Archive for the 'Culture & Society' Category

My top priority during my visit to Barcelona a couple of weeks back was to look at the buildings created by Gaudi. It is astonishing that his strange, swirly, hallucinatory architecture was built during the late 19th century and the early 20th century - they seem so modern, surreal and fresh today. Even in our present time, with London’s Gherkin, the humping turtles of the Sydney Opera House and the desert-inspired buildings of Zaha Hadid vying for eye-grabbing attention, Gaudi’s buildings from over a hundred years ago still pack a punch.

We tend to assume Gaudi set out to be radical and anti-establishment in his designs just because they were so unconventional alongside the traditional classic architecture of the 19th century. But in fact he was a staunch and conservative Catholic, appears to have taken his inspiration from nature. An article in The Age quotes:

“Nothing is art if it does not come from nature, as from nature come the most beautiful and extraordinary shapes,'’ he said. “Furthermore, nature is the masterpiece of the Creator.'’

This accounts for the curved lines of his designs and the a-symmetry that characterizes his work. His furniture looks like its been shaped out of vines. His rooftop chimneys look like rocks eroded by the timeless wind. The pillars of the Sagrada Familia Temple are palm trees. Tiles are shaped to give the sense of water.

Click on the photo below to view a slideshow of some photos from our Gaudi journey:

Like many geniuses, Gaudi was not always appreciated in his lifetime. Not many people understood his work and if not for the wealthy industrialist Eusebi Guell who became his patron, Gaudi might have sunk into obscurity. George Orwell famously “thought the Sagrada Familia was “the most hideous building in the world'’ and thought the Anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up during the Civil War when they had the chance.” Even Guell apparently did not like Gaudi’s designs - according to Wikipedia:

Reportedly on one occasion Gaudí said to Güell, “Sometimes I think we are the only people who like this architecture.” Güell replied, “I don’t like your architecture, I respect it.”

For me, it was the trip we did to Montserrat up in the craggy mountains that really brought home Gaudi’s creative inspirations. We saw the mountains from a distance as the train chugs across the plains outside Barcelona. Within an hour, we were in the foothills, taking the funicular train up to the ancient monastery built up against the rocky face of the steep mountain. Erosion had shaped the rocks into standing figures and we could imagine them as aliens or fat man or angry warriors. Walking high up on dusty paths above the man-made buildings, heading towards the ruins of ancient hermitages, we saw rock figures tower above us and craggy sentinels line the spur down the side of the mountain, passed the bare branches of gnarled trees blasted by wind. This was Gaudi in all his glory.

The British Psychological Society’s blog points to a research study that has found that a company’s profits are linked to the facial appearance of the Chief Executive. Apparently, “Companies tend to be more profitable if they have a chief executive with a face rated by observers as being more competent, dominant and mature.”

It’s not about age or beauty, it seems, but these other qualities of competence, dominance and maturity that are evident in the face and are somehow linked to the company’s success.

I was reminded of the US presidential race in 1992 when short little Ross Perot was knocked out after the three way debate against tall, handsome Bill Clinton and square-jawed George Bush Sr. Next to them, he looked like one of those money-grubbing small creatures with big ears in Star Trek (the Ferrengi?). America just could not picture him as their leader, representing the most powerful nation on earth alongside the leaders of other countries. He might have had the competence, dominance and maturity to have headed a business empire with a personal net worth of $4.4 billion but that paled into insignificance when he stood beside two tall, good-looking guys who exuded even more competence, dominance and maturity.

But I also thought of Bill Gates, of Microsoft fame, another billionaire who was ranked the richest person in the whole world between 1995 and 2007. He started his empire young, looking nerdy and with a bad dress sense. His speaking voice has a nasal whine. He hasn’t changed much over the years. He looks more like an office clerk than the one time richest man on earth.

And there’s Mark Zuckerberg who created Facebook and who is said to be worth $1.5 billion and is only 25. He looks like a kid. He is a kid! Where’s the competence, dominance and maturity oozing from him?

Maybe with IT and social media, there’s an inverse correlation between these qualities and the company’s success?

Photo credits:

Perot et al, from record.wustl.edu
Bill Gates from niall kennedy on flickr.com (CCL)
Mark Zuckerberg from Laughing Squid on flickr.com (CCL)

Someone (let’s call her Rachel*) asked for my advice about Facebook friending etiquette the other day. We are both friends in the real world (an old Uni pal) and we are also friends of Facebook. Rachel, who is an internet newbie who stays mainly on Facebook, had received a “friend” request from a business colleague of her husband’s.

