The windows shattered a few feet away from me and the stranger, a blonde, petite young lass dressed stylishly for revolution in South Africa, 1990. A horde of people charged towards us amid the thud of rubber bullets and teargas smeared our faces. It was the day of Mandela’s release and first appearance in the […]
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 inGeneral
Free beer and free insults on Paddy’s Day in China
In one of my current teaching jobs here in Suzhou I teach primary school children. The text books have improved over the years during my stay in China but still have some quirky English. One is teaching learners how to describe other people. But the cultural appropriateness is shatteringly absent in the text books and […]
Posted inGeneral
Revolutions in Africa and my new home China
School one: As I approached my very first classroom now I am back in China, some children saw me through the window and let out a whoop as the bell rang. They surged out of the classroom ahead of their smiling teacher to swamp me with their bodies, hellos! and thumping my hands and arms […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Christchurch earthquake – what if that happened in SA?
How it works here in New Zealand is that when a disaster occurs, not even anywhere near as horrendous as the recent earthquake to devastate Christchurch, it floods the news. Regular TV shows and even adverts are cancelled. There is an enormous sense of a village community in New Zealand. It can be summed up […]
Posted inGeneral
Prejudice and the smug self-satisfaction of feeling offended
The issues of identity and name-calling seem to emerge from the very core of our being. An Australian in England recently sued the town council of Dymchurch for being “racist”. Apparently Geoff Stephens’ work colleagues kept imitating his Aussie accent and ragging him with cliched myths like, “is your girlfriend called Sheila?” It must have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Catholic Church and WikiLeaks not a smokescreen
The priest shoved me to the ground, lay on top of me and whispered filthy language in my ear. I could smell his tobacco breath and feel his spittle. It only lasted a moment, I think, but stuff like that you remember for a lifetime. At the time I was a twelve-year-old schoolboy at a […]
Posted inGeneral
Reflections on nearly dying the other day
“We really need you to fart,” the cute nurse said sternly as I lay on my hospital bed, feeling the hookah of the morphine drip silently bubbling through me after I pushed a button which punched into me the next tot of that wonderful elixir. I stared at her mournfully, unable to perform the gassy […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Assange T-shirts and the US’s Newspeak
Man, the world we live in now works in nanoseconds. Up-to-the-minute Julius Julian Assange T-shirts are available for ordering here. He has barely been jailed and T-shirts saying “Free Julius Julian Assange” are already available. (My favourite is still “Julius Julian Assange is my homeboy”.) Sure, no doubt the T-shirt was available well in advance […]
Posted inNews/Politics
WikiLeaks just a smokescreen
As I wrote this I felt I’d been given a challenging advertising brief: write a campaign that will convince zealous feminists to happily subscribe to pornographic magazines for men and make those women look forward to savouring the contents. In other words, I’m inclined to think most will sneer at this piece. But that’s what […]
Posted inNews/Politics
New Zealand betrays the human race, SA doesn’t
Oh New Zealand … would something please HAPPEN?!? We humans are Happening People, and “happening” stuff collocates with happy. I see from the etymology that “hap” has a common root in both words: “fortuitous circumstances”, from which we get other terms like mishap. The guys in SA just don’t know how lucky they are with […]
Posted inGeneral
First impressions and SA’s culture of mistrust
“Hiya, do you mind just looking after my handbag?” the stranger, a pretty twenty-something woman in a bikini asked us as we lay on the beach in Long Bay, Auckland. “No problem,” I replied, looking around to see if there was a camera filming this for some Leon Schuster film. I looked at Marion in […]
Posted inGeneral
Pssstt…hey sexy! (that’s me)
“Wheeet!” they whistled. “Hey sexy!” Two lithe lasses in bikinis were crooning after me. In my slim twenties I got that quite a bit (especially with regard to my buns, or so I was told), then less and less. I’ve lost fifty kilograms now, most of it in six months, and am getting some of […]