herstory

Hungbu

emma — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:31:44 +0000

There are numerous variations of the popular Korean folktale concerning two brothers, Hungbu and Norbu. Written versions, as well as the text for pansori (Korean folk “opera”) performance, usually unfold as parallel sets of contrasting narratives. The younger brother Hungbu’s good actions are rewarded, while elder brother Norbu’s evil actions are punished. The best know version includes a Confucian/Buddhist emphasis on the moral power of Hungbu to influence Norbu to reform his behavior.

Norbu, rich, greedy and vindictive, seizes their father’s fortune and leaves his brother in poverty. When Hungbu asks for help to feed his family, Norbu accuses him of laziness and refuses. Hungbu though poor, is kind hearted and compassionate. Hungbu saves the life of a baby swallow, nursing it to health and mending its broken leg. The swallow recovers and flies away, but returns next spring and rewards Hungbu with a gourd seed. He plants the seed and five huge gourds grow. When the gourds are split open, they contain: 1) a bountiful supply of rice, 2) a great quantity of gold, 3) a beautiful woman, 4) building timber, and 5) carpenters who build Hungbu a magnificent mansion.

Norbu demands to know how his brother became so rich. Upon hearing the tale, Norbu goes home and builds his own swallows nest. After the nest is occupied and young swallows are hatched, he throws one out of the nest, breaking its leg. Then he binds the leg to heal. The bird recovers and flies away, also returning the following spring with a gourd seed. Norbu plants the seed and five gourds grow: 1) contains imps with sticks that beat Norbu, 2) contains loan collectors who confiscate his wealth, 3) contains a flood of foul water that inundates Norbu’s house. Norbu runs to his brother for help before the rest of the gourds open.

Hungbu takes his brother into his home and shares all he has with him. Norbu recognizes his greed and becomes a humble person. The two brothers live together happily ever after.

Hungbu Copyright Emma G, 2009

My own karma appears to be bound up with caring for injured birds. Since my teens, I have been circumstantially placed in the position of providing care for more than a dozen injured birds. Most were native wild birds that had fallen from their nests before fledging. One was a juvenile Mallard duck that nearly drowned while entangled in a plastic “six pack” binding. And one was a young cockatoo, abandoned because it had been diagnosed with cancer. Only three of these birds recovered and survived.

While sitting at the breakfast table on our porch, a young rainbow lorikeet fell from the roof onto our porch railing. The bird hesitantly approached along the rail, then hopped onto the table and proceeded to help herself to my coffee. She was confused, and weak from hunger, but otherwise uninjured. She seemed used to human contact and I assumed she was someone’s lost pet, so we reported her to all our local vets. But no one called looking for her.

Lorikeets are primarily nectar/pollen eaters, with a short gut passage producing copious, largely liquid feces. They are very social, sleeping in flocks of a hundred or more. They are very vocal, though thankfully not as loud as cockatoos. Like cockatoos and other large parrots, they can learn to “speak”. And although exceptionally beautiful, they are considered nuisance birds in many areas of Australia (much like sparrows and starlings in the USA). My deduction is that she was deliberately abandoned because of special food requirements and the energy required to care for and interact with her.

She has been residing with us now for the past six weeks and we have been calling her “Hungbu”. She has completely recovered and can now fly quite well. She shows no interest in leaving however, so I won’t be expecting any gourd seeds come next spring.

One Morning

emma — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:10:25 +0000

One Morning Copyright Emma G, 2009

Another month . . . passed . . . too slow . . . and past . . . too fast.

Nothing to write about . . . except to write about “too much”. . . with too little adequacy . . . and too few. . . facts. Over-complicated . . . the simple becomes . . . passably complex . . by simply going on too long . . . a seemingly justified . . . but ultimate waste . . . of both language . . . and an irretrievable . . . potential . . . negotiated against present-time . . . for the hope . . . of a sustainable discovery . . . a true affirmation . . . a mutual exchange . . . of personal meanings.

