Dec 24, 2009

Replacing gifts with donations

A donation instead of flowers at a funeral is common but I had never heard of someone saying at Christmas to skip the gift and instead give to a charity. Until this year, when I know 3 people who have done it and many more considering it especially once their children are older. And a few clever charities are promoting the idea as well. Its great. Its better than great. And surely this concept will only increase as people do worry about consumption. Plus people acknowledge they own everything they really want.

But then the doubts; the products will still be made and on shelves for sale, even if one person does not receive a gift? Personal consumption levels is actually not about giving a donation to a charity of choice; just as ‘offseting’ carbon produced by saving someone’s forest that you should not even destroy in the first place is not really a positive.

Climate change needs to be made personal. I wish I could do it. I wish we all could reduce consumption in a way that worked; but what would that look like?

I don’t do it, but I wish everything I bought was truly environmentally friendly. I looked at all my purchases of this past month, after reading of an artist who has made clever art out of her consumption over past 5 years; http://www.obsessiveconsumption.typepad.com

Sure I buy the enviro’ friendly washing detergent and I recycle containers and look for items with minimal food packaging. But …..

I try to imagine a world without the purple coloured writing pens I adore. Or the fun coloured manila folders or the glitter pen or the notebook with fabulous arty 3D effect picture on it, to name just a few minor items I bought in this month. All these things and more have chemicals in them. And all could be stopped so that the manufacturing of basic plain environmentally friendly items for the same tasks, was possible.

Demand will always be there. Thus a stationery factory filled with synthetic chemicals to make all these items will always exist. Or will it?

How can we change demand?

Can I just turn off the wish to buy the 50cent notebook with green spiral bound plastic doover over it? I should I know. I should do better. Yet it seems so futile because my not buying one or two items is not going to stop the factory right now. How to get critical mass? And what about the job losses, if production did reduce? Unemployment is already a critical issue in developing countries as well as so called modern societies … would enviro’ consumption mean further hardship for individuals out of work ….??

Eventually next generations I guess, will be attending addiction meetings for those who still crave for colourful pens; after the globe is destroyed because we all loved our colours in all our items we buy, whether minor or substantial purchases
Yet it pleases me that someone has taken a stand and asked for no gift. Its all about the individual gestures. And in a group setting having a donation to a charity of choice instead of a gift is a profound statement, to all who are there.

Now about my purple pens, what is the environmentally sound decision for me to make and can I do it?

For more clever art go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kateconsumption/sets/72157622729694162/
                                   - 14 new pens, wonder if they were coloured….

Nov 17, 2009

Unconditional bonsai love?

Failure as a guardian is the strongest feeling, mixed with guilt at selfishness and also curiosity about green ethics? Can I throw away the bonsai now that I don’t like it? Or should it have every equal opportunity to live? And live with me, the person who initially adopted it and loved it unconditionally?
While away for 6 weeks my work-mates in the crowded work space ignored the bonsai. By all accounts it was very close to dead. So it was whisked away from them by another more observant work colleague and placed downstairs where it was daily placed outside, by a third and very diligent colleague, so as to receive sunshine and likely lots of rain as well. The plant has flourished!
Really flourished! It’s now a mass of green fronds and tilts extremely to one angle as the starved death throes of a plant, eagerly sought the sun. It now looks to me like a fluffy misshapen ball of green with no elegance or sophistication. Alive yes, irrefutably. But no longer a bonsai. On my return it was proudly given back and sits on my desk as a large green blob. Clearly the Cambodian staff member who happily adopted it didn’t know of the bonsai concept or maybe the plant was so naked and unhappy it was impossible to even see the shaping that it had had. So the plant has been saved. While the bonsai has not been saved.
Bonsai is all about shaping the natural tree but placing it in a restrictive environment. Branches are stripped from the main trunk and remaining branches are made into a specific shape. Not a good attitude to have to the tree, is it? The concept of bonsai in Cambodia is rough and ready even by gardeners, as the concept is vaguely adapted by Cambodian gardeners who saw the idea come here with Chinese gardeners. Yet my original bonsai was charming despite it only being worth US$2, bought at a nursery near the work office. There is a logic in my Cambodian colleagues not being aware of the pruning that would have been required to maintain the bonsai.
Now the dilemma is do I put up with the misshapen small shrubbery on my desk that no longer relates to the concept of a bonsai? Or do I live in a materialistic culture where I ditch it by giving it away and go and buy another plant more to my liking. Probably not a new bonsai as the concept now bothers me; especially as I am selfishly rejecting the new non-restricted bonsai even more, than the original highly styled little plant, did already slightly bother my ethics.

