Here's
how
it
Happened
The following information
has been hyperbolizied
and cynicized for the purposes of infotainment
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Shri Lanka |
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 I was born to Shri Lankan
parents in Shri Lanka. That makes me Ethnically and, despite 21 years of
non-residence, legally Shri Lankan. For those who thought Geography was a
Front 242 album and are at this point asking "Well
where on God's
green earth is that?", Shri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean. It is
shaped not unlike a pear, but if you don't like pears fret not, in a decade
of having to describe the "little island on the end of India" to unknowing
westerners I have compiled a list of other things to which Shri Lanka can
be likened: an eggplant, a sack of...er... marbles, a tear, the archetypal
flint tool, Yang of the duo "Yin and Yang", one of Obelix's menhirs... but
I
excurse.
She lies approximately 10 degrees above the equator; the average
wealth of her natives is 10 degrees of magnitude less than that of
Tonya Harding's family; and the average temperature is 10 degrees higher
than Satan's farts. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I haven't spent much time there, having been whisked away to Zambia at the
tender age of 10 months, so I have only sketchy memories of the
place. Shri Lanka is a small place, about the size of the bathroom of your
average Lower East Side Manhattan apartment. There are trees everywhere.
The greater part of the land seems to be blanketed by foliage which, from
the air, looks like Dennis Rodman's hair (... when it's green). There is
the occasional 2-lane road, or even more occasional urban centre interrupting
the otherwise monolithic green. From the road it seems as though the towns
merge into one another as there are little makeshift shops and boutiques
lining their entire length, in all of which you can buy the exact same stuff
as in the one next door. The fauna (that I've seen) includes plenty of various
types of hybrid canine creature, elephants! mosquitoes the size of humming
birds, and cows. Lots and lots and lots of cows. They're everywhere
and they're a spectacular nuisance. But there being a sizable Hindu contingent
resident you're not allowed to kill a cow... even if it sits on your child.
Climactically I remember there being 3 "seasons": hot and wet, hot and dry,
and hot. How hot? Well have you ever bitten into a McDonald's Apple Pie and
had your teeth melt, your tongue boiled and the sauce burn through the bottom
of your chin, fall on your lap and scald your genitalia? Well its hotter
than that. And speaking of hot, the food is... well let me put it this way:
those reports that sometimes appear on CNN about terrorists' firebombs...
actually just the tourist who decided to try authentic native cuisine. The
people are pretty laid back (Corporate America calls it "unmotivated"
and "lazy"), overly hospitable, and love to talk lots as a general rule.
This is in none so evident as my mother whose "lectures" have outlasted even
her own attention span. Despite her flaws Shri Lanka does have lots of sun
and sandy beaches, and that makes it all worth while.
• • •
|
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The Zambalonian Exile. |
Zambia has no sea, (I checked). In other respects it's pretty much like Shri
Lanka:
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| A Zebra! I think his name is Mutumbo the
Zebra. |
It's hot, underdeveloped, has an ineffectual government, a crumbling economy,
and most Americans don't know where it is. Unlike Shri Lanka though it has
no beaches!It lies in the centre of Southern Africa, completely land-locked
and bordered by eight other indistinguishable African nations. This is where
I grew up. Zambia can be optimistically described as a wide open place...
no buildings over 10-feet tall... lots of sturdy foliage... the occasional
large land mammal...
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Excerpt of map of Zambia. Click for whole map
(big) |
The official language is English but circulating in the background are 74
or so known indigenous dialects, of which the most widely used is Bemba:
a simple language of grunts and squeals with the accompanying head movements.
At least that's all I can discern. For all I know they could be composing
an algebraic proof of Fermat's theorem when they appear to be fascinated
by a vacuum cleaner.
I came to be in this place after my family moved there in 1977 when my father
accepted a job offer (he's a doctor wouldn't ya know) in the government-run
medical system. Shortly before I became sentient he left the government program.
As this predates my earliest memory I don't remember why... presumably because
they were still in the practice of blood letting and praying to magic stones.)
He went to work for Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Ltd. the biggest and
baddest (least at that time) corporation in the country; some would even
venture to say the only. No he didn't become a miner! Z.C.C.M. runs
everything, or at least wields enough money, power and influence to control
everything... yes, the government too. In addition to the obvious mining
industry, Z.C.C.M. also had fingers in, if not whole hands on the manufacturing,
processing, transportation, finance, recreational, educational, and medical
pies (to name but a few). It was for this last subsidiary that my father
worked The pitch must have looked great on paper: free house, free utilities,
company car (OK, so it was a Peugeot! Should've seen through that one) free
gas, free health services, tuition allowances and air fare, but the snag
was he--and we by association--had to actually live in Zambia. It made
commuting so much more convenient.
In the 14 years that I lived there I saw the exchange rate of their local
currency go from about 3 Kwacha to the Pound Sterling, to over 200K:1£.
