Christmas Narrative

Tannenbaum: A Touching and Anecdotal Christmas Narrative

Christmas falls on the 25^th this year and has become somewhat of a tradition around our house. Today, we are putting up our seven and a half foot pre-lit Christmas tree that we purchased early in the season at the Festival of Trees. This is a Christmas charity event designed to raise money for cancer research. Apparently, it is the last year of the program and since they were selling off their entire inventory of trees and decorations we were able to score on this tree at about a quarter of the cost, and what says Merry Christmas more than a cheap, fake Christmas tree.

You may already sense, from my Christmas tree reference that my narrative contains a sad and cynical bent to it. I admit that one of the toughest times of the year is Christmas. There are significant and numerous expectations in terms of family commitments, giving, sharing, worshiping or not worshiping, preparing and attending, or not attending all the various seasonal events. This year I think Cheryl and I worked hard at getting in the Christmas spirit. This does not count the day that I went to a gardening store in late September and saw one of the clerks erecting artificial Christmas trees for display purposes. I recoil from premature celebration syndrome (PCS) and I think that early celebration does deserve an anti-kudo and a hardy bah-humbug. Likewise, in terms of holiday parameters and guidelines, playing of any Christmas music in stores prior to December 1^st is totally unacceptable, as is any display of exterior illumination prior to Dec, or maybe late November, qualifies for the naughty list.

However, we did attend festive choir and choral presentations at several churches, enjoyed the stage version of “A Christmas Story,” attended Steward Macleans Vinyl Cafe Christmas celebration at the Centre in the Square and also at the same venu we listened to the Messiah. We had front row seat and could watch the facial gestures of the opera singers as if we had viewed them through binoculars from seats in the upper balcony. It was that close. In addition I was totally amazed and enraptured at how closely Handell's operatic plot line so closely paralleled the life of Jesus. Uncanny I thought at the time. As a Christmas finale we shopped, just like the rest of the Western World. I think we did it all, or as much as we could to generate a genuine Christmas spirit. I even went to a wreath making class at the Emporium in New Dundee.

In an way of a festive historical perspective Queen Victoria had entries in her childhood diary of gathering around the Christmas tree. This sounds about right because her family was actually married into some sort of incestuous relationship with relatives in Germany who really do get the credit for introducing the use of the Christmas tree to the western world. Even earlier Martin Luther, in his rebellious stage from the entire Catholic Church, had time to decorate a Christmas tree with the thought that the lights represented the celestial heavens in all their splendor. If only Luther had been around for the age of Edison when he gathered his family around the first Christmas tree in the free world rigged with coloured electric lights, fresh out of Menlo Park and courtesy of General Electric, a company that he owned. It was likely that on that first electric Noel Mrs Edison quipped, “Thomas (Edison) why do all of the lights on the tree go out when there is only one defective bulb?” A whole new tradition had started.

In a religious sense however, the Christmas tree, on a two dimensional geometric plane, looks like a triangle of sorts and is therefore representative of the holy trinity. I guess we have come along way since then by adopting a more secular, and dare I say commercial approach to what was once at best a pagan symbol adopted as a Christian-secular symbol and now a commercial icon of the age of shopping. In our own quiet, western way we can clear cut our way to the Christmas season, or as we are doing this day erecting and fluffing out our real-fake-cheap tree. In our home, unlike the Edison's, tree illumination duty falls to youngest residing girl in the family, Meghan. However, (as you read in the introduction) our tree came with lights thereby making Meghan redundant to the task. In the pure spirit of the season we gave and she took credit for the lights regardless of the reality.

Fluffing is quite an important process, as we as a family, recently discovered at a wreath making course we took at the Emporium in New Dundee. Mark, our very gay instructor, started the evening by showing us how to fluff out the very flat and bare wreaths that had recently arrived from China and completely flattened in cardboard boxes, inside metal cargo boxes sitting on a deck of a super tanker, loaded on a dock in Shanghai, after arriving by truck from a crowded hot factory, on a small side street next to a coal fired power station in an industrial sector of the city where they really know how to celebrate Christmas. As I was saying, fluffing is a process that will make this little industrial puppy look fresh and alive, full bodied and ready to be decorated with other pretties (my precious) also recently arrived decorations from China. Try celebrating Christmas without China in the picture (the communist country with 109 new billionaires) and see how far you get, but back to fluffing.

