Catholic School as Vicious as Roman Rule

I was talking with a friend the other week about the Death Cab for Cutie song, “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” I remarked that the song itself sounds somewhat bleak and flat, but I’ve always enjoyed listening to it. I said I wasn’t sure why but I’ve always been fond of that verse, “Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule; I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black.” This led my friend to describe a scene in the novel, “Anne of Green Gables” when a teacher wields a yardstick at her pupils in a late Victorian era classroom. I thought the scene was interesting but I didn’t think much of it until I went home later that evening and recalled something that happened to me as a child. When I was 4 years old, I went to a traditional Catholic school in Hong Kong. The school was taught by Chinese people, in Chinese tongue, for Chinese children. I’m half Chinese, half white. In Hong Kong, they have a name for caucausians: gwai lo, which translates white devil. Still, like I mentioned, this was, ironically enough, a Catholic school – and a very strict one at that. In addition to my obvious tainted contamination by the white devil, I was also born to be left-handed. In China, those who write and use chopsticks with their left hands are traditionally scorned upon. I’m not sure if an English interpretation of left-handedness for being sneaky, treacherous, tricky, or untrustworthy is the same in the Chinese language. Naturally, I wrote with my left hand, so my teacher would beat my left hand with a bamboo stick until I could no longer write with it. Of course, I quickly became right-handed. Anyway, I now realize why that verse, “Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule” always resonated within me, even though I had never actually pinpointed the origin of my song association. Listened in its entirety, that song does make me feel sad… well, gentle sadness. Oddly enough, most of my favourite songs have this sad or dark feeling about them.

The song has a beautiful music video:
deathcab I will follow you into the dark

Déjà Vu

My Dad wasn’t the most talkative person. When he and Ricki, my step-mother, separated, our meals at the dinner table would be anything but gregarious. During most dinners neither of us would utter a word. Looking back I don’t think I made it easy for him. Although, don’t we all when we’re going through teenage angst? During high school I was a brooding teenager who moped around the halls with head held down and hands tucked in pockets. I’d come home from school, go straight to my room, shut the door, escape to my cd collection, come out for dinner, then head back to my room and close the door behind me. My self-imposed exile to my room was largely consequential of my penchant for solitude and meticulous self scrutiny. In isolation, I would observe my actions, thoughts, desires, hopes and fears. Even on a packed bus or a bustling street I would withdraw from my surroundings and climb the inner synaptic walls of my narcissistic neurosis. If I was asked how my day at school was, I replied “Fine.” And if I was asked what I did or what I had learned, I’d say “Nothing.” My withdrawn silence used to drive Ricki up the wall. She would say “Really? You did nothing? So you just sat at the desk and did absolutely nothing all day?” To which I’d respond with a scowling glare.

Today, I’m still fond of the occasional brooding days. I’m unsure of what provokes these pensive moods. The weather, olfactory memories and certain songs will put me in an introspective state. Rainy days always put me in a reflective mood. I think mostly due to the fact that the rain forces me indoors. If you’re staring out the window and all you see is grey skies and colourless puddles, how can you not be put into a state of melancholy? Vancouver is notorious for this kind of weather so it isn’t uncommon to find yourself arrested in a brooding mood for a whole week. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’m gloomy for a week. I actually enjoy brooding now and then. I get to catch up on all my deep thinking.

I think my olfactory moments are closely tied with déjà vu experiences. A certain smell, or even a particular sound will remind me of something from the past. It could be at the most unexpected moment too. It could be the way the morning mist smells on a particular day, or the song of a bird chirping away outside, or even insignificant background noise. I’ll pause at these moments and reflect. Sometimes I feel it reminds me of something from my past but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Very déjà vu at times.

