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Cover & Layout Design by JY
Dear LPC Community: The BTW Editors Sonia & Kate
This is the current editors’ last issue of BTW. It represents the end of a year that was both challenging and rewarding for us— challenging because BTW had only four of<icial members and rewarding because despite this, we still managed to publish, thanks to submissions of articles, poems, and photo essays from the greater LPC community. We hope that the few issues of BTW that did come out were thought provoking, entertaining, and informative. Most of all, we hope they generated an interest in self-‐expression through many media and in the continuation of BTW. Next year, we will be gone, but we hope that through the effort of our <irst years and even zero years, BTW will remain. Taking up the role of editors next year are Kumar, Michael, and Hannah. We thank them for their brave initiative in accepting this dangerous mission. We would also like to thank our second year team members, Meike and JY, who helped make BTW possible this year. Though we have attempted to act as a medium for expression within LPC, we understand that much, if not most, of what is experienced here cannot be expressed. We <ind that words are always lacking, that even a photograph cannot capture everything we would like it to. But we try. And every once in a while, we hit on something that is true. And so, our last word to you as editors of BTW is as follows:
Write!
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ARTICLES Youth: a strength to treasure, not a problem to cure Adrian Lo ........................................................................................................4 Wasting Time Wisely Kumar Ramanathan...................................................................................7 America the Beautiful Sonia Wurzel..................................................................................................8 Jonathan Lucas Hernandez Kate James .................................................................................................10 The Rock Chemist Pibo Rock ......................................................................................................17 Fluorescence Timothy Matthews ....................................................................................18 The Geisha of Japan: A Dying Art Carlos Ignacio Hernรกndez .....................................................................19
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Youth: a strength to treasure, not a problem to cure Thoughts from attending One Young World Inaugural Summit 2010
Adrian Lo This February, I had the chance to attend a conference in London named the One Young World Inaugural Summit. Over a thousand youths below the age of 25 from over a hundred countries sat together to discuss solutions to global problems and issues, including the media, global business, the environment and global health. We young delegates were joined by some current leaders in each of the fields, whose main role was to share with us and listen to our pleas, as well as to channel our thoughts to the people running the world today. Amongst these leaders were three Nobel Peace Prize laureates: Kofi Annan, former SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who famously fought against Apartheid, and Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In the six plenary sessions, we discussed our different solutions and approaches to global issues. I was fortunate to be one of the six who had a chance to deliver a speech during the Global Business plenary session, which discussed whether multinational corporations should have a responsibility to behave ethically and should define their role in the fight against poverty. My speech was on the topic of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sustainable Businessâ&#x20AC;?, where I proposed a business model which calls for firms to place society on par with profit as one of their goals, and to be socially responsible in each step taken by providing workers with wages higher than the minimum wage and to support Fair Trade in their
supply chain. At the end I stressed that social impact can take many forms other than merely philanthropy and in fact can be achieved by all firms. During the conference, I had the chance to meet some very talented young people from across the globe, who in their early-twenties have already started their own businesses, are leading their own multi-national initiatives or are actively engaged with social issues in their own communities. One delegate was even named the youngest-ever Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum this year. From these people I learned a lot about how young people are able to be engaged in their society, and how in fact, young people have brought some of the greatest changes and inventions to our current society. For example, Mark Zuckerburg was only 25 years old when he founded Facebook. I also had the privilege to talk to some of the current leaders of the world, and hear from them what they feel are challenges for our generation of leaders. Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke to us about how young people should be crazy about their ideas to make change, whilst Bob Geldof, creator the Live Aid and Live 8 campaigns, warned us all that there is work to be done and asked us to get down to earth to act on these issues. One of the rather interesting things I noted at the conference was the involvement of other UWC students and alumni. In total around 15 members of the movement were there, and it was even said that a staff member from the Middle East/North Africa Initiative was among us in the opening ceremony, whom unfortunately I did not have a chance to meet. In attendance were four current AC students, a student from Adriatic and one from UWCSEA. On top of that a member of the crew who helped put the conference together was also an alumnus from UWCSEA, whose parents teach there as well. Together we had some great moments exchanging our views on the UWC movement and the different environments at the schools. Despite the fact 4 that we were such a minority at the conference, our participation, in different
forms such as speeches or floor comments, was outstanding and a lot of the positive and useful comments came from UWC students. One Young World, whose values seemingly match so well with the UWC values, seemed like an event that UWC students would naturally attend, and I hope it can also become an event where UWC students can meet, exchange, and interact in the future. From my observations, young peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opinions in Hong Kong are treated often as though they are inherently problematic, and very often society does not accept or value young peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s opinions with the same weight as that of other sectors of society. Moreover, from the conference, I realised how supportive governments of other countries are of youth participation in society. Great Britain and Pakistan both have an independent ministry on youth, handling matters concerning youth from employment to education, whilst the Malaysian government has close ties with youth organisations and strongly supported their delegates in their attendance to these conferences. Such support for youth is much wanted and lacking in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hong Kong. At the same time, young people in Hong Kong have been putting their effort in drawing attention from society, rather than taking the much-needed steps to improve the lives of people around them in the community. In fact, from my experience, the step is not as far as many of us imagine it to be. All a successful initiative in serving the community takes is a few committed minds and souls who are willing to work for this cause and make it happen, be it tutoring needy children, fundraising for Haiti or promoting youth leadership. Young people often underestimate themselves, especially when compared to what older people are capable of doing, but in fact, you and I have exactly what it takes to outperform the older generation, not to say matching their achievements. The emergence of the social media provided us with a great leverage to reach out and empower others, and to call for
likeminded people to stand up for causes close to the heart. All it takes is a person willing to take the first step, and this thought has been reinforced by the achievements of other young people I have met at the conference. Youth is a strength that should be treasured, not seen as a problem to be cured, and it is only if the government can focus more on young people, to try to listen and accept our opinions will youth power be maximised. At the same time, young people will have to step up and make positive contributions to society so that we together may build the Hong Kong we want to live in.
