Asians out! Not in this suburb. Not in this apartment

Asians out! Not in this suburb. Not in this apartment

Asians out! Not in this suburb. Not in this apartment
November 22, 2018 6.04am AEDT
A large majority of Asian Australians who make up an increasing proportion of the population, especially in big cities like Sydney, have experienced racism. ketrktt/Shutterstock


Authors
Alanna Kamp

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Australian Cultural Geography, Western Sydney University
Ana-Maria Bliuc

Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology, Western Sydney University
Kathleen Blair

PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University
Kevin Dunn

Dean of the School of Social Science and Psychology, Western Sydney University
Disclosure statement
=========================
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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This is the fourth article in our series, Australian Cities in the Asian Century. These articles draw on newly published research, in a special issue of Geographical Research, into how Australian cities are being influenced by the rise of China and associated flows of people, ideas and capital between China and Australia.

When it comes to access to housing in Australia, the playing field is far from even.

Our recent research has found that “race” matters. Many Australians experience racism and discrimination based on their cultural background.

This is particularly the case for Asian Australians. They experience much higher rates of racism across a variety of everyday settings, but particularly when renting or buying a house.

Read more: A white face can be a big help in a discriminatory housing market
Asian Australians’ experiences of racism

An online national survey of 6,001 Australians measured the extent and variation of racist attitudes and experiences. We examined the impacts of where Australians are born and what language they speak at home on their experiences of racism.

Our research revealed that if you were born overseas, or if your parents were born overseas and you speak a language other than English at home, you are likely to have many more experiences of racism than other Australians. Racism is experienced in a variety of settings –workplaces, educational institutions, shopping centres, public spaces and online.

Survey participants born in Asia were twice as likely as other Australians to experience everyday racism. In fact, 84% of these Asian Australians experienced racism.

For those born in Australia to parents who were both born in an Asian country, rates of racism were just as high (86%).

If you speak an Asian language at home, your experiences of racism are also likely to be high. Speakers of South Asian and East Asian languages experience racism at alarming rates – 85% and 88% respectively. Those who speak Southwest/Central Asian and Southeast Asian languages experience rates of discrimination (79% and 78% respectively) similar to those for all participants of a non-English-speaking background (77%).
Anti-Asian housing discrimination

Published findings for New South Wales and Queensland in the 1990s revealed that 6.4% of Australians reported having experienced ethnic-based discrimination when renting or buying a house. Our recent national study has found this proportion has increased dramatically. In recent years, 24% of Australians have experienced housing discrimination.Almost six in ten Asia-born Australians reported having experienced housing discrimination.James Ross/AAP

As with the broader pattern of everyday racism, Asian Australians are feeling the brunt of housing discrimination. Almost six in ten (59%) Asia-born participants in our study experienced racism in accessing housing. This compares to only 19% of non-Asian-born participants.

Asia-born respondents were also more likely to report frequent experiences of housing discrimination. Some 13% reported these experiences occurred “often” or “very often”. This is more than three times the average exposure of non-Asian-born Australians.

In particular, participants born in Northeast and South/Central Asia are more frequently exposed to racism in housing. And 15% and 16% respectively reported housing discrimination occurred “often” or “very often”. This compares to only 9% of those born in Southeast Asia.

The survey also found that if you have two Asia-born parents you are highly likely to experience such racism (44%). Similarly, if you speak a language other than English at home (especially an Asian language), you are more likely to experience housing discrimination (45%).

South Asian language speakers (e.g. Hindi, Tamil, Sinhalese) experience housing discrimination at a much higher rate of 63%. The rate for East Asian language speakers (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean) is 55%. Only 19% of English-only speakers had the same experiences.

Why is this happening?

These findings suggest that the owning and occupying of space by Asian Australians is seen as a threat to Anglo-Australian hegemony. Alternatively, or perhaps relatedly, many real estate agents and owners assume Asians are somehow suspect, or will be a lesser quality tenant or owner. This would be an echo of colonial racist thinking in which Asians were seen as biologically inferior and a potential source of racial impurity.

The repression of Chinatowns and more recent moral panics about Indo-Chinese settlement areas in Sydney and Melbourne – such as Cabramatta and Richmond – point to these stereotypes of vice, uncleanliness and chaos. Perhaps this 20th-century troubling of the white spatial order is continuing today.

Sinophobia in Australia is also emerging in debates about housing investment, donations to political parties, university campus politics, the purchase of agricultural land for mining, as well as general concerns about Chinese government influence, geopolitics and human rights issues in China. Public debate is appropriate, but emerging hysteria and sensationalism are shifting into animosity towards people with Chinese heritage in Australia.

Authorities need to act

Exclusion from an important urban resource like housing can generate profound levels of substantive inequality. This in turn is associated with health issues and poorer access to other elements of life chances like employment, transport and education. It can also generate society-wide issues like segregation and intergenerational inequality.

Australia has laws against racist discrimination in access to goods and services like housing. Our findings, among others, indicate that housing discrimination is more acute for some groups than others, particularly Asian Australians. So where is the coordinated response to this clear injustice?

The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate president | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian

The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate president | Rebecca Solnit | Opinion | The Guardian



Opinion
American civil war

The American civil war didn't end. And Trump is a Confederate presidentRebecca Solnit


His supporters hark back to an 1860s fantasy of white male dominance. But the Confederacy won’t win in the long run


Mon 5 Nov 2018 04.53 AEDTLast modified on Thu 8 Nov 2018 03.56 AEDT

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Illustration by Dom McKenzie.


In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies. The Confederacy battles in favor of uncontrolled guns and poisons, including toxins in streams, mercury from coal plants, carbon emissions into the upper atmosphere, and oil exploitation in previously protected lands and waters.

Its premise appears to be that protection of others limits the rights of white men, and those rights should be unlimited. The Brazilian philosopher of education Paulo Freire once noted that “the oppressors are afraid of losing the ‘freedom to oppress’”. Of course, not all white men support extending that old domination, but those who do see themselves and their privileges as under threat in a society in which women are gaining powers, and demographic shift is taking us to a US in which white people will be a minority by 2045.


The latest major Trump resignations and firings

Read more

If you are white, you could consider that the civil war ended in 1865. But the blowback against Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the myriad forms of segregation and deprivation of rights and freedoms and violence against black people, kept the population subjugated and punished into the present in ways that might as well be called war. It’s worth remembering that the Ku Klux Klan also hated Jews and, back then, Catholics; that the ideal of whiteness was anti-immigrant, anti-diversity, anti-inclusion; that Confederate flags went up not in the immediate post-war period of the 1860s but in the 1960s as a riposte to the civil rights movement.

Another way to talk about the United States as a country at war is to note that the number of weapons in circulation is incompatible with peace. We have 5% of the world’s population and 35%-50% of the guns in civilian hands, more guns per capita than anywhere else – and more gun deaths, too. Is it any surprise that mass shootings – an almost entirely male and largely white phenomenon – are practically daily events? Many synagogues, Jewish community centers, black churches and public schools now engage in drills that are preparations for the gunman who might arrive, the gunman we’ve met in so many aftermath news stories, who is miserable, resentful, feels entitled to take lives and is well equipped to do so. The psychological impact of drills and fear, and the financial costs of security, are a tax on other people’s access to guns. So are the deaths.
FacebookTwitterPinterest A memorial outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were killed. Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

We had an ardent Unionist president for eight years, and now we are 21 months into the reign of an openly Confederate president, one who has defended Confederate statues and Confederate values and Confederate goals, because Make America Great Again harks back to some antebellum fantasy of white male dominance. Last weekend might as well have been Make America Gentile Again. And then came the attack, last Tuesday, on one of the signal achievements after the end of all-out war between the states: the 14th Amendment, which extends equal right of citizenship to everyone born here or naturalized.