Sometimes songs invoke certain memories and feelings that can be even more tangible than physical stimuli. Depressing songs affect me the most too but they don’t define me. I’m not a dark person – although I’m sure this post is painting me in that light – but I would say I’m very sentimental. When I was younger, my Dad used to frequently go on trips and be away for months at a time. I remember one day, he was going on an overseas trip and I was playing his Annie Lennox cd (“Medusa”) in my room. I didn’t change the cd in the stereo the entire two months he was gone because I didn’t want to forget the day he had left. This probably sounds strange, as I was already in grade 9 at the time. To this day when I hear a song from that album, I always think about that memory. I suppose this partly explains why sad songs affect me in ways that happy songs cannot.

Note: Certain prose and poetry can also put me into deep thought, but I think that subject deserves its own post. For another day.

Oi! ching chong china man! Go back to your bloody country!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
I’m fortunate to have only experienced racism firsthand once in my life. I was in grade 8 and living on my step-grandfather’s farm in Melbourne, Australia. I still remember the 30 min walk from the farm house to the main road where I’d catch the school bus. I would talk with my friend, John, on the 40 min bus ride to school. There was an older kid in grade 10 who would come on the bus and tease me, taunting, “Hey, ching chong china man! Go back to your bloody country!” Hands raised to his cheeks, he would mock an Asian slanty-eyed expression. A fairly quiet and passive kid, I chose to ignore him. Actually, at first I was slightly amused and confused because I didn’t even consider myself to look Asian. To be honest, I never looked particularly Asian or white. I am half Chinese, half Scottish, but people often mistook me for Italian, Spanish, South American or Hawaiian, but never Asian. I was shocked that he could even tell I was Chinese – well, half. While I had chosen to ignore his taunts, two weeks passed, and one day on the bus ride back home, the emotions inside took me over. Getting on the bus at school, he did his usual ching chong china man routine. Inside I became incredibly angry. Although I must have done a very good job at hiding my anger because the whole bus ride to my bus stop I was chatting away normally with my friend, John. As John and I started to walk down the bus aisle to the exit, I stopped right in front of the bully, and without a word, unloaded a few punches to his face. I then walked quietly off the bus. John was ahead of me so he never knew what happened. Actually, it all happened in a matter of seconds, so I don’t think anybody on the bus caught the flurry. I remember as we were walking away from the bus stop, I looked back at the bus as it drove away and saw it stop suddenly in the middle of the road, but I didn’t take much notice of this at the time. By the time I walked from the main road to the farm house, my step-mum, Ricki, was waiting for me. She told me she had been on the phone with the police and that apparently I had broken the kid’s nose and blood had stained the entire bus seat. I was a very sensitive kid so I immediately broke down in tears. The only thing I kept thinking was that I would be sent away to this island prison surrounded by the killer sharks (I had visited this prison on a tour the previous summer), where I’d eventually die and be buried with all the other old dead inmates. I had a wild imagination. My step-mum was furious with me. Luckily, the police said the family wasn’t going to press charges but my school did suspend me for two weeks. On my last day of class before my suspension, I had to ask all my teachers to sign the suspension form. I still remember my english teacher looking at me with a surprised look on his face when I passed him the suspension form. In a puzzled voice, he said, “Jack, what on earth are you being suspended for? This must be a mistake, mate. You’re such a great student.” I told him what had happened. Nodding his head, he told me in the straightest voice, “Good on ya, mate” and then signed the suspension form. My Dad and everybody on Ricki’s side of the family, except Ricki, all said I did the right thing for standing up for myself. I don’t regret it. That bully never spoke a word or even glanced in my direction ever again.

That is my only encounter with the ugly truth that is racism. While I did live on the outskirts of the city, far remote from metropolitan Melbourne, I was still shocked by this experience. This was 1997, not Rosa Parks circa 1955. I can’t even imagine the outcome if I was of a much more visible minority. Would I have been strung up and lynched? Would the school board thought better to expel me? The issue of race certainly seemed to be swept swiftly under the rug in the meeting room when they decided my troubling, violent actions warranted a two week suspension. They dismissed my protests that I had been racially harassed, and instead focused on my “uncivilized” response. I’m sorry. Was I being uncivil when I retaliated against the boy who cussed me with racial slurs? Perhaps quipping back with some racial slurs of my own would have been more civil of me. True, raising my fists was perhaps not the best form of conflict resolution but it certainly did the job. A harassment complaint would have probably given me further ridicule from the bully – and perhaps even more from those who learned I had tattled. I should be thankful that my racial pedigree went largely unnoticed in that school. As unsettling as it was, this encounter with racism remains one of the oddest experiences – I am tempted to call it an anomaly – of my childhood. I just never considered myself to look Asian nor be teased for it. While I still love Australia and still believe Australians have a great outlook towards life, I’m still disappointed that a significant proportion of Australians remain quite prejudiced.

