On Having a Hari Krishna for a Neighbour, and Other Oddities
My neighbour is a Hare Krishna. For the first two weeks that I lived in the house I nearly never saw him. It took me a while to realize he lived in the house at all. Occasionally he would drift wraith-like around corners at the edge of view, usually early in the morning or late at night. He never spoke to me (or anyone else, as far as I could tell), and with his hunched posture, slightly greasy hair, and perpetually wrinkled black clothes, he always seemed a bit startled and uncomfortable to be confronted with other people. Since the entrance to his room is in a little hallway located at the base of the stairs, I used to refer to him as 'the creature under the stairs.' I am not the only person in the house who knew him this way.
By coincidence, last Saturday morning he and I happened to leave the house at the same time. In the driving rain. He offered to share his small umbrella with me. We walked uncomfortably side-by-side for a block or so, both of us getting wet, making small talk. His name is Young. He is from Malaysia. He goes back once a year, but doesn't miss it much. He's lived in New Zealand for a long time. 'Pleasantries' observed, late for my yoga class, I made my excuses and darted out into the rain and on with my day.
After several hours of wandering about independently of each other, by coincidence we happened to arrive at the front door of the house that evening exactly together again. By the look on his face, he must have thought I was stalking him. And yet, just as I was going into my room, he called my name. It took him a while to build up the lung capacity to get it out properly (the first time it sounded half strangled, as if uttering it was taking an enormous personal toll), but he did. And once he did he managed in quite a normal voice to invite me to join him and some friends some Sunday afternoon for the Hare Krishna gathering. 'They do yoga...and there's really good food,' he said.
After his invitation, I started hearing the chanting when I wake up in the morning, and sometimes when I go to bed at night. Whether he has turned up the volume in response to our opening dialogue or whether my ears have simply grown more attuned I am not sure. But I didn't notice it until that Saturday, and I have heard it every day since. It's not unpleasant or disruptive (I start out my daily group exercise session cross-legged on the floor, chanting 'OHM' after all, who am I to judge?). The sound comes faintly through a carved wooden air vent half-obscured behind an old mirrored wardrobe in the corner, and suits the place. With its enormously tall ceilings, elaborate crown mouldings, and drifting cobwebs much too high for anyone to reach, it seems natural for a song or two to be ghosting about.
Last night, carrying heavy grocery bags home across campus, I ran into Young again. We were in the deserted stone quadrangle between the ancient administration clock tower and the equally ancient geology building, a gigantic moon throwing uneven shadows across the cobbles as the clouds hid and revealed it. I nearly gave him a heart attack when I called his name. When he started breathing again, he said my name. And then immediately started chanting. I wasn't sure if he was simply continuing something I had interrupted, or if it was a particular response, but it seemed impolite to interrupt him. So for the next five minutes or so we walked side by side with nothing but the quiet-but-fervent '...Hare Krishna...'s between us. When he stopped them and abruptly started up a perfectly normal conversation with me a couple of minutes away from home, as if no time at all had passed between our original exchange of names and this, I was utterly gobsmacked (as they would say here). The shift from chanting wraith to mundane chit-chat was enough to give a person whip-lash. A doctor at the local hospital, where he has been practicing for the last 5 years, he was on his way home from a long shift. At the front drive of the house he noticed my bags, and gallantly offered to help me carry them.
Young is not the only thing in Dunedin (though to call him a 'thing' is hardly neighbourly) that makes me shake my head in perplexed amusement. Take, for example, the commercial on TV that reminds everyone to vote in the upcoming referendum on 'Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?' Or the flight advertising campaign plastered on every bus in town 'Bugger off for Bugger all!'
On a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory yesterday afternoon (as my French colleague remarked over lunch 'well, it isn't Willy Wonka...'), I had to keep asking what everything coming off the assembly line was. 'Buttons' are chocolate chips. 'Pinkys' are marshmallows dipped in chocolate. 'Perky Nanas' are chewy banana stuff coated in dairy milk. 'Moros' are something akin to a Mars bar. 'Jaffas' are orange flavoured, spherical, m'n'm type candies. The 'hollow egg' production line was going, which was interesting to see. They only run it 'seasonally' from June until January of each year, in order to produce the nearly 40 million eggs that ONLY Kiwis will eat in a one week period around Easter in February (Easter is in February???). That works out to about 10 eggs per person nationwide in a 7 day span. Next Friday, as part of the annual Cadbury Winter Festival, they will take 13 000 over sized Jaffas to the top of Baldwin Street (with a 35% grade, the steepest officially recognized street in the world) and let them go. Each Jaffa is numbered, people buy tickets for $2 each (proceeds go to a local children's charity), and the first Jaffa into the bucket at the bottom wins the ticket-holder a year's supply of chocolate. Not that my waistline needs it (taste buds are loving kiwi sweets, pants not so much!), but I will be there with all the other ticket holders, cheering on my little ball.