So much of what is at stake is the definition of “us”, “ours” and “we”. “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,” says the preamble to the constitution. It was murky about who “we” were, and who “the people” were. That document apportions each state’s representation according to “whole Number of free Persons, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons”. “All other persons” is a polite way of saying enslaved black people, who found the union pretty imperfect. “Who’s your ‘us’?” could be what we ask each other and our elected officials.

“You will not replace us,” shouted the mobs of white men marching through Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 in a rally organized in response to the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E Lee. When Dylann Roof murdered nine black people on 17 June 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, he declared: “Y’all are raping our white women. Y’all are taking over the world.” His “us” was white people, perhaps white men, since “our women” seems to regard white women as white men’s possessions.


The US constitution was murky about who 'we the people' were, giving only some white men the vote

Taking over the world: there is a great deal of fear and rage about an increasingly non-white nation. “The US subtracts from its population a million of our babies in the form of abortion,” Representative Steve King told a far-right Austrian magazine. “We add to our population approximately 1.8 million of ‘somebody else’s babies’ who are raised in another culture before they get to us. We are replacing our American culture two to one every year.” (He ignored that, also, almost 4 million babies are born in this country annually; factual accuracy is not a pursuit of many on the far right.)

The current president has harped on for almost three years with the idea that immigrants and refugees are criminals who pose a danger to the rest of us. He has preached the gospel of a monumentally restrictive “we”. A Florida Trump enthusiast sent bombs to leading figures of the Democratic party and to prominent liberals, some of them Jewish, the other week. In Kentucky, two elderly black people were shot by a white supremacist who had earlier tried to enter a black church. After the attacks, the president ranted about “globalists”, an antisemitic code word for Jews, and when part of his cultic crowd shouted George Soros’s name – after Soros had been among the bombers’ targets – and then “lock him up”, the president repeated the phrase appreciatively. Then came last Saturday’s synagogue massacre.

The man who allegedly killed 11 people in the Tree of Life synagogue last Saturday morning was focused on what the far right – president, Fox News and the like – pushed him to focus on – the Central American refugees in southern Mexico: the “caravan”. He bought into it as a threat and blamed that threat on Jews in general and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in particular. “All Jews must die,” he reportedly shouted as he allegedly shot elderly worshippers with the high-velocity bullets of his AR-15. He had posted just before: “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered” – “my people” meaning that restrictive “us” the white nationalists urge people such as him to identify with. (The alleged killer also posted photographs of “my Glock family” on social media.)
Depicted as a menacing horde … a caravan of Central Americans in Mexico, bound for the US. Photograph: Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images

Rightwing media and the president himself have depicted the refugees as a menacing horde. “Trump’s suggestion that Middle Easterners had joined the group came shortly after a guest on the Fox & Friends news talkshow raised the specter of Isis fighters embedding themselves in the group,” reported the Hill. The vice-president, Mike Pence, justified the baseless speculation with his own luridly counterfactual speculation. “It’s inconceivable that there are not people of Middle Eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people advancing toward our border,” he said. Latin Americans, who are also Muslims, who are also the fault of Jews. Refugees who Fox News, reviving an ugly old tradition, warn might infect us with deadly diseases (including smallpox, which is functionally extinct, and leprosy, which is perhaps the least contagious of all contagious diseases). Refugees who are aggressors. A distant “them” to rally a fearful idea of “us” against.



We never cleaned up after the civil war, never made it anathema, as the Germans have since the second world war, to support the losing side. We never had a truth and reconciliation process like South Africa did. We’ve allowed statues to go up across the country glorifying the traitors and losers, treated the pro-slavery flag as sentimental, fun, Dukes of Hazzard, white identity politics. A retired general, Stanley McChrystal, just wrote a piece about throwing out his portrait of Robert E Lee that he’d had for 40 years, and why a US soldier should celebrate the leader of a war against that country says everything about the distortion of meaning and memory here.

The Washington Post reported the other week that a senior Veterans Affairs official finally removed his portrait of a Confederate general who was also the first grand wizard of the KKK after employees, many of them black, protested at having the image in their workplace. There were death threats against the contractors hired to take down Confederate statues in New Orleans, and an epic battle over the sale of Confederate flags at county fairs in New York state. The Confederacy, which should have died a century and a half ago, is with us still, and the recent attack on the 14th amendment is an attempt to return us to its vision of radical inequality of rights and protections.


So much of what makes this country miserable is imagined poverty, the sense that there is not enough for all of us

Even before the United States was founded, great conflicts arose between the Puritans and other Christians who wanted to live in a segregated, homogeneous society, and the pluralists, between narrow and broad “us”. In what is now New Mexico, crypto-Jews –J ews who had survived the Spanish Inquisition by hiding their faith – found refuge in the mid-17th century. In 1657, locals in what is now Flushing, in Queens, New York, issued the Flushing Remonstrance, a manifesto in favor of religious tolerance (including towards Jews, Turks and Egyptians as well as Christians who were Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker), countering the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam’s attempt to punish Quakers for their divergence from the Dutch Reformed church.

That pluralistic, inclusive impulse never vanished. It’s in a recent Muslim fundraiser for the victims of the massacre at the synagogue and Muslim work to guard Jewish cemeteries in recent years; in the work of relatives of Japanese-American survivors of internment to stand up for targeted Muslimsin the wake of 9/11. It’s in all the work of inclusion and liberation and solidarity made since, in abolition and human rights work, including by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Mark Hetfield, head of the society, tweeted the other weekend: “We used to say we welcomed refugees because they were Jewish. Now we say we welcome refugees because *we* are Jewish. We know what persecution and terror is. We are a refugee people.”

You don’t have to be oppressed or come from a history of oppression to stand with the oppressed; you just have to have a definition of “we” that includes people of various points of origin and language and religious belief and sexual orientation and gender identity. A lot of us do: many large US cities are places of thriving everyday coexistence across difference. A lot of Americans have married across racial and religious lines, some have devoted themselves to the work of solidarity, and a lot subscribe to a grand inclusive “we, the people”. Those who don’t are not a majority but they have an outsized impact, more now than in a very long time. The Confederacy didn’t win in the 1860s and it is not going to win in the long run, but inflicting as much damage as possible seems to be how they want to go down.

In the short term, it is immensely worth trying to win as much as possible in this week’s elections. Some politicians support gun control; some belong to the NRA. Some want to take away reproductive rights; some are ardent defenders of those rights so essential to women being free and equal members of society. Some oppose taking refugee children from their refugee parents and putting them in baby gulags; some are enthusiasts for this child abuse. The differences are clearcut.

And in the long run we need to end the war with a decisive victory for an idea of a pluralistic, e pluribus unum union, with an affirmation of inclusive values and universal human rights, and of equality across all categories. Pittsburgh’s Jewish leaders wrote: “President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you cease your assault on immigrants and refugees. The Torah teaches that every human being is made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. This means all of us.”

Long after Trump is gone, we will have these delusional soldiers of the Confederacy and their weapons, and ending the war means ending their allegiance to the narrow “us” and the entitlement to attack. As Michelle Alexander reminded us recently: “The whole of American history can be described as a struggle between those who truly embraced the revolutionary idea of freedom, equality and justice for all, and those who resisted.” She argues that we are not the resistance; we are the river that they are trying to dam; they are the resistance, the minority, the people trying to stop the flow of history.