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Adrian delivering his speech on sustainable business
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Talking to Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the UN
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Wasting Time Wisely Philosophy In Fiction, And How It Can Be Useful
Kumar Ramanathan I have a confession to make. I am a serial procrastinator. I wake up every morning with the intention of being productive; I tell myself that today will be the day I start checking things off that to-do list. But that almost never happens, unless a deadline looms the next day (or, in some cases, the previous day). I end up watching an episode or two of a television show at some point during the day, reading a couple of comic books, and maybe even listening to a bit of an audiobook. And then I go to bed feeling just a little bit guilty that I haven't gotten any work done – a feeling I'm sure many of you can relate to. But why do we feel so guilty about using some (or, in my case, all) of our free time to absorb some good old-fashioned storytelling? Is it really that bad? Over the past few months, my views on this have changed greatly. Sure, we may be wasting our time, but we can do even that wisely. One thing that permeates all the cultures of the world is a history of storytelling. Stories have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education and cultural preservation. Oral histories, cultural mythologies and epic poetry are no different from today's art forms that tell stories – novels, movies, television and comic books included. They all serve similar purposes – to entertain, educate, inform, relax and/or provoke. Stories can be wonderful things; they can distract from the tensions and stress of real life, but they can also attack the psyche on deeper levels than daily news broadcasts or theses on abstract philosophy. They can be engaging, thought-provoking, and even life-changing. What really absolved much of my guilt was how much fiction has helped me
academically since coming to LPC. I often find myself using things I learnt inadvertently from Star Trek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer to understand the concepts being explained in Political Thought class. My notes for that class in particular are chock full of references to everything from the Elder Wand (a Harry Potter reference) to the Quorum of Twelve (Battlestar Galactica). In TOK, I find myself breaking things down to understand them better by using philosophies I came across in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or 1984. Philosophy in fiction can be found in the most unassuming of places. Sure, War and Peace and The Great Gatsby have excellent thematic resonance, but so do His Dark Materials and Calvin & Hobbes. Woody Allen films, Batman comics, and Bob Dylan songs have all helped me understand basic philosophical ideas and constructs. And philosophy doesn't only have to mean broad, wide-ranging ideologies about life or politics. I use the term because philosophy is intrinsically prescriptive; it is by nature sets of ideas that prescribe a certain ideal approach to their subject matter. Fiction can provoke thought on a wide range of topics, from social issues to interpersonal relationships. The power and beauty of great fiction is not that it can tell us stories far removed from our own world, but that it can create new worlds and contexts in which ideas relevant to us can be explained and explored. In many education systems around the world, especially in those of Asia, we are, as children, indoctrinated with the unwritten rule applied to literature that what is old, unpopular and boring must be great fiction. This is simply not true, but nor is it true that everything mainstream has deeper merit simply because it's popular. Philosophical depth in fiction can be found in everything from Shakespeare to Stephen King; it's present in a variety of places and forms, as long as we're looking for it – that is not to say that we have to read into and unnecessarily
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intellectualize fiction, but rather that as long as we make the leap of accepting that philosophical ideas can be expressed through that particular brand of fiction, they're visible if they're there at all. Absorbing philosophy through fiction is not something for everyone, but it's definitely worth a try. It's also not uncommon that the nerdy or extremely niche aspects of fiction in modern media are the most intriguing and engaging ones. Science-fiction and fantasy, for example, are genres that exist almost exclusively to exploit fiction in the best possible way to dispense philosophical ideas (well, the better examples of those genres do that, at the very least). The best sci-fi or fantasy is really about our world, not made up ones; it merely explores what is relevant to us in an ultra-fictional context. There's plenty of fascinating fiction out there if you look for it. So the next time you feel like procrastinating, make good use of it. I'm not saying you should listen to my advice and consume the media that I unashamedly recommend (although we all know that this is the best and only path to enlightenment). Dabble around, try different things, and find what you like. Just remember that there's no need to be guilty about appreciating some quality storytelling every now and then. It might just come in handy, be it in class or in life.
