persistently. Perhaps this kind of pattern is why few Clinic security staff last very long at full exposure.

 

I have raised my perception outlined above w/ T. in various less complete forms over recent months, prompted by his slowly increasing expressions of exasperation with his least favourite types.  This is the beginning of creating a space for reflection and change, I expect.

 

*the over full richness of this sentence somewhat captures the emotion and content density of the experience it describes.

Travel funnies 2014 - China

Torrey Orton

March 20, 2014

 

Travel funnies – where everything is of interest that can be a bit strange, unusual, unexpected…in short, a threat to my normal preconceptions, understandings and values. The shock of the new is often a laugh of surprise, which isn’t what people are talking about when thy say they are just having a laugh. Now, here we go again…overseas that is, to China mainly Shanghai and Beijing quite a lot, with an opening glance at Hong Kong, which really is China but for the lingering effects of years in the fold of the lion.

 

As long as 35 years ago on my first to China I noted some at the time amazing facts of street behaviour between vehicles, mostly bicycles, and pedestrians, as well as between vehicle riders and drivers themselves. In my field notes of those days (10 Oct – 25 Nov, 1979) I remarked at length such things as what follows here, modified but not moderated by the shift from the largely self-powered transport (bicycle) of those days to the dominance of self-driven transport in these days (cars and motor scooters – electric and petrol).

The underlying theme here for me is cultural constants and their consistency under pressure of material change. Cultural resilience shows up even now in simple ways: five days ago one Chinese colleague from 35 years ago pointed out, unprompted by us, that her floor of a three year old apartment tower had six flats on it, numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 as do all the other floors in the 25 story building except for level four which doesn’t exist. Guess why? The number four in Chinese sounds like the word for death, which should never be spoken lightly. Our aversion to 13 is a weak sibling of that four.

“… a Nathan Road cabbie in the way.”

Six days earlier we were on Nathan Road, Hong Kong on a fully peopled Friday arvo with barely a car’s width of passage on our taxi’s route. Another taxi was ensconced in a no stopping zone, the driver standing by his closed door about a meter into the available roadway looking at something in the near distance without the slightest glance our way and just stood there as we passed almost brushing his jacket. Not looking and not flinching are the key facts. This behaviour has been repeated in my view dozens of times in the following week in Shanghai and Beijing. I have never successfully learned it until almost now, though I started 35 years ago and had a two year stint as pedestrian and cyclist in Beijing in the early 80’S, with repeated medium term stays in Shanghai in the mid ‘90’s and early Noughties.

In the last week I have consciously tried to mimic it on street corners and crossings. The learning requires two acts of faith: that I have the right to take any space I choose if I can get to it first, and second that others will respect that right by giving way or altering their approach trajectory not to collide once I’ve made my move. At the corner of Huaihai Lu and Maoming Lu in downtown Shanghai one morning I crossed with the pedestrian light as three cars were waiting to turn into my path (as they legally may when their light is red) and I managed not to look at the nearest driver or to pause in my walk while the driver started his creeping turn, timing it so that I felt the pant leg of my trailing foot brushed slightly by the passing car going through the turn. And, did not feel a rush of fear at that perception!!

This rule system applies to any public passing, not just vehicular, in China. I know the rules and only this trip have noticed their working beauty in the intensely loaded pathways of Beijing and Shanghai. They really work, until they don’t! (the story of which is recorded daily and annually, locally and nationally, in traffic accident reports). But as they are working they make for a driving and walking experience of continuous flow which is essential to progress in a traffic-jammed economy. Unfortunately Beijing and Shanghai are not far away from all day gridlock. The rule for managing that are unclear.

BTW, these rules are not just some fantasy of mine. I have tested them repeatedly with PRC origin Chinese and never had my understanding of them challenged. Interpretations of their application, of course, differ because correct use requires exquisite judgment about (1) one’s ability to take the front position anywhere and (2) the other’s capacity to respect that decision (the stopping distance judgment) or override it with incontrovertible power. The latter effect can be achieved by daring in many circumstances. The balance of power tilts somewhat in pedestrians’ direction because the law favours them over cars: a car smashed pedestrian is presumed to have been in the right. Of course, having been smashed one may not be around to enjoy the presumptive right, so we’re back to judgment. In the process of field=testing my understanding of these rules I’ve gotten spontaneous feedback from others that they apply in other Asian cities, too.

Self-organising (dis) order??

It is not surprising that Westerners have so much trouble in China. We cannot accept that humanity can be run by such rules and to be placed in the full and open command of the rules is radically disempowering. They cannot easily be learned because they are so counter-intuitive. Try driving on the “wrong” side of the road for a sampler of the personal change demands.

The same challenge is also the case for immigrant or tourist Chinese in Australia. They may just step off the curb wherever it strikes them, working automatically from the understanding of their origin which will get them killed here, and /or the object of vilification by Oz locals. Mirroring western amazement at their home town behaviour, they often remark on how rule abiding Melbournians are by contrast with home. We stop at stop lights without police supervision and police presence is remarkably less noticeable than in China.

I used to use an exercise I called Beijing Bus in cultural awareness training for Australians going to work in China or having Chinese colleagues coming to work with them in Australia. It was a usually successful attempt to induce the feeling of oppressive crowding which is typical of Chinese city life. It gave entry to a world where not taking control of your space means someone else will without compunction.

A stray phone… “No one’s in charge here…it’s whacky”

Another version of this story occurs on planes. A few days ago we were enroute to Beijing…a two hour run from Shanghai. While the airline gave extremely clear and careful instructions about turning off all phones completely on take-off and landing, a number of people were close to the wire on take-off and one started up his tool on touchdown well before we’d taxied to the gate. The hostess seated two seats in front of and at eye contact range said nothing. The hostess on our side looked away from the offender as did her colleague. She subsequently was shamed by passengers who jumped up to get first go at the luggage compartments well before taxiing stopped – another major no-no clearly stated by staff beforehand. Her shame was expressed by her head hung down and away from subsequent offenders of her effort to remind the first ones of the airline rules, which they disregarded.

This passenger behaviour has always been my experience on passenger planes in China. It has a historical precursor – the Beijing Bus again – perhaps the original of what is now known in the West as the psychosocial distortion FOMO (fear of missing out). For the Chinese this has been a well-founded fear, not declining with increased wealth. I commiserated a bit more with the hosties dilemma of public disregard as I watched the mostly Chinese masses at Beijing airport wander through outgoing carryon inspection talking on their mobiles at all stages in the process…while surrounded with clear multi-lingual and visual exhortations of some vigour to keep their mobiles buttons!!! Everyone, including endless uniformed agents of state security, acted as if no such exhortations existed (which the folks in homey Melbourne incoming lines polices with persistence in my experience, as do air hosties).

Those in charge don’t take charge. Maybe it’s like the libertarians’ favourite enemy: “taking offense”. A dangerous self-indulgence for others.

30% discount surprise!!

There we were at the end of a 3 hour reunion dinner in the revolving restaurant of the Xi Yuan Hotel in west Beijing with two Chinese couples we had not seen for thirty years. The setting was much of the charm of the event; the food was buffet and workable but not notable. The view actually worked (smog was way down!) and revolutions under us were seriously plodding. Conversation had been wandering in that way that pleasant recollection does when supported by some very deep shared experiences in the past. When I called for the bill, the lead waiter called for our passports and hukou (local residence permits in China) because over 60’s got a 30% discount on meals!! It wasn’t advertised anywhere, but was not a surprise to our friends except that it was applying in an upmarket establishment.

