Rod Mackenzie

It was the most awesome T-shirt I had ever seen. A funky deep purple dye and a cartoon of a drunken cat on the front. Thirteen years old, I stared at in gobsmacked delight. Gimme! The cat was all starry-eyed with a wasted grin on his face and he was lying inside a whiskey bottle. “Awe, Mom, why can’t I have that T-shirt?” I said over the phone. For some reason my mother had laughed when she saw the T-shirt in a shop and said she would discuss the matter with her friends at work before buying.
“I just don’t think it is such a good idea,” my mother said with a big smile in her voice and I could hear one of her friends laughing in the background.
I was bewildered. It was civvies day at our school soon and we could all wear casual clothing instead of school uniforms and my heart was set on wearing that T-shirt. It was just a picture of a drunk cat, for heaven’s sake, I thought. About a decade later, I was reminiscing about my school days and suddenly there was that memory of that T-shirt of the inebriated cat inside a bottle. What I also remembered, with renewed impact, was the slogan on the T-shirt: “Happiness is a tight pussy”. Ahem. Memory shifted meaning. For the first time it occurred to me why my mother laughed and refused to buy the garment.

We just seem to be chock-a-block with memories and undreamt-of associations that we only make some sense of much later in life. Some are even built into our genes or our souls if we still choose to believe that.

The most powerful, for me, was visiting Ireland. I am of Irish descent and proud of it. Singing in pubs is a pastime of theirs, and of mine, even before I became aware of that trait among fellow paddies.

My first experience of the Irish proper (as in those who live in Ireland) was the ferry from Holyhead in Wales to Dun Laoghaire just outside Dublin. The ferry was just a huge, floating pub. I sang as best and lustily as I could with the lads at the bar counter, many of whom had baggage trolleys loaded with boxes of Forster’s beer which they were taking back to Dublin for their shebeens, I gathered. I recall sitting back with my head raised and arms folded (just like them, it came naturally, that posture) extolling the virtues of Van Morrison’s “Brown-eyed girl”, but could not keep up with all the real Irish ditties they all knew so well. I was jealous. Their music was deeply tattooed into their identity.

But still, South African born and bred, I was absolutely at home with the Irish, and it was definitely an ancestral resonance, a sense of belonging that lay deep below the surfaces of verbal memory.

That sense of belonging was temporarily removed when we got to the passport check-in at Dun Laoghaire (Dun Leary in English). The tubby, blue-eyed official grinned and waved the lads through with their crates of Forster’s beer and without checking their passports, no less. And they were reeling drunk, singing at the top of their voices. He looked at me and my girlfriend at the time (this was long before the advent of the Chook) more cautiously, but friendlily enough. He checked my passport, which was Irish and which I produced with a proud flourish.

The passport official then started asking me questions about the duration and nature of my stay in Ireland. What I was going to be doing and so forth. The cheeky bugger, I thought. I am an Irish citizen, as evinced by my passport and did not need to answer such questions. “Long as I like, mate,” I said in my best, cringeworthy, fake UK accent. “This is an Irish passport and I have as much right to be here as you have… and here is my Irish birth certificate,” which I produced from inside a flap of the wallet into which my precious passport was inserted. The document was a cherished “particulars of a foreign birth”. The official had a sort of blank grin on his face while the momentous nature of our brotherhood sank in. “Catch you later, mate”, I primly announced, and stalked into Ireland.

Ireland! Many times on my trip there I could not shake off the feeling that I had been there before. You have been here before, echoed something through me, not so much the words, but an electric surge that contained the deeper meaning underlying those words, buckets drawn up from some unfathomably deep well. It was eerie; it was déjà vu. I could feel and smell the history of me – an ancestral me – on solitary walks down those beautiful stonewalled roads all over the Irish countryside.

I tried to put into the following lines my experiences of Ireland

Pick two of her stones, bright and bare -
Your words will soften them, creating her eyes.
She is this country: her unbridled lips
Gentle you into verses, wetting the mist and the noon
On this road which is narrowed in the glow
From coal-damp stone walls. Stones are everywhere
And grant this scene the burden of the ages.
Listen: The pulse of boots, gunfire, hooves.

This was in the mid-nineties, South Africa was a barely-born democracy I was tremendously proud of and very hopeful about. I found myself associating my identity as a second-generation South African with my ancestral identity as an Irishman. Of course, I was also aware of the sad, cruel history of Ireland, or rather, both Irelands:

Today, rain-tender as mourning often is
In the ancestral home of County Antrim,
You are a journal untouched, a language unfingered
In two South African generations of saddening
Into the senseless. That’s why she’s called you –
To put these stones and their stories into
A hearth of words, to take them back
To another home, a dwelling of a kind.

County Antrim! Before writing the poem I actually had no idea where my grandparents came from in Ireland. The sense of belonging, of deep, wordless, tugging memories, you have been here before, been here, been there was strongest in County Antrim. At times my eyes were watering with the power of the déjà vu. And “it was getting weird, like!” as the Irish might say. When I got home to Joburg I phoned my mother in Cape Town to find out where my grandparents came from. Yes, you guessed it: County Antrim. We are, I realised, our histories, in ways much deeper than we can cerebrally know. The scary or sobering thing is we are not tuned into our histories, our deeper identities. For some reason, and only to some extent, I was tuned in when in Ireland. My unwordable experience of my ancestral home was one that I will hold high and cradle close as something sacred, venerable. There is something poetic and musical about us Irish. And the sad thing is I will probably never live there.
So what is your identity? What have your memories made of you? In the rest of the poem which follows I often compare Ireland to a sacred but violated woman, a Mary figure, a Guinevere. Dropping the stones partly means letting go. The rest? A wordless significance, brimming with ancestry, identity and a wish to belong somewhere, somewhere, still resonates nearly fifteen years later:

Two homes, two histories,
As blunt as the stones in your hands.
The one where you now hike, stop and crouch
Holds an ancient, terrible loveliness.
She tugs
At you until your bones ache.
Your body sags, feeling its ghost-light
Brimming through the skin at the sight
Of her body and its old, stupid hurt.