Last I heard it was about 2,500K:1£. A survey I read about once
found that a lot of Americans have no concept of $5 trillion (the national
debt). in Zambia 5 trillion K will almost buy you a Coke. Daily
transactions must employ the mega-K as the basic operative unit of currency;
unless one is talking about the G.N.P. in which case it's painted stones
and pretty shells. There is an old saw in expatriate folklore that for
all its political incorrectness and gross oversimplification might help
illustrate the Zambian economic situation. The wisdom goes: "The whites come
and build the country up..."--this was probably first said by a white guy.
"... When they leave the country it's past its prime. Then the Jews come
to make a quick buck ..." --an anti-semitic white guy--"When they leave the
country is doomed. This is when the Indians [and Shri Lankans] come to lick
up the scraps..."--who doesn't care much for Indians either. "... When the
Indians leave the country is dead!" At this point (if I may extrapolate
the saying) anyone left is probably living in a mud hut 3 miles from the
nearest water hole, with a bone through his nose eating grubs found in a
friend's hair. When last I checked Zambia was at the stage when the
blacks (oh, sorry: African Africans) were leaving.
Less tainted information
• • •
School Britannia! |
 |
 Dissatisfied with the Zambian educational system,
which concentrated on teaching the kids how to use crayons and not drink
from the toilet, my parents sent me to school in England for four years.
To boarding school.Catholic boarding school! For those of you unfamiliar
with the Catholics, they have been modestly described as "a little like the
Nazis but without so much compassion." I must be blocking or suppressing
this episode of my life because I have only vague memories of bitter, insecure,
bigoted classmates with inferiority complexes, food boiled to a submissive
goop, latently-homosexual-alcoholic-junkie-priests, a headmaster with sideburns
the size of elephant ears, daily religious rituals on uncomfortable pews,
sinfully hideous uniforms, and no women!
My impression of the English is that they're brutally honest... Oh! xenophobic,
supercilious and exclusionary for sure, but honest! That is to say you'll
know immediately your friends from you enemies. A distinction not always
so lucid, but behooving to know.
To her credit England did once reign over a quarter of the globe, gave the
world the Beatles, Monty Python and... the Spice Girls (as well as syphilis,
Christianity and the English Language),
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Fullsize version (67K). Just click. |
and it was in England that I learned the game of rugby--the precursor to
"American" Football. Rugby is like Football in that they're both violent
and the ball is an ellipsoid. However in rugby you don't wear armour, if
you're about to get creamed you can pass the ball to the next guy, and no
one who plays professionally is over 300 lbs! Also a 90-minute game is over
after 90 minutes. None of these pussy pauses between plays and time-outs,
and quarter-times. And a player stayed in till he got hurt!... which
was invariably.
• • •
|
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Coming to America. |
In 1990 I came to America. I landed at JFK on Christmas day; having spent
15 hours on a plane that was evidently a converted slave ship, in a seat
comfortably wide enough for one of my two buttocks. Zambia
Airways is perhaps the only airline less appalling than
Balkan: Bulgarian airlines. Thankfully,
as of yesterday, I am at last over the ordeal.
I was promptly sent to a college prep high school:
The Stony Brook
School. It was a Christian school, which is a step down from Catholic,
but in the same business of mass hypnosis. Ittoo was a boarding school but
at least three weekends per term I was allowed to go home; a privilege for
which one had to apply in writing and get permission! I entered half way
through sophomore year, had a British accent, had spent two years of puberty
in an entirely femaleless environment, and was a colossal nerd. So you can
probably imagine what a
<SARCASM>fun</SARCASM> time
I had.
My next stop was Cornell University, a large prestigious institution in...
the middle of nowhere! True, Cornell is officially an Ivy League school
but along with U-Penn are regarded to be the bastard sons of the League.
Naturally this reputation comes fully equipped with an overall dearth of
name recognition and a sizable chip residing right here <indicate
shoulder>. The University campus is located in Ithaca, NY... on a mountain...
|
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Cornell University's McGraw tower from Central
Ave. |
that is to say it is cold there. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ithaca
version of cold, it's the sort of place where you can get a brain freeze
just from going outside, and tooth pain from breathing. I survived the ordeal
known as winter by convincing myself that the instant feeling of numbness
in one's extremities and the uncontrollable tendency to shake violently are
but side effects of the ambient sense of doom that pervades the campus. But
despite my criticisms I do like the old place
Since the onset of my American tour I have learned the essential art of
conformism, taken to wearing wide-legged pants, shed my English accent, and
a few degrees of nerdliness, found and lost religion, and met Julie Haggerty
in an elevator. Needless to say I am slowly and surely being assimilated
into that "colourless Esperanto" known as Americanism, to which this webpage
is testament.
| Any other questions? Ask me... |
Otherwise, I have a few questions for you |
|
