What are you hiding? (Bangkok, 2009)

I see Catholic church officials almost everyday now on TV, for the child abuse cases that took place in Europe.

I chatted briefly with a friend, based in Hong Kong, who writes for Catholic media.

All she said was, “I look at the ‘good side’ of the Church.”

I said that all these cases could turn out to be “good,” if the church did the job. By the “job,” I mean recognising the cases and bring them to justice.

But what surprised me more was that, she did not know any of these cases.

I wonder now: do Catholics know any child abuse case inside their church?

Any institution has abuse. Recognition is the first step. I am afraid the cases that are on TV are just a tip of a huge iceberg, completely swept under carpet.

Why does this happen? Because they try to look only at “good side”?

I am not quite sure of this “good side” either. If she means charity work, I know Catholic charity organisations that are corrupted. Then she said, “Oh, those people like to tell funny stories.” But I have seen it with my eyes. They did not tell me funny stories. I saw it.

Is it how Catholics hide the “bad side”? I am afraid so. Church cares more about unity than integrity. Because it is an institution, a creation of human being.

“Jealous?” -Hua Hin, 2009

I’ve just listened to a radio documentary on NHK (NHK Journal, at 10 p.m. GMT+9, on 11 March 2010). It featured female college students who prefer to become homemakers than in career.

My sister, who will get Master’s this month, also is like, “I want to be a housewife!”

Is this the comeback of “good old days”? Men out, women in?

Or is it an escapism? But I can’t blame them either. I should blame the government for not allowing women to shine at work and in private life.

According to the experts interviewed in the programme, the students cannot picture themselves being super working women they see. Most of working women they see work under tough conditions: work outside and household chores. Sure, that’s double work. Women started to work outside home, but men did not start to work inside home.

Of course this theory does not go with every single person in Japan. But these students see no working woman who is exceptional.

The word “syokugyo fujin,” or “working woman,” was so admired decades ago. Now these students see that it’s a complete myth. Working women who went through the bubble economy and other economic crises, hardly talk good things about work. After all, work and home for them was a simple juggling. It was not integrated completely into one life style.

Anyway, I wonder how these students will be in future. Even if they will be happy homemakers, their partners may be fired in an instant. And then? I wonder if they think of such a thing, but it’s happening everywhere I see now.

So many crazy stereotypes. I hate them all.

“Boy or girl? Or you prefer not to know?”

I don’t bother. The baby might be LGBTQ. Why do you care so much about certain part of baby’s body?

“But then, how do you buy baby clothes?”

I have no pink clothes. But I am a woman.

“Do you have morning sickness? Have you had ultrasound?”

These people actually do not care about me. They just ask me things to show that they are clever enough to make questions. So I replied, “If you give me 10 baht, I will reply.”

I hate them all. I hate comments about my belly. Some say too small, some say too big. I reply, “All women are different.” But they seem unsatisfied. They go on, “Oh because it’s your first time,” etc etc. They just want to categorise me somewhere in their own little world.

Luckily not all are like that. I have been blessed with close friends and my mother.

When I told my close friends about pregnancy, one said, “Oh.” Another one said, “Good!” That’s all. Our relationship did not change much, but when they saw me suffer they brought me food I could eat in the midst of morning sickness. I could not survive morning sickness without Sri Lankan dhal and Sri Lankan food my friend made, and tofu another friend bought every morning.

Once one friend said, “Hey, you should eat more for baby.” I replied, “The nutrition goes first to the baby. No worries.” She did not make any further comments. I am as important as the baby. Why forcing to eat and throwing up anyway?

My mother only said, “Oh! It’s is another learning process.” She did not say more than that. That sounded truer than anyone’s comment.

Here in Bangkok I see a lot of interesting things. Sometimes it’s a lot more interesting than seeing people in Tokyo.

In Tokyo I enjoy looking at people trying to invent their own ways of clothing, living. You get to see another side of people from the famous “cos-play” (costume play, trying to look like cartoon characters etc), “gos-rori” (I don’t know its background but they dress like typical French dolls). They are all in search for their own style.

In Bangkok, I get to see people trying to copy what they think is cool.

Typical thing, of course, is fake Louis Vuitton:

I never quite understood why people like LV, let alone its copies. I even wonder if people here know what Louis Vuitton is, its history etc.

I don’t know why this person chose these shoes. To hide something around his toes maybe?:

The recent Japanese fashion of curling hair also reached here, but I think she did too much. And too much does not mean too beautiful:

The last one… I am sure she wanted to be fashionable, but when I see how this belt actually works, it does not look pretty anymore:

I will continue all this “fashion watch” as long as I live. I hope to see more changes in Bangkok. Clothing is not copying, but being secure, protection.

Ci sono i giorni in cui tutto sembra bello.

Non so perche’. Senza motivo.

La luce sembra piu’ brillante.

L’aria sembra piu’ pura.

La gente sembra piu’ felice.

Non so perche’. Ma e’ cosi’.

(in English)

There are the days when everything seems pretty.

I don’t know why. No reason.

Light seems brighter.

Air seems purer.

People seem happier.

I don’t know why. But it is so.

This is a typical statue in Thailand in shops, just like the “maneki neko” (statue of cat) of Japan. It is a statue to get more customers.

As far as I know, in many countries in Europe and Americas this hand means “Go away.” This hand in many countries in Asia means, “Come.” Anway, this statue calls on many more customers to come.

People offer things to these statues (In Japan people never do this by the way). But I never had mobile offered to it.