Aug 27, 2009

Almost but not quite killed, the bonsai!

Introducing some plants into the office for greenery was spontaneous idea one Friday afternoon. $8 later a bonsai a foot high in simple green oval pot, a single stem variegated leafy plant and a shrub were added to a shared office room. As a new staff member the action was treated with distrust by colleagues; what was the meaning of my action? No one else had been so outrageous as to add their own plants!

Within weeks confetti of small dark leaves scattered around my computer. The bonsai was seriously unhappy! This well established, distinguished decoration out of living matter is struggling. A nude dry bonsai is no joke. No one can take the bonsai in, without wondering what the ….?, as almost all its wealth of greenery swirls in the fan’s breeze. Three remaining upper branches with leaves sat above spindly naked arms. Should I take it home into a cooler, airy environment? Clearly its unhappy in its new environment. What to do? Exit humbly or wait and see what happens. The distress had stopped two thirds along the bonsai or yet to die? Cruelty to the human spirit, to watch that shock of new environment onto the bonsai, that was already loved by so many in its short-term addition to the space.

A few more weeks later light green scatters over the lower branches. A miracle of growth! Seemingly arriving all at once after a weekend of its quiet without humans, the tiny sprouts indicate new life. The bonsai has rallied its spirit! Slowly slowly those shoots develop into small leaves. A different dilemma emerges, as the bonsai gains in confidence, the human need to constrain and consign some of those shoots to death; all in the name of keeping the bonsai in the elegant style previously created. Snipping some of the green shoots away so as to keep the shape, does no harm thankfully.

Joining a new space and creating a way to grow into the new environment can almost kill! Yet the wait for acclimatizing is worth it. The partial breaking of spirit, of almost giving up on settling in is on public display as also is the gaining of some equilibrium and tentatively setting forth with one’s own new green shoots of ideas; some shoots will be nipped away immediately all in the name of maintaining harmony while others will be allowed to flourish, contributing to the overall effect.

Jul 5, 2009

Sentimental; where is that hat?


Home is where my hat hangs. I have said this many times to the eternal question of where is home, as I have criss-crossed over Australia for work and leisure and now living in Cambodia since 2005. The idea of home was so simple when younger. Where ever I had my meager belongings, including the above quoted hats, was home. I had no ongoing connection to the country town where I completed my schooling due to family breakup and the eventual relocation of both parents. Conveniently they ended up only 3 hours apart on either side of Sydney so over the years I have got to know Sydney as I visit, individually, family. Having never lived in or near Sydney though, it’s not in anyway ‘home’.

The last two times I have visited Australia I lived in a remote Cambodian province that was far from the bustling modern Asian capital of Phnom Penh. Far away physically and culturally from fast internet, bookstores, daily newspapers and groceries I immediately loved the remote location and in 3 years my happiness and sense of ‘home’ only grew. It was definitely and easily where my hat was hanging!

Then the change in where and what was home, as I acknowledged it was time to move on, took place. The change was due to wanting new work challenges and time for cosmopolitan distractions such as art galleries, opportunity for making new friends, options for exercise and a fast variety of food.

But now 3 months after the relocation to Phnom Penh where is home? My hat is hanging in a charming, homely and secure apartment in inner city. Yet is it home? Its not home in the simplified way that Ratanakiri was immediately and absolutely home. Now I confuse myself, as I vaguely think of home as Ratanakiri. It’s vague they as I not really believe its home. It’s where I felt at home but already the town has moved on without me and it’s no longer where my hat hangs. Physically I am here in the city but I feel like a long-term visitor.

