"Story of my life!"

Like a lot of people, I've been enjoying the Trump Presidency, if only for the joy of outrage and seeing people apoplectic at apparent brazen ignorance. A colleague of mine said that his election would be a goldmine for the comedians, but I contend that it is a self-mockery that cannot really be beaten. "You cannot write stuff like that!". You'll never meet a better mockery of Trump than himself. The only satire I'd laugh at would be to have him making sense and playing it straight. Have a comedian answer the question with a cogent answer.

As we have this kind of personality pushing the envelope of reality, it really does make me think about how beliefs and narratives work for people. Clearly some people are listening to his words and making sense of it all, which might strike his detractors as impossible. 

If there is anything that is true though, it is that a story matters, and we all have stories about ourselves and the worlds. We, after all, "aren't that kind of person" except for that time when you weren't. And it's the "story of my life" and we successfully fulfill our own prophecies both good and bad. I sigh a little when my family and colleagues say they are a particular kind of person or identify themselves as an agent in a recurring narrative. We do though seem to make a narrative of our lives as narratives make sense of otherwise meaningless events and actions. Our world too needs a narrative, and if there is a singularly big achievement that distinguishes Trump from other candidates it was that he wasn't just about what he was (which admittedly he did hammer on about). He created talked about a bigger narrative that more people found matching their own. Obama, being the speaker that he was, did something similar in a far more well-spoken way. "Fake news" may be an unsophisticated catch-cry but it does chime with the suspicions of many. 

The narrative doesn't have to be reality; in fact, by definition it's not. It should be in line with their aspirations or their fears. If want to lead my team well, I really need to project that my school is a body generally pulling in the right direction, that teaching is fun and changing lives, and that the job of teacher is special one. All or most of these could be wrong. The real situation must be textured, fractal and complex.

Narratives do have a rubber-meets-the-road element at some stage; ragged reality is bound to intrude at some stage. Apocalyptic cults meet that with the passing of their last day, after all. Invincible youths meet a sharp corner. And "winning" Trump has had moments where he met defeat. It's only cognitive dissonance or willful ignorance that makes him see his administration as a "smoothly running machine".

But narratives do shape the road because the road is partly paved by the humans who are participants from in some way. I think about this when watching cricket - the best chasers in cricket are not necessarily the most skillful but the ones who make the other team stop believing in their own winning narrative. When the bowler knows he cannot be the hero, that the ball will almost certainly go into the crowd, he's lost the game for his team. Sports games have their own narrative viewers give to them as well as what the players create, and the cheers or otherwise of the crowd may sway the players as well.

I remember hearing the theory that consciousness itself is a narrative. I like it. It fits my story perfectly.

Kiwi maths

Look at this picture, which was taken at the Auckland Lantern Festival last night. Notice anything interesting? (Besides the spelling of Mongolia) My wife was quite amused by it, while we were waiting in the long queue for the lamb kebabs, because it's another example of a phenomenon that she'd often seen in New Zealand and a contrast to what you'd see in China. In China, you'd often see signs like this but only when there is a discount for buying more. $2.5/p = $10/4p is simple maths, so it makes you think of numerous possibilities: (1) their maths is bad and they don't realise that it is not a discount; (2) they think your maths is bad and you won't realise that $10/4p and buy more for no discount; (3) they think you're bad at maths and would like to help you to figure out how to get the appropriate serving of 4 pieces, i.e. skewers. None of these possibilities work in China, perhaps because people are generally sharp with maths (apparently) or people would laugh at it, just like my wife. 

I was trying to think of a reason for people doing this, apart from filling up the sign or the reasoning above. Anyone got a solution? 

I've got a couple of possible rationales mostly revolving around the idea that they can change the price (which may or may not be possible). Firstly, it's interesting to think of the situation of a stall in a big event like this. They prepare lots of supplies based on an estimate of how much they think they can sell. There is a limited of space to store meat and prepare it. Also price signs like the above can be changed and adapt for changes in the market prices. The key for a successful food stall is to sell them all that you have estimated for the highest price. The first goal is to get people into kebabs and ideally forming a queue, so a low price at least at the beginning is good. Then you need to make sure you set a trajectory to sell all your lamb, and that would be best to have a discount for more. So either raising the one-piece price or setting up a discount for a bulk quantity would be smart. But what happens if you are selling too many, especially at the bulk price? Well, you can either raise the price of both, or you can just make the bulk price no longer discounted. Possible? Probably not, but that's all I got. 

Debate

There's been a lot of talk about how Facebook's algorithms and slanted or vapid media has given us our own information echo-chambers. Watching cats begets more cat news. Liking right-wing links begets Fox news. At least on Facebook there are people who have a free pass past the wall, and they are our family and friends.

"I know you don't agree with me," someone mentioned to me. "I saw what you wrote on Facebook." Now, I knew that I had views polar opposite to him and he had mentioned this several times in the past; but, this was the first time that he'd raised Facebook as the source of his inkling.  I asked about the particular items but the specifics were a bit vague. He could remember me mentioning something or liking something that was against Israel making settlements in certain areas. It was probably in response to the backlash from NZ sponsoring a UN resolution against Israeli settlements in certain places.

The funny thing is that I never really imagined that he cared about Israel, but that was a bit naive. He's got clear views about muslims and your enemy's enemy must be your friend. He adores Trump and said that I must love Hillary or something to that effect. I said that I'd said some positive things about Trump on Facebook and even read it aloud to him:

"I think tuning out for a while is a pretty wise idea for all concerned. Re: optimism and the US election, I think there are reasons to look forward to the next few years. This is someone who will shake up the US's meagre quotient of parties and even the system itself. The US system is bizarrely corrupt and even an out-of-the-mould character like Obama left it just as it was. If this apparent American idiot can trigger change, either by himself or the response to him, it can only be good. Let's just hope he doesn't put his little fingers on the wrong button in the meantime." - Me, 11 November 2016.

I read it out but every time I got to "apparent American idiot" he stopped me. I clarified the meaning of "apparent" but he still wouldn't let me get to the end. I eventually just said "apparent American" and it slid. Leaving out other aspects of the discussion, it is interesting what things get through and what things don't.

As for my original sentiment on 11 November, I still stand by it, especially what Trump may trigger. I just wished that it was easier to tune it out in the meantime.

Chance to shine

I've probably spoken enough about the challenges of my current job. The size and scale of the workload, the feeling of a lack of support and communication, a lack of appreciation and other things have dominated my emotions on either side of the summer break. One small plus after all that blueness was a chance to shine, and shine in a way that I had confidence in.

Yesterday we had a conference in which I had to speak for at least 15-20 minutes. I'd been told a week and a half ahead but it was still a headache to prepare on top of my already excessive list of things to do. The day before in particular was heavy with rather crucial operational matters. My manager, who gave me the opportunity, was a technocrat to boot; she lives on numbers and policy and I knew that she'd probably want the 15-20 minutes to be solidly about the number side of the stated topic, preferably with solid numbers comparing years etc. which I thought wouldn't be useful. I counter-proposed by e-mail something a little more qualitative but didn't get a response. The day before the event I finally sat down with her briefly and she unexpectedly green-lighted my content, which was somewhat of a relief. The real preparation began and went till 11pm the night before.

Public speaking and presenting is something that I've learned to be able to handle quite well. My previous job gave plenty of opportunities to handle the limelight, to cover content without notes, to think on my feet and adapt. Also managing schools in China meant saying the same message in different ways to different groups. Teaching for so long, especially ESOL, has had its benefit, too. We naturally think of staged presentations, of audience involvement. And we are trained, too, to think in terms of how to visually present important information. I wouldn't say for a moment that I'm any great talent in speaking but these advantages can transform average speaking to something that you can listen to easily.

To make these meagre advantages more prominent I knew that almost no other presenter on the list really had more than one advantage. Some speakers had presence either by position or standing. There were some naturally interesting speakers. Some used the space well. There were some who had a few gimmicks for keeping attention. Some were witty and off-the-cuff. Others had very clear Powerpoint presentations (the worst speaker had the best PPT - the online marketing manager no less). But very few had the techniques of engagement or had adapted their delivery to an audience. In fact most of the performances were to do a stated task "despite" the audience. I recall a mini-conference last year where all speakers just hammered through their material to a catatonic group of about 100. It was painful. I anticipated that this conference would be roughly the same and I was roughly right.