America the Beautiful Sonia Wurzel
When I think about the coming end of the school year, my very able mind easily blocks out the negative (saying goodbye, exams, art deadlines) and focuses on the coming four (possibly more) years that will be higher education. There is no doubt that I am excited for college, I want to learn new things and be part of a larger community. I want to be able
to sing again, and partially I want to be back in my home country. That is, until just recently. Right now I'm quite hesitant about going back to the United States of America. One thing I like to do is to keep up with the happenings in the politics of my great nation. I do it to stay current, to stay informed on the inner workings of the government that runs the country that so many people say is the leader of the modern world. I keep up so I can tell these people to please not place the US on this strange pedestal. It goes to our heads and we think that we have the right to do ridiculous things. One of the indicators that we are really not that great of a country is that we only just passed a healthcare reform bill that is remotely helpful for those suffering under the insurance industry. It's nowhere near as progressive as the systems in Europe or our neighbor Canada, but Democratic presidents have been fighting for this for the past fifty years and we only just passed it. The fact that it has taken this long makes me come to one conclusion: The United States of America are full of crazy people. What this healthcare bill does is ensure that all children are covered by health insurance, ensures that small businesses are able to give their employees insurance, ensures that insurance companies won't discriminate against individuals with "pre-existing conditions" and ensures that insurance companies cannot suddenly drop insurance for people who suddenly get sick (the fact that this happens is absolutely outrageous). So, the loonies in my country have decided that this represents a "government takeover", that the Democrats are "removing liberty" and, obviously, the only way to respond is with violence. We saw this as the debate over the bill was going on. People showed up at conferences with Democratic politicians with guns strapped to their bodies. One man actually showed up at one of President Obama's appearances with a pistol strapped to his leg, carrying a sign that essentially threatened to 8
assassinate Obama as a tyrant restricting our Liberty. Now, there is a man openly calling for people to break the windows of Democratic offices. It's happened, too. All because these politicians voted and campaigned for a bill that protects children and sick people from insurance companies focused only on making profit. I'm not scared because I feel I will be attacked, but I'm scared because of what this means in a nation that gets the label "the ruler of the modern world". How can we deserve this label when it seems that half of our politicians spit out words that make absolutely no sense, when millions of individuals swallow the jargon of talk show hosts who claim that Obama is a communist Nazi unfit to rule the country, when a doctor is shot and killed in his church because he performed abortions that saved women's lives. In all of history, one of the inventions that I despise the most is that of the gun. This mix of plastic, metal, and chemicals has turned the taking of life into the twitch of a finger. People understand this piece of technology as Power, which it is, but it is a gloating, fickle power that for me, represents hatred, irrationality, and senseless death. I do not want to live under a tyranny any more than these people hurling epithets at President Obama wish to, but at the same time I feel that I know the difference between government takeover and beneficial government actions that has the potential to help millions. The irony is that many of these people railing against the government, and taxes, claiming that everything should be up to the individual and worshiping this abstract idea of "Personal Liberty" are often benefitting from some sort of government-run program as well, such as social security. To my fellow second years then, who wish to go to the United States for college, because of what a US education means in terms of opportunity, no doubt partially because of the status we have somehow gained in the world stage, please know this:
There are many faces of America, many of them ugly, putrid and some of them even harboring feelings of ill will against you, for "stealing the opportunities that belong to the American people". I have faith that you will be safe, as college campuses act as their own little bubbles of academia, just like Li Po Chun is. This article is so you remember that there is a world outside of the school buildings, and you should know always, always look before you leap.
