For the first time in my life, I think I am more in tuned with how my body and mind and spirit feels and how external influences affects it. I never did before and never understood people who did.
We just spent Christmas and 5 days in Hong Kong with Bjorns family and my whole self is so much more affected by the experience than ever. For one, we just ate too damn much. And it wasnt just the huge quantities of food, but also the excessive rich nature of it all. Steak, foie gras, goose, lamb, sashimi, I dont know... everything indulgent you can think of that we can get in a wonderfully gastranomically leading city like HK. 3 huge meals a day, and between that, we just negotiated the madness crazy streets and shopping malls. Some say its ok to eat so much because we 'walked alot'. Makes sense, but I still didnt feel good. My jeans got tighter, my body heavier, more tired more sluggish. By the time we were on the plane back home, I was feeling edgy and was almost in tears every hour or so for no reason. I knew then, that I just wasnt feeling good. I felt disgusting. I felt I let myself down and made a pig of myself. I ate so much rubbish, unethical, rich food and gave nothing back. I didnt earn it, I didnt deserve it. It was all about getting to a restaurant, stuffing our faces, then waiting till the next time we're hungry enough to repeat the same. To think we were looking forward to this so much the whole 6 months we were wwoofing. We imagined all the delicious chinese food we'd be able to have and salivate. But now that we have it, I am feeling shit.
The other thing to do in HK is shopping. We didnt shop really, but we spent lots of time in shopping centres just walkinng around and waiting for the next meal. I got to see how people shopped, how I used to shop. Women in all shapes and sizes all trying to fill their lives with new nice things that will surely make them look prettier, express their personalities more, or whatever. At the swish 5 star hotel we stayed in, there were mirrors ALL OVER the room. Every possible surface was a full length mirror. Sure, it made the room look bigger, but it also made my thighs look bigger, my tummy rounder and everything else I was fine with before look not so fine. How clever, I thought. Put mirrors in these rooms to make women who just had a buffet lunch feel shitty about themselves so they can go out and shop themselves out of their misery. It was genius. For the economy. Wwoofing for the last 6 months in farms, we had so little access to mirrors and how wonderful that was. Sarah, our wwoof host in Cornwall said she prefers not to have mirrors in her house because she rather see her own reflection reflected back at her through the people in her life instead of through mirrors. I am only beginning to understand how that works now.
Back to food. For the last few weeks (and especially the last 5 days) ... I had no idea where all the meat, vegetable, rice, noodles I ate came from. I dont know which country they were flown from, how old they were when slaughtered, how they were slaughtered, whether they were male or female, how they lived. Whether the veg we ate were sprayed with what kind of insecticides, what kind of chemicals were added etc etc etc. All I know is that it tasted really really good. But it was good in a way that wasnt the same kind of goodness in knowing where it all came from. It was tasty, salty, fragrant etc. It was delicious, in the kind of familiar Singaporean way of describing good food. It was just about how it was cooked. Any information or background prior to the cooking method was not important. Inconsequential. Who cares?
Now I sit here, on our bed, writing this post, past midnight and I dont feel tired because I didnt and havent done any vigirous physical activity for a while now. Today I had
a) Pork chop curry with rice at the Char can tang this morning
b) Stir fried chicken with fungus and some greens with rice on the plane (the veg looked frightfully bright green. Almost luminous)
c) Bak chor mee (mee pok soup) from Bedok for dinner
GROSS.
But I had a choice! Why am I lamenting and bitching about what I put into my mouth when clearly, I can say NO THANK YOU and just eat a fruit or something. Of course I can. And I knew if I did, I probably be in a better off position right now, feeling great about myself. And that's the thing isnt it? I am not walking the walk. I can talk talk talk about saving the planet and all. But look at me. Look at us. We've been super eco sinners. I wanna cry. This is how we've been brought up. For most years of my life, this has been the way. My taste buds cant just change overnight. I crave this shit and I gave in. Its going to take time to unbrainwash ourselves. And I quote from my lastest favourite move - Avartar "We will teach him the way of the N'avi people. And we'll see if we can cure him of his insanity."
I see now that this so-called "normal life" we live of constant bingeing on excessive good food we think we're entitled to and shopping to fill our half-empty lives and nurture our insecurity is INSANE.
Today's Straits Times Home section talked about how wayward teen problems are rising. And it says that alot of teens from low income families turn to gangs and crime because they need to support their desire for branded goods and going drinking and clubbing. My heart sank. How different is this from turning to crime to support a drug addiction? The difference is that the ones that are benefiting from this isnt some drug lord but corporations that own those stupid brands and the government earning tax money from the alcohol and ciggarettes they buy.
These teens, were not unlike Bjorn and myself when we were kids. They just come from less privileged background and were misguided by this materialistic world they see. The only world they know. The only world we knew as well. This insane world.
Didn't expect this post to be so long. I'm not good at short and punchy I guess. But I had to get it off my chest. I think I feel tired enough to sleep now. I hope for dreams of the N'avi people as I sleep and maybe tomorrow morning, I will crave fruit and water only.
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