Just Me and My Monkey

The other day I saw a someone wearing a "crazy English tee shirt" that actually made me laugh out loud，and then made me contemplate it's meaning for longer than is probably appropriate. And the shirt's message:

"Everyone's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey."

Ok, so I laughed because of the first thing that comes to my mind after reading that is a perverted dude whipping "it" out in a public place (side note: the way to say this phenomena in Chinese is 遛鳥 or "taking the bird out for a walk." Actually, carrying bird cages out on a walk, swinging the cages vigorously, one in each each hand, is an old school way Chinese folks like to exercise. It seems kind of abusive to the bird if you ask me, they swing them around like ladies in JC Penny's advertisements satisfyingly swinging their shopping bags on black Friday. I have never seen this bird swinging frenzy myself because hardly anyone does that anymore, most folks tie the cage to the scooter and take the bird out for a spin instead. But my Chinese teacher shared this bird walking concept, WITHOUT mentioning the dick-whipping-out part. So after class, wishing to find out more about this exercise routine, I innocently ask my boyfriend, "So, do you like taking the bird out for a walk." And he was understandably puzzled. And then followed lots of laughter. Thank you, teacher.

All talk of birds, monkeys, and penis aside: Do we all have something to hide? At first glance there is something reassuring in this sentiment: I am not alone, everyone has some kind of secret that they must keep hidden away; and not only am I not alone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE is hiding a part of themselves. Everyone *EXCEPT* this dude and his monkey, only they can be completely transparent, without shame, righteous even.

And then I was siting there, and started like, envying this guy and his monkey. I want to join the club...what am I hiding?

But I would imagine reader, even if you are not person who is hiding some kind of secret-awesome (or not awesome) you have probably hidden the truth...otherwise known as lying.

Yeah, me too.

And then after being monkeyed by Mr. Righteous Honesty, this notion of truth and how it effects my life became intertwined in my daily pondering.

So I am re-reading the my favorite book ever "All About Love: New Visions" And bell hooks brings up an important idea about withholding truth a way of subordinating and otherwise powering over other folks.

It made me think of the recent leak of of 400,000 documents (largest leak of US classified documents in history) regarding the war in Iraq and Afghanistan by WikiLeaks, called the "War Logs." This reveals a lot of new, recently classified information about our not-so-cool (*cough cough* illegal) wars (*cough cough* new-age colonization) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So yeah, the pentagon and other folks in the Federal government were really hiding their monkey here. Then the monkey gets loose---folks on the hill, quickly warn about of the danger of the moneky, she is rabid and will most certainly bite you, every single one of you...the pain, the infection! You want the monkey? You CAN'T handle the monkey!!!!!!!!

Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chief of Staff crys monkey saying, "Mr Assange (founder of WikiLeaks)can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth (emphasis is mine)is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young solider or that of an Afghan family."

*Scratches head* So according to the Admiral man, the TRUTH is that TOO MUCH truth causes blood shed. Gotta perfect the art of "selective truth." Kind of like "selective hearing" only dealing with output vs. input.

But last time I checked: Lies also cause blood shed; the difference is that when we have to search through a web of lies it becomes difficult to hold folks accountable for their deeds.

And a little FYI about the claim that these leaks are dangerous: The Associate Press obtained a letter from the Pentagon saying: NO US INTELLIGENCE OR PRACTICES WERE COMPROMISED BY THE WIKILEAKS

Anyway, politics aside (I CAN put them aside)I think this is one example about how truth (and the withholding of) is used to power over others. And more importantly: How we sometimes withhold truth in the name of "helping" situations.