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Jonathan Lucas Hernandez Kate James The lowercase letter m died today. He died at his desk in the small, stark office situated between the offices of the capital letter M and the capital letter N. No one knew. None of the other letters hard at work at the Academy could feel the moment when one in their alphabetical order disappeared. It was the pretty young office assistant that eventually found him that morning as she made her rounds with a tray bearing dangerously brimmed cups of coffee. With a warm greeting she entered the office, as was her wont with the lowercase letter m. She would have considered it unprofessional to say that the lowercase letter m was her favorite letter at the Academy. But, if pressed, she would have admitted that he was the letter with whom she had the best working relationship. The assistant was a timid, slightly anemic girl of about twenty-three. She acted as the general assistant of the letters m through o, both capital and lowercase. When she had first taken up the post at the Imperial Academy of Language, at the age of only nineteen, she was filled with absolute terror at the prospect of working in the sphere of such immensely important men—after all, she thought, at the Academy all language was decided. She was fresh out from her secretary schooling and lacked experience entirely. Truly it was beyond her comprehension why she had been hired in the first place. No one had told her then—though she would quickly come to realize it herself—that the Imperial Academy of Language could not afford to be selective in its choice of secretarial staff. The reputation of the Academy was such so as to ensure that no self-respecting secretary would apply there. The pay was good and the benefits excellent —full medical coverage, three-day weekends, and two weeks of paid holiday every year. Even those with many years of secretarial
experience behind them could not hope for better stipulations. In the beginning she thought it an amazing job. But working at the Academy bordered on unbearable. During her first week there, she left the building at the end of her shift every day with tears spilling down her pallid cheeks, the entirety of her thin, fragile being feeling harassed and frayed. In total there were fifty-two letters employed at the Academy, capitals and lowercase taken all together. Their offices lined both sides of four corridors connected in a square at the heart of the Academy. They were all of uniform size and shape, appointment and appearance. All the offices and all the letters that occupied them were identical to such degree that for the first few days she was constantly becoming disoriented and confusing which offices she was assigned to. Countless times had she greeted a letter that she thought she knew, only to find from the bewildered and indignant expression she received in return that he was in fact a random letter completely unknown to her. At the edge of the square of offices was precariously placed the assistants’ room. It was a large, high-ceilinged space, spanned by several rows of desks belonging to the twenty-odd assistants. To anyone unfamiliar with the customs of the Academy, the room would seem more like an army command room on the frontline than an ostensibly mundane administrative outpost. The assistants were coming and going constantly, in an endless hum of activity. Invariably their arms were filled with sheaves of papers, refreshments, or other objects demanded by the letters. Rushing about, they shouted requests and important information across the room at each other. Everything was drowned in the incessant and shrill ringing of the telephones at each assistant’s desk. A direct line connected the office of each letter to the telephone of his corresponding assistant. Often the letters would telephone their assistants requesting special materials required for their research—which could be 10 anything. The lowercase letter q had once
asked for a live quail and the capital letter P for a bust of Edgar Allen Poe. If there was something necessary to a letter that was not to be at found at hand—as was often the case—the assistant would dial up the runners’ station located on the ground floor of the building. A runner would then be dispatched to retrieve the item and deliver it to the assistant. The process was performed with astounding rapidity, expedited by the runners’ expertise in finding the un-findable within the city. Once the letter finished with whatever item had been necessary to him, it was returned to the assistant and deposited in the assistants’ room. The place was littered with the random relics of the production of language —a palm tree, a collection of rubber ducks, a saltshaker. Stacks of paper taller than men were scattered between the desks and in the corners like strange statues. Every year the letters of the Imperial Academy of Language went through hundreds of millions of sheets of paper, all of which passed at some point through the assistants’ room. No one could have said exactly what was written on all these pages, for no one bothered to read them. Even if someone had displayed curiosity enough about these dregs and driftwood-digressions, it would have been impossible to pursue even a fraction of the pages that piled up in the assistants’ room. The piles were always being knocked over or dissolved into the air by the breeze. The papers were restacked wherever they landed and brand new columns built up, creating a moveable landscape in the room. But the assistants hadn’t the time to notice the migrating stacks or any other feature of the room for that matter. Letters were appointed to the Academy for life but assistants lasted at the most only two or three years before they had to retire to some less demanding place of work. The assistant of the lowercase letter m had been at the Academy longer than most. After her first traumatic week, she had been sorely tempted to submit her resignation. Only her dire financial situation kept her at the job. As
time passed, however, she grew a thicker skin to withstand the workings of the Academy. Letters treated their assistants in one of two ways. Either an assistant was fortunate enough to be completely ignored by his letters, taken for granted and treated as invisible—or regarded as an all too visible and irritating intrusion into the realm of their locutions. In the latter case, the letters were prone to falling into fury, showering abuses upon the assistants that came to accommodate their work. But by this time the assistant was immune to all insults and attempts at assault coming from the letters. The actions of no letter affected her now, though she had felt so keenly every injury when she had first come to the Academy, But the lowercase letter m, when she had entered into his haze of words, had seen her, and had immediately pitied her position in such an unsuitable place. This land riddled with the naked springs and screws of language was no place for young girls to venture, particularly not passably pretty ones who could make something of their lives elsewhere. And so he always had a kind word for her. But that particular morning she was to receive no good-natured acknowledgement in return for her cheerful salutation. When she entered his office, the first thing to attract her attention were the blinds—she had never seen them raised before. Through the wide sheet of glass was a view of the solid brick wall of the building adjacent to the Academy. It was only after several moments of gazing through the newly discovered window that she noticed the lowercase letter m was slumped up against his desk, his chin fallen to his chest. Quickly she deposited her heavily laden tray on the desk and then wavered, uncertain of how to proceed. She extended her hand but pulled it back. The idea of physically touching the lowercase letter m gave her pause. Even in such a dire situation it did not 11