Perhaps peace means creating so compelling a story of abundance and possibility and wellbeing that it encourages people to wander out of their bunkers and put down their weapons and come over. It means issuing invitations, not just rebukes, and that’s a long, slow complex job. All week I’ve had the title line from Johnny Cash’s song Like a Soldier in my head. How does a soldier get over the war? I don’t know, but it helps if the war is over.

I do know that so much of what makes this country miserable is imagined poverty, the sense that there is not enough for all of us, that we need to become grabbers and hoarders and slammers of doors and ad hoc border patrols. Wars are fought over resources, and this is a fight over redistribution of resources and who decides about that distribution. We are a vast land, a country of unequaled affluence – albeit with obscene problems of distribution – a country that has always been diverse, and one that has periodically affirmed ideas of equality and universal rights that we could actually someday live up to fully. That seems to be the only real alternative to endless civil war, for all of us.

• This article was amended on 7 November 2018 to clarify that it was not Quakers, but local residents, who issued the Flushing Remonstrance in 1657.


Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Men Explain Things to Me and The Mother of All Questions


Since you’re here …

Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country - Reconciliation SA

Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country - Reconciliation SA




Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country
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Welcome and Acknowledgement of Country




What is Welcome to Country and how is it applied?
caption: Dr. Alita Rigney conducts "Welcome to Country" at Apology 2015 Recognising the Survivors Breakfast.
A Welcome to Country is where a Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander traditional owner, custodian or Elder welcomes people to their land. Protocols for welcoming visitors to Country have been part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures for thousands of years.

Welcome to Country always occurs at the opening of an event and is usually the first item on the program. The local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander custodian or traditional owner conducts the ceremony and this may be done through a speech, song, ceremony or a combination of these things. It is important for the traditional owners to be comfortable with the arrangements. Organisers need to spend time talking with local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people to identify the traditional owners and explaining to them the type of public event which is being organised and how best to prepare for this. Organisers are advised to also seek advice on who should perform the Welcome to Country, according to cultural protocols and advice from local Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people from that Country.

Welcome to Kaurna Country
Ninna Marni (A Kaurna word for "hello, how are you?")
for use in Adelaide Metro area, South Australia

Statement of Acknowledgement:
We would like to Acknowledge that the land we meet on today is the traditional lands for the Kaurna people and that we respect their spiritual relationship with their Country. We also acknowledge the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today.
protocol for use
The Statement of Acknowledgement is to be read out at the commencement of gatherings held within the Adelaide region.

source: Government of South Australia
Click here to download this statement, if you wish to use it.

Welcome to Country
(for use outside of Kaurna Country, SA)
We acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians whose ancestral lands we are meeting upon here today. We acknowledge the deep feelings of attachment and relationship of Aboriginal peoples to Country. We also pay respects to the cultural authority of Aboriginal peoples visiting / attending from other areas of South Australia / Australia present here.

protocol for use
The above Welcome to Country wording is provided for use / adaptation as appropriate for events and gatherings that take place outside the metropolitan area. This statement does not preclude direct naming and acknowledgement of traditional owners where this is specifically known.

source: Government of South Australia
Click here to download this statement, if you wish to use it.

What is "Acknowledgement of Country?"

An Acknowledgement of Country is a way of showing respect and awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owners of the land on which a meeting or event is being held, and of recognising the continuing connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to their Country. It is a demonstration of respect dedicated to the traditional custodians of the land or sea where the gathering of participants is being conducted. Government agencies and community organisations are adopting the practice of acknowledging the traditional custodians of country at events, ceremonies, meetings and functions.

click here to learn more about Acknowledgement of Country.




Additional Resources and References:Government of Western Australia: Protocols for Welcome to Country and Acknowledgement of Traditional Ownership

Circular on Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country, Catholic Education, South Australia

Frequently Asked Questions | Pyongyang Travel

Frequently Asked Questions | Pyongyang Travel







Frequently Asked Questions
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We know that upon pondering about travelling to North Korea, you might have a lot of questions or concerns. This FAQ page hopefully contributes to answer the most urgent ones. Some possible questions that we could think of are displayed below. However, what seems almost routine for us already, is for our customers a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So, please feel free to write us more emails with your questions and we will answer them quickly.


Is it allowed to travel to North Korea?

Yes and we can get you there. As a tourist, you are very welcome to travel to the DPRK. Getting a tourist visa is quite easy, so it is not true that the country is closed for western tourists. The North Korean Government actively promotes tourism. However, journalists and professional photographers are not allowed to travel to the DPRK as tourists. Moreover, the South Korean govermnent forbids its own people to travel to North Korea. All other nationals, even Americans, can travel to North Korea.
How are the guides like?

Our North Korean guides are friendly, highly professional, respectful and very nice people who have excellent foreign language skills. They are human beings with families, a personal life, various types of humor and different tastes from each other. The guides know that foreigners have other cultural backgrounds and that their political views may differ from their own beliefs. They will not try to convince you of anything or indoctrinate you. What they will be pleased to experience from the guests to their country is a certain amount of respect for their life, beliefs and customs. If you do so, you will most likely find it it not difficult to talk to the guides on a personal level, make friends with them, toast with them and laugh with them.


What are the rules about photography in North Korea? Can I take photos of all that I want?

Contrary to what is often being said in media reports, the photo rules on the tours are not absolutely strict. There are some no-goes, such as military equipment, soldiers, military stuff in general. Concerning everything else, you have almost unlimited opportunities to take pictures. The very pleasant and experienced KITC tour guides will tell you shortly after arrival about what is not allowed to be photographed. Usually, if you by mistake make a photo of a soldier or a military vehicle, nobody will be very angry at you. You might be asked to delete the picture, though. What can be problematic are people who absolutely do not want to follow this rule. Usually, this will lead to disadvantages for the whole group, which means less to see, less communication with the guides, less to gain out of your trip.


Who exactly counts as a journalist and cannot visit the DPRK as a tourist?

Definitely people who work for major media companies. If you want to visit the DPRK and you think you could fall under this category, please say so. Journalist are occasionally allowed to travel to the DPRK, but never as tourists. We might help and assist you in getting an appropriate visa. However, journalists on our tourist tours are a no-go and we may have no choice but to hold liable any journalist who circumvents this rule and makes false declarations upon application for the tours.


What happens if my visa gets rejected?

This won’t happen, unless you are a journalist or professional photographer and make false declarations during visa and tour applicaion. In the absolutely unlikely case that North Korea won’t let you in because of political tensions (even during the recent tensions in April 2013 it wasn’t a problem at all to Travel to North Korea), we will of course give you a full refund of the tour fee. We can however not refund your expenses in China such as your flight to Beijing or accomodation, since this is not part of the tour that we offer. We suggest that you have a travel insurance that would compensate if you have to cancel your flights between Beijing and your home country.
Can I post the photos and experiences of my trip on facebook?

Of course you can share your photos and experiences with your friends on facebook or other social media.


Can I write an online blog or travelogue about my trip?

Yes, you can write an online blog about the excitement of your trip as long as you are not a professional journalist. However, we require that you inform us in advance about what you want to write about. We may give you some tips as well. Due to the country’s isolation, people in the DPRK are very worried about how their country is seen by the outside world, so we kindly ask you to keep this in mind. If you are writing a blog about North Korea and the political situation already, although not for a major media company, this may be regarded as journalism by the DPRK authorities. If you do, please be honest and say so, as we may check together with the embassy and clarify your status.


