Archive for the 'Fusion Stories' Category

One drizzly day in London, a colleague mentioned that his step-sister was just qualifying as an elephant doctor in Botswana. In our air-conditioned office with our identical desks and grey demountable partitions, looking out at the grey streaks over the grey city I was intrigued by the idea of a different kind of career path and a different kind of lifestyle. So I tracked down Elephant Kate and got her to tell me about what it takes to become an elephant doctor.

From Botswana, Kate sent me her responses to my email interview:

YM: First off, give me a quick thumbnail of who you are.

Kate: I am a research associate at the University of Bristol. Curiosity always got the better of me and my childhood was spent peering under rocks for what might be living underneath. However, whilst living in Asia, it was elephants that really caught my imagination. A promise to an elephant, on a visit to an elephant orphanage sealed my future and made me pursue my dreams to be an elephant researcher. Since 2002, I have been living her dream, studying elephants in the Okavango Delta Botswana.

What inspired to become an elephant doctor?

It was on a visit to an elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka at the age of seven that shaped the rest of my life. I made a promise to an elephant that I would help in their conservation. As, we all know an elephant never forgets and so from that day I had one dream and one ambition, to be an elephant researcher.

Can you describe where you are now based?

My camp is based in the western Okavango Delta. I live in a tent so feel very much in touch with the environment in which I life. The view from my tent is typical Delta, a horizon that goes on forever interrupted by islands covered in palm trees with water or flood plain in between (depending on the season). It is pure wilderness, the home of the animals and I am just a visitor. Yet I feel far safer here then I do in a city, where the sharp lines of modern architecture are sore to my eyes, the noise of cars and people living sore to my ears. Contrary to public believe the bush or countryside is never quiet, there is always something going on – at night I am often awoken by the roar of lions, the trumpeting of elephants, the call of the bell frog, or the spotted genet (like a small cat) running around the roof of my tent. When I come back to the UK, I cannot sleep because it is too quiet.

What is your typical day like?

On a normal day, I awake just before dawn when the birds start to sing. My favourite dawn chorus is when the woodland kingfishers are in camp. Slowly the horizon turns pink as the sun starts to rise. As the day breaks more birds and animals join in. I listen for the tell tell signs of predators before I walk up to the kitchen to make a cup of tea before heading out to find the elephants. If I have heard elephants during the night I will head in that direction, particularly if I have not seen any for a few days. If not then I go out tracking the elephants that have collars in the area, at the moment the only ones that have collars are the released elephants. Since 2002, we have released five elephants from a herd used in the safari industry at Elephant Back Safaris. It is always wonderful to see them and she who they are hanging out with and how they are interacting and slowly becoming integrated into the wild social system. When I first started the research project there would be days when I did not see another person. Listening to the radio chat from the nearby safari camp was all the contact I had with humans. I did not mind it during the day when I was out with the elephants, but at the end of the day I felt lonely when there was no one to share my amazing day with. Now I am slowly building up a team and its great to be able to talk elephants with people. I am also more a part of the fabric and have friends at the nearby safari camp, and indeed camp where the research is based has now opened as a commercial camp open to tourist so I get to meet some very interesting people from all over the world. I do sometimes miss the tranquillity of the camp when it was just me.

Can you tell us something about the elephant culture?

Up until recently very little was know about male elephants, as research has concentrated on the more social females and their herds. I study the males and trying to add to the knowledge we have of them. I feel privileged to spend time with the males and I feel I am amongst friends when I am with them. What intrigues me the most is the social relationship of males. It is not random associations, males are choosing who to hang out with – it is these relationships I would like to understand – are they mates from long ago, new friends, relatives? What we do know is that old males are important to the development of young males and integral to the fabric of male elephant society. It is this relationship I see paralleling in our human society. As the social units break down and young males are left without mentors, males to look up to, to learn from and to be disciplined by we see an increase in delinquency and unsocial behaviour and this is evident in both our societies and those of elephants. Perhaps it is time we should learn from the animals.

Can you tell the differences between individual elephants?

When I first started my research I knew I wanted to get to know the population and the individuals within it. As I drove around all the elephants looked the same; big and grey. How would I ever get to know the individuals? Slowly, over the years the big grey gentle giants have become individuals, ‘William Wallace, Shaka Zulu, Dingaan, Nelson Mandela, Ganesh, and Oliver Cromwell – when I say their names I can see their faces in my mind and how I differentiate between them is primarily through their ears. Elephant have big ears, we all now that – the infamous Dumbo had the largest of all. The ears are often torn or have holes in and so by taking photos of these and making sketches of them as well as other characteristics such as the size and shape of their ears, or bodily scars help me tell whose who. So far I have identified over 500 males and 100 females, and so whilst there are a few that visit often and who I can tell at first glance, there are others that take a while to ID and others that are new to me.

Do you have a favourite elephant?

