bollywood star in the making?
Just across the road from the old office, is my favorite curry place called “Curry King”. They make great chicken curry and a range of vegetarian curries. For lunch I would often get a curry and roti parcel which is curry wrapped up in a roti for $1. For a treat on Fridays I would go and eat there and have chicken curry for $5. Since we moved offices, I have not been there but my boss went there the other day and the staff asked where the part-Indian girl was!!! First time I have been taken for a part-Indian. Maybe I can break into Bollywood.
I have had a streak of luck and been watching some very watchable Bollywood films. Some of them so watchable that the love scenes have me bursting out loud laughing. I would like to do a PhD one day on the maneuvers used by actors to give the impression of kissing without actually touching lip to lip. The actors I have seen really have this made this into an art-form. In my PhD I would make a manual and give names to these maneuvers. Like the Karma Sutra has names for various sexual positions. So instead of ‘Congress of the cow’, we could have ‘congress of the cheek bones’ or ‘eyebrow mash’ or ‘migration from chin to nose’. It also looks like there is a formula used for the scenery of these love scenes which I would like to analyze in more detail. Nearly every scene has water (don’t you love the metaphor!) - either a river, beach, waterfall or rain. And in these particular scenes the actors will have the wet t-shirt look and the male actor will attempt to show as much chest hair as he has and there is also a lot of rubbing of bodies together. There is also invariably a mountain scene, some snow (wonder what the metaphor there is?), a flower scene and always the wind scene which blows away a part of the female actors’ dress. I would also like to interview the male actors about how they reconcile the extravagant demonstrative actions they use in these scenes with their otherwise very masculine identities. It is only in the love scenes that you see them flinging their arms out as if to embrace the world, gyrating their hips, rolling down green hills, chasing the scarf of their lover which has been blown away by the wind, playfully pinching their lovers’ nose, twirling around trees, jumping in the air and throwing their wet hair around.
I got a DVD out to watch the other night. The movie was a comedy but the subtitles were from another film - ‘Black Hawke Down’. I gave up watching. My local video shop is free to join and you only pay $2 to hire a film but the hazards of hiring pirated movies means that you will get half way through a film and it will suddenly stop with no reason, or a part of the menu will not work, or the captions are only in some Eastern European language or sometimes it looks like you can see silhouetted figures walking across the bottom of the screen. I only just found out that this is because people pirate movies by actually filming on their camera a screening of a movie in a cinema. Forgive me if this is common knowledge to you all. Now the signs in the cinema here about no cameras allowed to be taken in make sense! To hire proper movies, there are only two places in Suva that do this and one costs $50 to join, the other $20. It might be worth it in the long run as the number of returned unwatched movies is starting to add up for me.
It appears that Fiji does not have the worse potholes in the world. I was talking to a fellow Aussie here who has travelled in Cambodia and she related that the potholes over there are so big they actually generate income for families living close to them. What they do is put slabs of wood over these potholes and charge vehicles and pedestrians money to cross over them. How ingenious is that? I will never complain about Fiji potholes again.
I have a lot of respect for Fijian soles (of feet). Many Fijians actually prefer not to wear shoes, even in town and where there are concrete paths. Many people when inside buildings especially hallowed ones like churches and people’s houses will take their shoes off. I have even seen young men, who when wanting to escort a girl they like home, will take off their shoes to do so. It is as if it helps them to relax or gives them more confidence. When I play volleyball with the Deaf team, I try to go without like they do. I marvel when the ball goes speeding off the court down a gravel driveway and without a change in pace or speed, the boys will chase after it as if they were on a smooth concrete path. While when I do the same, I am hobbling and jerking my legs around as if I am getting an electric shock.
I have been giving some talks on Deaf culture lately to the sign language students and to the Deaf themselves who are not always aware of their own Deaf culture. In exchange, they have given me some examples of Fijian culture:
When walking past people who are already sitting down, because your head is higher than theirs you must say ‘excuse me’ as you pass and try and bend your head to lower your height. It is a sign of respect.
You must never touch the head of a Fijian as it is a sign of disrespect - the head is highly valued.
When you go to a village, women must never wear shorts but must cover up using what they call ‘sulus’ or otherwise known as ‘sarongs’. Likewise you don’t wear sunglasses (it is equivalent to the 3rd eye and can be used as a cover to invoke evil spirits).
