Same Song Blues

Arrived back in Brisbane last night, and been unpacking all day. It never ends. And there's already so much to do, so many chores to be finished, and I can't even get started because of the date. The country's paralysed, and I have to empty bags taking out Burmese-teak Buddhas and lacquerware tissue-boxes, and pause with pain at memories.

I even tried listening to some of my fave Bollywood songs to help heighten the mood, but to no avail. Its official. I feel the alienation in my bones. In the fibre of my being I know that I'm looking around like a departed sprite, hollow and otherworldly.

I want to go back to Yangon, where people suffer but care, where movies in cinemas are five-years old but watching kids play on the street is far more entertaining, where people are very hush about forced labour but will donate what little they have for a gold leaf to be laid on Shwedagon in their name.

Where food is bought fresh off the streets and tastes like it should, where monks place themselves in danger just in order to confirm new military directives, where housekeeping boys insist on paying for you, where email is an elitist concept, where your teacup is never allowed to be empty because quenching another's thirst is supposed to bring you spiritual merit.

Ah, I have to write about Yangon, so much, and soon. Yet I have to take care of things so mundane I want to scream. Help.

Here I come o saturated world

So its done, I guess. My trip's over, and I'm in the throes of my regular chaotic packing, which takes all day and is endless, and just when you think the bags can be zipped up, new stuff pops out of thin air begging to be taken along.

Unlike my other times, though, this time the depression is palpable - perhaps because I'm already aware of its forthcoming presence and am trying to be prepared for it. Friends have been forewarned, and bouts of silence have been observed.

I leave for an uber-civilisation after spending the largest chunk of my break in a country where people can't vote and sometimes work for nothing, not even food.

And then I need to observe New Year's Eve in a First World country where binge drinking is the norm and people complain about holiday weight and tasteless, regiftable Christmas presents.

Strangely enough, I was happier in the supposedly more miserable country.

Love you, Australia. Make way, I'm coming over.

Madnesses and Methods

So I'm finally here in Malaysia, en route to Myanmar. In about a week or more, I've successfully exploded at my mother, burst with pride at my godsister's dance graduation, spent copious amounts of time with my dad before he left overseas (yes, leaving behind a just-come-home daughter ), eaten alive by mozzies in a very forgotten Christian cemetery, obtained dubious blessings from a Shiva-like Thai ascetic, and utterly confused my geography in the ever-mystifying maze that is KL.

Planning anything when my mum is around is an act of futility, given my family's inherent love for chaos. Distractions abound and taken to almost with obscene veracity. My mother doesn't speak in sentences, but in paragraphs - and if she wants to ask me something, she never actually just asks it- she has to outline the history of that question from its inception, offer me 25 options and why those options exist, and just when I've successfully tuned her out and wondering which Malaysian dish I should sample next, finally goes "So what you do you think?" and expects an instant answer.

Ah, home.

KL is a whirlwind this time. I'm spinning around in a city filled with banners of Bollywood stars, who are descending on the city for a concert/award thingy ( another one of those un-rememberable ones, so not surprised ) and of course I'm left out of the whole thing. Its my regular catchphrase now that all of Bollywood is exactly where I am not - but they chase after me and reach just as I've left.

Tag! I want to lose!

I can barely touch my friends the way I'm used to doing when I'm around. Its like I've got ADD, nodding absently at instances when I usually get emphatic and empathetic. Perhaps because this time around KL is my halfway house between family time and research time in Myanmar?

I have no answers right now. Perhaps they will resurface when I leave.

I need to make a move - Anniza's showered and is waiting to drop me off to Megamall before attending a meeting. That's what I seem to be doing most in KL - shop!