People often ask me who my favourite elephant is, and I have many. But if pushed I always say Mafunyane. He is a very special elephant and one I have spent most time with. He signifies the beginning of the project and my living my dream. He was the reason it all began, as he was the first elephant to be released on the 1st February 2002. He first came up to Botswana in the 80’s as he was originally from the Kruger National Park in South African and when his herd was culled as part of the management program there, he and other young claves were brought by the owner of EBS, Randall Moore, to expand his safari herd. It was always Randall’s vision to release the young males when they hit adolescence and it was their natural instinct to leave their herd and become independent. And so when Mafunyane began to show behaviour that it was time for him to leave, we put a satellite collar around his neck and bid him luck in his life outside of the herd. And so for the past five years I have followed him and seen him become slowly integrated into the wild bull society, growing ever more confident to leave the area he knows and explore more of the delta.

What are the challenges facing elephants in the region?

Botswana has a healthy population, the largest population of elephant left in the world at approximately 120,000. But elephants all over the world are losing habitat and struggling for survival. Slowly as time ticks by they are slowly loosing the battle as the areas they are allowed to inhabit and utilise become smaller and smaller. Most populations are small fragmented populations and we have to manage them more and more, moving individuals around to ensure genetic diversity and sustainability. Ivory is still very much in demand and the price per pound is on the rise, carved into beautiful objects the tusks are a poor reminder of the beautiful beast it once belonged to. With the rise in the price of ivory there is the evitable rise in poaching in certain areas. We have to decide if we can give them the space they and other species need and the protection they deserve.
For me a world without elephants would be a very poor world indeed and one I am not sure I would be able to live in.

What are some of the things you miss about the UK?

  Family
  Friends
  Pubs
  Long English summers
  English villages
  The Welsh Coast
  The theatre
  The sea
  Mountains

Anything else you’d like to share?

I feel very privileged to be living in the magic of the delta, living my dream and have a chance to pay something back to Botswana . This would not have been possible without the help and support of Randall Moore of Elephant Back Safaris. He and I are joining forces once more to enable us to give something back to the country and animals we love so much. We are setting up the Elephants for Africa Trust to be able to continue with the research but a large aspect of this trust will be to provide funds for a Motswana Scholarship Fund to enable local students to carry out their postgraduate degrees. Our first student is about to embark on his Masters degree and I look forward to supervising him and working with him.

To find out more:

Go to Elephant Research at http://www.elephantresearch.co.uk

There are some great profiles of the different elephants, with each of their individual stories in the Elephant Profiles section.

You can also help by adopting an elephant in the Adopt an Elephant section. Or you can support the cause by buying cards, notelets etc or giving a donation via the relevant links on the site.

If you do contact Elephant Research, do mention that you came to them via Fusion View!

Concluding my email interview with poet Rob Mackenzie:

YM: You also spent 4 years in Italy. What were you doing there? Do you speak Italian?

Rob: In Turin, I worked for the Waldensian church, a tiny Protestant denomination which holds claim to being the oldest Reformed church in the world. Much of my work involved giving support, advice, and help to asylum seekers, refugees, and those who were in Italy illegally.The church ran a support project, which linked up to other projects and organisations ran by the local council, the government and the Catholic church. I do speak Italian, although Im not fluent, and Im probably getting worse after two years in Scotland. I translate Italian poetry now and again, partly to keep fresh whatever language skills I have left.

Was there a cultural difference/ culture shock when you were in Italy? I would imagine there to be less of a difference as Italy is in Europe but perhaps there is more of a difference?

I think there was less of a difference, but because I could understand the differences more easily, it sometimes felt as if there was more of a difference if that makes any sense at all. To be honest, I think most British people would be very surprised to find how very different living in Italy is from the UK, as we tend to go on holidays to Europe and not notice the differences other than the obvious ones i.e. food, sun, wine etc
The bureaucracy drove me crazy, the TV was awful, the emphasis on family felt exclusionary at times to outsiders like myself (although the Turin people have the reputation as the least friendly people in Italy), and Italians shared with Korea this idea of letting you hear what you wanted to hear, irrespective of what they actually planned to do.

On the other hand, Turin was a beautiful city, my daughter couldnt go ten yards along the street without being fussed over by complete strangers (and its true that children and young people are far happier and valued morein Italy than in the UK), and we did make some good friends there. Not to mention the food and wine!

How has having lived in three cultures influenced you? What have you taken away from each of them?

From Scotland Ive taken a misguided pride, a black humour, and a stubbornness that must be a national characteristic. From Korea, Ive learned what generosity and hospitality towards outsiders really involve. From Italy, I can identify strongly with the sense of being European more than just Scottish, and I also have this grim sense that when our politicians say they are going to tackle the problems affecting young people in this country (drink, violence, hanging about the streets bored etc.), they are starting from entirely the wrong perspective because the problems go deeper than they think, and no change will come unless they tackle the root problems. I think they could learn a lot from looking at Italy.

What was it like coming back to live in the UK? And specifically in Scotland?

At first it was good. Everyone spoke English, which was so much less effort than Italian! And we could get things in the shops that were hard to come by in Italy. But soon we began to realise that these things didnt matter so much. I liked my local grocers shop and the market stalls in Turin where all the staff knew me. I liked the way you could hardly find a ready-cooked microwave meal, and I really, really missed the dry winters and the warmth of the other seasons. Would I go back to Italy in the future, given an opportunity? Yes.

