I woke up anxious today. I think being in the studio is getting to me, as it has no hot water or air conditioning, the latter being the worst. When Jimmy comes in he uses oil paint and turps. I like seeing Jimmy but when he works I know i’m going to have a hard night breathing. It’s his studio, I shouldn’t really be here. I’m getting badly bitten and I can’t breathe (it’s raining and it’s 31 degrees C). I’m afraid to step out of the locked up room (so I hold it in, lovely) to go to the toilet at night, as the building is so huge and empty. The toilets remind me of the film ‘Let the right one in’. At night, depending on my mood, it can feel like an isolated prison cell on a deserted island or a tropical greenhouse. There are a few other major issues that I can’t discuss right now. The studio doesn’t have a MTR train link so I have to get a bus, which is on the way into town but it’s a nightmare trying to find a bus back ‘home’. I’m getting so confused. I lay in bed until lunchtime today.
So here’s a major and genuine problem in my life. I have Dyscalculia. There I said it. It has been explained as Dyslexia but with numbers and a whole new set of issues. Dyscalculia involves frequent difficulties with everyday arithmetic tasks like the following (Wiki):
- Difficulty reading analogue clocks
- Difficulty stating which of two numbers is larger
- Inability to comprehend financial planning or budgeting, sometimes even at a basic level; for example, estimating the cost of the items in a shopping basket or balancing a check book
- Difficulty with multiplication tables, and subtraction-tables, addition tables, division tables, mental arithmetic, etc.
- Difficulty with conceptualising time and judging the passing of time. May be chronically late or early
- Problems with differentiating between left and right
- Inability to visualize mentally
- Difficulty reading musical notation
- Difficulty with choreographed dance steps
- Difficulty working backwards in time, (e.g. What time to leave if needing to be somewhere at ‘X’ time)
- Difficulty comprehending things relating to occurrences in different time zones
- Difficulty navigating or mentally “turning” the map to face the current direction rather than the common North=Top usage
- Having particular difficulty mentally estimating the measurement of an object or distance (e.g., whether something is 10 or 20 feet (3 or 6 meters) away).
- Inability to grasp and remember mathematical concepts, rules, formulae, and sequences
- Inability to concentrate on mentally intensive tasks
- Mistaken recollection of names. Poor name/face retrieval. May substitute names beginning with same letter.
Now you will see issues that will probably appear later in the blog. I panic with numbers, directions, times and most of the above. I’ve written on my currency in permanent marker, so I can try and understand it. I got diagnosed with this, always being aware of the above. Over the years I have developed certain unique learning strategies, when I was younger I’d feel my heart for my left. I still do this. The other strategies are harder to explain. I see numbers as shapes that are disconnected to their content. People have called me thick, dumb or lose patience explaining things to me. I panic splitting bills in case people think I’m trying to scam them or reading directions, even on Google Maps. Now I have all these new ways of learning I can budget, write funding applications and a whole number of new things have opened up but it takes time and new approaches. My friends and family patiently break things down very slowly.
This morning I went into Aberdeen town to attempt to find some moisturiser and to collect my laundry. Both were successful missions. I wandered around the streets breathing in all the unfamiliar smells. I wanted some food but most places didn’t have photos or any English writing.
Below is a photo of the local shop. The old lady who owns it apparently never leaves and often sleeps at the counter. She’s grumpy but she gives me hot water for pot noodles, most places won’t. I’m hoping we will have a kind of daily silent ritual together now. It looks like the shop was built around a tree. Look at it inside the shop and coming out of the top of the roof!
It’s raining heavily and I’m on the bus to town. There are no stops indicated on the screen of the bus so I have no idea where to get off. I decide to get off and get the MTR, at least I know where to get off. The Bank of China tower is asserting its power using Feng Shui by putting a building that looks like this. I get off the MTR and buy an umbrella, I’ve never seen rain this heavy, it falls hard on you. I got very lost, even using Google maps I go the wrong way consistently due to my Dyscalculia. I decide to take a taxi and he decides that he will pretend to know where the gallery is and take me miles away. I get out and cry in the rain. Dramatic. I get the MTR back and ask some school children the way to the gallery address. Apparently school children are the best people to ask as they are most likely learning English to a good level at school.
Para Site Gallery was on the 22nd floor. I’ve wanted to go there as they work with domestic service workers (maids for rich people). Para Site is Hong Kong’s leading contemporary art centre and one of the oldest and most active independent art institutions in Asia. It produces exhibitions, publications and discursive projects aimed at forging a critical understanding of local and international phenomena in art and society.
Here is the show blurb:
‘Para Site is pleased to present Afterwork, a major group exhibition exploring issues of class, race, labor, and migration in Hong Kong, its surrounding region, and beyond. It is part of Para Site’s ongoing Hong Kong’s Migrant Domestic Workers Project, a long-term initiative aimed at engaging the domestic worker community through collaboratively organised public programmes and commissioned artist research. As an exhibition, Afterwork is nevertheless an autonomous proposition, including the often ambivalent and polychromatic aspects of the social and cultural mosaic of Hong Kong, Philippines, Indonesia, as well as of other contexts.
Afterwork includes the work of artists of different practices, contexts, and generations dealing with the issues, aesthetics, and histories of migrant labor. Several artists venture into the personal implications of the presence of domestic workers in households, the public sphere, and the artists’ lives. Other artists create abstract landscapes that bring a different and necessary vocabulary in an exhibition that tries to address such a wide and contradictory array of topics and perspectives, from personal desires and dreams to historical processes. And by this exercise of imagination, we hope to reimagine just what it means to be a Hong Konger and who is entitled to speak for Hong Kong.’
After the exhibition I heard from E. He wasn’t happy about the first blog entry. He’s not clean, deep in addiction. I’m worried about my mother too as I can only contact her by phone. I have only have Internet data on my mobile phone. I hope she hasn’t overdosed again.
After seeing the exhibition I decided to take the plunge into a café, this one had photos of dishes, so I pointed and hoped for the best. I’ve avoided most cafes as all the writing is in Chinese with no photos, so you never really know what you’re getting. This is the equivalent to a greasy spoon café. Eating with chopsticks all the time is a chore; it takes me twice as long. I’m persisting, as I need to prepare for mainland China, where they won’t have a knife and fork option. I see other people requesting knives and forks and I find it quite rude. Give it a go. People sneeze loudly here, which is an abrupt end to my dreamy thoughts. Water is always served boiling hot. I met a Canadian guy and he’s daughter is some big shot curator. He told me China would be safe; I was worried as I heard stories of people being killed for their organs.
I miss home comforts. I miss cuddles and jokes. I don’t want to go back to the studio and be alone. I want to go home, wherever that is these days. I met Ricky and we went to Soho and drank mocktails. Soho is where the bars are, it reminds me a bit of Shoreditch, London. I can’t believe I’ve not had a drink for over a year. We talked about people back home and we also talked about love and addictions. A friend of ours died on New Years day. Ricky found out while travelling and said ‘I can’t believe that when I get home, he won’t be there’. We all loved you so much Amos.
I got a taxi ‘home’. The studio was dark and hot. I paced around and felt low. My dad messaged me and told me some good news. I got funding from the the big guys (not allowed to say it yet until it’s all signed but you know who I mean). I’ve applied twice and got it both times now, plus the A-N funding for this blog.
Up yours Dyscalculia.