seem at all proper. Stealing herself to it, she gently brushed his shoulder with the tips of her fingers. Half emboldened and half terrified that her touch was met with no response, she gripped his shoulder firmly and shook him. And then she knew with certainty. Taking her tray in hand once again, she calmly crossed the office and exited it, closing the door behind her. She finished her round, delivering coffee to other letters as per the normal routine. The only indication that there was something amiss was the one extra cup left on her tray when she returned to the assistants’ room. She sat down to her desk and reached for the telephone. Spinning the dial with her finger, she entered the number of the main office. After one sharp ring, a male voice briskly enquired as to the nature of the matter with which she was in need of assistance. For a moment she hesitated, then stated steadily that the lowercase letter m had passed away in his office and she was not entirely certain what she ought to do. The voice on the other end of the line thanked her for her information and reassured her that the situation would be immediately dealt with. She replaced the receiver in the cradle and sat for a moment without moving, her hand still resting on the telephone. Then she jumped in her chair, an electrical shock sent jolting through her brain in the form of the realization that she was now late in delivering the mail to the other letters, and hurriedly went about her business. No one could have expected the lowercase letter m’s death, but that is not to say that it came as a complete surprise to anyone. After all, the lowercase letter m was undoubtedly elderly, nearing his eighty-first year. His name was Jonathan Lucas Hernandez. He was a man and had an entire life outside of the duties he performed as the lowercase letter m. But it was not much of a life. The endless repetition of day and night had ground down his daily routine to a fine perfection much the same consistency as the talcum powder that sat at his wife’s dressing table. Each set cycle of time repeated itself
faultlessly. Each year was exactly like the last, each month following precisely the pattern of that which preceded it, each day a detailed duplicate of the one before, each hour an authentic reproduction of one that had already been. Down, in fact, to each minute and second, until his life was drawn into a continuous spectrum of concentric circles, the infinitesimal contained neatly within the infinitely large, but both capable of nothing more than continuing round and round themselves. Every morning he woke at quarter past five. Lying flat on his back with his hands tucked neatly behind his large red ears, he waited until half past five, when the light would begin to rise through the curtainless windows. He took this time—fifteen minutes of uncertain identification edged in by pure night and unforgiving morning—every morning to catalogue the content of his previous night’s dreams. It was quite a toilsome task. First it was necessary for him to collect all the scattered images he had been left with upon waking, to untangle them from each other and from other unrelated memories, and attempt to put them back together into the dream they had once been. He then pursued each particular aspect of all those pictures, following the drifting thread of every detail until the dream was a tangible weave. By the end of it all, his mind buzzed like soft snow. He had come into this habit when he was a very young child—as a result of a series of strange and tenacious dreams that had sometimes persisted into his waking hours— and had never abandoned it. If he did not partake of this ritual ablution each morning, a deep fog of leftover dreams would envelop his entire day. On the few occasions he did neglect to collect all his nighttime wanderings back to himself, he encountered misplaced specters everywhere he liked to see them least. Once he was certain that he had given adequate attention to all those phantoms so as to prevent them from disturbing the rest of his day, he would sit up in bed with a shudder and a groan. Lucy still slept in the space next 12
to him. Curled like a child, she laid with her back to him. But from the shallow rise and fall of her sloping shoulders he could tell that she would wake soon. Endeavoring to rouse his lethargic limbs, he would spend several minutes trying out various contortions, stretching this way and that. He was a small, thin man, and somehow he always managed to look just a little bit smaller between the white bed sheets. His wrinkled skin was permanently sun-darkened and freckled. An ancient grandfather clock towered in one corner of the room, ticking forlornly to itself. By the time its hour hand reached six and its chime began to sound, Jonathan Lucas Hernandez was out of his bed. Evenly he trod the smooth wooden floor of the bedroom until his toes met the frigid ceramic tiles of the bathroom floor and recoiled. Rocking upon the balls of his feet, he paused for a moment in front of the bathroom mirror to inspect his reflection for any changes that may have stolen upon him in the night. Generally he met no surprises. Perhaps the lines across his face grew deeper from day to day and the color behind his eyes darkened a shade. But these gradual changes paralyzed any sort of reaction by the very calmness of their movement and their advance caused him no alarm. Age had already become an old friend of Jonathan Lucas Hernandez. He watched its progression on his own face with an indifferent eye, as one who watches the slow and ceaseless motion of shadows for lack of anything better to do. After satisfying himself that there were no drastic differences in his person, he crossed the bathroom to the tub. Pulling off his pajamas with one hand and opening the hot water tap with the other, he prepared for his bath. He was a passionate bather. It gave him immense pleasure to scrub his skin raw and clean and then lean back to soak in the suds and scalding water. By the time he finished his bath, Lucy was stirring in the bedroom. The wood floorboards cried out beneath her agile