Whose engineers don’t know human dimensions??

 

Once again I have had the not to be repeated (in my imagination) cramped toilet experience of Toulouse four years ago.  There the hotel bathroom design engineers had assumed an average adult height somewhere like 10-15 cm short of my 191. This left me scrunched between the loo lip and the wall, whatever business I was doing. At the Xi Yuan in Beijing I’ve had a near repeat this trip. My knees nearly bang the glassed shower enclosure in this recently renovated hotel. Even I know that Chinese kids of our friends’ children’s generation are massively taller than their parents. The field test for that proposition is a walk in the streets of Beijing.  35 years ago I pretty much towered over everyone else in the street. This is certainly no longer the case. What world are design engineers living in??

Grain pillows, 35 years later

One of the unmentioned treats of our 1979 stay in Beijing was grain pillows… pillows of high grade dried buckwheat with a fine aggregate-like consistency and weight. They provided a reliably firm head rest for sleeping which also worked even for those with down pillow backgrounds, as were many a foreign student’s in those days. Real Chinese beds share this firmness without the aggregate effect – a slight crunchiness to the touch.

Here we were in the Xi Yuan Hotel (at much less per night than city-centre branded hotels require)  and under two duck-down pillow variants on the twin bed hunkered two grain based models of yore. Small reminders of basic needs…

 

 

Learning to act right (37)… A burqa near enough

Torrey Orton

November 23, 2013

I got to learn something the other day at a psych conference in Sydney. As usual, the important learnings often do not come by choice…or, rather, the choice is about whether to learn or not once fate has cast me into teachable moments. This one arose from my habitual preference for the last seats in the room of trainings and presentations. It keeps me out of the frontline of unsolicited audience participation tactics and allows a modest escape if the event is failing enough of my needs!

A woman arrived late and sat three chairs over from me with nothing but a slit for vision. She was even wearing thin dark leather gloves amplifying the fact and prominence of her hands (writing session notes with her gloves on, but shoes off stockinged feet). My whole self tensed with apprehension. I had previewed such a scene in the past as I worked through the challenge of full body veiling to my sense of normal social practice, testing my flexibility for tolerance of a practice which seemed then, and still now, to be inhumane. Travel has often exposed me to variations of the burqa, always at the distance which travel provides even if we are confronted by lack of space and packed aisles.

She was separated from me, and I from her, by another woman who had come along before the session started. The burqa’d voice started me on the path to release from the dogma of my cultural incompetence. It was a real Oz accented, somewhat rough, loud presence (…maybe a smoker’s) asking about fine points of psych research’s implications for families. Slowly my anxiety declined, joints unleashed, breathing lengthened, attention to the event focussed again. Maybe a half hour or so to return to normal, with only that slight fizz of guardedness which attends most of my public behaviour still in play.

Somewhere between that session and the next we resat in a similar configuration but shorter rows and my anxiety continued to abate. So, anxiety about what? Anxiety about not being able to see the whole face of anyone I might talk to. Since then I’ve remembered that men in sunglasses at night present the same opportunity for discomfort. And since then, I’ve remembered that actually I’m a specialist in voice in my work. I can catch a slight movement in tone, pace, rhythm, volume…the kinds which signal movements of evaluation, of appraisal, of all the emotions through which we engage the world. The kinds which give a sense of the being of the person at the moment rather than the mediated being of visual cues like manner of dress.

And so it was with the burqua’d woman. I recognised her voiced expressions of culture, health and interest, among others. I could have addressed them in the dark never having seen how she was dressed – that is, as if I were blind. I can see with my ears, as the blind do. Sometimes my seeing gets in the way of my hearing. This was one of them.

There were other things I learned, but this is the one to write home about rather than letting it slip into the ether of memory. Trust my other senses.

 

 

 

Appreciation (51) – Sail away…a part memorial

Torrey Orton
August 5, 2013

Honouring them…

 I seem assailed by death these days – five more and less close acquaintances cut down in the last month by that fate which advancing age ensures: Adele, Adrian, Alistair, Barry, and John. Their all being within 3 years of my age probably amplifies the impact. Whichever, matters of the end game are more prominent for me and us these days.  After the most recent funeral, Jane wondered if I’d like particular music at my funeral. This was not a matter I’d considered, nor have I since her question.

 

I replied to that effect and corralled the issue of my funeral with a lasso made of my indifference. I won’t be around to enjoy it. But then, I did the same with my 70^th birthday, so maybe there’s a development opportunity in the matter of my recognising me. It just seems a bit clunky to celebrate naturally occurring events. What do I do to deserve any recognition for that?

Adrian

However, at Adrian’s funeral a couple of resoundingly nice things happened in his honour, which are giving me second thoughts, since funerals are for the living of course. One was the series of slide and music presentations which supported contributions from his wife, children, and eldest grandson. These provided well shaped, recognisable chunks of his life, the multi-media offers making the impact deeper.

 

The other was the finale, announced by his eldest grandson and marshalled by son Casey. For each of the 150+ persons present on the day there was a helium filled balloon from a small rainbow of colours, each with a long trailing ribbon. We moved slowly out of the meeting room towards the jetty into the Barwon River, taking 10 minutes to get assembled outside in the steady 20kph breeze blowing in the midday sun. Casey came last, gathering a cluster of a dozen or so mixed balloons tied together by the ribbons wound into a single dreadlock.

 

He urged us all towards the end of the jetty and closed an imagined doorway from the shore with his fullest self. Suddenly he led “three cheers for Adrian” followed by us masses and then said “go” or something sufficiently to that effect that the people at the furthest distance from him began releasing their balloons, the rest of us following until only Casey was left with his. He let his go and by then there was a flurry of tail-waving balloons sailing away to the south, with Casey’s cluster more grandly pursuing them, held somewhat still by it bulk and single tail…looking more and more like a person as it receded into the distance, preceded by the bits of us that belonged to Adrian. That’s an evocation.

Barry

A different one had occurred for me at Barry’s three weeks earlier. His was a traditional (is there any such anymore?) Uniting Church service with similar numbers to Adrian’s (not a competition; a sizing) which reminded me how far I am from such connections, while at the same time reminding me of my Protestant Christian background. It was, of course, the hymns which did that, though mainly by not being church music I knew. The impact was provided by an opera quality and volume female voice in the row behind me – the kind of voice which cannot be denied: right on all musical counts, strangely placed in a pew rather than the choir its quality. The service also reminded me of a part of him I knew about but which was almost never visible in our work 40 years ago or over last 5 years on psychology committees, except as a robust ethical perception of the everyday which shaped the world around him.

Travel funnies 2013 (4)

Torrey Orton

June 24, 2013

“Amber waves of grain…”

I grew up with this line incised in memory through a thousand singings of America the beautiful in primary school I imagine (because I can’t really remember) and finally in an unlikely place and time I saw amber grain waving in central France a few weeks ago!! And I’ve looked at a lot of grain in Australia in the last 40 years!! The waving grain struck me in two different settings: one, upland farmlets in the Parc Mercantour and, two, much larger broad acre plantings along the TGV pathway in Burgundy between Beaune and Lyon. I think the revelation of this obvious experience has escaped me in Oz all these years because the grain growing season is winter when we almost never go to grain growing areas and the grain grown in our neck of Oz is thinner on the ground per hectare than the dense covering of early summer French grain growth. It really did wave and look like waves as it did so…high enough to have peaks and troughs but not to break. There were no green or amber horses to be seen.