Once we completed the fluffing, or so we thought, Mark had to come out to our table and refluff until the desired fluff factor had been achieved. Despite being gay he was very directive. I mean maybe I don’t know much about gay men but I thought at least with the more feminine voice and gestures he would be less assertive, but then I stopped to think of all the assertive, if not domineering women I had met in my life, my ex wife included well actually especially her. I quickly realized that all my gender stereotypes weren’t worth shit and so aren’t really worth further mention in my Christmas tale.

Conceptually speaking a wreath is really just a round, and much smaller Christmas tree. I thought this observation was fairly profound. After the evening course had finished and I had produced, what I thought a pretty darn good wreath. It was well fluffed, it had five bows made by my own elven hands, with colours in the traditional Christmas theme, mainly reds, greens and golds. I exclaimed in self reflective amazement, “Mark I didn’t think I could make one of these things”

Mark replied, “Neither did I.” and I quickly realized he wasn’t talking about himself.

My own wreath now hangs proudly in my classroom where not one kid noticed it or made mention of it. Which was somewhat discouraging as I have been trying to generate some Christmas spirit there, in the class, and invited kids to bring in decorations to make the class more festive for the season, to capture the mood and get in the Christmas Zone, but all to no avail, not one decoration was brought in, none, zero, zilch, nodda one. I concluded that in some places the Christmas spirit is dead or dying as it seems to be this year in my classroom.

For Christmas spirit I had to go back further in my past. Probably the most memorable tree I have every erected was also the ugliest. Flashback with me some twenty years when Paul and Jess were much smaller critters and I still had the zeal and zest to go out into the bush close to nature and hike in knee deep snow, much like as celebrated by the Griswold family, (National Lampoon Christmas Vacation, circa1989), and seek out that one special tree. As it turned out the trees in this particular neck of the woods were so scrawny I decided to cut down two and bind them together in some manner that I had not quite conceptualized yet, but knew must be possible. The kids were thrilled they now had two trees. We tied them to the roof of the car and in the fading winter light of the northern Alberta sky I saw and soon realized that even these two trees if merged still did not equate to anything near to the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. These parts just did not cut it.

At home I managed to take a hand saw and remove all of the branches from one side of each tree. I saved the branches for later application, literally. I bound the two half trees together with some narrow guage wire and placed the mutated creation in a sturdy cast iron stand and slowly turned the thumb screws on the base until the tree(s) stood true. I then meticulously drilled several holes along the length of the trunk in which I deftly inserted some of the branches I had cut earlier. It was the ultimate in recycling and reusing a concept that had not yet been coined, I knew I was on the leading edge of something or other. Later that evening I presented the tree to the family, suddenly the room seemed cloudy and gloomy and snide comments about Charlie Brown were heard as we decorated the tree(s). My feeble attempts at morale boosting did not carry the day. I felt like going to the attic and watching home movies. I was greatly encouraged concerning the worth of my manufactured tree when just this week when Paul remembered and mentioned with fondness this very same tree(s). Christmas is about making life long memories.

While living in the Bahamas (1978-81) celebrating Christmas was a surreal activity. Putting up exterior lights in plus 80 degrees F (Celsius had not yet been invented) did not seem right. In fact it did not seem manly. I was use to a life of poor planning within a framework of weak organizational skills in which I would put the exterior lights up only weeks before Christmas in minus temperatures, braving the elements, climbing icy ladders and stapling my gloved fingers to the cedar shingles along the roof line. In a tropical climate I could go out in my shorts, while sipping beer and using a step ladder, and have the lights up in minutes. It was embarassing and unmanly, but very Christmassy in a summery way.