Action “speaks” louder than words . . . because . . . an action cannot be . . . (often) (easily) (conveniently) . . . over- or un- done. . . A language . . . of words . . . is left to bear this principle burden . . . a primary proof . . . (for others) (in relation to) (one’s self) . . . of a wishfully self-serving sentience of self- awareness.

Alone. . . I know all my meanings . . . without need of interpreters . . . or interpretations. Some time . . . sheltered in silence . . . is good for becoming . . . less enamored by . . . my own voice . . . ricocheting off another’s brainpan . . . Through the noise . . . I could not hear . . . or listen to . . . the vocables in my own heart . . . sounds of songs . . . I would choose . . . to sing.

Each day of one day(s) . . . crosses . . . with good-intentioned mediation . . . to imposing timing . . . to days accumulated @ inevitable cost . . .a moment on moments . . . begun as already lost. Sum time: a less than subtle remainder denies existence . . . to a being here-now.

But love . . . thrives well . . . in a moment . . . of silence shared.

Remembering & Letting Go

emma — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:50:06 +0000

To write about another’s life and expect to seal in some of their Truth is largely, I think, a fool’s errand. What truth I might expect to find rummaging through the debris called facts discarded from another’s life is greatly contaminated; pursued through interpretation, seen through the relationships of meaning that facts must bear from prior viewpoints established from and toward a life I already call my own.

The facts I might recover from another’s life still unfolding, are typically purchased by attempts to contain that life within questionings of observations that selectively record what I think I’ve come to know about that other, in a voice that rarely tells more than what I barely know about myself.

But if that life has already passed, there can be no direct questionings for pseudo validation. Instead the missing first person mystery is assembled from variables, remnants and remainders. And I am left to mimic an attempt to solve that mystery as if it were firsthand.

The facts I know of and from my A_’s grandmother about her life are scarce. Geography, timing and circumstance limited our face-to-face conversations to a scant number of occasions, on which I served primarily as the willing recipient for the retelling of tales she regarded as significant to the history of her heritage. Composed largely of her role as matriarch and survivor ( in the ancient, honorific sense of those terms) I was privy only to a handful of moments from the entirety, which constituted her individual life’s mythos. A handful of moments as points in time, when the deeply personal of her life was forcibly intersected by the life events of an encompassing, at times intrusive world.

It is the scarcity of facts themselves that lends those few I posses a certain intense immensity, like relics ( again in an ancient honorific sense of the word). As with all relics, factual appearances belie the greater power contained within.

I spoke with her only slightly more frequently by phone. Not by design, but simply because she could not always remember when A_ herself would be at home, and found only me there instead. It is from these disembodied exchanges that my favorite anecdote remains: Of the pure delight in her voice when I greeted her instantly by her name, and the wonder she expressed at being so easily remembered. I never felt the desire to explain. She had taken such great prided in having exorcised the Eastern European melody from her speech. That melody I heard clinging to her each and every word. That melody that noted her as her, inside my heart.

Grieving allows the comfort to console through an apparent contradiction: A remembering of the facts and then a letting go. Somewhere in between, we keep our memories.

In memory of Tola

1915 to 2009

january passed

emma — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:49:52 +0000

“Passing Thru” Copyright Emma G, 2009

january passed.

on its way thru

ten thousand words

but left none to find

there way here.

some other beginnings

attached to there endings

as cool days wed red days

and blue days fled dead days

good days need bad days

between.

time slips in a birthday

to tally costs paid

to another full year.

returning

to teaching (this time: ESL)

my necessitities

to others leaves

less time my own.

in lessons assessments

labors preparing

to share once/again

what I think I

might know.

fixing my place between

wakings and sleepings to borrow

time cut free from what

I can only postpone.

and A_ is away

in that vagueness called Sydney

living the last

pages of leavings before

time comes

to be measured in grieving

as one well-loved

waits

to pass thru

then close

life’s final door.

Affirm The Other

emma — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:44:32 +0000

It is tempting at times to consolidate all of the folly, burden and damage of restrictive or prescribed differentiation under my diagnosis of being trans gendered. Certainly, being trans gendered complicates or prohibits access to many of the accepted symbols of cultural gender differentiation that society assumes to be useful. Entailing sometimes-extreme emotional, mental and physical consequences, it is easy to place the entirety of blame on the most obvious source. The obsessive imposition of cultural gender differentiation alternately conflicts with, disrupts, or appears to negate my own awareness of self.