Mixed, Raced and Confused

My mother is Chinese. My father is Scottish. Which makes me half Chinese, half Scottish. I didn’t always see it this way. As a child, I saw myself as either one or the other. How do I explain my confusion with being identified with being Chinese or being white? Would it make sense if I were to say that at certain periods and in certain places, I would try hard to fit in by being whatever others were. For example, when I lived in Hong Kong, I would call myself Chinese; when I lived in Australia, I would call myself white. Yet, in certain periods of my childhood and in particular countries, I would try hard to be different from what others were. For example, the situations would be the same, but my sentiment reversed: In Hong Kong, I would call myself white; in Australia, I would call myself Chinese. You probably have a puzzled look on your face. Like I said, I’m not sure if I’m able to articulate clearly the reasons for these clashes in sentiment.

I remember as a kid in Hong Kong, I longed to look Asian. I envied the other school kids with their jet-black hair, soft white skin, and super neat handwriting. It’s true, their handwriting looked like perfectly stencilled work next to my sloppy chicken-scratch. There was also a brief period when I thought all Asians looked the same – and I imagine some Asians think all white people look the same. When I moved to foreign countries I would start to distance myself from my Asian pedigree when I found myself surrounded by white people. I never felt ashamed of either race. I just always had this urge to fit in. At birth, I was given the name, Jack. In Hong Kong, I was called Jackie, as this was quite common there. I didn’t mind being called Jackie when I was little because Jackie Chan was in fact, my hero. But to my horror, I found out by a classmate in Scotland that Jackie was a girl name in the UK. So I immediately distanced myself from the name, Jackie, and insisted I be called Jack from that moment on. So, I was no longer Jackie, I was Jack. I was no longer Chinese. I was Scottish. I had no concept of being half Chinese, half Scottish; it was either one or the other.

But within a short span of time, I’d do a complete 180 and long for my Asian roots and cling on to anything that reminded me of Hong Kong. I would re-watch all of my mum’s old video recordings of Chinese movies and canto-pop performances (which my Dad had packed for me when we moved away). If people asked where I was from, I would say “Hong Kong” and say that I was Chinese. I would be proud of this too. I would switch back and forth between being Asian and being white multiple times. I know I’m still not explaining why this was the case, I’m just saying what I would do. The truth is, I don’t know why. At some point in my late teens, I came to accept I was of mixed race. This rigid dichotomy between being Chinese and being white seemed to dissolve. The wall was torn down. There were no life-changing moments of enlightenment or changes in character. Life resumed course at the same speed and in the same manner as it always had. I simply felt fine with being half Chinese, half Scottish. In fact, I embraced being Eurasian and felt proud for what I saw as having the best of both worlds. Granted, while moving countries continuously throughout childhood certainly gave me a worldly view, I still consider my Asian and Western genes and upbringing to give me an even greater appreciation for different cultures.

Being brought up with two different sets of value systems did mould my character. Chinese families traditionally embrace the idea of a closely-knit family. Parents reinforce the importance of close family ties by very closely looking after their children well beyond the point of adulthood, and are still very much involved in all aspects of their children’s family affairs. Western families tend to let more slack on the leash over their children, which fosters greater independence on the part of the children. Some may remark the Western family unit is less close, thus, colder. However, I find it better prepares the child for the realities of adulthood. At least, these are my views from my own experience. I was raised by my Dad from birth right through to my late teens. Since I left Hong Kong at the age of 8, I had no contact with my mother until I turned 18, so I did not truly become acquainted with Chinese family values firsthand until well past my formative years. Being raised by my father definitely made me into a much more independent person. He told me he had dropped out of high school and left the house at the age of 15. So, I always expected that once I turned 18, I would be off on my own. I started earning my own keep at the age of 14 and was out of the house at the age of 17, but that’s a different story altogether.