Rachel told me, “I don’t know what to do. I use Facebook for my close friends and family and this lady is nice but she’s - well - a business contact. If I accepted, she’d be the only non- “real friend”. And I use Facebook for, you know, personal stuff that only friends and family would be interested in. But I don’t want to be rude.”

This is a dilemma I’ve come across a number of times.

With people you don’t know at all who just came across your profile on Facebook and try to “friend” you because their aim is to reach, like, wow, 1,000 friends, man - you just ignore them. That’s easy.

With friends who are your real-life friends ie you know them in the real world and they actually are your friends in that sense of the word, that’s easy too - you accept them.

It’s these in-betweeny people who are your acquaintances or business colleagues or someone you met at a party and spoke to for five minutes - what do you do about them? For me, my Facebook profile and all my public online presences are part of who I am in public and relate to my profession as a writer and social media specialist so if the person fits with that public me, then I accept them. For private personal connections, I maintain private spaces eg for family photos and videos.

For Rachel and many others like her, her presence online is not part of a public, business-related presence and she’s just having some fun with friends and family. This is where privacy settings and more “un-friendly” conduct becomes necessary - and is quite legitimate. I suggested that she explain to her husband’s business colleague that she uses Facebook for family and close, personal friends only and if she’s worried about the colleague taking it the wrong way, to make sure she knows that Rachel can be friendly in other ways that work better for the nature of the business relationship.

As we live more and more of our lives online, privacy issues are going to become more and more relevant. At the moment, there are no rules of etiquette for social interactions online and generally, what we’ve been using in the real world works too online. But new etiquette is bound to evolve as new issues and circumstances arise. In a case like this, it’s a matter for Rachel to find a way to best negotiate who she friends and what personal information she shares online - but it’s also a matter for the business colleague to respect the privacy of the person who does not wish to “friend” her online (although Rachel may be comfortable meeting her from time to time in the appropriate business setting).

So, Rachel didn’t accept the friend request. What do you think? Would you have friended this colleague anyway?

*not her real name

Photo: thanks to jennybento from flickr.com (CCL)

While I loved many aspects of Barcelona during our week’s trip there the other week - the beautiful architecture, the great food, the shopping, the sunshine - the one thing that was a real struggle was the Spanish rhythm of life.

Lunch would start at the earliest at 1.30pm and many of the shops would close. We would be there at the door of the restaurant, starving and fainit at 12.30pm and then have to find something to occupy ourselves for an hour before being able to rush in when the owners sauntered over to let us in. The Spanish customers would turn up around 3pm, chic-ly dressed and with no sign of famine about them.

Dinner would only start at 9pm and most Spanish people would arrive at the restaurants after 10.30pm. We’d of course be there on the dot of nine, grouchy and tired from the need to eat, and the restaurateurs would still be laying out the table and doings some last minute floor-sweeping.

“I just want a light meal and then get to bed,” I’d say through half-closed eyes. But the menu would be so enticing that I’d end up eating three courses with delicious wine. By the time we got back to the hotel and ready for bed, it would be past 1am. My meal would sit there heavy and laden in my belly and I knew it would take another few hours to digest but I’d be too tired so I’d just fall asleep.

And in the morning, I would just feel terrible.

The worst was the during the two days of the EuroComm conference which started at 8.30am (”What??!” I thought when I first saw the programme). Which meant I had to be up at some ungodly hour with a belly full of lead, getting dressed, having breakfast and trying hard to be perky when I met my communicator colleagues. Groan.

Here in the UK, the cycle of my working day starts early - up at 6.30am to get into the office for 8am, lunch at 12-12.30pm, heading home before rush hour around 4pm, dinner at 7.30-8pm, bed by 11pm. At the weekends, I sleep in a bit but usually no later than 9am and I may go to bed around 1am but meal times are never far off the usual mark.

And London could only cope with two rush hours a day. Imagine if there was a long break in the middle of the day for lunch and people headed off home and then had to come back again around 4pm. Nightmare…

I just don’t know how Spanish business people manage. If you’re Spanish or live in Spain, please tell me!

And whether you live in the UK, Spain or anywhere else, if your rhythm of life is different, I’d love to hear about it, too. Please add a comment.

