Archive for May, 2007

UPDATE 23 JUNE 2007: NICOLE HAS INFORMED ME THAT THIS SURVEY IS NOW CLOSED.

I received this email from Nicole Le Maire who is doing a survey of the expatriate experience for a study on The Hidden Depths of Global ambition. She is looking for people who have worked or are working in a country that is not their home country to do a short survey.

I started to do it and the questions made me think that I’m actually a local in the UK so I’m not sure I qualify. I came here as a child to school and stayed on for Uni and Law College, then got a job here. So I’m not sure I’m an expat (ie Malaysian expat) - am I?

Anyway, take a look for yourself (this survey is open to all genders, not just women):

Are you living or have you lived, studied or worked outside of your ‘home country’?

Has your organisation sent you abroad to complete an international assignment?

My name is Nicole Le Maire (Dutch) currently studying for a MBA qualification at TiasNimbas, The Netherlands. I am undertaking research on the topic of The Hidden Depths of Global Ambition, looking at the various ways how organisations and people decide to take the decision to work abroad. Do males/females receive the same opportunities to develop and work abroad? Is it nowadays standard that people accept localised terms and conditions?

This study will only take 10 minutes and the information received will be treated as strictly confidential. Its only purpose is to support this research.

To participate in my study, please click here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=372813890362

(If the link does not work, copy and paste the URL into your browser)

As a fellow ‘expatriate’, I hope you agree with me that learning more about the Hidden Depths of Global Ambition is important. I would be grateful if you could pass this along onto any ‘expatriates’ that you believe would be willing to take part in this study.

I would be very grateful for your participation.
Thank you for your time!

Nicole Le Maire
email: ndlemaire [at] hotmail.com
http://www.tiasnimbas.edu

Photo: thanks to fischerhuder from flickr.com

As a child in Malaysia, I used to read everything I could find about the Ancient Romans and Greeks. I knew all the stories of daring heroes and jealous gods, beautiful women and powerful goddesses - Theseus and the Minotaur, Diana the huntress, Zeus and his desire for women, Helen of Troy. Their world, in my mind, was one of craggy mountains and turquoise seas, bright meadows and dark caves; these humans and gods glowing with bronzed skin against white tunics. There was also something about the idea of long-gone civilizations that was haunting to me back then as a child - and is still haunting to me now as an adult. I could not imagine back then how it could be that great cities that had once flourished and thronged with people could somehow be forgotten and lie undiscovered for centuries - and even millenia. Looking around at the city I lived in then, it seemed impossible that it might one day crumble to dust and be erased from memory.

We spent a week on Crete recently and all these haunting thoughts came back to me during our holiday on this bright Mediterranean island, once the crossroads at the centre of the Ancient World. Today, it is part of Greece, one of the newest members of the European Union and also among its poorer nations. For much of the last century, it was primarily an agricultural economy and while many coastal villages and towns are thriving from tourism as seaside resorts, it is still relatively unspoilt inland and retains its rural charm. In contrast to the wealthier First World European regions like the UK, Germany and France, Crete felt like a step back into the Third World. Whole families ride around on one scooter, the kids jammed between their parents; food is very cheap; decor is plain and simple; traffic is chaotic; buildings and houses look tatty and laid-back. There are still many sleepy villages surrounded by olive groves and orange trees where herds of sheep are shepherded down the main street and may wander into your garden to eat the geraniums.

Crete is also the home of Knossos, the home of the legendary King Minos who is said to have kept the Minotaur in the labyrinth beneath the palace - the hero Theseus slayed the monster with the help of the King’s daughter Ariadne and escaped with her to Naxos. The palace and its surrounding city was at its height 3,000 years ago and was an astonishingly beautiful multi-storyed complex of courtyards and decorated rooms. At the opposite end of the island, near where we were staying, was the thriving commercial city of Aptera, a busy urban centre with Roman baths and bustling streets. Both now lie in ruins, undiscovered for thousands of years, their stones taken by locals to be used in building houses and other structures.

Wandering around Aptera, with its amazing view over Souda Bay in one direction and a vista of the mountains in the other, I was struck by the poppies and wildflowers fluttering in the wind amid the empty stones. This is all that is left of a nation that was once the most powerful and wealthy in the Western world, its heirs now among the poorest Europe. We came across the remains of a villa, just a handful of stone pillars now. We sat down for a rest and had a drink from our water bottles. I noticed a carved pattern on one of the pillars and wondered who the man was who carved it those thousands of years ago - I pictured him on a particular day at a particular time, just doing his job, perhaps thinking of his family or telling a joke to his fellow artisans as he worked. For him, that city he lived in would have seemed as infinite and permanent as I feel London and Kuala Lumpur is today. I wondered who lived in this villa with its stunning view of the mountains and how that family might have stood out on its terrace and looked at the ageless hills as I was looking out at them now. Perhaps they too felt how life was good, as I did in that moment - how fortunate they were to have this villa and the riches of their lives.