Seen, and then again…

We went out for a bite on our first night in Montpellier to a central city area called La Comedie after the opera house which heads up one end of the Place which is the main public open space of the central city, fed by a tram line populated with recognisable versions of our imported trams in Melbourne, save for the better paint work, cleanliness (nil tagging) and overall state of repair of their French originals. As we wandered around a bit before settling for a beer and a bite we were passed by a guy of 50ish talking somewhat impressively to himself in those exclamatory bursts which suggest a thrashing of insight is assailing him but felt like it was assaulting us. This is not too unusual in cities these days, and judging from some 15^th century Dutch paintings we saw in a museum on the Place a couple of days later, may have been typical of any level of close human habitation over at most times in human history.

A day later we were back for a shopping tour of the Pentagon – a wholly inappropriate modernity attached to the Place – and there he was again. At hearing/seeing him I thought: some people’s lives are to keep reappearing as a bad dream in the lives of others, invasively demanding attention they need but can’t get, yet we cannot just tell the dream to go away.

“man section”…

..it said on the right hand front side of a wooden drawer whose left front side said “pen knives”. The whole sat under a glassed in display of various products of knives used correctly. I was attracted to the weird usage with its implication of something hairy beyond the handle. Turned out to be an offering of hunting knives around the size of the one I carry in my walking backpack thanks to a long ago gift from a Chinese friend who noticed during our living in china 30 years ago that I always carried a Swiss Army knife complex enough to live off the land with if necessary.

Of course, the “man section” in question was in the local handicrafts section of the Buda Pest public market, a mid-19^th century iron and brick barn of railway station proportions, light and airiness so my expectations were roused in that blank but irresistible way that a sudden touch of hominess (the man section in this case) came into view. Foreign places produce in me a disposition to search, to find the familiar in the foreign while thinking I’m looking for the foreign.

The Antigone…a star of failed grandiosity

Finally, two last takes on the grandiosity theme. One, the Antigone in Montpellier is a roughly 70’s production leading off from the above Place and competing with it for grandeur but failing miserably, so much so that the cafes which line parts of its 1.5 kilometre of fading 5 story mixed use living and business buildings are barely making it and the infrastructure is

scruffy and needing renewal it may never get. The thing never worked and so is grandiose??

Two, in reflecting during lunch (which was quite presentable, as usual) in one of said cafes it occurred to me that this business of judging grandeur, greatness and grandiosity is very much a matter of taste, which in turn is very much a matter of those two enduring sources of human potential – gifts of birth and the inherited social standards which accompany them, often enough incongruously. Similar observations can be made about ethical as aesthetic matters.

Travel funnies 2013 (3)
Torrey Orton
June 15, 2013

 

There’s always more bits… ‘You will be remembered…’


Ambling down a street in the old city part of Gap, France, a spot literally in a gap between two 2000 metre plateaus on the edge of the Parc des Ecrins to the east and the Vannoise to the west, I noticed a delivery truck pull into a two-car (two little European city cars, that is) space carved into the pathway of what was otherwise a one-way one lane road between 18^th century buildings.

 

No big deal, until I noticed that the 1.2 metre high pole next to the space had turned green at the top and a countdown had started from 15:00 on a visual display about 10 cm down the pole. So, I thought, this is what Melbourne City Council is threatening us with their ‘you will be remembered from the moment you park your car’ in the streets of Carlton, East Melbourne and so on. That is, they can tell when you arrived. However the Gap treatment was even more sophisticated because the broadcast timekeeper is visible from 200 metres away down the road to the next cross street so the touring forces of parking order can detect an overstay in a flash (and I bet the touring forces can do the entire inner city circuit of such short term stopspots in about 15 minutes guaranteeing the best rate of return for investment on two counts: more money and better access to short term parking for those needing it).

A clear social boundary drawn?

Watching the passing human parade is always interesting, especially when it is not too dense so that the manner of an individual’s or small group’s (couple, family , friends) passing can be observed clearly while also un-intrusively. Again in Gap, France, we were having our street café lunch (great fresh salads by the way) before entraining for Besancon via Grenoble and Lyon. I noticed a single woman encountering two other women, one of whom she knew well (broad smile and gestures from a reasonable distance before their paths actually crossed). The acquainted two did the three kisses greeting characteristic of French signs of greater (and, implicitly, lesser) expressions of intimacy. The accompanying, unacquainted, one was excluded, de facto, from the greater intimacy of three kisses and the lesser intimacy of two or even one. She got none, and when, almost as an afterthought, was introduced to the solo woman neither offered a hand nor was offered one in hello.

 

They were too far away for me to see if there was any non-verbal expression of rejection which constituted the determination of intimacy distance as total, apart from the fact that they were facing each other. And an implicit rejection was recognised by neither offering any acknowledgment of the traditional types to each other.

We do not have a word in English for someone whose role is to be excluded without being acknowledged by the players or observers in a specific social event at this level of simplicity and brevity. I don’t know whether French does or not. The fact was quite visible but difficult to describe because a number of relationship factors have to be captured without the relationship indictors to place all the actors.

 

I realised after writing this that I was attuned to such matters by the hostess of our Mercantour stay who insisted on two kisses on both meeting us for the first time and on our departure. For me this was inappropriate for two reasons. One, she isn’t French, and two I’m not inclined to kiss anyone I do not know, male or female, French or other, on first hellos anyway.  Probably something about the remaining edges of my Anglo upbringing where no one kissed anyone, in public anyway …?

 

Hotel de Police

Later the same day we were on the train again towards the north from Grenoble and closing on Lyon for a transfer to the TGV for the last step of our day’s travel. I like to keep loose count of the inactive business facilities visible from passing through the rail yards of cities. The industrial histories of the last couple hundred years are often to be read in their architectures and utilisation rates. One kind of utilisation is incarceration, often signalled by multiple levels and styles of razor wiring of the tops of walls, confirmed by lighting towers and guard posts in case the real use seems open to interpretation. Other semi-secure facilities make a pretence of looking like this but there’s always gaps in their razor wires.

I noted the real use before I read the title over the somewhat elaborate gate: “Hotel de Police” in large lettering. This confirmation was a bit much for my linguistic capacities again. I went for the implicit joke until Jane reminded me that ‘hotel’ in French has a seriously more diversified history than our adapted version of the same term, as in Hotel de Ville for a major local government establishment – certainly not an English usage but very French. Have a look at the Hotel de Ville in Paris for a reminder.

Still, the Lyon prison Hotel de Police! It looked in quite functioning shape, and had been for a century or so.

 

 

 

Travel funnies 2012 (5) – Cat City, Jetonsmatik and such…

Travel funnies 2012 (5) –
Cat City, Jetonsmatik and such…
Torrey Orton
Aug.1, 2012

 
One thing of note – Istanbul is cat city

 
Just outside our hotel – the slightly overstated Ottoman Imperial at the side wall of the Hagia Sophia mosque/church – a squad of local cats of various ages from 4 months to indeterminate, but nothing looking over 5 years, hangs out. They are not alone in feeling they own the place, have no fear of humans or anything else and no obvious reason to. Their only possible natural enemy, us, are at worst indifferent and best vigorously supportive, running feeding campaigns on the mosque enclosure wall tops or from concerned local eateries around town. There's only been three dogs in sight and they were moving on thru the square between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia at a moderate pace. Cats, on the other hand, snooze pretty much anywhere including a stool almost obstructing the passage of mosque visitors ambling into the Blue Mosque yesterday. And given a small chance they'll schmooze up to passers-by, when awake and feeling needy, with normal head-butting moves. Cat heaven or haven?


