vanya
@vanyastar
vanya
It's an open invitation to transition into a more sustainable life and to wrest back control over the chaos I've created. It's a moment when I have to step into solitude, and into contemplation. It's also a moment when I have to walk away from old alliances, to let the strings of some friendships fall loose, if only for a while.
Wintering, Katherine
Being a mother felt like becoming invisible, or perhaps semi-visible - noticeable enough to be scolded for failing to fold your pram on a bus (how, with a baby under your arm?), or for taking up too much space on the pave-ment. But in yourself, now, a slightly detested creature, loose around the middle and contributing to the overpopulation of the
... See moremotherhood and
At the time, it felt like the factory was enormous, maybe as big as Disneyland. And the souvenirs were as good as Disneyland’s, too. … Seeing the factory again as an adult, it didn’t feel any smaller. If anything, it had gotten even bigger. The factory’s influence over the city was too great to ignore. Everyone has at least one family member
... See morelife path and
Yoshiko has visited the factory once before in her childhood on a primary school trip where she received little souvenirs including pens and cookies on her visit. She remembers at the time feeling that the factory was on par with Disneyland both in size and quality of souvenirs.
Now she is coming back to the factory as an adult, she feels that the factory is the same size or perhaps even bigger due to its influence over the surrounding area. Its logo is ever present and recognisable, and many local people have at least one family member working there, and thus encourage their children to work there too.
Working a good and stable career at an admirable company is framed as ‘Disneyland’ - something a child would look to for entertainment, awe, and wonder. It is no coincidence that Disney is a massive global corporation with allegations of poor working conditions, underpayment, and union suppression, not to mention their perpetuation of racial and gender stereotypes in its media.
‘We like to imagine that it's possible for life to be one eternal summer, and that we have uniquely failed to achieve that for ourselves, We dream of an equatorial habitat, forever close to the sun; an endless, unvarying high season. But life's not like that. Emotionally, we're prone to stifling summers and low, dark winters, to sudden drops in
... See morelife path and
Ghosts may be a part of the terror of Hallow-een, but our love of ghost stories betrays a far more fragile desire: that we do not fade so easily from this life. We spend a lot of time talking about leaving a legacy in this world, grand or small, financial or rep-utational, so that we won't be forgotten. But ghost stories show us a different
... See morenature and
In twenty-first-century Britain, we've linked singing with talent, and we've got that fundamentally wrong. The right to sing is an absolute, regardless of how it sounds to the outside world. We sing because we must. We sing because it fills our lungs with nourishing air, and lets our heart soar with the notes we let out. We sing because it allows
... See morenature and
When seeking employment, we are often forced into a rat race competition in which we have to either: offer up a palatable version of our genuine passions and desire, morphing them into a grotesquely corporate version of what they were - something pure and born of love and curiosity, or potentially feel that we are embarrassing or even humiliating
... See moreInspired by quotation from p3 of The Factory (2013) by Hiroko Oyamada, translated by David Boyd (2019): “...I was a liberal arts major at university, where my research focused on the Japanese language. Specifically, I’m interested in how people communicate. While pursuing my research, I became curious about the use of language in print media. I was especially fascinated by the effectiveness of particular expressions and sentence structures. Ideally, I’d like to work in a field that allows me to utilise this background. That’s what led me to apply for this position. I remember being a girl and seeing TV commercials and newspaper ads for the products made here. I was drawn to the idea of working at this company because of its famously high standards, both technologically and ethically speaking…”