I am not arguing here that knowing every fact constitutes truth, that somehow TRUTH is complete transparency, I certainly believe in the right to privacy. But as bell hooks brings up, sometimes we keep secrets in the name of privacy, "in our culture privacy is often confused with secrecy. Open honest, truth-telling individuals value privacy...keeping secrets is usually about power, about hiding and concealing information. Hence many recovery programs stress that 'you are only as sick as your secrets'" (pg.45)

And what happens when because of societal norms or laws we have to keep secrets, when telling the truth could be unsafe? For example, folks smoking Mary: I wouldn't know these types of folks...but I have heard through the grapevine. :-)

Or an even better example, one that is in the news, the Clinton Administration's Don't ask don't tell policy ,(DADT) a policy that ultimately discriminates against openly queer folks in the military. From my understanding, the policy says: you can serve if you are gay but, ya gotta stay in the closet.

And further more, being forced to stay in the closet or being in an unsafe environment to come out (even the fact that there is a closet at all) is not just a problem for queer folks in a military, this is a problem that is pretty dang widespread.

If you are straight identified person you might not imagine how difficult it is to keep your sexuality a secret because your sexuality is considered the norm. Hiding your sexuality can involve anything from "small" lies about what you did over the weekend to being unable to show affection to your partner in public.

This story hit home: a solider who was in a committed gay relationship sharing his fears that when he was deployed in Iraq if something happened to him his partner would NOT be notified (the right straight couples have.) He was not out to his family or many friends. So in order to notify his partner of his death he gave a letter to his friend and told his friend, "if something happens to me, open this." And in the letter notified his friend of his situation(actually coming out to his friend for the first time) and telling his friend where he could find his partner so his partner could be notified. Can you imagine that? If the love of your life would be notified of your death in that manner?

So secrets, especially if you are forced to keep them , really hurt. They hurt more than any truth every could.

DADT must be overthrown. At the moment, after being overthrown by a federal court in California, DADT is not being enforced in the military, but it is still in law, and we are all waiting on Obama to appeal the decision so that it can go to the supreme court and thereafter not law (kind of a complicated and somewhat contradictory way to end DADT, but that's how the Feds roll.)

Our culture often says the truth being hard to handle, "The truth, you can't handle the truth" what was that movie called that I have never seen but still know the quote from anyway because you can't hide from pop culture? I don't really do the American the movie thing, I personally think Hollywood could take a shit, add special effects and a sex scene and it would do well in the box office.

Some questions to ask: Should we keep secrets because we can't handle the possible negative outcomes of the truth? Are their moral grounds for being dishonest?

"When men and women are loyal to ourselves and others, when we love justice, we understand fully the myriad way in which lying diminishes and erodes the possibility of meaningful caring connection, that it stand in the way of love." (pg42) bell hooks says no, not so much.

Dishonesty stands in the way of meaningful connection and love.

And truly, I should re-frame what I have been discussing here. It is not about what hurts you more the truth or the lies; it is actually about what nurtures your well-being, what is life-affirming?

And I will speak from personal experience here: my most meaningful and loving relationships in my life are with people that I feel I can be totally honest with. Within these relationships I can be who I REALLY am, I can live by my truth (this doesn't belong in parenthesis, but rather have its own post: I say *my* truth because as a dear friend reminded me, the truth is subjective) I can speak my truth, and in doing so letting down the defense system of falseness. And when both parties (doesn't just have to be two people) can do this, there is a mutual vulnerability of being known as our true selves. And out of this comes a kind of power--a power that doesn't rely on subordination of others but rather in knowing, without a doubt, that we are capable of a very profound love based on truth.

So I will give a shot out to my mom, the person who always created an atmosphere where I could be honest, and she could be honest with me too.

My relationship with my mom inspires me, because of it I believe in love. I have a very strong conviction that it is possible and not only possible, but worth every effort.

Its some powerful stuff, yo.

So it doesn't matter who it is in your life, lover, mother, brother,sister, friend, teacher, if you have some relationship based on honesty that leads to meaningful connection and love you will know what I am talking about.

So I have thinking about standing up with that righteous monkey. There is nothing to hide from because despite common wisdom, the monkey doesn't always bite.

