Fighting development tooth and nail

Huge apartment blocks spring up like Japanese knotweed all over the world.  Shopping malls have become entrenched in cities like pernicious weeds.  They have even developed their own subcultures.  Studies show how young people claim such places as their own personal playgrounds.  We will gradually unearth how such shared spaces have changed city cultures for more than just the youth.  

Already, the elderly have migrated to such malls in search of warmth and company.  When you are truly alone even being in the vicinity of others becomes a vicarious pleasure.  You get to watch changing real life interactions instead of the TV.  In northern climes the cost of heating becomes too expensive for those on limited pensions.  Shopping malls become a cheaper alternative.  A place to stretch their legs protected from the elements.  In some cities these serve as social hubs.  Where you can check out the latest hospitalisation, death, opinion, experience and news.  In our cities the elderly, the disabled or ill can feel city streets are far too unpredictable.  Traffic, uneven pavements, gangs of youth can restrict their routines.  To have a place with some level of security can be a welcome blessing.  

Next time you are in a shopping centre have a good look around at the people who inhabit such places.  Some malls, target the vulnerable (not spenders) and have become proactive in driving what they see as ‘spongers’ out of their patch.  Security guards harass gangs of youth to move them on.  The elderly are more easily displaced by a lack of seating in such centres.  

Women with pre-school children linger near colourful displays and toyshops.  Their offspring are free to explore these shiny corridors unburdened with coats etc.  In amongst the motley throng are the real shoppers that the whole centre is designed for.  They emerge from doors laden down with bags advertising their purchases.  They don’t dawdle but walk purposefully from one hunting area to the next.  The big hunters know all of this is aimed at them.  They prowl their kingdom expecting bargains and good service.  Astute shopping assistants can spot the big cats with a glance. They know these watering holes have an attraction but must be careful in how they engage these lions.  Too much attention is seen as harassment, too little as bad service.  A good assistant should be able to read a client.  Is this a predator in good nick?  Ready to spend?  Or are they one of the subcultures killing time in the shopping paradise?  Judging this right will mean they adopt either a subservient attitude or a haughty dismissive turn of the head.  These places are not social centres after all.  They are designed to make money, that is their sole reason for being.  

If you have the time enter the nearest shopping mall to you.  Spend an hour but not one penny.  Observe the sub cultures that you find.  Actually, see those that share your space.  What is their age range?  Do they look happy and content?  Will you find that the majority are there, not out of choice but, as a refuge from something.  The young shop assistant opposite me has been manning her jewellery display for almost an hour.  No one has bought anything or even looked at her products.  She periodically combs out her long hair flicking is over her shoulder.  Then, she checks out her appearance in the mirror beside her cash register.  She fiddles with trays of rings.  Taking them out and putting them in again.  Occasionally, she presses buttons on her till to look busy.  Afterwards, she rearranges some necklaces as if they have been fingered out of position.  Now, she’s examining the jewellery as if she is a customer hoping to get someone to emulate her.  No joy, she’s reverted to combing her hair again and walking sideways in front of the mirror checking the waistline.  Tip toeing to see if her blouse is tucked in smoothly.  It’s disheartening to see the repetitive displacement activity in a human.  Mindlessly repeating useless activity because they have no other choice.  

Am I any different?  I walk along the front to a different café/venue each day and then write what comes to mind.  It’s being creative I tell myself but how much of it just marking time?  I may be on a longer more scenic circuit but is there any difference?  My activity is in many ways less worthy than hers.  She earns a wage, while I churn out my writing.  Everyone in this mall has his or her reasons for being here.  Security, warmth, company, work, shopping or people watching.  The escalators move in ceaseless circles moving us up and down.  The giant hamster wheels that transport us to shop entrances.  Wall to wall window displays all around, do our thinking for us.  The swish of notes and change out of cash registers mark the passing of our lives.  Busy, busy bees going nowhere together.

There are those who have fought all this development tooth and nail.  In fact in China they are called ‘Nail Houses’.  Refusing to sell up, they hang on long after the rest have cashed in.  They anchor themselves to the spot when there is no longer anything much left to protect.  The photos of their stubbornness are as brutal as any war.  One is not sure to either admire their steadfastness or bemoan their wasted endeavours.  I’ll let the photos do the talking.

