:: Bigjoe's World (Not Elmo's) ::

:: Saturday, October 01, 2005 ::

This week has been an eventful 1. TRack has been vicious, work has been vicious, there were sleepless nights already and surprisingly i'm not looking like zombie.

The major topic of this blog though is about Caribbean ppl and jamaicans especially. On average i spend my entire day around 5 to 20 jamaicans, depending on which class i'm in, who's in the library when i go there, or who's at track practice on evenings. I've come to realise that jamaicans are pretty damn near, if not already, to being ethnocentric. They think they are the best out of all the other caribbean islands. Any jamaicans reading this now mussy will curse me but so what; this is what i see, hear and listen to on a daily basis.

First thing first: Food - There was this big discussion in the library this week about the naming of foods and stuff and what was so amazing was that despite little variations in spices or some ingredients, most of the islands call particular foods the same thing. for example, Bakes. All the way up to St. Kitts and Nevis and down to Guyana they call them bakes or fry bakes. Jamaicans on the other hand call them fry dumpling. There's is different though cause they don't put sugar or any spices like some other countries do. So the jamacains were arguing that the rest of the c'bean backwards cause it is either fry or boil dumpling, that it shouldn't be called bakes. Thing is that had me was that other ppl have their own names for stuff and accept the fact that jamacains call certain things by a different name,BUT, jamaicans don't like to accept the fact of calling something differently. They stuck out over and over about it and said that the other islands too far south and 1 fella even reason that the rest of islands too small so we backwards...He was joking of course but it still made me feel slightly cruel cause i never hate on thier foods or words just because they were different.

Another thing is music. I know 1 jamaican that listens to calypso and even that he doesn't really know. I've asked jamaicans that moved up here about this. not ppl that born up here and have jamaican family, cause they american but have jamaican heritage. No no, i asked real jamaicans. Besides listening to some hip hop sometimes, they prefer to listen strictly to reggae cause nothing better than it to them. So when either I, Hadley Hoyte, or my trini friend Everet play calypso in the place we get boos and asking what nonsense we playing. This only comes from jamaicans believe it or not. some will listen to it for a couple minutes and then ask us to play dub for them. They can't listen to calypso for 5 minutes good. It made me realise that they don't check for nobody else music but their own. If you dance to music and it's not 1 of their 'working out' video dances, then it looks bad. I must admit that some of the dances look tight, especially when alot of ppl doing it 2gether, but some of them look like pure fucking cunt too. Plain and simple. Even i know some of them but i can't imagine myself jumping around like that all the time song after song. I know i'd lose weight by the time i'm finished.

All of this made me realise somethings that i've been thinking about all week and even from a couple of months b4. Us Bajans always complain and bicker about trinis and guyanese and all sorta shit, but since i mingle between all of them i realise that alot closer than we think. Well maybe not to the indian trinis, but definitely the black trinis. I've even come to hear guyanese that sound so similar to us bajans that i found it fascinating. It also made me realise that jamaicans don't seem to care or be bothered about any of the other c'bean countries. If we were to disappear off the face of the earth it wouldn't matter. I'm sure of it. It made me wish that more bajans could see this sorta thing and realise that they need to stop being so petty with their neighbours and vis-a-versa and to just live as 1. Cause really and truly we alot closer than we think. I guess we just don't leave the island long enough, or go to the right places to see how close we actually t, cause i'm proud of my tune. When it is crop over time i does can't get enough of hearing some wuk up tune, well i lie, cause some old dub would do me good too.LOL. But the point is i feel that this playing dub 95% of the year thing gotta done. I know it wouldn't ever finish but i feel it should, cause we seem to care more about somebody else music and culture than our own and that time they don't care about none of our southern c'bean culture or music. Men does reason they thought some of Krosfyah music is Hatian. They are the only c'bean ppl who can't tell the difference between trini and bajan music. Besides me, being the only bajan that hangs out with this group, there are grenadians, vincentians, 1 st.lucian, guyanese, trinis, st. kitts and even a girl from the Brittish Virgin Islands(and she of all ppl surprised me of how close she was to use despite being so high up north). All i could think of was how everybody loves dub so bad and don't like to hear any kind of calypso. I love my dub, but i love my calypso bad too.

I used to try and not pay it much mind b4 until yesterday a jamaican friend of mine asked me how come i knew the words to tunes from old ass Orgasm riddim. A riddim that come out what? 5-6 years ago? stupse. I tolder her despite the fact that i don't like to jump bout and do the willy bounce and chakka chakka, that bajans actually know more bout reggae than she thinks. Everything that comes out from them, we get roughly the same time and reggae plays on the radio everyday. She was like, " i asked because i don't know anything about your calyspo". I played some then and there and she was like, " it don't make sense cause she just don't like it". So i was like fine. fuck dat.

Also, this 1 fella was talking bout turn down the calypso a day and i had to let him know that Vybez, Red Rat and even Matterhorn had calypso songs this year for crop over. Men reason that they can't play that in jamaican or they would get lick down. Poor me didn't even have the music cause all my 400 and something calypso songs get stolen when my flash drive was stolen. BIG RASSHOLE STUPSE. Now i don't know how i will get back any of that music but i'll try.

so if i offended any1, such is life, cause for the last year i was being offended by certain comments, but then this week was just the nail on the head cause i realised how stupid bajans are; we love to be like everybody else and not ourselves and when the day done, nobody wants to be anything like us.

:: Bigjoe @ 1:28 PM :: | ::
...