Being true Canadians we had to have a real Christmas tree from the homeland and not some fake, artificial, plastic product from a cardboard box refer to paragraph 7 for the whole China scenario. We had picked up the perfect tree from an Anglican church fund raiser. It had actually been harvested from a Nova Scotian tree farm in October (Christmas as I mentioned in my introductory sentence falls on Dec 25^th) and transferred to some slow tramp steamer that, probably and just for spite sails to China first, before entering Nassau harbour where the trees are brutally manhandled and trucked over to the Anglican church bazaar where I later bought it for an inflated price. But I had the real deal. Sadly, but not surprisingly, like my Charlie Brown bi-tree, it too lost its needles rapidly on the hot tropical evenings. It stood with blazing lights basting the scorching the tortured needles until they fell in fistfuls, as if under going some sort of sadistic coniferous chemotherapy

My Bahamian experience with Christmas trees brings to the fore the hotly contested controversy between the purest, who maintain that Christmas can only be honoured beneath the bows of a Scotch pine tree shipped in from a tree farm in Nova Scotia (or grown locally) and those who would and could settle for the boxed variety. I have seen silver trees. I have seen pink artificial trees and recently at a HO HO event where we paid to go on a tour viewing Christmas decorations in the private mega homes of the rich and powerful who really know how to celebrate Christmas. Because as we all know only the rich are happy damn it. It was on this tour that I saw my first artificial upside-down tree. The base faced the ceiling complete with presents. I have to admit it was definitively a space safer on the floor level and perfect for a 650 square foot condo, but how can one celebrate Christmas with an inverted tree?

The Christmas season likely ends on New Years Day or shortly after, much of the spirit may wind down before that date. Although the Ukrainians get the best of both worlds and know how to stretch Christmas out until at least January 7^th. I feel the consumer beast dies sometime during Boxing Day week when all the sales are finally over and prices go back to where they were before the madness began and with that madness comes the end of another Christmas season. I guess for Cheryl and I that officially happened on January 6^th when coming home from a factory outlet boxing sale in an abandoned warehouse at the edge of town, Cheryl suggested that we see some Christmas lights on the houses. I replied “Cheryl my dear wife of several winters, I truly believe that the season of lights is over and we will be sorely disappointed.”

Despite the warning we cruised several neighborhoods and did in fact see a few lights here and there, mainly there, and sadly headed the intrepid Subaru to the subterranean confines of our new apartment home. From the balcony, 16 floors up, I could scan the city. The lights were out and Christmas was over until next time.

Happy New Years


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Kuwait: Slave Labour

Perpetual Motion

Picking the litter each day
An old man younger than me
With a
Bright yellow construction jump suit,
One old shovel,
One bent and worn rake
Each day and
Every Liberation Day,
National day
After crazy celebration
A million spray cans and their
Red lids litter the streets
This old man serves to
Pick the urban flotsam
Discarded in celebration  without care
This man in the yellow jump suit
Who  no one sees
The one with the straggly white beard
The wrinkled dark skin
An invisible man
Graciously accepts a quarter dinar
From one driver who cares.

China: Terra Cotta Warriors

Cause and Effect

Intently observing the Terra Cotta Warriors
I had a sudden urge to explore the possibilities
of the Domino Effect.

China: Politics

An in depth analysis of the political, socio/economic fabric of China…

The Polyester Curtain

I began to realize that the Peoples’ Republic of China, although still a republic was likely no longer communist.  In fact, I didn’t want to say anything, but it is possible that Canada is more socialist now than China, but you did not hear that from me because believe me if word of that every reaches the United States we will be treated like North Korea with the plague and we don’t even have nuclear missiles.

A very small indicator that Mao’s dream of a classless-socialist-communist society had died a horrible death likely from some a virulent  SARS related avian flu virus or by rigorous and relentless social change struck me while recently boarding a China Southern flight from Guangzhou to Hangzhou, a flight of about two and a half hours. As a Middle Class Canadian I purchased an economy fare seat and found myself midway back in the Airbus, just over the wings, but never in the emergency exit seats where one gets extra leg room at no extra cost.  I looked forward, through a curtain that divided my cheap seat from the so called “Privileged  Economy” class seats, which took up about a quarter of the plane by volume, beyond that in the far distance where the Earth begins to curve I could still spot the first class section behind yet another curtain, was it the Iron Curtain, no it was some cotton polyester blend separating the classes.