Here’s the scenario: you are working in Shanghai and your SA passport is about to expire in a few months. Good, responsible citizen that you are, and not wishing to have trouble with the Chinese authorities when renewing your work visa, you duly go to the SA consulate in Shanghai.

Bureaucratic procedures combined with the Chinese love for paperwork (remember they invented the fabric and love to swim in it, I assure you), the process takes several hours, and there is no one else there, that is to say, no queue. Ja well no fine, such is life. Your passport photos are inadequate for some reason so you go downstairs and across the road to get a fresh set. All your fingers, both palms and full handprints are inked and placed on an official document. The whole paperwork thing really takes a while but ja well no fine so gaan die lewe. You are a Sawth Effricen, so you are as stoic as a bulldog and you can take the punch/jy kan die punch vat. The Chinese official helping you is a nice bloke anyway so you chat about life in Shanghai.

You then pay and wait for the receipt. And wait and wait. Eventually you go back to the cashier window and ask how long is it gonna take to get a receipt. The chap that you rather liked looks at you blankly and says the SA consulate official who has the authority to stamp the receipt is away for a while. It is lunch time so you know exactly what meeting it is that all bureaucrats are extremely disciplined about, so … ja well no fine on that score but why couldn’t the Chinese gentleman at least tell you he had gone to that unbelievably important meeting? You do have other things to do, like go back to work before the boss gets the hell in.

After a brief discussion that turns into a heated debate the official you used to like gives you a receipt without that bliksem stamp but at least you have proof. He thanks you kindly for your understanding and co-operation and further promises to courier a stamped, signed, sealed, framed, kissed or whatever upgrade to your home, but that never arrives. Ja well no fine, all is bureaucratically normal, nothing specific to hak or complain about.

Three months pass and you send a polite email enquiring about your passport, including the three ID numbers you have (SA ID, passport ID — a little different, a caveat to readers — and sommer nog ’n eenetjie you didn’t know about above your passport mug-shot if you remember correctly its whereabouts).

You receive an email a few days later stating nothing has been received but the matter will be followed up, with another “thanking you kindly for your understanding”. Ja well no fine … Then you receive a frightening email a week or so later, bearing in mind you are a foreigner in this country and are required to be legally here. Here, ek se, is the unedited cut and paste except for the italics and the words “you wince”:

“Dear Mr. Mackenzie,

We are still following up with your application with head office these days, however, with no answer yet. According to the passport application registration online, there is no record of any of passport applications of August this year (yours inclusive). Therefore, we assume that they may have lost the whole batch! While awaiting the confirmation from head office, I think it would be more proactive if we courier another set of application to head office . So, we need your cooperation and understanding [you wince] to come to our office again for a new application form and a set of fingerprints along with two passport photos.

Sorry for the inconvenience incurred and looking forward to your kind attention to this matter.

Best Regards! …. ”

Now it’s no longer ja well no fine and so gaan die lewe.

You scratch your head, check your receipt (hell, pity the upgraded, kissed or whatever receipt never arrived) and see the date was 13th July. In quiet desperation you email the oke and say you did it in July, knowing it probably collected dust until the next diplomatic bag / mule with saddle bags / pigeon with collar / whatever, was sent off in August.

Next email:

“Our diplomatic bag goes to South Africa once a month, mostly around 8th of the month. If you applied after that date, application will have to go with the next bag. Thanks for your understanding and co-operation…”

Of course, you are now tired of being thanked for “your copulation co-operation and understanding” and things are no longer ja well no fine. How do you stay legally in the country when either the SA consulate or the relevant section in South Africa are just not doing their job and perhaps blameshifting?

The above was nearly my scenario. Fortunately, I live life on my Irish passport, a wonderful EU first world passport.

Ah, the first world. Let’s compare getting a new passport from the Irish Consulate. When I was living in Southampton, England, my Irish passport had expired and I was living on my SA passport, which I had used to get into the country. Ja well no fine, I sent off the expired one with relevant documentation and the fee to the Irish Consulate in London. I got back my new passport about two weeks later. I need say no more.

But now what about all the South Africans in Shanghai and elsewhere in the world who do not have — I am embarrassed to say — what I call a “first world” passport and they need to renew that extremely valuable document? You cant open bank accounts, look for work etcetera, etcetera unless that passport is up to date. God help those guys. God help South Africa, every government department going through corruption and crises from Eskom to Telkom to the Post Office which stole my Christmas and New Year cards to my octogenarian mother last year.

I am not writing this merely as a complaint, but as a concerned citizen and an embarrassed South African.

“So,” I chooned told ou Phil, “you should have seen my mutt Bruce. He was a Labrador and he couldn’t stop eating. My mother believed he must still be hungry if he was happy to have more. My old lady and blurry Bruce were a scary combination. She would just keep piling up his dog bowl. Eventually he would come waddling and wheezing off the verandah into the lounge, belly hanging halfway to the floor, slump in front of the fireplace and slowly, evilly, deflate like a tractor tyre for the next two hours.

“Jissee, but he could drop horrible ones. His ears would cock in half-interest while the family cursed, some of us even leaving the room for a few minutes. Eventually my mother learned. My old man, hanky over his nose, insisted he only get one bowl of chow. So of course Bruce would scoff his chow down in less than ten seconds flat and head for the other dogs’ bowls. There were a couple of moerse frights on that verandah. My black and white brak, Scruffy, genuine ‘pavement special’, was smaller and older than Bruce, and was the ou man of our five dogs. He just told Bruce to take a fricken sexual hike off Mount Kilimanjaro in dog language…”

I could check out that Phil, grinning, wanted to talk about his dogs as he interrupted, “Did he pomp a lot?” and sipped on his brandy and coke (spook & diesel for those in the know) in O’Hagan’s Pub in Paulshof, Jo’burg. “I had a brak who couldn’t think of anything else – ”

