Recently, I felt like a total dork. There I was, nodding my head when the lecturer made his profound statements, but not having a clue as to what was going on!
Actually, I went for the class thinking I am going to learn. Or at least I will try to learn. But from the first exercise [...]
ok so i seem to whine alot. Alot of good things have happened since my last post but those shall be updated later. In short im now engaged to be married next year! while the actual significance of this is yet to sink in I’m most distracted with silly h…
Found this interesting saying in an old e mail and thought it’s quite witty (I do understand that one man’s freedom fighter can be another man’s terrorist and someone’s peacekeeper can be another one’s invader!)
Forgiving or punishing the terrorists is left to God.
But, fixing their appointment with God is our responsibility - Sri Lanka Army
[...]
Help set a Firefox 3 world record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours on Download Day! Go to the Download Day Headquarters and pledge to download Firefox 3. With your help the Firefox community can go down in history.
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/worldrecord
The official publication of Beyond Borders India is out now. From the inside cover:
Beyond Borders India are young change makers who have resolved to challenge the existing restrictive order. As the decision-makers of tomorrow we should not only be aware of our own responsibilities but should remind others about their duty as well.
As [...]
This is a dish in progress again. That’s a lot of stuff in progress, but it doesn’t mean its all heading for a big hurrah. Ha, ha.
Well there the main experimental part of this dish is to try to use mousses to transform/supliment flavors that we Sri Lankans, know well – so that they are recalled but not repeated in a dish. Is that a mouthful? Hopefully it’s a tasty one.
When I was a child, growing up in Colombo, we always had issahara kame (dinner eaten in the front of the house/ anglicized food) for dinner (which I guess is/was kind of common, among the middle classes) – and my sister and I would always fight over the tomato sauce. It was MD, cos that was the only one there was, I think, and you had to jam the bottle top in the door, tighten carefully, just in case you crushed the neck, holding the bottle with a kitchen towel before you got it open, and then of course, it would not want to pour out, until it was beaten soundly on its hard glass bottom, for a long time. But it was good, and we would finish our ration of a bottle a week, our mother had us on – well, for she said, its not really food, and you shouldn’t have too much of it – some times by mid week. Oh! Well, I dunno about every one else, I still love tomato sauce. Now that MD just a brand, and there are tons more, they have a ‘traditional’ line. Which is the old fashioned stuff, for people like me, who were raised in the tasty cusp of colonialism and socialism.
In this dish, which like I said before, is part of an effort to recall taste with out repeating it (Why? Why not just repeat? Well, for some thing different, is all!) I use tomato mousse to replace MD tomato sauce. The main dish is grilled seer, with garlic and olive oil, with a sweet sour tomato onion garish, with a side of pickled cumber. That much is straightforward, the tomato mousse is new. I have been working through mousses recently, with straightforward ones in the bag now. But my tomato mouse is complicate cos its got invoke the right taste, with out well, mirroring it. I opted to use tomato paste (that’s very pure, usually, taste wise, just tomatoes and salt) and chili pieces, almost in a 2:1 ratio, but it could have been hotter. I also added ½ teaspoon of geletine to ½ tablespoon of hotwater mixed well, into the paste. It was fine, taste wise, folded into cream that already sweetened (I couldn’t get the other one), but the graininess was annoying. Next time, I will try it with chili power and finally, break down and simply use a sauce.
The rest of the dish was simple; I will post a how-to on the grilled fish stuff later.
PS: In the evening, I re did the tomato mousse; with some left over sauce, tomato paste and chili powder. about a 1/3 each, and added a little less cream, about another 1/3 may be little more. Kept the geletine at the same level. It was stunning, absolutely stunning.