After reevaluating my own self-worth while sitting in my economy fare aisle seat midway between the fore and aft washrooms, I came to a fuller understanding of the current dilemma I was in.  Here I am in a communist country on an airplane divided into three distinct and separate socio/economic class sections.  My first instinct, which I quickly stifled, was to press the call button above my head and summon one of the impeccably dressed stewardesses and asked her, “Listen young lady could you bring me some water, and er, could you tell me what happened to the social revolution which fermented and created a classless society just prior to your generation?”

 My faith was renewed when later in the flight we were all served dinner and it appeared that, despite the classes, we all got some version of chicken or fish on rice or noodles.  There was still some semblance of equality.  After dinner we were all equally treated to an in-flight military movie (for which none of us had any part in its choosing) showing well, it was in Chinese of course and the English subtitles were far too small for me to read, but it did seem to have a revolutionary and highly patriotic theme as what appeared to be scenes from the “Long March.”  So while flying 33 000 feet over the same route that Mao marched on we all enjoyed, but some more than others, the patriotic community which serves to unite the classes as we sat contently finishing our rice dinners separated by the infamous Polyester Curtain.


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School

Heading for School

To get to the car
I walk through the wind blown garbage
A new pile deposited each day.
The car is hot, even this early.
I join the commuting insanity
Driving with the lane jumpers, and weavers.
Children with no seat belts, joyfully waving little limbs
From faded school mini vans with broken springs,
Complete Cacophony of a Kuwaiti morning
Heading for school.

Reflecting back…

On some Spring mornings
three young boys, brothers I think
walk up the hill in front of my house
lingering to pick up branches
from the forest floor to use as swords
and walking sticks.

Most mornings, getting ready for work
slowly
sipping my coffee in front of the fire place
I watch the boys again on their way to
school, into the woods, playing tag,
follow-the-leader and other childish games.
I marvel that they ever reach a destination
delayed each day by innocence and curiosity.

This winter morning they are miniature
astronauts with giant life support backpacks
walking stiffly and rigidly with little
flexibility allowed by their thick snow suits.
They try to climb the snow pile at the end of
my driveway, eventually they disappear up the
hill…aimlessly heading for school.

China: Environment

Stars in China

There are no stars in China

or blue skies.

I feel sorry for the children

heavy haze

shrouds the mountains

hillsides, the urban-scapes

obscure

“That would make a great picture

if I could only see it.”

China the abused country

every river,

stream and creek, every inch of sky

each piece of land, corrupted.

There are no stars in China

or blue skies…

just progress.



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Love

Take Outs  and Bloopers

Aluminum palm tress stand rigid as dress soldiers

On parade at a Montana truck stop,

Lincoln’s chiseled face, rock solid like his virtue,

A frantic mountain goat runs in maternal search

For its lost young separated by a tourist walkway,

We all stop to take pictures under Washington’s stern gaze.

Sway to sexy soothing saxophone serenade

 like feeding butterflies sucking on orange nectar,

Women’s high heeled shoes arrayed symmetrically in a

Madrid store front window,

The stone Buddha smiles knowingly and eternally,

A thousand Harleys angle park in small town America,

Ripened citrus in a Seville royal garden scents the air

And seduces the senses.

Christopher Columbus rests in state.

He discovered the New World.

While you my love, necklace adorned lie naked

Next to my soul.  We discovered it all.

Everything else is either take out or blooper.

Kuwait:Life and Teaching

Inshallah:  Teaching In Kuwait

My introduction to the desert climate of Kuwait occurred when I left the air conditioned airport to an August night time temperature of 44 degrees Celsius with 80% humidity.  My wife, Cheryl, and I had just gotten off a direct 14 hour flight from Dulles in Washington.  This was the first day of my 2 year contract with an International School in Kuwait.  Now, well into my second year I have made my peace with the climate yet find myself still adjusting to the quirks of the culture and many challenges to successful teaching.