Can I travel to North Korea with a South Korean stamp in my passport?

This is not a problem at all (neither vice versa). Although you may have been to South Korea before, you are very welcome to visit the DPRK. If you have a North Korean stamp in your passport and travel to South Korea, the immigration officer might look at you in a strange way, but that’s all.


Will there be bugs in my hotel room?

Of course we don’t know for sure, although it is highly unlikely that an ordinary tourist is of such interest to the North Koreans, that it would actually make sense surveiling him/her. We can only speak from our own experience in North Korea. Although it is certainly true that tourist cannot move around as freely as in other countries, we never had the feeling of being surveiled. We don’t know a 100%, but hey, that’s part of the excitement and mystery of such a journey as well!
Can I take my laptop, tablet, mobile phone, music player into the country?

Yes, no need to surrender mobile phones anymore. Laptops, tablets and music playes can be taken in as well. You can even buy a simcard to call your friends and family abroad during your trip. Even 3G-Internet-Access is possible. However, such luxuries are not cheap. Please contact us if you want to know about the exact prices.


Will the food be okay?

You will be surprised, the food in the hotels is generally of very high quality compared to other parts of Asia. The only problem might be that the food could turn out as a bit too spicy for some peoples’ stomaches. Just as a precaution, we adivise our customers with sensitive stomachs to cary with them a first aid travel kit providing medication against diarrhoea.


I’m a vegetarian or vegan. Do I have to eat meat?

No! Just tell us your special food requests upon the time of booking and we will pass it on to our Korean partners from KITC who will ensure you get the food you want and that you don’t have to compromise on that issue.


What if I get sick?

In the highly unlikely case that you get seriously sick or have an accident during the tour, there is a dedicated hospital for foreigners and diplomats in Pyongyang, where you can get good medical treatment. However, to avoid that you don’t have to pay for the cost of such treatment, make sure that you have an appropriate medical insurance in place when coming to the DPRK. This insurance should also cover a worst case scenario, such as the transport to your home country if you have to terminate your tour early due to health issues.

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Colebrook Home site at Eden Hills

RMSANT Clerk

 to Yarrow, bcc: me

29 Oct

Dear Friends (particularly those closer to Adelaide),

Sunday 4th November; 1pm lunch; 2pm guided tour.

For several months the ALM M&O committee has been attempting to set up a Friends’ visit to the Colebrook Home site at Eden Hills, and I am pleased to tell you that this has now been achieved. The Chairman of Blackwood Reconciliation Group will be there to be our guide. He is the son of one of the stolen generation. Also as a guide will be Di Grigg who is a member of BRG, and Milli Stein is a member of this group.

We have been encouraged lately to involve ourselves more in Aboriginal matters, and we hope Friends will take advantage of this opportunity.    

The plan is for us to arrive at about 1pm for a picnic lunch, so please take your own food and cold drinks. Tea and coffee will be available, and there is a barbecue which we may use. 

Our guided tour will start at 2pm.

The Colebrook Home site is on Shepherds Hill Rd about 2 kms down from the Blackwood roundabout, heading west. It is on the left hand, or southern side of Shepherds Hill Rd, past Wittunga and schools. Look for a soccer field on the left then turn left at the next opportunity into a small car park just after the soccer field. This is the car park for the Colebrook site, and the signs for Colebrook are a little further down Shepherds Hill Rd. You may also park on Shepherds Hill Rd on either side, and there is a median strip with occasional breaks if you need to make a U turn.

If you are approaching from the South Road end of Shepherds Hill Road, the site is opposite Tiparra Street.

The closest railway station is Eden Hills; walk up Willunga St and then turn right on to Barunga Street, cross over Shepherds Hill Rd, and turn right. It is a 10 to 15 minute walk from the station, mostly up-hill. Please check a map first. Trains run every ½ hour.

There are some rock seats and wooden seats at the site, and art works include sculptures and a mural painting. A walking trail is nearby for those who would like to walk in this part of the Adelaide hills face zone.

I hope to see you there

Ann Rees

2000년·2007년·2018년 남북정상회담 비교

[평양정상회담 특집-4] 2000년·2007년·2018년 남북정상회담 비교

저자

조진구(경남대학교 극동문제연구소 연구위원)일자 2018-09-21
문서번호 NO 82 [2018-11]


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4.27 판문점선언에 따른 남북정상회담이 9월 18일-20일 평양에서 개최되었다. 이글에서는 2000년과 2007년, 두 번에 걸쳐 평양에서 개최됐던 남북정상회담과 이번 평양 남북정상회담이 형식면에서 어떤 차이점과 유사점이 있는지 살펴보고자 한다.
우선 한국 대통령의 세 번의 방북은 모두 2박 3일 동안 이뤄졌지만, 2007년 10월 도보로 군사분계선을 넘어 육로로 평양을 방문했던 노무현 대통령과 달리 문재인 대통령은 2000년 김대중 대통령이 이용했던 서해직항로를 이용했다.

의전 면에서 보면 문재인 대통령은 최고의 예우를 받았다고 할 수 있다. 노 대통령은 인민문화궁전에서 김영남 최고인민회의 상임위원장의 영접을 받았지만, 김대중 대통령과 문재인 대통령은 평양 순안국제공항에서 직접 김정일 국방위원장과 김정은 국무위원장의 영접을 받았다. 특히, 이번에는 김정은 국무위원장 부부가 대통령 전용기에서 내려온 문 대통령 부부를 영접했을 뿐만 아니라, 김정은 위원장과 문 대통령이 인민군의 사열을 받는 동안 북한은 처음으로 21발의 예포를 발사하는 최고의 예우를 했다.
둘째, 2000년과 2007년에는 북한의 헌법상 국가수반인 김영남 최고인민회의 상임위원장을 예방한 뒤 둘째 날 정상회담이 열렸지만, 이번에는 김영남 위원장과의 회담은 없었으며, 방북 1일차 오후와 2일차 오전 두 번에 걸쳐 김정은 위원장과 정상회담을 가졌다.
우리 외교부 장관이 평양을 방문한 것은 이번이 처음이라 평양 남북외교장관 회담 혹은 공식수행원들이 참석하는 확대정상회담 개최 가능성에도 관심이 모아졌지만 실현되지는 않았다.
정상회담 장소도 과거에는 대통령의 숙소였던 백화원 영빈관을 김정일 위원장이 찾아와 열렸지만, 이번 1일차에는 문 대통령이 김정은 위원장의 집무실이 있는 노동당 본부청사를 방문해 열렸고, 2일차는 김 위원장이 백화원 영빈관을 찾아와 열렸다.
셋째, 배석자 수도 달랐다. 2000년에는 3명씩 배석하기로 한 합의에 따라 한국 측에서는 임동원 국정원장, 황원탁 외교안보수석, 이기호 경제수석이 배석했지만, 북측은 김용순 대남담당 노동당 비서만이 배석했다. 2007년의 경우 우리 측은 권오규 부총리, 이재정 통일부장관, 김만복 국가정보원장, 백종천 통일외교안보정책실장, 조명균 안보정책비서관 등 5명이 배석한 데 반해 북측은 김양건 통일전선부장만 배석했다.