While I did struggle with the concept of being of mixed race growing up, I found I was able to eventually accept myself for who I was without categorizing myself by race. I think that the more of a melting point our society becomes, the less ethnicity and race are used as a category of analysis to identify with one another. My name is Jack. I am half Chinese, half Scottish. Some mornings I wake up and feel Asian and other mornings I feel white.

Even Hercules was Mortal

As a child I looked up to my Dad on the same plane as a King or Hercules. He was my hero. “My Dad could beat up your Dad” was something I’d often tout to my friends. Sadly, as I grew older, it seemed my Dad went from an invincible, mythologized figure to a middle aged man who suffers the same problems like all other mere mortals. I’d say my respect for him went down, as did my confidence in myself. In a way, his failures became my worst fears. Through his experiences I saw dreams made, and while some were achieved, some weren’t, and some were lost. I guess it was a humbling realization. It may sound depressing but I don’t see it in that way. No, I’m not a downer. I’m aware I’m sounding like some miserable nihilist at the moment. But I’m definitely not. I’ve always had this belief that I am capable of making things right or that even if things don’t look great at the moment I somehow always land on both feet. Not to say that things will land on my lap out of nowhere. Anything that I have achieved or hope to ever achieve has, and will always, come through hard work. I guess what I’m trying to say is that as a kid, I imagined my Dad as this larger-than-life figure who had all the answers in life and was never scared of anything. But as I grew older I realized he was only human like the rest of us and he too has his fair share of fears. Yet, I actually find it reassuring to realize he doesn’t have all the answers, and that actually, nobody does, so I don’t feel quite alone. Despite all this, I still look up to him and have respect for him and learn from him. But, I find I learn more from his mistakes and failures than anything else. That’s just how I see things in all aspects of life. Perhaps that explains why I like reading about people who endured impoverished and unfortunate circumstances. I expect to learn more from stories of those who overcome adversity.

Black Sheep

I have an odd thing against fads. In fact, I can be so stubborn that I’ll refuse to listen/read/do certain things when it seems everyone is following a fad. I still haven’t read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code because I didn’t like how everyone was gushing over it. My friends in high school kept saying I “had to” read this book. I didn’t like that. It took me 7 years before I watched the Titanic movie. I used to think those Affliction shirts were cool when I saw MMA fighters wearing them, but I don’t like how it seems every tool in the lower mainland is now wearing them. I’m not sure why I don’t like fads. I just don’t like following what everyone else is doing.

I wasn’t always this way. I have this stubborn tendency to be the black sheep in the herd but I can’t pinpoint when this started. I’m not sure if it is my innate personality, but I have a feeling it was passed from my Dad and Stepmum. I always heard things like “Why would you want to be normal?” or “Normal is boring. Be different” or “Stop thinking what others are thinking and do what you want.” For a while I used to be quite frustrated with my parents for always being so different from my friends’ parents. For a start, why on earth did we have to move so much? Ever since an early age, I was never in the same school for more than a year before we jumped to a different city and/or country. I started thinking we more closely resembled a pack of Gypsies than a normal family. I longed for normality, consistency, monotony, suburbia, pop tarts, junk food, white bread, brand name clothes, MTV, and Nintendo. Instead, I was told POP tarts weren’t real food; if I were to eat instant noodles, I’d have to replace the brain cancer seasoning packets with soy sauce; if I was hungry then have some fruit; MTV was trash; video games thwart creativity; if I was bored then read a book; wearing Nike meant supporting child labour. Needless to say, I only ate brown bread, brown rice, absolutely no junk food, and having a soda was considered a treat. The idea of entertainment was considered listening to music and drawing in my room. Going out to a restaurant for dinner was unheard of. Watching TV while eating dinner was out of the question. If I ever got into trouble, my parents never ‘grounded’ me because they considered it a useless form of punishment. Instead, they just gave me more chores to do. I was always ashamed as a kid for not being ‘normal’ or not fitting in with the rest. I was very self conscious of the fact I never wore the ‘cool’ clothes other kids wore. Maybe the instability of continuously moving to new places and never knowing how long it would be until the next move made me long for what I saw as comfort, safety, predictability and consistency in other kids’ families.