අද අප ජීවත් වන පිතෘ මූලික සමාජය බිහි වන්නේ මානවයා දඬයම් යුගය පියමංකර එඬේර යුගයට පිවිසීමත් සමඟ ය. එඬේර යුගයට පෙර මානවයා ජීවත් වූයේ මාතෘ මූලික සමාජයක ය. එහෙත් ඒ අවුරුදු මිලියන ගණනක් එපිට ය. එකල මානවයා කුඩා කණ්ඩායම් ලෙස ජීවත් විය. එම රැහේ මෙන් ම පවුලේ මූලිකත්වය ද මවට ලැබිණි. දරුවන්ගේ අයිතිය මවට හිමි විය. නවතම පර්යේෂණ අනුව දඬයම් කර පවුල නඩත්තු කළේ ද ඇය ය. පිරිමියා ගත කළේ කම්මැලි ජීවිතයකි. එදවස ඔහුගේ චර්යාව වත්මන් සිංහයාගේ චර්යාවට සම ය. රැළේ දඬයම් කරන්නේ සිංහ දෙන මිස සිංහයා නොවේ. එහෙත් දඬයම් වෙනුවට සතුන් ඇති කිරීම ඇරඹීම සමාජ ක්රමය උඩුයටිකුරු කළේ ය. සතුන්ගේ සහ දරුවන්ගේ අයිතිය ආදී බොහෝ අයිතීන් ක්රමයෙන් ස්ත්රියගෙන් ගිළිහිණි. එඬේර යුගය සහ කෘෂිකාර්මික යුගය අතර අත්කර ගත් ඉඬම් නිතැතින් ම පිරිමියාට හිමි විය. කෙසේ වුව ද පිතෘ මූලික සමාජය බිහි වන්නේ මාතෘ මූලික සමාජ අවශේෂ මත බව අමතක නොකළ යුතු ය.
මෑත කාලීන සිංහල සමාජය පිතෘ මූලික ලක්ෂණවලින් මෙන් ම මාතෘ මූලික ලක්ෂණවලින් ද සමන්විත විය. විශේෂයෙන් බොහෝ කලක් බටහිර ආක්රමණවලින් මිදී පැවති උඩරට සමාජයේ ස්ත්රියට හිමි වූ තැන සිංහල සමාජයේ ස්ත්රිය හෙබවූ තත්ත්වය කදිමට නිරූපනය කරයි. කෙසේ වුව ද මෙරට පිතෘ මූලික ලක්ෂණය බොහෝ දුරට ගරු තනතුරකට සීමා වූවක් විනා ස්ත්රී පීඩක උපකරණයක් වූයේ නැත. මුස්ලිම් සමාජයේ සහ යුදෙව් සමාජයේ මෙන් ස්ත්රියට දැඩි ආගමික සමාජීය තහංචි යදම් නොලයි. සති පූජාව සහ චර්මඡේදය ආදි ම්ලේච්ඡ චාරිත්ර නොතිබිණි. ලිංගිකත්වය උත්කර්ෂයට නැංවීමක් නොවී ය. එය එදිනෙදා ජීවිතයේ තවත් කාර්යයක් පමණක් විය. ඇයට පවුල තුළ සහ සමාජයේ නිරූපණය කරන්ට ප්රබල භූමිකාවක් තිබිණි. එහෙයින් ස්ත්රී දූෂණ එදවස අසන්ට නොලැබිණි.
අනේකවිද බුද්ධිමය මතවාදවලින් කිළිටි නොවූ සිංහල සමාජය නිරතුරුව ස්ත්රියට නිසි තැන දීමට නොමැළි විය. එවන් විවා දිවියක විකසිත ගේහසිත ප්රේමයේ සුන්දරත්වය අමරදේවයන්ගේ මේ ගීයට විෂය වෙයි. (මතකය නිවැරදි නම් ගේය පද මහැදුරු සුනිල් ආරියරත්න සතු ය) ගීය ගැයෙන්නේ අව්යාජ සිංහල ගැමියෙකුගේ මුවඟිණි.
තාත්තා වුණත් මා බත සරි කරන
අම්මා නුඹයි මගෙ දරු දැරියන් රකින
කුටුම්භය බතින් බුලතින් පෝෂණය කරන තාත්තා මා බව සැබෑ ය. එහෙත් සා පැටවුන් වන් මගේ දරුවන් රැක බලා ගන්නී නුඹ ය. නුඹ සමාජයෙන් හමා එන නේක දුක්ඛදෝමනස්ස සෝක පරිදේව හමුවේ දරුවන් වට කොට දඬු වැටක් සේ සිටින්නී ය. දරුවන් වෙනුවෙන් දුක් දරන්නි ය. හඬන්නී ය. කදුලැලි වගුරන්නී ය. ඒ දරුවන්ගේ පියා මා ය. එහෙයින් මේ කැපකිරීම් සියල්ල මා වෙනුවෙනි. නුඹෙ අමිල මෙහෙය හා සසඳන කළ මගේ මෙහෙවර කෙතරම් අල්ප ද? යන නිහතමානි අදහස මෙම දෙපදයෙන් ධ්වනිත වෙයි.
