Author: Brand Smit

Last thoughts before Taiwan

Tuesday, 29 December 1998

I sit here and wonder if there were alternatives, all the way back in April. Not because of regret, just kind of as a necessary mental exercise.

Do I regret anything? It’s tempting to say “yes”, but it wouldn’t hold up to rigorous scrutiny. So, no. Here are the reasons. I have taken the most important step conceivable by facing my creditors. Within a few days after returning from Korea, I was attempting to negotiate reconciliation. I have seen most of my acquaintances and friends, and I have made the acquaintance of some new ones. I spent six weeks at home, and then for six months I worked for a company that is mainly focused on making money. I have experienced first-hand what I have always thought of corporate life. I worked and lived in Johannesburg for six months, forever alleviating my ignorance about the place. I truly feel more informed and more experienced because of this period. I have also seen many places and experienced things that I had missed during my “isolation” in Korea.

But that is to paint a pretty picture for the sake of not regretting anything. For the sake of honesty, I also have to flip the painting to show a little bit of the other side.

In terms of power – which I once again define as the ability to make choices and to act on these choices, and to not be dependent on other people, I was a big time loser for the past seven or eight months. Big time. In actual fact, I’m embarrassing myself by still trying to fight back, by continuing to insist on defending my dignity.

The truth is that I am currently more powerless than I have ever been in my life. For all the importance that power, independence, dignity and pride had for me eight months ago, it’s ironic that I have lost so much in all these areas! For this reason, and this reason alone, I would say that I regret that I did not try to get another EFL job at the end of June.

But, there’s no point to regret, so I’m not going to waste time on it. I did what I did. I learned some things, and a few times I was knocked to the ground. But at least I came out for the fight, right? Even though it was reluctantly, and even if I don’t exactly look like a hero at the moment.

What’s next?

I have seen, in case I had forgotten, what financial powerlessness looks like. Not again. Not if it depends on me. Taking everything into account, this year has been one of the fullest and richest years of my life, even though I am leaving it injured and poorly armed. (One can almost say that I came into the year like a German soldier in 1939, and I’m going out like a Russian soldier in 1917.) A lost year it was not, for I struggled too much and survived too many skirmishes. The rest of the thousand-mile journey that I have started will continue. Two steps forward and one step back. But I shall continue.

Long live my own revolution!

First thoughts in Taiwan

Wednesday, 27 January 1999

Fengshan City, Kaohsiung County

On the subject of commitment: If you devote yourself to a Single Cause, it must be part of your life on a daily basis otherwise your dedication will start fading. You have to devote yourself actively to this cause on a daily basis – not necessarily exclusively, but actively.

Later more about Fengshan City, Taiwan …

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Wednesday, 2 December 1998

Someone with my background – middle class, tertiary education – basically have two options. One is to accept a job at a company or institution and to start working on a career and building up financial security, the other is to start their own business. I am not prepared to work for a company or institution on the long-run. That’s just how it is. I have also once again confirmed that I cannot commit myself to a business of my own. It will provide some satisfaction for a little while, but then what?

What are the other options? One is Foreign English Teaching: one-year contracts; good cash flow; you don’t need to live on debt and credit; relatively good living conditions; you don’t need a car; you don’t need to have a good credit record to get to a telephone; you live in a foreign country with a different culture than your own; life experience of a different kind; and finally, financial empowerment.

A perfect life? No. In more ways than you can count on one hand, it’s a terrible life. But it is a life in which you can empower yourself – in more than one area.

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Sunday, 8 November 1998

What a year …

Four and a bit months in Johannesburg. What have I done so far? I have taken chances. I have done things, and am still doing things that I said I would never do. I moved to Johannesburg to do an office job. I took my boss/friend up on his offer to stay in the servant’s quarters on his property. I do sales … And what do I have? Nothing.

I keep myself busy “productively” – that’s all I can say. I read. I write. I can’t afford to go to a restaurant. Even if movies were free, I wouldn’t be able to get there. Even if there were a hundred women who posed possibilities for a man, it would only be of academic value because if they don’t live within easy walking distance of my house, I can’t meet up with them. And even if I had a car, I don’t have any money. I live in a backyard room like a student. I don’t even have a proper radio!

Does it sound like I just complain, while so many people are worse off than me? Fuck that. I have my own agenda. If I were happy with what I have simply because so many people are worse off than me, it would be an insult to those people because even they want a better life, not to mention that they would think I was an idiot if I didn’t want something better for myself!

I need money. I need a car. I need a computer. I need a decent place to live. All of these things are beyond my immediate reach in South Africa at this stage. Maybe in five years’ time … That’s it, I’m going to Taiwan. And I’m not coming back to South Africa until I can properly take care of myself.

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[Explanation: The South African guy who had met me at the airport in Seoul with the Korean man more than two years previously was in Taiwan by this time. We had exchanged a few e-mails. He had told me about his life in Taiwan, and I had told him about my situation in Johannesburg. By late October, he had offered to lend me money for a plane ticket to Kaohsiung – an offer I initially refused.]

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Sunday, 1 November 1998

Time to take stock again, and ask myself some important questions: Where am I heading, and what do I want to do with my life?

Believe it or not, it’s already been six months since I returned to South Africa! I increasingly look back at the few months between September/October last year and February/March/April of this year. It was a profound time in terms of answering important questions. The main ideas that had had a serious influence on my thinking in that period were “Belonging” and “Commitment”.

Now, after six months, I ask myself again: To what am I committed, and to what do I want to be committed? Where do I belong, and what do I want to be a part of? Earlier this year I had given some answers to these questions which for all practical purposes amounted to me wanting to establish myself in South Africa, and to committing myself to the world where I wanted to belong the most – which was my own country. I could however not put my finger on a single ambition of what I had wanted to do. I also did not have any detailed plans.

The past six months have enabled me to perhaps give a new interpretation to the above principles, and to get some clarity on the single ambition, the single dream. I want to write – poetry, short stories, articles, and anything else that needs to be written.

In order to pursue this, I would have to become more independent. I must be able to do what I want. I cannot be limited by the obligation to fork over R2000 per month to some or other institution. I should be allowed to spend my money on myself.

To achieve a position of self-reliance, freedom and independence, I need to make money. The faster I can reach this point, the better. But I would have to do it in such a way that I would still be able to pursue my singular ambition on a daily basis.

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Saturday, 31 October 1998

Step One: I have to rehabilitate myself financially. I’m fed up with being a cashless fool. This empowerment will be achieved in two steps: 1) debt is zero, and 2) money is more.

Step Two: I have to buy a car.

Then, the ambition that started long before Step Two and that will still be important long after Step Two: to publish what I write.

These days, I am very business orientated with this ambition. And what person who starts a business, or who wants to market a product does not believe in their product? Will such a person invest time, effort and money in a product if they don’t believe that they can succeed? This is how I feel about my “product”.

Eugene Marais is Eugene Marais. Andre Brink is Andre Brink. And I am me. There are the giants of Afrikaans literature, and then there are office workers who write poetry while the boss is on a field trip. But I believe if there is a product that I can deliver from the depth of my being, it is my writing.

I also don’t allow myself to be seduced anymore by the idealism of not wanting to sell out to the establishment. Literary products become part of the marketplace at some point like any farm product or consumer item. You want someone to publish your work; people invest their money in you and your product; they hope to earn some profit from their investment.

Writers may be unique in many ways, but in the end they do what most other working people do: They use their abilities to create a product, and they are compensated accordingly.

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