I came straight after a colleague, who though sincere, was also in this mold: he had the brief of what he was told to cover but couldn't change his delivery for the audience. He had a gimmick to hold attention though and in the end it was better than most. He had been kind enough to ask ahead how we'd segue and it was a smooth hand-off. I then got up and cracked everyone up introducing myself. It was good to be a personality, rather than a speaker. It was my first time really addressing the group about what our school was so I went from humour into a very sentimental story about what the previous incarnation of our school must have been through in Christchurch before it moved to Auckland. I made up for an inadequacy in the company's concept of the conference - Mine was the only session that mixed the different companies from within the groups and ensured that the smaller two companies could speak more. In ESOL talk, I got "group-work" going. I capped off with two ways to look at academic quality, the focus of the talk, but from my experience in my industry and I got the participants to analogise it back to their settings.

I finished and I had lots of people approach me to express appreciation for the presentation, including all but one of the directors of the group. My manager in particular said she many of her fears for the coming education audit were allayed now that she saw how much thought I'd put into the big picture and vision. In retrospect, the tasks I'd been previously given that were of interest to the directors were in areas that I hadn't been trained, hadn't experienced or weren't familiar with so quite possibly they'd developed a lack of confidence in me. In a year, this was the first time I could speak at length and respond to the combined executive and greater company about what our school is and what I'm about. Even though my teachers know what I'm about and what I believe in, it is also rather consolidating for them to hear and see it pronounced not just in the office or a team meeting but to the group, to see that the goals are not small goals. One team member approached me to say that he had never realised I'd done so much in the last year.

It was great to finish Friday before a long weekend on a high. It's rough when the thoughts of work follow me home and pester me and my rest. Now I can have my own weekend.

Tear away

Running since December has been rather extraordinary. My body has really adapted to distance running. Recalling back to the time when I was starting up again after tendonitis, mid-last year, there had always been discomforts that I'd refer to as each part of my body "reporting in for duty". First there'd be discomfort in one heel, then an oddness in a knee, then both would fade before a twang in my arch and a tightness in my buttock, which would, too, fade. And then by the end of my runs I'd be a little ginger. But things have changed. I remember, with some surprise, that when I finished my first 30km run I didn't have any real muscular or joint problems - my only ailment had been an impressive blister.

My previous blog detailed a surreal run. I'd chosen to run both One Tree Hill and Mt Eden and managed to smoothly run it, finishing 18km's at a scratch over 5 mins/km. I would have been happy to run 18km at 5's even without having running up central Auckland's two most significant speed bumps. It was scarcely believeable to myself because after coming down the mountains my general pace wasn't slowed at all. I ran throughout the following week, making a new 10km personal best (4:36m/km pace).

Perhaps it bred overconfidence. Last Saturday I tried running One Tree Hill and Mt Eden again but as a 21km loop to mimic a hilly half-marathon like I'd be running in March. Again surreally I was running far too smoothly, at about 4:52 mins/km for the first 18km, and not feeling bad for it.  I plowed down from Mt Eden and felt a sensation in my knee, but ran further and it disappeared; I went into cruise-control on Mt Eden road before charging down the Valley Road slope. I knew that after that I'd just have the gentle undulation of Dominion Road to take me home and clock me into what would have been my best half-marathon distance by some way (around 1 hour 42-43 minutes, my previous best 21km was a flat 1:47). But it was just as I was starting to think about stardom and the home straight that I was brought back to Earth.

I now know that runners with too much mileage should be careful going around corners. Shortly after going around the 90 degree corner of Valley and Dominion I felt a "pressing" sensation on my calf. It wasn't pain, per se. As with other ailments I ran a bit further to see if it changed, but it didn't. I stopped and stretched it thinking it could be cramp and tried running again, but it was perhaps even more evident. It felt a little bit like pain. And so I walked back the final three kilometres home and RICEd my calf.

So now four days down I've been resting and recovering. There is no longer a sensation of injury so I've started doing strengthening exercises and might try a jog on the weekend with stretches. I've got the settled mind though that as long as I heal properly, I have enough fitness to do a great half-marathon in seven weeks. It is a slightly similar situation to last year when I'd achieved the breakthroughs to finish a half-marathon months before the event, and even with the curve ball of incorrect shoes and IT band sydrome, I still recovered to exceed my expectations.

But it's a good week to rest: Our company conference is coming up in two days and last week I was informed I should do a 15-20 minute presentation with a focus on Academic Quality. I have about 36 hours to really move my interesting ideas into something beyond burbling bluster. It does however give me a chance to do something I enjoy about my job, public speaking. It gives me the chance to show a different side of myself than people see in the office. It gives me a chance to present vision, as well.

Building on up

As mentioned after my half-marathon at the end of October last year, I had to decide whether to take the next natural step, or rather the next rather less natural feeling 18,000 steps, to complete a full marathon. It only took a week or two to consolidate my resolve and rashly register myself into two events, the Coatesville Half Marathon in March and the Rotorua Marathon in May. (Rashly because I overlooked another big engagement in May that made the latter event inopportune.) Two months since then and preparation is in full swing. For better or worse, I'm following my own haphazard training plan, relying on tidbits online as well as advice from others. And two months from the Coatesville event, my own vision for training has clarified itself.

Originally when registering, I thought I'd do another half-marathon in preparation for the full marathon. This thought might have diminished the first event itself as just a prelude, but after some thought, both are just distances and events. Being able to master the first as a half marathon is a worthy goal. My self-made strategy thus was to use the summer vacation period to really up my distance, hopefully breaking the 30km ceiling (which I finally did last weekend) and then switch into 90% half-marathon oriented training and 10% marathon training until Coatesville. After a rest of a week, I'd switch back to marathon preparation, taper and then do Rotorua. In retrospect the two events are a little close together. But as long as I train well now, I believe it should be fine.

I'm a numbers man so every run I do is logged for comparison with other runs, with splits (how fast you ran each 1km, 2km or 5km's) and the elevation gain (i.e. how many metres of incline you ran up, not factoring in the descents). I'm still in that nice building up period where I can make personal bests on a regular basis. When I get closer to my peak, hopefully around the time of the marathon, I might have to switch focus by joining a running club and getting something more social out of my running. Right now I'm still hunting for interesting challenges locally as well as bringing my running gear on holidays just in case conditions or the situation allows me a run. As my ability progresses my goals change too: originally I wanted to run Coatesville under 5min/km (which would be touch-and-go scraping into the 1 hour 40 - 1 hour 45 range). After yesterday's run, I felt that I could almost certainly aim for this range.  

Yesterday was my first weekend run of my half-marathon training phase. I chose to do an 18km loop with One Tree Hill summit and Mt Eden summit. It was the first time I'd run up Mt Eden and the first time I'd done two Auckland named hills on the same run, which had an elevation gain of 320m according to MapMyRun and I managed it a 5:02min/km pace. With two more months to go, I imagine I should be able to do 21km on a flatter course at a faster pace that 5min/km. 

On the social front, I joined a "running clinic" which is a group with guided exercise routines to strengthen muscles, joints and tendons for runners. My first one was last Monday and I look forward to another tomorrow. Some of the particular exercises are quite tough and had me wanting to do preparation before the clinic so that there was no risk of embarrassing fails. The group consisted of people who'd done the clinic before and already knew each other. I felt a little bit like an outsider but I'll see how things change as we get a bit more familiar.

Staying injury-free is the most important thing over the next four months so this group will be as important as an evening run to me. That being said, training for a run like this is a good education on your muscles and joints. The half-marathon last year taught me about IT bands. My only real concern right now is a peculiar left ankle. I've felt tenderness around it for several weeks now, it being most noticeable when I'm not running. In fact, I felt it most during the periods where I haven't been running. Last weekend after running 30km on it, it wasn't any more sore than any other part of my body. At some stage I really should have it checked. 