How complicated when I also think of Australia as home. My hat is not hanging there?! I will visit there for 6 half weeks in the southern hemisphere spring and I am really looking forward to it. Will it be home? It will be emotionally wonderful to be in Australia but intellectually distressing as I try not to take the materialism and bureaucracy as criminal behaviour by compatriots! Aaaaaggh, where is home! I panic at times? Have I lost home?

It’s complicated now. I liked the simplified time of having the ‘where my hat was hanging’ definition. What has happened to that sense of space and place as I get older? There was no agonizing over definitions of home in my 20s or early 30s.

Very traditional Buddhism believes that if we move too fast and too many times, our spirit will lose itself as it moves slower than our physical body. Such a concept might suitably be used to guess that my spirit is still making it way down along the Mekong River, as it leaves our northern home of Ratanakiri. By the time my spirit rejoins myself, maybe I will know where the hat is hanging.

Jun 30, 2009

How low is ‘low season’?

Annual figures are that more than 1 million people visit Siem Seap, so as to see the amazing Angkor Wat Temples. That’s a lotta bods, I think to myself, again. Spread out unevenly across 12 months of low and high season, surely that’s still a lot of people. I look in wonder at empty streets and cafe. I never guessed low season would be so quiet.

I never guessed exactly how low a ‘global financial crisis’ can get. I suspect I am viewing the evidence of that crisis? A total of 50 people at most in ‘Pub St’, usually the busiest part of an incredibly busy tourist town. Its all too weird to grasp from Phnom Penh where I live in a very Khmer neighbourhood. The basic market on the street below my apartment, in Phnom Penh, through to the fancy mall two blocks away, are always busy to my eyes. ‘Country cousin’ that I am, at times, coming from a remote province I forget that Phnom Penh also is in low season. The locals’ food market not likely to alter but of course other tourist areas in the city will get busier once into high season. Hard to imagine the city even busier? Which is why I know I am bit of a ‘country cousin’ in the ‘big smoke’, when assessing what is busy. Come September as high season begins its tourists will fill certain areas of the city and then I will remember that I moved to the city in the off season.

Back to Siem Reap, what I am seeing is the low season plus something else. I knew and lived in Siem Reap in the high season back in 2005/06. I can’t believe that this stillness and lack of people is only due to low season.

Speaking to the long-time staff and owner of the cafĂ© where I am the sole diner, they assure me they have never ever seen this lowest ‘low season’. Maybe there is no ‘high season’ in September they query rhetorically.

Will I see an impact of this financial crisis once I visit Australia in a few months? I always was aware of the depth of people’s impossibility to understand the poverty, lawlessness and optimism of Cambodia’s economics; I myself not sure I know the depth of these contradictions. Now I realise being based in a developing country, I not understand much more than the superficial, of this global crisis. Cambodia’s tourism industry is its biggest industry and the garment factory is the second. The garment factory has lost a third of all contracts so there are many unemployed. Now I see for myself, the almost complete shut down of tourism. How many people in Cambodia are currently impacted by the global crisis?

Apr 13, 2009

Omens and criteria for decisions

I knew I was leaving Ratanakiri soon, when I saw my favourite lake spot on far side of lake where hardly anyone went, disastrously changed into a public swimming platform! The walk around the lake always existed and within steps beyond the original swimming platform, the path became narrow, overhung by bamboo and seeing reptiles or birds was common. ‘My spot’ was about 150 metres up around a bend and then I stepped off the path into a natural waterway, where there was a little shallow rocky ledge that made entering the lake okay.


On my visit before going to PP for final interview with Friends I saw the workmen had widen the path, made a little creek crossing into a substantial bridge and had started on a large 40metre square platform that goes over the water and with steps down into the water. Its perfect for tourists and locals. Such infrastructure is required as tourism increases to the lake.

But its ‘my spot’!

Not any longer, was what I reconciled myself too. It was an omen to move to PP. It was a message that I was able to move on, just as Cambodia’s most provinces were changing.


In PP messages and criteria are little more subtle if not contradictory ….


I made my criteria for a place to rent. It must have good security, be in a locals’ area rather than expat high-rise apartments and have a great kitchen. So I chose a French colonial building with what seems to be a fab Khmer family whose father works in the Ministry of Interior and has no kitchen! Well they will add a kitchen. Of course. Yet my inflexible, I know what I want, have made my predetermined criteria of a kitchen was so quickly swayed by other factors ….


