So, I just found this little review I wrote of a day out in Maitland, where we had an excursion for a sociology class. It was such a formative experience, which still to this day peppers my regular conversation, that I thought I’d paste it below:
Yesterday was one of the formative experiences of my life. It was the day I went to Maitland Gaol, a place closed down in the late 90s for being too inhumane and archaic. It is now used for traumatic prison tours, ghost sleepovers and weddings. Because, you know, places of misery and incarceration bode well for a future marriage.
We drove there in a big tour bus with our fellow apathetic Gen Ed classmates (“Why are we here?” “Maitland is gay”, “I prefer Korean pop to Japanese”). We watched a very graphic video where a man told us about being raped by a skipping rope. We stopped at Mount White for some frittatas. So far, so good.
Eventually, we got to Maitland and trooped wearily to the Auschwitzesque gate, shaking blood back into our limbs and hoping we didn’t have Deep Vein Thrombosis. A bug-eyed woman told us to divide ourselves into two groups, then mocked us as the future of Australia when we failed to do so quickly. Our group was told to wait in the yard for Dave, an ex-inmate, to come and talk to us.
Our first taste of Dave was of him leading a group of ashen-faced primary schoolers outside and telling us to get out of his way. And then Dave was back and the tour was underway. In the next two hours I learnt a few things about gaol: it turns you into a scary asshole (if you weren’t one already). Some Dave-highlights include:
- finding the token tall girl of our group and constantly referring to how tall she was. At one stage suggesting she was a lesbian and being genuinely surprised when he found out that she wasn’t.
- showing us his fake eye, cut out in a prison fight.
- getting a group of 6 to line up against a wall and rest their weight on their foreheads, exhibiting a typical punishment in gaol. He assured them that he was a good few metres behind them so not to worry and that “oh no, they’d have to pay me more than that…”
- Waxing lyrical over the pretty drawings in one of the cells and then telling us that they were done by a pedophile who, when released, used them to lure children into public toilets and molest them. Followed by a gruff, “any questions?”
- Told us that anyone of Asian appearance automatically got a job in the kitchen, even if they’d never cooked in their life because “well, you all look the same; we assumed you could all cook. Come on, you do all look the same. I mean, I look different to him and him and him. I couldn’t tell any of you apart. And you speak another language”. All of this was directed to an Asian girl in our group, who continued to smile serenely at him. Part of me silently begged her to say, “I was born here, douchebag”. But another part of me was scared. Very scared.
- The highlight of my trip: Dave showed us how to make a razor blade out of a cigarette filter. A girl asked him to show us how it worked, handing him a piece of paper to demonstate on. HE SLICED THE BACK OF HIS HAND OPEN.
The bus was pretty quiet on the way home.
