Best of the Transparent Hummingbird
there was a small group of young academics up at nus, americans, people who were in their late 20s early 30s, junior faculty, all working in the humanities at the time that i met them, these people were about in singapore 3-4 years — enough to start to know singapore
and at the time, one of these academics was a korean lady,she was an anthropologsit by training, works with refugees, her husabnd, who is american, they both taught at nus, political science department,
because of the korean connection, i became friends with the wife, the korean lady, and through her i got to know and i started hanging out these epople but one by one people left and eventually there was just john left actually there is a couple who are still here, for a few years, the four of us woudl go out, but then they had a baby we just stopped seeing them they were just very involved and protective about the baby one reason was that it was a difficult pregnancy, they tried for a long time, treatments and so on, and the wife was quite old, she was in her forties, so not as easy a preganncy and of course, both of them are teaching, they don’t have a helper, they have to take care of the baby so they just cut their social life completely — it was impossible to ask them out so then it just became john and me
john is — he does’t use a smart phone he doesn’t even check his smses much, call him he hardly ever picks up so if you want to do something with john you have to arrange it beforehand, you have to know exactly when and where we’re meeting — ebfore you leave the house so i don’t like to make arrangments with him unless i’m sure i can make it
so now i just go by muysefl if von is back von wil go with me and if not there’s a new friend — this american lady, who’s a art historian and she just moved to singapore last year becos her husband go ta job and we got to meet through the alumni assoicaiton here, we’d gone to virginia for college so nowadays i tend to ask her if she wants to go to things i enjoy going with her — and listening to the types of questions she asks people for me, i’m not an artist, i react to a lot of wroks the way i react to text analyse it but as text , semiotics or i have an emotional response but she will ask questios about process and medium and and i learn alot both from the questions she asks and the answers she get
miss that i haven’t been part of that world for a long time now but it’s the world i came from, specificallyt he american humanities academia i understand their presures and issues i und erstand that kind of life cycle and school cycle nd i know enough about –maybe i don’t keep up with the newest research (haven’t for years) but if you explain resarch i u nderstand what you ’re doing and i
vv qujet ppl j — he’s v reserved, v guarded with new people he has to know you v v well when you do he’s v v funny he has this v dry, sarcastic humour and fnny becos of the way he uses language v words colourful and precise way quotes - we speak in quotations - litty ppl tend to do that his bf is even more shy so a lot of times, when the three of us are out i feel like i have to carry the conversational load a lot and that i need to be very loud and very excitable just to keep the atmosphere
the other is with v v noisy, over the top people john, i have a friend who is a theatre director in london high energy, talks v fast, v exuberant people, overtop, a bi campy, so i kind of tune up to match them — part of it is that the im balance is too stark if they’re that noisy and i’m even more reserved than normal then it encourages you to be reckless and out of character and noisy and
strong bond — korean community didnt know uch abt them before i went to work for them was v unimpressed before i went — contemporary pop culture - contemp roean art - dance forms and — films — old black and white korean films - poetry modernism and contemporary art –
people v interesting — history — mixutre of regret and hatred and sorrow — they have this inferiority complex about japan image issue everyone recognised japan is superior , korea is less civilised historically korean considered themselves more civilised than japan chinese civil passed to korea and thru korea to japan more developed ongoig political issues japanese colonisation — jpanese rule was v brutal japan — comfort women issue, but also many oreans were taken to japan to work in mines during japanese colonisation a lot of them returned to korea — nam uneasy 1890s since 91905 protecotrate then annexation
you only come to litigation when there is no amicable way to resolve a situation, when you are charged with a crime, when you cannot reach a s utilities would be split, naturally. for one party to pay the other rent would leave them uncomfortable — they’re a couple and that is the equivalent of their cohabiting/matrimonial home but if he pays no rent, what would he be doing? he would be living in someone else’s house on bare licence, like a guest. but what security does he have? if they breakup or quarrel badly, he couldbe on the streets the same night. family does not protect him.
but supposes he contibutes something however little to the mortgage. in property law that changes the nature of his interest in the property. in classic property law, if you contribute to the purchase price, and there is no agreement to decide how to assign the interest i the property, then you breakup === how are yougoing to divide the property –he acquires an interest in the porperty if they break up, does it mean julian has to pay john compensation or does john get a percentage of the house you would have to go to court to prove that there was no intention for thim to retain
if you break up –
litigation whent here is no aicable wiay to resolve a sistuaotion charged with a crime something is wrong and you an’t settle ti situation is v bad and people are in a v bad emotional state and v irrational or they’re stressed and sacred
time sensitive - stirct proceudral rules about - arcane and strict - waht can you do and what not posted to you ona friday you get it on mondy, 3 days gone by then you freak out or you get angry for rage afor 2 days and you tell everyone — what shourl di ido — by then another - then finally oyu start looking for a lawyer, make appointment to see someone, by the time you see someone, nearly one week is gone, they still have to take time to study your case to see if you have a case or not, if you’re property lawyer, your work is all transactional witha bit of avisory shipping lawyer criminla lawyer - no transacitonal work, litigation litigtion firm — forget about going home before 1am