Background note: my understanding is that dogs are conceived as impure in Islam, hence the cat heaven milieu in Istanbul, perhaps! Google says: there's a history of cats in Istanbul. Even Obama scratched one on the Hagia Sophia pathways a year ago. That I would discourage, but then I'm probably an emerging animal disease vector kook…And, on the other hand, cats have a more promising history in Islam. Google "Aya Sophia Cats" for a sample of who we saw daily, including the mosque enclosure feeding grounds. We saw at least three dead ringers for members of our historical cat menagerie. Now that's genetic constancy for ya.


Jetonsmatik
There's a quite well done tram network which joins the tourist centre of town with neighbouring touristy areas. It looks a bit French, an impression amplified yesterday on the other touristy side of the water (the Golden Horn) as we were gearing up for a return from an arvo at a Sufi "Whirling Dervishes" event. There in the access path to the tram stop was a large cabinet boldly labelled Jetonsmatik, which clanged my French bell with authority. A jeton is a token. So, our hosts have a token-mediated payment system, as did NYC for years in its massively less salubrious subway system
.
However, as you've been expecting, there's a hitch. The jeton cost is Turkish Lira 2 for a ride to anywhere on the line. TL come in 1 and 2 TL denominations. But, the TL2 jeton can only be bought with TL1 coins. As I was trying to follow the obvious path of using my TL2 coins unsuccessfully a guy came along and said clearly "Nyet" when I held it up helplessly. Thank gods for other foreigners. They often have an intuitive understanding of gaps locals can never perceive.


"620 kgs gods"
A nice language twist. The Danes are just a few breaths away from English in many ways, and here's one. Looking at the guidelines for usage on the door of our hotel lift in Copenhagen I noted daily the limit of 8 persons but not the alternative 620kgs gods limit until the last day of 5. I'm still wondering about the weight of gods given the known weight of a soul (21 grams isn't it?). Or, how many gods does it take to make a good? Or goods to make a god? Eight guys or girls my size would sink the thing, being neither gods nor goods.
Stop it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More travel funnies…

More travel funnies…
Torrey Orton
May 11, 2011


We're off to my 50^th boarding school reunion, a family reunion and a France reunion for a month, with various interludes and postludes along the way. I start with preludes.

 "No record of reservation…"
Travel funnies started before the travel this time with the news by email that our reservation for the reunion had never been received by the Heritage Hotel…a discovery thanks to a query from classmates about the state of our accommodation and such since the school had no record of them (not that they should have since I'd never sent them and no one had asked for them!). I was rabid about the news, driven by the fact I was awake at 3am to receive it and had dopily turned on the email.

I fired off a note of complaint to the school's event manager with my reservation number and date of approval (Feb 10, '11). …. And somewhat later set off for a morning's therapy at 7am by train and tram, whence another unfunny chapter opened unexpectedly, disappointingly and totally unnecessarily.

Back to the trams…where months ago I noticed that I often entertained myself with pre-work exercise in segments marked out by the train/tram route on the way there. There was a theoretical hitch at that time: that I occasionally almost got it wrong - "The almost is the lurking awareness that I could still mess up, or be messed up, by misjudgement plus fate" I noted at the time. Wait or walk, I wondered again this morning.

Well, this time, already angered by the accommodation screw up a few hours earlier, I walked and waited in vain. Arriving at one tram stop, I had five minutes to go to the next scheduled tram and was caught midway by an early arrival passing me by, stopping at the next stop and waiting for two minutes for its schedule to catch up with it, and then moving off just as I caught up with it!! This sequence was repeated two more times as my pre-work walk turned into a 40 minute, 3 kilometre quickstep to the clinic, arriving 12 minutes late. Fortunately, the expected client was s serial lateness offender and bore the wait well (forewarned by SMS of course). Still, I was smoking, but only wisps showed.

 (The accommodation bungle was recovered three days later, or so I was promised by email.)

 LA International Airport…incoming
There's a song which celebrates the West Coast entry to the US. Well, it was an undeserving entry this time. Apart from an eventual 1 hour wait in an incoherent and disorderly queuing system, we got a standing room only wait in the plane on arrival due to congestion in the entry hall. We were told there were a thousand just-arriveds standing in our way. I should have known we were really in for trouble when I sighted a sign saying something like: With our 140 years of customer service we know paying attention to customer needs counts! I read this as a line from the mouth of LA Tourism thinking they really have reached heights of self mockery. A few metres further up the passage I saw the words were an HSBC bank self-promotion, but then…

Joining their last members (maybe 500 folks or so) 15 minutes later, we started our passage in a hall with no toilets other than a pastel sign promising renovations of the previously available offerings were well under way…and this after 13 hours in the air.

The entry hall was itself quite new, with numbered ranks of passport control stations spread in a 150 meter array before us. Trouble was, they were less than half staffed, though they were armed with a terrific set of terrorist detection tools – both iris cameras and handprint capture machines. There was not even a hand-lettered sign telling us which line was for foreigners and which for returning natives, though there was a quite well-designed one for diplomatic and special business travellers, of course.

 LA …outgoing
A day later we got the AA treatment (no, not that AA; the American Airlines AA) on the way to our next stage. The boarding routine was a marvel of self-contradiction which seemed to work. There were stringent carryon bag limits clearly posted around the departure halls with explicit threats that oversized ones would be thrown into the hold (delicately by their experienced staff waiting hopefully below the plane to receive renegade bags from watchful cabin staff).

The warnings were enough to make me slightly antsy about the somewhat oversized backpack I was carrying. No need to worry. Others were carrying material for a beach party. Due to my abiding never-be-late phobia, we had arrived early and due to Jane's possessing a higher grade of Frequent Flyer, we boarded in the first rush scoring empty overheads for the effort. What came next was a scramble by the masses to grab space which was close to the unconscious meaning of unseemly…not quite pushing old ladies out of the way but an outbreak felt imminent.

Coaching from the sidelines was the chief speaker for the cabin staff - running through the outsized bag routine as a request for civil compliance rather than an order. She backed up the civility theme by encouraging the scramblers to "help each other" with the short, weak and maybe old as worthy targets for help (if they couldn't lift their overweight bags, couldn't get them to fit the compartments (quite a few), or just couldn't find space, though passing the weight and size reg's). After 20 minutes wrestling bags, jockeying for position and "helping" the place was cleared for take-off. Lots of bags disappeared under seats in front, to the point of leaving little foot space, but then whose fault was that.

Was I seeing another instance of a self-regulating system at work?? The last I remember was the response to the US Airways flight #5149 which crashed without loss of anything material but itself in the Hudson River in January '09 (just where we were heading!). Cameras monitoring the area of the crash (by chance) caught ferries and other boats turning to save passengers before formal rescue could have been organised. Local players had chosen to disregard their SOP's, city, state and federal regulations with probable risk to their licenses and captain's bars to do the obviously right thing. Perhaps an example of "giving forward", as my niece described an effort of hers to make a difference in some family matter. More another time.


Fly well, fly high.   

Appreciation (36) …out of Africa?

Appreciation (36) …out of Africa?
Torrey Orton
May 4, 2011

"Ask him when he came out of Africa?", she said quietly.

We were in the fourth day of four in a leadership program for journalists. The group of 9 held six women and three men from seven countries/regions: Indonesia, Fiji, Vanuatu, Irian Jaya(Papua) province of Indonesia, PNG, Timor Leste and Solomon Islands. They spoke 15 or twenty languages between them and no one language was competently held across the whole group. Individuals often had 5 or six, including English, pidgin, family or clan languages and a national language. So there was a constant play of interpreting throughout the learning activities. I was the only non-islander English speaker in the group. I was also 30 years older than everyone but Jason, who was about 50. Jason held down the darker end of the colour spectrum for which I anchored the lighter, with everyone else spread out in between* - the ethnic Indonesians closest to me, the Papuan next and the others following to Jason.