After someone dies you observe 100 days of mourning. On the hundredth day, you have a celebration and ceremony to mark the lifting of the mourning period. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara has now been dead 100 days this week. Lots of ceremony in his province as he was a paramount chief as well as Prime Minister.
Due to kinship rules, first cousins often are not allowed to talk to each other directly. There are other kinship rules where certain people cannot talk to each other - I have not worked them out yet.
Eye contact - this is one I am struggling with. You don’t look too directly at people when you talk to them or you don’t sustain eye contact as much as we do in Australia and the West. If you do, it indicates that you are in love with that person or desire them very much. This is something I find hard to do as someone who lip-reads all the time, and as someone who loves staring at people’s physicality and facial features. I have been warned here to be careful. Wailei! Even the Deaf don’t seem to have as much sustained eye contact as we do in Australia. It’s similar to the smiling feature of our culture. For us in the West it is acceptable to smile at a stranger in passing or in greeting but here that can be interpreted as a come on. So now to be on the safe side, I do an eyebrow lift instead of smiling.
Our office is located next the Blind organization. In Australia, the Deaf mix with the Deaf and we rarely have anything to do with other disabilities and in fact we might even object to being lumped in with other disability groups. It is the opposite here. So I am constantly having to be reminded about how to communicate with blind people. For example when I enter a room with a blind person, I must say something to let them know I am there. Often I forget because I have been signing all day with Deaf people and am used to having my voice off. I often to my shame, think I can sneak past and maybe they won’t know I am there or will work it out from my body odor. I just found out today that many of the blind people here became blind through various accidents so their gaze often looks off-centre. So while they might look like they are looking out to the side, they are actually looking straight at me. For weeks, I have been thinking to myself “these blind people, just don’t know how to communicate with Deaf people. Don’t they know how rude it is not to look at us directly instead of looking out the window? I am going to have to have a word about this’!! They probably thought I was very rude scrutinizing their faces and moving around trying to get them to ‘look’ at me.
It’s raining outside. Maybe I can go and practice the wet shirt look with the toads. They can do the jumping and I will do the hobbling over the gravel.
Please remember if you want to reply - do not reply to the email sent to you or it will be viewed by everyone. Otherwise go to my own email address - kitttylevu@hotmail.com
I have had a streak of luck and been watching some very watchable Bollywood films. Some of them so watchable that the love scenes have me bursting out loud laughing. I would like to do a PhD one day on the maneuvers used by actors to give the impression of kissing without actually touching lip to lip. The actors I have seen really have this made this into an art-form. In my PhD I would make a manual and give names to these maneuvers. Like the Karma Sutra has names for various sexual positions. So instead of ‘Congress of the cow’, we could have ‘congress of the cheek bones’ or ‘eyebrow mash’ or ‘migration from chin to nose’. It also looks like there is a formula used for the scenery of these love scenes which I would like to analyze in more detail. Nearly every scene has water (don’t you love the metaphor!) - either a river, beach, waterfall or rain. And in these particular scenes the actors will have the wet t-shirt look and the male actor will attempt to show as much chest hair as he has and there is also a lot of rubbing of bodies together. There is also invariably a mountain scene, some snow (wonder what the metaphor there is?), a flower scene and always the wind scene which blows away a part of the female actors’ dress. I would also like to interview the male actors about how they reconcile the extravagant demonstrative actions they use in these scenes with their otherwise very masculine identities. It is only in the love scenes that you see them flinging their arms out as if to embrace the world, gyrating their hips, rolling down green hills, chasing the scarf of their lover which has been blown away by the wind, playfully pinching their lovers’ nose, twirling around trees, jumping in the air and throwing their wet hair around.
I got a DVD out to watch the other night. The movie was a comedy but the subtitles were from another film - ‘Black Hawke Down’. I gave up watching. My local video shop is free to join and you only pay $2 to hire a film but the hazards of hiring pirated movies means that you will get half way through a film and it will suddenly stop with no reason, or a part of the menu will not work, or the captions are only in some Eastern European language or sometimes it looks like you can see silhouetted figures walking across the bottom of the screen. I only just found out that this is because people pirate movies by actually filming on their camera a screening of a movie in a cinema. Forgive me if this is common knowledge to you all. Now the signs in the cinema here about no cameras allowed to be taken in make sense! To hire proper movies, there are only two places in Suva that do this and one costs $50 to join, the other $20. It might be worth it in the long run as the number of returned unwatched movies is starting to add up for me.