footsteps. As he toweled off his smooth limbs, he could hear her climb out of bed and make her way into the hallway and downstairs. In a short while, the sound and smell of grinding coffee would reach Jonathan where he stood in the closet with a towel wrapped round his slight waist. He deliberated over the many very similar suits that hung before him in the closet. All blacks and greys and browns that differed by a hairâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breadth of a hue. After selecting one, he dressed himself quickly and with no excess motion, at the height of practiced precision and efficiency as he pulled his arms into the sleeves of his suit jacket. Finished, he straightened his lapels and clicked his heals together sharply, then left the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen, Lucy had a cup of coffee waiting for him on the table and was already standing in front of the stove frying eggs. The dangling apron strings tied behind her waist moved in rhythm to her gentle sway and hum. Upon hearing his approaching footsteps above the sizzling of the frying pan, she turned around to kiss him lightly on the cheek. He and Lucy had been married at the age of nineteen. From the very first day of the honeymoon they were without a nickel to live on. Despite the disproval of both their parents, they had taken each other, and in consequence were left with only each other. At the time, Jonathan was working by day as a house painter and by all other times as a journalist. Lucy had two jobs as well and eventually they pulled things together. Their three children had the benefit of growing up in a normalized middleclass home. After breakfast, Jonathan straightened his suit jacket one more time and set out for the Academy. They lived only two blocks from the twelve-story fortress that was the Imperial Academy of Language and thus Jonathan walked to work everyday. Entering the building, he greeted the security guards and the secretaries at the front desk. The morning 13
light shone in chinks across the marble floor. Unwilling to wait upon the elevator, Jonathan usually took the stairs up to the seventh floor, where the offices of the letters were situated. Once in his office, Jonathan was absorbed entirely by his work as the lowercase letter m. Nothing had ever seemed to matter so much as the arrangement of all those arbitrary symbols to originate meaning—his meaning. The curve and stretch of characters, creating words and worlds and whorls, enthralled him as he sat hunched at his desk—to any outside observer, just another old man in an office. All too soon the sun would set upon the day’s invention and Jonathan would rise stiffly from his scribbles. The walk back home was always filled with the wastings of his memory, of this and that recalled by the words he had encountered at the Academy during the day. The sidewalk upon which he trod was thick with cracks running in all directions. For each step he took forwards towards his home, he took another sideways, towards himself. But this sort of progress he found intimidating and shied away from it whenever he noticed himself drifting in that direction. Invariably by the time he reached his front door, he had himself in hand once again and could greet Lucy with equanimity. Their evenings together passed pleasantly, with Jonathan settled complacently to reading in his study and Lucy busying herself with the view of the sky out the back window. When the time came, they went up upstairs hand in hand to prepare for sleep. With the same insistent precision with which he had put on his suit in the morning, Jonathan donned his blue-and-white stripped pajamas. And he laid his head to rest upon the pillow, to idle away in dreaming all the nighttime hours until his never-ending day began again. Only once did anything happen in Jonathan Lucas Hernandez’s life that proved grit enough to stop the gears in the mill of time. It was just a few months after he had been made the lowercase letter m, when he was still a young man of fifty-six—the youngest
man, it should be mentioned, to be appointed a letter in the history of the Academy. In those months immediately following his appointment, it seemed as if Jonathan would slip easily into the clockwork motion of life as a member of the Academy. But one evening, just one evening in the middle of the week, there was a slip of the gears. He came in through the front door at eight o’clock, two hours later than he was expected home, with a bulging brown paper bag in his hand and a bemused expression on his face. Ignoring the lure of an already cold dinner, he passed straight by his wife where she stood in the hallway and entered his study. The loud crack of the door slamming was followed immediately by the snug sound of the lock. He shut himself up there until midnight, at which time he emerged murderously drunk. Holding the empty bottle that had been full of gin a few hours before, he stumbled up the stairs to the second floor. Photographs of their family lined the hallway. He knocked several of them off the walls with his outstretched arms as he made his way to the open door of their bedroom. Lucy was still awake, sitting under the bedcovers with a book in hand. Without a word he swung the bottle against the doorjamb, breaking it instantly into thousands of glittering bits of glass. He stood still. From his empty hand dripped a mixture of the last remnants of alcohol and his own blood. Lucy froze and waited with animal stillness, staring at him from across the bedroom. With the crunching of glass all around him he sank down to the floor. ‘We are…maliciously made, my dear,’ he said, pronouncing each word precisely and with great dignity from where he sat amidst all the tiny crystals of shattered glass. She turned back the covers of the bed and her bare feet reached for the cold floor, but with a wave of his hand he bid her stay where she was. ‘Absolutely marvelous…isn’t it?’ he questioned no one in particular. ‘There’s a man—a man…managerie…That is to say, a 14 menagerie…’
He cradled his sobbing in the cup of his hands, staining his face the color of strong spirits and diluted blood. He made no protest now as she hurried over to him and rocked him in the solid sphere of her embrace. Eventually she was able to fit together the misshapen and badly gin-sodden puzzle pieces he provided her to form a fairly good picture of the events that had befallen him earlier that evening. That morning before he left for the Academy she had asked him to pick up a carton of milk and half a dozen tomatoes from the supermarket down the street on his way home. As he was waiting in the checkout line to purchase the necessary items, a very small girl came to stand behind him. Her immaculate white pantsuit looked as though it were most certainly brand new—or at least were her very best outfit, to be worn nowhere there were trace amounts of dirt—and she was in possession of a lollipop larger than her head. As she was standing in the line alone, the thought crossed his mind that perhaps she had unintentionally or otherwise misplaced her mother. In an attempt to be kindly, he crouched down to her level, orchestrating a chorus of crackings from his knees. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Jonathan. What is your name?’ Her big blue eyes were blinking novels at him in Morse code. After a moment, her lips produced the audible message, ‘My name is Francis Margaret Featherwood.’ ‘Very pleased to meet you, Miss Francis Margaret Featherwood,’ he said, extending his wrinkled, slightly sausage-veined hand to shake hers. She gave it a long look of appraisal before clutching it in her tiny, clammy hand and ringing it vigorously up and down several times. ‘Well, Miss Featherwood, I was wondering if I could offer you any assistance on this fine afternoon,’ he continued as she stood pumping his hand. ‘If, for instance, you would like help in finding your mother, I would be happy to be of service.’
