OK, sorry for the silence there. I have now been in Göteborg
There was a girl at the party with only one arm. I was curious as to why, but didn't feel comfortable asking. I imagined being her. You know that every stranger notices, and it would be honest of them to acknowledge the fact, but everyone wants to be cool and pretend that they're not looking. It's kind of like being foreign, everyone asks you the same questions, and you recite the well-practised speech: "Yeah, I'm from Wellington. It's the capital, but not the biggest city. Its a coupl'a hundred thousand; Auckland has 1 million. Auckland was the capital once, but New Zealand's a long thin country like Sweden, and we wanted the capital to be more central... Yeah it gets cold down South, but in the North they grow avocados." [Swedes find this detail particularly fascinating. Axel's father and stepmother grow an olive tree indoors, but it doesn't bear fruit]. It's just a little bit boring that whenever anyone does speak English to me, they ask about New Zealand. I would prefer to get into juicy feminist discussions or talk about Gaza or learn crazy facts about Swedish history, but the language barrier interferes. I did manage to talk about comparative prostituion law and custom with a Dutch guy, but he, coming from Amsterdam, was a little bit uncomfortable with the subject. I guess if Wellington was the sex tourism hub for an entire continent I probably would be uncomfortable too.
Anyway, maybe from now on I'll say I come from the tropical paradise Hawaiiki, only 100m North of Australia, where my parents grow square coconuts and my six brothers hunt drop bears which we make into biltong... No actually, most people here are surprisingly knowledgeable about New Zealand - many have been for a holiday and almost everyone has a brother or a cousin or a friend of a friend who has been there and loved it. Others know someone who has been to Australia and loved it, which is, of course, the same thing. Just like people who upon hearing I was moving to Sweden told me that their mother's friend's son had visited Denmark and had a great time, so obviously I would be very happy in Sweden.
We had a smaller party in Stockholm a couple of days later, where I actually got my exciting feminist discussion with a girl who looked a bit like Hayley Mills but with a deliciously androgenous haircut. She was writing a thesis on the Barabröst ("bara" means both "bare" and "only", and "bröst" means "breast", a double meaning that is deliberately played on) movement, an equal rights movement which argues against a loophole in EU law that allows swimming pools to ban women swimming topless when men are allowed to. So that was interesting.
There was a girl at the party with only one arm. I was curious as to why, but didn't feel comfortable asking. I imagined being her. You know that every stranger notices, and it would be honest of them to acknowledge the fact, but everyone wants to be cool and pretend that they're not looking. It's kind of like being foreign, everyone asks you the same questions, and you recite the well-practised speech: "Yeah, I'm from Wellington. It's the capital, but not the biggest city. Its a coupl'a hundred thousand; Auckland has 1 million. Auckland was the capital once, but New Zealand's a long thin country like Sweden, and we wanted the capital to be more central... Yeah it gets cold down South, but in the North they grow avocados." [Swedes find this detail particularly fascinating. Axel's father and stepmother grow an olive tree indoors, but it doesn't bear fruit]. It's just a little bit boring that whenever anyone does speak English to me, they ask about New Zealand. I would prefer to get into juicy feminist discussions or talk about Gaza or learn crazy facts about Swedish history, but the language barrier interferes. I did manage to talk about comparative prostituion law and custom with a Dutch guy, but he, coming from Amsterdam, was a little bit uncomfortable with the subject. I guess if Wellington was the sex tourism hub for an entire continent I probably would be uncomfortable too.
Anyway, maybe from now on I'll say I come from the tropical paradise Hawaiiki, only 100m North of Australia, where my parents grow square coconuts and my six brothers hunt drop bears which we make into biltong... No actually, most people here are surprisingly knowledgeable about New Zealand - many have been for a holiday and almost everyone has a brother or a cousin or a friend of a friend who has been there and loved it. Others know someone who has been to Australia and loved it, which is, of course, the same thing. Just like people who upon hearing I was moving to Sweden told me that their mother's friend's son had visited Denmark and had a great time, so obviously I would be very happy in Sweden.
We had a smaller party in Stockholm a couple of days later, where I actually got my exciting feminist discussion with a girl who looked a bit like Hayley Mills but with a deliciously androgenous haircut. She was writing a thesis on the Barabröst ("bara" means both "bare" and "only", and "bröst" means "breast", a double meaning that is deliberately played on) movement, an equal rights movement which argues against a loophole in EU law that allows swimming pools to ban women swimming topless when men are allowed to. So that was interesting.
Cool Honey. More, more, your public demands it!!
ReplyDeleteCool Honey!!! More more!
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