redacted kingdom

i have watched two movies about amerians in the middle east in the past few weeks. the first movie i thought was balanced on all fronts and was something people on all sides should see. it did show americans and arabs killing each other, but there was not only a reasonable message, but was obviously designed to show all sides fairly. the second movie also had a message, but it was clearly created from a biased political viewpoint and in the end is a film i fear muslims will watch.

the first of the films is “the kindgdom” by director peter berg. the basic story revolves around a terrorist attack on an expat compound in saudi arabia. the attack kills a large number of americans and saudis, and both countries begin investigations. jamie fox leads a small FBI team, which goes to collect evidence and track the killers down. the team is blocked before and when in the country, but as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that even the locals are having a hard time doing a real investigation.

this film does have the requisite car chases, gun fights and smart dialogue. but the reason i enjoyed the film so much was the scenes which were not required for the genre and which provide much of its impact. there are scenes which show us the simple home lives of muslims, both of the terrorists and the family of the saudi police colonel we come to deeply respect as the film unfolds. you see the love and respect of the muslim family, and you clearly understand that these are people who have lives built on family and faith. the scene of the father praying with his son, and then helping do his homework is simply touching.

in the end, i left the film with a better picture of life in arabia. i live in a muslim country, and have muslim friends for whom i deeply care. as i watched the film, i hoped that americans at home watched it also and came to understand that islam and terrorism has no more of a required connection than does christianity and terrorism (there is a much longer history of catholics persecuting other faiths, or non-catholic christians than of muslim terrorism). i also hoped that muslims would see the film and understand that americans are not inherently evil, although we are different.

the tagline of this film is “trust no one”. i find this ironic, because trust is what the core relationships in the film is based on. it is also what i was left with as the film ended. an ending with one of the best closing lines i have ever seen.

the second film is “redacted”, a brian de palma film which to be honest i disliked on many levels, thinking many times why am i watching this. the story re-tells, in pseudo-documentary format, an event ending in the true killing of an iraqi family. the deaths were part of a rape of a 14 year-old girl by drunk american soldiers.

there is a clearly a biased view in this film. it is not well made, with bad acting, dialogue and filming, but it is also slanted and tries to make the war look unfair in all dimensions. it also portrays american troops as poorly trained and lacking of discipline; neither of which are true. there is even a scene where a soldier's head is cut off by terrorists, in the context of the movie the brutal slaying is very close to being acceptable and justified.

the tagline for this film is “truth is the first casualty of war”, i also find this to be ironic. the film is based on fact, but facts were changed to suit the message. at no point is it made clear that 5 soldiers who were involved in the real incident, including one that did not participate and later came forward to tell the military what had happened, were charged with murder and rape. it also never said that none of the real soldiers were ever taken by terrorists, and that the images at the end of the film and labeled as “actual photos” include images from the movie, photos of actors not dead iraqis.

this film upset and scared me as much as the kingdom gave me hope. if we simply make propadaga films, and have them to look like footage of an unfolding event, what will some angry youth do with these images. the brutality was real, and needed to be punished, but where is the movie that explains why the iraqis are fighting? or, how this could cause even the best trained and led army in the world to have any soldiers who commit atrocity? where is the truth that shows that when criminal acts do occur by soldiers, they are arrested and tried for the crimes?

truth can be a casualty, and you need to know who to trust. but, of these two films i hope only one is ever seen by muslims i run into on the street. more importantly i hope redacted is never seen by the families of my friends.

the kingdoms implied message of “if we allow anger to build on anger, more death, suffering and brutaility will follow” is preferable to “americans should be punished” message of redacted.

over flowering

i was driving last night and a couple crossed in front of the car. they were a smart looking chinese couple, obviously out on a saturday night date. both were dressed well and he was holding her hand as they crossed the street. they were both smiling and happy, as i stopped to let them cross, she smiled up at him, and snuggled into him as though saying, thank you for protecting me and caring enough to hold my hand as we cross.

this made me think of another couple i had seen, valentine’s night i was sitting in a restaurant and many couples, obviously on valentine’s dates, were coming and going. there were many men, almost all chinese carrying flowers as they walked with their women. that is sweet, normally in the US the man will give the flowers to their date when they pick them up, and allow the date to carry them the rest of the night. the idea of a man carrying flowers i guess does not seem masculine enough, although carrying them for your date is obviously the gentlemanly thing to do.