‘No, thank you,’ she said solemnly, shaking not just her head, but her whole body in the negative. After dropping his hand as abruptly and unceremoniously as she had taken it up, she backed away until she was a good arm’s length from him. Tentatively she took a half turn clockwise, then stopped. Reversing the motion, she spun counterclockwise and apparently found this direction vastly preferable, for she continued to spin, turning round and round herself till she felt thoroughly dizzy. She halted and took stock of her situation. The supermarket was still spinning, like a poorly constructed carnival ride that persists in its revolutions long after all the passengers have disembarked. Tugging on the tidy golden braids that hung down on either of her shoulders, she waited to regain her composure. With the edification of no particular audience in mind, she began to declaim, ‘My mother manages a menagerie of merry monkeys on most Monday mornings.’ This particular wisdom struck Francis Margaret Featherwood as very much worth repeating and repeat it she did. In a singsong voice, she went through the words several more times, connecting the start with the finish within the fantastic motion of a verbal merry-go-round. The information, whether accurate or not, had an interesting effect upon Jonathan Lucas Hernandez. His expression went quite blank, but his hands began to tremble. The little brass buttons at the cuffs of his suit jacket tinkled together faintly. He hardly even noticed how he responded to the harassed looking woman who appeared and began berating Francis for wandering away from the frozen foods section. Automatically his mouth fumbled for some fitting reply as she introduced herself as Carrie Featherwood and showered him alternately with apologies and thanks. Somewhere in the static of his mind surfaced the urge to ask the woman if she did indeed manage a menagerie of monkeys. But the 15
very thought of the words made him nauseous. Francis refused to comply with her mother’s demand that she thank the nice gentleman as well. Rather she stood silently regarding him, looking sharp and altogether precocious in her miniature but perfectly cut pantsuit. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, moving absently away from where mother and daughter stood. ‘Quite a charming child. Good day to you.’ He took himself out of the line without purchasing the milk or tomatoes and exited the store. For a moment after he stepped out onto the street, he was at a loss as to which direction to travel. Standing on the sidewalk, he gazed up and down the street, turning his head from left to right in indecision. His feet took the initiative over his head and led him daringly down the sidewalk. Here and there he observed the people and places he was passing. He saw the taxi cabs passing in the opposite direction. He saw a young couple pushing a perambulator. He saw the crumbling brick walls of two tenement buildings as he passed down a damp alley. But generally he walked only observing the walls that surrounded his own small self. After some time, he spotted a liquor store straight across the street from where he was walking. They kept no alcohol in the house, not so much as a matter of principle, but because no one would have drunk it. Jonathan never touched alcohol, never having experienced any kind of desire to drink even as a young man. Also, he had the conception that alcohol would damage the senses, and Jonathan placed great value in the functioning of his senses. But he waded through the thin stream of traffic to the opposite side of the street. A bell attached to the shop door tinkled with trite cheer as he pulled it opened. A moment later he reemerged and sorted himself out enough to make his way home at last, clutching his purchase. The next morning, he woke at quarter past five. Paying no attention to the splitting pain in his head, he began to organize the remnants of the last night’s dreams. Time took its own again.
It was after that night he cut words that began with the lowercase letter m out of his vocabulary entirely. He refused to pronounce any such word and simply stopped using them. Whenever he was required to use a word beginning with the lowercase letter m, he successfully avoided it by either substituting it with a synonym or by describing in a roundabout manner the meaning of the word. It was not at all as difficult or ridiculous as it may seem. Jonathan, having quite a way with language, easily managed to circumvent the lowercase letter m. He quickly became an expert in such little evasive maneuvers— saying ‘cash’ instead of ‘money,’ for example, or ‘before noon’ in place of ‘morning’. After not long of this, his wife began to unconsciously avoid using words beginning with the lowercase letter m as well. In fact, anyone who spent a significant amount of time in Jonathan Lucas Hernandez’s company found him or herself unintentionally refraining from the use of words beginning with the lowercase letter m. Some of his vague acquaintances never even noticed the change in his speech. Those who did were divided in their opinion of the reasons for the omission of all words beginning with the lowercase letter m. Some thought it was a matter of extreme arrogance —that Jonathan could not bear the use of those precious words he was devoting his life to in common conversation. Others thought it was simply weariness—that after being locked up all day in the Academy, Jonathan needed space to breathe and forget the existence of the lowercase letter m. Only his wife—the only person ever to hear the story of the little girl in the supermarket —knew that it was both and a little of neither. And no one but Jonathan knew that more than anything else it had to do with uncontrollable beauty. Perhaps it is too difficult for the uninitiated to comprehend the pain that the combination of mere letters can cause. And this is the summary of Jonathan Lucas 16 Hernandez, otherwise known as the lowercase letter m.