I’m rambling. 

What am I getting at here? Hmm… I’m lost… I started out explaining why as a kid I always wanted to fit in but ended up rambling on about my insignificant childhood. I guess I should just finish this train of thought by saying that in recent years, despite my former tendency to conform and seek acceptance, I now catch myself saying or thinking things I heard my parents say to me when I was younger. I guess their years of unconventional parenting somehow got through to me. I now find myself reluctant to wear what everyone else is wearing, avoid wearing brand names for the sake of showing off the brand name itself, wary of books that everyone says I must read, and hesitant of doing something just because everyone else is doing it. I hope I don’t come across as a pretentious snob, which I’m sure I do. I hope that sharing my childhood experiences made sense of some of my disdain for fads. But if it didn’t, I’m not surprised, because even I can’t make sense of my childhood.

Bedtime Stories

It’s funny, kids reach a certain age when it suddenly becomes un-cool to hug or kiss their parents. I remember there was a period when I wouldn’t kiss my Dad anymore, so if we were to ever part for an extended length of time and say our goodbyes, he’d say “What? You too old to give your old man a kiss?” I’d go all red, shuffle my feet and just give him a reluctant hug. My Dad usually had a beard or moustache when I was a child. Whenever I’d be tucked into bed and kissed goodnight, I’d always squirm and laugh at the touch of his prickly beard against my cheek. Hmm, that was a very random thought.

My Meeting With a Pterodactyl

I was having a conversation with a good friend the other day when the subject of traumatizing experiences with wild animals came up. It brought back a horrific but hilarious story of my childhood in Brisbane, Australia. Aside from being chased by dogs while delivering papers on my paper route, I was also victim to flying predators from above. For those of you not familiar with magpies, they are indigenous passerine birds of the crow family native to Australia. They closely resemble a crow except they also wear white markings. Australians will warn you that spring is magpie season, and the mother and father magpies become highly aggressive and protective of their young ones. Caution is advised to bicyclists who happen to ride in the vicinity of magpie nests during this season as the adult magpies will often swoop down and attack the poor soul who enters their domain.

I still remember very clearly the day I was riding my bicycle home from school on a bright hot day in September. I was cycling at a leisurely pace along a stretch of paved road when I hear this excruciatingly loud, hysterical squawk behind my ear. I feel two violent blows to the back of my skull. Frightened, head throbbing and heart racing, I turn around to find what appears to be a pterodactyl flapping its wings inches from my face. I quickly face straight ahead and start pedaling as fast as I possibly can while screaming bloody murder. Suddenly, I hear my back tire blow out and I find myself slowing down. As the bicycle loses speed I quickly jump off, start yelling, swearing my head off, jumping up and down, and waving my hands in the air at what I soon realize is not an extinct flying dinosaur, but a very much non-extinct, and very vocal magpie. It must have looked like quite the scene. Ok, thinking about this now I find it very hard not to laugh out loud, but I assure you at the time, I was in quite the distraught state. In fact, my body was trembling at the traumatizing thought of just being violently attacked by a magpie. What in the bloody hell had I done to offend him or her? Shaking, and muttering filthy obscenities, I walked my bicycle the rest of the way home with my tail between my legs. I guess I should explain that I had already popped my tire twice that month over some broken glass on the road. So when I asked my Dad to help me repair my puncture he got irritated and told me to go repair it myself. I explained what had happened and that the magpie had popped my tire, but he wouldn’t have any of that. He said I had a very creative imagination but he wasn’t going to be duped into believing that a piece of poultry had swooped down and popped my tire. We had only just moved to Australia the previous winter so we weren’t aware yet of the dangers of magpie season. He said he had never heard of birds attacking bicyclists and told me to stop making up stupid stories. I was furious. I threw the bicycle down and ran to my room in a raging fit. Obviously, I was upset because the attack was undeniably very real to me, and I was frustrated that my Dad thought I was telling lies.