Running was something that was important to me in my late mid-teens, only to be thwarted by flat feet, sprained ankles and a lack of strong goals. I'm glad in my mid-thirties I've been able to work my way towards the goals I could have always had.

Problematically Correct

A spiritualist vegan friend of mine did an unusual thing the other day; he went into bat for Donald Trump with the line: "If there is any reason to believe that Hillary or Obama are any less racist or sexist than Trump, I have never come across it." He did it on Facebook and there began the expected long threads of discussion, outrage, confusion, anger and stubbornness. I chose not to participate in that melee mainly because I've fallen into that muck before and it's not easy to get out. Last time I even dropped in a neutral comment into one of his "discussions" it was read as contrary. But this discussion itself bred a few interesting bones to chew on.

The vegan contended that Trump was merely being honest and that the slurs against him and those that voted for him were a "politically correct" response. He bemoaned the effect of this as stifling of debate, that immigration isn't a racial issue. There is an ounce of truth to this but I wanted to elaborate a non-partisan way of understanding political correctness in the pluralistic world.

Political correctness developed its current meaning in the 1990s and is used often in a pejorative way to indicate an excessive consideration to minority groups and to make everything safe, physically and psychologically, for all people. For conservative New Zealanders, it manifests itself in the entrenchment of the Treaty of Waitangi, Maori council seats, reactions to racial and racist comments, OSH, gay marriage, anti-smacking, and a host of other trends that make them groan. As they groaned though, so did others around the world at the acceptance of refugees, racial and gender quotas, white guilt, evolution and climate change. It all fell under that same label, "political correctness", even when much of it wasn't political; in fact, it was hard to really narrow down the definition of what was PC and what wasn't - it seemed an amorphous catch-all. Then with the rise of PC, whatever it was, the response against the encroachment of this phantom rose too. Just as people were shouted down for their non-PC opinions, so was heat directed to "the PC brigade".

The "PC brigade" must be up there with Luminati as a shadowy group of people that no-one knows but have power beyond all of our democratic institutions. Even if you ask those who decry the invasiveness of PC, if they name the people who are part of this movement in NZ, they're invariably people on the fringe, who by definition cannot hold much sway.

If you indulge me with a chance to hypothesise for a moment (and others may have said the same or disproven it while I've been occupied with life), I'd say political correctness is the response of the former mainstream to the general social changes since the "good old days". The good old days weren't particularly good: child abuse was hidden; sexual and domestic assaults weren't reported; workers died from a lack of safety; bars were full of second-hand smoke; black characters always perished first in the movies; gays were persecuted; sexist beliefs prevented female career progression; historical wrongs continued to ferment social and racial ill and disparities; and so on. And importantly, the mainstream socio-racial group was the power, the standard and the bedrock of values. She'll be right.

Society changed though and the power moved from a cultural monolith to a pluralistic society. The people with purchasing power, with the vote, with the memes to spread were increasingly not those who identified with the post-Christian white middle-aged male conservative views. Values and systems became more democratised. It's not hard to imagine how if feels to see the erosion of your own position from the group at the top of the natural order, to see values other than your own rise, and even those values in complete contradiction to your own values. This is where the phantom of political correctness came. It wasn't a single trend; it was all change away from that old standard.

Society has a spectrum of views; the median has moved along away from what it used to be. Some though are "ahead of the curve", impatient with the inertia of change. They are the powerless radicals that are often seen as the PC brigade - but actually the increasing majority of society is the PC brigade. If you ask most people they would agree that people should be hired based on their qualifications and experience not their sex nor ethnicity; that workers should have rules to mean they have the same chance of returning home alive and well as others; that not all stereotypes are true; that crimes should be punished; that historical wrongs should have some redress.

I agree with my friend that decisions to reduce immigration or the number of refugees needn't be an issue of racism, that if can and should be a pragmatic decision relating to the needs of the country, the ability of the country to accept people and its obligations. But whether Trump is any more racist (let alone sexist) than Obama and Clinton is a completely different question and Trump's documented words and actions speak volumes.

Interesting another case came up at the same time. A brochure from the Running Clinic advised: "Unfortunately, it's the reality that, even in Wellington, women need to take extra care when running.
"Find a running club or regular running buddies ... wear loose fitting clothing, run in the day in well-populated areas and interpret whistles as compliments (all the running is obviously paying off)."
There was an outraged Twitter response and an apology from Running Clinic to say that this had a shade of victim blaming and positively framed a form of sexual harassment.

Obviously, women shouldn't be assaulted nor harassed on runs. Women have every right to run in the attire of their choosing. But there are bad people out there and bad things do happen. Suggesting prudence in clothing is not a bad thing in my mind. Advocating prudence of any sort is not supporting misfortune, in the same way that I'd recommend my Chinese students not to carry cash (a common tendency) and not to work through parks at night while using a cellphone. Gay men have the same rights to express their affection for each other in the same ways that heterosexual couples do, but it isn't the best thing to do in certain communities. Some behaviour is ahead of the trend, regardless of the fact that it is in the right direction. Of course, the point about wolf-whistling seems behind the times and in the wrong direction.

Happy New Year! It's been a refreshing end to a horrendously busy year. And it is promising to be even more of the same for me in the first working weeks. I've been glad to travel, have quality family time and a good time for my health. Regrettably work thoughts invade my sparrowlight dreams, even while away on holiday. I hope the coming days give me a proper rest.

Three bodies, no problem

In April, I wrote about The Three Body Problem: Remembrance of Earth's Past, the first book of an award winning science-fiction trilogy written by Chinese author Liu Xinci. At that time I'd just blasted through the first book, and thought it pretty good. My pace was choked a little on the second book, mainly because I stopped taking the bus, which has always been a great source of reading time for me, and had upped my running, which also took valuable leisure time. The second book was in my view even better than the first. With a bit of wind behind me from the interest in the climax of the second, I cruised home in the longer third, which matches it for richness of ideas, finishing on 30 December. I'm glad I finished it before the new year.

The first book, The Three Body Problem: Remembrance of Earth's Past, was the winner of the Hugo Award in 2015, one of the top awards of science fiction and the first for a Chinese author. It's a grand story set in the Chinese Cultural Revolution era and contemporary times (early 2000s); the second, Dark Forest, is set in the near future and two hundred years in the future and the final, Dead End, well, the scale is the future, the even more distant future and in a time without time.

The author knows his stuff: the science of the future is plausible and described in depth. There is no hiding the fact that space travel is time-consuming and you have the confidence that the author was always figuring out the maths of what he was describing, of speed, space and time. But the most astonishing thing for a reader is that it has very deep references from a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, from A Clockwork Orange, to Gulliver's Travels; from Superman and Christopher Reeve to Silent Spring; from the Bible to Hugo Chavez; from Space Odyssey to Asimov; from nanotechnology to the Sword of Damocles. In a book written by a Chinese writer for a Chinese audience. In the third book, it even has a character doing a rendition of the haka without appearing too out of place. The third book also has an intriguing prologue set during the Siege of Constantinople.

And it is profound, especially in the second and third books where the grander ideas arise and the scale of the imagery is even more breathtaking. Even in the first book, which I may have to re-read in awareness of the greater story, it brings one of the most glorious creations, the sophon, a smart "particle".  It is perhaps the ideas that won it the awards; as a reader, I was disappointed by the dialogues and some of the personal narratives and character development. But I'd still recommend it to everyone.

Now's time for another book - I'll burn through a couple of English books before heading back to Chinese fiction, either the heavy Big Breasts & Wide Hips by Mo Yan or the lighter, The Deer and the Cauldron by Louis Cha. It should be fun!

The Run

When all things are counted, the distance wasn't meaningful. I'd run 20km in a single go back in 2014, during rehabilitation in  the year I broke my knee, and had ran 23km on one of my Titirangi loops over a month before. But in terms of the challenges overcome, as well as just sheer delight of running in an event, my first half-marathon was well worth the effort and I'm glad I entered.

It had started to form as a goal last year. I'd nurtured a brief hope of taking part in the Guangzhou marathon, but as soon as I'd started running, I did something to my heel that eventually became tendonitis and that led to 4 months of inactivity. It was only in New Zealand with the wonders of physiotherapy that I had a plan, with more running-based rehab, and the show got back on the road. Always one for the big goals, I'd considered going big and doing the full marathon but sanity did what it proverbially should and I entered the Auckland half-marathon. And it pretty much all went wrong from that point.

