Life As A Fresh Graduate..

I finally graduated University… YAAAAYYY!

Now if only someone told me that having graduated means i’ll be sitting in my mother’s house, all day long, doing absolutely nothing, zilch, nada, nien, I mean literally just chewing my nails all day for months on end waiting for responses from companies I would have chosen to stay in Uni a few more months.

Life as a graduate sucks giant, hairy ballz. I’m not even sure why I was supposed to go to University anymore.

It is so annoying to apply to a hundred plus companies and face a hundred plus rejections every single day . I’m not going to lie, facing so much rejection on a daily bases and doing nothing but be a literal unpaid caretaker of my mom’s home has me going into a deep dark hole of depression. After graduating from my Bachelor I only found internship jobs while my peers literally scaled the nine to five ladder and then I believed getting a Master’s degree will up my chances of actually getting a job and maybe a little apartment with a nice balcony as well as maybe a cat and two dogs and be merry in my life. Turns out I was deluded and God seems to have had other plans for me, to instead be here, in this Godforsaken place with people who annoy the shit out of me on a daily bases people with no goals, or dreams or even interest in nothing but the ordinary and die a slow painful death of boredom..

I have been trying t keep a positive attitude and know that soon , someday something will come around and doors will open but it is so darn hard to try and keep my faith alive.

10 Things No One Tells You About Living In China

If you follow my blog you will know that I have been living abroad for close to a decade now ( I am from Botswana), 5years in Malaysia studying my Bachelors, close to a year traveling different parts of Asia and around 2 years in China and out of all the countries I have been to in Asia I have enjoyed living in China the most.

There are a lot of things people believe about China and how life here is for a foreigner but when I finally made the move to China I had absolutely zero expectations, I kept my mind open and I never expected to have the life I have her as well as to experience the things I have here. There is a lot that will surprise you about living in China, probably the list is longer than you can imagine, but I will just share the top 10 things solely based on my own experiences.