Well, I eventually had my victory when a few months later, we were all watching the news on TV and a segment came on warning parents to make sure their children wore helmets during magpie season. I remember jumping up from the couch and shouting defiantly, “Ah ha! I told you so!” to my Dad. I was quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately, the news segment never mentioned a word on magpies popping bicycle tires. But I assure you that this magpie bloody well popped my tire! And I still remember whenever I rode my bicycle home from school and came across that stretch of road, I would always start waving a fist in the air and roar like a raving lunatic at any would-be feathered attackers to “eff off!”

Arabic Skies

My spongy hands dig deep into the damp, grassy field. My legs are planted in an up-right position, ready to pounce at any notice. My eyes shift towards the man to my right, also firmly entrenched in a position of alertness. “Ready.. Steady.. Go!” he shouts out loud. My heartbeat flutters, as do my legs, which rise three feet into the air. Like a racehorse released from its cage, I launch with a powerful burst of force akin to that of an Olympic athlete. The terrain feels like sponge cake as my feet dart across its auspice plain. I see the sinewed shape of his back ahead of me. I am in awe over the rapid, swift strides he takes with ease. I summon every ounce of energy within my tiny, elastic body as I eye the finish line twenty strides ahead. My breath turns into a deep hoarse pant, my lungs expand, stealing as much air as they possibly can. My legs grow lighter and my arms flail up and down without any thought from my brain. My body is instinctively using every filament within its limbs, blood vessels, organs and sinew to rush forward to the finish line. No brain activity is required. The heart simply understands my will and forces my legs forth with a passionate, persuasive push. I look to my right and my body is now horizontally even with his. Less than ten paces from the finish line. My body starts to gain distance from his. I am winning, I think to myself. With little breath left in me, I begin to laugh. My body is weightless. He smiles as he crosses the finish line behind me. My legs flop onto the ground beneath me. The cool wetness of the grass welcomes me. I look up and watch the mist smear the purple sky. The sun is beginning to rise to the east. Strange sounds from afar can be heard. No words are exchanged between my father and I. None are needed. Heads leaned back, we lay sprawled on earth and laugh like Kings. Our bodies take in the magnetic morning and our eyes are drawn to the masterfully arranged Arabic sky. The year is 1989. We are in Cairo, Egypt.

Elephant Gun

It is a two and a half hour drive to the farm from Melbourne. The ultraviolet sun beats down hard on the fading red Holden station wagon. I sat in the back seat, staring through the window to the east, watching the photochemical smog and city skyline receding farther and farther away into the horizon. With already thirteen straight weeks at the number one spot, Alanis Morisette’s song, “Ironic” has been blasting radio airwaves. Like most kids my age, I should have been at school that day, but because my parents were constantly on the move, they thought it was for my own good to travel with them, and be home-schooled on the road. I owe the unorthodox education of my early teenage years to my father and Ricki, my stepmother. We were going to visit the farm that Ricki’s father, Gunter, had built in the 1960s, when Ricki was still a child. Actually, her whole family was going to be there. I had already been to the farm several times so I knew what to expect – 56 acres of dry, mostly un-arable land, a farmhouse that was not connected to any main power grid or sewage system, a dated television that could barely pick up two local stations via a deformed metal coat hanger, and Gunter’s daft dog.

