Cosima Underwater

Today’s Da Count is on being a woman. I love being a woman, I embrace it with all my heart. If I would have been born as a man, I would probably have found nothing wrong with that too, but I can’t say for sure. Here are eight wonderful reasons why I like being female.

I have hips that I can swing and I love to swing them.

My skin is soft and very sensitive to touch.

My sex is hidden inside, like a treasure.

A baby grew inside me for nine months, directly under my heart.

My breasts can nurture a baby and dazzle a man. That’s true multi-tasking :).

I am allowed to feel vulnerable.

Giving love is seen as my greatest strength, and not considered a weakness.

Although I can’t have it all (and boy, would it be nice to have it), I think I have more choices in life than most men do.

Of course, being a woman has its downsides too. The biggest problem of all is the myriads of people wanting to tell me what my role as a woman should be. Most annoyingly, other women can be the most scathing critics of other women’s life styles. There is beauty, true beauty in accepting the differences among us.

What do you like about being a woman or a man? Is there something you dislike?

I will let you in on a secret. It is not quite shocking enough to qualify for Postsecret I think, but nevertheless I feel shameful about it and at least one little person must never find out.

I am absolutely maxed out on Bob the Builder! I don’t care if he can fix it.

For all uninitiated, i.e. without pre-school children, Bob is a children’s TV series revolving around Bob, his female colleague Wendy, and innumerable talking construction vehicles (Muck, Lofty, Dizzy… ).

In each episode, Bob and his crew face a seemingly insurmountable building and repair challenge, but after some pep talk (“Can we fix it? Yes, we can!”) they try to do their best (valuable life lesson #1), work together as a team (valuable life lesson #2), and succeed in the end (valuable life lesson #3).

Although Bob is a white Anglo-Saxon male, political correctness is safeguarded by female Wendy (no boobs, but earrings), an Italian couple running the local Pizza joint (with an atrocious fake accent), and a black, female kindergarten teacher.

There is also Spud, the scarecrow, who likes to play pranks on the rest of the team. He would be my hero, but unfortunately his high-pitched squealing voice is getting on my nerves. It is however interesting to see how Bob, even after the most annoying mischief by Spud, always manages to keep his cool (valuable life lesson #4). I secretly wish that Bob would just once tell him off.

My irritation is exacerbated by the series’ background music, based on a single melody and played every five seconds throughout each episode. I can’t hear it anymore! Please give us some variety!

Yet, I must congratulate the makers of Bob the Builder on their business acumen. They know how to squeeze the last cent out of parents by selling licensing rights to toy and clothing manufacturers world-wide. After you bought the Bob-the-Builder tool set, and the Bob-the-Builder dress-up set (complete with hard hat), it is possible to buy all Bob-the-Builder construction vehicles. Now you know why there are so many.

However, this mommy went on strike after buying the third extremely overpriced Bob-the-Builder vehicle from Lego, and taught her son valuable life lesson #5: money doesn’t grow on trees.

But Elmo will always be my friend.

I am all jittery with excitement. In front of me is an entire day all to myself. I am going to do some extracurricular body maintenance and pampering, will surf the internet to my hearts content, will try to finish the book I have been reading for the last three months, go for a swim, will read at least one newspaper from front to end, and try to do some writing.

What to do first? Aaaah, all these wonderful choices.

WOMAN is standing in front of the mirror, applying makeup. MAN stands next to her.

M: We are already late. Let’s go.

W: Mmmmm.

M: I told you the taxi would come at six thirty. It doesn’t wait.

W: No, you didn’t.

M: (Exasperated sigh) You never listen.

W: You said that you would try to get a taxi at six thirty.

M: You are already beautiful. You don’t need that stuff in your face. Let’s go.

W: I will not leave the house with mascara only on one eye.

Man looks at Woman for the first time during their exchange.

M: Ok, do the other eye as well, and then let’s go.

W: What do you see, when you look at me?

M: I see my wife, my beautiful wife.

W: Why am I beautiful to you?

M: Another time? We need to go.

W: We never have time.

M: You know, I love you. But this dinner is important. X will be there as well.

W: How is the deal going?

M: You know how it is. Looks good now, but until the money is in the bank, I can’t say for sure. Let’s go, darling.