මට පෙර උරුම ආලය දරු කැලට දෙමින්
රෑ දහවල් දෙකේ වෙහෙසෙන විට දි නොමින්
නුඹ දුටු මුල් දිනේවත් හද නොනැගි පෙමින්
උතුරයි මසිත තව නුඹ වෙත තුරුලු වෙමින්
නුඹ මුණගැසුණු මුල් දිනය මට අද මෙන් මතක ය. එදවස මා තුළ නුඹ කෙරෙහි මහත් සෙනෙහසක් උපන. සසර පුරා බැඳි ඒ ස්නේහයේ නමින් මම නුඹ මගේ ම කර ගතිමි. මා නුඹට පෑ සෙනෙහසට නොදෙවෙනි සෙනෙහසක් නුඹ ද මට පෙරළා පිදුවා ය. නිරතුරුව මා වෙතම දැවටෙමින් හුන්නා ය. තොදොල් බස් තෙපලුවා ය. සුරතල් වූවා ය.
එහෙත් අද දවස යම් වෙනසක් වී තිබේ. එදවස මට පිදු සෙනෙහස අද මගේ දරු පැටවුන් සතු වී තිබේ. නුඹ අද දරුවන්ගේ සුරතල් බලන්නී ය. මා වෙත ම දැල්වී තිබූ නෙත් පහන් අද දරුවන් කෙරෙහි ද ඇදී ගොස් ය. එනම් ගතින් අප,තර යම් ඈත් වීමක් පැන නැඟී තිබේ. සැබවින් ම ඒ ගතින්මැ පමණකි. එම ඈත් වීම ම හදවතින් අප අපේ ම කොට හමාර ය. ඒ සෙනෙහස සුවිශාල ය. ඒ කෙතරම් ද යත් හදවත ඉවුරු පැන වාන් දමයි. නුඹ දිවා රූ නොබලා වෙහෙසන අයුරු දකින සඳ උපන් ඒ සෙනෙහස නුඹ දුටු මුල් දිනේවත් නූපන. ඒ ස්නේහ මහෝඝයත් සමග මා නුඹ වෙත හදවතින් තව තවත් තුරුලු වෙමියි ඔහු ඇයට කියයි. කෙතරම් සොඳුරු ප්රේමයක් ද?
බැතිබර හැඟුම් දනවන ඔබගේ සුවඳ
අතදරු පුතුගේ මුව කමලේ ඇත නිබඳ
අම්මා කෙනෙකු මිස නුඹ මගෙ බිරිඳ ලෙස
නොහැඟෙයි ළඟින් හිඳ මගෙ හිස සිබින සඳ
ඔබ කෙරෙන් නිතින සුවදක් හමයි. ඒ සුවඳ මා තුළ දල්වන්නේ බැතිබර හැඟුම් ය. මොළකැටි පුතුගේ මුවි කමලින් ද නිබඳ හමන්නේ ඒ සුවඳම ය. දැනුදු නුඹ ඉසිඹුවක් ලද විගස මා සයනයට පැමිණෙන්නී ය. සැපදුක් අසන්නී ය. හිස පිරිමදින්නී ය. සිඹින්නී ය. එකල්හි මට සිතෙන්නේ නුඹ මගේ ද මව් බැව් මිස බිරිඳ බැව් නම් නොවේ. මෙය කෙතරම් සොඳුරු හැඟීමක් ද? ඇගේ ප්රේමය අබියස ඔහු ද ළදරුවකු බවට පත් ව ඇත. සිංහල බෞද්ධ හදවතේ මුදුන් මල්කඩ තිලෝගුරු බුදුහු ය. ඔහුට තවත් බුදු කෙනෙක් සිටියි. ඒ ගෙදර බුදුන් ය. ගෙදර බුදුන් අම්මා ය.