1.  Everyone speaks Mandarin
   And I mean everyone, being from an English speaking country as well as having lived in a country, Malaysia, where most of everyone communicated mostly in English, I never expected that most Chinese people can not communicate in English, from the moment I arrived in the airport not a single person who works there could speak English, I had to basically show them my documents for them to understand where I needed to go so as to assist me. Further more its not just the locals who do not speak English, since the most popular reason why foreigners come to China is to learn Chinese language, most foreigners do not communicate in English, mostly everyone just communicates in Mandarin and its not rare to meet a lot of foreigners from non English speaking countries who cant even hold a 5minute conversation in English, which is a good thing I guess because it forces you to learn and improve your Chinese.
2. You will meet people from all walks of life
   In the last 2years I have made friends from so many different countries, so many different cultures, so many continents and spheres of life that I feel like my mind and knowledge of different cultures has been broadened. I have friends from Pakistan, Vietnam, Mongolia, Ukraine, Belgium, America, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, Cameroon, Samoa, you name it you will find it in China. You will probably meet people from countries you have never even heard about and realize that as much as their cultures and way of life might be completely different from yours, you are basically all the same. And with many friends of course comes the opportunity to travel to so many different places because there is already someone from that place that you go to, meaning a chance to explore so many different cultures and countries.
3. Chinese people are pioneers of shameless stares
   You have no idea how many times I have been stared at either on the streets walking, on the subway, in malls, everywhere. They look at you and even point sometimes saying “Laowai” which means foreigner and even if you look at them to show them that you see they have absolutely no problem, unlike in other cultures where the person might be embarrassed to have been caught staring and look away, here there is no such thing, they will continue staring, maybe even pull out their phone to take a picture or video of you. As much as some people might be bothered by this, I have absolutely no problem with it because I understand they are simply curious, they are not doing it to be rude and honestly havent you ever wanted to feel like a superstar a little bit. Well then come to China, paparazi everywhere.
4. China is the land of opportunity
   They say America is the land of opportunity, but really China is the ultimate land of opportunity for foreigners, whether its teaching English, working as a translator, working in foreign companies, studying, whatever it might be China is the one place were foreigners are embarrassed and cherished in terms of opportunities just because you are a foreigner. You get to travel for free sometimes just because some nice locals want to practice their English, or because a TV station needs a foreign face for a commercial, or a movie. There is so much one can do here as a foreigner that the opportunities are endless.
5. Wechat is life
   If you don’t know what wechat is then you have obviously never been to China. WeChat is a Chinese multi-purpose instant messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world’s largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. No one uses whats app in China, wechat is a way of life, used for personal communication, as a means of professional communication, a source of news, method of payment,  platform for sharing videos and pictures, you name it, Wechat has it
6. Iphone is a necessity
   Chinese people love the Iphone wholeheartedly. Every single person has one and those who do not dream of having one. I feel like it is the most used mobile phone brand in China even though there are so many other Chinese phone brands developed in China that are just as good or even maybe better than than the Iphone. I constantly heard stories that Chinese people would go as far as selling body organs just to be able to buy themselves an iphone. Not sure how true that is but those were the stories around town. With every new Iphone that comes out its as if people feel the need to upgrade, sometimes you even find people holding two iphones.
7. Clubbing is free and the drinks are fake
   I was in Beijing for most of my stay in China, but I know for sure that even in Cities like Shanghai clubbing entrance is free for foreigners most of the time because they believe if a club is filled with foreigners, that is where the best party is. You will find foreigners working as Club PRs in different clubs, their job is to get as many foreigners to the club as they can, and clubbing is not only a weekend thing, its a Monday to Monday thing if you want and the worst and best thing is that the drinks are free as well, which means you dont really have to spend, on the flip side, the drinks are mostly fake, and in some clubs they will even make you dead sick the following morning.
8. Drugs are easy to access
   Its hard to believe that a country as strict and as closed off as China (a country that has the worst legal implications of drug offences like should you be caught with a certain amount of drugs you can spend a life sentence in prison, or even be deported and banned from ever entering China for many years) could have such an easy access to drugs. In different clubs foreigners and Chinese people alike have access to drug dealers. The level of drug usage in Beijing especially was always a huge shock to me and my friends because some people where always so callus and free with their usage.
9. There are more smokers than none smokers
   The Chinese tobacco market is one of the biggest in the whole entire world. Everyone smokes, every where. In public, in restaurants, at the train station, on sidewalks. Literally everyone from teenagers to old people smoke and cigarettes are so cheap compared to in other countries and smoking is sort of a social act, a way to socialize and interact in a social space. It is so bad that I left my country smoking a pack a month maybe, and living in China for almost three years I found myself smoking a pack a day, such a bad habit and yet most of us never even realized how much we smoked because it was so normalized in China.
10. Travel is relatively inexpensive
    Travelling and seeing most places in China is not as expensive as you might imagine. Of course buying a plane ticket from a different continent as well as paying for a hotel in different Chinese places might be expensive, but if you are living in China and want to travel around it is pretty affordable. And anywhere you go you will find friendly people like cab drivers, and restaurant owners who are always ready and willing to assist you with whatever you might need. Since China is such a vast country with diverse scenery, environments and climates, you are sure to  be amazed by all the different places. Another thing is the Chinese people are very creative in making tourist attractions like The Bailong Elevator(a glass double-deck elevator built onto the side of a huge cliff in the Wulingyuan area of Zhangjiajie, that is 326 m (1,070 ft) high)

The list was for sure longer than this because there are so many things that make China a completely different experience from living anywhere else on this planet. If you want to know more just let me know in the comments

Rape Culture in African Culture

Being from an African country, I’m from a small country called Botswana in Southren Africa, I grew up mostly listening to how grown ups and society at large victim blaming when it came to rape issues.

Even worse is if there is alcohol involved people automatically make it seem like the girl or gay man raped deserved it. You hear people saying things like

“Well what was she doing drunk with men?