“Bruce’s sex life?” I loudly interrupted back, proud of my favourite childhood mutt, that wheaten Labrador of mine who followed me wherever I went. “Balls of steel,” I bragged, dramatically pausing to swig on a Hofbrau Draught. “And his,” I said whilst lightly belching, “needed regular exercise. Dammit, that champion would risk his life against competing Alsatians for the glorious prize that was on heat. Came home looking like Attila the Hun after a really fierce battle, my bru, but with a contented grin on his face…”

“I had a Jack Russel once,” said Phil. “And all he could think about was pomping. 24/7. He first tried it on a bathroom towel. My old lady was helluva annoyed. The best was when he tried to take on a Dalmatian. Just picture a littlebrak taking on a Dalmatian’s hind leg. She would turn around quizzically to try and see what this cheeky little bugger was up to…”

“Ja, no, Bruce had self-respect, tjommie,” I interjected, feeling no shortage of one-upmanship. “Only his size would do, usually Alsatians. We eventually had to have him spayed, because the neighbours complained about all the visits to their plot. And you know what? He still went and visited his girlfriends, coming back looking like Genghis Kan who had fallen of the Great Wall or something…I don’t know how he hoped to get it up, hey maybe he still could….”

I don’t know how long ou Phil, one of my best drinking buddies nearly ten years ago in Paulshof’s O’Hagans and I talked about our childhood pets. Maybe he can’t remember. Spook & diesel will do that to you. Maybe one of the other okes was bragging about his Jack Russel as in retrospect that Dutchman friend of mine, Phil, would have preferred bigger dogs. It doesn’t matter.

Ja, our childhood pets. They were just great, hey? And taught me responsibility too. That’s why my parents had them for me. I fed them. I bathed them. Removed the blurry ticks and dusted them with tick powder while they indignantly snorted and sneezed. I separated them when they fought. Man I loved them. Yeah, I said above my old lady fed Bruce. But I gave him the first bowl and it should have been the only one, even if the only reason was the unbelievable farting afterwards. His backside could crackle like Guy Fawkes. She would just look at that mournful, gluttonous face, his ears eagerly cocked and bring him more and more Dogmore. (Is Dogmore still going in SA? Must be. It’s the grrrrravey, hey?)

At one stage I had five or six dogs, a sheep called Bartholomew, budgies, guinea pigs, a table of white mice where I kept on changing the maze that led to their food, and an aviary of pigeons and cockatiels. No cats. Let’s agree on one thing about dogs, manne? They are always genuinely pleased to see you when you get home. Cats just turn up their tails and show you their south end. Like that’s what I want to see while I am scoffing down my after-school toasted sarmies. Homework consisted of hurling the school satchel under my bedroom desk and heading out with the canine gang for the nearby vlei or whatever.

And Bruce always knew when I was feeling down. Like when I came home from a bad-hair day at school, some stupid caning for no bloody rhyme or reason or I’d been bullied by the big okes. He would come and lie on the bed next to me while I nursed my emotional wounds and shove his snout into my chest and belly. He would stare at me with those soulful eyes, head cocked, making throat-swallowing, gulping noises of sympathy and dinkum try and cheer me up. And he did. Fully.

I still now and then dream about him, and the ou man, Scruffy, who would give Bruce a hard time anytime Bruce tried to take over his spot as top dog. Maybe they are saying hello from doggie heaven, hey?

So, what’s your doggie and other childhood pet stories? Skiem I should write another book, Cracking Canines.

“I got this cool joke,” I said as a group of us Scrabblers sat and sipped our coffees after an exhausting round of Scrabble at the coffee shop on Fish Hoek beach some years back.

“A long time ago a Jewish couple had a baby and the father, Giuseppe, especially wanted to know what career his son would take. Giuseppe went to his rabbi who was quite a mystical bloke and asked how he could find out what his son would become one day. The rabbi scratched his beard, intrigued by this challenge. ‘What you should do,’ the rabbi thoughtfully said, ‘is when your son can crawl you should put on the first step of your staircase a bottle of wine on one side and a bag of money on the other side…’”

Daniel, one of our fellow Scrabblers, interrupted me with, “I hope this is not going to be offensive or irreverent.” He was usually an amicable chap with a keen sense of humour but now his eyes were blazing as he glared at me. He was Jewish. I hasten to add that this blog is not an attack on any religious group; I have had many Jewish friends who have been kind to me, including when I was down and out in my twenties, jobless and homeless (I was taken in by Jewish people) at one stage… you get my drift.
“Oh not at all, not at all,” I quickly replied to Daniel.

“Anyway,” I continued, “the rabbi said to Giuseppe, ‘if your son crawls towards the wine first and grabs that, that means he is going to be a successful merchant and quite possibly a liquor store owner and therefore a wealthy man. If he crawls over to the money bag and grabs that, then he is going to be a successful banker and also a wealthy, successful man. Either way you need not worry; he will be able to take care of you in your old age’. The rabbi looked at Giuseppe keenly, guessing the real reason and worry for the man’s concerns about what career his son would take. Giuseppe nodded, impressed by his rabbi’s wisdom. ‘But what if he doesn’t grab either the wine or the money bag?’
‘Pray he doesn’t,’ the rabbi solemnly replied, ‘but don’t let that bother you. Come back to me with whatever happens and we will take it from there.’

“When the baby could crawl Giuseppe decided to try out the experiment. On one side of the first step of the staircase he placed a bottle of wine. On the other side he placed a bag of money. The mother put their little son on the floor a few feet away from the two articles. The lad, an exuberant boy who could crawl fast, eyed the wine and money bag and scooted across the lounge floor.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Daniel listening intently to the joke, clearly curious, but concerned about the punch line.

“The baby grabbed both the money bag and the bottle of wine at the same time and tried to pick both up most enthusiastically.
“Giuseppe was astonished by this turn of events and went and told his rabbi. The rabbi slapped his own head and cried, ‘Oy vay, the boy is going to be a Catholic priest!’ “And,” I added for Daniel’s benefit who was now grinning and chuckling, “I heard this joke from a Catholic priest whilst he stood at the altar speaking to his congregation during his sermon one Sunday morning. All the parishioners laughed.”

