Writing Postcards
Sometimes we surprise people around us by the things that we say and do – and just sometimes we even manage to surprise ourselves. I am amazed, for example, that I have this website.
You see, I am not a great believer in “vox pop“. It seems to me that there are too many people, (myself included!), who are far too eager to give vent to opinions even when they don’t know what they are talking about.
It’s not that I think their opinions are worthless … after all, I do believe that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no matter how bigoted or misguided they might happen to be“, (… and for, all I know, they could be correct). Part of the trouble seems to be that I constantly meet people who vociferously pontificate about things of which they don’t really have any knowledge, but they still think and act as if they should not only be heard and listened to, but they also seem to consider that everyone should agree with them, (“only an idiot would disagree with the fact that …”), and should accept what they say as if they were “the fount of all knowledge”, without considering alternative points of view. I often say that the difference between them and me is that “I know that there are things that I don’t know”. I may also vociferously pontificate, but I try to acknowledge that what I am saying is only my opinion, based on background, experience, and on my understanding of the situation. I also acknowledge that it is quite possible that I am wrong, mistaken or may come to change my opinion over the course of time as either the situation changes or I learn things and my understanding becomes clearer.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me … of course it is nice when they do, but I appreciate that they may see the situation differently from the way that I do … the important thing is that we listen to each other and consider what the other person has to say.
One of the advantages of the internet, however, is that it has enabled masses of people, (like me), to publish themselves to a potentially immense audience around the world in ways and volumes that were not viable to those of previous generations. Quite often, however, this means that a lot of people simply dash off a few quick thoughts without thinking them through. A lot of the comments are emotional, written without thought as to how they will be read.
Ever since I resurrected the site as ianbek.kg, I often have wondered who, if anyone, read my musings. For a long time, I had no way of knowing except when someone sent me a message, or question, or someone I met in Bishkek made a passing comment about something they had read. So, it was almost accidental when I found out that someone had stumbled across the site.
Nowadays, I am trying to be a bit more organized. For example, I have registered with two different services that collates and reports on the number of visitors to the site. You will probably have noticed, for example, the “Flag counter” in the left hand panel, which displays the flags of the top 12 countries from which visitors to the site come from. Well I have discovered quite a lot about the site and the visits that people make. Since the middle of September, when I installed the flag counter, there have been almost 900 separate individual visitors to the site from 89 different countries.
The map shows the 89 countries from which visitors to the site ianbek.kg came – between 15th September and 7th November, 2010
I’ve also signed up for “Google Analytics” which gives some fascinating statistics about visitors to the site – but not IP addresses or anything which could identify individuals.
Most of those visitors, about three quarters, view just one page and then move on to something different, although there are some people who stick around and look at a number of pages – the record seems to be about twenty eight pages. I presume that some of them have been sent to the site by a search engine, (google accounts for something like 60% of all referrals to the site), and they’ve decided that this wasn’t exactly what they were looking for, and so have moved on. Looking at some of the things they were searching for, I can’t say that I am all that surprised. I could understand someone searching for “beshbarmak” or “1990 osh riots” being directed to the site, but how about “King Mu” or “boro horo shan”? Intrigued, I put those phrases into the search engine and, OK, now I understand why they ended up here site but you imagine my surprise when ianbek.kg came out top of the list on the first page for “boro horo shan”!
Amongst my favourites of all the queries that led search engines to send surfers here are:
- i want see the simple c.v. for security guard ,
- 4p on marketing of any bear,
- belgium raise your glass while toasting,
- is “just a minute” part of “friday night comedy” now,
- the missing mountain in kyrgistan,
- said: 550 sc-001 un fortunately, messages from,
A couple of other things the statistics tell me that have surprised me, include the fact that amongst the most “popular” (that is, most visited) pages are the op-ed about the importance of Domestic Tourism and the “for the record” page about Gay Kyrgyzstan.
It was also interesting to note that, apparently, a few people have accessed the site using mobile devices: iphone, ipad, Blackberry, etc. Although it’s possible to access the internet using a mobile phone here in Kyrgyzstan, it is quite rare and we have a way to go before we catch up on this front.