A biological differentiation of sex in human beings is impossible to deny. It is also nearly impossible to accurately define. Our necessity for an interdependent method of procreation is manifested in numerous ways in each individual. Our cultural method of sexing is carried out at birth and is based solely on the physical presence of birth genitalia. Birth sexing references only an apparent possibility of an existence of potential for an individual to participate in the interdependent reproduction necessary for our species. Birth sexing does not guarantee any potential actually exists and provides little accuracy to the assumption of possible potential.

It is the overly simplistic biological observation of birth sexing that is used to support the range of distinctions underlying our cultural differentiations of gender. Though based merely on a rudimentary observation of appearances, birth sexing can be used to imply a predefined cultural stereotype/role for each sexed individual. Once performed, birth sexing is expected to be unilaterally reinforced by all our cultural institutions. Our culture allows, and at times insists that this reinforcement can be conducted forcibly “if necessary”.

Sexing itself is not a requirement for an individual’s existence. With birth sexing, all ambiguous manifestations of genital sex are decided by an estimate of appearances and then fixed. Yet the postponement of sexing beyond birth poses no threat to an individual’s life, and in cases of biological ambiguity and gender dysphoria, postponement may actually prove to be either greatly life enhancing or ultimately life-saving.

Superficially, the addition of “trans” to the existing symbol word of gender appears to seek a redefinition of the existing differentiation. The idea of crossing genders is in keeping with the most common translation, Two Spirits, of a variety of indigenous words for their concepts of gender variance. The term contains no imposition to choose or commit to a single fixed gender (or expression of sexuality). It celebrates instead the purposeful continuance of open accessibility to gender fluidity.

Within most indigenous conceptions however, gender fluidity was expressed through a role of interdependent service to the community. The purpose of this service supported a variety of expressions and was frequently founded on a simple spiritual principle: “To affirm the other who affirms you.” (Will Roscoe, Changing Ones).

At present, a “trans” prefix can be applied to achieve a manipulation of gender differentiation. Without addressing the specifics of any particular differentiation itself, a “trans” prefix can accommodate both a personal imperative and a personal convenience, while avoiding at least some of the consequences of navigating the existing cultural gender differentiation. Like any manipulation, it works especially well if done while allowing the consequences to be inflicted on some one else.

It is this potential for manipulation (combined with the lack of any currently valued social role) that exposes most trans identified persons to a variety of judgmental accusations including selfishness, deception, delusion, mental instability and amorality.

As a term of useful empowerment trans gender will never have great potential precisely because it frequently seeks to further additional differentiations within the already unmanageable distinctions currently applied to gender in our culture. It is hardly surprising that our authenticity would be questioned under the dogmatic and fundamentalist gender differentiations we now culturally accept.

What is surprising is how poorly equipped we seem to be at answering many of the questions asked of us at all. Our efforts at answers generally entail some variant combination of the following and more: 1) Cry “Foul” by declaring our complete victimization. 2) Highlight our initial biological deficiencies. 3) Prove our inability to produce rational thought. 4) Transfer the un-pleasantries of our responsibilities to others. 5) Demonstrate our extensive capacity for dishonesty. 6) Demand we be taken seriously in every circumstance and situation.

In many cases, we don’t or can’t answer intelligently the questions we provoke from others. Distortions of fact, fabrications, fantasy and wishful thinking won’t resolve legitimate questions. We are always gender refugees, yet we act often like invaders. We go stealth, not just to avoid the dangerous repercussions of our gender alienation, but to avoid the scrutiny it incurs as well.

The emotional and psychological benefits of GRS are extremely important. It may increase personal safety, provide a method for achieving conformity to prevailing gender differentiation, give us self-respect, let us live our lives more openly, more honesty, more fully. It is, however, irrational and dishonest to state, imply, or insist that GRS actually changes biological sex.