පෙර දවස ඈ හමුවූ සොඳුරු සුයාමයේ ඈ කෙරෙන් හැමුයේ සියුම් අනුරාගී හැඟුම් දනවන සුවඳකි. එහෙත් කාලය විසින් තතු වෙනස් කොට තිබේ. දැන් ඈ වෙතින් හමන්නේ ද කිරිකැටියාගේ මුවින් හමන්නේ ද එක ම සුවඳ ය. එම තතු පවතින තතු නොව ඔහුගේ චිත්තාභ්යන්තරයේ සිදු වූ විපර්යාසයෝ ය. කාලය විසින් සිය ජීවන වපසරිය තුළ කළ වෙනස්කම් නිසා එක ම සුවඳ ඔහුට දැනෙන්නේ දෙකක් ලෙස ය. ගේහසිත ප්රේමය මිනිස් සන්තානය කෙරෙහි කළ බලපෑම කෙතරම් සොඳුරු ද? සාම්ප්රදායික සිංහල සමාජයේ අඹුසැමි ප්රේමය කෙතරම් උත්තරීතර පිවිතුරු වූවක් ද යන හැඟුමින් අප සිත් නිවා සනහන ගී මිණකි මේ.
එම සොඳුරු ගේහසිත ප්රේමයෝ අද ද අප,තර එසේ ම පවතිත් ද? නැත, අද එම ප්රේමය දෙදරුම් කා ඉරිතලා ගොස් ය. වත්මනෙහි පවතින තතු සහ ඊට මග හෙළි කළ ගොරබිරම් සමාජ විපර්යාස තවත් මෙම මෙවන් ගී මිණි අතර සැරිසරමින් පසක් කරන්ට අපි ආයෙත් දවසක හමු වෙමු.
ගීතය ඇසීමට මියුරු ගී වෙත යන්න (අමරදේව ඩබ්.ඩී ගී එකතුවේ 259 ගීතය)
malli :”Dude, u believe in God?”
Me: “yep”
malli: “u believe he cares?”
Me: “nope”
malli:” u know what? u and i…”
Me: “…aren’t that different??”
malli: “yep”
Me: *grin*
took him 18 years to figure that out . I have been here longer.
In my last post I mentioned how disgusted I was about how journalist in particular are being singled out by controlling entities–be they terrorist or other groups related, at least indirectly, to members of the government.
වෙලාව හවස 4ට විතර ඇති. එදා සෙනසුරාදා දවසක් නිසා හවසට කන්න මොනවහරි ගේන්නඕන කියලා හිතිලා හංදියේ තියන බේකරියට ගොඩවුනා. හායි ගාලා බේකරිය ඇරලාදාලා බේකරි කොලුවා කොහෙද ගිහිල්ලා. ඉතින් මම ටිකවෙලාවක් බලාගෙන හිටියා බේකරියේ තිබුන පුටුවක වාඩිවෙලා. හිතයටින් තරහෙත් බැහැ. මොකද මෙතන කෑමත් පුරෝල තියෙනවා මිනිස්සුත් ඇවිත් ඉන්නව ඒ මදිවට සල්ලි ලාච්චුවත් ඇරලා දාලා. ඉතින් බැරිවෙලාවත් [...]
අපේ ගෙදර කට්ටිය පුරුද්දක් විදිහට හැම අවුරුද්දකම කතරගම යනවා. මුලු අවුරුද්ද පුරාම එකතු කරගත්ත පඬුරු බාරහාර ඔප්පුකරන්නත් එක්කම තමයි අපි යන්නේ. හැම අවුරුද්දකම පෙරහැර කාලෙ අල්ලල තමයි ගමන ලෑස්ති කරන්නේ. අම්මා තමයි නඩේ ගුරා. තාත්තා ප්රධාන මූල්ය සම්පාදක. අක්කයි මමයි තමයි සහභාගිකයෝ විදිහට එකතු වෙන්නේ. ඒකත් අක්කා කසාද බඳින්න ඉස්සරවෙලා. දැන්නං එයාලා වෙනමම පවුලක්නේ. අනික [...]