I still get feedback messages from some people who, either receive the weekly email postcard, or who have come across the site one way or another – and it is always very pleasing to receive them. Some weeks ago, for example, I received a message from one of the people who receive the weekly e-mail postcard, asking for some additional information about something she had read in one of them. I replied giving an answer, (and, later, I used that information as the basis for a subsequent postcard), and in the correspondence I repeated the usual “health warnings” that my comments are personal observations. They reflect how I see things in the light of my experience of living here in Bishkek for some 15 years. I don’t claim to have a monopoly on truth and other people my have different experiences which lead them to different conclusions or opinions. As I said, it is quite possible that I am wrong, mistaken, or that I may come to change my opinion over the course of time as either the situation changes or I learn new things and my understanding becomes clearer.
I also try to be careful in what I say … I don’t want to end up in any kind of “trouble”. I don’t anticipate any problems, but one Kyrgyz blogger, Edil Baisalov, ran foul of the authorities during the run up to the 2009 Presidential elections by placing a scan of the ballot paper on his blog. The furore was such that he felt that he had to leave the country and seek asylum abroad – returning only after the revolution in April this year when the power in the land had changed hands.
Sometimes, writing the weekly postcard is very easy – there is a obvious theme to the events that occurred during the week and all I have to do is select which ones to report and comment on. At other times, on the other hand, it’s not so easy. Either there is no obvious theme, or there has been too much happening and then I write about some of them separately on different pages and simply provide a summary in the weekly email.
Selection, then, is an important part of the process. There are many events which I have to pass over, especially as the postcards tend to be quite long anyway. One or two people have commented on the length with what might well be considered sarcastic comments about how the message “wouldn’t fit onto an ordinary ‘postcard’”. A good point! In fact, for the weekly postcard I aim for something between one and two thousand words – with an average of about 1500 words – sometimes I make it, but sometimes I exceed even the generous upper limit I set myself. They are definitely not of the typical “Wish you were here!” type of postcard.
Other “postcards” and “For the Record” pages on the site tend to vary in length depending on the topic. I’ve never counted the words on the site – but, for the record, it already has over individual 400 pages and
The length is probably one of the most important issues that I have to think about, after all reading the postcards take time. Writing them also takes time and quite a few people have asked how I manage to write to find the time to do so. It’s partly in order to answer one of those questions that I am writing this now.
The answer is relatively simple. During the week, in addition to the personal and business emails that I receive, I also get a host of email newsletters, podcasts, and so forth. I watch the news on TV, scan the newspapers and surf news websites. I go to meetings and I talk to people. When I come across something that looks as if might be interesting in, or form part of, a postcard then I make a brief note about it for myself. Then, as I am a creature of habit, late on Friday afternoon, or during the evening, I sit down and go through the notes, writing the postcard. I then leave it overnight, sleep on it. When I come down to the office on Saturday morning, after checking the emails I review the postcard before sending it out.
I also have to be conscious of other issues, not just the length. For example, I hope that the postcards are interesting – so I try to think of suitable topics, not just a weekly round up of the news of the week’s events and my personal take on them. I appreciate that not everyone is going to be interested in all of the postcards, but I hope that they find something of interest in the various topics that I choose.
Apart from the weekly e-mail, most of the postcards are, obviously, self contained pieces.
They may arise out of something that has occurred during the week. Assuming I have the time, I sit down in the evening and write about what has happened. This is something I learned to do when I was a teacher. We had to keep records, and although I could have survived by simply keeping a mark book, I found it useful to sit down and review what had happened during the day and write down a few notes. What had gone well?, what could have been done better?. Then I would look at what plans I had for subsequent lessons and consider how they might have to be adapted in the light of what had actually happened as opposed to what I thought might happen.
Alternatively, someone might suggest a topic for a postcard – for example the response to the question that I mentioned earlier.
Others are articles that I have written, or a record of an interview. Some are based on pages written for one of our other websites of our Infopack CD – which seems to “just grow” like Topsy and I think will never get finished.
Then there is the style. A friend of mine is taking an Open University course on “Writing” and we’ve exchanged a few notes and references on a variety of topics such as: “how to write a blog”, “how to be a travel writer”, . It’s obviously a lot different from writing an essay as a student, a report for some official body, a business plan or even a reference of school report for a pupil. I know that I am verbose. IO know that I am opinionated. I know that my “style of writing” is not to everyone’s taste … but … it’s me.
Bishkek