Our program included five segments, in this order, on personality, stress management, culture and leadership, negotiation and conflict management, and mentoring/networking, all with an orientation to the leadership demands of being a journalist in their respective contexts. The culture segment opened the door on a range of shared histories among us, and the overall shared history of European colonialism. In the process of exploring the cultures in the room I pointed out that we all come out of Africa. This was news to everyone.


At some later point in our excursion through negotiation and conflict management I mentioned to the group that there is published research evidence about the out-of- Africa claim and I had the book – Spencer Wells' The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. Jason jumped at it, along with another – Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies – which explains cultural success in geographic terms, as well as the unintended depredations of Christian colonialism (germs, mostly).


On reflection, I have to admit that saying I come out of Africa has a very low face-value truthfulness about it. A case of the mind's eye getting it wrong to any unbiased observer. I just don't look anyone's 'black' or tan or Asian, or…Italian. The research shows (love that frame!) that my relatives are traceable to a female origin out of Africa quite a while ago. But it is demonstrably obvious that I'm not black or tan or anything other than fading lily whiteish. And it is even more incontrovertibly clear that I didn't come out of Africa in any comprehensibly practical sense. Talk about an inner truth?! The genes shape us but the appearances make us.


And so the quietest group member, and occupier of a prime position in the darker range, Fijian Dorothy said, pointing at the leader with no clothes running the training – me:

"Ask him when he came out of Africa?" she posed quietly.

 

And three of us – Diana, Jason and I - broke into unstoppable laughter, with tears, which lasted three or four minutes, reigniting as they do with recollections or repetitions of the cue line "Ask him…" I've since repeated it enough to drain the trigger of its tickle.

 

 

*I recalled as I was entering the culture segment of our work that I had first encountered the colour conundrum 45 years ago as a beginner high school teacher in New Haven, CN, USA. This was particularly the first time of my really being a minority person for a bit. Years later in China it was daily for two years – a more shaping experience. At that US time I devised a simple experiment. In English classes with a majority of blacks and an ethnic multitude of whites, I offered an exploration of the substance of the terms 'white' and 'black'.


We (including me) lined up in a horseshoe (so everyone could see everyone else) whose gradation from darkest to lightest, and back, was agreed by all. The result always was that some self-identified 'black' kids actually were over the line into 'white' and vice-versa, as agreed among the participants in any particular line-up. (This kind of perception is the empirical origin of the current identification 'mixed', which is established in the identity stats of the UK census and an ongoing subject of discussion in the US). The kids had little trouble agreeing on the fade from light to dark and vice-versa, yet clung energetically to the soundness of their practical judgment that the difference was black and white clear!! Black hung with black and white with white. Therein the dilemma of the difference which is not, but is!


This dilemma is played out in both light and dark communities as they privilege the other in their beauty gradings – for some purposes. The lights approve tannedness among themselves (even fake tan!), but get queasy with permanently tanned members of their 'community' (maybe they've got a bit of dark the lights suppose) and the darks approve with envy the lights of theirs while at the same time reserving true darkness membership to the darkest (nearest to Africa??). What a human mess. Was 'mixed' cooked up to bridge the unbridgeable distinctions without creating a discriminatory difference??

Learner therapist (2) – Are you culturally competent?

Learner therapist (2) – Are you culturally competent?
Torrey Orton
Feb.27, 2010


The same but different dilemma
I am a little apprehensive about writing this. The area of cultures and cultural differences is fraught with cross-currents of moral and political and social and personal energies in contest with each other. Any generalisation about cultures is an opportunity for claims of prejudice or factual doubt or moral obtuseness…. I want to acknowledge I'm inviting you into this territory because it is real territory seen from many perspectives in our culture and our world, hence conflicted. It is also inescapable, except in denial.


Cultures present therapists with a very prominent dilemma (which applies across the health sector) – we are all the same (human) and all different (individuals). The therapeutic challenge (amplified by medicalisation of our trade) is to integrate patient uniqueness with generic formulations and manual-driven treatments.


Unremarkably, I have had clients from places I scarcely know more of than their rough place on a map (and I don't' mean country Victoria!). While I speak some Chinese (lived there total of 3.5 years) and more French (lived there 1+ year), my Croatian, Hungarian, Booran, Farsi, Cantonese, Greek…and on and on… are limited to the English versions of what they each call their languages and ethnicities.


One of my best and bilingual (English / German) friends spent years saying "yes, but there's really no fundamental difference is there?" Only after 5 years back and forth did I succeed in bridging what I never imagined would be a resilient rift. My teaching failure, for sure. Most of the differences that matter are invisible. Most of us cannot talk clearly about our cultures except through stories which assume their contextual meanings - just what foreigners lack.


Why do cultural differences matter for therapy?
As therapists we engage with all manner of ages, genders, socio-economic, religious and professional backgrounds about all manner of complaints, issues and concerns, and recognise shared patterns among them (our eventual formulations) and offer them structured treatments (evidence-based therapies). They all speak English, so what's to worry about?


Well, here's a few things to worry about: basic ideas and beliefs may be misrepresented in translation or an inflexible second language – love in a personal choice culture and in a family choice culture may be quite different; getting fine points of client meaning, especially emerging ones, is difficult enough when a smile does not mean anxiety; there's too much to learn to really understand another culture – I barely understand my own!


Different therapies?
Finally, to admit a difference of conceptualisation of therapy into is to saddle myself with a potentially unbridgeable incompetence. For example, a non-judgmental, non-advisory relationship is not what is expected in many cultures; just the reverse. In such cultures, one consults a wise (by experience or profession) person for advice and insight, not facilitation. Of course it is understood the advice may be disregarded, but not getting any is dereliction of perceived professional duty.


So, what difference(s) matter?
In three ways, culture is critical to who we are. It determines (1) our first concepts and practices of family; (2) it provides core meaning systems (religion, values, assumptions, etc.); and (3) it models appropriate practices for relating to close (family) and distant (public, others) people, plus a host of everyday matters like what's right to eat, how to do so, and what to do with the results. These foundations survive into second and third generations, or further for some cultures, of displaced peoples - immigrants of various origins (trauma or economic; forced or chosen). These three areas are also principal domains of most therapeutic work.


For example, in some cultures the structure and meaning of family, and therefore individuality, is not comprehensible from within an Anglo/ western cultural frame – the assumptions and practices which underlie psychology here. In China,

"The relationship between family and family members can be likened to the relationships between a body and body parts. For example, I feel itchy on my leg and my hand comes to help by scratching it. Does my leg have to say, "Thank you, hand." Does my hand reply, "You are welcome." No, neither one does so. Why, because they are supposed to help each other as they belong to a single unit. Though parts can be distinguished, they do not function independent of the body. The mutual relationship between parents and children are understood by Chinese in the same way.

 

And that's why in a Chinese family, when parents do something for their children or vice versa, you hardly hear something like thank you and you are welcome. From the perspective of the Confucius tradition, the family as a unit of intelligence is fundamental and irreducible when children are young. Any attempt to further reduce a family to a collection of individuals violates the integrity and meaning of the family unit."