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SriLanka
83 கறுப்பு ஜுலைக்கான காரணம் எல்.ரி.ரி.ஈ.யின் போபோ பிராவோ தாக்குதல் மூலம் இலங்கை இராணுவத்தின் 13 உ…
Step 1 is obviously being born.
Step 2 is to become an Associate Software Engineer.
In other news, I am now an Associate Software Engineers (surprise, surprise). Which explains my prolonged absence in all forms of the Internet. I got promoted and I got assigned to an urgent project, which means I have less ‘john is doing [...]
I have been an ardent and a loyal Windows Mobile user. There were several reasons for this loyalty. I come from a development background that is heavily biased towards Microsoft (read .NET). With this back ground I found it quite easy to develop a few applications for the Windows Mobile platform using .NETCF. So whenever [...]
Following schools from North Central Province were selected to eVillage - Sri Lanka project.
A/Pahalamaragahawewa Public School, Pahalamaragahawewa, Anuradhapura
A/Thakshila Public School, Mahavilachchiya, Anuradhapura
A/Wimalagnana Public School, Thanthirimale, Anuradhapura
Ok, I don’t know if anyone will ever read any of this but, thought of keeping a record of stuff that happens around me and blogging seems more fun than keeping a diary. i don’t know any of you guys traditions and customs so all you experienced bloggers…
Two more eVillages from Central Province join eVillage - Sri Lanka project. The following two schools were selected to carry out eVillage programs.
K/Wimaladharma Public School, Kaluntenna, Bopana
N/Ruphaha Public School, Halgranoya, Nuwara Eliya
Two more eVillages from Sabaragamuwa join eVillage - Sri Lanka project. The following two schools were selected to carry out eVillage programs.
1. Ke/Maththamagoda Rathnawali Public School, Maththamagoda, Kannanthota
2. R/Theppanawa Kumara Public School Theppanawa
Photo credit: Asela de Silva
Design by : Bathiya Wijesekara
In 1897 a Canadian-born chemist Herbert Henry Dow extracted bromine from brine solution using his newly find out method. Initially the company depended on bleach and potassium bromide which were extracted. But now Dow Chemical is operating with seven major operating segments.
In 2007
It was a company with
Revenue = ▲$53.513 Billion USD (2007)
Net income = ▲$2.887 Billion USD (2007) [This is equal to a half of Sri Lankan export earning]
Employees 46,000 (2007)
In every Sri Lankan Salterns brine solution is pumped back to ocean. But it is very valuable input for chemical industry and we are neglecting a huge profit making potential. Brine is electrolyzed in the chloralkali process to make sodium hydroxide, chlorine and hydrogen, as well as the hypochlorite and chlorate salts on an industrial scale.
You can imagine the wealth we can earn with this chemicals using following figures
Sodium Hydroxide –
50lb Bag of Sodium Hydroxide PELS can be sell in range of 94 $ (usd) [ aprox :Rs 9600]
55lb Bag of Sodium Hydroxide Flake can be sell in range of 103 $ (usd) [ aprox :Rs 10400]
Chlorine can be sold at $220 to $240 per ton
Hydrogen @ $2.60/kg [This is quite old data]
I know chemical business is not a simple one. We need complex market analysis and ecomomic analysis in feasibility study.
“But we do not want to do financial analysis when we see dreams.” This is the answer which were given to one of our student by Indian professor. That student ask about financial feasibility of biogas system.
SC, the kind critter who cooks my lunch and does other house keeping things in the apartment, made dosa for lunch today. Which I had with fish head curry, and coconut sambol. I was very hungry, but I stopped long enough for a photograph.
this bear will be having a filling on a back tooth re done today, so he may be eating less than usual, for awhile (;
but he has cooking posts almost ready to go, so its fine if you guys remain hungry 
I got this mail from D this evening and it really made me sit up..
> > > Dear Friends !!!
> > >
> > > Petrol in Pakistan Rs. 17 per litre
> > > Malaysia Rs. 18 per litre
> > > In India it’s Rs. 48 per litre
> > > In Sri Lanka it is Rs. 157 per litre
> > >
> > > Why this difference in Asia itself?
> > > World Market CRUDE Oil is not
> > > the reason for this.
> > > It’s all Gain for private owners?