I'd been running with the well-worn shoes I'd used in China. They were worn so for the first new pair in New Zealand, I went back to my favourite brand of the past, Brooks. They're tough shoes for people like me with flat feet. I also got a new pair of in-soles and refurbished my old ones. And immediately I felt problems on my longer runs. At first it started as a sensation around the outer hinge of my knee joint, that tightened over the front and then went down the back of my calf, and it would be at that point that I'd have to stop. At first it only kicked in after 18 kilometres, but with each run it started earlier and earlier. My podiatrist looked over the insoles and couldn't find any reason for them to cause it but must have had an inkling as she mentioned "I'd like to see you in a more neutral shoe." I'd just spent a lot of money on a pair of shoes that had been so reliable in the past but they were "support shoes" not neutral shoes. Our trip to China and the UK was upon us so I kept with my Brooks. Over in England, I tried to run along the Baskingstoke canal twice but each time I quite quickly developed the pain again, even when I changed in-soles and tried different things but I could barely make 10 kilometres anymore.

But the inkling that my podiatrist had got me into action as soon as I came back: I bit the bullent and bought some "neutral shoes", New Balance, and the podiatrist approved of them straight away. After a few days of breaking in I ran 5 kilometres without pain and prematurely announced that I'd been cured. If I had been cured, my booking for a physio the next morning would have been superfluous. But I went anyway and she checked me out and gave me some exercises for what she thought was wrong. Three days later reality intruded: I did a weekend run and at the 14th kilometre I felt that familiar sensation once again and stopped on the 15th. I gave it another week to rest and for the effect of the exercises to kick in and had to stop another run after just 4kms. I was beginning to plan to pull out of the run. Two days later and 6 days before the event I gave myself a "make or break" run. I did an extended warm-up this time, for about 20 minutes, and then ran. It felt OK but at the 11th km again, the sensation appeared and I ended it to prevent any damage.

Fortunately, I had another trip to the physio and the diagnosis was now clear. I had IT band syndrome. IT standing for iliotibial; your IT band is a ligament that runs down from the hip and over the knee and helps stabilise your leg on uneven ground. The working hypothesis was that my "tough" Brooks weren't letting my foot move naturally and forcing my knee and hips to do all the work aggravating the IT band, which in turn pulled on the knee and hip muscles. Even though I'd changed from the Brooks, the inflammation had never really gone down. So I went hard using a foam roller to massage the area as well as getting the physio and other massage providers to go hard on the area too. I also did exercises that reduce the chance of the syndrome developing.

Either way, after I broke on the "Make or break" run, I was still confident enough to give it a try. To continue with the good news / bad news narrative flow, I then got a mild cold four days before the event but that didn't sway me. At my last trip to the physio before the run, she suggested I go for a short run to test things out and I went out on a 3km blast without problems and then did the foam roller afterwards. I used voltaren and ibuprofen to reduce any inflammation and then left everything else till race day.

Which came this morning. It was a beautiful morning, too. I ferried over early but the time was perfect to suss out the location, stretch areas and I gave myself a good warm-up. There was a buzz around and runner talk abounding. Then in a mass of people, the start countdown came and we were off... walking because you can't really run till you're through the gate and on your way.

The course started in Devonport and then snaked out the back to Narrow Neck beach. There were some manageable slopes and I had quite a good rhythm. Running with people is great because they naturally pace you and you can choose to scamper ahead or fall back. My pace was around 5 minutes per kilometre which was faster than I had done in any practice. There is a peril that the occasion makes you outdo yourself. My goal was to get a time between 1:50 and 2 hours, and conveniently they had pace setters for both of those two times. I passed the 2 hour marker at about the 3 kilometre mark (he'd been through the gates earlier than me), and kept moving up the field. I hoped to eventually sight his 1:50 friend but with a distance between them opening up, it was going to take some time.

Everything felt fine until at the 8km mark, that all-to-familiar sensation came to the knee hinge of my right leg. Dread filled me. I thought about stopping: there were still 13 kilometres to go. But I kept running, choosing to run on a slope that wouldn't irritate it as much (but may irritate the other knee). Which brings me to another advantage in these events: proper road running. Suburban running forces you onto the footpaths for safety from cars. But they're made of concrete, which is harder than asphalt, and they vary in angle. Many driveways dip down. The only roads you can run on are side-roads but they tend to be domed without a flat area. This run was on proper asphalt roads and there were always flat areas. I kept running and tried my best to be on the flat or the slope for the other side. Others would jump onto the footpaths but I religiously avoided them. The sensation around my knee remained with me for quite some time haunting me but, to its credit, it never went much further than being a sensation. At one point I saw another runner doing a few strides of side running on each side, and I tried that too and it seemed to make the sensation go away briefly. Hip movement can take the force off the knees too so I tried to run with a bit more of a shake. And eventually I didn't notice the knee much at all.

I kept my pace preparing myself for the last third which begins with the biggest attraction of the course: the Auckland Harbour Bridge. It is also hugely daunting. I drove up it last weekend and it did give me a moment to reconsider my participation. It's a long consistent gradient. I'd done training with short sharp gradients (One Tree Hill, Titirangi and the Tiverton slope near Blockhouse Bay) so thought I should still have enough power to do it as long as the first 14km were not too taxing. It was on the early part of the Harbour Bridge that I passed the 1:50 marker. That was a relief - even "hitting the wall" or "something" developing I'd still be at least near him and with the end approaching, I'd almost certainly be able to finish before the 2:00 gent.

I grinded my way over the bridge and then down the other side. It was then that I felt my left hamstring twinge. With another 5 kilometres left a "something" had arrived. Fortunately it wasn't a major pain - I felt that even with it I'd be able to slowly and painfully finish the run and get some treatment. And that's what happened. Turning the final corner and seeing the Finish arch was great but I knew I couldn't do an impressive dash to the finish. The clock read 1:52, but taking into account the fact that I didn't get through the Start gate early, the "net time" was 1 hour, 50 minutes and 1 second, just inside the range I aimed for. Contentment!

Now it's time to rest and forget about running for a while. I'll continue with exercises and maybe in two weeks I'll get back on the road and see if I'm really up to aiming for a full marathon!

Bopping

Last Saturday I did something I love to do that I haven't done for about ten years, maybe even longer. I danced. It might shock many of my friends that I love dancing. Not proper dancing though, I can only dance in the unstructured, uncoordinated flailing, gyrating, leaping and landing that should really be deemed a danger to bystanders. During my university days, I loved the parties for the chances to dance, and dance I did for hours on end. But then my love interests were never that interested and thus my dancing was shelved and those bystanders were spared the risk of losing an eye.

But last Saturday I went to a night club as part of a stag night. Most of our group were a little awkward in the environment though and significantly older than almost everyone, which makes you wonder why we went there. There was a lot of leaning against the railing, people watching and drinking. The latter eventually had its effect in the third and fourth hour when everyone finally was dancing, at least a little. I was bouncing around from the get-go though, at first just facing my group, but then with one of the two groups either side of us and finally after midnight a lot of the early groupings dissolved I danced with anyone.

The early phase of dancing with other groups was a little weird. There was a Hen's Night to one side, and quite naturally they were more interested in dancing with each other. They also viewed interlopers with suspicion. My appearance probably didn't help either. I do look my years, balding, and dangerously flicking my limbs around without any of the typical motifs or dance cliches. They did eventually mix. Whether by design or by nature, most of the girls there were more inward facing. They would dance with their friends unless persuaded and sold on the idea of mixing.

To our other side there was another party almost entirely male, probably not much beyond high school. I'm not averse to dancing with guys but they were a little odd. One young guy was most willing to interact but flitted around and seemed to make eyes. Another rather larger set fellow welcomed me in a different way, first rather aggressively doing the female side of a grind dance with me, which I brushed off, and later decided to pick me off the ground. I'm not sure whether they were gay, sexually ambiguous, playing with me or what.