Do you feel that you are now “home” in Scotland?

No, although there have been advantages. Ive made contact with the UK and Edinburgh poetry scene that I felt far away from in Turin. HappenStance may not have been as interested in publishing my poetry chapbook if I had been based in Italy, as selling it requires doing readings etc. My wife is firmly part of the amateur theatre scene in Edinburgh, which is what she loves more than anything. My daughter is getting on well at her nursery school. So well be here for a while yet, but I dont think well stay in the UK for ever.

Will you share a poem on Fusion View as my other poet contributors have done?

Will this do?

TAXI

We take the Eurostar from Oulx and shift
two Filipinos from our pre-booked seats.
Outside the Porta Susa station, roadworks
attack the tarmac and the senses, force
the taxis fifty metres from their rank.
Kebab and couscous overrun the pavements.
A Lega Nord pamphlet pins robberies
on refugees. Our daughter shades her eyes
against the winter sun that casts white walls
in negative. Two black women arrive,
toggle their overcoats to sap the chill
from the wind’s whine, and then a cab draws in:
we gather cases, cot and pushchair,
a dropped teddy bear. Footsteps slide past us -
the women test the taxi doors. The driver
waves them away. ‘Priority for kids,’
he says. Only in Italy, I think.
‘And we were here before you anyway,’
I tell the women. They shrug their shoulder pads
and claim to head some queue. ‘So are you blind?’
I ask. They turn towards the newsagent
where billboard headlines hawk the evening scoop
that boats sank close by Sicily, fifty
clandestini dead, and thirty-five
half-starved. The driver shakes his head, observes,
‘They are not blind, but African,’ and bangs
our case into his boot. ‘Priority
for whites,’ he really means, and at our gate
the price is way too high, and still we pay.

from The Clown of Natural Sorrow (HappenStance Press, December 2005)

Copyright Rob Mackenzie

Photo: thanks to unep.org

I’m delighted to introduce you to Rob Mackenzie, a poet based in Scotland whose blogs at Surroundings . We got rather carried away when I interviewed him as he had some many interesting things to share so this interview is in two parts.

Rob was born in Glasgow in 1964. He lived in Seoul, Korea for 18 months around 1989-90 before returning to the west of Scotland. He read poetry at the Bar Brel in Glasgow through the mid-nineties. Then he and his wife and moved to Turin, Italy for 4-5 years, where their daughter was born. For the last couple of years they have lived in Edinburgh. He has published poems in many literary magazines in the UK, in a few webzines, and in a poetry chapbook, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, on HappenStance Press www.happenstancepress.com

YM: What drew you to write poetry? When did you write your first poem?

Rob: I wrote my first poem aged 13, but it took me twenty more years before I got any accepted for publication. That first one was set in English class at school. We had to write a rhyming ballad, so I wrote one about a mouse that chaseda terrified cat around a house. Then I fell under the spell of Gerald Manley Hopkins. I loved his sounds and rhythms and I wrote some awful imitations.

In my twenties I got into French existentialist fiction (Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir) and made the mistake of trying to write poetry that took its bearings from their ideas. It was really pretentious stuff! But in my thirties, I began to find that I had something to say of my own and that language could be utilised to do interesting things without all the pretension.

How often do you write now? What inspires you/ gives you the idea for a poem?

I write more or less every day. I am quite disciplined about it. I dont always write poetry, but Im always jotting down ideas, phrases and thoughts. A poem can come from a real life event (although I tend to change things if change helps a poem), from a title, image or line that pops into my head and seems to demand continuation, from snippets of conversation, or from thoughts Ive had on any given issue. I tend to write best if I let the initial idea simmer in my brain for a few days or weeks and then sit down with the opening few lines already in my head.

Can you tell us something about the kind of poetry you write?

I tend to try my hand at lots of things. Im comfortable with free verse, rhyme, loose metre, strict form, even the occasional experimental piece. People tell me my poems can be quite complex, which might be true. I always write to communicate with readers, but sometimes a poem can take more than one read through to become clear. I write a lot about relationships, identity, faith and doubt, political issues, endings of one kind or another. That sounds very serious, but I use a lot of humour in my poems too!

Is being Scottish a strong part of your identity? What does being Scottish mean to you?

I’m not particularly nationalistic, until someone criticises Scotland. I am Scottish and Im sure thats shaped me in all kinds of indefinable ways. Its not something Ive explored all that much. Maybe I should. That might well be a future project.

Is your poetry Scottish poetry? (as opposed to English poetry/ Welsh poetry or just plain old “poetry”)

I feel its just plain old poetry. I dont write in Scots or Gaelic and while Ive written a few poems about Scottish identity, its not a theme Ive majored on. I know some of my poet-colleagues here are far more interested in doing this than I am and are influenced mainly by other Scottish poets. I like several Scottish poets John Burnside, Edwin Morgan, Norman MacCaig, Don Paterson, Roddy Lumsden they are excellent writers. But my influences come from all over Rilke (Germany), Roy Fisher (England), Charles Simic (USA), Miroslav Holub (Czech Republic), and many others.

