on naming and spending

as a friend commented to me yesterday, 'it is hard to compete with fishjuice vodka'. and she doesn't know the half of it. but indeed it is, so it is not with out some sense of trepidation that attempt to scrape together some thoughts today. i feel compelled to do so, however, in case saturday's party is as insane as the last one* and i end up writing about splitting my trousers on the dancefloor** and you all think that all i am good for is drinking champagne and being silly***. i will therefore today attempt to talk about serious things. to wit: naming (and the narratives entangled therein (oh narrative arc! my favourite subject)) and consumption (which, actually, also related to the narratives we create and seek for ourselves and how we ascribe meaning to them through language (a.k.a. naming)).

first, consumption.

i have actually been thinking about this a bit lately. partially because i (finally) paid off my private student loans from law school. and, although i still have some public loans blowing in the wind somewhere, i am able to to ponder financial potentials that were heretofore impossible for me. it has also been interesting to just examine how i managed to finally pay them off (and how people respond when i tell them) - not buying any new clothes for a year and moving into a considerably cheaper flat that i share - and where i am choosing to spend money now that i have more disposable income - on other people and experiences. (well, and i immediately purchased a small heap of shoes. but i really needed some new shoes after that year! and i am imperfect. (i maintain that blue patent leather stilettos were also required.)) so i am thinking about this now becuase i my own rather subtle musings more became more pronounced after i read the following article: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend. the authors critique the self-help / priv-lit genre and the consumer culture it promotes among women as anti-feminist****. really worth a read. although this about sums it up:

Priv-lit perpetuates several negative assumptions about women and their relationship to money and responsibility. The first is that women can or should be willing to spend extravagantly, leave our families, or abandon our jobs in order to fit ill-defined notions of what it is to be “whole.” Another is the infantilizing notion that we need guides—often strangers who don’t know the specifics of our financial, spiritual, or emotional histories—to tell us the best way forward. The most problematic assumption, and the one that ties it most closely to current, mainstream forms of misogyny, is that women are inherently and deeply flawed, in need of consistent improvement throughout their lives, and those who don’t invest in addressing those flaws are ultimately doomed to making themselves, if not others, miserable.

very astute point(s). and yet. and yet so many of the intelligent, together women i know really loved eat pray love. although many felt guilty about it. [side query: how much of that speaks to elizabeth gilbert's strength as a writer and how much of it speaks to how compelling we find her narrative?] i remember when, once upon a lifetime when i worked in a big bad law firm in the big bad apple that was affectionately nicknamed 'the sweatshop' or 'the death star', the subject of eat pray love came up in a conversation i was having with one of my partner mentors. this particular partner mentor is truly amazing - smart and compassionate and accomplished, she ended up at the firm because it was the only job she could get in nyc in 1971 that would permit her to work a four-day week so that she could spend fridays caring for her two young daughters and supporting her rabbi-husband has he prepared for services and observe shabbat in the calm way she desired. she adhered to that schedule (not without challenges along the way) the entire time her children were growing up and made partner after many years with the firm. she and her husband also started a wonderful NGO working to empower farmers and communities in afghanistan, a country they travelled in and fell in love with in the late 60s / early 70s. [http://www.gpfa.org/] this woman seemed to have it all, respected in the world of international arbitration and in her community, she had a happy marriage, great kids, a thriving career, a successful NGO. she was an inspiration.

although i worked quite closely with this partner***** on a number of cases and other projects, the occasion of our conversation that day was my inviting her to be a guest speaker at my book club when we were going to be discussing a book about afghanistan. rory stewart's the places in between, his account of walking across afghanistan in january, 2002. (incidentally, gender figured prominently in our conversation because of course a woman could never have written this book and of course rory is not at all conscious of this. then again, how many of us are truly conscious of our own privileges until something overwhelming and blinding forces us to see? and even then, our consciousness is typically fleeting.) the partner agreed, but she asked what other books we'd read. eat pray love was a last minute substitute because none of us could bear to get through the 600 pages of run-on sentences that comprised the book we had selected for that month. but i mentioned it when running through what we'd covered thus far that year. she wrinkled her nose when i mentioned eat pray love, commenting, "i read the first three pages but i couldn't bear to go any further. it was all so self-indulgent and ridiculous." she had and has a point. you don't achieve what this woman had achieved, both professionally, personally, and dare i say spiritually, by abandoning responsibilities and running off to eat gelato or pet cows every time god speaks to you while you're crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. [confession: god has never spoken to me while i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. her loss, really. i am really funny when i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night.] of course after the partner said that, i felt a pang of guilt for having finished the book. in one day even (shhhh!). and tumbled over myself trying to explain that it had been a last minute substitute and really the book club ladies were way more evolved than elizabeth gilbert, really. of course, when she came to book club the discussion about the places in between, we all really just wanted to know how she had done it, how she had managed to have it all. she answered simply, explaining that you can't have it all at once and must do things one at a time.

and now i am suitably tangled up in side stories and must unravel these threads in a tidy manner and draw a conclusion - we ought to be critical of how we're encouraged to consume (conscious of the cultural and gendered assumptions informing that encouragement) and consider the implications of our choices. the article is quick to point out that elizabeth gilbert's journey is not realistic to replicate or aspire to (people, after all that crying on the bathroom floor and walking out on her husband, she got to eat a lot of pasta, achieve some-sort-of-blue-light-enlightenment, marry a hot brazilian, live happily every after, and make millions). but maybe the reason the self-help priv-lit genre is so appealling even as we are conscious of how belittling and destructive it is (cf. the footnote somewhere down there about needing to orchestrate our own rescues) and also aware of the unhealthy wanton consumerism it promotes is its compelling cinderella suspension of disbelief aspect. i mean, who doesn't want to run away to eat gelato and pet cows, only to end up with an amazing latin lover and julia roberts playing you in a movie? that's some sweet glass slipper. although thankfully i am personally entirely over latin lovers in a serious way, so i that precise glass slipper wouldn't suit. in any case, enough on this. enjoy the article.