The irony of the “Two Spirit” model of gender variance is that it evolved in cultures placing little or no emphasis on individual gender differentiation as a significant attribute of an individual’s worth. Each individual was measured rather by the role of service they provided to the interdependent community as a whole. In such communities, it is highly likely that a possibility for fixing gender variance would have been viewed as unnecessarily diminishing the value of service a Two Spirit person could provide.

Unfortunately, birth sexing is also used as a basis of differentiation within most efforts towards gendered activism as well. Both the GLBT acronym and the label “Feminist” are very much, in essence, “sexist” terminology that still references the original biological birth differentiation. Changing the label of a symbol of differentiation is not the same as changing its meaning despite the best intentions.

Despite the brilliance, eloquence and depth of thought applied (at least at times) to the writings and work of many feminist, gender, and sexual preference activists, an insistence on maintaining a basis of significance for gender differentiation will not allow an achievement of equality. What else does equality itself require besides the removal of differentiations?

Symbols

emma — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:30:30 +0000

The living of my life requires no alphabets, no words. Experience proceeds without regard to my self-aware understanding of causation or effect. The present moment is its own “meaning”, beyond my objection or consent. The greatest benefit of my self-awareness is its potential to sustain this recognition through the interdependence of living my life itself.

It is when I slip out of the actual living of my life and lose the connection to its interdependence that I must retreat to the necessity for an expression achieved through symbols (either of reference or analogy) to contrive the missing awareness of my living of my life.

Languages (and art) exist essentially as structures for the manipulation of symbols of reference and analogy. Reference symbols are potentially more accurate: numbers, alphabets, mathematical formulae, and the elemental symbols of chemistry, musical notation and so on. Their meaning retains greater integrity, irrespective of the manipulation of structures. Conflicted meanings are generally easily apparent.

Symbols of analogy are more disposed to a subjective interpretation. Their definition is allusive, susceptible to the imposition and influence of a variety of forces: cultural conditioning, personal experiential association or comparison, deliberate or accidental re-purposing or reversal, acceptance of misuse, and occasionally, abandonment. Their integrity of meaning is highly dependent on both the structure of manipulation and its accessibility.

Expression and communication are both achieved through a selective structuring of available symbols into some specific alignment of differentiation. It is usually presumed that a degree of access to both the symbols chosen and the structure of alignment for differentiation will be present, at least for the purpose of communication. Such presumption may or may not prove true.

The desire to improve the precision of meaning implied by a symbol, particularly in language of communication, often requires more numerous and miniscule points of differentiation. Many of which remain, when drawn from symbols of analogy, essentially personal in potential. At some point, such differentiation becomes meaningless even if it is not purely personal. My graphics monitor can (according to the manufacturer) display millions of colors beyond the capability of human sight. Considering that the best printer in the world cannot print anywhere near the colors I actually can see, this degree of “precision” is entirely meaningless to me.

The example might seem inappropriate initially. But I only have to consider the numerous differentiations I apply daily to my use of the personal pronoun “I” as a representation of my self identity to surpass the absurdity of the above example’s meaningless waste of differentiating precision. My living “being”, attempting to adhere to the continuously shifting necessities imposed by the appended directive of differentiation (this/that, like/unlike), frequently ceases to function naturally as “being”. Too often, without even the most minimal benefit to the actual moment of living.

Scars

emma — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:23:19 +0000

I cannot accurately recall any specific point at which the process of physical aging became self- consciously apparent to me. Subtle changes were (and still are) adapted to without notice. Colors fade, textures change, imperceptibly, over time. Desires become less insistent, their appetites less pronounced.

Rarely, yet more frequently these days, the reflection in the mirror seems to be not my own. Composed of lines unrecognized, and angles more acute. Seeing more than I expect, I look less often than before. A small act of denial, to rebuke time’s passage for being a less agreeable friend.

Woman Once A Bird Joel Peter Witkin, 1990

Lately, I find myself questioning increasingly which constitutes the more accurate, more honest of self histories: The documents of carefully adopted personal perspectives that presume to momentarily attribute significance, prescribe value or impose directed purpose to my life? Or the map of scars that mark the transformations that occurred, irrespective of any conscious participation of purposeful consent?