You spent 18 months in South Koreain 1989-90. What were you doing there? Do you speak Korean?

I did various things. I studied Korean Minjung theology, a kind of liberation theology that incorporated bits of Korean folk tradition, Marxism, and the Bible. I worked a couple of days a week in a smallish church, and I taught English to a few people. But I spent most of the time meeting people, travelling, eating the fiery food, and drinking maccoli (rice-based alcoholic drink). I learned enough Korean to ask for things in shops etc very basic stuff, nearly all of which Ive forgotten. It was a very difficult language.

What cultural differences did you notice?

So many of the cultural differences were in the mind and kept there. Sometimes people would grin at something I said or did, but when I asked why, they would never tell me. Its OK. No problem. Just Korean culture. Its OK, you are a Westerner! The Koreans were such hospitable people. I made a lot of friends there.

Relationships with women were fraught with problems. I found it impossible to know the etiquette, the rules of engagement. Korean women often seemed to flirt with me, but I think it was because the idea of going out with a westerner was so ridiculous to them (due to family expectations and tradition) that they felt safe getting close to me.

But sometimes it got confusing. I remember a woman called Hae-jang. I went out with her a few times and had no idea of how to progress the relationship. Then I met another woman, Jeung-wha, who I fell in love with in a matter of days.In fact, probably within five minutes! I didnt think it would matter to Hae-jang. I was convinced she saw me as only a friend. How wrong I was! Apparently she was furious, but she, and all her friends, refused to speak to me ever again.And then it didnt work out with Jeung-wha who ended up going off to a Zen temple in the countryside and.. well that was the last I saw or heard of her.

I once invited a woman named Gil-sun to have a coffee in my room (we were standing outside it at the time). It was an entirely innocent invitation. Yes, she replied, as she began walking away.

Well, lets go, I said, pointing. Its up here.

Yes, she said, and kept walking in the other direction. Life was full of moments like that! The answer to any question was always what you wanted to hear, even if what then happened was in direct contradiction.

How has that time in East Asia influenced you?

Yes. It made a huge impact on me. I learned what it was like to be utterly clueless, unable to understand a language and culture, and to be far away from home. And Korea was only just emerging from years of military dictatorship and there were strikes, protests, and trouble all the time. I learned the effect of tear gas the hard way. But at the same time, I had a fantastic experience in Korea and I learned the meaning of hospitality for the stranger there.

Did you write poetry while you were in S Korea? Or later, looking back on that time? How do you think the East influenced your writing?

I didnt write any poetry at the time. I wrote about 20 songs and the guys in my band told me they were the worst songs Id ever written. Since that time I have written a few poems about Korea, one of which was published in the Avatar Review . I also wrote one about how I fell in love with Jeung-wha and why it didnt work, which is unpublished and will probably remain so.

I think going outside my own culture has given me a deeper understanding of people. Not that I can understand what its like to be Korean, but that I can understand something of what it is like to be a foreigner.I grew up a lot in that period. Even though it was only 18 months, it took me a while to settle back into life in Scotlandagain. The culture shock on my return seemed stronger than when I first arrived in Seoul.

Come back next Wednesday for Part 2 when Rob talks about his time in Italy and returning home to Scotland. He also shares one of his poems with us.

Tunku Halim is a Malaysian-born writer living in Tasmania. He started out as a lawyer like me - and guess what? He jumped ship as well to do the writing thing. Unlike me, he is very prolific and has published a number of books: novels, short story collections etc. His tales tend to be dark and macabre and have a deadly twist - like an Asian Roahl Dahl. His book has titles like “44 Cemetery Road” and “The Rape of Martha Teoh”…. very dark indeed!

I am delighted that he has agreed to write a guest piece for Fusion View. Hal writes:

My dad is from the Negri Sembilan royalty. My mother is not. They
divorced when I was very young, so I was essentially brought up as a
KL boy no different from any other kid. That was until the age of 13
when I hopped on a plane and it all changed. Boarding school in
Cheltehenham, followed by University in Sussex, then London where I
attended the Inns of Court School of Law and later post graduate
studies at City University.

Legal Eagle

After 10 years of study in the UK, I returned to KL and chambered at
Shearn Delamore. There I acquainted myself with the tedium of doing
unending lists of documents for court cases and searching for lost
files in the High Court. Great social life though! I then worked for a
property developer. This led to a non-fiction book being published
entitled Everything the Condominium Developer Should Have Told You But
Didn’t. I also began work on a novel and a collection of short
stories.

As I didn’t have a chance to work in the UK , I felt a need to work
overseas. So I shot over to Sydney and found a job (no use of contacts
ok?) as Legal Counsel with a US software company. This was exciting
but stressful stuff. After 4 years I took a sabbatical to write. You
can only negotiate contracts for so much of your life! My first novel
and collection of short stories had already been published by then. I
began work on my second novel, a short story collection and a
biography. After a year, I decided never to return to corporate life.
This was a particularly productive time as I’d published 10 books in
10 years.