I know there's more (there's always more!), but here it is 11 o'clock, and I haven't done any real work at all yet. Definitely time to start using my laptop for more 'productive' exploits. I hope this finds you well (salivating for a sweet?) and happy going into the weekend. Much love.
By coincidence, last Saturday morning he and I happened to leave the house at the same time. In the driving rain. He offered to share his small umbrella with me. We walked uncomfortably side-by-side for a block or so, both of us getting wet, making small talk. His name is Young. He is from Malaysia. He goes back once a year, but doesn't miss it much. He's lived in New Zealand for a long time. 'Pleasantries' observed, late for my yoga class, I made my excuses and darted out into the rain and on with my day.
After several hours of wandering about independently of each other, by coincidence we happened to arrive at the front door of the house that evening exactly together again. By the look on his face, he must have thought I was stalking him. And yet, just as I was going into my room, he called my name. It took him a while to build up the lung capacity to get it out properly (the first time it sounded half strangled, as if uttering it was taking an enormous personal toll), but he did. And once he did he managed in quite a normal voice to invite me to join him and some friends some Sunday afternoon for the Hare Krishna gathering. 'They do yoga...and there's really good food,' he said.
After his invitation, I started hearing the chanting when I wake up in the morning, and sometimes when I go to bed at night. Whether he has turned up the volume in response to our opening dialogue or whether my ears have simply grown more attuned I am not sure. But I didn't notice it until that Saturday, and I have heard it every day since. It's not unpleasant or disruptive (I start out my daily group exercise session cross-legged on the floor, chanting 'OHM' after all, who am I to judge?). The sound comes faintly through a carved wooden air vent half-obscured behind an old mirrored wardrobe in the corner, and suits the place. With its enormously tall ceilings, elaborate crown mouldings, and drifting cobwebs much too high for anyone to reach, it seems natural for a song or two to be ghosting about.
Last night, carrying heavy grocery bags home across campus, I ran into Young again. We were in the deserted stone quadrangle between the ancient administration clock tower and the equally ancient geology building, a gigantic moon throwing uneven shadows across the cobbles as the clouds hid and revealed it. I nearly gave him a heart attack when I called his name. When he started breathing again, he said my name. And then immediately started chanting. I wasn't sure if he was simply continuing something I had interrupted, or if it was a particular response, but it seemed impolite to interrupt him. So for the next five minutes or so we walked side by side with nothing but the quiet-but-fervent '...Hare Krishna...'s between us. When he stopped them and abruptly started up a perfectly normal conversation with me a couple of minutes away from home, as if no time at all had passed between our original exchange of names and this, I was utterly gobsmacked (as they would say here). The shift from chanting wraith to mundane chit-chat was enough to give a person whip-lash. A doctor at the local hospital, where he has been practicing for the last 5 years, he was on his way home from a long shift. At the front drive of the house he noticed my bags, and gallantly offered to help me carry them.
Young is not the only thing in Dunedin (though to call him a 'thing' is hardly neighbourly) that makes me shake my head in perplexed amusement. Take, for example, the commercial on TV that reminds everyone to vote in the upcoming referendum on 'Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?' Or the flight advertising campaign plastered on every bus in town 'Bugger off for Bugger all!'
On a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory yesterday afternoon (as my French colleague remarked over lunch 'well, it isn't Willy Wonka...'), I had to keep asking what everything coming off the assembly line was. 'Buttons' are chocolate chips. 'Pinkys' are marshmallows dipped in chocolate. 'Perky Nanas' are chewy banana stuff coated in dairy milk. 'Moros' are something akin to a Mars bar. 'Jaffas' are orange flavoured, spherical, m'n'm type candies. The 'hollow egg' production line was going, which was interesting to see. They only run it 'seasonally' from June until January of each year, in order to produce the nearly 40 million eggs that ONLY Kiwis will eat in a one week period around Easter in February (Easter is in February???). That works out to about 10 eggs per person nationwide in a 7 day span. Next Friday, as part of the annual Cadbury Winter Festival, they will take 13 000 over sized Jaffas to the top of Baldwin Street (with a 35% grade, the steepest officially recognized street in the world) and let them go. Each Jaffa is numbered, people buy tickets for $2 each (proceeds go to a local children's charity), and the first Jaffa into the bucket at the bottom wins the ticket-holder a year's supply of chocolate. Not that my waistline needs it (taste buds are loving kiwi sweets, pants not so much!), but I will be there with all the other ticket holders, cheering on my little ball.
I know there's more (there's always more!), but here it is 11 o'clock, and I haven't done any real work at all yet. Definitely time to start using my laptop for more 'productive' exploits. I hope this finds you well (salivating for a sweet?) and happy going into the weekend. Much love.
posted by Roberta | 8:19 AM
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