My somewhat dated dictionary lists only two distinct definitions for the use of the word scar. The second, more obscure meaning is for a bare craggy rock formation. The first definition provides the four most prevalent usages of the word, centered on distinctions within the commonality of a mark, left as a result of some form of damage or loss.

There is no mention of the usage of the term in reference to a mark of accomplishment, distinction, adornment, and beautification. Or as a pure recording of transformation itself; though the single, constant purpose of a life is transformation without end.

Half my life I’ve chased the right to choose the meanings with which I adorn myself. Mostly, I’ve chosen meanings borne in yearnings, ignoring or indifferent to those that time would freely give.

Primitive peoples seemed to understand better a meaning scribed upon the flesh. To wear the scars of fear and pain and heart through time, openly on one’s breast.

Vision Quest

emma — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:07:22 +0000

For the past eighteen months, I’ve been helping my partner A_ learn photography as part of our time together. Like most things in our life, opportunity for joint effort is greatly dependent on the prioritizing of available time and its allocation to reigning interests. Sometimes we become deeply immersed, sometimes we are barely conscious of any possibility for cooperative effort.

Teaching someone else a skill that I may have acquired myself only over an extended period of time, usually forces me to rethink those aspects of all the skills I might possess which, in general, I take too easily for granted. The structure of more formal education, at least for me, has tended to augment or inspire inherent natural inclinations, not initiate or instill them. I don’t think I’m especially unique in this. Teaching itself taught me that most people learn best through the connection to such natural inclination and only minimally (if at all) if such inclination does not exist. Finding the means to allow such connection is the hardest part and greatest challenge of teaching someone else. Method only works once such connection has been made.

Like most serious students, A_ herself has an abundance of enthusiasm, curiosity and energy, necessary to sustain the endeavor to acquire skill over a period of time. Especially the enthusiasm, which at times can prove too abundant (translating into more effort required from me).

Shooting photographs digitally provides numerous advantages to film. But these advantages sometimes complicate the process of teaching photography. Having to physically process both film stock and print certainly curtails the impulse to merely photograph everything in the line of sight. Physical processing requires at least some degree of forethought in the choice of subject, framing, composition, etc. Digital does not impose many such inherent restrictions initially, and digital “processing” provides much greater latitude to take an approach of ”salvage through correction”, despite the complexity of the necessary software.

Earlier this month, we spent a full day attending the annual Korean food and cultural festival. Besides being an opportunity to practice our present comprehension of Hangul, it provided a variety of situations to explore various formats for photography, from portraiture to photojournalism. We had attended last year and used that occassion for one of A_’s early lessons in photography, so it would provide a point to compare her progress in a similar context. I had printed the best of the photos from last year to take with us and give to those people, if they attended again, who had graciously served as subjects.

We arrived long before the official opening, during set up, and were able to spend time talking with people in our patchy Hangul, getting comfortable. Koreans (at least those living in Australia) are always surprised and deeply appreciative of attempts to speak their language, and will extend themselves greatly to acknowledge the effort. We managed to navigate the events of the entire day with little recourse to English.

The day was overcast, providing generally flat, even light instead of last year’s contrasty full sun and dappled shade. The nearly ideal conditions combined with a greater comfort level allowed A_ to practice portraits more freely. Our predetermined technical challenge was for her to photograph the performers, most of which she missed the year before.

At the end of a nine-hour day, we left with slightly over 6GB of raw files. I shot less than 100 photos; the remaining 800+ belonging to A_. Even after the initial cull for rejections, there were 694 photos remaining: many of which were competent, a few of which were outstanding. And 350+ were of the performers.

For the past four weeks, I’ve been working my way through the processing/printing stage of the best photos. Which has left little time for focusing on writing here. That is in no way a complaint. Only an explanation of the silence.

Images have always been more important to me than words. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction of teaching the method of a visual skill to another is to see the discovery of their own vision through that method. Only if the student succeeds in finding such vision does the teacher succeed at teaching.