“She should’nt have been drunk anyway, she deserved it”

Somehow men are allowed, in societal eyes, to take what is not theirs just because the girl was doing this, or because she did not do that. Now that I am older, I came to the realization that the culture of rape is so deeply engraved into our heads even more as a grown up when having conversations with my mother and she came out sounding like a well oiled patriarchy machine, saying how much the girl should not be drinking with men and that “many girls are going to be raped even more because they choose to drink alcohol with men” and this made me feel so bad for her generation because that is probably the type of garbage that was drilled into her head from the moment she was young. Taking the opportunity to educate her and have a conversation with her about how it is never the victims fault in a case of rape took a rape ugly turn as she felt like I was supporting “misbehavior” as she puts it and had me wondering what is it going to take for our society to stop viewing women as tools to be taken and used for men to satisfy their needs and especially sexual creatures who deserve to be raped if they choose to indulge in alcohol.

Internalized misogyny is inbred deep into our system, deep into our brains, our hearts and it is the glue that holds our society intact. Women, men and kids alike are taught that women are to blame for everything, if a woman gets raped she must be a bad girl, or asked for it somehow.

Culture and how we are raised also feeds on to this notion that a woman’s job is to make the man happy, a man is a child who needs to be given leeway when he makes mistakes and a woman has the responsibility to create this façade of “class/ respectability” by the way she acts, the way she speaks, the way she dresses and generally the way she exists in the world while a man is free to do as he wishes because he is a man.

In our society a woman or gay man have to think twice about reporting a rape because most of the time even the police will blame her for the rapist’s actions. The kind of dialogue they have in an open room, right in the open in front of 5 and sometimes even 10 or more police officers is not safe and comforting for the victim, the questions asked are usually accusatory and nothing is ever private. This most definitely makes it not only hard but traumatizing for the victim.

This way of thinking and way of life has created a society of perverts, rapists and molesters who 90% of the time get away with their violent, sometimes deadly and disgustingly sexual behavior.

Sometimes I wonder if the culture of rape is so deeply ingrained into the society that change is impossible, because for change to happen, people’s mindset and major parts of our culture have to change.

The curse of Misinformation

Excuse me while I rant for a while.

We all know that this new way of life with this terrible pandemic has altered a lot of things. Turning our lives upside down, the things that used to be normal are now completely unnatural and we have a new normal where Tiktok is ruling the world, the most common conversation anywhere you go is “Covid this, Covid that”.

Now let us discuss the way people (I thought that this might be only people in my country until I realized its basically seems to be the whole human race) have turned to be doctors and journalists. Spreading lies, sharing misinformation and continuously making the worst scenarios possible. Why are we humans like this? Why is it that we are more likely to share negative (unsubstantiated) information rather than positive information?

Why do we crave bad news and horrible despicable news compared to good news? It seems as though we are eager and ready to believe negativity rather than positivity.

Social Media Activism: A popularity contest part 2

Influencers and celebrities using “social media activism” as a publicity booster

In the last post we discussed all the good that social media activism does like getting the world out on a global sphere.  Even though there is a lot of positivity with Social media activism, there has clearly been a lot of negativity around it as well.

Just like everything else on the internet, some activities are shortlived, or has a short life span. One primary behavioral scientific explanation for the notably short half-life of these types of viral campaign is that they mainly leverage ‘extrinsic’ incentives to do ‘good’, rather than cultivating an internally sourced ‘intrinsic’ motivation to help others.  Influencers use this tactic a lot, jumping onto an active campaign in order to amass more followers or to seem sympathetic to whatever situation that is ongoing.

The problem is that these influencers/ celebrities move on pretty fast from the issue, taking their followers’ interest along with them to their new chosen issue at hand. And actually making it seem as if the issue is not as important as before.

Lets take an example of Angelena Julie and the situation in Afghanistan right now, she 3 weeks ago she opened an instagram account and within three hours she had amassed 2.1 million followers. Her reason for opening the account was to share a letter from a young Afghan girl.

We can look at this in two ways, is Angelina Jolie’s account there to help and give a voice to those who need it or is she using the plight of the Afghan people to gain a massive social media following?