Photo: thanks to SeraphimC from flickr.com (CCL)

I’ve just spent a week in Barcelona, partly attending the IABC EuroComm Conference 2008 where I chaired a panel discussion on social media and partly for a holiday. I’ll be blogging about the conference and the issues that came out of the panel discussion separately. But being a foodie, my first post about the trip has to be about the food we had there!

They call it tapas, the tid-bits of food that the Spanish serve in the early evening before the main meal. It’s very civilised compared to the UK where you generally gobble a packet of crisps and some peanuts with your pint at the pub. The Spanish lay out fried potatoes, spicy morsels of chorizo, sliced octopus, fried calamari and cuttlefish, fried aubergines - the list goes on. Over a long drink and great conversation, it’s just the best way to unwind after a hard day’s sightseeing or shopping. But I have to say, it makes me think of dim sum, the Chinese tid-bits that you generally have for Sunday lunch - in Australia, they call it “yum chah”, I think. My contention is that the Spanish got the idea from the Asia-Pacific region via the likes of Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama etc.

And it’s not just tapas. In Barcelona, there’s a speciality dish which is stir-fried seafood vermicelli - which looks and tastes exactly like the Chinese “chow mai fan” that you get in Malaysia. We would eat it with chilli sauce but they serve it with a daub of garlic butter - equally yummy!

We also came across a fried springroll thing but instead of veg and pork, it is stuffed with chorizo and onions.

And we were struck by the word for butter “mantega”, which is the same word for butter used in Malay. Staying with linguistics, the Spanish word “nona” means woman - I wonder if it is related to the Malaysian word “nonya” which refers to a Straits Chinese woman?

I’m pretty sure these are not merely fanciful connections on my part. Malacca and the Straits of Malacca were critical in the spice trade between West and East during the 1400s so I’m sure words, food and ideas travelled with the sailing ships between the Spanish ports and Malaya. In particular, I was struck by the Arabic influence in Spanish due to the many centuries of Moorish occupation and of course, Arabic continues to be a strong influence in Malay language and culture.

What do you think? If you have any other examples of linguistic or culinary connections between East and West, please do share your thoughts!

Photo: thanks to Gbworx from flickr.com (CCL)

One of my favourite radio podcasts is Thinking Allowed on the BBC, hosted by sociologist Laurie Taylor. A recent programme discussed the sociological implications of the British Sandwich - whether cutting it in triangles shows middle class pretensions whereas cutting it into oblongs demonstrates working class earthiness. I had no idea there was so much that could be read into a couple of slices of bread.

I’ve never been keen on sandwiches. I tend to prefer the Asian way of eating - Asian meals do not involve much wheat or gluten or cold food so the sandwich is a strange concoction from that perspective. But in the UK for many years, the sandwich has been the staple of quick lunches so I tolerate it and have had my fair share of lunchtime sarnies. I’m glad to see, though, that more and more Asian style fast food lunching is becoming available - you can buy a nice hot meal with spicy chicken and rice for around £5 and take it away to eat back at the office, just like in Kuala Lumpur (though the price is probably 3 times more than Asian prices!).

The one kind of sandwich that I did love as a kid in Malaysia was a chicken sandwich with lots of butter and white pepper on soft white bread. Chicken sandwiches were a treat that we had when we went “out station” - meant to sustain us on the long drive to my grandparents’ in Taiping, but often devoured within the first hour or so of getting into the car! Their novelty lay in their being, well, Western but they also tasted great because the chicken was prepared with Chinese style ingredients and included the dark meat and the crunchy skin. (In the UK, shop bought chicken sandwiches are made from the bland skinless white meat so can be dry and tasteless, unfortunately.)

For pure evil indulgence, we tried a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich once - said to be Elvis Presley’s favourite. You butter the white bread on the outside and pile the inside high with the squishy ingredients, then deep fry the oozing slab. Yummy and gruesome all at the same time. I’m not sure what the sociological implications of this type of sandwich would be….

Photo: thanks to sheilaz413 from flickr.com (CCL)

I’ve never appreciated roast turkey with all the trimmings. I find it bland and lacking in celebratory festiveness. I am especially not fond of brussel sprouts! So the traditional Christmas meal is a bit of an ordeal for me. Which is not to say I don’t like turkey as such. We often eat turkey steak or turkey escalope or diced turkey throughout the year - but cooked with wine Italian-style or soy sauce or curry Asian-style.