Daniel smiled at me, nodding. In a sense the joke was a profound lesson for both of us; nobody was offended.

I am not a Catholic. But I have learned a lot from them and their literature, including the teachings of Meister Eckhart and contemporary writers like Henri Nouwen and most definitely that wonderful monk who was once an abbot, Father Thomas Keating. Such wise fruit and healing teaching has to come from that profound, ineffable source all spiritual people of all persuasions revere.

At one stage I was a big ecumenicist and loved visiting different churches. I slowly “evolved” into a universalist and attended Catholic and Buddhist retreats and sometimes the two faiths combined. I miss that in China.

The essence of many spiritual traditions is to rid or purge human beings of what is sometimes called “the false ego”, that superficial structure of graspings and longings that identifies too seriously with…. oh, stuff. Stuff like identity, prestige, money, how intelligent I am, my qualificiations, anxiety about the future and guilt about the past. The absolute infallible rightness of “my” religion. Through this process we learn to be present to what is instead of resisting or denying it and thus feeding a false self that does not accept things as they are. In other words a false self that cannot take jokes about what it clings to so dearly, missing out on all that life has to offer. I love that magic Dido song with the constant refrain, “Cos nothing I have is truly mine”. There is a wonderful reverence in that song.

Jokes teach us to not take our egos, our false selves, our attachments, so seriously.

As Eckhart Tole says in that wonderful book, The Power of Now:
If a fish is born in your aquarium and you call it John, write out a birth certificate, tell him about his family history, and two minutes later he gets eaten by another fish - that’s tragic. But it’s only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none. You got hold of a fraction of a dynamic process, a molecular dance, and made a separate entity out of it.

The Pope and Julius Malema are on the same stage in front of a huge crowd. The Pope leans towards Julius and says, “Do you know that with one little wave of my hand I can make every person in this crowd go wild with joy? This joy will not be a momentary display, like that of your followers, but go deep into their hearts and they’ll forever speak of this day and rejoice!”

Julius replied, “I seriously doubt that. With one little wave of your hand? Show me.”

So the Pope slapped him.

Agh, I wish I could claim authorship for the above crack but I can’t. It’s been doing the email rounds. But it got me thinking about the different reactions to jokes, who to tell various jokes, and who to most definitely not tell those jokes, “racial”, “ethnic”, “religiously improper” or otherwise. Would the politically correct turn their noses at the above quip? I don’t know as I am not good at being politically correct; to me a spade is a spade and I prefer honesty. The joke itself has nothing to do with honesty or dishonesty; the listener’s reaction to the joke is perhaps honest, and certainly telling. Incidentally, I cannot write dishonestly. In writing my memoir about living in China (Cracking China, due out in early 2010) and now the sequel, I have discovered I cannot be dishonest; it completely stifles my creativity. In other words, if I decide to add a little bit to an actual humorous event that occurred in China, my inspiration goes out the window. In fact, I wouldn’t have even got this far in this blog if I had pretended ownership of the above joke. Hope that’s food for thought.

Certainly some people would be offended by the above joke (hint: they are just maybe members of the ANCYL). I am sure they would be quick to type “just another racist” or whatever in the commentary. What I like about humour is that it helps us not to take ourselves too seriously. Laughter is certainly the best medicine. Here’s another joke, and it is apparently a real incident that happened to this very witty, burly Englishman, Chris, that I knew in Jo’burg. Chris walked into a pub in East End, London, which was run by black bartenders and he ordered a beer. The bartender looked suspiciously at his white face and got the beer. On returning, he asked, “Are you racist?” “Of course not,” Chris cried, looking around the pub that had no white people in it. “Well, we are, so finish that beer and sod off.”

I burst out laughing when I heard that last line. It was also the way Chris told the joke with that cynical, wicked grin of his.

In turn I told the joke to a white South African in a pub on Witkoppen Road a few days later. His face froze on the punch line and his nose wrinkled. “That’s not funny,” he said. I was most surprised. But it got me to thinking. Jokes can really be tests for what I would like to call people’s RCQ’s (Racist Quotients, as there is already a Readiness Quotient). It also tells you if they take themselves and their identities too seriously or are prepared to have a good laugh in an open-minded way. Whenever I told the anecdote to Britons, I noticed they laughed. Not bent over and slapping their thighs, but they laughed. A typical retort was, “Well at least the bartender was honest.”

When the last days of apartheid were starting to come to an end I was teaching in a black township school, Langa High, just outside Cape Town. Virtually all the teachers were Xhosa. One bloke, a very witty chap, Mamatu, told me the good news and the bad news. “The bad news, Rod? The whites are going to have to move into the townships as the Group Areas Act is going to be abolished. The good news? All your stolen TV sets and music centres will be waiting for you in the townships. Don’t you worry about that.” The whole group standing in the circle, including me, the only whitey, cackled with glee and did the Xhosa thing whenever there was a good chirp and shook one another’s hands. Correct me if it is not a Xhosa thing, maybe it was a Langa thing, but I loved that moment, the sense of community, ubuntu: getting over our hidebound identities. I can assure you old Du Toit, the white deputy principal at Langa High, who was most verkrampt, would not have liked that joke very much. Ja, jokes and how we handle them can tell us a lot about ourselves. So how’s your RCQ when you read jokes like this?

I was browsing through through a couple of books in a public library. There were a number of people in the reading area. I shifted in my chair and one of the joinings must have been a bit loose because the chair creaked loudly, a parping noise, uncomfortably like a certain impolite emission. A few heads and eyebrows raised and one old chap looked at me over his newspaper with a knowing grin. There were one or two discreet coughs and the room gathered its silence again. I tried to get the chair to make that dang creaking noise again and thus send a message to all listeners that it was the bloody chair, not me, but Murphy’s law kicked in: all of a sudden the joining had been gloriously healed, hallelujah. Not.