It appears that Fiji does not have the worse potholes in the world. I was talking to a fellow Aussie here who has travelled in Cambodia and she related that the potholes over there are so big they actually generate income for families living close to them. What they do is put slabs of wood over these potholes and charge vehicles and pedestrians money to cross over them. How ingenious is that? I will never complain about Fiji potholes again.
I have a lot of respect for Fijian soles (of feet). Many Fijians actually prefer not to wear shoes, even in town and where there are concrete paths. Many people when inside buildings especially hallowed ones like churches and people’s houses will take their shoes off. I have even seen young men, who when wanting to escort a girl they like home, will take off their shoes to do so. It is as if it helps them to relax or gives them more confidence. When I play volleyball with the Deaf team, I try to go without like they do. I marvel when the ball goes speeding off the court down a gravel driveway and without a change in pace or speed, the boys will chase after it as if they were on a smooth concrete path. While when I do the same, I am hobbling and jerking my legs around as if I am getting an electric shock.
I have been giving some talks on Deaf culture lately to the sign language students and to the Deaf themselves who are not always aware of their own Deaf culture. In exchange, they have given me some examples of Fijian culture:
When walking past people who are already sitting down, because your head is higher than theirs you must say ‘excuse me’ as you pass and try and bend your head to lower your height. It is a sign of respect.
You must never touch the head of a Fijian as it is a sign of disrespect - the head is highly valued.
When you go to a village, women must never wear shorts but must cover up using what they call ‘sulus’ or otherwise known as ‘sarongs’. Likewise you don’t wear sunglasses (it is equivalent to the 3rd eye and can be used as a cover to invoke evil spirits).
After someone dies you observe 100 days of mourning. On the hundredth day, you have a celebration and ceremony to mark the lifting of the mourning period. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara has now been dead 100 days this week. Lots of ceremony in his province as he was a paramount chief as well as Prime Minister.
Due to kinship rules, first cousins often are not allowed to talk to each other directly. There are other kinship rules where certain people cannot talk to each other - I have not worked them out yet.
Eye contact - this is one I am struggling with. You don’t look too directly at people when you talk to them or you don’t sustain eye contact as much as we do in Australia and the West. If you do, it indicates that you are in love with that person or desire them very much. This is something I find hard to do as someone who lip-reads all the time, and as someone who loves staring at people’s physicality and facial features. I have been warned here to be careful. Wailei! Even the Deaf don’t seem to have as much sustained eye contact as we do in Australia. It’s similar to the smiling feature of our culture. For us in the West it is acceptable to smile at a stranger in passing or in greeting but here that can be interpreted as a come on. So now to be on the safe side, I do an eyebrow lift instead of smiling.
Our office is located next the Blind organization. In Australia, the Deaf mix with the Deaf and we rarely have anything to do with other disabilities and in fact we might even object to being lumped in with other disability groups. It is the opposite here. So I am constantly having to be reminded about how to communicate with blind people. For example when I enter a room with a blind person, I must say something to let them know I am there. Often I forget because I have been signing all day with Deaf people and am used to having my voice off. I often to my shame, think I can sneak past and maybe they won’t know I am there or will work it out from my body odor. I just found out today that many of the blind people here became blind through various accidents so their gaze often looks off-centre. So while they might look like they are looking out to the side, they are actually looking straight at me. For weeks, I have been thinking to myself “these blind people, just don’t know how to communicate with Deaf people. Don’t they know how rude it is not to look at us directly instead of looking out the window? I am going to have to have a word about this’!! They probably thought I was very rude scrutinizing their faces and moving around trying to get them to ‘look’ at me.
It’s raining outside. Maybe I can go and practice the wet shirt look with the toads. They can do the jumping and I will do the hobbling over the gravel.
Please remember if you want to reply - do not reply to the email sent to you or it will be viewed by everyone. Otherwise go to my own email address - kitttylevu@hotmail.com
posted by kate at 9:55 pm
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