Vamp

emma — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:51:38 +0000

One of the high points of holiday celebrations in my childhood was Halloween. In essence it marked the start of the seasonal Holidays, with Thanksgiving as the midpoint and Christmas as the conclusion. Living in Australia, none of these holidays hold any of the associations that remain from my childhood. Australians don’t actually celebrate Halloween (even as a merchandising opportunity), and Thanksgiving is a singularly American holiday. Although Christmas is certainly celebrated, it is a very odd experience, having Santa arrive on a surfboard instead of a sleigh in the middle of a summer barbecue.

The opportunity for a conscious expression of inner reality through the role play of a deliberate masquerade was never wasted by me as a child. Halloween provided the excuse for the first, covert expression of the undefined persona that would eventually become named consciously as Emma. Halloween allowed the only approved framework for the momentary acceptance of an outwardly conceived masquerade that internally provided a momentary abandonment of the constraining confines of the inwardly maintained masquerade.

Happy Halloween.

Tattoos and Lace

emma — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:10:01 +0000

Vested, culturally dominant preconceptions are never easy to displace. The number and degree of opposing associations that any requested replacement contains limits directly the potential for any eventual acceptance. Most marginalized or disenfranchised groups come to feel the necessity go through periods of public image reappraisal in their struggle for acceptance. An assessment for potential cultural acceptance would understandably enumerate commonalities and minimize or eliminate differences.

In the actual attempt to gain empowerment for common, basic human rights, I am more likely to “succeed” if I define those rights in the limited terms of the existing vested, culturally dominant preconceptions. The human qualifier in human rights, as primary universal commonality is often both first and easiest commonality to culturally disown. As an absolute of commonality, it requires the acceptance of both unlimited variation and difference to exist. My own, specific rights can begin to hold potential for majority of acceptance only as this absolute human qualifier begins to recede or slip away.

At some indistinguishable point a complete reversal is bound to occur. Differentiation turns to a functional basis for Othering and sanitation becomes sterilization and purge. In the process a pandering profiteer replaces the visionary pioneer.

The great liability of any form of gender activism is the inherent sexuality within the expression of gender itself. Transgender activism is even further encumbered: With the liability for cultural interpretation of differences through the application of formally institutionalised psychological or physiological ideals and with the liability of responsibility for the prevailing socio-economic response such institutionalisation must entail.

The possibility of interaction through sexuality is the primary necessity for expression of an actual gender. Asexuality, by definition, describes the state of absence of necessity for an “other” with which to sexually interact. A gendered expression, however well intentionally sanitized, cannot exist within a fabricated neutral zone of an asexual facade.

It seems absurd to me to hold an expectation of displacing any of the existing preconceptions and presumptions about gender when the primary necessity, the expression of sexuality, is pre-emptively excluded from investigation or discussion. Yet understandable, I think, when a more significant inclusion of sexuality entails a disproportionate increase in the occurrence and severity of potential repercussions. The supposedly unlimited potential of human intelligence can apparently accept only the most restricted variation of its own expression.

Tattoos & Lace (Doll Self Portrait #2)

I find myself guilty of assenting to this attitude through silence at times. There is more than a little safety in a privacy of silence. The unlimited curiosity and wonder I experienced as a child could too easily be unwittingly misplaced within the seductive certainty of a private, secret self. The risk incurred by seeking shelter in such safety only seemed to be a small risk, the risk of never being heard outside the silence in my self.

Now I fear that both curiosity and wonder could be replaced by something worse. To choose to not choose is still a choice. In terms of means to achieving ends, a more vocal majority can simply uphold the freak factor method of limited differentiation typical of most zealously applied standards of approved normal acceptability. Acceptability can always be served by silence, but never by dissent.

Advocacy for acceptability of personal gender expression entails its own particular costs: Some obvious, some hidden, some insignificant, some severe. Sterilized of all hint of sexuality, it is difficult for me to conceive of how an expression of even my most minimal humanity could continue to exist. Without which, gender too becomes irrelevant.