> > > As we are the general public, or
> > > Common Man as R.K.Laxman would
> > > have said, we have to raise our voice,
> > > let’s raise thru Emails.
> > >
> > > Forward this to all
> > > Indians (and Sri Lankans ???) who cares.
(To make a long story short) it asked every one not to buy Petrol Next Friday ..
India 48 Rs and 157 Rs in Sri Lanka?
NO WAY…
Then I did some research and actually In India the Price is 48 but in Indian Rupees… So Comparatively the Price I Sri Lanka is around 50 Rs..
Why do people write stuff that like without thinking… This mail was forwarded to at least 300 people down the chain. (and imaging how many ppl those 300 mailed it to) Apparently no one has bothered to really figure out why..
So I did the Socially Responsible thing and “replied everyone” along with the people who has forwarded the mail to others down the chain (I tried to copy the “To Section” down in the chain.. but yahoo uses a cute little trick to prevent those kind of copies)..
10 minutes later I get a mail from D screaming bloody Murder… lol.. Apparently I was being insensitive (and showing off) by replying to everyone in her mail list, but someone has to put an end to this. So it may well be me!!
VANCOUVER : A POEM BY GEORGE STANLEYI took George Stanley’s new collection to New York in early May and read it on the subway, and propped up in bed. I spoke of it to my friends. I asked one to bring me a copy of Williams’ Paterson as Stanley pays …
Karu Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka’s Minister of public administration has confirmed something I’ve been saying for a while on this blog : Sri Lanka has the world’s largest government. That’s in addition to having the largest cabinet (literally) and having an enormous legislature.
Here’s an LBO report on what Karu said at a Sri Lanka Administrative Services Association meeting:
“From our population (21 million), there is one public servant for every 17 citizens and that is the world biggest public service sector,” public administration minister Karu Jayasuriya said. [..]The island’s public servant to citizen ratio is larger than India’s ratio of one to 80 citizens and USA’s ratio of one to 240, he said.
“The state sector is too big for a poor country like ours… Some sectors are filled from various appointments given at various instances and for different reasons.”
Last year Sri Lanka earned 508 billion rupees in taxes, but 282 billion went for the salaries and pensions of state workers, indicating that 55 cents out of every tax rupee collected went to state workers. [..]
The public sector expenses grew mainly because of hiring of unemployed graduates, new recruitments to the public sector, including the security forces, and payment of allowances.
Sri Lanka also has more than 100 ministers. Jayasuriya himself crossed over from the opposition and helped make the magic number.
Jayasuriya says that despite the overstaffing, the administrative sector in the public service has a dearth of 1,600 employees. [link]
Now read that last line again, there’s a dearth of employees despite overstaffing? are you kidding me?! Sigh. This sort of nonsensical situation is only possible in governments.
But despite correctly identifying Sri Lanka’s Mega Government as a problem, Minister Jayasuriya goes on to “appeal to public sector employees to provide a responsible and productive service”. Right. Were they really waiting around for Karu Jayasuriya to come and tell them to be “responsible and productive” ? This patronizing has to stop, policy makers need to come to their senses and start cutting down on this massive government, that’s the need of the hour. Public sector won’t become productive if their overstaffed. That defies logic. If they do this, if we decide cut down the size of government, then our taxes can be lowered or put to better use, instead of being eaten up to pay salaries of bureaucrats.
Like I’ve said before, this is not a debate of Big-government Vs. Small government. This is a debate between Mega Government Vs. Biggish government and on this, there’s only one reasonable side.
Related posts on Deaned : Where your taxes Go, The myth of the open economy, obstacles to growth
Title: Why no one knows how Fremantle’s and Sri Lanka’s history are connected?
Date: Sunday 1st June 2008
This week is Heritage Week in Fremantle. I honestly can’t recall Fremantle ever having a Heritage Week or Heritage Festival before so obviously this is something new dreamed up by the city council.
Let’s flip through the brochure. What’s on the agenda for this week and the next?
There are tours - walking tours, museum tours and so on. There is a tour of the University of Notre Dame’s campus. This is because most of Notre Dame’s buildings are in the West End - the old port area of Fremantle - and most of them are heritage listed and conserved buildings from the 1880s. The main library for instance is housed in the interior of what used to be the Bateman’s Hardware warehouse and even has an old pulley still present on the ceiling. So you can go on a tour and find out how the university manages to conserve the architecture, facades and archaeology of the old buildings and still make them useable for classrooms and so on.