Chen Jie-qi, AERA, 2006, San Francisco - How MI Theory fits into traditional and modern China, pg 3

On the other hand, a Booran family in the borderlands of Ethiopia and Kenya is entwined with its clan and village in myriad ways. For example, a council of elder women oversees the treatment of married women and can authorise a divorce for mistreatment by husbands. Among other things, this judgment forces the return of the woman's bride gift cattle from the husband…possibly a more than 50-50 split. Being a child involves being under the constant care of all adults in the village, who share the responsibility for child-raising outside the home. Everyone is an uncle or aunt, grandmother or grandfather.



What do our cultures do for us?
We tend to think our culture is good. It must be, otherwise we would not be good, which apart from our psychological injuries, we tend to think we are. If we do not, we can see ourselves to be good by identifying with our culture of origin. Mostly we don't think about this, so it is out of our awareness.


Automatically we judge other cultures by our standards. So does pretty much everyone else, with a few exceptions who I hope will become more numerous. But even they will have moments of deciding that their own culture is best. Having a culture is like having a family – even if it's bad for us we give it a break at our cost, and sometimes the cost of others of different cultures.


In the public domain this plays out in the form of persistent expectations, if not demands, that the rest of the world follow our path to human improvement. For instance, follow the commentary about China in which the assumption they have to become democratic, and free-marketers, too, is often not even stated as the ground of critiques being made of their pathway for the last 30 years.


What does being in a minority do to minorities?
In contexts where one culture is presumed to be right (like national cultures tend to do of themselves), minority culture members are subjected to three pressures: one, to delete characteristics which are unsettling to majority culture members, like speaking their own language in public; two, to keep to themselves the fact that this is painful and feels unjust to them.


As well, third, they know that much of what they carry as their culture of origin cannot be explained to people who can't see further than their own next footy game, school fete, meat pie, etc.….Their attention span isn't long enough. Even members of the majority culture can't get their foreign experiences listened to when they come home from some time in other peoples' cultures, an experience in which some may be in the minority in a clear way for the first time in their lives.


Culturally literate therapists?
So, what should be done to increase the numbers of the culturally literate? A few pathways:

Try the story Meat for a shock to the assumption that we are all the same. Similar effects can be found in a variety of science fiction works (eg. Isaac Asimov – I Robot, Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land, William Gibson: Neuromancer

as well as utopias and dystopias. Then, add the factoid that the divorce rate in China exceeded the marriage rate by 10+% last year, proving at once that things change while remaining consistent.

If you have little experience of foreignness it can be had at home by experiments like walking into a pub you aren't sure you 'belong' in. A seriously country town can provide this quite well (if you are not and never have been a farmer). You should get that odd-one out feeling. Failing to find a pub to test, recall a moment of adult embarrassment or shame for a related feeling – misfit isolation.

Education agencies should include a cultural perspectives course as a requirement for graduate psychs of all varieties, but especially those in front line heath care provision. These courses should include a non-negotiable behavioural segment challenging participants' mono-cultural perspectives.

Join the Psychology and Cultures Interest Group of the APS and get on the mailing list from Multicultural Mental Health Australia.

 

Finally, ask questions when you feel an assumption coming on.

 

And, delight in difference.

Learning to act right (12)… Choosing to end a marriage

Learning to act right (12)… Choosing to end a marriage
Torrey Orton
July 14, 2010


Here's another tale of growth occurring, as it often does, on the back of division and depression. This one emerges from an explicit conflict between two publically accepted versions of right behaviour in the mind and heart of a friend charged with modelling right behaviour for others. David presents this conflict in clear and unflinching terms. More importantly, he's unblinking in assessing his own struggle to do the right thing. Like many such struggles, his tale bears tinges of the unresolved or the uncompleted aspects of the conflict. Doing it can never be fully over it, perhaps.

Choosing to end a marriage

In the late 70s I found myself struggling to deal with my marriage which was at a terminal stage. The major struggle involved dealing with two ethical considerations which were in conflict.


I was a Baptist minister working as an independent Christian education consultant, which meant that I was not engaged in pastoral care of a congregation but I was a member of a local church where I and my family worshiped.


I was part of a tradition and culture that expected any minister to set an example to others of upright Christian living and this was reinforced by my mother, a very strict, conservative practicing Christian. This meant that a minister's marriage had to be sound and above reproach – or at least to appear to be so no matter what the reality might be. This expectation weighed heavily on me to such an extent that I took far too long to acknowledge that the marriage was anything but sound.


While working with a church in the USA (in the early 70s) I was exposed to a different tradition and culture, one that took a different view of what it meant to be an example. This culture perceived that the important thing about setting an example was to be open and honest about personal failings and about the struggle to live up to the expectations of what 'being a Christian' meant. I was attracted by this perspective yet I did not find it easy to take on board as part of my ethical framework.


When the marriage eventually got to the point of crumbling I found these two ethical considerations were creating an internal dilemma as I faced the question of what action I was going to take.


I found myself having to make a choice about whether to leave the marriage or not. When I reached a point where I felt that a decision had to be made I struggled to find the willpower (courage?) to actually do it and looked for help from external sources. The following extract from my journal at the time describes the experience:

An advert in the Saturday paper for a furnished country cottage caught my attention but did not produce any action. Sunday morning's sermon not only had a strong note of "Be strong and trust me to meet all your needs" but was illustrated by a story of a woman who separated from her husband by taking a country cottage!!! My response was not to do anything till Monday, taking the risk that it would still be available. Before phoning I had a time of prayer and Bible reading from Psalm 144 "You......rescue your servant David. He is my protector and defender, my shelter and saviour, in whom I trust for safety." With this reassurance I rang the landlady, arranged to view the cottage and then took up the rental.

Although that helped me to finally make the choice to leave the marriage it did not create a situation of subsequent clarity. My journal reflects an ongoing struggle for almost a year before I was finally content that I had made the right choice and was able to adjust to a new way of life.


Looking back some 30 years later I can still recall the pain of the struggle to resolve the ethical considerations described above and am fascinated that I could not earlier find the strength within myself to implement the choice I eventually made. Perhaps this is an indication of the deep-seated indoctrination that occurs within the conservative Christian tradition and the consequent struggle that is experienced by anyone wanting to find freedom from it.


David J Scott - 280610

Funny things happen travelling

Funny things happen travelling
Torrey Orton, Barcelona, Spain
June 11, 2010

 

Travel isn't always illuminating or diverting, but it seldom has none of these. This trip is no different, though I pay more attention to capturing illuminations than I used to. My pocket note pad is gathering stuff at an alarming rate. I'm about to start investing in those bound "moleskin" ones which will make them collectible. Ah, the pretences.


Anyway, travel to foreign parts is even more likely to have diversions, with occasional illuminations in train, and some of these follow. I call them "funny things" because they are variously strange, surprising, laughable, shockingly unexpected, pathetic….I mean no item to add to the evidence base for those who consider foreign ways impenetrably dopey, immoral, etc. They are presented in the order of their occurrence. For example,


A gluggy tale In the loo of the flat we shared in Cauterets, France (which I recommend to walkers and skiers, the flat that is) there was a well-fitted 20 cm. wide hand basin of recent design and even more recent installation, meeting health expectations, etc. It had a little towel rack next to it and a bar of soap was provided. The thing was this – the bar kept sliding into the bowl and lodging over the drain. It did because the inbuilt soap space (whaddya call such a thing?) was slightly inclined towards the bowl from left to right to allow the residual water to run off the and the bar to retain its barness rather than descending into glug, the prime enemy of happy relationships…. However, the design was ever so slightly off…the wet soap slid relentlessly, as reported above…and we all tried hard to make it stay in its allotted spot and no one could so; we always found the bar slowly descending as said towards the bottom of the basin…a good idea gone wrong or just a bargain purchase failure?