This statue, which I found in a hotel in Hua Hin, has a mobile, although it’s just a toy (Can you see the little red thing on left?). I wonder why. They want more mobiles perhaps?

In the picture actually is not our lizard, although s/he visits us almost every night. Ours is inside our apartment. We call him/her “JJ,” cos in lizard in Thai is “jinjok.” S/he eats bugs, poops on our floor and we clean when we see it. S/he is always around our fridge.

I find her/him cute. It’s such a small thing and yet life seems a bit different.

A month ago I got some fish therapy:

Fish eat dead skin of my feet. 200 Thai baht (about 6 USD) for 15 minutes. I wanted to try because I never had the chance to, although was always interested in.

First minutes were tough, cos it was ticklish. After a while, it started to feel great. Peace of mind.

People lived with other animals (cos people are animals after all) as long as its history. I guess people now are too apart from them, and probably miss them. That’s maybe why I felt so good about it.

Guard (Bkk, Jan 09)

In Japan, asking the question like “When will you have a baby?” has become sexual harassment. It is because so many women started to speak up, how much pressure and insult these words can cause especially if they or their spouses have health conditions not allowing them to give birth to a baby.

Not so in other parts of Asia, though.

A couple of weeks ago, a receptionist of my office asked me the question, too.

“Do you have a baby?”

No.

“You should have one.”

Well, it’s not something that I get when I want.

“When you have one, you should have two.”

I was speechless. She’s in her early 20s. I had never asked these questions, plus urging me to have two babies, from someone young like her.

Soon I will have to meet my spouse’s colleagues, and I know they will ask me the same question. What frustrates me is that they never ask any question to him. Only they say is “Your are so selfish not to introduce us to your wife.” Why the hell don’t they ever talk about him having a baby? I never knew that I could have a baby only by myself.

I am preparing my answers for them.

• Please ask him, not me.
• We go to hospital monthly because of our health issues to have a baby.
• Am I worthless if I have no baby?

I guess the best answer is “Why the question?”

Oh yeah, that’s what I will say. Return a question with a question. I really do not know why they ask this to me anyway.

What’s so special about a movie like this? I know there are so many movies of similar topic, and things like violence, connections behind the political scenes, etc. Yet this movie appears special.

I thought it might be because this talks of something more complicated in a simpler manner. But then, the movie “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” was such a movie, too. What does it have that others do not have? In front of these movies, including the “Kite Runner,” “La meglio gioventu’,” “I cento passi” and others, all the rest of movies look like kids’ games.

Al Pacino looked so good in the first two movies. Although a friend said Andy Garcia in the 3rd part is cuter, I disagree!

Besides, I noticed that Al Pacino looks a bit like Takuya Kimura, a Japanese actor/singer/TV star.

Al Pacino as Michele Corleone

Takuya Kimura

I must say Pacino is a lot better actor, though. It’s just their eyes that sometimes looked so similar.

Some might say that the script is the key for a good movie, one of the movies. I still do not know.

Not everybody, in truth. Most of people are not protesting. They care more about their daily lives.

Media report only the virtually-appealing things. Not things like this.

Swat girl’s flogging jolts Pakistan

Nirupama Subramanian

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Fear over danger for the country

An eye-opener: Asma Jehangir

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ISLAMABAD: A chilling video showing the Taliban flogging a young girl reportedly in the Swat district of the North West Frontier Province has jolted Pakistan and raised new fears about a government agreement to set up sharia courts in the region and the dangers it poses for the rest of the country.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary was among the first to react, taking suo motu notice of the video within hours of its hitting the television screens.

Though his court’s influence in Taliban-ruled Swat is in doubt, Mr. Chaudhary sent notices to the Interior secretary, NWFP Chief Secretary and the provincial Inspector-General of police, as well as constituted an eight-judge bench to hear the case from April 6. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the Pakistan People’s Party had always stood for women’s rights, praised the late Benazir Bhutto’s contributions in this sphere, and said an enquiry had been ordered.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said it had to be ascertained if the video was genuine and that he had ordered an investigation to “work out” the place and the date of the incident.

The video shows two men holding the girl face down, one by her legs, and the other by her head. The second man is constantly seen pulling up the girl’s burqa, exposing her salwar-covered backside. The third man flogs her with a cane 37 times.

The girl, said to be 17 years old and identified as Chaand, screams for mercy as she is being caned, first begging to be killed, and then begging her flogger for forgiveness in the name of her father, her grandfather and her grandmother. She is speaking in Pashto. At one point, the bearded black-turbaned man flogging her slaps one of the other men apparently for not effectively preventing her from pulling her burqa down over her back.

Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the Swat Taliban, confirmed the incident and said the girl was rightly punished, and said the girl had illicit relations with her father-in-law. But a rights activist in Swat said the girl’s father had turned down the local Taliban commander’s suit for his daughter. The Taliban had meted out this punishment in revenge.

The Awami National Party, which rules the NWFP and made an agreement in February with the Tehrik-e-Nifas-e-Sharia Mohammadi for setting up sharia courts, took cover under the disputed date of the video.

Those who have distributed it say the flogging was filmed after the agreement. The ANP says it took place in January and was distributed at this time “deliberately to derail the peace deal” in Swat.

TNSM chief Sufi Mohammed also dubbed the video a “conspiracy” to destroy the peace agreement in Swat.

To be punished probably was her farther-in-law, not her.

This kind of thing hardly gets on TV. The fear that surrounds people, kills people, is not very virtually appealing. Only people who seek for this kind of information might be able to get something.

Media. What is it for? To make up a truth out of the truth?