second, nomenclature.

this is the actual english name of a new restaurant the just opened near my office: "mr. pigger restaurant". awesome. i laughed out loud with joy and wonder when i saw it. the chinese name is yi kou zhu - a mouthful of pig. hmmm, i wonder if they serve pork.... i stumbled upon this delightful new addition to the neighbourhood two days after a rather interesting discussion about the importance of names. this is a subject i have personally considered at great length given that i have a boy's name and spent a good portion of my young life complaining about this to my parents. well, until my mother calmly informed me when i was about ten that they almost gave me the middle name of “baldface.” seriously. baldface was the name of the mountain that i was conceived on and they thought it would be a nice remembrance. i think it would have been nicer for them than for me – a blissful bit of hippie nostalgia since my mother’s pregnancy meant they had to move out of the tent in the woods and it was time for my ba to enter the corporate world. in any case, that made my boy's name feel like a blessing. i also had new appreciate for "jane" (my middle name). it's a hard-knock life.

the conversation i was having the other day was more focused on amusing english names in china, or chinese names for english products. i recalled how, living in shanghai in 2001-2002, i experienced a sudden burst of joy when i discovered the slim, serious man behind the counter serving my latte at the starbucks near my flat in the french concession was named “cocaine.” i really loved cocaine the starbucks barrista. he was my unabashed favourite. i also loved getting coffee from cocaine. it gave me a greater kick than the caffeine. and it was about as close to the real stuff as i’d ever get, so it felt risqué somehow – like i was drinking cocacola back when the “coca” meant something. (speaking of cocacola, the chinese name for coke is possibly the best branding ever. a transliteration - kekoukele – that roughly translates to “makes mouths happy.” brilliant.) before i left shanghai, i asked cocaine why he had chosen that name. he shrugged and said, "everybody likes it." i nodded and thanked him for my coffee. i started to tell him i would miss him, but then i realised that was a bit much and better contained. i could save my pain at this parting for when i was crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night waiting for god to speak to me. other than cocaine, my favourite friend from afar in shanghai was a sweet young man named "clocean". when pressed about his choice, he explained he couldn't decide between "cloud" and "ocean". i loved this so much, and so did my crazywonderful family, that we now have a sculpture in the backyard named clocean. seriously. the spare house key is in his ear.

so, t.s. elliott tells us that the naming of cats is a difficult matter. as is the naming of daughters, starbucks barristas, and pork restaurants. but a recent email prompted me to consider the significance of naming charities. i received an invitation to a fundraising dinner for an organisation called "compassion for migrant children". i was simply struck by what a brilliant name that is. who doesn't want to have compassion for migrant children? or at least support those who do? i mean, not even 'empathy for migrant children' comes close. it's really the compassion that strikes you right in the chest and makes you want to cough up all of your renminbi to eat chilli bean noodles with bbq pork & apple salad. [curious, there is a lot of pork in this post.] yes, they included the menu in the invite. an unfortunate choice really. detracts slightly from the power of being smacked in the chest with compassion for migrant children because you immediately start considering entrees. but oh well. after receiving this email, i started contemplating how compassion could be worked into the names of all sorts of charities. and, naturally, considering inappropriate alternatives. 'mild frustration with migrant children' or 'contempt for disadvantaged communities' or 'apathy over minority rights' or 'mild concern for the poor'. really without compassion, why bother at all? also, the fact that i am sharing these thoughts with you may be the reason that god doesn't speak to me when i am crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night******.

so i hope this all suitably thoughtful and amusing such that i can return to writing about dancing come sunday morning. of course, if i find a glass slipper between now and then you'll hear about that too.



*please see the post dated may 9, 2010 'smells like teen spirit'. (i still have not worked out how to link, sorry.) it is my fervent hope that no one humps the couches this time. at least not before midnight.

**something i have done on more than one occasion. SJ.

***incidentally, this might be all that i am good for. ok now we're at three footnotes in one sentence. once again perhaps i need to reconsider structure.

****i appreciate that in the 'about us' section, the creators of bitch magazine quote rebeca west: "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

*****i know, too many stars! but one of my nicknames is sparkleicious. but i am getting ahead of myself, we are still on the subject of consumption, not names. and we're in a footnote. the point of which was to note that it was actually thanks to this partner's intervention that i was able to find a place in the firm's international arbitration / litigation group at our firm. i reached out to her after being fairly horribly sexually harassed by the project finance partner whose group i was originally meant to join. i was still young enough and inexperienced in the sometimes subtle misogyny that pervades corporate life and how it is managed, so this was a bit daunting. perhaps particularly because i didn't want to make real accusations, i simply wanted to escape. [sigh. i could write a book about all the inappropriate things men in the legal profession have said to me or suggested.] in any case, she painly and quietly orchestrated my rescue. well, really i orchestrated my own rescue. (you always do. it's the only way.) she implemented it. without a fuss. for which i was forever thankful.

******another confession: i don't cry on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. i prefer crying in corners. please see the post dated november 10, 2009 'a world changed'. (again, i still haven't worked out how to link.) although yikes, if you can actually be bothered to go read that post you may be struck, as i just was, about the gyring nature of my thoughts in this space. (and yes, the gyre reference was a shout out to yeats. what can i say? i'm into shout-outs these days.) i was beginning to think about having come to china to fall wholly and completely into myself even then (and even amid great and sudden heartbreak (thus the discussion of crying in corners)). and was quoting goethe then too. am i consistent or merely all too predictable? unclear.