The most haunted place in Australia

The fact that Tasmania is the most haunted place in Australia has
nothing to do with me living here! We had lived in Sydney for 10 years
and I felt it was time to move on. There was no job, no family holding
us to a city that was getting more and more congested. My wife and I
had been to Tasmania on holidays and loved the peacefulness, the
beauty of the island and its cooler weather. My dream was to also to
live by the sea. In Tasmania, my dream is fulfilled. Now I can throw
stones into the ever changing seascape and watch for the occasional
pod of dolphins swimming by!

Dark, sinister stories of the macabre do attract me but not because
they are dark or sinister. Rather I’m drawn to supernatural elements.
Something beyond our normal life, something even spiritual perhaps.
Although I’ve written gruesome novels like Vermillion Eye, nowadays I
get more satisfaction from writing more thoughtful pieces like “The
Year 1972″ which appears in my forthcoming short story collection 44
Cemetery Road. I would love to write a ghost story, very gothic, with
suspense and atmosphere.

Distant view of home

It’s easier for me to write about Malaysia because of my geographic
distance from it. This distance provides me with a mental distancing,
an ability to sift out what’s important, what’s unique about the
place. If I lived there I would be too caught up in its own consuming
environment. I’d be eating all the time too. So being far away,
setting a story in Malaysia just seems natural thing to do. Perhaps if
I lived in Malaysia, I’d write about Australia. I’ve written about
Australia though. A good part of Vermillion Eye is set in Sydney. My
story “This Page is Left Intentionally Blank” is also set in Sydney
and won an Fellowship of Australian Writers competition a few years
back. But, yes, most of my work has a Malaysian context.

Current projects

I’m currently working on a children’s encyclopedia of Malaysian
history. It’s a mammoth task as I’m practically doing everything from
taking photographs, Photoshopping, graphic designing and, of course,
the research and writing. It’s taken over 3 years of work. Hopefully
it’ll be out at the end of the year.

I’m also interested in writing a book on creative writing aimed
particularly at Malaysians. Another project is compiling a collection
of writings by Malaysian bloggers.

Other than writing, my other passion is real estate. I’m particularly
interested in regenerating the inner city and new forms of housing. In
Tasmania, I converted a dilapidated shophouse into 6 studio
apartments. These are very compact yet extremely well designed. The
building won a a couple of architectural awards.

—————

You can find out more about Hal and his writings at http://tunkuhalim.wordpress.com/.

Following on from Nicola’s post as Guestblogger last week, when she wrote about Writing Business Books, she explains what Mentoring is in a business context and also talks about Cross-Cultural Mentoring and her own fusion background growing up in Singapore and feeling Singaporean.

Nicola writes:

What Mentoring is All About

Mentoring is the process of exchanging experience and related information. In the past mentoring was traditionally viewed as a ‘elder/protégé’ relationship, but now it is being recognised that experience does not always come with age. This realisation has refined mentoring models to establish reverse mentoring are being encouraged between the leading edge youngsters, as the mentor with the valuable experience, and the elder successful business, as the mentee, to continue the circle of valuable learning and knowledge exchange. Other perspectives of the mentoring process are buddy, peer and themed mentoring.

Mentoring is essentially an activity that is free at the point of delivery. For example, the business person voluntary mentoring in the Princes Trust, the line manager mentoring identified talent potential, or the employee who wants to understand his strategic role in the organisation for promotion. In all these cases the mentee will not be paying for the service.

So, outside my work the question for me is: do I want to mentor, free of charge, using this area of my expertise for the benefit of others? My professional fee charging role, mentoring is the area in which I train people in the mentor and mentee relationship and skills, how to set up and implement a mentoring programme and create a framework to measure the success and increased benefits and profitability to the organisation. These are consultative pieces of work. Sharing my experience as a cost free activity is my choice, which I personally need to assess so as not to blur the boundaries of paid and voluntary work. I do mentor others, but usually making my experience available to the voluntary sector. I am currently President of the City Women’s Network (CWN), which was set up in the 1970’s for the mutual support and positive experience of senior women working within the City of London. We all accept the ethos of the network and are prepared to give other members the benefit of our experience.

Needless to say, at the moment I have a mentor, who is someone recently retired from academia and is an expert futurist, which is an area I find fascinating and definitely broadened – or is lengthened a better word? – my view of the workplace and the role of work in the global society.

Cross-Cultural Mentoring

Cross-cultural mentoring is very important to me. For example, I was recently in Brussels facilitating a group of CEOs from the same sector but with very different levels of working with diversity & inclusion. All the organisations were multinational and global household names. For these successful and intelligent leaders, issues of how do they lead the way forward, role model best practise to their own organisations, through the issues of diversity that include the 6 pillars of gender, ageism, disability, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, with the overarching expectations of differing societies and institutions, coupled with the opportunities and changes technology has brought to the work and home spheres has them, understandably, overawed.

