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Worldwide Perspectives

We are pleased to present cor­re­spon­dents from around the world. For a list of our con­trib­u­tors, please visit here.

Letter from Brisbane

By Kirsten Fogg

Bris­bane, Aus­tralia. Cap­i­tal of Queens­land, the Sun­shine State. A city where flip flops are de rigueur year round. It’s a volup­tuous place that clings to the river and spreads to the Pacific.

Per­haps you imag­ine me sit­ting by the beach, salt wind leav­ing a touch of inspi­ra­tion as it brushes my pages. Or maybe you pic­ture me under a canopy of jacaranda and frangi­pani trees, laugh­ing with the kook­abur­ras as I scrib­ble my fra­grant thoughts.

I imag­ined that too. At least I did before I immigrated.

When I sat down to write this I wanted to present you with a water­colour of life on the Aus­tralian east coast. To show you what it’s like to live some­where between the Great Bar­rier Reef and Sydney’s Opera House.  Some­where a lit­tle off-piste of world des­ti­na­tions, a lit­tle under-appreciated. It was only when I found myself Googling “inter­est­ing facts about Bris­bane” and “famous peo­ple born in Bris­bane” that I won­dered if I was the best ‘some­one’ to tell you about that ‘somewhere’.

When Joe and I arrived in Bris­bane (think ‘Brizbin’) every­one told us the weather was “beau­ti­ful one day, per­fect the next.” And some­times it is. But when I find myself clois­tered inside, air con­di­tion­ing away my aller­gies in the 40?C heat, it’s hard to muster any enthu­si­asm. It’s equally dif­fi­cult dur­ing weeks like this — when the rain is so con­stant and opaque that I think the Bris­bane River is again going to bulge over its edges and gob­ble up the neigh­bour­ing sub­urbs. I look out my study win­dow and I am reminded of the oppres­sive cloud roof of Lima Peru, minus the stink of diesel. The humid­ity is 92%. It’s not even a hot day and I’ve already stripped down to my white cot­ton slip. I love hear­ing the kook­abur­ras in the gum tree across the road but I can’t help won­der­ing if they’re laugh­ing at me.

When I first set­tle in a new coun­try, and this is my third if you don’t count my first 23 years in Canada, noth­ing can dull my excite­ment. The city is per­fect, the archi­tec­ture is glam­orous. I throw myself in, adapt­ing and learn­ing to be a local. Since 1989, my migrant enthu­si­asm has coloured the damp grays of Paris in win­ter and has fil­tered out the con­gested char­coals of Lon­don. It made even the skies of Syd­ney larger and bluer. But after a year or two, the shini­ness of the new city, the excite­ment of for­eign accents starts to wear off. I notice the home­less man fid­dling away in his trousers in the Paris Metro and the drug deal­ers in the park across from my Lon­don flat. Asy­lum seek­ers, boat peo­ple, sew their lips shut in Aus­tralian deten­tion cen­ters. This is when I know I have mor­phed into a pseudo local.

Appar­ently I am a “ser­ial migrant.” After two decades, I don’t feel as much a migrant as unhinged. To make sense of this cul­tural con­fu­sion I’ve come up with a few the­o­ries. Home­sick­ness in the begin­ning comes in quar­terly waves. After a decade or so it sits in the back of the car like an aged St. Bernard, fol­low­ing you every­where but not mak­ing too much fuss unless it has to say one of those inter­na­tional air­port good-byes, the ones that could be for­ever. Reverse cul­ture shock or re-entry shock is much more dis­ori­ent­ing than cul­ture shock; it sent me skit­tling back to Europe where at least I knew my out-of-place place. Two years is the time it takes to form friend­ships in new coun­tries and to start tak­ing things for granted.

Which brings me back to Bris­bane. Maybe I for­got to ooh and awe at the city because I’d already spent all my new coun­try enthu­si­asm in Syd­ney. Or per­haps it was because I became a mother shortly after. While my peers were plan­ning their mid-life crises, I got lost in the smell of my own babies: the nap­pies, the laun­dry, the tiny pairs of shoes, the new teeth, the lost teeth, the bro­ken arm, the drool. I’m sure the house ren­o­va­tions didn’t help. What­ever the rea­son, I seem to have lived here for seven years with­out get­ting to know or under­stand the city.

Surely Bris­bane has more to offer than inter­na­tional ten­nis matches and for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Kevin Rudd?

It is one of the fastest grow­ing cities in Aus­tralia with a met­ro­pol­i­tan pop­u­la­tion of about 2 mil­lion. It has uni­ver­si­ties and multi-national cor­po­ra­tions, bal­let, opera, the­atres, and orches­tras and still Syd­neysiders refer to it as a “big coun­try town.”  It’s hilly like San Fran­cisco and belit­tled like Win­nipeg. The younger locals refer to it with affec­tion and irony as BrisVe­gas. If you believe the tourist web­sites, it has a thriv­ing shop­ping, café and bar scene that could rival Man­hat­tan or Tokyo but most streets look deserted after 10pm.

What this tells me is that it’s a city in flux. And change is water for the writer’s mill.

The drought is over. It’s time to fill up my artis­tic well. It’s time to dis­cover this city and this per­son I’ve neglected for too long.

ABOUT KIRSTEN FOGG

Kirsten Fogg is a Cana­dian jour­nal­ist and writer based in Bris­bane Aus­tralia. She left Canada in 1989, with a fuse­lage full of naiveté, a copy of archy and mehita­bel, and dreams of find­ing her lit­er­ary for­tune in Paris. She has lived in Paris, Bor­deaux, Toronto, Lon­don Eng­land, and Syd­ney. Her arti­cles have been pub­lished in major news­pa­pers includ­ing The Chicago Tri­bune, The Globe And Mail (Canada), Inter­na­tional Her­ald Tri­bune and The Wash­ing­ton Times. She is one of those peo­ple who never under­stood why her col­leagues with chil­dren didn’t go to the pub after work until she became a par­ent her­self. She speaks French, Eng­lish and Gib­ber­ish depend­ing on how much sleep she gets. She hates when peo­ple mis­pro­nounce her name and can­not make long-term plans. She is still look­ing for her lit­er­ary for­tune. kirstenfogg@bigpond.com

Letter from the Old Pueblo

OUT, DAMNED BLOCK An Exer­cise for Non-Fiction Writ­ers By Metece Ric­cio Raynor About Where This Let­ter Is From Tuc­son, affec­tion­ately known as the Old Pueblo to our Cham­ber of Com­merce peo­ple who hope to jack up the town’s nonex­is­tent cache, is true desert in the sum­mer.  Like in the old west­erns where some unfor­tu­nate cowboy’s trusty pony gets shot by an evil des­per­ado, leav­ing the hero parched and stum­bling in the bad­lands with only the saguaros and dia­mond­back rat­tlers for com­pany. He drained his empty can­teen nine miles back, is drag­ging his car­cass along and you … Con­tinue read­ing →

Letter from Belfast

Some­times Home Chooses You By Robin Rezende I moved to Belfast eight years ago with two pil­lows, a down com­forter, and the faint notion that I’d leave the place within a year.  I assumed that I would com­plete my brief job assign­ment, pack up my pil­lows, shake out my down com­forter, gather together a few Irish sou­venirs for my fam­ily and friends, and be back at home in the US before any­one even missed me.  But some­times home isn’t where you find it.  Some­times home finds you. The ques­tion I’m always asked when I meet any­one … Con­tinue read­ing →