We arrived at noon, finding Gunter with his head under the hood of his unregistered 1956 pick-up truck, wearing a sweaty under-shirt, brown and black from engine grease, and red suspenders to keep his trousers high above his large, but charming, potbelly. When he heard the sound of our car doors slam shut, he finished what he was doing, then looked up and, seeing me rub my shoulder, grinned. “How is the old arm, lad?” he asked, chuckling.

The week before, when Gunter and his wife, Esther, and my parents and I were having lunch at the farm, Gunter was telling us one of his many stories, when outside in a full-sized eucalyptus tree, more than six dozen cockatoos were singing enthusiastically, repeatedly interrupting Gunter’s story. In a fit of rage, he stood up from the table, rushed to the next room to grab the long, double-barrel shotgun he had brought from South Africa, and charged out the front door, curiously followed by my father and me. He pointed the shotgun towards the tree, without taking the care to aim, and fired two thunderous shots. As the cockatoos scattered, dispersing away from the tree in a matter of seconds, my father and I stood in awe, gaping at the sight of one cockatoo falling out of the sky like a brick. Gunter turned to face us, carrying a smug expression on his face that said “what? I don’t need to aim,” immensely pleased with himself for having proven some sort of point. My dad looked more disgusted than shocked, not at the fact that the old man had just shot dead an innocent cockatoo that was merely exercising free speech, but with the fact that the gunslinger believed his successful kill was due to skill and not luck. I, on the other hand, couldn’t keep myself from smiling, and asked Gunter if I could give the hand cannon a try. “This one isn’t like the .22 you usually fire, boy” he replied, while dispensing the empty crumpled cartridges from the smoking barrel and reloading it with two new red ones from his pocket. Leaning his head close to my shoulders, I could smell Nana’s home-made lunch and whiskey in his breath as he placed the shotgun in my small, pliable hands and adjusted my slender arms into proper form. My father, at this point looking quite anxious, warned me of the powerful kickback. I took determined aim at a dead tree stump about twenty seven yards away, slowed my breathing like my father had taught me, pulled the trigger, and was suddenly, violently thrown back four feet into a cloud of dust.

A week later, my right shoulder was still purple, but not as sore as it had felt the day I fired Gunter’s big shotgun. I wondered where the gun had been, whose hands had held the smooth, dark wooden edges of the fore-end and stock, stared down at its cold metal sights, and what, or who, had been facing the ominous barrel. Apparently it was a relic from the Second World War. Gunter’s father had been forcibly thrown into the German army when Hitler’s army overtook his country, Czechoslovakia. His father’s entire family perished in the concentration camps. His father was never sent to the Front, and near the end of the war, with little choice, was quickly thrown into the British army once the Allies had arrived. After the war, he immigrated to London, where he set up a small business as a clothier, and eventually started a family with his future wife, Helda. Their son, Gunter, the only man left to carry his father’s family name, in his early twenties, wanted to join the army so he could “shoot some fucking Germans” but was only allowed to join the home guard as he was still a university student. At the farm, on the wall of the living room hung an elephant gun, which Gunter had brought back from Malawi, where he had once held a chief-like role – or so he liked to think – in a village, until the country eventually won independence from the British in the 1960s. Ricki’s name was actually Rebecca, but the locals had given her the nickname, “Ricki” which meant “Rebecca” in their native Bantu tongue. I couldn’t believe the gun, which looked like a giant trombone horn attached to a rifle, in the hands of a small man, could bring down a 15,000lb elephant. The house was filled with these kinds of artifacts of the past, reminders of a time before, and links to people who were no longer.