그러나 이번 1일차 정상회담에서 우리 측은 서훈 국정원장과 정의용 국가안보실장이, 북측은 김영철 당 부위원장 겸 통일전선부장과 김여정 당 제1부부장이 배석했고, 합의문 발표 전에 열린 2일차 정상회담은 서훈 국정원장과 김영철 통일전선부장만 배석한 가운데 진행되었다.
넷째, 합의문 발표 형식도 과거와는 달랐다. 2000년의 경우 방북 2일차 8시에 시작된 김 대통령 주최 만찬이 끝나기 직전인 자정 무렵에 서명이 이뤄졌고, 2007년에는 방북 마지막 날인 10월 4일 서명이 이뤄졌다.
반면, 이번에는 두 번째 정상회담 후 합의내용을 담은 ‘9월 평양공동선언’에 남북의 정상이 서명을 한 뒤 송영무 국방장관과 노광철 인민무력상이 ‘판문점선언(4.27 남북정상회담 합의) 이행을 위한 군사 분야 합의서’에 서명하는 것을 지켜봤다. 정상 간 합의문서의 부속문서가 채택된 것도 이번이 처음이다.
합의서 서명식을 마친 두 정상은 10여분의 휴식 후 공동회견을 통해 합의내용을 발표했다. 4월 27일 판문점 우리 측 지역인 평화의 집에서 개최되었던 문재인-김정은 첫 정상회담과 같은 방식이다. 기자들과의 질의응답은 없었지만 북한 최고지도자 연설이 언론을 통해 전 세계로 생중계된 것은 이때가 처음이었는데, 이번에는 서울의 메인 프레스센터의 대형 모니터를 통해 생중계되었다.
다섯째, 비핵화 문제가 핵심의제로 논의되고 비핵화 방안이 합의되었던 것은 처음이었다. 평양으로 출발하기 전에 문재인 대통령은 평양 방문으로 북미대화가 재개되면 그 자체가 큰 의미라고 말했는데, 평양정상회담에 대한 미국의 평가가 중요하지만 교착상태에 빠진 북미대화의 재개, 특히 두 번째 북미정상회담의 개최 가능성이 높아졌다고 해도 틀리지는 않을 것이다.
마지막으로 무엇보다 이번 평양정상회담은 파격의 연속이었다는 것을 지적하지 않을 수 없다. 방북 첫날 공항에서 백화원 영빈관으로 가는 길에 김정은 위원장과 함께 퍼레이드를 하고 도중에 내려 환영 나온 시민과 악수를 나누면서 대통령의 파격 행보는 시작됐다. 공동선언 서명 뒤 평양시민들이 즐겨 찾는다는 대동강 수산물시장에서 김정은 위원장 부부와 만찬을 한 문 대통령은 여기서도 평양시민과 악수하며 인사를 나눴다.

특히, 밤에는 능라도 5.1 경기장에서 펼쳐진 대집단체조와 예술 공연을 관람하면서 분단 후 처음으로 한국 대통령이 15만 명의 평양시민을 상대로 연설을 하는 장면도 있었다. 문 대통령은 “우리는 5,000년을 함께 살고 70년을 헤어져서 살았다”며 “지난 70년 적대를 완전히 청산하고 다시 하나가 되기 위한 평화의 큰 걸음을 내딛자”고 역설했다.
이 연설은 베를린 장벽이 무너지고 한 달 여 뒤인 1989년 12월 19일 처음으로 동독을 방문한 서독의 콜 총리가 드레스덴에서 한스 모드로 동독총리와 회담한 후 “헬무트! 헬무트!”를 연호하는 수만 명의 동독 시민들 앞에서 “역사적인 순간이 허용한다면 나의 목표가 통일이라는 점에는 변함이 없다”면서 “우리들은 계속 하나의 국가일 것”이라고 역설했던 연설을 방불케 했다.
문재인 대통령은 9월 20일 아침 김정은 위원장과 함께 백두산에 올랐다가 귀국하는 것으로 평양정상회담 일정을 마쳤다. 이번에 합의된 ‘9월 평양공동선언’과 군사 분야의 부속합의서는 문정인 대통령 통일외교안보특별보좌관이 지적한 대로 총론과 각론적 성격이 강했던 6.15 공동선언과 10.4 공동선언을 행동으로 옮기는 실천적 성격이 강하다.
또한 6.15 공동선언과 10.4 공동선언의 합의과정은 결코 순탄했다고 할 수 없었지만, 5개월도 채 안 되는 사이에 이뤄진 세 번의 정상회담은 남북관계가 새로운 단계에 접어들기 시작했음을 보여주었다. 그러나 한반도를 핵무기와 핵위협이 없는 평화로운 터전으로 만들어 후손에게 물려주려는 ‘담대한 여정’의 앞길은 탄탄대로가 아니다.
지난 4월 20일 당 중앙위 전원회의에서 천명한 대로 “전체 인민들에게 남부럽지 않은 유족하고 문명한 생활을” 할 수 있게 하기 위해서는 과거의 부(負)의 유산과 결별해야 한다. 또한 올해 안에 북한 최고지도자로서 사상 처음 서울을 방문하기 위해서는 비핵화를 향한 북미대화가 조기에 재개되고 구체적인 성과를 내야 한다는 과제가 남아 있다.

Dear Life by Alice Munro | Goodreads

Dear Life by Alice Munro | Goodreads




Dear Life

by
Alice Munro,
Raymond Verdaguer (Illustrator),
Mónica Naranjo Uribe (Illustrator)
3.75 · Rating details · 26,764 Ratings · 3,328 Reviews
Suffused with Munro's clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and real, paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.

Alice Munro's peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in o...more

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Hardcover, 336 pages
Published October 13th 2012 by Douglas Gibson Books (first published September 19th 2011)
Original Title
Dear Life
ISBN
0771064861 (ISBN13: 9780771064869)
Edition Language
E
Other Editions (9)






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Feb 08, 2014Manny rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: why-not-call-it-poetry, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, blame-jordan-if-you-like
I had never read any Alice Munro, and I find it's difficult to say anything sensible about her. Obviously, the stories are very good. (She just won the Nobel Prize. Duh). But what's most impressive is that she doesn't seem to be doing anything in particular. With some writers, it's easy to understand why they're so highly regarded. Take Vladimir Nabokov. I look at his brilliantly constructed sentences, his cleverly ambiguous allusions, his breathtakingly unexpected metaphors, and I sigh: ah, I wish I could do that too. I know perfectly well that I can't; I don't have the necessary technical skills. But Munro isn't showy. She seems to be telling me ordinary stories about ordinary people, written in an ordinary language. They don't require concentration to read. But each one is perfectly balanced, and somehow they end up grabbing me by the heart and forcing me to reflect on universal themes of human nature: how people are unfaithful, how they lie to their loved ones, how they are unable to act at a critical moment and spend the rest of their lives wondering why not, how their memories don't quite match up.

I'm currently reading a lot of science books, so perhaps it's natural that I'm reminded of a story about Einstein and Hubble. Some time in the 30s, Einstein and his wife visited Hubble, the most distinguished astronomer of the time. They were taken to see the hundred-inch telescope, a current miracle of advanced technology.

"What do you do with it?" asked Mrs. Einstein.

"I use it to discover the secrets of the universe," replied Hubble.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Einstein dismissively. "My husband does that on the back of an old envelope." (less)
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Jan 12, 2016Nicholas Sparks rated it it was amazing
Shelves: nicholas-recommends
This new collection pinpoints the moment a person is forever altered by a chance encounter, an action not taken or a simple twist of fate. These are terrific stories by an amazing talent, a writer so good I learn something new with every story.
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Jan 13, 2014Rowena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: canadian-lit
I’m always careful not to fall victim to popular opinion when reading any book, especially one by such an acclaimed and beloved writer as Alice Munro. I tried to forget the fact that Munro had only recently won the Nobel prize for fiction. This is only my second Munro so maybe I’m not the best judge of her work but I did find this collection very enjoyable.

