Monthly Archives: July 2020

Lounge room travel reflections

In 2018 I wandered around Harrods by myself in a state of slight panic because I only had about three hours to explore, and I knew immediately it wasn’t going to be near enough time. I seriously could have spent a week there taking photos and soaking it all in. The entrance I used after getting off the underground was green and gold and was not on a through road but at a drop-off point, much like a large hotel. As I arrived at the door, a dark green Bentley pulled up, and several middle eastern women got out. I saw similar groups of women around the store, often holding several shopping bags in each hand. It was quite the spectacle. I saw them again at the Harrods department, where you applied for the purchase tax rebate. My visit wasn’t about shopping bags but consumption by the senses. ‘Shoe Heaven’, decadent staircases, which were completely different in each instance, art books, teapots, Gucci upholstered chairs, and Picasso. Yes, for 135,000 pounds, you could take home a Picasso – on the underground if that was your preferred mode of travel. I spent time in the linen department, which was very white, although I took no photos because I was busy buying cashmere bed socks and pillowcases – you guessed it, in white. I purchased some Chanel makeup and hot pink Christian Louboutin nail polish. The store was quiet, much like an art gallery, except for the tea rooms, the tax department, and the souvenir department.

Chubby mangoes

 

The Coconut Children (2020) published by Vintage (Penguin Random House Australia) amalgamates an intense teen spirit that breaks through intergenerational trauma, lyrical prose, and an incredible human insight that belies the author’s age. Essentially a bildungsroman novel that you won’t find in the YA section of your favourite bookstore or library due to its sophistication. Pham is now just nineteen but was only a teeny sixteen when she penned the first draft. Set in Sydney’s Cabramatta in the late 1990’s the story follows sixteen year old Sonny and her childhood friend Vince as they navigate their journey back to each other after Vince’s two year stint in juvie. Pham’s voice is unique and quite unforgettable. Her mangoes are chubby and her handsome troubled boy drinks sugar cane juice.  It is set firmly in the present as we only get the odd rare glimpse of the past, such is the pain it represents. The story of Sonny and Vince unfolds and takes flight from under the heavy blanket of traumata their parents and their wider community, experienced as Vietnamese refugees. Balancing the trauma is the beauty of the writing and arc, the teenage crush we are introduced to at the beginning and the depth of the real connection that is realised, can only be revered and coveted. Well done Vivian Pham.