Teaching in Kuwait definitely posses a unique set of challenges.  Ironically, as a Canadian, I teach American History to Kuwaiti Special Education students as part of an ESL program.  Although liberal Kuwaitis wish to westernize as rapidly as possible more conservative elements within society also pull in the opposite direction. For example, the more extreme view, held by Bedouin members of parliament would see music classes removed from the public school curriculum as they consider music and dance an offence to the purity of Islam, while the more liberal parents want to see their children enrolled in European and American universities and colleges.

At the time  of this writing (Dec 09) the Kuwaiti Legislative and legal Affairs Committee approved the proposed Gender Segregation laws in private schools already in force in private universities such as the American University  of Kuwait.  Although this law has been introduced in Kuwait for religious reasons I believe I would endorse such a law in Canadian Junior high classes for different reasons.
Another issue on the conservative agenda, enough to make the Western teacher wary is that of government censorship.  In my class and situated on the wall under the picture of the Emir and the Crown Prince hang two pages of censorship guidelines that must be followed.  The texts, novels and videos that I use have all been stamped to indicate that they have been examined, censored and approved by the Ministry of Education.

 My texts come from the United States and loosely follow their curriculums.  Within the texts and on several pages names and places have been blacked out. The Persian Gulf is now the Arabian Gulf and any reference to Israel (Occupied Palestine) has been removed, although the holocaust happened I can only reference it if I show historical balance by talking about other genocides such as in Rwanda, Cambodia or the former Yugoslavia.  There can be no allegations that Muslims persecuted Christians or Jews, no reference to pork or alcohol products, human intimacy, homosexuality or evolution, besides not making any negative comments about the government or Islam, one is free to speak as his conscience moves him.  Teachers are cautioned repeatedly to check the guidelines and not to stray from orthodoxy.

 My students are quick to point out that if they want to watch an uncensored movie they can see whatever they want in America. In  addition, if they want uncensored information they have U tube, Face Book and Google.  Even though the government places firewalls on Google one need only to plug into a server in Germany or elsewhere to get any number of blocked web sites, at least most of my students see the futility of censorship.

The Arab Culture is not a reading culture, my students at the university where I teach first year students the intricacies of writing academic papers, or among those I tutor in their homes  or teach in high school generally do not read for recreation.  I have never seen a public library, although I am told they do exist, and then again I have never seen a post office or a Kuwaiti stamp.  I have seen many book stores where numerous sunna and shi’a h interpretations of the Quran can be found and in audio format for those who prefer not to read. I am told there are Arabic novels that deal with love themes although human sexuality in any genre is a misunderstood and murky area rife with taboos.  Reading material is not in abundance nor is the propensity to read what is available.

The population here is about 3 million of whom I million are Kuwaiti and the rest are expatriates.  The school system is both public and private and represents a two tier system.  The private schools follow a business model and are designed to make a profit or at least break even.  The wealthy go to the best schools and the rest do not.  The expat community, of which there are about 6000 Canadians, is divided along western and Asian lines. Westerners do the higher paying professional and management jobs, teaching is the bottom rung of this ladder, while Asians provide the cheap labour which serves to keep the economy in operation.

 Should the expats leave, the Kuwaiti economy would collapse the next day as Kuwaitis do not collectively have the skills or motivation, nor do they  have an educational system geared to meet the actual needs of their country. Kuwait has allowed itself to become almost totally depended on outside labour and management skills.   In an economics course I teach I talked about the American Dream and asked my students to tell me what their equivalent Kuwaiti Dream is for the future.  For the boys, “I want a free ride a fast car and a hot wife.”  The girl’s comments followed domestic themes and seemed more inline with their Islamic life realities.

