I Love My Car ...

Love My Car and Meat You in Korea.

Love My Car:

I love my car, but it’s not what you think. I don’t love it because it’s fast, beautiful or alludes to any kind of desirable status (because it isn’t and it doesn’t).

I love it because it’s another room, and it’s a room that can move. It’s taken awhile for me to truly appreciate how comforting and comfortable this relationship to an inanimate and useful object has become.  My current car was also my Nanna’s, and this of course adds an extra level of affection to my modest Nissan. What I really like is how my car feels like a safe, warm, intimate capsule. Lately, when I have a break, instead of going into a café I often opt to stay in the car. I put back the seat and listen to the radio. Or go to sleep. Or hypnotise myself. The possibilities are endless. I’ve never performed a self love session in my car, but sex and cars are a story with a different angle (ha!).

Yes, my car is a little haven. When I’m driving,  I listen to the radio and lean down to flick through stations until I find a song or topic that interests me. I also love to eat and drive. Icecream or chips are best (hot or cold). I still use CD’s because the updated technology (ipods for the car etc) stresses me out. I just want to stick it in and have it work. I have an ipod and haven’t used it for more than a year because trying to get the fucking thing to cooperate feels like a form of torture.

Boring explanation re. ipod:

 Torture: post-computer crash, when ALL your music lovingly compiled, is gone daddy gone, and the music left on your ipod won’t play because it can’t sync to anything not already burned into the drive of your nice new computer. This has now happened twice. The lesson: don’t give your CD’s away like I did, if your computer dies, so does the music.

Fin.

When I’m driving, I regularly  turn the cd or radio off and talk out loud to my ‘angels’ or subconscious mind. I get very good answers too. They’re good because they’re practical.

So I get a lot of ‘spiritual time’ in the car, singing time, thinking time, and it seems to flow because I’m moving. I like driving. I’m a careful driver. I keep to the speed limit and I sometimes go extra slow if someone is driving too close behind me.  Even I, a fabulously kind person, must find a way to get back at egoic drivers, and muttering  “mutha fuck you” just doesn’t feel enough at times. Most of the time it feels good. Saying “mutha fuck you, hope you die today” seems to alleviate a lot of annoyance quite quickly. I hear myself saying it, then I’m amused, and this leads to a lightening of my mood. I’m amused because I’ve only started saying this in recent months, and I say it sort of half heartedly. There isn’t enough rage in it for it to be taken seriously. If intent could kill, then I’d have far less victims than you’d think.

Yes, I love my car, and I love it because it’s a bit like bed. I can do almost everything in it that matters. Food, music, sleep, reading,  singing, sex, praying, laughing, talking. 

Rose (completed friendship, see end of last year) used to drive a 1970 box style valiant in the 90’s. It was the first time I truly understood that a particular style or brand of car could influence a person’s idea of themselves so strongly. She liked it when we drove past someone else in a Valiant.  Valiant soul mates. It was like riding around in a living room.

 Rose also liked Vespas and would have been keen on getting one if she wasn't pouring every spare dollar into the ever-thirsty and unreliable

glory of the large and cumbersome car.  I grew to appreciate riding around in it (being the non-driver that I was). You could easily seat three people in the front.

I didn’t get my driver’s licence till I was 33. That’s rather rare in NZ. Most people have barely broken through puberty before they’re behind the wheel of a car. My mum doesn’t drive, never has, never will. Has no interest in it. She was also raising me alone on a low wage, and I had no other relatives willing or able teach me. Various friends tried, but of course no one was able to commit to giving me lessons on a regular basis.  I couldn’t afford driving lessons, and in the end I just didn’t care enough to keep trying.

At 21 I got my ‘written and oral’, and this languished as I cycled, walked, bussed and begged lifts for koha.  People were aghast when they discovered that a person over 15 could be without a licence. Eyes would widen. Mouths dropped. “How …?” they would enquire.

The thing is, in the olden days, (up to the mid 1990’s) there was this amazing thing called relatively affordable flatting near the central business district. This meant you just needed a bicycle and a few friends who actually had cars, and you were sorted. I was always going away with friends and sleeping in tents somewhere.  I was thoughtful with petrol money and lavish with thanks.

It was living in Paeroa that forced my hand. You try living in that town with out a car and you’ll suddenly find a way to save up for one. It took absolutely ages to save up as I was on a pathetic wage, but my first car was cheap and the lack of power steering helped me develop a level of tone and strength in my arms I could be proud of. I think it was a 1987 Honda City E. It had a tape deck and an AM radio. It’s taken years to develop the level of joy that I find in driving a car, but it’s a feeling of being centred, focused, yet somehow relaxed in the midst of it.

This does not segue well into my next topic of thought.

Food, Meat, Dogs, Korea:

I’ve just signed an online petition against the torture and consumption of dogs in South Korea. Now I might sound like a hypocrite, being a meat eater, but bear with me.

Animals are very ‘other’ in mainstream culture there, and even ‘beloved’ pets are not treated well, tied up on a very short leash on a concrete street outside a shop all day is not uncommon.  Vegetarians struggle with the diet there as everything seems to be imbedded with some sort of tiny dried fish or strips of fatty grey meat. I got really sick for the first three months of living there -  the diet was so hard on my digestion. I went to the hospital and they said I had Colitis and had to eat soft, easily digestible foods. For awhile all I could consume were smoothies with yoghurt and bannna, no coffee, no meat.  At school I would stare at the mountain of white rice and side dishes of spicey, meaty, fishy mulch and sigh inwardly. To insult Koreans by refusing their food is just not done. Yet what to do? I lied and said I LOVED it but it was very hard on my stomach, so please, don’t be hurt if I can’t eat it all.