I thought of Shelley’s poem Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

For me, that moment by the villa made me somewhat melancholy but it also heightened my appreciation of our week’s holiday - and the fullness of all that I had to enjoy in my life. I think that’s why the Romantics kept a skull on their desk and built fake ruins in the gardens of their estates - to be reminded that “nothing beside remains” and so to feel more keenly the sensations of being alive. There’s nothing like a touch of mortality to wake one up to the vibrancy of life.

Photo 1: ruins of villa, Aptera

Photo 2: detail of carved pillar

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For more on Ozymandias, see http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/shelley/section2.rhtml

For more on Aptera, see http://www.greekisland.co.uk/wcrete/aptera.htm

Yup, that’s right folks, there is a Gay Rodeo in L.A. and you can watch ‘em beefcakes in spangly dresses wrangling with cows ‘n’ stuff right here on Film Monday.

This is part of series of short films “Gay Rodeo ain’t fer Sissies” on Underground Yahoo where Brad Miskell goes in search of underground culture in America. He writes in the post accompanying this video:

“Gay rodeo is about inclusiveness…and spangled chaps, and tight jeans, and Marlboro man mustaches, and Stetsons, and studded shirts, and studs and fillies—in other words, it’s just like regular rodeo except the studs are more cut and maybe a tad cattier about it. And the cowgirls ride bulls if they want. Oh…and the dancing. Dancing is maybe as big a gay rodeo draw as gay rodeoin’.”

You’ve been warned so if this kind of thing is not for you, you don’t have to watch the video.

I have to say, though, I do feel uncomfortable about the way the poor steers and goats are treated - not just in this rodeo but in rodeos generally.

You can find out more about the L.A Gay Rodeo here.

Here is a fabulous site to get you set for the weekend. It’s a site completely dedicated to cakes from around the world, called Cake Tourism. The bloggers there have this to say: “We are intrepid cake tourists, travelling the globe in search of amazing cake. Aghast at the lack of cake information in tour guides we will tell you the reader where to go for the best cake, wherever you are in the world. Obviously this may take some time but we’re willing to do what it takes: eating lots of cake.”

Every post is a review of a cake eaten somewhere in some part of the world and illustrated with the most mouth-watering photos you’ve ever seen of cakes, glorious cakes.

The site is also on the look out for Cake Submissions: “Got a cake tip? Send us a photo and a few words about the cake and where you ate it and we might feature it.”.

The best cakes I’ve had were in Austria. There’s something about the land of mountains and goatherds and music that also gives them the creativity and ingredients to create the fluffiest, creamiest, tastiest cakes in the world. They are like those classic images of ladies in white floating about the ballroom floor to the lilt of a Viennese waltz. In contrast, their savoury dishes don’t quite have the same pizzazz, in my view, being somewhat bland and heavy.

In contrast, the cakes in the UK tend to be quite stodgy and heavy - think fruit cakes and Victoria sponges. They are the sort of things to give you energy after a cold, bracing walk across the moors and eaten to the sound of Morris dancing, perhaps.

Asia doesn’t really do sweet cakes very well. The strength of Asian cuisine for me is in the savoury dishes that are tangy and aromatic and light. Without easy and cheap access to wheat flour, traditionally, sweet things are made from rice flour and the texture can take some getting used to for the Western palette.

What do you think? Am I being unfair to Asian cakes? Am I wrong about UK cakes? Or perhaps you have a view on Austrian dishes? Add a comment and share your views.

Headline, part of the same group as my publisher Hodder & Stoughton, is publishing a crime thriller Contract by Simon Spurrier online for free in six weekly installments, according to booktrade.info, the online book trade website.

Interestingly, Simon contacted me via the Ning.com social network site for crime writers Crimespace a few weeks before this announcement and we are now “friends” on that network. On Simon Spurrier’s Crimespace page, he describes himself as “Sarcastic. Odd. Paranoid obsession with aggressive Yaks. Hoping to get rich - in the spiritual karmic sense. Or at least break even.”

You can read the online version of the novel from tomorrow 24 May at http://www.itsallaboutthemoney.co.uk/. Or you can wait till 4 June to buy it in hardback at £19.99.

I am delighted to officially announce the launch of my new Social Media Consultancy, ZenGuide.

