went to yoga last night.

deeply in love with yoga and Atma Yoga.

tanya and i sat with two other girls at dinner after our wonderful yoga class and started chatting. one of the girls asked tanya what she did for living; naturally she seemed to be quite impressed with what tanya was doing with her project and etc. it was all good and smooth until the girl turned to me and asked,

“so, are you just on a holiday here?”

tanya and i looked at each other. i smiled. so did she.

nearly two of seven australians are foreign-born; the asian population makes up about 6% of the entire australian population. but looks can be deceiving. of course. my yellow skin (or golden, some like to call it) still says something about me that i’m not aware of. something beyond me. something almost intrinsic. something of which i can’t decide the importance.

the truth is, i didn’t mind. i wasn’t offended. i didn’t feel upset. i was just surprised. that’s all. unfortunately the girl seemed to be rather embarrassed. i missed the chance to make a joke to quickly move on. split second. such an awkward situation. i couldn’t say or do anything about that other than smiling. she made a comment about how good my english was, and we moved on happily. i should’ve been more aware. and i should’ve been quicker and smarter to handle the situation before she felt embarrassed.

i went to govinda’s for lunch with lovely oksana today. and one of the things we talked about was how i felt when i went to korea a few months ago. i told her that i’d learned a lot about my own culture, and how my experiences had led me to re-examine myself as a korean-born, half-australian-grown female. i find asia so exciting. i may not know much about my own culture but i’m an asian, and i feel so lucky that i’m “naturally” given a chance to be a part of such a wonderfully exciting culture. but i do remember the time when i used to hate my asian identity. being harrassed and abused for my own body made me feel helpless and angry. i don’t feel that way at all now, but sadly, there are so many people still threatened and suffering from racism occurring both externally and internally of each individual.

a whlie ago i had a conversation with brendan and robbie over some seriously “hey-i-am-a-block-of-chocolate” type of italian hot chocolate. brendan wondered if austarlia would ever get to have an asian prime minister, to which robbie replied, “possibly. but after you guys have a female prime minister. before that, you can think of it as an impossibility. first, it’ll be be the gender barrier, then the racial.” i’m not sure why, but i concur.

money. education. race. sexuality.
poor uneducated non-caucasian queer women.
who’s the object? who’s the subject?

tourists are never busy.

recently got an email from Fay Sudweeks saying that my proposal has been accepted:

Proposal title:
Living in Cyworld: Contextualisation of Cyworld Blogging in Korea
Jaz Hee-jeong Choi:
I am pleased to accept your paper for the IR7.0 conference to be held from 27-30 September, 2006.

i didn’t get the “call for papers” email till very late, so it was more like a last minute “let’s get it in and hope for the best” kind of thing; so the acceptance came as a rather pleasant surprise :)

more than anything though, i really appreciated the feedback from three different referees. as much as i enjoy receiving encouraging comments, i enjoy getting some critical responses to what i do. one of the issues raised was regarding my use of the term “multimedia blog system” to describe cyworld. i do think that the particular referee made a valid comment when she/he suggested that cyworld should be categoriesd as an online social networking site along with MySpace, Friendster, and the likes. however, it should be noted that cyworld was one of the sites that first introduced the notion of “blogging” to koreans, so the term “blogging” in the korean context has different connotations or definitions to how it is used in different parts of the world (or the western society, if i could naughtily generalise a little). many koreans in general consider cyworld a blog system.

back to the feedback appreciation, i also welcome feedbacks on the personal level as well. i want my friends and family to openly give some feedback on how i am as a person. i don’t take negative feedback as a blatant attack (or try not to - sometimes it takes a bit of patience or a couple of sleepless nights in misery. but i get there eventually), but people don’t seem to feel comfortable offering or receiving non-positive feedback. doesn’t matter if they’re asian or not, but especially we asians are not very good at such exchanges, as we have a high contextual communication culture (apparently… yeah, actually, difinitely, although it’s changing). well, i’ve learnt my lesson over the years, and i tend to be not as direct now in expressing anything that’s not completely positive, but i have no hesitation in saying positive things. showing appreciation and love is not only a fantastically enjoyable activity, it is liberating.
genuinely.

anyway, if anyone’s interested, here are the AOIR conference details:

Internet Research 7.0: Internet Convergences
Hilton Hotel, Brisbane
September 27 - 30, 2006
website: http://conferences.aoir.org/index.php?cf=5

positive chi to every living being
– chenrezig institue, eudlo