One of the other Stags mentioned later he'd have punched the guy saying he was impressed that I hadn't, but said if I had "well, the night would have been over." Perhaps due to my temperament it didn't even occur to me to punch him. (It'd be interesting to think what it would take for me to take a shot at someone.)

The night only got better. That lot cleared out and the drunker the Stags got the more we were a dancing presence.

The Passengers and the Itinerants

Being back in New Zealand teaching English is quite different from teaching abroad. The environment is a big part of that: New Zealand is a much more regulated teaching environment; there is even more competition; and it's an export market restricted by immigration and currency fluctuations. But the thing that I've noticed most is the difference in people.

I'll start with the students themselves. Students in my school in China were adults, most of whom had made the conscious decision to learn English, were motivated by the idea of learning another skill and had a degree of buy-in to how we taught. The school focussed heavily on English for life and communication, so that students could socialise, travel and work with foreigners. Even the occasional young or immature students were a minority so most had to temporarily "grow up" to the maturity level of the group while there. In New Zealand, however, language schools don't generally have the same focus. The emphasis is on English for Academic Purposes, which prepares and qualifies students for mainstream study at training institutions, polytechnics and universities. The result of this is that the Chinese students who come are even younger than those taught in China, usually between the ages of 17-22 years old, and they form a majority or a sizeable part of the whole student body.

Some common phenomena of this age-group in China children is a complete lack of any sense of self-determinism, a lack of ability to self-regulate and an inability to respond to the reality of consequences. Their lives have been controlled and planned from an early age. By appearances, their maturity seems a good 4-5 years lower than local students the same age. They by-in-large didn't choose to come to New Zealand. Their future majors were decided by their parents without much buy-in. Of the many I asked about their future study direction almost all began with: "My parents want me to..." Important life choices can't be left to the children, and experience at making life choices, or even day-to-day choices, is pretty low. And most are in a stage of mild rebellion against authority, when their real authority is far away. They are generally "well behaved" though and only rarely have some of the maliciousness that you might see in some NZ teenagers.

They have passive coping mechanisms, too; they will do what needs to be done without being present in mind or body. In China, you are a receptacle for knowledge to be filled by the teacher, which you do without question. They present themselves similarly in English class where unfortunately only actual practice and communication will allow you to progress. There is the slouching. I feel the need to straighten postures, often righting and lifting when required. There is the need to make obvious consequences for lack of homework (it can't be brushed off). Absence must be followed up, or else why come? There is a need to be strict on mobile phone access because if it is allowed there is no self-restraint from social media; 80% of the time phone use is not for the dictionary, and the dictionary isn't going to be helpful for their learning anyway. You get a fair bit of "don't know"ing or other forms of "kicking to touch" in order to avoid venturing guesses or doing cognitive work. They really are just passengers fidgeting in the seat of a journey not of their choosing, young adults living out their teenage years.

Knowing China and Chinese society, you know how this all comes to be. While I was philosophising on all of the above, my wife was a coordinator for a visiting student group of a younger age range, 10-12 years. Worse still, two of them had their parents accompanying. Worse because if you want a young person to experiment, make mistakes and embrace something different, the worst thing you can do is to have a safety blanket and monitor observing. Even worse, one of the parents was a principal of the school group who cannot seem to wear multiple hats. They had the chance to see a local primary school here and how the students were and the contrasts were huge. Lunchtimes, for example, here students are told to sit eating till a bell before they can play and release all that childhood energy running around before another bell signals that they should return to class. In Chinese schools of a similar age, children do the eating part and then return to class. If a Chinese school had a visiting group, it is regimented into a well-practiced performance with only particular classes observed by the visitors and choreographed interactions. Here in one situation the visiting principal randomly requested an explanation and local students quickly volunteered to help her and explained eagerly and easily. She asked my wife later whether the students had previously practiced this explanation in preparation for their visit. How did they know to come up so spontaneously and explain clearly. The answer was obvious: Because that's what they would usually do and do often. The groups also did visits to more touristic destinations. When they had the chance to touch alpacas, all the local tourists jumped off the transport and patted them; but the teachers and parents of the Chinese group told them to stay inside because "it's dirty". The process of growing up over there is usually one of excessive control against risk, which is something that doesn't suit learning. You hear accusation of the latest generation in NZ being molly-coddled. You haven't seen anything till you see it in the Middle Kingdom. And NZ is not a paragon of child-rearing.

So Chinese students here are different to our students in China. They're younger, passive and disengaged. But the teachers have a different situation, too. In China, all teachers were on one year contracts by necessity. Local teachers had two year contracts. These contracts protect teachers coming from so far away at some expense that they will have security. It also protects the schools vulnerable labour supply - planning your supply of teachers is difficult. In New Zealand there is a plentiful labour supply, liberal labour laws and fluctuation in demand. Most schools lock in decent reliable teachers and reduce the less desirables to short term contracts, and this has a huge effect. We've been hiring for quite some time now and 90% of the applicants are floating, often for obvious reasons: accent, attitude, mentality, mental issues, bad-fit, correctable lacks of skills and competencies etc. They often float from school to school and their CVs show their short-term wanderings. They're like itinerant journeymen and women, disposable hired hands, although a little messed up from the constant lack of stability.

A month ago I interviewed the two people who looked pretty decent on paper. (That is actually a bad sign. We've seen too many paper-great; reality-loopy teachers. Boy, are there some cracker over-qualified people out there.) Both were ridiculously hard to get hold of, despite being keen in their cover letters. Once pinned down to come, one barely smiled for the first 10 minutes of the interview, before I finally found a way to build a rapport. He eventually showed enough promise and I called him back to see if he could come in for a demo. He said he was moving house and would call me the following day after work to confirm if he had the time to come in. He didn't call or contact me again. And I had to teach the class.

The other was almost comical: We agreed to interview at 3:30pm. She mentioned she would need to leave by 4:30pm for appointment. I'd told her it was fine. I found her by the reception at 3:10pm and so I approached her:
"You must be Marsha." (not her real name)
"Yes, hi," she said nervously
I introduced myself and said that we normally get new staff to fill in a Application for Employment form. The receptionist wasn't there so I went around to check if I could spot it.
"We might have to wait for Mickey the receptionist to come back."
"I can come back another day," she said.
"Er, no, she'll be back in a moment."
"I have an appointment later."
"And you need to leave at 4:30pm, right? We should have plenty of time. Perhaps have a seat here. I do have some students to speak to now so I'll make sure Mickey gives you the form and I will be back shortly."
When we finally got down talking she seemed to have ants in her pants for the first five minutes. Clearly she didn't like interviews but relaxed later and presented herself better. She was aiming to do the DipTESOL later and she went into the nuances of teaching theory. But I had not confidence that she'd be able to demonstrate those to real people.

Both of them pretty much were lost because they'd presented badly to the HR manager even before the interviews. But we needed staff badly so I met them (the HR manager was on vacation that week.) But they were lost to me upon the first interactions. Both are bad indications in a very short sample time that they might be difficult to handle. I knew from the second halves of the interviews that both however were desperate to get out of their vulnerable work situations they were in at the time. It felt like a kind of self-sabotage that they were unaware of. These are two tales of what comes out of the soup of slightly-less-than-adequate teachers. And regrettably it's the soup that my wife has entered. Her ethnic name puts her in suspicion of similar inadequacies in the same way that it would at our school. (So often interview times are wasted because the person is clearly unable to maintain standard pronunciation. There is also the desire of most schools for marketing purposes to keep to a mostly Caucasian workforce that leads to a not so subtle discrimination. For what it's worth we've employed two teachers of East Asian extract as relievers and a half-Taiwanese ABC as a full-time teacher.) In her first teaching job, she wasn't given a contract. They did pay on time though. This wasn't racism: That's how the other school, a respected language school in Auckland, handled relievers.

So the Itinerants teaching the Passengers, that's what a lot of what's happening in the language schools, it seems. There are of course a lot of great teachers and refreshing, motivated students as well but it's these two groups that I'll remember most. The ones with too much character and pathos trying to teach those without any character or presence at all.