The use of highlighting the cross-cultural issues and mentoring the experiences from the different perspectives is vital to achieve an accepted ‘norm’, or create a ‘matrix of tolerance’ as Kate Nash, CEO of RADAR named the concept. To share best practise in this area is essential, and creating an appreciation of best practise and modelling professional and personal leadership needs an ongoing exchange of information and experience to arrive at an cross-cultural understanding. But first, all these leaders need to learn what makes the mentoring and mentee relationship work so they are no longer frightened to come out of their ivory towers and listen and learn from those around them.

Fusion background

I was born in London as my parents were moving between York and Norfolk, only to start a journey that took me to Cyprus and then on to Singapore in time for my 3rd birthday. So my first memories are of the Far East, I had always grown up on warm climates and thrived; so sunshine and that free way of life were normal to me. By coincidence, we also never lived in English communities, so I was very lucky to be surrounded with others, which made me the oddity. Being a child, I didn’t notice difference. I ate Cantonese food, ballet lessons with locals, shopped in markets and while my Mother away was in hospital, I spent masses of time wandering far and wide, always being shepherded by the kindness of those around me. The foreign bits of life to me were being sent to the local forces school and mixing with other British families in the formal way ex-pats abroad do.

My brother has already been set home to school the year before. My Mother had not been well, so we arranged to come home as a family. The three week journey by sea back to the UK was the first time I had experience of the British en masse, their way of living, attitudes and food. Having been told I would live going home – a concept I did not understand – I arrived in Southampton in thick fog, wore what were supposed to be my winter clothes in the closing summer months before being sent to a Boarding school.

Even though I Iooked like the perfect English girl - blond hair, blue eyes – I could not understand how the sun could shine, and yet I was freezing cold. I had no concept of cold. Needless to say I had arrived into the coldest winter since 1947. I had not points of connection with my classmates who were gymkhana crazy, pony mad and thought my dolls house was odd as it had no chimneys in the roof or fireplaces in the rooms. The dolls house had been made in Changai jail, the backdrop to a WWII Japanese POW camp in which many soldiers in East Anglian regiments had been interned, and of which ere my classmates fathers. There was later a film made of the book King Rat that tells the story of the camp. All the experiences and interest was naturally not shared by those who’s fathers were the camp’s survivors.

At school were only allowed to have a bath twice a week, three of you bath together at on time, and the favourite song to sing during this ritual was “Slow boat to China” which sounded like complete nonsense to me. I decided the British were barbarian, which was confirmed by being offered pilchards in tomato sauce on toast at school tea one evening. Our cat loved pilchards in tomato sauce and used to lick the sauce off first – now I was being fed cat food!

I always said coming to the England delayed my development by years – the shock and differences were so great. What I find interesting is that there still is little recognition that for children, let alone adults, cultural transitions are character influencing, even if the transition is into their own culture. Recently I surveyed a group of American women living in London for their husband’s work. Even though they had be career girls in the US, they were not allowed to work in the UK. May had started families and concentrated on home life and generally found other US networks and women to create their community and support networks. I asked what the differences and similarities were in their lives, and had they been given any awareness training before coming to Europe. No they all chorused. Had they been sent from the US to France or Japan they would get some sort of induction to local life, but because the US spoke English there was no need.

They made a life for themselves outside the US, but with going through life changing new experiences like starting families, renovating properties and creating homes, they felt now they were more at home in London, and felt they had little in common with experiences and attitudes when they went back to the US on holiday. In fact, many felt they did not want to go home yet, and would prefer their husband’s career to continue outside the US, which they admitted could be detrimental to future promotion and success.

Cross-culture expectations are subtle, but very powerful and have the ability to create either a negative or positive effects instantly. Like the mentoring relationship generally, successful, valuable and sustainable cross-culture mentoring only happens when the skill of open-mindedness is learnt and practiced. Then the exchange of information can be achieved on the basis of the mentor giving experience as they learned it, and the mentee can adapt, leave or take what they need and want freely without egos personal feeling being questioned. No one need feel overawed, or unappreciated.

Nicola can be contacted via her website http://www.proactivecoaching.com/

This is a cross-post from my social media blog ZenGuide, where the post below came out yesterday under the heading “Simple Online Marketing”. I am posting it here as well as I would like to share with you the success stories of some of my Fusion View friends.

You may not have a blog or even a website. How can you market yourself online without these tools? A simple and effective way is to guest-blog on an existing blog run by someone else.

Here are some success stories of a number of people who were guest-blogged on Fusion View.

Case Study - Nicky Harman

Nicky Harman, translates books and novels from Chinese into English. She doesn’t have a website of her own for her books and translations although she is profiled briefly on her work website. I was curious to learn more about the process of translation and asked her to write a first person piece about her translation work and the Chinese author Han Dong whose book Striking Root she was working on at that time - and for which she was looking for an agent and/ or publisher. She produced the article very quickly over a weekend and I had it up on Fusion View the next week.

A few weeks later, I was contacted by a leading publisher in China who had come across the article on Fusion View, asking to make contact with Nicky. I forwarded her email and Nicky started discussions with her about publishing her book. Around the same time, a UK-based literary agent was told about Nicky’s work and Googled her. Up popped Nicky’s article on Fusion View and the agent invited her to submit her manuscript. Go Nicky!