A nice touch to being in a town long enough to go to the croissant shop several mornings in a row is having had the good chance to find the best local one the first time around (confirmed by trying both of the other offerings by chance). On the third morning the management volunteered that they would be closed (as normal, but not advertised because everyone knows when core sustenance providers are open and closed in the neighbourhood in France) and that I could find the desired articles around the corner. An unexpected virtue of having enough French to seem I know what I'm doing.


And a thing that happened on the way to another scenery in the Pyrenees: we drove up the perilously poised Col de Tourmalet passing a small pack of uniformed cyclists halfway, surrounded by a small but diligent filming crew front and back. We made it by with some help from the crew and pushed on towards the top with growing apprehension about the distance from the road edge to the bottom of the ski slope (1000 metres). On arrival, in a temperature of about 5C we savoured the ride and pondered the quick follow up of the cyclists, met by more filmers and shortly thereafter by more cyclists coming from the other direction, more filmers, and a general conflagration of made-my-day joy from one of our foursome! Her joy was Contadorian – as he emerged out of the second arriving group and she got a chance to attach herself to the media scrum for a few minutes. Note that we had NO idea such an event was occurring that day, so the lions of chance were at work for us – chance that we did not fall over the edge and that we did arrive just as the cyclists did; and the rest is family history for her, whose eldest daughter is a cyclist of some standing herself in triathlons and both are serious Tour de France followers just warming up for the annual round shortly which was part of the rationale for the Col visit in the first place! Mum's a fair performer on the wheels herself!


While I'm on bathroom stuff, there was the hotel of the Mercure brand in Toulouse where we spent a couple of nights in support of the Millau Viaduc visit ( a 200+ Ks drive away). A wonder of cleanly modernity including both loo and bidet all packed nicely into a good space with normally restrictive shower for lads of my proportions (but then I wonder about really big guys whose heads could hardly be got under the rose). The loo however had been designed by true midgets so there was about 15 cm. between the bowl and the wall, into which space a doubler role dispenser of vital papers was also squeezed at a height about 30 cms above the bowl. You, too, can calculate already that this is a tight fit, even for less disproportionate types than myself. I've seen similar in China in earlier years where there had been no social history of private loos to instruct builders with appropriate proportioning of loo spaces. But in France, in the third largest city in an international hotel chain, in a very generous allinone bathroom space by five star standards in a three star hotel?? Weird funny. There was not that much funny in the utilisation struggle but some physical training effects were achieved over a few days.


We had passed thru Irun station on the way home to Paris from Torremolinos, Spain, in 1972 with a lasting impression of Franco's ever ready search for the enemy embodied in the coldest looking eyes we'd ever seen on a secret policeman searching each carriage for enemies of the state. On the way to San Sebastian, that impression, without the eyes, was recreated a few days ago in arriving at Irun around 10pm – a station of astonishing blankness, greyness and enclosedness. Only one way led out of the platform into a room with no directions and a couple of customs agents sort of manning an X-ray machine (turned off). A small crowd of arrivals gathered in the small hall, a few oriented towards the machine and all of us needing to get on the next train to Lisbon, from which a scad of other ends could be reached, amongst which ours of San Sebastian - next stop on the line! Having gotten on the train to Lisbon and travelled 15 minutes, we arrived in San Sebastian unannounced by anyone. If we had not known the first stop was San Sebastian we might still be trying to get back there from Lisbon now. A little consultation with other passengers confirmed what we knew must be true: this was San Sebastian. It was an introduction we could not recognise to a serious low grade glitch in directions in Spain. The glitch has stood up for five days in Bilbao, Bermeo, Bakio, Gernika, and eventually Barcelona. It appeared in trains, busses, undergrounds, funiculars, museums, shops in a plethora of forms with a constant threat of misleading, though never quite really getting us into trouble. We eventually began to develop a work around – basically, assuming that whatever directions there were would be faulty to some degree. Not an irritation after a bit just something funny, like user directions in IT applications and tools which never seem able to take a naive user's viewpoint.


While in Bakio, a seaside resortish spot principally for Spaniards I suspect, I had another kind of funny, the potentially highly embarrassing sort. After a lunch of disappointing ordinariness in a spot masquerading as the local eatery of choice, I sought out the loo. It was quite passable, as had been true in Cauterets and various other places. Especially, since it was in a cellar, it was well lighted. So I went in for serious business and a minute later all the lights went out. I had failed to notice that they were on automatic – they were a self-starting minuterie. Fortunately, I had scanned the service available and checked off against a notional required list before even setting to. Paper source was remembered, roughly, though not checked for fill level. Double fortunately, paper fill was good and access was manageable with some contortion of left shoulder, arm and hand. In brief, I escaped with all needs satisfied and no self-regards injured. But, what a joke on a supposedly knowledgeable traveller.


After visiting some new acquaintances in Gernika we moved towards parting, powered by their need to see their kids who had been in the care of a "kangaroo". It turns out that the local term for a baby-sitter is kangaroo. Strange. They said it had to do with the pouch. Skippy, what have you done? Their only previous exposure to things Oz is an artist friend - Bill Kelly - who's been involved for ten years in the memorialising of the 1937 Gernika bombings. I don't think he's even drawn a roo…but ?


While one of the above said roo users was showing us around Gernika, one stop in the rain included a last minute (the present Basque police officials in charge of the Basque parliament site were trying to close it down for the day) stop at the Tree of Basque. There at the edge of the fenced in ground was a 100 year old blue gum ( I think). The mountains of the Basque area are now half given to gum plantations for wood pulp, so the species is very common, just not huge examples. Our history follows us around, or more likely we are constantly awakened to the fact it is always there.


Walking down a main drag in Bilbao three days ago brought us in reach of a demo breaking up around midday. We had seen outliers of it in another part of town earlier in the morning, so the fact was not surprising. The stunner was not that they left a trail of promotional handouts behind them; it was the tune they were chanting: a Spanish version of "workers united will never be defeated" in the exact rhythm and tune we are so acquainted with. Not a few were carrying some red banners and the local news reported the next day that 150,000 marched in Barcelona the same day in protest over proposed reduction of public sector pay to cover GFC debts incurred by the usual suspects (hmm, that just slipped out naturally, 'the usual suspects', so it must be appropriate in this context!).


There seems to have been a strong loo theme here. When I first noticed it, I shied away from it in slight embarrassment. Then giving the fact some space to display itself I noticed that loos have three significant features: they offer little space to avoid what's present, they are concerned with core business and any variation from standard core business protocols stick out baldly. Variations in more everyday matters more easily escape notice until they coalesce into persistent deviations from expectations. Or, so I suppose.


So, a final funny. Somewhere in Toulouse I was in front of the smallest urinal I'd ever seen. While there are many wonders which can be elicited from such facts, the one I want to note is that it had a perfectly situated porcelain fly in it to assist aim – a really good idea if the container is slight and aim is known to be flagging.


Enjoy.

Rectifications (22) – Minister for the “respect agenda”?

Rectifications (22) – Minister for the "respect agenda"?
Torrey Orton– March 29, 2010


How did I miss the Maddening one? Guess I was concerned about learning to act ethically that day. The grounds of my amazement today are summarised well here. Meanwhile, trolling the net for a few minutes failed to reveal a definition of that agenda's prime term – respect. Then I found John Brumby, Dec. 2008 on respect, noteworthy for its negative simplicity. His three defining propositions are things not to do. Presumably these are items of disrespect. So we can't learn much about what to do or how to be respectful or ourselves, others and our community.