Our school has been blessed so far. Two of our full time recruits are able and responsible. We also got both of them "fresh-off-the-boat" being their first employers in NZ. Our other full time teachers are both experienced and mature but can handle most things that students do. My staff are pretty darn cool. (And our reliever is pretty darn awesome, too!)

Ka heke, ka piki

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. 

 Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

Life has many blessings and at the start of July I had the blessing of attending my first NZ-based ESOL conference. I have a lot of thoughts as a result. Another blessing, or curse, was going alone. I met a lot of people because I didn't have that box of familiarity to be trapped in; but I also had the disadvantage of loneliness. I never had ready companions. I didn't go out any of the evenings. I made acquaintances but never friends.

The conference did have some interesting flavours. One was the most openness and readiness to use te reo Māori. Several of the speakers, regardless of focus, gave proper mihi. So much so that I've realised how much of the language I lost while abroad. Doctor Rangi Matamua made one of the more entertaining speeches but, at least for me as an observer of Chinese minority language, made some great points in the name of something that many people won't see the point to: publishing dissertations in te reo Māori. Quite rightly he admitted that such an action would mean fewer people would read it, but that isn't the point. Most dissertations do collect dust, anyway. But the work to establish te reo as an academic language, to gradually create a corpus of language in which modern topics could be done is important. And even better, or even worse, producing dissertations that weren't about language, as in his example of a hypothetical study of earthworms. The pioneers who chose to publish a non-language topic in te reo really do establish a path and model for that field, and the language. 

For those who don't have exposure to different languages, especially vernacular languages this might seem a little unnecessary, but you can see the effect of this as soon as someone enters education. So many of the concepts are not from your everyday life so your mother tongue would be unwieldy to express it. It's analogous to the children of an immigrant family who speak fluent "household" mother tongue but wouldn't be able to communicate about maths, science, game rules etc. in it simply because the skills to express these are not intuitively obvious.

There were some great presentations and there were some rather average ones. One on a focus topic of mine, from a world leading expert the worst of all, and made worse when it was followed by another discussing the nature of "space" between educators and students. It had a great quote though for those who like scratching their heads: (We're moving) "from spatial mobility to semiotic mobility" (a concept which when I contextualise it the best I could I get but it wasn't contextualised); we also had two lecturers referring to the epistemological continuum and applying it in their presentations with two opposite results: confoundment and clarity. It's an interesting thing to ponder, but not for too long. Some presentations name-dropped theories and theoreticians I knew and others that I did not. It's nice to have a time to think and process and perhaps even re-apprehend what it means to be an academic in our modern world. 

He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

I've been through the busiest period in my current job, a challenging and slightly discouraging phase in which my deficiencies were probably a little too obvious. The course I ran for our sister school was ragged; the initial documentation was poor giving me nothing to work with but I have only finished it with more work to do to make it accessible for the next person. In the coming few days I'll be meeting with my line manager who's rarely had time to meet with me and her attitude will determine a lot. She knows that I haven't got New Zealand experience at this level of administration. I have inadvertently done several large mistakes owing to this. I've also had very little guidance especially from her and I have noticed that others have the scars of the blame-game. She may go in blaming. She may go in with regret that she didn't guide enough. 

I also have to go into this humbly, though: It's very easy to say that I haven't had the time to do an adequate job of this. That I have lacked support. But, especially in the current climate in the greater company, no-one has the time to do their job. There is little time for anyone to support anyone else. My manager has been overburdened and has, in my view, struggled. I hope that I have provided support in my department. And my department have hired whereas other departments have fired. 

I have learned a lot though. Some things are obvious in retrospect; when you're time-poor they are not. 

Take my most recent blunder: In the beginning, we were short of staff. There were two of us and even when the third came, I was obliged to teach on an English course for our sister school. This meant that the additional hand didn't make us any more productive. With the support and approval of one director, I combined our students with those nominally from our sister school. I believed this was well known. I didn't differentiate the assessments taken. (That was doable, but would have added a lot of time. In the back of my mind, perhaps I knew that something should be done but I barely had enough time.) Then the course was over and our two most devoted students, who'd been combined into this course, needed visa renewals. They needed to prove their performance based on assessments they'd done. But all of their assessments were not for the company their visa was issued to, but rather for the sister company's course. My company wasn't approved for the course, yet; that's why I had to help our sister school do the course instead of doing it at our school. When I requested a formal document to help them with their application, the registrar baulked, as a good registrar should. They are after all the people who'd need to put their name on any certification. She couldn't very well put her name to assessments from my company which we weren't approved to do. I tried to be creative - we could change the name of the assessments; also, some assessments weren't specific to that course. My manager vetoed that. As she should. The document that was produced was rejected by Immigration and then suddenly those loyal students were imperiled: what if their visas were refused?

Fortunately, a creative adjustment, not thought of or regarded by me, was sufficient. They should be fine in their application. But for a moment I was feeling ill with distress. How did this happen? Well, I didn't understand the implications of merging classes. New Zealand has the curse of a blessedly regulated industry, one that protects to the point of stifling. One director likes flexibility; my line manager likes the clarity of black and white guidelines. The former had taken early interest in directing me, and she sent me in this direction. And I hadn't known I was heading for this disaster. 

All of these recalls the whakataukii (proverb) above: He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. It simply means: What is the greatest thing in this world? It's people. It's people. It's people. Despite this whakataukii being wheeled out far too often as some sort of bicultural window dressing, it's got some real wisdom there: it's easy for system to dehumanise people. The customers in this case were distraught at their treatment. I'm distraught about their predicament that owes a lot to my own mishandling. People are what should come first, even in the firing when it happens. The ESOL industry here seems not to treat staff nor customers in the best way. There are many floating in short term casual contracts and they're cut adrift easily or kept in a state of anxiety. I met two such people in the last week: Experienced, older, capable teachers who seem cynical of the industry, tired of the chopping and of the changing. 

Know thyself

It's 8:50am on a rainy morning in a very mildly wintery June. I'm finishing one of the two cups of tea bracketing a 7.5km run in the rain, while sitting in front of the computer contemplating one of the last Chinglish articles I have to write to get to our three monthly target. That last sentence may have been a long one but captures my non-work time brilliantly since I began. It's been functional all the way without being tiresome, been relaxing while creative. It's a prime patch of time to do things and have things done. I've thought a lot about how this is with me; how I can be in this zone and how sometimes I'm not. Not that being out of the zone is bad.

My weight has now tipped below 65kg, which might be the first time in 10 years. Before Feburary 2014, I'd occasionally tipped 76kg on the scales at the homestead in Qingyuan. My journey down made me think more about the kind of person that I am. A quick search of my blog (which is a great form of record-keeping, if only I had a few more accurate statistics I'd understand my life even better) has occasional mentions of wanting to lose weight in 2005, 2007 and more recently but, despite a love of hiking, a mindset perfect for running and walking, I still gained weight gradually and relentlessly until that month of February 2014. What changed then? I broke my knee. Rehabilitation focussed me on a task I'd always wanted to do. Exercise was required and I'm pretty single-minded at the best of times. The incident allowed me to deploy my attributes in the task of recovery.

As exercise was steamed off in the Guangzhou summer, my weight plateaued around 69kg, which incidentally was my goal weight - it was lighter than my arrival weight in China. But then, tendonitis in my Achilles struck. I didn't gain much weight but prior to the guidance from my physio in NZ, all momentum had been lost. And after speaking to him it was clear that a controlled regime of exercise was the key to overcoming tendonitis as well, especially extending distance or intensity by 10% each time, along with specific exercises with specific weight on non-running days. An undue emphasis on numbers and details, whether they be time, weight, distance or otherwise is another of my attributes, for better or worse. But here it was for the better. I might only have an occasional tendonitis symptom once a week and can run up to 15 kilometres.

But I have a self-competitive nature, too. Is there a better word for this? At it's worst it's the pigheaded obsession to show-up your past self. On the flipside it's the determination to always improve. For running, especially for a person prone to injury, it's almost always a negative. Keeping to 10% increments is wisely moderate. Having occasional shorter runs is ideal. But it takes a lot of convincing to stop a mind who hears Map My Run say he is 23 seconds behind 5 mins/kilometre pace, 3 kilometres short of his longest run, to take it easy or to have a shorter run this time. A single moment of over-exertion can stop all moderate exertion for months. My tendonitis was originally caused through this, incidentally. Shin-splints, which I've had the feeling of developing recently, is another rotten fruit of this tendency.

