ABOUT BEING JAMAICAN
A MODERN INTROSPECTION OF THE 2014 EXPERIENCE OF BEING JAMAICAN
A World culture in itself, being Jamaican is a thing greatly celebrated outside of our shores, here’s the Editor on his Jamaican experience.
Jamaican Life and Times are frequently chronicled in music, film and stories written, produced and published to the world, the Narrators?
They’re often times, NOT Jamaican. Outside of the cultural and political trip inside of who’s telling our stories and are benefitting most from that dissemination, I’m just interested in beginning to tell my own.
The “About Being Jamaican” series begins with me Rashade St Patrick here.
The beach never really took the meaning and definitiveness of peace and tranquility as it did ‘bere vibes and tings’ for me. My earliest memories of the beach were ones of me piggy backing on mommy’s back out into the sea and back. Sandcastles, fried chicken, bottled soda and long long drives to get to the open blue are pungent reminders of my beach days in the 90’s.
The experience in the 2000’s has changed to the most natural rendezvous and spur of the moment runs into the oceanic allure of Kingston’s ‘south of chic’ beaches. Boardwalk is usually the wavey, windy, bay of choice. The mystery of smuggling your own premium beer, cigarettes and food inside the pay-per entry set-up is all a part of the experience. Swimming is very optional and usually lasts no more than 5 minutes which brings into question the motive of driving 25 minutes outside of Kingston for 5 minutes of swim - People, people and the coming together of such. Calling up your closest friends, gassing up the car and making the trip out to Portmore to whichever ‘ok’ bay beach we decide on is what makes it worth it. The motive is to ‘hang’, ‘chill’ and ‘hold a vibes’.
The thing about being Jamaican and going to the beach is that it’s less about the swim and more about the vibes and tings. The general home grown experience is all together different than the quintessential tourist experience. Said tourist experience that I find equally enjoyable but distinctively different. Beach buttler vs beach bum smuggled beer, beach chair and limitless amounts of fresh towels vs make-shift panel board chairs and the one Jamaica flag towel grandma lent you. These are only a few of the stark differences in the two experiences. In the end, they’re both a part of the greatness of being Jamaican.
