I haven’t written properly here for awhile, and much as I loathe blogging about blogging, there are some days, every day in fact, that I struggle to think about what to write here.
So many things have happened in the past months that it’s been difficult to make heads or tails of it. And I only know that I am lucky to have had so many great opportunities to do fun things and call it work.
But to try to blog about it presents difficulties, or something.
So I looked into the archives and dug out the first entry I blogged as Mr Miyagi. And I find that all I did was cut and paste something T. E. Lawrence (he of Arabia) said:
“You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That’s the feeling.â€
So, I got all pensive and introspective and all that, then I said ah fuck it because I’m here in San Diego and trying to soak it all in.
I last visited the States in 1981 or thereabouts, and I remember being bewildered as a 12 year old would, eating fast food (MacDonald’s) for the first time, realising the difference between carrot cakes here and those that are fried in Singapore, and going ape over the Hotel Bonaventure L.A., where we stayed, because it was the building they used as the Earth Defense Directorate HQ in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
There was also Disneyland, and then going to San Francisco, Vancouver and Toronto with my parents, my sister and brother. I remember the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and falling on ice for the first time, and very nearly cracking my head open. It was probably the first time I felt as if I had travelled (not the falling and cracking head bit), and I remember having difficulty understanding the way people spoke, and how I was often gobsmacked for a response, even if I thought I spoke English then.
Living in Australia for 8 years did allow me to experience the same disconnect a little – trying to comprehend Australian English is a challenge even some Australians find troublesome. Ask any Aussie who Emma Chissett is, and you’ll know why.
I don’t know whether it’s because we’ve been so Americanised – bloddy television, bloddy movies – that this time round, coming to the States presented no such problem. Everything was smooth, conversation-wise, and no one had to excuse themselves and ask the other to repeat what they’d just said.
Maybe it’s because I spoke ‘Good English’, then. Yay. I speak good english, and so I’m sure to make it good here, and everywhere else.
Then I found something else striking. You go to any shop and buy something, or ask something, and the person serving you serves you, thanks you, then tells you to “have a nice day”. And they sound like they mean it.
That’s the one Americanism that’ll stick for this trip, I think.
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