I find that with Munro it’s the little details. Her stories are everyday stories of everyday people living mainly in small-town Canada, people we probably don’t expect to read about in books. Whether she is exploring the thoughts of a little child, an inexperienced university graduate, or an unsatisfied housewife, she does so expertly. I found myself engaged by the stories, stories that I found to be very believable, as well as very sad in most cases. I also enjoyed her stories set in post-war Canada, a very different Canada from the one I live in now.

Munro definitely writes with much clarity. People often comment on her well-crafted sentences and I won’t argue with that. What I love most of all is her insight into human relationships.
I enjoyed the last few stories that were supposedly autobiographical. Very nostalgic. It’s very fitting that this book is called “Dear Life.”

I felt quite sad when I turned the last page knowing this is supposedly the last book she will ever write.


“So still, so immense an enchantment.”

— Alice Munro, Dear Life (less)
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Oct 10, 2013Kalliope rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: fiction-english, canadian



DEAR WRITING

It is reassuring to see that the Nobel Prize for literature went recently to someone who writes so clearly and so unpretentiously.

I am not much of a reader of short stories. Shifting from one to the next is always anticlimactic. And often their being grouped in one particular volume is also contrived. This is the case with this collectioin. Most of these stories were first published at different dates in various literary magazines (Granta,Harper’s, Tin House...).

The settings are v ...more
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Dec 11, 2012Susan Tekulve rated it it was amazing
As with all of Alice Munro's books, I rushed out to buy this newest collection, and then I rushed home, eager to plunge into it. I am an ardent fan of Alice Munro's work, and I think this collection is good, better than good. The most breathtaking, full and energetic of the short stories in this collection is "Amundsen." It takes place in a TB sanatarium near a remote town in Northern Canada. The story is about a young woman who takes a job teaching the children in the sanatarium and, eventually, falls in love with the sanatarium's melancholy doctor whose kind, yet oddly cold, intentions toward the young woman remain muddled until the very end. The story has the heft of a Russian novel, and there is, indeed, an allusion to WAR AND PEACE within its pages. However, I felt a feverish pull to keep turning its pages, and there is a good sort of mystery that keeps the story tight and page-turning.

A lot of the other stories are classic Munro, stories that examine "grown-up" themes that so many other best-selling writers, and, more to the point, big-house publishers, typically don't seem to have an interest in publishing these days--unless they are publishing Alice Munro, and maybe a handful of other wonderful literary writer, (like Elizabeth Strout), who maintain a place in today's publishing market. Quite simply, Munro writes about aging, and she does so with bravery, steadiness and stoic grace. One of her characters faces the horrors of the onset of dementia--after she is already in the grips of the disease; another character, a seventy-one-year-old woman, begins to believe that her eighty-three-year-old husband is going to leave her for a visiting cosmetic saleswoman who turns out to be an old flame of his. These stories are sadly beautiful, and they are relatively short, by Munro's standards.

What surprised and delighted me the most were the four final "works" of the book. She prefaces these "works" by saying that they "are not quite stories" because they are "autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, in fact." Munro took a similar approach in THE VIEW FROM CASTLE ROCK, which begins with an account of how she researched her ancestors in Scotland, then moves into pieces of "fictionalized autobiography" based on her Scottish ancestors in the middle. Then, the book ends in the realm of complete fiction. I like Munro's forays into memoir, and even though she doesn't truly commit to writing "the truth," I have to admire the fact that she doesn't pretend that her autobiographical stories are 100% true. By taking this approach, she avoids the trap that a number of fiction writers fall into when they venture completely into memoir. It seems, (at least in my reading of memoirs written by fiction writers), that many fiction writers who make the foray into memoir writing forget that they are still telling a story. They forget that even memoirists must create a dramatic persona of themselves so that they have the distance, (and good narrative sense), that it takes to tell a truthful AND effective story. They have no sense of perspective, and no sense of how they come off as the protagonist of their own stories; they often tell too much, or too little. In short, they forget the basic elements of narrative because they are "telling the truth."

This is not the case with Munro's autobiographical writing. In fact, the autobiographical "works" in this collection feel more immediate and energetic than a number of the fictional stories. Munro's voice in these pieces is stoic. In a piece called "Night," she recalls the time when she was fourteen, and she had a tumor removed at the same time she had her appendix taken out. She muses about how her mother never mentioned whether the tumor was cancerous or benign: "So I did not ask and wasn't told and can only suppose it was benign or was most skillfully got rid of, for here I am today." It's statements like this that reveal her stoicism, but also her warmth and humor. In "The Eye," she writes heartbreakingly about the death of Sadie, the hired girl Munro's mother apparently brought into the home to help with the chores when Munro's younger brother was born. The story hinges upon the moment when Munro's mother takes her to Sadie's wake, with the intentions of showing Alice what death looks like. And Alice, who is quite young when this event happens, imagines that she sees Sadie's eye flutter open while she is lying in the casket. It's a small, almost Gothic moment, and yet it captures perfectly that mystery and strange hope that children feel when they first see death.

Ultimately, this is a collection that amazes me, partly because Munro continues to write innovative stories at a time in her life when she has every reason to rest on her laurels. It amazes me because she confronts subjects that a lot of people turn away from, such as aging quietly, and dying quietly, of devastatingly unromantic old-age ailments. If you already like Alice Munro, you will like the fictional stories because they have all the classic Munro traits--hardscrabble settings, stoic characters, dark humor. If you are an ardent fan, such as myself, you'll love the "fictionalized nonfiction" pieces too because they offer a glimpse into the life and mind of this beloved writer. (less)
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Apr 20, 2014Carmen rated it did not like it · review of another edition
Recommends it for: Absolutely no one
Shelves: fiction, short-stories, traditionally-published, she-says
Story 1: To Reach Japan
A story about a woman who's determined to have an affair.

Now, I don't condone affairs. But sometimes I can understand them, e.g. Addicted by Zane. But here, no reason is given for Greta cheating. And it doesn't seem to matter who she's cheating with: any available and interested man will do. So it's not “love” affairs she's having.

My educated guess about why Greta is cheating on her husband is that she's bored. She's a poet who works from home and she has a small child.

The first guy she becomes enamored with is a journalist who takes her home when she becomes drunk at a party. In the car, they're talking and he says this:

"Excuse me for sounding how I did. I was thinking whether I would or wouldn't kiss you and I decided I wouldn't."

What an asshole! Not because, as Greta thinks, he's judging her “un-kiss-worthy” but because there is a drunk, married woman in his car and he's seeing her in a sexual way. What a jerk. What makes you think she wants to be kissed by you??!? How big of a creep are you to offer to drive a woman home from a party when she's drunk and then contemplate whether you should take advantage of her or not?!?! Also, she's married, you prick.

Unfortunately, Greta shares none of my compunctions about his behavior and starts daydreaming about the man constantly for a year. Then she writes him a letter of poetry and stuff and sends it to his work. WTF?!!?

Later, she enters affair number two. This is when her daughter Katy and herself are traveling to Toronto to live without her husband for a month because her husband is leaving the country. This actor is on the train, a play actor, and she describes him as “a boy” so I'm thinking he's at least 10 years younger than her. He entertains all the children on the train, and at the end of the day they start drinking, flirting, and touching. It's obvious to me by now that it doesn't matter who the frick the man is, she is just going after anyone with a penis – except her husband, I guess.