Running hasn't been my only source of energy-burning though. I've walked to work a lot (a 1 hour 10 minute stroll). Once something like that is in my routine, it's set. So much so that I resent when I have to use the car. In the early part of our return to New Zealand, I read a lot on the bus, but now with the focus on exercise, I've been barely able to find any time to read a book I've wanted to read for a long time. Because it isn't the focus for a single-minded person.

Weight could be just a number. And for a number-addled mind it could be. But I've appreciated it in the way it should be, too. But lower weight does make for better health, as well as being an indicator of improved fitness. My immune system seems in better shape than any time in previous years. I get colds but they don't slow my stride or take me out. My father though active has had his body take the type 2 diabetes path, a path his own set of tendencies and proclivities have been unable to redirect. That could have been me in a couple of decades. It could still be me in a couple of decades. I happened upon a TV show about the result of type 2 diabetes the other day: the amputations, the incapacitation and the regrets. It's sobering, in a word.

It's been mind-changing to know that I could reverse the "relentless" weight gain trend. When you've never succeeded in doing something, you can believe that it won't work. Now I know I can once my goals and way of being are aligned. I'm mindful too that a large proportion of people who lose often gain quickly once the focus is gone. If numbers were what it was all about I'm very close to the number I said a few months ago would be my target: 64kg.

I wouldn't mind going lower. I'd also like to read that damned book.

Beached in the middle

Every country has its intergenerational cultural politics. It's in families. It's in towns and cities. In some ways it's very understandable: the world has changed rapidly and the more conservative part of the older generation are, well, conservative. There were two media moments this year when I particularly felt that and a coming mayoral election chat, all of which I felt revolved around a particular media personality: Mike Hosking.

When he first emerged at least into my consciousness, I thought he was pretty creative and quick. But I had low standards: he did an interview with Moby in the backseat of a car, driving laps in a parking building. I don't know what eco-friendly Moby thought of the idea but at least it was something different. He has since filled the shoes of a Paul Holmes, both a trend-setter and cheerleader for "Middle New Zealand", sometimes in the face of their own interests.

My mother is one of those. She has no time for our outgoing mayor, Len Brown, because of his increases in rates. She isn't a direct rate-payer (or even indirect payer of rates for that matter). Rates are one of the sources of funds for a lot of the overdue improvements in the transportation system in Auckland. And until recently, unofficially one of the few small brakes on home ownership, "taxing" those who've gained the most of the surging housing market. Baby booming Middle New Zealand felt the ironic squeeze of their huge balance asset based wealth and the increased expenditure on rates. Hosking thus regularly attacked Len and the ever-increasing rates he imposed. I don't blame my mother for following along. It's human nature to an extent. Hosking is source of generally compatible views. It's probably also why people in the States like Trump.

The first media moment that I experienced post-return was the interesting social experiment which was the Awaroa Inlet auction and the crowd-funding attempt to keep it public. I didn't contribute (I might have if I had a credit card and made it a priority) but I thought it admirable. It was ultimately successful with the Government ensuring the bid got over the line. Hosking wasn't impressed and mocked the people who contributed saying they were essentially offering to pay extra tax as it should have been paid by the Government in the first place. But the Department of Conservation didn't have the budget to buy it and buying in a private auction wasn't going to be easy even if it did. The Hosking response was so cynical about people power and about paying tax for that matter: "Less than 1% of us actually donated, 99% didn't, so the hype that this was a nation banding together was never real," he said. This is true for a lot of charitable causes, though. And not contributing doesn't indicate a lack of support or desire. I'm glad with the government coming to the party that the original crowd-funding effectively shaped the use of the Hosking's tax payments.

I've been one to Awaroa inlet. He made the point that most who contributed would probably never get there to appreciate it. It's probably true but not the point. 

The second piece was more recent and earned Hosking the honour of official complaints. There was an item on Seven Sharp about Andrew Judd, the outgoing mayor of New Plymouth. He was leaving because he felt bullied and threatened after he began to support and put efforts into getting a Maori seat on the council. Judd had said how only after he became mayor he'd become aware of the history of the region, of Parihaka, of Waitara, and how he'd suddenly realised that Maori hadn't had a fair go and needed representation on the council. And it was then that he realised the strength of racism against Maori as he felt the heat of resistance. He was spat on in the street. 

It's disappointing that he stepping away from the battle of ideas. But his stepping down was news and certainly drew more light to it. Is New Plymouth in particular racist, or is it just reflecting the general national sentiment? It's a good question. Hosking only thought to editorialise the proposal of the Maori seat saying Judd was completely out of touch with Middle New Zealand and that if Maori wanted to be on the council they just need to stand for election like everyone else. Someone complained this was racist. I'd say it just begs the question. Under the current set-up, Maori would need to be elected to be on the council. But that doesn't mean it's right. Judd may be out of touch with this spitting Middle New Zealand, but he is wrong. In sterner times, opposing slavery and later segregation were both not what the middle society supported, but they were still done because they were right. 

One thing that is awfully true in this cyber day and age is the increasingly tribal echo-chamber where people get their media, news and information. The left get their news from one set of sources. The right gets there's from another. Facebook makes sure you see news from like-minded sources. And Youtube cookies make sure the videos you see are in line with your preferences. The complaint against Hosking may have been laid because of TVNZ being a national broadcaster and the state has many annoying Treaty-related understandings and obligations that are surely out of touch with Middle New Zealand, too. Our national voice shouldn't be dominated by someone who doesn't represent just a portion of the population but can be inclusive of it all. 

On the road

Dominion Road is bending
Under its own weight, shining like a strip
Cut from a sheet metal plate
'Cause it's just been raining

The home strip. The main drag. The road to home and the launch-pad to the Moon. Dominion road has had the same significance to me as Jiangnan Xi in Guangzhou or Hobsonville Road in, well, Hobsonville, or dare I say it, Goudie Road in Helensville. Dominion Road is unique in Auckland for being so straight, it's a wonder it's congested so easily. It has delightfully had a song sung about it.

Jane reached the point where she knew
What it meant before he opened his mouth
He couldn't say them same
Or he'd have guessed she was moving south
With one of his friends

Beyond the time and familiarity I have with Dominion Road, there's also the cultural connection that makes it a warm place for me: It really is Auckland's equivalent of Chinatown. This in itself was a development. When I started university if you had to name a place of Chinese settlement most would say Howick (AKA Chowick) in a heartbeat. But the first year of my university also marked the opening of the floodgates of Mainland migration to Auckland. Howick was the one of the natural destinations for Hong Kong, Macanese and Taiwanese migrants, but Mt Roskill and Mt Albert became the place for the formerly those who Deng Xiaoping was a fairly recent memory. And their restaurants flourished. Unlike the "safe", perhaps localised, cuisine of the earlier Chinese restaurants, these ones pitched their food for Chinese culinary sensibilities. As a result, coming back from Guangzhou so freshly I can vouch for it being pretty authentic. Also unlike earlier restaurants, many stick to their regional guns, too. So instead of the same variety of regional dishes, you'd have some that go deeply into the repertoire for a particular province. I melted as I devoured fried soup buns the other day, the kind that I don't even see much in Guangzhou. They're a specialty of Hangzhou and the surrounding eastern cities. Not that it's just Chinese food. My favourite western restaurants of Tasca and Cazador are always there for me to peer into, too.

But it's getting better now
He found it in him to forgive
He walked the city
And he found a place to live
In a halfway house
Halfway down Dominion Road

And it must be said, that the halfway house of the song is likely to be fictional, or perhaps dating from another era. Not that you can't imagine it being there, a place to the unfortunate, a place to get back on the straight and simple. It might be unfortunate that the sound of "dominion" were close to the sounds of misfortune, daomei, in Chinese. It's thus widely called Daomei Lu (Misfortune Street) by students at my school. I remember the news on my arrival back in New Zealand that the council chose not to give it an official Chinese name Duomei Lu (Street of Much Beauty, perhaps Splendour Street). 

