Keepsakes from China I. From Shaoxing City In The Food Market In the food mart the dusky frogs’ stomachs Are slit open, surrendering ruby. Their skins are waistcoats Unzipped to plunder the glistening fob watches And spilt moneybags of lungs, hearts and intestines. Their arms and legs stretch into martyrdom And culinary destiny. The table […]
Rod MacKenzie
CRACKING CHINA was previously the title of this blog. That title was used as the name for Rod MacKenzie's second book, Cracking China: a memoir of our first three years in China. From a review in the Johannesburg Star: " Mackenzie's writing is shot through with humour and there are many laugh-out-loud scenes". Cracking China is available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle or get a hard copy from www.knowledgethirstmedia.co.za.
His previous book is a collection of poetry,Gathering Light.
A born and bred South African, Rod now lives in Auckland, New Zealand, after a number of years working in southern mainland China and a stint in England.
Under the editorship of David Bullard and Michael Trapido he had a column called "The Mocking Truth" on NewsTime until the newszine folded.
He has a Master's Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. if you are a big, BIG publisher you should ask to see one of his many manuscript novels. Follow Rod on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/Rod_in_China
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Displaced South Africans: Fish discover water last
The Chinese love doing the peace sign for photos: the index finger and forefinger held up like a pair of rabbit ears. Children use the sign and waggle the hand to show they are happy. It is even a way of saying hello. Sometimes the use of the gesture is deliciously resistant to meaning, or […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
What is ‘we’? On government, Zuma and our fears
“Surely you should want Kentucky Fried Chicken to give you more than five RMB an hour as waiters?” I asked (The rand is currently less than the RMB). I was facilitating a discussion group of bright Chinese seventeen-year-olds to improve their English. “No, we are students. Five RMB is all that we must be given.” […]
Posted inLifestyle
Under which flag will we die?
I get off at the Lu Jia Zui subway stop to go to one of my favourite Western coffee shops, Blue Frog. I have a two-hour break before my next teaching class. At Lu Jia Zui is the pride of the Bund, the Pearl Tower. It comprises two huge purple spheres, one on top of […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
The need for belonging: on being displaced South Africans
Helloooo … comes the weird, atonal, semantically disjointed noise, shouted at me from the construction sites in Shanghai: constructions sites as numerous as anthills in the veldt in Boksburg on the huge plot, virtually a farm, I grew up on. Those plots and smallholdings are gone now. I last visited the place more than 10 […]
Posted inLifestyle
Are South Africans ignorant?
A plate of delicious fish and chips arrived in front of me at the O’Hagan’s in Paulshof, Sandton and I immediately tucked in. I was sitting at the bar counter at lunch time on a Saturday and could not help overhearing the British couple next to me as I munched. “Bloody hell, luv, they think […]
Posted inNews/Politics
On SA politics: our public selves, our private elves (yes, elves)
Probably the most fascinating “novel” I have ever read is JM Coetzee’s recent Diary of a Bad Year. It is written on three levels on most pages, with a line between each level: Narrative one: the public figure, JC, where we read his observations on a variety of contemporary topics in scholarly articles ranging from […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ah, a cause! Helen Suzman, “window dressing” and feminism
I avoided writing a piece about Helen Suzman as so many in Thought Leadership were already climbing on the bandwagon. I admired Ismail Lagardien’s piece on Thought Leadership. He put it very well — and timeously — that there are many unsung woman heroes in the apartheid struggle whose memory or lack of remembrance are […]
Posted inNews/Politics
On Breytenbach, Mandela and fatherhood
Like many people, I had an ambivalent relationship with my father, not the least because of his love for alcohol, usually cane or vodka, from what I can remember. He drank excessively and had an explosive temper when he was under the influence. Other than that he was a good man; but, thinking back to […]
Posted inLifestyle
Poverty: A slice of authentic Shanghai
The Mongolian wind pierces your trousers; you feel your groin almost shrink to two raisins as you turn the corner into the knife-edge draught tearing through Huining Lu. In a blink you’re in 1950’s Shanghai. Feel the copperplate hues of the photograph you have walked into (image 6) * . Huining Lu: more authentic than […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Would you offer your daughter to Bush’s shoes-thrower?
It’s what farting is to American comedies. You know the script writers have already run out of their already thin ideas when the backsides start to crackle and trumpet. It’s throwing your tomatoes at the curtains after the bungled, boring show is over, or your naartjies at the rugby field after a poor performance but […]
Posted inGeneral
My experiences as a whitey in black township schools
I was encouraged and puzzled by Khadija Sharife’s recent post, simply one of Rumi’s stunning poems. The poem is beautiful, the lack of commentary and any particular reason for posting it, rather odd. I know the poem speaks for itself, but … I was encouraged because, though I have published bits and pieces of my […]