In PP, the staircase entrances to apartments has caught my eye. Most of them are horrid! They are narrow, hot, smelly with steps that make me mince along, teetering on edge of the tiny steps, unable to pass through a doorway with my small backpack on, as its all so narrow. Ugh! And keys for metal gate-like doors with padlock after padlock.



Thus I adored the wide, open, breezy and clean stairwell of my French colonial building. It’s a marvel as its wide enough for two people to pass, is open on one side and the spiral effect means the steps are not steep. Did I just choose a place due to its stairwell ….?

Top two pics are of the temporary home's gated, narrow entrance and stairs and bottom picture is the French influenced spiral stairwell




Mar 13, 2009

Gecko eating cream cheese

Blue Cow is the cream cheese available, thanks to French influence. I take the tin foil covered pre-packaged portion, a butter knife and savoury biscuits with me, to sit in front of the tv. Having eaten all my biscuits, the now empty foil and the knife are still sitting on the coffee table. Its glass top low table pulled up close to me, as I am lazy as I find out from BBC, if the world is still out there.
Heard tap tap, in gentle metallic rhythm. Looked down at table, only 2 inch from my elbow, is a fat bellied gecko licking the knife. Sensibly licking it from the blunt edge into the centre of knife. Tiny little tongue, leisurely getting the left over cheese. Did I see a look of decadence and enjoyment of western products in the little reptile’s eye?

The gecko ignored me and kept on dining.
Can’t be good for his or her diet is all I thought, as I looked back to watch the news.
Tap ..... tap ....... tap ........ tap




Jan 8, 2009

Seaside handicrafts

A small pile of seashells, in an old plastic bag with the sand gathering in the corners of the plastic, is decreasing as the woman nimbly picks up another tiny sea shell and snips off the end with nail clippers. The second woman threads the shell onto the line. Occasionally she looks at her work critically to assess how it’s coming along. It’s a necklace of shells, with some colour added into the natural brown and beige tiny shells that make up most of the necklace. The colour is added every 6th or so spot between the tiny ones and she makes sure the pattern is even. The first woman never glances up, focused on removing the end of the spiral seashells not much larger than grains of rice, creating a seaside bead, with the tiny clipped ends of the shells falling around her.

We are all sitting on the pavement beside Kep beach. These women sell to tourists their handicrafts from flat baskets carried to their side, one part of basket resting on their hip or more often from squatting on the pavement with the basket of items in front of them. Most of the trinkets are gaudy by western standards, bright red dyed shells made into 3 inch high towers of I know not what and cowie shells glued to together with twigs into another shape not so aesthetically pleasing to my eye.

They sell mostly to Khmer tourists they say. They tell me if they sell to westerners, we only ever buy the necklaces like she is making now.

I ask how does she make the bright coloured shells, the pieces that are bright pink or green that she is using to create the pattern. She tells me she not know how they are made but wants to know, to learn. She buys these pieces from someone in the district that borders the Vietnam coastline. She knows they come from the ocean, the flat pieces of coloured shell, but when she buys them they already have the hole made in the shell, ready for her to thread onto the necklace. Same for the palm size cowie shells that have little pictures engraved onto the side, they too come from the ocean she tells me, but not made here in Kep. No not here she tells me. She enjoys collecting the small shells used for the jewellery she says but goes to a different beach near the crab market behind us, where there are more shells, not where we are now by this beach of sand.

Sometimes Khmer ‘big men’ get angry with her if they suspect the jewellery and trinkets come from Vietnam. She is referring to the powerful, rich Phnom Penh based men who have brought their family to the beach for a visit and she waves vaguely at the enormous black Hummer vehicle that is just pulling up to the nearby picnic areas. The other women run with their baskets of goodies over to the car touting for a sale, while this woman continues to thread her shells onto her necklace. The women who had all sat together joking and talking with me become competitors for a moment as an impossible number of women and children pile out of the Hummer, in their expensive clothes and each child with high heels and makeup that matches their mothers and older sisters. I am unable to see from my spot on the cement pavement what is bought but plenty is being sold to this wealthy Khmer family.