The Rock Chemist
Pibo Rock
The Rock, supposedly strong, Weathers in not long, But in a matter of swift tsunamis of time’s seconds, Minutes, perhaps hours, Or devilish winds of emotion Coupled with the demons of ‘pleasure termination’ and ‘exploration of the new’. My desire, called imminent, grows perpetually deep. Still, I long to discover the mystery behind a rock’s heat cycles. Oh, how cold it’s been. When dust, with respect to the weathered rock, settles, The apparent nature contradicts the significance of the two’s initial battle, Yet still more battle thrives, More so with the clutter of companionship; Lo, the de-edged rock, Now the THE Rock once more, The school wind invited Mr. Karma? The complex rock ions of emotion, Caused by ligands of friendship, Rather not to be. They lead to larger precision uncertainty when reading the signals on the pressure sensor. Accuracy is seriously harmed; rejection after so much hard work on DCP gives the worst CE. Nonetheless, I am the Rock Engineer; I shall be the pioneer, For solving the unsolvable, Yet still the problem remains ‘Inexplicable’. Suddenly, a fire on the rock, and oddly what looks like a long-chain-hydrocarbon flame produces no soot, Confusingly not involving even loot; It’s a new year. My prior octane flame, owing to the chemist’s eventual ‘cracking’, transforms to methane; Simplicity never has been his thing; nonetheless, anything should be done, all eyes on the stop watch. He concludes, Rocks weather, and dust forms. When the wind blows, it takes the dust with it. Rocks remain Rocks, even if they weather and get weak with time.
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Fluorescence
Timothy Matthews (Linger, my listener content.) Warm kiss of a smile-spiral dawn, My heart erupts for you in a crimson cascade. Pulses stampede, a sacramentʼs sworn, On the pyre of love I set myself ablaze. (Sweet summers so well spent.) Fly, soar, glide like a carefree comet, Bereft of sorrow, left with ecstasy intense. Life bursts forth from heavenly palette Baptise and purify my universe immense. (Together – tied – forever.) Over the ocean of dreams cut short, Snowflakes of emotion and midnightʼs whisper Flow on free through waterfalls of thought. Alone I wait, like an orphan does its mother. (Sapphires gleam like moonlight iridescent.) Tremble; sigh; a distance we defy, A supernova sings as our stars they align, Breathe: from the summit of the world to my Solarium in space, watching auras combine. (Flutter and flicker, surrender and ascend.) Enter this surreal creation, Where hummingbirds herald glory, a chorus bold, Welcome to my Imagine Nation, Carpeted in lavender and gilded in gold. (Savour, remember, for itʼll last but a moment.)
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11日本の芸者 : 死んでアート THE GEISHA OF JAPAN: A DYING ART
Carlos Ignacio Hernández
Kyoto is home to most of Japanʼs traditional culture and the stage on which much of Japanese history was played out. It is also the city in which you will find the Japan of your imagination: famous pebble gardens, poetsʼ huts hidden behind bamboo pathways, flashy arcades with bright-colored gates, golden temples floating over calm lakes, and geisha disappearing into teahouses of wooden façades.
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Representing a dying art, a young geiko is a skilled musician, elegant dancer, and witty conversationalist who can easily put shy clients at ease.
Walking through the narrow streets of Gion offers one a glimpse into the mysterious world of the geisha, these fascinating women who continue to keep an ancient Japanese art from dying away. These wooden sandals (驶geta始 in Japanese) give the geishas the height they need to avoid contact between their kimonos and the floor, but also oblige them to adopt a slow and short pace while walking. 20 20
Being a geisha takes years of hard work and training. Unfortunately, with more job opportunities available to Japanese women today, the number of geishas in the Gion district is diminishing. Still, in the shopping streets of Kyoto a scene like the one portrayed above is quite common.
Geiko entertain clients in teahouses. Pictured here is one of the entrances to the Ichiriki, the oldest and most famous teahouse in Gion. Admission is a privilege that only a select few have, and newcomers must first be invited by an existing client. The traditional Japanese umbrellas are evidence of the presence of a geisha behind the wooden sliding doors.
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The streets of Gion come alive at dusk when the geishas that have made this town famous head out for work. Here, a young maiko is on her way to an appointment at a teahouse.
The Gion district is famous for being Kyoto's geisha quarter. In the early evenings, the place glows as teahouses and restaurants light their charming lanterns.
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The beauty of a Geisha is often compared with Japan始s world-famous cherry blossoms that mark the end of the winter season in the Land of the Rising Sun.
BTW LPCUWC THIRD ISSUE 23