as i sat there, one young chinese guy walked by with a huge bouquet of flowers. it was bright and colorful, a mix of roses and carnations. but the thing that stuck out was the vast size of the bouquet; he seemed to have trouble holding it. this was clearly a sign that his date was someone he felt the need to splurge on, and by the smile of the woman with him, she seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

both events made me question where this attention goes. i enjoy giving flowers, and holding hands, sending an sms to just say hello. i enjoy it and i miss it when i do not have the chance to do it. but there have been times when i know i should have done it and one thing or another has stopped me. i honestly wish i could go back and send those flowers right now, not as a way to ask for something, but to show that i did care, and that i still do.

i wonder if these two chinese guys will get these women to believe in them and will get married. will they start a life together and will they slowly stop to do these nice things. will there be a time in the future where the first guy simply walks across the street and does not hold her hand with such attention and caring? worse, will he be one of the guys who let the wife carry all the bags as he walks ahead with his hands empty?

for the second guy will the bouquets shrink slowly? will they get to a level where they simply look average and later shrink to a single flower until eventually they stop all together? the alternative is that they simply stop quickly and are dismissed as a part of the early dating, which was where this couple clearly was. the size of the flowers was simply out of proportion to the event, or maybe smacked of desperation. (just my jaded side showing through?)

as we date, are we not showing someone how we promise to continue to act towards them? if we do attract someone with purchases of presents, flowers, meals or trips, or just by paying attention to them and showing that we care, is there not some form of implied contract that as we continue on, the effort will continue? of course the truth is yes. but, people will disagree and say no. they do that because they know most people do not keep the energy levels up, they slow down over time. once someone is caught do you need to keep chasing?

i think that’s it exactly. once you have the race won, how many of us continue to push as hard as we can all the way to the finish. sad all by itself, but if you start with such high energy; you really should be able to sustain something as time passes. it is outright fraud if you go from being an “over-flowerer” to never bringing flowers and fraud is a reason someone gets fired isn’t it. if you promise to work hard, you need to continue to work hard. if you don’t, someone else is out there who will.

dating on your best behavior is of course part of the game. but if someone doesn’t like you for the real you, is that really the person you want to be with? imagine finding the person who really does like all sides of you. if someone says they do, look for parts they want/need to change. when there are none, then they really do like you for you.

but remember, if you later change, if you become someone other than the person they like, well… why would you expect them to keep liking you?

plant all the flowers you want. but, if you neglect them and allow weeds to grow and takeover, the flowers will die. you will not have the idyllic garden, you will have a troubled spot that no one would want to be in. when you plant flowers, it’s your job to take care of them. the more you plant the more work it will be. imagine planting all those beautiful flowers and later saying, let's pour gravel over it so we don’t need to work like this anymore. (do you remember saying you did it because you liked to do it?)

gravel is good for a parking lot, but is that the relationship you really want? and if it is, bring gravel to the first few dates, see where that gets you.

family rules

growing up there were things we called john-isms, they were little pearls of witty repartee which my father would throw out at just the right moment for a laugh. i have tried to go back and reconstruct them, but its never going to happen, i think the context has been lost. i have thought of asking my sister to help, but more likely than not we would need to be together sitting with a bottle between us drunk and laughing to remember most of them. i mean “you lie like a rug” and “that’s a useless as a tit on a bull” are gems, but the rest may be lost to time.

as the kids were growing up i tried to keep a running list of family rules, the little sayings that i hoped they would carry into their adult lives. i tried to give them numbers, to show that they were real, kind of like the ten commandments. imagine the commandments if they were not numbered. they just wouldn't have the same feeling of gravitas as the "small number of commandments".

last week i was talking to a vegetarian who is going to the US soon. while discussing food i used the first family rule we had, “there is no guilt at the top of the food chain”. this was something a friend had said in an indian restaurant one night that worked years later when the kids didn’t want to eat bambi, sebastian or some other animal that disney has removed from the family table by humanizing them.

the questions that came were “how many rules are there?” and “what does the order mean?”. i started making a list, i had the first five locked down but the rest were more mixed into memories of parenting. by the time i was done listing them, i realized the list was longer than i expected, i also had to reorder the list, because guilt in the food chain was not as important as the two that now go before it in the list. the following are the rules that our family has been built to live by:

1. we love you, no matter what
2. do what you love, the rest will come
3. there is no guilt at the top of the food chain
4. they always find out
5. when in doubt, don’t
6. safety first, fun when safe (no glove, no love)
7. team, corp, god, country (family, friends, god, everyone else)
8. listen, think, act, then talk
9. if you need an answer now… no
10. love is trust
11. family means no one is left behind
12. if you can’t win, change the rules
13. trying hard and failing is success (failure is never trying)
14. patience is a long awaited virtue
15. god judges, friends help
16. life is short, enjoy it

okay, so these do not have the color of my father’s sayings. they are more targeted at giving the kids something of substance to remember when they hear my voice coming out of their mouths someday. or was it to give them a voice to their conscience, solid words which they would remember from years before, maybe along with a lesson in life. number four for example went along with our oldest son running an illicit po-ke-man black-market, and using the proceeds to fund the winning of a charity fundraiser. it’s always easier to not lie when you know that “they always find out”.

the amazing thing is how often these little sayings can be used. better, i have heard the older kids use them over the past few years. knowing these sayings got through to them, and that the little man will grow up hearing them even though i am not there to say it helps.

having this list does not mean that my fathers saying were useless as teaching models. he also used to tell us “we don’t care if you’re a garbage man, as long as you are the best garbage man you can be”. that was something i carry with me everyday.

it also does not mean that we don’t have a few modernized -isms, these are little saying that the kids and i trade around a table while we are laughing. usually, someone just says it and everyone laughs, no explanation is needed, we all know the context.

• if someone asks you if you’re a god, you say YES.
• i love this plan, i’m excited to be a part of it.
• i think we've established that "ka ka" and "tukki tukki" don't work.
• ohhhhh, i hate mummies.
• no, i didn't bring it. you know why? because you said, "you won't need that man, we'll be back in a half-hour.

and finally one rule that didn’t make the list, one i was surprised to hear our daughter say on vacation last year when the little man had fallen, “unless there is a compound fracture or arterial bleeding, you’re fine”. it may sound insensitive, but when someone little has skinned a knee, sometimes it’s better to just help them get up and get moving again.

running the family with rules helps. it gives us a chance to always remember what we agree is important.

missed writing

the last month has been fast, it’s like it never stops. trying to mix travel, review season, compensation updates, hiring, visits from executives, jetlag, missed guitar lessons, emotional distance and now a strange lingering feeling of sickness has really gotten in the way of writing.

i have been reading a memoir written by a british expat living in pre-merdeka malaya. the book is made of letters and diary entries which have a consistent thread of apology for not writing sooner, for not keeping up to date with those expecting him to send news. his writing is supplanted with other activities which are described for their tedium and which hold no strong affection to the writer. yet, they are the things which take the majority of his time, and which come first before writing.

selecting a book describing expat life in malya at a time without long-haul airlines, internet phones, email, satellite television or “affordable” DVDs as a conscience choice. standing in a book store in indonesia looking for titles i may not find in KL shops, the cover with a photo of a matsaleh bermalas-malas with a machine guy lying on the floor almost out of frame piqued my interest. the back cover describing the chinese brothels in penang and pillow dictionaries, both gone but in some ways echoed in KL today, added to the choice to purchase.

this blog was originally created as the contemporary equivalent of letters and diary that makes up the book. the stories and thoughts that come from being dropped into new cultures can be things you want to write down. although I constantly say, “that’s something to blog about”, and although i write down notes to remember what to later write, living life takes precedence over writing about it. this is odd, because writing about the thoughts is what helps me feel that it is real.

i can definitely understand the feeling of malas (bahasa malaya meaning: laziness or reluctant) that can come with living here. even things you enjoy are at times anything but simple. simple is easy, easy is boring. i know, but no matter how much this feels like the US, its not. things are different here. having tapas places, irish bars and the ability to stay connected with those at home makes it worse. it might just be better to have the complete physical, cultural and emotional separation that would come from living far way in a place where you can’t or won’t have chances to connect with the people whose life you do not share.

i need to write more, it helps to process the events. i can go back, think about thoughts and remember the moments. this is the other side of my photography. freezing an event in time, locking the thoughts down and making sure they are not altered by the haze of memory. photography is able to freeze the things that happen around me. writing freezes the things that happen where the camera can not see.

maybe that’s why i have not been writing? it’s not that i am busy, it’s that i am not sure how i really feel about things right now. i tend to not say anything when i am not sure of what to say.

i have missed writing, if i have been suppressing myself from saying something this could be the need to get it out. either way, i am not good at being quiet.