The problem with the traditional roast turkey meal for me is that when I was a child in Malaysia, Christmas food was just so much more - more tasty, more spicy, more varied, more exciting. We would spend Christmas with my grandparents in Taiping and the preparations would start weeks in advance. As a child, I never was aware of all the effort and hard work that Grandma put into it - with the help of all the aunties, great-aunties, cousins and second cousins all over Taiping. But everyone in the large extended family would have got involved in the vast cooking marathon that would have been needed to lay on the feast that fed over a hundred people.

In the heat of the tropics, we would have a full-blown Christian Christmas, complete with tree, Santa and carols.

The kids’ job was to decorate the house. The older second cousins would be in charge - tall, good-looking Paul who seemed so grown up to us and broad-shouldered, grinning Jason. They would be the ones up the ladders stringing the paper chains, placing the balls on the higher reaches of the Christmas tree. We younger kids would drape tinsel on the lower branches of the tree, balance cards on shelves.

On the day of the big party itself, the living room would be cleared and chairs set out for the carol service. There would be a churchful of people in there, singing our hearts out. One of the fat great-uncles would always dress up as Santa in the red suit and jolly mask, arriving at the end of the service when the lights went out. He would have a sack full of presents and ho-ho-ho his way round the room, scaring the babies with the strange staring mask.

But when it came to the food, we celebrated Malaysian-style - with curries and spicy fried dishes, rice and satay: and enough to feed an army. Memories of delicious Asia will always be associated with festivities and celebration for me so a pallid turkey for Christmas, no matter how moist you might claim it is or how Christmas-y just does not do it for me at all.

What are your memories of childhood Christmases? Please add a comment and let me know!

Photo: thanks to Mr_Woo from flickr.com (CCL)

When I was a child, we spent most Christmas’s at my grandparents’ in Taiping.

We would drive up from KL along the single lane trunk road, passing all the little towns and villages on the way. It was always exciting as we left the city, weaving our way north through Templars Park with its clusters of forest and glimpses of rocky streams. We’d sing songs and play Eye Spy, munching at the chicken sandwiches that my mother had made. And then the boredom would set in. I would stare up at the endless line of the telephone wires overhead and it would seem interminable.

And then we would see the chalk hills near Ipoh loom up, strangely shaped mounds eroded by wind and rain. We were nearly there! In the back of the car, my brother and sister and I would perk up and look out of the windows, finding the shapes that we knew. There was a man sleeping on his side. There was Grandma’s head - a hill that for a moment, just at the right angle as the car whizzed by, looked like a woman’s head with a 1940s haircut.

And before long, we’d be at the crossroads at Simpang, turning towards Taiping. The ramshackle shophouses and roadside shacks would give way for awhile to more jungle and rubber trees and atap huts hidden in the foliage. And then we would be driving into the bustle of Taiping past the Indian temple and mosque, heading towards the central market and town clock.

Even as a child, I always struck by the contrast of small town Taiping to the big city of KL. The town was laid out in a neat grid and you could never get lost. There was hardly any traffic which was great when you were a kid and wanted to roam a bit further away from the adults. The streets were like toy streets, easily walkable and everybody seemed to know who we were, smiling and greeting us whenever we strolled down covered walkways.

I remember my mother wearing a backless top once, sauntering down the small town streets in her fashionable, big city way and my Grandma walking at a distance in horror at her daughter’s baring her back so brazenly - “What must they all thinking be thinking, May?” she kept saying. My mother just shrugged and laughed, “It’s just my back, so what? It’s not like it’s my front.”

Grandma was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who had been sent as a missionary from China to look after the flock in Singapore. She was now a community leader in the Methodist church, a Rotarian and generally a respected figure in Taiping. She always dressed neatly and smartly, even when she was in the garden, tending to her beloved orchids. She moved elegantly, her back always straight and I never saw her slouch or loaf around. She never quite got her head round my mother’s a la mode, right out of Vogue, up to the minute fashion sense, what with the backless tops, strapless gowns, high heels, platform shoes and hot pants of the late 60s and early 70s.

At special occasions, like Christmas, Grandma would always wear a cheong sam, the traditional Chinese dress made famous recently by Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love. Most of the younger women in the family would be in cheong sams , too, hair done up in Western style - bee-hives or page boys, set in place with Ellenet hairspray. My mother would do the same but some years, she would be elegantly dressed in whatever was the latest fashion - one time, it was a billowing, white kaftan with a pattern embroidered in rich royal blue: what can I say, it was the 70s and we’d just come back from the Philippines where kaftans were all the rage.