Which brings me to the delicate subject of sexism, flatulence and Zapiro’s recent global emissions cartoon. Sure, ol’ Zaps gets it spot on again. The G20 summit was just so much wind, political agendas packaged as genuine concern for the global mess. Our world is pictured as struggling with all the flatulence of all the political players in a picture we are invited to compare to the baked beans episode in that dumbass movie, Blazing Saddles.

My tongue-in-cheek problem with the Zapiro cartoon is that it only shows men breaking wind and they are doing a passionate, hearty job of it, complete with loud noises and gusts of wind. They are also eating, and lustily farting at the table among guests is perhaps the ultimate faux pas. Now I know in nuclear families, when it is just Mom, Pops and the kids, sometimes “dropping one” at the dinner table is okay. Pops reinforces the myth that only men make gas when he raises a cheek and, well, pops one at the table and the little kids laugh. Ha ha, Mommy, Daddy did a stinker. Mom either joins in the mirth or glares at the cheeky bugger for modelling bad manners for her children. Note now they are her children, not his.

Yep, like I said, it seems to be a public myth in our society that men only break wind. Women are incapable of contributing an ounce or two of methane to the atmosphere. Of course I said “public myth” as it sure as hell ain’t a private myth, that is to say, between spouses. I have been together with my partner for more than five years and the illusion of girls made of sugar and spice and everything nice was shattered a long time ago. And the boisterous discharge is sometimes followed by a wicked cackle. Duvets have more than one insulating function, I kid you not.

Nope, the public myth about flatulence is like the one about sweating. Horses sweat, bru. Men perspire or also just sweat. The ladies can only shine.

This all reminds me of an old favourite joke on the myths about men and women and their differences which I shall package the MacKenzie way.

The difference between men and women is that men fart and women cannot keep a secret. A man’s flatulence has been known to make small children cry and dogs howl at the moon. A woman’s bottom is incapable of such a feat. She primly holds it in.

But one thing a man can hold in a secret. Tell them anything that is off the record and chests are thumped “scouts’ honour” style and lips are sealed forever my bru. Not a woman. I know for a fact that if I want a secret to become public I would just tell one of the ladies in the Johannesburg office and get her to swear to keep the juicy tidbit private. By the next day the office in Cape Town knows every luscious detail and a few extra I never said.

So what have we got here? Men make gas, women hold it in, but, unlike the blokes, the gals sure are gossips. So how do you get a woman to keep a secret?

Whisper it up her bottom.

(Runs out the door before a dozen hurled handbags, lipsticks and high-heeled shoes reach their target.)

Yep, I am afraid that is the question that has been going through my mind for the last week or so. Would there be such a furore of she had been white? I think not. That is to say, there would not have been such sputterings from Sports minister and reverend Stofile has threatened World War Three. Fascinating, irreverent hyperbole coming from a man of the Christian cloth. His remark was so reminiscent of the empty bravado of dictators like Idi Amin and Saddam “mother of all wars” Hussein, not to mention a wannabe but ne’er-will-be dictator like Eugene Terre’blanche who was justly found guilty of assaulting a black man. ET stood up and blustered, “Nou het die oorlog begin!” Now the war has begun. Uncannily similar statements suggesting full frontal lobotomies have taken place, no?

I truly feel for this young lady, Ms. Semenya. According to the Australian medical report she has no womb or ovaries, and has inner testacles which boost her testosterone count and thus may arguably give her an unfair advantage. Or so the claim goes. Be honest, was anyone out there surprised by the alleged reports, given Ms. Semenya’s facticity?

Inevitably, drearily and irresponsibly, the SA sports bodies and many SA people are crying foul as it is merely racism. Of course it is not racism and the case is not as simple as that.

Let us look at the simple facts. Ms. Semenya has a strapping figure, and to be perfectly frank, if I had not known who she was, when I first saw pictures of her I would have sworn I was looking at a powerful, good-looking young man who I would not want to throw a fist at me. I wouldn’t mind rugby ball biceps and rippling shoulders like that. The cover of YOU magazine? I would have thought that was a man in drag. I asked the ladies in my office here in China to look at the cover of YOU and they thought so too. The cover of YOU comes across as a case of special pleading to convince the world she is a woman – in the wrong way. She is not “traditionally feminine” or petite, not by a long chalk. The request for testing is not unreasonable even though gender verification was stopped in 2000. But the most important issue, to me, is, how about Ms. Semenya’s feelings on the matter? I feel she should be the first to be allowed to decide what her gender is, as medically, allegedly, she has traits of both sexes. She has decided she is a woman because that is how she naturally feels about it. That should be respected. Therefore the claim that she should be disqualified from winning should be dismissed.

However, her future wins and the current one will be soured as too many people will not be happy (including athletes) with her competing because of the hermaphroditic medical evidence and the unfair advantage.

Rather like my piece on Brandon Huntley, I am not so much interested in whether or not Caster Semenya should be disqualified. I am more interested in the response of South Africans, particularly the mass cry of racism and various leaders. Instead of letting fair law be applied and acknowledging that gender verification is a complex matter, the issue is reduced to one of racism.

So what message is South Africa sending to the world about how it deals with delicate, complex matters? The picture of a self-destructing sledgehammer where only a scalpel is required is what comes to mind.

“That will be 200 dollars New Zealand sir,” said the airport official at Auckland’s international airport, New Zealand.

Two hundred dollars for this naartjie, I mean orange, mandarin, whatever?”

“Yes sir.”

My wife burst into tears. I wanted to hit the smirking youngster in front of me.
Let’s back up a bit.

After Llewllyn Kriel’s piece on serious inefficiency in Joburg’s airport (http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/llewellynkriel/2009/09/07/saa-acsas-secret-10-commandments-finally-unearthed/), some horrible memories shuddered through me. I will never forget the fricken naartjie episode in Auckland’s airport.

As a result of our flight from Shanghai to Auckland New Zealand some three and a half years ago I have become almost terrified of flying and the way airport authorities can treat you.

The flight included a connecting flight from Sydney to Auckland and was fraught with delays and tedious bureaucracy, including a last minute decision by Shanghai airport that we needed to apply for an electronic visa for Australia even though we had no intention of leaving Sydney’s airport. We nearly missed our flight – the only reason why we didn’t was that it was delayed. And the connecting flight to Auckland was delayed – we spent most of the day in the airport.

