"Welcome to Country"

Today I attended a conference at another university, and once again some middle aged white guy took it upon himself to "welcome" us to "Country".

This annoys the hell out of me.

Why? Because nine times out of ten they tick every box necessary for turning it into something trite and irrelevant instead of something meaningful:

Did some guy who definitely has no claim to "Country" welcome us to it as if he new what "Country" really meant? Yes.

Did he neglect to even mention the name of the people whose Country he was so magnanimously welcoming us to? Yes.

Did he point out how good his organisation was for making a point of mentioning "Country" and the "original owners"? Yes.

Did he use the standard cliche of "acknowledging the original owners of this land" without giving the impression he even knew who they were? Yes.

Sure, its the "in thing" these days to show how culturally aware you are by stating explicitly that this piece of land used to belong to someone else and they still have ties to it. But, honestly people, if you aren't going to make the effort to find out who those original owners were and acknowledge them by name - what's the point?

Country isn't a buzzword that you get to bandy around because it's in vogue amongst political circles these days. Either think about what it means and sound like you care, or skip it.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this particular Australianism, "Country" refers to the concept that indigenous people have a bond with their home turf. Left to their traditional ways, they would be intimately familiar with the seasons, flora, fauna and sacred places of the patch of land they call their own. Their ancestors' spirits sink deep into that land and therefore it's not just their home - it's part of their family.

Whatever they would have called it in their own language, these days the convention in English is to call it Country. No articles, adjectives or qualifiers - no "the" or "my" or "your" - just Country.

Except that it does have a name - the name of the people who call it their own. To them, it's just Country. To everyone else it's Such-and-Such Country.

Take the place were I live and work, for example. It was variously home to two Aboriginal Language Groups: Wulgurukaba and Bindal. There are other language groups in the area, but those two are the traditional owners of the place I now call my home.

Not being a member of either language group, I'd feel a right twit trying to welcome you to "Country" as if I had a right to do so. It's not "Country" to me. Well, in a way it is, as I was born and raised here and feel a kind of kinship with my home turf, but if I was going to welcome you to my place I would welcome you to Townsville. It's not in my culture to think of this as "Country", and to use that word in that context when I don't really feel it...

Well, that just seems even more culturally insensitive than not using it at all. I could quite happily welcome you to Wulgurukaba and Bindal Country, just as I could quite happily welcome you to Charters Towers if you were meeting me there and you had never visited that town before.

If I wouldn't use "Country" to welcome you to my home town where I was born and raised, I sure as heck wouldn't dare do it to a place I've only lived in for a couple of years.

As for "acknowledging the original owners of this land"? Well, you do that by actually mentioning whose traditional land it is. You can bandy the political buzzwords around as much as you like and feel special about it, but if you haven't gone to the trouble of finding out the name of the traditional owners, then saying "I acknowledge you" is a pretty shallow gesture indeed.

Get over yourselves, impertinent and supercilious white dudes. You don't sound special. You just sound obnoxious.

Further to the Last

Actually, I've been thinking about that a lot, recently (see the last post, on Eglantine Part Five).

I wrote Eglantine about a year ago, and that theme of "change-the-face-and-change-the-person-behind-it" has often played on my mind since.

It's because I've been making subtle changes to my own appearance over the last year - and it's because of the way I've been doing it. I've been changing the person behind the face, and that has resulted in my face looking a bit different.

Between the beginning of last year and the tale end of this year, I've lost a bit of weight, gained a bit of muscle, improved the quality of my skin tone and picked up a vibrancy, of sorts. I feel more up-and-at-'em, and the people around me have told me it's coming out in my face.

I look better, I feel better (although I know I've still got a long way to go), and it's all because I'm starting to live better. Juggling started it off, but the training for the triathlon really proved to be the catalyst. I made some serious changes to my life-style in order to survive that thing, and while I've been slacking off during the cold dark days of winter, I managed to retain the attitude I had to create to make it all work.

Yes, that's right, I had to create an entire attitude. The same way I made myself like capsicum and coffee, I made myself like exercise. I convinced myself that I love riding my bike so much I'd rather go to work that way instead of taking the car (even though it's awkward). I convinced myself that running was enough of a buzz to make up for the fact that it was hard work - that getting up an hour earlier in the morning just so I could go for a run was worth it because running was its own reward.

Yes, trying to fit it into my lifestyle was a struggle, but I've found that I'm slowly creating a whole new lifestyle. So much so, that I'm planning to cycle around a small European country next year. Two years ago I would never have considered it.