Here’s another one: David Hutchinson, a local historian, is going to give a tour on how trade occured during the gold rush period in Fremantle which is coincidentally the subject of my honours thesis. That should be interesting except I wonder if it is worth wrapping up and standing on Victoria Quay and getting frozen to the bone for.
No tour on the brothels so far - that’s disappointing. The location of brothels and their place in Fremantle society is really interesting especially when you consider that there was such a small population in the late 1800s and everyone knew everyone else and the upper classes lived right next door to what they considered to be the lowest of the low. How did they all get on? How did upper class women manage to shop with the notorious prositutes and brothel madams? It sounds like an explosive mix. How did the elite band of eleven merchants that monopolized business react to dockworkers and wharfies who were beginning to hear about Marxism and Communism? Did the young people know about absinthe and Socialism? Who needs Paris before World War I when you have Freo instead?
What else do they have planned? There are workshops. There is one on how to use the Fremantle records in the Fremantle Library’s Historical Collection to research your family tree. I can tell that that would be a very bad day to go in there to try to get my research done and gather my data. Someone else is doing another workshop on how to think about historical research - “the past is a different country”. Basically stuff along the lines of: “People in the past didn’t think the same way as we do today so what you might find might not be what you expected. Don’t get surprised.” I wholeheartedly applaud that one. It’s simple enough once you think about it but people get way too caught up in what they expect to find and what they perceive to be the glamour of a period, a profession and so on and then get completely frustrated when they find that their great granddad wasn’t glorified captain but a convict or something similar. And then they forget that most convicts at the time were thrown into jail for petty offences as well as major ones. Petty offences usually indicate that someone is desperate.
People forget that quite a lot of people did not know how to read and write and therefore most of the historical documents we do have relate to what people from the upper echelons of society wrote. This provides us with a bias and if it wasn’t for lists and tax records and the like we would never know a lower class existed. And sometimes what someone writes down isn’t always true. So it’s an important point to get across to people whether they are researchers or people just looking to figure out the family tree. Don’t accept everything you read and always cross reference.
What else have we got on this brochure? Presentations. See right now, there is an archaeologist digging up Pioneer Park just down my street and opposite the train station. That’s where the railway workshops used to be in the 1890s. And a few brothels as well. Then they demolished the workshops and moved the workshops to Midland upriver. With 500 people relocated at the turn of the century, the brothels over there had to shut down. For awhile there was a theme park there but now there is just a park with a misnomer for a name. And now he’s digging it up to look for a) evidence of the old shoreline and b) anything to do with the railway workshops.
I don’t quite get this. Everyone knows the old shoreline went through the park before they infilled part of the river to build the railway line. Everyone also knows that the railway workshops were there. So why they feel the need to go dig the place up, I don’t quite know. Either way he is going to present what he has found so far this week.
Archaeologists everywhere so far. Next week, my own supervisor and professor will give his presentation on what we have found at Peeltown. This is the dig that I am participating in as a volunteer. We are attempting to find the remains of a settlement of 500 people that lasted for six months in 1830 when the first European settlers arrived in Western Australia.
In fact, this Saturday, Peeltown is where I will be, in long sleeves and ripped jeans, dust, sand and grime all over me. This is no Lara Croft tomb Raider or Indiana Jones, people. Hot pants on a dig with a whip and gun is possibly the least helpful attire you could have. This isn’t glamourous or pretty. Archaeology is dirty, hard work. It means getting stiff in odd positions as you try to excavate something the best way you can. It means pulling muscles as you heave buckets of soil into the sieves to be sifted through so you catch pins, lead shot and beads - the tiniest of artifacts. It means huge argumentative discussions over what exactly those bits of limestone in that particular formation represent (is it a wall? a doorway? a foundation? a furnace? a hearth? stay tuned…). It means painstakingly saving every tiny sliver of rusted iron and putting it into a carefully labelled bag. It means giving your brain cells a geographical workout as you try to figure out slope and other geographical measurements so that you have an idea of the landscape in your head. It means writing everything down in pencil, drawing maps and then going on a mad rampage for the eraser becuase you have to add something in or someone has discovered something else. It means going crazy with the roots that stick out in the soil layer you are excavating and chopping them all to pieces with the large secateurs - nobody lets me touch them now. It means you come home tired and happy.