 

"Our government understands that many Victorians are concerned about anti-social behaviour in the community," he said on Wednesday, after announcing Mr Madden's new role. "We have got some challenges in our community, particularly based around what I call respect. If you respect yourself, you don't go out and binge drink; if you respect your community, you don't go out and vandalise it; if you respect people around you, you don't go out and beat them up."

I suspect some spin'ster (contraction of spinmeister) told him that positive propositions would open the government up to empirical review of its respect performance. Not that this should trouble them since no manner of empirical review touches their disrespect for the public…but I digress.


A year later the minister responsible, Madden, provided this conversion of Brumby's don'ts into do's in a ministerial epsitle. I have added some glosses for his key terms. These suggest the inappropriateness of the glib generalities on offer.

"The Victorian Government's Respect Agenda is based on three simple ideas. We respect ourselves by accepting and valuing who we are (does this include motor head hoons, financial fraudsters and internet scammers, child abusers and bullies, religious kooks and …? Aren't they are quite likely to accept and value themselves). We respect others by listening, treating people fairly and appreciating different circumstances and views (Listening, appreciating and fairness require shared social practices and values; they can't be grabbed across gulfs of language culture and value differences on demand, but the Minister did try to demand others listen to him in a meeting he wasn't invited to!). We respect our community by welcoming newcomers and lending a hand to each other (Well, it sounds good, but fairly small town to me, having come from on. What does welcoming look like on the streets of a city where smiling at strangers on the street is an invitation to a 'who ya lookin at?' from the passing others)."

And, the principle engine for increasing respect? The schools, actually. Think of the disrespect messages they are competing with!


Respect yourself and others will respect you ~ Confucius
For example, our cat Poppy has injured self-respect. He attempts basic cat respect behaviour - head butting anything of own catty family (watch your local lion pride anytime when they're not eating or sleeping) or anyone having to do with food or pre-heated sleeping spaces (us). But he won't get closer to us than a hand's length away; not a true head butt. It's long been evident that he had a deprived or depraved kittenhood before arriving in our lands. His self-respect is damaged and his respect for others is similarly slightly depleted.


He gets a slight disrespect from me in turn, even though it's not his fault. He's just not entirely there for real respect like a ride on my chest/shoulder almost face-to-face. He can't stand the closeness, and now 14 years later resists my conflicted effort to hold him up for a view and a smoodge. People can be certainly more difficult to respect than he is, though in principle they warrant it anyway as he does.


Observation #1 – Respect is a two way function in a two-way event – a relationship. Respect has to occur with almost perfect timing to prevent it's opposite – disrespect – from rushing in. Feeling respected provides a container of engagement and commitment which allows relationships of all kinds to weather storms of others' making. These others include the gods, other people and sometimes the relationship members themselves (where one is an other for the other, as husbands and wives, the ethnically different and the differently abled always are to some extent!).


Observation #2 – Disrespect, expressed in the now well known verb 'dis', can be the underlying assumption of all relationships for some people. The 'dis' sensibility presumes a likelihood of always being dissed, and probably is fed by feeling largely dissed by life. At the public political level this seems to be what's been happening in the US for the last 5-10 years (or more?) – a culture of disrespect on a grand scale. See the most recent responses of Right pundits to the US health bill.


Lack of respect vs. active disrespect
Observation #3 – Lack of respect, or active disrespect, is one of the most common complaints of couples in trouble (sometimes both members; sometimes just one). While active disrespect provokes more virulent reactions than lack of respect, it also sharpens the perception of the provocative behaviour and attitude(s). Because they are clear, they then become accessible to reworking, or not. The more passive lack of respect carries the flag for disengagement. Those needing a respect injection are usually looking for things like:

Being consulted about what's happening; being listened to, heard and acknowledged when they are contributing to discussion; being given space to speak for themselves; being treated as a person not just a role (husband, wife, caretaker, provider, etc.); being 'just me'- having a life apart from this relationship.

It's not love but probably you can't get love without respect. Or, you can kill love by withholding respect. Disrespect over long time periods for deep needs elicits powerful feelings which, once freed, make recovery of a workably respectful flavour very hard to do.


Observation #4 - Having a "respect agenda" is to misrepresent respect. The problem where respect is absent is how to have a shared agenda of any kind. This cannot be mandated – though power can be used to encourage rather than discourage sharing. Efforts to legislate respect are often dull and indiscriminate. Politically correct behaviours trap as much as they liberate. Readiness is required. See respect attitudes, assumptions and behaviours below


Responsibility and respect
Observation #5 – Appropriately admitting ones responsibility for a perceived error or misstep in a relationship is a good step towards rehabilitating respect in relationships. Doing so demonstrates respect for self and other(s) by setting boundaries and standards for the relationship. As a result, we know what actions will be respectful to members and who may be accountable for making the effort.



Observation #6 – Being self-respecting and other-respecting can be very difficult when we are injured, sick, overloaded, under attack (direct or indirect), etc. Like Poppy, I find it hard under such difficult conditions to respect others (or myself!) when certain levels or styles of self-disrespect are present. For instance, when someone has indulged beyond their personal capabilities in any kind of consumption which threatens others' viability – alcohol, gambling, drugs, food, palliative purchasing (the world of nothing's enough consumerism)…


Definitions…
Observation #7 – One definition of respect has 8 variations with an example phrase for each. There are larger numbers of variations (try the O.E.D. for instance) but 8 are enough to suggest the range of mistakes one could make in trying to be respectful. That's within Anglo cultures!


…and differences
Observation #8 – Within cultures, the entry level behaviours of respect are politeness formulas. These are acts like acknowledging another's presence with actual contact like a handshake or virtual ones like a nod or wave, and then a query about their current state (How's it going, How's your day been, G'day, etc.). Between cultures the same rules apply, but through often unguessable or unrecognisable forms of action. It is easy to bow the wrong amount to the wrong person and insult a monarch, or earn the ire of local morality mavens. Try getting the length of a handshake right without threatening sexual identities.


Back to the agenda
The Maddening Brumby respect agenda adjusted for realities looks like this:

1. 
   
   "We respect ourselves by accepting and valuing who we are".
   Adjusted version: The boundaries of respect in our culture are …, and differences about them can be engaged in this way…but some clearly not negotiable at the moment elicit spontaneous gut rejections from others.…and it is important to acknowledge that before anything else is done.
2. "We respect others by listening, treating people fairly and appreciating different circumstances and views." Adjusted version: Fair treatment (being heard and understood in our differences) for the less powerful in any situation require the more powerful to provide safety, especially on the debatable boundaries, and beyond them, of the respectful. Real differences cannot be simply appreciated because they shock and offend in some cases (your first sniff of black bean sauce may not of course!).
3. "We respect our community by welcoming newcomers and lending a hand to each other."Adjusted version: make way for new respects by informing the present residents of any space that new arrivals may inadvertently challenge and inform new arrivals what areas of respect will be challenged for them buy their new home. These are notably obvious: intimate relationship expectations and obligations, food choices, public behaviours in gender relations, hierarchy protocols, hygiene, the nature of security services,…etc. Try the DFAT and immigration websites to see what's available to immigrants and refugees as local knowledge.
   

The third level of respect – community – is the government's main area of responsibility. Only they can do it effectively. Effective means doing it before arrival here. Or at least soon after. In the absence of the fact, sing a little song:
either Otis's or Aretha's RESPECT

..or two, the Staples'
Respect yourself