Comments | bini_bini: Power plays

bini_bini

Power plays

Apr 29, 2005 22:10

This past week, every time I go down to the foodhall for lunch I sit and watch one of the cleaning staff as he goes about his duties. If I had to guess, I would say he is 19 or 20 and given current immigration trends in South Australia, probably Sudanese. His job consists of clearing tables, wiping them down, scraping plates and cleaning up any ( Read more... )

Comments 7

geraden April 29 2005, 08:07:53 UTC

Sounds more like something you can't see but can sense...I went to see Drumstruck at the beginning of the year with a close friend, unexpectantly during one of the songs I felt suddenly overwhelmed and started to cry, I then looked across to my best friend and she was in tears as well..I dunno what it was, but something hit us, afterwards we talked about it and decided it had something to do stuff similar to what you may've sensed from this person, attaching emotions to memories/impressions that without a visual cue many people dont realise these emotions are dormant within them...it was that or the music..hehhhee ;o)

bini_bini April 30 2005, 01:56:36 UTC

You've hit on something there because I cry at the most bizaare moments in films too. A few years back I saw 'Ma vie en rose (My life in pink)' about a young boy with a confused gender identity. In the scene where his Mum cuts his hair I just bawled and bawled. Speaking of films, have you seen the French films 'It All Starts Today' and 'To Be and To have'? I highly recommend them both.

bushwalker April 30 2005, 18:03:10 UTC

I saw and loved Ma Vie En Rose. It was so affecting! I can't remember exactly when I got teary though. But it was definately more affecting for me because he was a child.

geraden April 30 2005, 18:34:47 UTC

I haven't seen any of those movies, we've got a small vieo store here with a very limited foreign film section ut I'll give it a go.

I read part of a book about a boy raised as a girl untill his teens by his mother, I can't remember the name of the book...but hey..I never liked having my hair cut has a kid, but that may've had more to do with the bowl like cuts...hehehehhe

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bini_bini April 30 2005, 02:01:03 UTC

I think its the juxtaposition of servitude and personal integrity that gets to me. The determination to do what needs to be done without shame or compromise.

hatter_anon April 30 2005, 01:16:58 UTC

It's not unusual for new migrants and refugees to be working in those sorts of areas in Australia (as you know). I guess in Adelaide a young, black man is more visible and confronts us with the mundane servitude that many new arrivals go through in order to make their way. It always makes me sad to hear the stories of qualified and/or tertiary educated migrants in the 50s and 60s who had to work as cleaners or labourers as their qualifications weren't recognised here. All in the name of a better life.

bushwalker April 30 2005, 18:09:26 UTC

Not just in the 50s and 60s! That stuff is still alive and well today. I can cope with them being a cleaner so long as they are on award wages and rates... not that they may be alive for much longer come July 1. It's the slave labour I have a problem with as in the case of our nurses. People can move on and use such jobs as a stepping stone. I've done factory work before. The man is young and has a life ahead of him. It's the old people who are at the end of the road and cleaning was as good as it got. But maybe they were artists and lived a double life. What do we know?