Case Study - Pey

My cousin Pey Colborne is an aromatherapist and poet based in Bath. She doesn’t have her own website for her business. I interviewed her for a podcast on Fusion View, talking about her fusion life and how she uses her Western and Eastern experiences and interests in her poetry - and also in her aromatherapy practice, which incorporates Chinese herbal medicine as well as Western aromatherapy principles. She has gained at least one new aromatherapy client through that podcast - he specifically mentioned it as he had had a choice of therapists and decided on her after hearing more about her practice and healing principles on the podcast.

Case Study - Lucy Luck

I interviewed Lucy Luck, a UK literary agent for advice to writers hoping to find an agent in the UK - and specifically answering emailed questions from overseas writers. She talked about how to submit your work, how to write your covering letter and what agents re looking for. She also invited Fusion View readers/ listeners to submit their writing to her agency. I chatted with her last week and she told me that she has had over 30 submissions from potential new clients, mentioning the Fusion View podcast. The quality of their covering letters and submissions have been much higher than those who had not listened to the podcast, which has made the process of working through them much easier for her. She also feels that the podcast has raised her profile in the search engines, coming up just after her own literary agency website, and also generally for her business as the podcast was also featured in Mslexia, the UK journal for women writers.

Action point

So could you offer an article to a blogger you know? Here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• your article needs to be relevant to the theme of the blog you’d like to write for

• what you write about needs to be helpful, interesting or useful for the readers of that blog

• read the blog you would like to write for and read the About page

• think of the blog and its readers as a community that you’d like to be a part of

• does that blog regularly have interviews/ guestbloggers? If not, will your approach be appropriate?

• make your approach courteously

• remember that the blogger does not have to take your idea, so accept “no” gracefully

• how might you help the blogger in return, as part of his/ her community?

I am always on the lookout for interesting guestbloggers on both Fusion View and ZenGuide - please make sure you read my Guestblogger Submission Guidelines: click on that Category in the far right sidear. Email me first with an outline of what you’d like to write about, who you are and why you think the readers of Fusion View or ZenGuide would be interested in the story. If I like the idea, I can then invite you to write the full story. I may decide it’s not appropriate, in which case, I will let you know.

Pic: thanks to
www.dnrec.state.de.us

Xavier Salomon, the curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, talks to me about his own pan-European roots and about the fusion art of Canaletto, the great Venetian painter who came to London in 1746. Canaletto painted famous London scenes with his Italian eye, staying in this vibrant city for 10 years. Xavier talks about what London might have been like at that time and why Canaletto came here for his painting. He also talks about his personal experiences of European art and what it takes to become the curator of one of the most respected art galleries in the UK.

You can listen to the podcast of our convesation (about 31 mins 50 sec) using the grey player below.

To find out more about the Canaletto exhibition, which is on until 15 April, go to www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

Above: Canaletto’s painting of Westminster Bridge, London.
Top: Photo of Xavier, thanks to Ingrid Beazley

Listen Now:

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The Guardian first book prize has gone to Chinese-born author YiYun Li who has only recently learnt to write in English. This is very exciting. She won it for her short story collection “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers”. Her stories have been described as “perfect and complete capsules” and one of the judges of the prize speaks of her as “a writer of rare perceptiveness and originality”. She has already won the Frank O’Connor international short story prize and the PEN/Hemingway award. Wow!

You can read the full article in The Guardian here.

I was taken by the samples of Li’s writing that the Guardian article gives:

“Li’s stories, the longest of them 24 pages, exploit the ability of the short form to register fine shifts in everyday lives. The background events that shape the people she writes about are the imperial centuries of feudalism, Mao’s communism and cultural revolution, Tiananmen Square and the plunge into capitalism.

In their speech, new half-poetical sayings mix with old proverbs: “a dew-marriage before the sunrise” (a one-night stand); “There is always a road when you get into the mountain” [see extract]; and, poignantly, in the same story, “The happiness of love is a shooting meteor. The pain of love is the darkness following.” “

I wonder if the influence of her mother tongue, Chinese, has blurred over into her use of English thus creating these powerfully evocative images. I have been exploring the issue of identity and language and even dialect in this blog, with thought-provoking contributions from commentors and guest-bloggers. We’ve looked at how our core selves may be formed by whether we speak English or Japanese and how one might change like a chameleon depending on whether one speaks standard American or working-class / regional American. Now, these examples of Li’s writing make me curious as to how the writing of multi-lingual writers is enriched by their many tongues.

The dense, intense writing of Joseph Conrad comes to mind. He made fictions from his experiences in Malaya and the Far East and Africa, having served as a merchant seaman. He was Polish originally, I believe, but wrote in English and is studied as a major figure in English literature. The intensity and power of his writing can in part, I think, be attributed to his writing in a language that was not his mother tongue.

Do you have any personal experience of this question as a writer? Or perhaps as a reader, certain phrases from books strike you - could those idioms come from the book’s author’s multi-lingual life?

Please add a comment or email me. I will post the most relevant and interesting contributions as individual Guestblog writings for Fusion View.

