whynot: etc: oh deer (Default)
Las ([personal profile] whynot) wrote2009-06-06 11:51 am

The Garuda, the Jambu Grove, and the Queen of the South Seas?

I mentioned to a couple of people that I'm fiddling around with a reinterpretation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe using Southeast Asian folktales and a cosmology that focuses on cycles rather than linear trajectories and dichotomy. What I'm thinking is, it's still four kids, but instead of the crisis in this world being WW2, it's the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Instead of the kids being sent out of the countryside to escape the Blitz, the parents have to leave the country because there were no jobs in Indonesia. The kids have to stay with their weird uncle. Anyway, I started writing it.

Writing non-autobiographically about Indonesians in Indonesia weirded my brain out. It kept on switching to "speaking Indonesian*" mode (not my most articulate mode, lemme tell ya), and I found myself trying to remember Indonesian vocabulary and sentence structure before I remembered that OH YEAH I'm writing this in English. It was just that my brain was going, "Okay, time to deal with Indonesian people who have X mannerisms and Y ideologies. Adjust!" And then it does. So, I have a few pages written, but the writing's stiff and the diction is off, trying to stay in English but instinctually veering to Indonesian.

I found myself asking, "Are these Indonesian names too off-putting for a non-Indonesian reader?" Then I had RaceFail flashbacks and I was like, "D-:!" wtf. My real name has always been a source of contention for me. It's the typical long foreign name, and people would be like, "Say your name, dude!" like it's just entertainment. And one time, after performing my name, one girl was like, "Yeah, but what is it without the accent? Say your name without the accent." Bitch, that was my name without the accent! diaf :(

In college, I changed my nickname to something simpler - not a Western name, just something monosyllabic (and spelled with two letters, but it still gets misspelled all the damn time anyway I JUST CAN'T WIN) - and my buddy Asef from high school was like, "I can't call you that. You're not that." He says it's colonial mentality on my part, and he talks about how Kang Wook goes by Kevin in Indiana now, and Bilal goes by Billy in Oregon; he makes a face and shakes his head. I don't know if I should be flattered or ticked off at this attitude. On the one hand, I respect his intentions, sure, down with the global western hegemony etc. On the other hand, don't tell me what I should call myself. Who are you to tell me who I am and what my reasons should be?

I also found myself asking, "Who the hell wants to read about Indonesians and Indonesia anyway?" But then I remember that questions like that are why I wanted to write this in the first place.

* Can I just say it kind of SHITS ME OFF when people say "Do you speak Bahasa?" 'cos that just means 'language'. Indonesians don't say we speak Bahasa. Bahasa Indonesia means 'Indonesian language'. It grew out of Malaysian (Basa Melayu?).


And now for something completely meme-ish! Tell me in the comments something you think I'd never ever write, then I try to commentfic this thing I would supposedly never write.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2009-06-07 10:35 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, but we recognize and deal, I guess. I'm not gonna be naming my kids anything that's gonna require any sort of simplification. The writer Pico Iyer, he's from south India and his parents named him Pico for the same reason, after some Italian... architect or whatever, instead of the Indian polysyllables they know foreigners usually stumble over. It's not to say that foreigners are stupid, but to say that, we just want to make it easier for ourselves.

I changed my official name at 18, but only to add my dad's last name to it. The naming system in Indonesia is different in that we don't take on our father's or husband's last name. But then we moved to the Philippines, where the naming system is more Western. My parents received letters from my school addressed to Mr. and Mrs. my-last-name, but that wasn't their last name. So we all just changed our last names a few years ago for the convenience of it.

ETA: Oh! and what specifically about the X-Men? movieverse XD
Edited 2009-06-07 10:37 (UTC)

[identity profile] dirty-diana.livejournal.com 2009-06-07 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
but we recognize and deal, I guess

I get that. Sorry if it sounded like I didn't. :)

Anything Scott? Or Ororo. Or both. <3

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2009-06-08 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I haven't written XMM in a whiiile. I hope this works! So, um. Somewhere between X2 and X3.


"Let us make a toast to those who have gone," Hank says, a politic choice of words. Not "died" or "defected" or "simply left". They raise their glasses, and Ororo misses her friend, her student, and what could have been.

+

"You are so angry," Kurt told her once.

Well, why wouldn't she be?

+

It's an open-door policy, they tell the kids. If you want to talk anytime about anything, just drop on by. We're all in this together, and divided we fall.

"I don't care if he has his reasons," Bobby is saying to her. "It won't matter if next time we meet, it's killed or be killed."

"I wish we'd stop talking in such Darwininan terms," Ororo muses.

"It's not Darwinian," says Bobby. "He's just an asshole."

She smiles. "He was our asshole once."

"Well, not anymore."

+

Scott doesn't have much to say to anyone, and no one pries.

+

She is impatient for the next battle.

[identity profile] dirty-diana.livejournal.com 2009-06-09 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Mmn. This is so sad, and I can feel Storm's restless *missing* of the lost, it's so tangible. <3 Thank you!

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2009-06-09 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
thank YOU :)