Social Media activism: a popularity contest: Part 1

In today’s world activism is a much necessary  craze to have any change be made or even be thought about.

A lot of change concerning inequality worldwide throughout the years has been made possible by activism. In today’s world social media activism/ online activism seems to be the way in which change is brought forth. We have seem with the different movements that have taken course in the past few years how social media activism and online exposing of the injustices happening all around us can not only bring forth a much necessary conversation onto the global platform, but bore witness to the punishment of the perpetrators.

Examples of movements that have brought forth change and much necessary conversation is the Metoo movement. The Me Too movement, with variations of related local or international names, is a social movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment where people publicize allegations of sex crimes. The Me Too movement is an effort to effect social change, organized primarily through social media, where it’s often expressed as #MeToo. Originally founded in 2006, it became prominent both online and in the mainstream in late 2017, when several high-profile actresses opened up about their experiences with sexual harassment in the film industry.

Since then, the movement has provided a source of solidarity for women from all backgrounds who have experienced sexual harassment, most often, though not always, perpetrated by a male colleague. Now, #MeToo has evolved into a global movement, generating new or spinoff hashtags in many languages. It has impacted countries around the world — and has also been transformed by them. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, activism on women’s rights and gender-based violence has not ceased. If anything, in some cases, it has gained new urgency online. I believe that with the pandemic the movement has taken a whole new life especially because cases of domestic violence has increased tenfold. Families spending time together, being forced to isolate and quarantined together has amplified not only sexual abuse cases, but also the amount of sexism and Gender Based violence in the home, this pushing a lot of women to turn more to online support and airing out or exposing their abusers online.

The Metoo Movement is a social media driven revolution, and just like for decades women have been protesting for various things, with the one major reason being for equality and justice. And just like decades back when women fought for a right to vote, or to work, there is always negative publicity as well those who try to show that a movement is doing more harm than good.

What do you believe is the negativity around the #Metoo movement?

Happiness

What is happiness really?

I’m, pretty sure I have found the secret to happiness.. Or at least the secret to my own happiness. It’s all about your mind, heart and soul.

Happiness is when all of these aspects of your being are in sync. When they are all at peace you attain happiness. But when one of them is out of sync, when your heart hurts, your soul and your mind lose focus, they become conflicted, confused because one piece of you is not well. When your soul hurts you lose passion, you lose peace and your mind and heart feel drained, you feel tired all the time, you can not be the same as you were before. And because of that your body also become tired, unable to go on the same as before.

So if you want to attain that happiness again, you have to find the peace, and the only way to find the peace is to go back to doing that give you passion, the things that bring you laughter and joy. To take a break and just feel everything that you need to feel. To not bottle up feelings because when they eventually come out they will overwhelm you, they will over flow and you will not know what to do, how to control and capture them.

Find your peace and you will find your happiness…

All Women are Beautiful…

Its simple.. Women are simply beautiful.

It really irks me off when someone says,

“You are so pretty for a black girl” ..Does this imply that if I was not black I would be prettier?

OR

“You have a pretty face”… Because this means the rest of me is not pretty?

I think Jacob says it best.. I love this guy. We need more men like this in the world. Men who know the beauty of women completely without conditions.

Pretty for a Black Girl

 

Human Zoos

A little over a week ago a discovered the word “Human Zoos”.. Makes you wonder right? What could that possibly mean? If you are like me and have never heard of this before then you are probably puzzled.

Lets take a walk down history lane a bit. and FYI this might be a bit explicit and make you feel sad, angry or even nauseous, but it is part of history and it has me interested so if you think you might not be able to handle it I suggest you turn right back around and close the page.

Unfortunately, human zoos are yet another uncomfortable example of the world’s flawed past of racism and what’s worse is they happen to be a part of our recent history. Racism has come a long way since the 1800s, but it still occurs today. These wildly flawed incidents of the past are horrific, but should not be forgotten. Along with paying homage to those who suffered, acknowledging these acute examples of racism in our past often reflects the issues of today that will undoubtedly shock and appal generations to come.