For me, I loved the Christmas holidays and festivities but the one thing I absolutely hated and dreaded was the party dress. Being a tomboy, I was happiest in jeans and gym shoes. I slouched and sat with my legs apart instead of demurely crossed at the ankles. The party dress with its bows and ribbons and puffy sleeves, its tutu-like flare, it’s gauzy, prickly material - it was just the most hideous ordeal and torture! When it was time to get dressed for the big Christmas party, I would invariably throw a tantrum and sulk, filled with stress, anxiety and horror at having to put on such a monstrosity. For me, my whole sense of self was at stake - my dignity, my pride, the essence of who I was was utterly offended by the costume I was being forced to wear. I envied my brother and the boy cousins in their smart dark trousers and simple, ironed shirts. Why couldn’t I wear a smart pant-suit? Why did being a girl involve wearing something that looked like a pom-pom?

But, for most of my childhood, the adults would always win the battle and I would have to drag myself around the whole evening looking - in my eyes - like a total idiot. Poor Grandma would keep telling me I looked so pretty but I would just glower and slouch in an attempt not to be seen.

And then one Christmas, I won. I don’t know exactly what happened or how I won the battle but in all the family Christmas photos for that year, everyone is beautifully and festively dressed in gender specific garb - all the girls and women dolled up in feminine dresses and all the boys and men in masculine menswear - except me. There I am, a skinny, gawkly teenager, in a pair of corduroy jeans and my gym shoes - slouching.

It was Christmas Day yesterday and when I woke up, the streets in my neighbourhood were still and quiet. It was like a Sunday but the stillness was much more intense, perhaps because the background hum of traffic was almost silent. Christmas is a big thing in the UK and everything shuts down by Christmas Eve so that everyone can be where they need to be by Christmas morning - for most people, that means being with their families, wherever in the country that may be and no matter how arduous the journey might be to get there, given rain, snow, fog and other transport problems.

Sipping my coffee in the front room, looking out at the deserted street, I pictured all the households in the UK filled with people just getting up and gathering in their living rooms with the Christmas tree and presents. Some of them would have been up already for hours, working on the Christmas lunch of turkey, roast potatoes and the ubiquitous brussel sprouts. There’s an unspoken pact, it seems to me, that no-one is really allowed to leave the safe, warm confines of the house on Christmas Day, unless it is to go en masse for a family walk. Or to go for an early morning run, I noted, as a couple of joggers trundled by.

What did you do yesterday? How did you spend Christmas Day 2007? Were you with your family? Or perhaps you escaped it all with an overseas holiday? Did you, like some poor souls, spend in at the airport - due to delays caused by bad weather?

Angie and I had a quiet day together, just the two of us. Some Christmases, we spend with family and do the whole Christmas festivities thing with presents, party hats, carols and lots of people all around. But some years, like this year, it’s quite nice just to spend it quietly together in peaceful tranquillity. The first time it was just the two of us for Christmas, I felt a bit strange - as if somehow, we were sad, lost souls with no friends and family. But now, I really relish it - though only for some years, not every year!

We had veal escalope in a creamy mushroom sauce for lunch, followed by Sacher Torte given to us by a friend. It took half an hour to prepare and it was delicious. I’m not a great roast turkey fan nor do I enjoy spending a festive holiday cooking for hours, so it was just perfect for us. We watched the Bourne Ultimatum on DVD - a great thrills and spills movie to grip us while outside, the afternoon darkened and the drizzle continued.

We did manage our annual Christmas Day walk in the morning before lunch. In the rain. I reckon that if we had taken a photo every year of our Christmas Day walk, at least half of them, if not more, would show us wet, cold, bedraggled and sodden - just like this year. Because Christmas Day in the UK would not be Christmas Day without rain. It can get pretty grim, I imagine, if you don’t happen to get on with your family or extended family and finding yourself trapped in a small house for 24-48 hours while it rains endlessly outside and there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do beyond the garden gate. I think that’s why on Boxing Day, some people rush to the sales - it’s the relief of running away from the intensity of that enforced time with their families!

In the park where we walk, there’s a bench that is dedicated to the memory of a man who died about 10 years ago, in his early forties. Every Christmas, there is always a bunch of flowers there. This year, there were sprigs of mistletoe interlaced in the wooden slats. I don’t know who he is and we’ve never seen who places these tokens there. But he must have been - and must still be - very loved.

It always makes me think how lucky I am that many of the people we love are still around for us to share this holiday time with.

Let me know how you spent Christmas Day - please add a comment or send me an email via the Contact link at the top right of this page.