None of that really bothered me much, but by the time we got to Auckland airport we were exhausted, cranky, and we stank. In the airplane to Auckland we were given declaration forms to fill out. This included declaring any medical and organic items such as food into the country. We were double-checked at arrivals to make sure we had signed the forms, which was rather cunning as we were later to discover.
Then our luggage was put through scanners and a small hell broke loose. Buried at the bottom of one of the side pockets of my backpack was one small mandarin, a naartjie. I had no clue it was there. We were virtually marched into the airport security office like criminals. The young man on duty had a permanent smirk on his face as we babbled, “Really it was a mistake, we had no idea the fruit was there, all you had to do was confiscate it…”

“Did you sign this form sir?” was the only response coming again and again from the police official.

“Yes, but –”

“Then that will be a two hundred dollar fine before you can leave the airport, sir.” Two hundred dollars at the time was about one thousand rand.

Behind my back I understood now why there was a small Thomas Cook (or one of those) forex exchange desk in the check-in area. It seemed to be doing some brisk business. We paid the fine, humiliated, embarrassed, treated like willful criminals, Marion wiping the tears off her face.

“Enjoy your stay in New Zealand, sir,” said the smirking official. That was the worst verbal smack across the face I have ever received. Ever.

He knew we were not smuggling one item of fruit into the country. All he had to do was confiscate it, give us a firm lecture, tell us what the fine would be if it happened again, even record electronically against our passport numbers on their computers our “misdemeanour”.
In my life I have been on about one hundred flights and perhaps twice I have had nail clippers confiscated at check in counters because of security. Fair enough. But there was no fine, as any fool could see that I was not doing anything intentionally criminal or deliberately harmful. I learned long ago to put my nail clippers into my main luggage. That’s all Smirky Face had to do was confiscate and give a firm warning and he knew it. The official knew what we had done was entirely unintentional; it was obvious we were exhausted by flight delays and jet lag to the point of being shattered… and yet we were treated like common criminals, not guests in their country. And what profit is there for me for “smuggling” one naartjie into a country? My guess is the official just needed to reach his quota of fines.

Sure, I understand New Zealand’s strictness and their concern about diseases or foreign insects coming into their country and affecting their delicate ecology. But there was no way any undesirable item can get past those high-tech scanners, so the country is safe form that point of view anyway.

I personally think the manner in which we were treated was shocking. Soon after we arrived in Auckland we learned of a Dutch tourist who was head-butted by a Maori for no reason at all. The tourist’s nose was broken. No jail sentence was his punishment: just some hours of community service. (http://www.rotoruadailypost.co.nz/local/news/tourist-attacker-sacked/3668835/) I paid one thousand rands for a naartjie I did not even know was in my backpack.

The motivation for me to write this blog is, like Llewellyn Kriel (well I am sure it is his motivation), to bring to as many people’s attention the appalling manner in which travelers are sometimes treated in airports.
Are these airport officials given any schooling in the psychology of traveling? People are disorientated when they get to those huge, noisy, impersonal airports; they are often completely strange places and it is made even more alien when you cannot understand the language or have difficulty with cultural differences. Then compound that with flight delays, jet lag, lost luggage and all the rest, and you have worn-out, nervous, even frightened “guests” (like hell you are) arriving at the door of that country. By the time we were “ushered” into Smirky Face’s office we were frightened and were almost nervous wrecks. We were humiliated and treated like excrement.

I was strongly tempted to phone the airport authorities to complain about the airport official, but I had a suspicion that might give him more points towards his next promotion. You are not in your own country; you are a foreigner.

Do not get me wrong: New Zealand is a beautiful place. We were stunned by the cleanliness and orderliness of Auckland. The people were wonderful. Man, can they do lamb proud; I had the best chops I have ever had in my life. But experiences like what we went through above needs to be brought into the light as much as possible and firmly addressed.

http://www.rotoruadailypost.co.nz/local/news/tourist-attacker-sacked/3668835/

Based on a true story.

A young girl called Melissa stared at the house across the road in Secunda, South Africa. She knew her friend Melody lived there and they often played together. She preferred going there instead of her own home for reasons which would take many years to understand. Her home was a sad place and her parents worked too hard and were often very tired.

She particularly liked going to Melody’s home because of Melody’s mom, who was often cooking and was happy to give a meal to any child who came into her home.

Melody came running across the road to Melissa and asked, “Melissa, what is the matter?” She could see her friend had been crying; her eyes looked red and sore.
“My birthday is the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s great! I didn’t know. Who are you going to invite to your party?”
The tears started trickling from Melissa’s eyes, which she bravely brushed aside.
“No party,” she eventually said.
“Well, come to our place. Let’s play together.”
Melissa readily ran across the road with Melody.
“Hey Mom,” said Melody as they ran into the kitchen, “it’s Melissa’s birthday in two days but she’s not having a party.”
“That’s okay,” said Melody’s mom while she put vienna sausages in a pot on the stove, “She can have her party here. Melissa, do you like chocolate cake?”
Melissa could not believe her ears. “Yes Mrs. Green, I really do.”
“Well I will bake some cakes and get some biscuits and Coke and you invite your friends and we will have a birthday party in the afternoon after school on your birthday. You will be eight years old, hey?”
“Yes Mrs. Green, thank you Mrs. Green.” Melody gaped up at the warm, smiling, Mommy face and the sparkling brown eyes glinting mischievously under a curly mop of chestnut hair. Melody’s mom looked as if they were all about to get up to some prank, and said to the children, “Well, I am sure you girls would just love some hotdogs and please drink the milk: it is so good for your bones and nails. Then you can sit together and write out the invitations for your friends for the birthday. I will get some letter writing paper.”