I fell in love with a stray kitten and used to save the grey bits of meat from my school lunch, wash off all the spices, and take it to the kitten each day. When the principal found out what I was doing, she forbade me to feed the kitten ‘the children’s food’. She seemed to think that it was better for me to throw it in the bin than give it to an animal in need. It insulted her Catholic God or something.

“That children food. Not dirty animal.”

I played the game though. Nodded, agreed, and then still did it anyway. You get good at that in Korea. Nod. Agree. Smile. As the kitten grew into a strong young cat, he became strong enough to find my offerings less appealing. He was a gorgeous little thing, pale and large of eyes. Even he wouldn't eat the tiny octopuses that haunted my lunches with the consistency of hard rubber and sorrow.

Most days I would put my leftovers in plastic bag and told the Principal 

‘Take home. Fry. No waste. Very grateful.’

I truthfully did take home rice and refry it a few times, and the rest of the time, threw it in the bin or left it on the street for rats or cats. I couldn’t take the food pressure there anymore, it was literally making me sick.

I didn’t want to be rude, accepting the food is a huge part of the Korean culture, but when you get Colitis, you just have to find a way to bow out from eating endless mountains of rice, meat and spice.

Prior to living in South Korea I read about what happens to the dogs that are reared specifically for the purpose of eating. The dogs are tortured whilst still alive as this is believed to ‘tenderize’ the meat. Dog isn’t common, it’s actually quite expensive. You wouldn’t accidentally end up eating dog, you need to go somewhere that specialises in it.  I guess you have to pay extra for all those beatings.

Occasionally I spoke to a fellow foreigner who would announce (quite proudly) that they’d eaten dog. I’d listen as they said things like “well we are in Korea, it’s the culture. If you eat meat then why shouldn’t you try it? It’s like eating cow or chicken, we’re just not culturally adjusted to it, so many foreigners are hypocrites.”

I’d nod. I’d ask if they enjoyed it. Then I’d say “so the conditions the dogs are reared in don’t bother you?”

They’d smile blankly, not knowing what I was talking about.  Then I’d kindly, softly, tell them how the dog had been ‘tenderized’ whilst still alive.  How delicious was that dog? Every person who’d tried it looked sick. “Oh. I didn’t know that” they’d say quietly. I never did try to stick it in hard. I just would inform and then let them decide if that was the kind of meat they wanted to consume.

So if you’re reading this, and you want to do something about it, please sign …. https://www.change.org/petitions/boycott-2013-world-energy-congress-in-daegu-south-korea-no-more-torture-no-more-dog-meat?share_id=kqtRsqAGcU&utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition&utm_term=29484675

I will not put up horrible pictures, not my style. I said to mum that it really is enough to make me give vegetarianism another crack. I realise it makes sense economically and politically, but really, for me, it comes down to the innocence and beauty of animals. How do I balance that against the enjoyment of roast lamb or a good bacon sarnie?

 Well, if I do go all Vege on you, fear not, I’ll never be one of those scary ones that sneers and tries to make you feel guilty. I don’t find guilt to be very motivating.

Well, that’s my rant for now. Other things that I keep thinking about are Taxidermy , shared gardens, our crazy government voting against protecting the Maui Dolphin, painting everything green, gold and white, eating more pineapple and the nature of forgiveness and compassion.

New Zealand – what should we do about the current situation developing? I’m happy for wealthy people to enjoy what they have, but it does seem as if it’s at the expense of the majority. What mystifies me is why so many good, ‘onto it’ Kiwi people voted for the National government. 

We have had such ground breaking and forward thinking milestones in our short history – the first country to give women the vote, the attempt to create a dialogue and solutions alongside Maori, the way we stood up against Nuclear Ships coming through our waters in the 1980’s.

Now look. We have a government that would whore us out to foreign interests for returns that are surely short sighted, sell off our assets, frack our beautiful country side (proven to create earthquakes and shunned by other countries!) and create a wave of resentment towards beneficiaries in order to try and keep ‘hard working middle NZ’ on side. What I hope people start to see is that most of us would be in the shit if something ‘went wrong’ and we got sick, were made redundant, or, like me, simply could not find a full time job somehow relating to my skill set.

So what are we going to do? Just bitch about it?

That’s what I have always hated about politics. Seems like a lot of talking and you wonder how on earth that translates to every day life. We have to find ways to make that so.

We’re gonna have to pull together. Share a garden with someone if you have a back yard. Tell them to pitch in, then they can pop around once a week and grab what they need. Do contra deals, and be inventive. If you’re doing okay financially, consider something small you could do to help someone out that makes all the difference. 

The women I’m teaching English to have left their abusive husbands empty handed. Can you provide a few books (things like dictionaries, aromatherapy, poetry and travel are good) or spare some nice clothing? SHAKTI would definitely appreciate it.

Wealth. What does it really mean to you? 

I guess it’s one thing to the National Government; money. Yes, money is useful, but it’s only printed pieces of paper symbolising a means of exchange. Who said that the map is not the territory? Alfred Korzybski.

Think about it Prime Minister, and in the meantime, let's all think about solutions. 

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