You can find out more about Li at her homepage www.yiyunli.com

Photo: thanks from Li’s homepage

A while back, I wrote about the First Ancestor, the story that my family tells of where we came from. I found a tape recording of an interview that I did with my grandfather on my mother’s side 30 years ago, asking him to tell us the story of our family. I was thirteen at the time - and I guess in a way I was doing a podcast even before podcasts were invented!

The family gathered round one evening just before Christmas 1976 and I taped the story that my grandfather told. This is the last and only recording we have of his voice as he died a year later so it is a recording that is treasured in our family.

I have transferred it to digital format without any expert or fancy technology so the sound quality is not perfect. However, I hope that you can still enjoy the story he tells…

Listen Now:

 A Voice from the Past (Family Story): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1851)

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We end the current Fusion Stories series with a post from my father, Ooi Boon-Leong, about his first experience of England in the 1950s as a young, naive student from the colonies. Dad will be 70 next April and still busy with his law practice. I am really pleased and touched that he has taken the time to write this piece for me and to share his perspective of a different time in a country that was foreign to him then but home to me now.

He writes:

There were 3 of us from the same secondary school who had gained admissions to different universities in England, I to Cambridge University and the other two to London University. Two of us were 18 years old and the third a little older than 19. We lived in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaya (then) and none of us had travelled further than Singapore by rail, a city about 300 miles south. The three of us were “village yokels” really, although we spoke fluent English and had all completed the Cambridge Overseas School Certificate Examination. This examination was conducted for all English schools in the Empire with some local variations.

In those days you could go to England either mainly by boat or, more rarely, by air. By air, if you are very rich for it was very expensive and even then you had to spend a night in Bombay or another Indian city and a night or a long lay over somewhere in the Middle East for the plane to refuel. Most people travelled by boat and the most famous of the various lines was the P & O. We could not get a booking and so instead we booked a berth for the three of us in an Italian boat that sailed from somewhere in Australia, stopping in Singapore where we boarded it and the journey ended at Naples, its home port. We had to finish the journey from Naples to London by train.

Being on an Italian boat with lots of Italians going to Naples from Australia, it served Italian food. For the first evening I had my first experience of salami. When I put a slice in my mouth and turned it about, it spread around my mouth and it gummed up all my salivary glands and my mouth dried-up. It was not a pleasant feeling.

The spaghetti was alright because it looked like Chinese noodles but it was strange to eat it with tomato sauce instead of it being fried.

Except for going through the Straits of Malacca and the Suez Canal I was seasick all the way.

We arrived in Naples and went on to Rome. Then we went on by train to Paris where, because we had not booked a hotel we spent the night in the railway station, and went on to catch the boat train and then the ferry to go across to England. We duly arrived on the English side of the Channel and this was my first experience on English soil.

A porter helped each of us with our luggage on to the train. Each of us was in charge of tipping his porter. I was too tired and frustrated and was so relieved to have arrived and to be able to speak to someone without any effort that I happily tipped my potter one pound for carrying my two suitcases. He then said “Sir, this is too much. It’s not that much,” and handed back the pound note. I did not know how much it should be so I tipped him ten shillings anyway.

I was very impressed and still am impressed by his act. He definitely could do with the extra money – buy something for his kids or wife or stand his mates drinks in the pub. This has coloured my view of the English but I also remind myself that it was in 1955 when people all over the world, despite going through a terrible war not so long ago, were gentler, kinder and less greedy.

Another incident also shows the kindness and consideration of the English (or British.) I had settled down in my University and during one of the holidays I bought a ticket for a concert in the Royal Festival Hall in the south bank. It was not a pricey ticket but one in the middle range. When I went into the hall I was shown by the usher to a seat which I suspected was in the more expensive section. I mentioned to the usher that I thought that that could not be the correct seat. He insisted that it was and not to argue with him I took my seat. Sure enough before the concert started the person with the correct ticket came to claim his seat and I had to vacate it. I was, of course, very embarrassed and doubly so because I was a foreigner. I did not want the people who were seating behind and beside me to think that here was a foreigner who was trying to cheat by taking a more expensive seat than what he was entitled to. As I was slowly edging out of my row of seats someone, a man, said loud enough for me to hear “Don’t worry, it can happen to any of us.” I was somewhat relieved because there is at least one person who did not think that I had tried to cheat. Only a people who have a deep consideration for others can fathom without being told the discomfort and embarrassment what a person is undergoing and is kind enough to want to reassure him.

Another incident that deserves mention is this. A college friend had invited me to his home for a few days during the vacation. The first night when I went to bed, I found on my bed side table a pile of four or five books ranging from novels to essays for my night reading. Although I had not brought any reading materials I had not asked for any books. It was a gesture I thought very civilized. Another act prompted by their consideration.

These were not the only kindness I received when in England but they stood out. The others were ones one usually meets with in daily life: the “pleases” and “thank yous,” the holding of doors for one to pass. I think it was Orwell who wrote in an essay that only in England can you push an Englishman off the pavement when you two meet going in the opposite direction.