W: Yeah, let’s go.

The above is a dialogue, which I wrote after reading Goodthomas’ wonderful piece Never, who was so very kind to let me steal his idea (thank you!), and the title too, which sums the problem up so well. Goodthomas tells the male perspective of a couple’s conversation in front of the mirror, and does it much more eloquently than I.

When I took this picture a while back, I had a slightly uneasy feeling. The man you see is fishing in the Hong Kong harbor and then sells his catch to passersby. He is not the only one. Usually there are half a dozen men doing the same.

I knew before, that the waters around Hong Kong are not the cleanest, but after gathering all the sad facts from the internet, looking at this picture makes me nauseous.

Hong Kong’s sewage treatment isn’t up-to-par and 26% of all waste water flows largely untreated into the sea. Although this is a substantial improvement from the 75% before a new treatment facility came into operation in 2001, it’s still not good enough to tempt me eating fish caught around Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is also located next to the Pearl River Delta, China’s premier manufacturing region, which accounts for 35% of China’s exports. Although efforts are underway to improve waste water treatment in the region, they are still in their infancy. I have visited the area north of Shenzhen many times, and it is basically one giant industrial area with some fields in between.

Not surprisingly, seafood-loving Hong Kongers have some of the highest levels of mercury in their bloodstreams, which causes male infertility and other illnesses. Although the HK government says that seafood sold in Hong Kong is safe to eat, I think it’s wise to ask where it is coming from. According to the WWF, pink dolphins, which are unique to the Pearl River Delta and are threatened by extinction, have the highest mercury levels in their tissues ever recorded in fish globally.

Hong Kongers like to blame their fellow countrymen further north for their city’s air and water pollution, but the truth is that Hong Kong has a large share in it. Not only are Hong Kong’s own environmental standards nothing to write home about, Hong Kongers also profit from the unchecked economic growth in mainland China. The factories located in Guangdong province are largely owned by Hong Kong firms. Up to 2004, 47% of all foreign direct investment into China was tied to Hong Kong interests.

I guess, it’s only fair that some of the pollution comes back to us.

Fishballs anyone?

PS: If you put the last sentence into the flillustrator, the two pictures below come up (lol). Thank you Lecram for pointing me to this new toy.

1. Turn up the volume
2. Hold tight
3. Click

Get music codes at Bolt

HAVE A ROCKIN’ WEEK, DARLINGS!

The wicked video is here. Remember the drummer?

Because I ranted so much about the initial shortcomings of beta blogger, I thought it only fair to inform you that two of the bigger problems have been eliminated. As of this week, it’s possible to leave signed comments on older version blogs (yeah!), and I have regained access to my raw html template. So I have no excuses anymore to keep my unimaginative generic template. Ideas anyone?

I wanted to capture the many people clogging the sidewalks in Causeway Bay, one of Hong Kongs busiest shopping districts. Unfortunately, there was nothing around to climb on to get a better angle, so this picture has to make due.

Hong Kong is a very densely populated place, and during lunch hours and on weekends it is hard to squeeze by on the sidewalks. A friend of mine, who visited me in Hong Kong, expressed it very well when he likened it to “people coming out of a concert”.

I love the fact, that there is always someone on the streets, at any time of day. Whenever I go back to Berlin or travel to other less busy places, I need a time of readjustment. They feel so empty.

When I was in pre-school, my mother signed me up for swimming lessons. She is afraid of deep water, and although she tried to overcome her fear, hasn’t learnt how to swim. She was very determined that I wouldn’t suffer the same fate. I am forever thankful to her for having done that, because swimming has become much more for me than a sport.

Usually, I swim at least 1000 meters of freestyle several times a week. Afterwards, my head is clear and my body is totally exhausted. It is a good work-out, but it’s even nicer that a body massage and the clearing of mind is thrown in for free.

On some days, it is extremely hard to find the right rhythm, on others, my arm muscles take forever to warm up and feel leaden. Still, somehow I always manage to overcome my start-up problems and never regretted going to the pool. When I am in the right breathing and stroke rhythm, I am in a very calm, almost otherworldly state. I guess that’s the endorphins kicking in.

It’s also nice, that it is such a gentle sport. I went swimming all through my pregnancy, although I felt like a whale during the last two months :).