I realised the other day that I have made myself love and value things that I once disliked, or was indifferent to. I also realised that in doing so, I've become a different version of me. The Me that existed five years ago wouldn't recognise the Me that I am today. It wouldn't recognise my interests, the way I spend my time or the sorts of things I spend my money on.

If I was still the old me, I wouldn't have been able to pick up my fitness level the way that I have. I had to become a different person in order to make these positive changes to my appearance. Oh, I still have a long, long way to go, and I think I'll have to change myself many times over in the process. I can't help but wonder exactly who I'll turn myself into in the end.

I think the next step involves cultivating a dislike for things I have previously liked and enjoyed - changing my attitude yet again. Mainly for things like chips, deep fried food and the like. I'm already at the stage where I often crave salads instead of crumbed sausages... But sometimes those crumbed sausages just call to me. Must make myself view them as unpleasant things that I do not wish to place in my mouth.

Eglantine Part Five

Well, I've been a bit tardy with updating it (sounds about normal for me), but Eglantine Part Five has been posted over on my Siege Works blog.

This is one of my favourite parts of one of my favourite stories. The whole plot behind Eglantine just sort of fell into place all by itself, spurred on from various points of inspiration. Occasionally stories write themselves, and I just get to go along for the ride - more a reader of the story than the writer.

It's at this point of the story that the central theme behind Eglantine is revealed, in the words of the elegant witch:

"We are as we are. We can change ourselves to an extent, as it is within our power to do so, and we will still be ourselves. But, if we allow someone else to change us, then we will become someone else. Do you understand?"

Eglantine isn't happy with what people see when they look at her, and all she can think about is how much she wants it to change (extreme make-over style). What she doesn't realise is that the person she is cannot be completely divorced from the rest of the package - face included. If she changes her face (in a way that doesn't come organically from her) she changes the person behind the face as well.

The idea of a "kind of beauty that rests in all things" which must be appreciated before it can be seen isn't new, but I think it is often forgotten - even by those who should know better.

The Awareness Test

How good are your observation skills?

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

It will get you thinking

Received Pronunciation

You see, this is why every language needs a particular accent that is accepted as the "proper" pronunciation.

Sure, it's classist, slightly racist and incredibly excluding, but it works, dammit!

I've never had an accent that anyone could actually identify. For as long as I can remember people have been asking me where I come from. Sometimes I sound a little more British, so they ask if I'm Scottish. Sometimes I sound a little more North American, so they ask if I'm Canadian. Maybe I just sound "northern", I don't know.

But, when I need to, I can deliver a clear and well annunciated "home counties", English style accent - the slightly less plummy version of Received Pronunciation that used to be referred to, in some quarters, as "Eaton Dialect". You know, the way all of the Doctors on Dr Who used to speak in the old series.

I have found this skill to be invaluable. Suddenly, I am perfectly understandable to anyone from Europe, and reasonably understandable to a large number of people from Asia.

Why? Because English, in Europe, is usually taught by English professors with that accent, or someone who studied English in a school where that accent was preferred. In Asia it is usually taught by someone with an American accent, so the Asian students I work with can sometimes struggle a bit with my vowels when I snap into my "Home Counties Accent". I suppose I should try making it a bit more "Boston" when I work with them.

It's almost automatic with me. The minute I'm in a situation where I think someone is having trouble understanding me, I switch into this accent and start sounding like an English Professor. With some people, you can see the lights switch on as they finally have a fighting chance of interpreting what I say (I even had a student from Germany thank me once).

But, then, you get people who learn a language as a group of words. They don't pay attention to how the words sound, they just pronounce it the way they'd pronounce their own words. Then they come and ask me questions and I have a hell of a time trying to work out what they want.

If, on the other hand, they had learnt a couple of accents along with the vocabulary, then we'd all stand a fighting chance of being understood.

I'm trying to be conscious of that as I'm learning Estonian and Russian - listening to the speakers and trying to pick up on their accents. I'm not sure if I'm being remotely successful as I still have this weird tendency to try to speak "clearly" - which, with my training, is the "Home Counties Accent".

I'm sure Russian with a crisp, clear English accent is just as hard to understand as English with a soft, muted Russian accent...

Favourite Sentence for the Week

There's something about web pages that are written in English, but quite obviously not by native English speakers. They have such a unique turn of phrase - it's almost like unintentional poetry.

Take this gem, for example:

"Right moving in nature has been inherent of people already from the primeval times."

It comes from the State Portal for the Estonian government, on a page about hiking.

Now, I'm working on the assumption that the sentence actually means something along the lines of "moving about in nature has been a natural drive in people since primeval times", but doesn't their version sound so much more interesting?