And it means you get a little thrill of delight when you walk into the library or museum and see that piece of ceramic that you found when it was your turn to excavate.
This is Fremantle - its heritage goes back to before the Europeans to when the Nyungar Aboriginals used to come meet here on the limestone cliffs and sandy beaches. People say that that’s 60,000 years ago.
It is thrilling to be part of that. Perhaps a hundred years from now someone will be going through the census records and will be surprised to find my name on the list, living in High Street no less. A small part of my personal history is now here bound up with this port city. The sole reason I want to discuss trade during the gold rush period is because I want to make it easier for others to understand how exactly things did change at that time. So it is gratifying when the librarians start a discussion with me about the ways in which the Fremantle records can be put online so that others can access them easily and for free. When you take an interest in what happens around you, people want to accept you into the community.
So perhaps this time next year, you will see me giving a presentation of the work I did for my thesis. Or perhaps we’d have timed the unveiling of the online collection of the Fremantle Ratebook Records.
Fremantle is aware of its history. My only question now is - why do we ignore the history we have at home? Why are so many people unaware of the actual facts of our history? Why do we not care? Why don’t people patronize our archives and libraries more? Why is information so hard to get and rendered almost completely inaccessible in some cases?
There are simple answers to those questions: there is a war on, it’s boring stuff, there is no money, people aren’t trained, there is no demand.
Here is my point: when you have no access or desire for access to any kind of information historical or otherwise, you get dumb people simply because no one is put in a position where they are required to think analytically or logically or creatively more so than the norm. When you have dumb people, you get bad decisions. When you get bad decisions you get war, strife etc and anything horrible that is currently occurring gets exacerbated to the point where it seems that there is no solution. And the internet is not a blanket substitution for archival material or a library - it is merely an additional medium for conveying information. We don’t even make an effort to use that to our advantage.
We have a brain drain not just because top students can’t get into local universities, or can’t get jobs after a degree or are moving abroad. We have a brain drain in our country because we don’t support original scholarship and thinking.
The case I am making here is not to pitt one country against another. It’s that I and anyone of my age who thinks the way I do about how we want to live our lives would not want to live in a country where access to information is restricted and scholarship goes unsupported. We want to learn and keep learning at every stage in our lives amongst everything else we want to achieve and our society at home does not support us or that idea. And I think that’s a dangerous thing. It breeds ignorance.
Expansion of mind. It’s what some of us want to achieve and hence we want society to support us in it. And that’s why I feel good about Fremantle’s Heritage Week. Because that is its goal: to disseminate the fact amongst the local populace that there is information here to be found in a varying numbers of ways and this is how you can get it and this is what other people think.
Perhaps the next thing we need to do is suggest to the City Council that we have a philosophy week - philosophers, political debates, jazz, discussion and beer.
It probably will attract more people than the archaeology presentations will.
Nissanka who drives my car was turning into liberty plaza car park, when gold fm annouced the train bomb. inside, at the stationary store counter, i just said to the girl while she ran my credit card, ‘another bomb, huh’ (thava bombayak gihilla ne?) and she said, ‘yeah, you’d be scared to just walk on the roads now.’
in keels, they didn’t have the unsweetened cream and i needed for my mousse, and i had to get the pre-sweetened red man again. i asked a manager, and he was very helpful but they were out. then when i was signing my card slip, i saw news first, with footage of the blast. iasked the keels girl, ‘how many have died? cos I couldn’t hear the sound of the TV, and she said, ‘its 7 now, isn’t it?’
the guy took my stuff to the car which was two levels up, and when he was doing that, i just wanted to sit in the car park, and throw all that stuff i bought away, and just cry for this messed up country.
i but i didn’t, i just went home.
today, ms. philomina, the kind, nice lady who cleans our building, she works for abans, really, but she is a regular, didn’t come for work, and every one says she took that train every day, and she must have been on it.
i’m really hoping she is actually okay, and may be just took the day off?
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