Gunter had built the one-storey house in the late 1960s after his family had immigrated to Australia. He built the farm on the side of a mountain facing opposite Melbourne as a bomb shelter because he was genuinely worried that “the Russians were coming!” From a bird’s eye view, one would see a very long, rectangular shaped metallic rooftop. Ricki’s brother, Gary, had built an extension in the 1970s, adding a second master bedroom, a study, a second den, and two bedrooms. One could easily see the furnishings and home-ware either reflected the murky yellowish tan or hideous deep purple of the seventies (thanks to Gary) or looked like an antique from the Crimean War. The grandfather clock that stood tall in the living room had belonged to Esther’s grandmother in Austria. The dining table, made of solid oak, had served at least two former generations. I remember when I sat at the table during meals, I never spoke unless spoken to as the saying I often heard was, “children should be seen but not heard.” Before every meal was over, Gunter never missed an opportunity to either say to a person with a spoon-full left – or less – on their plate, “if you were a poor, starving child in Africa, would you finish that last spoonful of food?” or “what if you were lost in the Sahara Desert?” He never asked those questions to Nana if she didn’t leave her plate empty because he knew full well he would get a prompt, thumping whack over his head!

During the evening, after dinner, Gunter would sit in his aged, wrinkly brown arm chair, next to the fireplace, with his dim-witted but loyal dog at his feet, hold his never-empty whiskey glass, and tell me stories of Ancient Rome, explain how Alexander the Great revolutionized military strategy, or describe the causes for the First and Second World Wars. The man, a heavy whiskey drinker, often offensive in speech, was a walking encyclopedia that never ceased to fascinate me. I would ask him a question about anything and he would give me an answer. I asked him how he knew so much about history and he told me he taught himself from reading books. I was still too young at the time to hold interest for more than five minutes reading any history textbook so I preferred to listen to the old man, who I liked to call my walking history book, or after the cockatoo incident, “Gunter the Hunter.” At night he slept in his own bedroom because he snored so loudly that Nana couldn’t sleep next to him. She told me that he would talk loudly in his sleep and that he would answer his own questions, often engaging in long, intense arguments with himself.

The old man, already in his early seventies, still worked hard, five days a week, running a plastic recycling factory he had built in the 1970s. He and his wife would stay at the farm over the weekends, caring to their garden, and the lemon orchard he had planted thirty years ago which looked more like a sad collection of ornamental bonsai trees that never grew any lemons. He didn’t need to keep running the factory, but he kept working because that’s just the man he was – he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t work – and he often joked he would likely be found dead while on the job. I remember one day, during a particularly hotter than usual heat wave, Gunter, my father, and I were about a quarter of a mile north of the house, cutting down some trees for firewood. Gunter and my dad were discussing the heat wave and dangers of a wild bush fire encroaching near the house. Childish boy that I was, often quick to speak before I thought about what I was about to say, I made a foolish remark on how funny it would be if a bushfire came and burnt down the house. Their conversation evaporated instantly, and I immediately realized I had said something I shouldn’t have, and when Gunter’s head turned towards me, I expected to see an angry red face, and possibly get a stinging belt across my ear, but I was shocked to see that his face, which moments ago had been red from the blistering sun, had turned pale as ivory white, and wore the most frightened expression I had ever seen. It reminded me of the previous day, when I had been hunting with a small .22 rifle, and after shooting a rabbit and walking towards my kill, I noticed that the creature was still breathing, but paralyzed, its eyes staring back at me, uncertain of what was to happen next. Standing there, I too was motionless, as I looked into Gunter’s big brown eyes, the same powerless and frightened looking eyes I had seen on the rabbit the day before. He never said a word; he didn’t have to. When I went to sleep that night, I lay there in my bed, stared out through the window at the black sky, and tried to make sense of what I had seen on Gunter’s face. There was something in the sincerity and gravity of his expression that meant more than just a reaction to my bad joke. A wild, uncontrollable bushfire could violently turn that farmhouse into ashes in under an hour and not Gunter, or anybody else, could prevent it. Sure, in suburbia, I have so much power in my hand; I can bring light to a darkened room with a flip of a switch, and punch three numbers into a telephone and have a fire brigade come to my doorstep within minutes. But in certain moments and places, even man is still helpless and powerless to the forces of Nature and of man. Everything on this earth, eventually, inevitably, turns to ash. That night I realized that Gunter wasn’t frightened so much in the prospect of losing the house and all its objects, but like the rabbit and his father, paralyzed in fear, was terrified at how small and vulnerable he felt in a situation over which he had no apparent control.