As he watched Jane's brother sell the house
He felt no sense of loss
More like a mountain climber
Looking back having made it across
The steepest face

The way I pay tribute to it is with walking and running. And running is something I've managed to slowly get back into. The tendonitis that began in late September 2015 is only just disappearing in May 2016. At my physio, on Dominion Road of course, I learned the Way of the Inflamed Heel, which is namely to build up its strength and work it with more and more intensity. You work the inflammation out, as counter-intuitive as that sounded. The funny thing is that now that I'm running longer (12 kilometres being my longest) it's not the heel that's the problem but all the other parts of my leg that are scrambling to get used to the impact running brings. They're taking turns one by one to report back into action, while the apparently chronically injured one says nothing of pounding the pavement until a day later while I'm sitting in the office.

But he's still climbing
See him trying to cross the street
He checks his footing
Like he was up ten thousand feet
Above the the clouds
Halfway down Dominion Road

I hope that I keep pounding the street both in running and walking and celebrate a road that changes.

The Three Body Problem, The Mermaid and Mr Pip

It's most people's common understanding that in outer space if you propel an object in one direction, it'll continue in that direction never to stop. And furthermore if you happen to be that object no one can hear you if you do in fact choose to scream. Unless you're in the movie Gravity. Moving in one direction in space for eternity would be a human problem but in physics it's very straightforward. There is a force that causes an acceleration, then a speed that moves a mass. Without any other forces applied to the object, speed would be constant. Of course our common understanding is wrong because in space there isn't just one object. There is a whole universe of other bodies all exerting strong and subtle influences. That is, if you are that object, you may eventually change direction but would probably have expired by then.

One body may not be a physics problem and neither are two bodies. The Moon and the Earth have regular orbits, even Iron age cultures could predict the motion of the Moon well enough to predict eclipses. And this was without understanding the true nature of the motion and gravity. Both bodies would have gravitational attraction for each other and these two forces create a regular, stable relationship. One might be simple, straight and lonely whereas two provides elegant orbits with ellipses.

However, as in conventional morality, once you add a third body into the theoretical model, all hell breaks loose. The Three Body Problem is a classic physics puzzle. Three bodies co-influencing each other creates huge calculational difficulties. And it must have been an interest in this puzzle that writer Liu Xinci started a science fiction trilogy called exactly that The Three Body Problem 三体. It was so successful that its translation won the Hugo prize for Science Fiction in 2014, a first for a Chinese author (the second book in the series has been nominated for a Nebula award for 2016).

The book's background lies in a very real Three Body Problem, the Alpha Centauri star system, but first book, Remembrance of Earth's Past, is predominantly set on contemporary Earth. It lingers a long time in China's Cultural Revolution period in a rather critical way, which might surprise those that believe there is no creative freedom in China. Science Fiction and the Cultural Revolution. Red Guards and Aliens. They aren't in the same scene, of course, but this book has a narrative that is distinctly Chinese and distinctly Science Fiction. I've finished the first book and waiting for the second and third books to be delivered. Considering my interest in astronomy, too, it's good to have fiction propelling my interest in science. Just this morning on a walk I listened to how within 50 years we might have our first sensors in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri, which incidentally has a shadow of happening in the first book itself.

And it's to be a movie soon, albeit marketed to Chinese audiences. One interesting aspect of our increasingly multipolar virtually democratised worlds we live in is that there is far more room for cross-over hits, that is a creative work that exceeds its target audience, culture and geography to become global. Go back 20 years and it was more or less one way: English works, whether British or American, going into non-English cultures. Now it's pleasantly more diverse. No matter what you think of it in retrospect, Gangnam Style's unexpected success shows that singular talent can break through any kind of barrier. Gangnam is still the highest viewed video in YouTube history almost 4 years on.

And that leaves us with the astonishing comparison of two movies Kungfu Hustle and The Mermaid. They were both movies created by comic genius, Stephen Chow. Kungfu Hustle was a cross-over success, scoring a US$17 million dollars. This may seem low but it's huge for a foreign language movie. It scored US$20 million in Mainland China and over US$100 million worldwide. And was the movie that gave Stephen Chow name recognition abroad. A few movies later The Mermaid comes and blows away all the records in China, with US$526 million in ticket sales in the Mainland alone. This even by global standards is huge. But it only made $3 million in the US market. Such is the appeal of different movies. It made a tidy $25 from us at the Events cinema on Queen Street. It'll stand to be seen whether The Three Body Problem, which succeeded in winning awards from sci-fi judges as a book or as a movie can attract audiences for whom it was not intentionally directed.

While I wait for the second book of the trilogy, I've been making up for lost time and reading another high profile award nominee of the past, Mister Pip. Though not finished yet, it akes for good reading, and paints a picture of history in a place that was only lightly sketched in my childhood memory: the instability of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The Pip in the title refers back to the protagonist of the Dicken's classic Great Expectations which I haven't read. But reading Mister Pip almost makes you feel like you've read it as the story of both books and the characters are enmeshed.

My reading enmeshes facts of my life and our modern world and my life enmeshes the reading as it happens. It's a surprise that I only became the voracious reader I am now after the age of 25.

The big white cloud

I've often feared for my mind. My mind in haze. Sometimes, in much clearer moments, I wonder whether there was any justification, whether it was just some period of psychological hypochondria. I remember back in Guangzhou, in a meeting fearing that I wouldn't be able to string a meaningful sentence together. I consoled myself when I achieved things creatively or cognitively. I made breakthroughs learning language and created ideas beyond what others were doing. But then I'd hit points and founder my mind on a reef.

A few weeks ago a manager I respect gave me some papers of import. I had no time to read them but kept them at the top of my tray. I had to read them. I really valued their contents. But a week ago when I finally had the leisure to look upon them, they'd gone. It disturbed me something bad. I searched my office, checking the same recycle piles twice. Even looking through the test results I'd filed thinking that somehow I might have accidentally stapled them to the back. I searched my home. It wasn't there either. I was sure I hadn't discarded anything in the period but it was gone. Gone. And then another equally, perhaps more horrible situation appeared: I'd need to speak to that person I respected and ask for another set, if she did in fact have a soft copy of her own. I visualised how unprofessional it'd make me look and the intensity of my search rose. Besides this search, my efficiency dropped and again the clouds condensed in my minds eye. I did an outstandingly stupid oversight online. Some things barely progressed.

I was on the verge of speaking to her when picking up a source document for another related topic that I saw the missing information clipped to the back. It was a great place to put it in retrospect. A place I never thought to look though. There was a moment of elation and then I was in the room with her, not having to mention the embarrassment of losing it and rather referring to it as something I'd be doing shortly.

And then the cloud was no longer. The hours after were those amazing hours when every 10 minutes of work were hours of product. Connections. Timing. Concept. Detail. In place. E-mail here. Cross the t. The reply already and the documentation complete.

I astound myself with what stupid things I do sometimes. Four week ago, I was leaving for work when I realised I had to move my car as it was blocking the driveway. I drove it to the roadside and through the rear vision mirror saw the roads were relatively clear. On a whim I decided to drive in, so did a U-turn and headed to the intersection with Dominion Rd. When I got there the traffic was suddenly thick. I had to make a right hand turn and things were not happening. After quite a wait a large gap appeared in the near lane I thought I'd turn into the flush median. I got there and thought I had a chance to move into the traffic on the main road, accelerated alongside a gap, but the car behind me was staying close and I delicately tried to merge while still moving at the speed of the traffic. And then there was an almightly clang. The car lurched upward and something flashed up past my right eye. I'd hit the traffic island, the one I'd crossed by so many times before. The one that I knew was there. I was so focussed on my left that I forgot about the right. I'd burst my tyre and luckily nothing else. No-one was on the island thankfully and I had enough calmness to pull the car into a bus-lane and then into a side road. I lost it at myself, unbelieving at how I could have done it.

It haunts me whenever I drive now. But just like the temporary loss of that document, it seems to be just a cloud over my ability. My skill is enough. My focus is enough, if only the cloud can go.