*Note on links: Super happy I figured out how to make links work in my posts. I am quite foolish when it comes to the workings of this machine, but now that I have linking-power I am going link crazy! Most of the links connect to the sources of my information, and then one movie. The movie is bad ass and if you have 25 minutes please watch the cute cats talk about international law!*

But what if the nuclear family turns into a dictatorship!

I remember being in a restaurant on campus, and seeing what looked like a gag gift from some porn shop, a riding crop like instrument, but on the end where the triangle piece of leather should be, there was a giant hand shaped soft plastic piece. I asked the person next to me, "what do you suppose that is for" (as it looked horribly out of place on a restaurant table-top) and he answered me in the very awkward way people answer questions they not only wish you hadn't asked but think you should already know the answer to, "Perhaps it is to hit naughty children"

This is not the last time I would see one of these...and no there is not a story of a sexy orgy.

Corporal punishment. This is a topic that is super complex and yet is sometimes overlooked as a "private" issue. But it really is quite important to have a dialogue about because physical punishment is ONE of the many ways we teach, and train folks to have "proper" behavior and function (dare we say thrive) in society....and it is one of the first forms of this is so called training that many of us recall with real clarity.

What made me start thinking about this was:

1.) I see people hit their kids in public here kind of often. In this year of being in Taiwan I have seen more people hit their kids than I have seen in my whole life living in the U.S. (and this ABSOLUTELY has to do with RACE, CLASS, and DEMOGRAPHICS in general.)

2.) Two different Taiwanese folks (not knowing each other) really identified with this video, I and thought it was really funny and that I ought to watch. This is a video of comedian, Russell Peters arguing that "white people must beat their children," and that most immigrant families beat their children whereas white families are "too soft" on their children(as if whites aren't also early immigrants to the Canada and the US). What I found kind of disturbing about this video is it is only funny...if you don't think about the children. If you only think about these "immigrant children" as grown adults, survivors of beatings, not only surviving but surviving to laugh about it. Disturbing thing number two: Peters argues white children's anger (or any child for that matter) is due to lack of physical punishment. Why are some children angry? Why are some adults angry? When we are angry do we just need a spanking? Actually sometimes anger is a justified and rational response (i.e. anger is response to injustice.) Anger becomes a problem when it is reoccurring, uncontrolled, and violent.

So I just keep thinking about this issue because the more I look at it the more I think about it, the more I realize this really is a social justice issue. I can't seem to find an articulate, well organized way to talk about it. For one, I am pretty ignorant about this issue and two, maybe more importantly, in the US this issue as viewed as a more "private" issue think about someone saying, "what's the government doing telling me how to raise my kids?" Or "these are my kids! You damn liberal-commie don't tell me what I can do with them!" Writing this blog has turned out to be a difficult journey in trying to stay coherent. Are you willing to read on? Willing to reel in the different strands of experiences, stories, ideology that i am going to vomit up for you?

Some might say, lighten up! It is just spanking your kids, for Christs sake! But I can't stop but asking, what are you really teaching your kid when you spank (as well as other ways of causing physical pain) her/him? Lots of folks say it is to deter undesired behavior, the child thinks "ok so if I don't do that, no spanking, no pain, therefore, I won't do that again) But, how could that be the ONLY message? I think it might send this message too: "so, since that person is older, bigger, my care giver, and that means they have some control over my body and lively hood." How does this translate to when we grow into functioning adults fully participating in society? That government is bigger than me, my caregiver (for all intensive purposes，think： infrastructure and "national security) and therefore has unquestioned and total power over my body and well-being. Does that seem fair? I don't think it does.

Human rights. This terminology---however complicated and tangled up in courts of law it is---gives me a warm-fuzzy feeling. This idea, that all humans, each and every one of us, are granted certain rights are often used to protect us(the people) from oppression and injustice (yes, an oversimplified definition to the point of being wrong...) It appears to me when talking about corporal punishment sometimes children don't seem to count as humans? Is it because we as children are not counted as a "whole" mentally, emotionally developed person? Why are children not guaranteed bodily safety.