 

It was not too long ago that people from France, Belgium, Germany, and other countries came to visit humans who were locked up in cages. In these zoos, humans were on exhibit in front of a large audience, locked in with animals at a local zoo.

Hundreds of thousands of people would visit these minorities who were on display like animals. The humans zoos were a large attraction, as 18 million came to visit the World Fair in 1889, held in Paris. Over four hundred Aboriginals and Africans were displayed in front of large crowds of people, stripped down half-naked and thrown into cages.

Africans, Asians, and Indigenous people were often caged and displayed in a makeshift “natural habitat.” The human displays were very popular and were shown at world fairs from Paris to New York.

At the 1931 Paris World Fair, this exhibit was so successful that it drew 34 million visitors.Indigenous people are shown participating in archery in 1904 in St Louis at an event whites organized called the “Savage Olympics Exhibition.”

Humans zoos were very popular in Europe during the late 1800s until the mid 1900s. North America was not to be outdone, though, as they also got into the human zoo game.

Women were recruited( and when I say recruited I really mean enslaved) to work in a Paris zoo because of a genetic characteristic known as steatopygia – protuberant buttocks and elongated labia. Europeans went to the zoo to stare at their curves, amazing that the obsession with the big butt isnt just a new thing, because these women where different they were sexualized, treated like sexual creatures because of the way they were built, they believed that their bodies where unusual and overly sexual and therefore deserve to be treated like sexual creatures. Men and women alike would go to these exhibitions to see them, to touch their bodies( their butts, their private parts and their breasts) as they wish.

A 20 year-old girl from South Africa known as Sarah “Saartjie” Baartman would be emblematic of the dark era that gave rise to the popularity of human zoos. She was recruited by an exotic animal-dealer on location in Cape Town and traveled to London in 1810 to take part in an exhibition. The young woman went willingly under the pretense that she would find wealth and fame. Exhibitors were looking for certain qualities in their ‘exotic’ recruits that either coincided with the European beauty ideal or offered unexpected novelty. Sarah had a genetic characteristic known as steatopygia; a protuberant buttocks and elongated labia.

She found herself being exhibited in cages at sideshow attractions dressed in tight-fitting clothing that violated any cultural norms of decency at the time. A few years later she came to Paris where racial anthropologists poked and prodded and made their theories. Sarah eventually turned to prostitution to support herself and drank heavily. She had been in Europe for only four years.

When she died in poverty, Sarah’s skeleton, sexual organs and brain were put on display at the Museum of Mankind in Paris where they remained until 1974. In 2002, President Nelson Mandela formally requested the repatriation of her remains. Nearly two hundred years after she had stood on deck and watched her world disappear behind her, Sarah Baartman finally went home, where the air smelled of buchu and mint, and the veld called out her name.

 

We have come far as humanity, for things like this to not be happening anymore, but it is always good to never forget our history so that we do not make the same mistakes we did before.

Just let that sink in…..

 

 

The Art of Adult Friendships…

Friendship…… It is such an interesting phenomena isn’t it?

I mean you meet this person who you know absolutely nothing about and suddenly there is a click. Like this person was meant to be in your life. Like somehow their destinies coincided with your destinies and just like that you have one destiny, and just like that you have made a choice, an unconscious choice that they are the ones you want to spend time with, the ones you want to share all your crazy meltdowns, experience life with, tell all your secrets because you know they will not judge you. These two souls attach to each other and just shut every other soul out.

You know even if they do not understand they will still love and appreciate you even though you are a messed up little weirdo they still stay by your side and embrace the crazy.

But it is not always rainbows and lollipops. Sometimes after you have been friends with the one you thought understood your insanity something happens to tear you apart, the trick is it is easy to make a friendship but hard as balls to maintain it. Some think making the friendship is the end, but really it should be the beginning, because the moment you stop watering and nourishing that friendship it turns stale. Then you find yourselves as strangers, sad strangers who knew each other for years then one day do not know or even like each other anymore. Sad strangers who might then become enemies, sad strangers who grow apart and end up doing things to hurt each other or even just the ignoring each other and pretending they never knew each other. I think that is the most painful of the situations, when you no longer know the person you used to know, the person you used to share everything with, to laugh with, to cry with, because when they disappear from your life all that is left is emptiness where they used to reside. An emptiness and loneliness and painful memories of what once used to be.