Interactive web tools like blogging, podcasting and social networking are increasingly being used by businesses to communicate with their customers and stakeholders at a conversational level. Professionals can showcase their expertise. Businesses can engage with customers in a direct and immediate way. The key is a clear, integrated marketing strategy between online and offline media as well as effective blog management.

The ZenGuide consultancy draws on my success as a writer and blogger as well as my experience in the legal and local government sector to offer strategic consultancy to businesses and professionals on how effective use of social media tools can contribute to their business and personal success. We also provide a range of related services from writing bespoke web-content to web and blog design as well as blog editing and management.

You can visit the combined website and blog at www.zenguide.co.uk .

You can find out more about our range of services by clicking on the What We Do tab at the top of the home page at ZenGuide.

For more information about me and my areas of expertise as well as about the associate web design team, click on the Who We Are tab at the top of the home page.

I hope you enjoy reading the ZenGuide blog which aims to bring you views and analysis of current issues and trends in the world of blogging and social media - all in plain English. You’ll see a number of ways to subscribe in the far right sidebar on the homepage of ZenGuide.

If you’d like to find out more about how ZenGuide can help you and/ or your business, do get in touch with me via the Contact page where you’ll find a contact form and my Skype and telephone contact details.

These guys have more energy than I do and they are twice my age!

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You can check out The Zimmers MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/thezimmersband.

I interviewed Preethi Nair for an article on The Writer as Entreprenuer a while back and we’ve been in touch ever since. Preethi is the author of Gypsy Masala and the story of her self-publishing that novel is an amazing story in itself - she acted as her own publisher, agent, publicist and distributor, in particular creating a fictitious publicist Pru who plugged her book so well, she was shortlisted for a publicist of the year award!

Preethi emailed me to say that she is running a Storytelling Workshop at Waterstones, Piccadilly on Saturday 16 June from 10am-4.30pm. The cost is £60 and proceeds to charity to support Multiple Sclerosis. The details are below.

It should be a good day so do check it out. If you do go and would like to write up a review of the day, do email me and I’ll post it up on Fusion View.

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My article on The Writer as Entrepreneur is due out in the July issue of Mslexia magazine. I will be posting up on Fusion View my telephone interview with Preethi as a podcast to co-incide with the publication of the article so do check back in early July to listen to that interview.

Here is a depressing story - or one of hope, depending on whether you’re a glass-half-full or half-empty kind of a person.

According to Stephen Dowling writing in the BBC Magazine, every year in the UK thousands of people start writing a novel.

He describes a seminar at the London Book Fair where hundreds of wannabe writers hope to learn the secret of success - he writes, “Many are here because of that most potent of writer’s fantasies - walking into a bookshop and seeing their name on an upright spine.”

He also reports that one literary agent “sees as many as 6,000 manuscripts a year - most of them novels - and he is just one of hundreds of literary agents in the country”. In addition to the thousands cited by Dowling scribbling away in the UK, there are of course thousands more in most Commonwealth countries, all hoping to achieve the Holy Grail of being published in the UK. In the meantime, the major publishing houses publish only around 12 novels a year.

It’s depressing because of how the odds are stacked against writers. Do the math.

But if you are of a more positive disposition, I guess it’s cheering to think of all those people with such hope in their hearts.

I blogged about JK Rowling becoming the first person to earn billions from writing books last week. She is the glaring exception to the grim reality of the thousands toiling away at the coalface of creativity.

My advice is: write because you love it and if you get published, it’s a fabulous bonus. But don’t write BECAUSE you want to get published - that way madness lies.

I’ve usually shown crazy and funny videos from YouTube on Film Mondays on Fusion View. This week’s video is more thought-provoking and serious, taking a look at Asian-American identities through a series of interviews with students with roots in the Indian subcontinent all the way eastwards to Japan. It’s just over ten minutes long and you’ll need to have sound to listen to what the different voices have to say.

In the US, the identity “Asian” generally refers to Orientals whereas in the UK, the term is used to denote people from the Indian subcontinent ie Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc are all lumped together. The Asians east of there are Orientals though there really aren’t enough of us to merit a catch-all identity so we’re generally allowed to be Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

One of the questions asked in the film is “What is your identity?”. Hmmm, now how would I answer that? I’d say: I’m a Malaysian-born British-Chinese ie my family are ethnic Chinese who migrated to Malaya (as it then was but is now Malaysia, following independence) and I am now British, having migrated from Malaysia to the UK. A bit of a mouthful. The best answer is the film is the guy who says that he identifies as the sexiest man alive. Simple!