How can we guarantee that just because an adult is administering corporal punishment that it somehow justified and appropriate? How do we know a child's punishment is just and fair in accordance to the offense? Does it mater if it is just or not? And if does not matter...why not? Aren't children...people?

After work enjoying a brew with some co-workers we discussed this very topic. And I remember one co-worker saying something that really made sense to me. He was talking about once when his son was playing near a very busy road that he knew he wasn't suppose to play in (something to this effect, something that was endangering his life) and he said, "When you spank a kid, sometimes it is a way to immediately make them understand that what they were doing (the said offense) could have painful, deadly outcomes." It kind of made sense to me, like if you get hit by a car it will hurt or kill you, so spanking kind of emulates this idea. This place=pain.

I read this regarding corporal punishment, in a book by my favorite author bell hooks', she was saying how a she was in a group of feminist minded women and was horrified by how they were proudly talking about "progressive" ways that they punish their children that included pinching a child's skin until they cried out in pain. bell hooks' asks us how we (as feminists or anyone who believes domestic violence is wrong) would react hearing a grown man saying, "yeah I felt my wife made a mistake and I pinched (spanked, hit, beat) her until she understood she was wrong." Probably not a fair or healthy way to resolve a problem in a relationship, right? Why does our outlook on inflicting pain on another human change when we are talking about children?

At a food stall eating doughnuts with a Taiwanese friend, chatting, he is like, "Actually hitting your kids is pretty common in Taiwan. All these people on the street right now, I would guess about 90% have been hit by their parents or teachers. There was a silence after that, one that I didn't know was deliberate or not, because it was hard to tell from his tone of voice if he felt any opposition to the stated fact. Am I saying child abuse is a problem in Taiwan? I have absolutely no evidence to support that. But what is clear...hitting kids is out in the open, and it is appears that according to common wisdom, corporal punish is viewed as necessary and not up for discussion.

But in the US I have heard a similar sentiment. I remember siting with my college dance team, a majority whom were African American identified, and them talking about "getting a whoopin'" and the worst one they ever had, and what their offensive was. The tone of the conversation was not that of wounded people, it was rather like they were bonding over this, laughing over this. I don't want you to get the idea that they seemed over-joyed with these experiences, however it did seem to be a little bonding moment none-the-less. And remember, boding over a common experience is not always just rejoicing, sometimes it is a way to heal or find community in a struggle. But I will never know...because I want not part of the bonding experience. And I also don't want you to take from this that I think "beating" only happens in African American or families of color. Not so. This is just a very vivid memory.

Whenever I talk about this subject everyone always asks, "well, were you spanked?" I think I was, I truly don't remember. According to my mom "never! Like maybe once or twice!" After stating this fact people always say, "see that explains a lot." What that even means, I don't know. I don't appear to be too delinquent right? Minus the occasional pot smoking and underage drinking I am pretty damn law-abiding. I have a bad temper sometimes...which my current boyfriend actually thinks is attributed to the lack of spanking during childhood. I am pretty sure it has to do with my coffee addiction and excessive heat in this climate.

I remember someone saying that if you remember being spanked it was unjust. And it you don't remember it means you "deserved it."

Or wait, and what about my enjoyment of being spanked in the bedroom? Is it all connected? Am I continually seeking the punishment I never had? Actually, I personally don't think one's preferences in bed represent what they lacked in childhood. But who knows what one is going on with our behavior? Even Freud got some of that shit wrong.

And I will say something this with conviction: parents aren't always "right." And they don't always have good ideas and they don't always do what is best for their kids. And in the US we have this idea, "well it's *MY* kid and I will do what ever I want when I am raising her/him" But what I want to ask: how does this concept of the a child as an extension of a parent or legal guardian infringe on a child's human rights? I am for real asking this question. For real. And I am not the first one to ask either.