But do not despair, because with the emptiness comes the opportunity to make lifelong friends who will never turn to strangers, those who are in it for the long haul, who will ride or die with you, who will understand you so much that you will realize that those previous ones did not know you at all. Because you will realize that with these new ones you can completely be yourself, you can trust that they really do like you just the way you are and know that for as long as both of you will live they will be by your side, advising you when you need it, scolding you when you get out of line and supporting you if the situation allows and showing you how to be more you and them more themselves.

Six years into the notorious 20s, I’ve come to some conclusions about adult friendships,through my readings and my experiences I have realized that there are some things you need to understand and accept about friendships:

1. Not Everyone Will Love You and Not Everyone Hates You. Some people won’t stick around forever but that doesn’t make you less loveable. The thing with human beings is that we are so damn complex. We can be a glass of fresh water to one person and a bottle of vinegar to another — no matter what our personality is.
2. Not Everything is About You. In this voyeuristic time of constant social interaction and connection, we’ve become paranoid because everyone is watching. We’ve also become obsessed with ourselves. Think about it, for the past several years most of us have been documenting our lives for all to see. It’s tough not to be somewhat of a narcissist. However, no matter how great you are at deciphering supposed sub-tweets and virtual jabs — not everything is about you
3. Don’t Fake the Funk. Frenemies are ageless but I aim to keep dodging these sort of relationships in years to come. I used to be so good at smiling and enjoying the company of others who I know just finished roasting me in a private shade session. Life too stressful to be worrying about the loyalty of your friends
4. See People for Who They Really Are, Not for Who You Want Them to Be. This realization is for the long-timers. One of the most annoying parts of adulthood is that everyone grows up so differently.  Some go at a much faster pace than others. Some go into different directions. You have to see your friend for who they are and love them for it. If you went into a creative field and your friend is climbing the traditional corporate ladder, support their dreams. Don’t chastise them based on your own ideals and goals.
5. Remember Why You Became Friends. Unfortunately, sometimes we end friendships — voluntarily or involuntarily. No matter the cause of the break-up, never forget your former friend is and will always be the person who you once liked
6. It’s OK to Have Your Own Life. Sometimes we think in order to be a good friend we have to stifle ourselves. It’s ok to grow up and have your own life. It’s ok to move away
7. Speak as Much as You Can, Even if It Isn’t Often. I think sometimes we put too much pressure into what makes an ideal friend. Face it, most of us are standing on unfamiliar ground right now, whether the ground be a new city, new job or just a new lifestyle. Again, being self-absorbed youths we expect our friends to be there and ready for us 24/7. We all want the same thing but aren’t always willing or able to give it back — that’s ok. The best we can do is give the most that we can in a friendship and be understanding of what our friends can give in return.
8. Cherish the Moments Anyway. So you guys only speak a few times a month. Cherish the short moments anyway. Because we are becoming much more layered with our lives of love, career and all things complicated, many of us simply don’t have as much time as we use too. Thats ok. Whatever moments you have with your friends, cherish it anyway.
9. Let it Go. Some relationships are only for a season. Tyler Perry has a beautiful monologue in his play “Madea Goes to Jail,” which compares friendships to a tree. Some people are leaves who are just there for a season, others are branches who will stay only until the weathers gets too bad, and then you have your roots who are there to support you no matter the storm. Be thankful for your roots and be content with letting go of your leaves and branches.

Getting a handle on this adult thing is already challenging. Facing these challenges with folks who truly love and support you, make you smile, and bring absolute peace to your life can be incredibly easy if you let it be. Do something fun with your friends,find that song that makes you all go crazy and dance like it’s the last night you are going to be there together, go out for a night on the town, get matching tattoos, gossip about your favorite men, go shopping together, go on an amazing road trip together, just have fun and create memories..