The next day Melissa was proudly handing out invitations to a dozen or so friends at school.
“You gonna have cake, Melissa?”
“Sure thing, dummy, and it’s gonna be a huge chocolate one with cherries on top.”
“Do you have a swimming pool?”
“We’re having it at Melody’s house, they gotta swimming pool.”
“Are we aloud to bring our beach balls and lylos - I gotta dinosaur one.”
“Sure you can.”
“What present do you want, my mommy to get; she always likes to bring a present.”
“Ummm…you don’t have to, only if you wanna.”

A delighted Melissa splashed around in the pool with her friends on her big day. Melody’s mom came out with the big chocolate cake which had eight pink candles on it. Melissa blew out the candles while everyone, including Melody’s mom, sang Happy Birthday. She giggled at Mrs. Green’s version.

Happy birthday to you,
You belong in the zoo,
You look like a monkey
And you act like one too!

Melissa fell asleep that night exhausted by the excitement, swimming and the surprise of all the presents. Not to mention the wonderful cake and all the shining, laughing faces of her friends.

About twenty five years later Melissa was living in Canada and got into touch with the Green family on Facebook. She was sad to hear that Melody’s brother, Geoffrey, was in a lot of trouble in South Africa and had no job, money or a place to live.

Melody now lived in New Zealand and her mom lived in China with her second husband. Melissa had inherited a lot of money and used some to help Geoffrey emigrate to Canada. She did this because she could never forget that glorious birthday party splurged out on her by Melody’s mom all those years ago.

Melody told her mom this story on the phone from New Zealand. Her mother burst into tears… not just out of relief for the help given her son, but because, even though she thought about it for a long time, she could not remember Melissa.

So many kids had been welcomed into her home, and always but always, even if they were short of money, a meal of some kind was provided for each child. Yet of course Melissa always remembered Mrs. Green for her birthday treat.

By now you’ve guessed it: Melody’s mom is my wife, chookie, and this is based on a true story when she was living with her first husband.

I sat in our little kitchen in Shanghai and listened to the story while my wife’s eyes glistened. I re-imagined the child Melissa’s birthday party, building it from what I knew of my wife. And I now know her well.

“The thing is, Rod,” snuffled Marion, “she has now done so much for my son, but for the life of me I still cannot remember Melissa.” Next to a large vase of tulips and chrysanthemums on our kitchen table sat my wife and her face was as open and bright as one of those blossoms. Solemnly I stared at her for a minute, thinking of my blessings, or rather, my greatest blessing.

That’s when I knew I had to write this book.*

*That book is a current work in progress, the sequel (of sorts) to Cracking China: a memoir of our first three years in China, due out in SA at the end of January 2010. The sequel is provisionally titled Cracking Chookie: tales from South Africa, Zimbabwe and China.

Virtually every person I know who has left South Africa has done so because they could not find work in SA due to BEE and AA and/or they had been traumatised by violence and were extremely uncertain about their and their loved ones’ future in South Africa. Except for those above the age 60, every member of my extended family has left South Africa. “We”, if we can still use that sense of a collective noun and its sense of belonging and a household hearth, are dispersed throughout Canada, England, New Zealand, Australia and China. The hearth is cold ashes.

Those are the trite truisms above, the same stale tale which may have had some readers cringing over the clichés. But the reason why they are hackneyed is because they are so true, so prevalent. The cliché, “Such is life, c’est la vie” is a cliché because it is repeated over and over precisely because of its truthfulness. Brandon Huntley presented the first two items in the paragraph above as facts, they are not fictions, to the Canadian Immigrations Board in Ottawa, Canada and was granted asylum accordingly. (I am not saying I agree with their decision; I will discuss that later.)

I have family in Canada. I have a wonderful niece and nephew and I am now the proud great uncle of my niece’s two children. If I knew the Canadian authorities would be gracious enough to give asylum to me and my wife (who had her fair share of being a victim of crime in South Africa and also in Zimbabwe where she was born and is lucky not to be HIV positive from a gang rape attempt she narrowly escaped from in Randburg) I would seriously consider moving to Canada. But we intend living in New Zealand because Marion’s family is there and the love of my life’s wishes comes first. I fail to see the immorality or deceitfulness of Huntley’s decision at all. However, if it is true that he said he reported the crimes to the police and he is lying about the crimes commited against him, then that is a different matter. Canadian Immigrations should have asked for concrete evidence and confirmed this with Pretoria. But I know from personal experience and anecdotes from friends how dockets disappear. I simply learned not to trust many of the SA police when living in South Africa.

However, in one respect the Canadian decision was extremely short-sighted as they failed to see one simple pragmatic: they have set a precedent and who knows how many other saffers may follow Mr. Huntley into Canada using the same method. It stands to reason the Canadian authorities will try and tighten up on their asylum-granting procedures, just as New Zealand has had to do.

There is one glaring point that is often missing over this business of South Africans leaving SA forever. This globe-trotting phenomenon in going on throughout the world all the time. People are leaving one part of the globe for another for all sorts of reasons. Here in Shanghai, many British people swear never to return to the UK. They are bitter about the lack of employment in the UK and how ludicrously expensive the UK lifestyle is. They understandably moan about death tax (the estate being taxed after the deceased person has already paid a lifetime of tax) and padded utility bills (being expected in some parts of England to pay a set amount of money for gas, electricity etc. regardless of the fact the amount used being less, or so I am told by several Britons).

Yet as far as I have experienced, no British person, whinger or not, has a misplaced, patriotic fit about another Briton permanently leaving their home country. “So what”, is the prevalent attitude. The world is your oyster. And I also base this observation of this British sensibility on having lived in the UK for nearly a year.

Sigh… yet, and here’s my resigned yet, in SA, from the highest offices in the land to those on the ground, people have had a grand mal about Brandon Huntley making – to many people’s minds, including mine – a perfectly valid claim to ask for asylum in Canada. He sees Canada as the safer place and the better option for his future. Where is the amoral action? There is none. Who has he betrayed? Nobody. Why is he referred to as an idiot by journalists such as those in The Times? He seems quite sharp when it comes to wanting to survive. Of course it is all just a matter of perception.