This conversation happens:

GRETA: "I haven't got any - " (condoms)
GREG: "I have."
GRETA: "Not on you?"
GREG: "Certainly not. What kind of beast do you think I am?"

Oh, I don't know.. THE KIND OF BEAST WHO PROPOSITIONS A MARRIED WOMAN RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER SLEEPING CHILD!?!?!!?!? I mean, her child is curled up sleeping right there. Classy. <---sarcasm

So she leaves her child, ALONE, and goes to Greg's compartment to have sex with him.

Then, after their finished having sex, she tells him she has to go back to her compartment. And he says:

""Okay. Okay. I should get ready for Saskatoon anyway. What if we'd got there just in the middle of it? Hello Mom. Hello Daddy. Excuse me just a minute here while I -Wa - hoo!"

*blink blink
What. A. Moron. Seriously. THIS is who you choose to have an affair with? This guy!?!? Incredible.

So she goes back to her compartment to find Katy is missing. She freaks out. Later she finds Katy, unharmed, who says she went to look for Mommy. Greta is feeling very guilty and shameful and as if Katy going missing was “punishment” for Greta having sex with Greg.

Then, in the final twist, (view spoiler)

This story left me pretty cold. I couldn't understand Greta or her motivations. She made bad choices, and I didn't even understand why. I was just annoyed with her for the whole story.

Story #2: Amundsen
A woman goes to a tuberculosis hospital to be a teacher. There is a doctor there who is an asshole. He's rude to everyone, even the children that adore him. For some reason, the woman starts to date him. He says mean things to her and to a little child. Next thing you know, she's having sex with him. He's still an asshole. He promises to marry her. But after a few months, and a “let's drive to Huntsville to get married” it turns out that it's “let's drive to Huntsville so I can put you on a train back to Toronto like all the other women I fucked and then discarded.” I have no sympathy for the main character. None. The doctor acted like a complete dick right in front of her numerous times, and she didn't say anything. He humiliated a little girl, calling her fat and mocking her – right in front of the MC, who didn't defend the child or stop dating him or anything. She just lets this guy use her and also lets him treat her and other people like crap.

While I think it is, of course, the asshole's fault for being an asshole, it's also her responsibility to say something when he's being mean and rude (especially to a child!) in front of her. I have no respect for a woman who just lets a man walk all over her like that. Grow some ovaries, woman! And it should be no surprise to her that if he has no respect for anyone, that he will eventually be rude and disrespectful to her, too.

Stories 3-7 So boring they are not even worth talking about.

Story #8: Train
This was a long story. I liked reading about the woman, Belle, living in abject poverty. But then Munro had to go and ruin everything by putting a weird sexual abuse undertone to the whole thing and it was disgusting. Also, nothing much happens in this story.

Story #9: In Sight of the Lake
This was actually a pretty good story, about an old woman who's going senile. Best story in the collection.

Story #10: Dolly
This was a pretty good story about the evils of Facebook. I mean, she doesn't use those terms, but that's what I got out of it. How dangerous it is to have ex-lovers come back into your life.

Story #11: The Eye
Boring.

Story #12: Night
There is a really good passage in here about evil thoughts.

Story #13: Voices
Boring.

Story #14: Dear Life
Boring.

Roly Grain, his name was, and he does not have any further part in what I'm writing now, because this is not a story, only life.”

This above quote, from Munro's last story, pretty much sums up the whole book. It's as if she were saying: “I'm sorry that these stories are so boring, but I must remind you they are LIFE. I will leave anything faintly interesting out of these stories because I want them to be REAL and TRUE and BORING just like life is. Not fiction, you know, which actually makes things interesting.” Uh-huh. Thanks but no thanks, Ms. Munro.
...

I can't believe how much fuss is made over this author. She writes, in general, about asshole men who run roughshod over their women and women who are so passive and invertebrate that it seems that they only do not CARE about being dominated, they don't even realize they ARE being dominated. It's as if they are completely passive. With no thoughts or agency of their own.

P.S. Like Flannery O'Connor Lite - a good way to describe this book.

P.P.S. 9 out of 10 people in my book club did not enjoy this book. (less)
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Jan 15, 2017Nandakishore Varma rated it really liked it
You know, I have been trying to put my finger on what exactly makes Alice Munro so fascinating. Her writing is without frills - she does not use flowery language or dazzling metaphors. Her stories can be read by any schoolkid without referring a dictionary. Ms. Munro does not write about extraordinary events; her characters are middle class men and women of Canada, going about their humdrum lives. It is Ernest Hemingway plus Jane Austen.

The first story sort of had me saying: "Is this the Nobel Prize winner? Oh come on!" but something in that bland narrative pulled me in, enticing me to try one more - then one more - then... well, you know. It was like a box of chocolates when you promise to stop after the next, and soon the box is empty.

The power of Alice Munro is not in what she says - but what she leaves unsaid: and that is quite a lot. The reader is asked to fill in the gaps, and I think most readers would do it in their own particular way, moulding the story to his or her own fashion. In most stories, the narrator is a child in the first person; a child who grows up as the story progresses. As we all know children see more of life and interpret it less. There is a disconcerting truthfulness to their viewpoints which makes adults uncomfortable. And when the child grows up and understands what she has experienced before she put on her adult glasses, this dichotomy of vision provides the tension which keeps the story on a knife's edge.

The unwritten story was what had me returning again and again to this collection.

----------------------------------------

The "child's-eye-view" is most effectively used in the stories "Gravel" and "Voices". In the first, a broken-up marriage is described in the voice of a child too young to form clear memories of events but has vivid recollections of things. When the story suddenly escalates to tragedy without warning, the kid suddenly grows up; and we realise that we have been hearing this child-woman all along - because in a sense, she has been trapped at the point of her tragedy. Her vision is crystal clear until the actual event, but the moment the adult takes over, analysis starts and we are now dealing with conjectures instead of concrete certainties.

In the second, the situation is more prosaic. In a country dance, the narrator and her mother meet a prostitute. The child is entranced by the elegant lady but the mum is understandably outraged. Sent upstairs to get her coat so that she and her mum can leave, the girl meets a girl called Peggy, who is visibly upset and crying, and her two suitors on the stairs. Peggy is part of the prostitute's entourage and the men are quite obviously trying to pacify her. They are talking to her as the child-narrator had never heard a woman talked to before.


For a long time I remembered the voices. I pondered over the voices. Not Peggy's. The men's. I know now that some of the Air Force men stationed at Port Albert early in the war had come out from England, and were training there to fight the Germans. So I wonder if it was the accent of some part of Britain that I was finding so mild and entrancing. It was certainly true that I had never in my life heard a man speak in that way, treating a woman as if she was so fine and valued a creature that whatever it was, whatever unkindness had come near her, was somehow a breach of law, a sin.

It is obvious to us adults who read the story that Peggy has been somehow slighted by the "respectable" ladies at the dance - the child sees only the consideration she obtains from men, something that is forever withheld from her.

Nameless child narrators (who seem alter egos of the novelist herself) are central to the stories "Haven", "The Eye"and "Night" also; and other stories such as "Leaving Maverly", "Pride"and "Dear Life" also deal in part with childhood. In fact, most of these stories involve the shifting of human relations as people grow up, and they seem to wander all over the place without coming to a point. Many contain snippets of information that are seemingly irrelevant to what the author is trying to convey but then, as Ms. Munro's narrator says in "Dear Life"


...And even farther away, on another hillside, was another house, quite small at that distance, facing ours, that we would never visit or know and that was to me like a dwarf's house in a story. But we knew the name of the man who lived there, or had lived there at one time, for he might have died by now. Roly Grain, his name was, and he does not have any further part in what I am writing now, in spite of his troll's name, because this is not a story, only life.