So this was a incoherent rant about spanking. Just because it is in my face. Really. I turned around after buying a tea to see some old woman hit a kid upside the head for being too happy and doing a couple spins on his toes before getting on the scooter. It just made me cringe, ya know? It seems that the woman lost her temper, felt impatient like I do sometimes when I am hot, and I am thinking about getting moving and waiting on someone....

I've just been thinking...after seeing more clearer than ever...what it looks like when the parent is always right, and beating is normalized and laughed about. It just gets me thinking....gets me imagining a different type of family relation, a different type of community relation, perhaps more egalitarian....

Exercising my imagination. I have heard that imagination is a must for visionary politics.

You guessed it. I am hoping to become the liberal version of Christine O'Donnell...except brighter pant suits (is it possible you ask?, less conspires theories involving China, and also complete with a kick ass campaign song, Devo's Whip it Good, "when a problem comes along...you must whip it."

Whip it...oh dear, no pun intended. I believe in whipping societal and political problems NOT PEOPLE. Furthermore, I don't intend on actually using a whip...I was thinking more bad-ass policies and some infrastructure spending...." Ok...maybe a different campaign song.

And this cliche worked for me....

All you gotta to do is live in the moment.

And this cliche worked for me.

How did I get into the moment? I stopped worrying about the future. How did I stop fretting about the events that have yet to unfold? I freed myself from expectations.

It all started with me breaking down (2 different times in a months time) and saying that I will leave Taiwan and come back to the States in time for winter quarter at Portland State. And the second time...my parents had time to get the ticket before I changed my mind again. So instead of having an "endless" stay in a foreign country, I now have a return date and that date is in time for Christmas.

And the thing that happened. I can really look at Taiwan, with confidence, say for all my likes and dislikes related to this country, it doesn't need to be evaluated, summed up, given a thumbs up as if it were someone's facebook status. It's just Taiwan. This place, like any and every place has endless layers, histories, stories and angles to look from---and it could be discussed, critiqued, opinions made. And I have. And I found that "the critiquing me," the one without a productive outlet, she feels defeated. And, so I have stopped.

Because I see a light. At the end of the tunnel? No, I think of it as an emanating light...coming not only from myself,but those around me, if you just take a look. And cue in gospel music: "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine."

Which makes me think of my mom saying, "Don't burn the candle at both ends." Aka "you need to get more sleep." You only get one light and when that wax melts away...now where is that fire gonna come from? Words of wisdom (that hardly anyone under 30 follows): Take care folks.

Although I am "in" the moment I still am looking forward to Christmas in Michigan. I can already smell the synthetic material of the garland, taste the sugar cookies, and hear the Trans Siberian Orchestra(TSO)while rocking out with my mom.

I actually can't stop thinking about it. It's been four years since I have spent Christmas in my hometown. And the other times...me and my cat. Which hasn't been bad, but Milo, he tends to not be so moved by TSO's Carol of the Bells as my mom and I tend to be...if you get my drift.

Although I am not so much of a prayer---but I have been praying for the snow.

Oh boy. I know I may be romanticizing this whole Christmas thing, but I think we can all enjoy this little tidbit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vNcGlM8O3I

Please rock out.

My mother also said we shouldn't wish our life away. Even if it is one day (how many times have I said, "I can't wait until this day is over.")

But whenever I have short (yet measurable) periods of time in between a transition in my life...I never know what to do with myself. For example the period (a month during summer vacation) working at Damon's living at my mom's in Kzoo before I took of to Portland, OR. Bored as hell! Or before i came here to Taiwan that summer vacation, some days starting my morning with malt liquor and a joint.

Good lord. And now...forcing myself to sit through (now becoming very non-challenging) Chinese classes everyday. However, my biggest joy is going out to eat with my boyfriend. And talking to local strangers by surprise by A.) Speaking Chinese (being white and all) B.) Asking questions that may or may not make them uncomfortable (For example: "don't you think it is rude to talk about me right in front of my face? Is this kind of thing acceptable in your culture?") I can dig it. It beats malt liquor at 10 AM. Trust me.