Let us take the humble potato as an exercise in perception. A person can look at it and see:
I can survive for another day!
Oh, god, potato salad with the Sunday braai again. Can’t the wife think of something else?
Have we finalized our presentation to try secure the Simba Chips account?
I will never forget how the potato famine swept through my ancestral homeland, Ireland.

Completely different thought processes, none of them less valid than the other… unless, of course, you are a South African. Or should I say, a certain kind of South African. I invite readers to spell out the definition of this bitter, parochial, Jingoist fellow. I suppose I already have.The SA authorities are extremely upset about the reasons for Canada’s decision with regard to Mr. Huntley, especially the motivations for granting asylum: discrimination and crimes perpetuated against them. Why are they offended? Let’s look at the phenomenon of offence.

If you call me an idiot I will shrug my shoulders because I know I am not an idiot. The insult is not true. If a gay person comfortable with his sexual orientation is called a gay he is not offended because he knows he is a gay and is comfortable with that. If a fat person is offended because someone calls him a tub of lard it is because he is uncomfortable with that truth. The reason why many people in the SA government are having a hullabaloo about the reasons for granting Mr. Huntley asylum is because they are uncomfortable with the “spade is a spade” truth of the reasons for granting asylum. Finish and klaar.

He who works with a hammer thinks of everything as a nail, the saying goes. Mike Trapido is a lawyer so inevitably he tends to see everything as a lawyer would. In his latest blog he almost only looked at Brandon Huntley’s behaviour from a legal perspective, failing to see that the human being called Brandon Huntley was simply looking out for what was best for himself and is guilty of no crime unless he lied about the crimes against him. Then, sure, he is guilty of perjury.

Traps says, “Of course the fact that many thousands of South Africans of all races come under attack from criminals and as a matter of course are called names best not repeated here, seems to have been overlooked by the Canadian immigration and refugee board. So too the fact that the Constitution of the country makes it illegal to practise racism of the kind described by Mr. Huntley”. My blood went a little cold as I read this. Traps makes the crimes look all so ho hum. I infer, from his remarks quoted above and others, a number of chilling conclusions based on being about to reflect on South Africa from the more objective perspective provided by living for more than five years in faraway lands.

1) Crime (including serious crime like rape, stabbings and child abuse as Traps does not specify which crimes as it is all, perhaps, just another day’s work) is so routine, mundane. Get used to it, seems to be the unintentional attitude conveyed by Traps. And the way he talks about crime is clinical, indifferent, an attorney’s mind at work. “South Africa is not for sissies”, as the twee, John Wayne saying goes. So when your wife gets raped and your children are held at gunpoint, just suck it up like a man.

2) “So meneer. You got stabbed repeatedly by black men, your children were held at gunpoint by black men and…mmm… let’s see… your wife was raped maybe four times or five times in a row, hey? Also by black men you think you saw? Agh please, go read your SA Constitution. It is illegal to practice racism of any kind in this country. Get over it”. Ridiculous scenario, no? But so is Traps comment as, with his focus on legalese, he glosses over the real problems of the horrors of crime. Ask my wife. She still turns pale and troubled when she talks about the things that happened to her and her family. Traps is a lawyer concentrating almost only on the legal documents at hand (this noble Constitution he loves referring to).He – at least in this blog – shows no sympathy for what actually happens to real people, glorious Constitution or no bloody Constitution withstanding.

3) Traps then writes: “As things stand now they are suggesting that a white South African (from the 5 million) stands out like a sore thumb, is the only target for crime — when crime is prevalent among all races, and all countries — and is victimized by the country (for that is what the decision represents) when its laws demand the exact opposite.” Again there is something too chillingly matter of fact about Traps’s remarks. Who cares if “the laws demand the exact opposite” when I have friends of mine who have had their home cleaned out four or five times in six months, and one member of my family was left for dead on the home driveway, blood trickling from a slit throat? Malcolm MacKenzie was lucky to live and understandably left SA with his family. The frog in the pot of water: the pot is slowly warmed up and the frog does not realise he is gradually dying as the build up of heat is so slow. From the perspective of living five years outside SA in three much safer countries, Traps’s purely legalistic commentary comes across as an observation from that frog in the pot, who croaks, “who cares about the heat? Don’t worry about it. This heat is against the law. Cheer up”. Completely ludicrous, a script for a Monty Python show.

4) Traps then concludes with: “This is a get-out-of-jail card for the real perpetrators”. I agree wholeheartedly. But Traps does not seem to be aware – otherwise he would not have concluded with this sentence – that among the documents many countries like Canada and New Zealand require, is a police clearance certificate for each emigrant. We know; we have these certificates. All your fingerprints and palm prints have to be submitted to SA from a SA embassy if you are overseas. And SA will not issue the police clearance certificates if you have serious crimes, or will cite them on the certificate, including jails sentences, length of term served and when. Being a lawyer, Traps is surely aware of countries requiring these certificates. Which invalidates his final remark and makes of it a puerile, Jingoist spat. The inference – intended or not is irrelevant, it is still there – is that too many people of an unwholesome character are trying to leave South Africa. That in turn brings to light another inference. Many of those who leave SA must have an objectionable character. Traps, on the conscious level, probably does not mean that. But at a subconscious level, where many of the real motivators, drives and ways of seeing things lurk unexamined, his sensibility and his conscience, like many South Africans living in their home country needs to be carefully studied. Words need to be responsibly handled, Mr. Trapido, and this latest blog has not been carefully weighed.

I must admit the Mail & Guardian has come up with a mature, well-balanced article on Brandon Huntley’s actions in “Racism is alive and well in South Africa”.

I left South Africa because I wanted to live elsewhere. The crime never affected me personally, though it shocked and saddened me and still does. Because I am human. And I refuse to become calloused, especially as a teacher of children.

Sarah Britten in her latest blog on “the Bush” in South Africa had my heart squeezed with longing for my country. I could smell the fynbos at dawn, hear the frogs and crickets around the campfire at night, that bewitching frost of stars above… As Llewellyn Kriel quotes from David Kramer, “I love this country, but I can’t stand the scene”. Amen to that, brother.