Life, unlike a story, is never neatly rounded off. Life leaves a lot of its story on unwritten pages - like Ms. Munro.

----------------------------------------

The characters in this author's fictional universe are often jarringly disconnected from one another. In "Train", the protagonist (unusually, a male) is on the run from a relationship: but not for the reason one thinks, as becomes shockingly clear at the denouement: in "Amundsen", a relationship develops and unfurls with frightening speed. The characters seem to take it all in their stride, especially when narrated in Ms. Munro's extremely spare prose. Sometimes, this alienation results in unlikely alliances too, as in "Corrie" and "Pride". Many a time, core plot elements are hidden or only fleetingly mentioned. In the hands of a less skilled author, it would have been a disaster; here, it is what gives the stories their pith.

Because at the centre of it all, there lies hope. As Neal, a character in "Gravel", says:


"The thing is to be happy," he said. "No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.".

Yes, indeed. (less)
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Nov 21, 2012brian rated it liked it
alice munro - great contemporary writer and bigtime oxymoron* - has a new collection coming out nov 13, just 3 days after i'm to be married. which is great as i'm expecting to be all reflective and nostalgic but also forward-looking and hopeful, a mishmash of sentiment and emotion and whatnot; which works out as nobody conjures up all that conflicting crap better than munro.

so, a few days after the wedding, we head down to del mar and, our first night walking the main drag of the tiny seaside town, we see this sign outside the local library:



giddy at the prospect of what 'read to dogs' actually means, we head back to our room deep in book/dog conversation. my new bride passes out early (red wine) & i head to the balcony, break out one of the many cigars i've acquired over the wedding weekend, and smoke and read. (munro is more a wintry, woodsmoke smell, but damp oceanair & cigarsmoke, as it turns out, works just fine)

next morning we head to the del mar library and discover that 'read to dogs' really is as good as it sounds: a program whereby young kids come to the library and, well, they… read to dogs. so me and the wife sit there all permagrinned in a circle with a bunch of kids and a bunch of dogs. i met two great guys in particular: caleb and cody. i read an excerpt from 'corrie', a story from dear life. check me out kissing caleb:



and here's his glamour shot:



so, dear life. not one of munro's best, but as per the woodman:

Woman: I finally had an orgasm, and my doctor said it was the wrong kind.
Isaac: You had the wrong kind? I've never had the wrong kind, ever. My worst one was right on the money.

yeah, even the 'wrong kind' of alice munro is right on the money.

a few more things: del mar is so awesome that even the fucking seals leave the ocean to try and hang out there.



look at that guy! he walked up onto the shore and hung with people! i have a theory that seals & sea lions are actually just dog mermaids.

and check this out:

"The 2010 United States Census[5] reported that Del Mar had a population of 4,161. The population density was 2,341.9 people per square mile (904.2/km²). The racial makeup of Del Mar was 3,912 (94.0%) White, 10 (0.2%) African American, eight (0.2%) Native American, 118 (2.8%) Asian, three (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 25 (0.6%) from other races, and 85 (2.0%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 175 persons (4.2%)."

10 black people live in del mar! we went to dinner and saw a black couple and i couldn't help thinking that we were sitting in a restaurant with 1/5 the black population of del mar. i wanted to stare and point -- like spotting a grizzly cub pawing down a city street. the weekend was extraordinary but i couldn't get this outta my head:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiyLtM...



* 'badass candian' -- a distinction shared with neil young, my next door neighbors, pamela anderson, geddy lee, & peter north. (less)
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Apr 14, 2013Ty rated it it was ok
Shelves: quit-before-finished
I'm a writer myself, and within the last two years or so have begun to concentrate a bit more on writing short fiction.

To write is to read, as they say, and I have made an effort to read more short fiction. Many people, from members of my writing group, to lecturers I've listened to, to writers of articles on the subject I have read have advised the same thing; read Alice Munro.

"Perfect. Masterful. Genius. Epitome of what a short story should be today." All of these are accolades heaped upon Munro and her work. So when I was at the library two weeks ago I figured it was time to sample her work. It almost seemed like my duty as a writer to partake in some of her fiction.

Perhaps it was a mistake to start with her latest collection, published just last year, but my conclusion about her thus far is that she has been oversold to me.

The writing in this collection is solid, intelligent writing, I will say. That is actually part of the problem. I got the impression it was written by an author that has a reputation, and was trying to uphold it. A reputation that, as I said, I am not sure is deserved based on these stories.

Any writer who has been flummoxed by constant advice to "show and not tell" should take comfort; 90% of what Munro does in these stories is tell. In flashback, in digression, in speculation. Pages upon pages of, "The character went through this and this and when younger saw this, and met X and did why. It was discussed at some point that she should do thus and so, and though she desired so and thus, thus and so won out. And this made her depressed. So depressed that she had taken up the habit of drinking..."

Eventually, in some cases, that sort of telling led to something relevant in the "present" of the story. (Though tense and time frame were fluid to a distracting degree sometimes.) Her brand is simplicity, and perhaps she does write in a simple way...but one can take forever to get somewhere, even if the forever is written in simple language, and I found myself saying, "what is the point?"

Naturally, literature is more about language than about character or plot, many will say. Let's stipulate that. That being the case, the language itself needs to either inspire sweeping visuals or move the reader in some transcendent way. The prose here does neither.

Perhaps one reason it doesn't do so is the depressing nature of the stories. I figured when I started there was one or two in every collection. But too many of the stories are about depressing things happening to unsatisfied and unlikable people in nondescript settings. (Most of which were very much Canadian...so much so it almost seems one needs to have grown up in Canada to catch on to any of the nuance presented.) I understand it isn't the job of a writer to always make people happy, but the writing is so distant, the characters so cold, I just didn't care what happened to them at all.

That lack of vibrancy in either plot or language made these shorter length stories a bit of a slog at times. I finished most in one sitting, as one is expected to do with short fiction, but by the time I got through about half of them (I didn't read them in order), it became clear that "Dear Life: Stories" would have been more appropriately titles "Downer: Stories."

I won't give up on Munro totally. not yet. That almost seems like treason in the writing world. But I have given up on this collection. (less)
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Apr 26, 2012Fionnuala added it
Shelves: short-story-novella, munro



Dear Alice,

What a good investment you've turned out to be.
A little girl growing up in rural Canada in the early twentieth century, far from the turmoil experienced by your contemporaries in Europe, you nevertheless created several lifetimes’ worth of unique stories from the limited resources you were given.
I watched while you observed every detail of your rural existence, filing away images and experiences for future use like some Canadian Picasso accumulating a studio full of junk which one fine day when the light is right, allows the bonnet of a toy car to become a baboon’s wide grin.
The ringlets your mother slaved over, your early piano lessons, your first viewing of a dead body, that story you read in the newspaper, the plot of the first novel you read, your neighbour’s failed marriage, your elderly aunt’s eccentric life, your own experiences of illness, everything has been recycled.
And as with Picasso, each new work that emerges from the mountain of stored experiences startles by its novelty, by its ability to veer off towards new and unexpected directions, by its real and frequently shocking truth.
You have used what you have been given very well, Alice.
You have earned your prize.

Yours very sincerely,

Life
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