My Two Minds

Interesting article in this month’s edition of the New Scientist (May 2012).  Entitled “My Two Minds” it highlights the advantage of being bilingual.  Being able to speak two languages is of course a million miles away from learning two languages.  I must confess to spending seven useless years learning French at secondary school.  Since it was a compulsory subject, in those days, everyone, no matter their aptitude, was required to study it.  However, such was my dire ability; I was granted the only exception in a school of five hundred pupils.  Following some discussion among staff it was decided that my inability to understand anything in French threatened to unfairly humiliate the teaching staff in the end of term exam and I was granted an exemption.  I was relieved beyond measure as I have long suffered from what I call a blackboard memory.  I can keep only a certain amount of stuff in my head and once overloaded must remove existing material to make room for new items.  So when asked to memorise table, chair and light in French it seemed my brain carefully removed the few French verbs that may have crept slowly and painstakingly onto the board of my limited brain.  Strangely, with anything mathematical I was okay.  Perhaps mathematical and scientific formula could be squeezed onto my limited blackboard with greater density?  Who knows and who cares?  This article however, seems to indicate that I should.

It turns out that being bilingual leads to better brain development.  Studies have shown that bilinguals out perform monolinguals in 15 verbal and non-verbal tests.  This brain development begins early and bilingual babies (babies exposed to two languages from birth) show increased neural development.  It is as if being exposed to two languages at even this early stage invigorates learning in a fundamental way.  The bilingual brain has two languages competing for attention and as a result our brain appoints a Fat Controller within the brain to decide which word to use and inhibiting the same word in the other language.  This process is remarkably similar to those cultivated in commercial brain training programs.

I can remember an example of this vividly in my own home.  At a large gathering of Greek and English friends my youngest son discovered a large tick had bitten him on the stomach and while its head was buried deep in his juicy flesh its derriere was happily wriggling in relish in plain sight.  In outraged anguish he howled his distress first in English with loads of expletives.  Then, a few seconds later, he repeated his howl in fluent Greek with an even richer stream of obscenities and curses.  Most would have settled for one or the other but being bilingual he obviously felt duty bound to explode fully in both.  The Fat Controller must have been on a tea break.

The ability to curse in Greek is an art form.  I remember passing a Greek kicking his broken motorbike and hearing him curse with growing volume, his bike, his boss, his wife, the Virgin Mary, Jesus and finally God.  It seemed that not until he had insulted the full house could his anger be fully spent.  The New Scientist article seemed to bear out cultural differences such as this.  Indeed, it appears that bilingual people act differently depending on what language they speak.  They seem to have two mental channels one for each language, like two different minds.  For example Japanese-English bilinguals when asked to complete a set of unfinished sentences in two separate sessions – first in one and then in the other language demonstrated very different endings depending on the language.  Given the sentence

“Real friends should …..” In Japanese was followed by

“… help each other out”

Whereas in English this became

“…be very frank”

It would appear that each language brings to mind the culture and experience it has sprung from.  Once, I over heard my eldest son on the phone to a Greek friend and remonstrated that his use of the F___ word seemed totally uncalled for.  Not a bit, he informed me, if you spoke Greek properly, you have to curse!  But expletives aside, the article finished by indicating those who are bilingual seem to suffer less from dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Even when occupation and education factors were taken into account!  It is difficult to learn a new language in latter life but apparently the benefits of doing so add considerably to our cognitive systems even at this late stage.  “Learn a language at any age to remain mentally stimulated. That’s a source of cognitive reserve” – exhorts the article.

Speaking as someone who learned French for seven years and failed to speak it, then lived in Greece for almost a decade and failed again, I have a huge Brechers Brook mental hurdle about languages.  An image of a limited blackboard appears closer to the truth than I care to admit.  By not managing to speak those languages, perhaps, I have served to further reduce the area of brain space/blackboard available to me upstairs.  The conclusion appears to be, don’t do as I did, do as I say, learn a language, any language for your brain’s sake.