It is difficult to motivate students to learn or work for specific academic goals because in many ways their incredible wealth has become an impediment to lifelong learning and any semblance of a work ethic.  Kuwaitis on average work a 20 hour work week with incomes supplemented from oil revenues from the government.  There is a high level of entitlement on the part of students and as a result teachers are often hard pressed to give realistic grades because of repercussions from parents who expect certain grades.  The culture here is nocturnal, perhaps a tradition born of a desert climate before air conditioning, and as a result many students are too fatigued to work and generally do not do homework.  I have come across rampant plagiarism or papers and assignments written by the more literate Filipino nanny’s and delivered to the school by a student’s family driver.  

For whatever reason the curriculum here in Kuwait offers American history when, as I have discovered to my great surprise, they seem to know almost nothing about their own history or Arabic history or even about Islam.  One must realize that this culture is only two generations out of the desert and into our western culture as they shed some of their Arabic ways.  They are caught in the cultural headlights and live in two worlds.  One part of society is eager to blend cultures while the other fights against the erosion of their culture.  My students grew up with I pods and head phones on their ears, flat screen plasma TV’s and fast cars on crowded streets.  The life their parents knew is fast disappearing.
The entire Arab culture in Kuwait is permeated with the belief or life style of inshallah, translated as  “God willing.” In other words think of Inshallah as a laissez-faire non committal way of facing the world because it requires no personal responsibility as life is always in God’s hands. In this way an entire society can not be held accountable for anything.  Therefore, a student who receives his homework may later tell me that it will be done for next class, inshallah.  I tell my students, under my tutelage that they are in an “Inshallah Free Zone.”  I have made baby steps but perhaps in the wrong direction.

Despite the unique and often challenging nature of life and teaching in Kuwait along with the wide spread entitlement associated with wealth I still find that my Kuwaiti students are refreshingly naïve.  Perhaps, it is something like teaching in Canada in the fifties.  Discipline problems rarely go past the he-called-me-a-name level, (don’t call anyone a dog or other animal), a mild food fight with a condiment or may involve some form of mild teasing.  I have never witnessed a serious fight.  I am most often shown respect.   It amazes me.

 Students respect Western teachers and listen to them.   This Kuwaiti behavior pattern is In contrast to many Canadian students who, sadly, are entitled in different ways.  Canadian students seem to be very aware and hyper vigilant about their personal rights and will  often play that card to their own advantage and often with  parental enablement.   Discipline issues, during my Canadian teaching experience, often did include serious fights, drugs and alcohol related issues and in many cases disrespect and regard toward teachers.

 I am thriving on this positive attitude students have towards their teachers in Kuwait and I just may renew my contract another year.  Inshallah.

China: Life

Willows Whisper Lightly: A Misleading Title

The water formed a rivulet and as gravity exerted its force the liquid flowed downwards and towards the depression where my carry on suitcase was situated.  I sensed the impending danger and moved the suitcase as the water streamed by.  People walked through it and another young child was playing with a toy in the stream of pee left moments before by a child whose mother had pulled down her quilted pants exposing her fat little bottom to the cold world allowing her to relieve herself on the busy walkway in front of the ticket entrance at the Jinhua train station.  It’s just a cultural thing I am told and therefore I should be tolerant of such behavior, but then in Kuwait abusing a nanny is also a cultural norm.  I guess I’m odd I don’t like to see children or adults piss in public places and Arab men shouldn’t beat the hired help.  Why is it that a country that can orbit a woman around the planet and sell sophisticated medical diagnostic equipment to hospitals in the European community not be able to use disinfectants in their washrooms, or deodorant under their armpits.  I’m  just sensitive, I know.  I watch as a Chinese store owner comes to the threshold of his food store and “horks” and spits on the sidewalk where his customers walk as they enter his store. I watched another man as he places a finger over one nostril and forcefully blew the contents of the other on to the street, also while positioned in a store front.  I had no desire after that to buy food, or anything else from those stores.  Sanitation is lacking in China  and I am thankful that heavy rains clear the streets on a regular basis.  In my own school I can not bring myself to use the public washrooms as they are not properly cleaned, instead I have to make the trip across campus to our own apartment.  I have asked the Chinese admin to use cleaning products, but that would cost money and cut into the budget, then maybe the Chinese principal would have his driver chauffeur him in a VW instead of an Audi.