As an Asian born within the majestic borders of Australia, and raised with nary a friend who shared my ancestry, nor a lesson from my parents in how to manoeuvre the landscape of their native tongue, I have for a large part of my life been aware of my unique inhabitant status – that of perceived foreigner and actual, palpable native – which nevertheless has ne’er shone a shred of remarkableness on any facet of my life.
Some facets, however, have undeniably been accorded a large tenure of hilarity. Yesterday, I was once again afforded the pleasure of partaking in a life experience reimbursement through an act many Asians are deemed incapable of forming their mouths around (bald-faced swearing), and an act all Asians are expected to collaborate on together (same-ethnic sympathising).
The intuitive response to a fake-out train
Drawing up to the train station in my connecting bus, I glanced up from my music player’s screen pad to see the very definition of indisputable, divinely apportioned ill-timing speeding towards my platform. Taking a crazed leap from the bus and sprinting as fast up the station steps as I was genetically able to without evolving into part Road Runner, I came to a halt on the landing.
The train was gone. It had been an express train.
Evoking a long day at work in the only way it should be, I swore at the top of the lungs battling with my rib cage to belly-flop out onto the concrete.
The vocal range of my cursing had been amplified from its intended under-breath mutter to a high-pitched squeal of the stuck pig variety due to the headphones I was wearing. Unbeknownst to me until the following split second, a gentleman had also made the mad dash from my bus towards the phantom train. He grinned at me in the kind of way that can only be described as enviable in terms of worldly ignorance.
I took a seat on a bench, storm clouds heralding an idea for a post with a lame moralistic ending gathering within the brain crash-dummying itself numerous times over into the base of my skull. A short while later, the gentleman ambled over.
“[Indiscernible] of [indiscernible]king [indiscernible], huh?”
As though I could somehow aurally puncture the headphones still wrapped around my skull in order to make out what he was saying, I gave a tight smile, and didn’t reply. After an awkward few moments, he walked off, his hands almost itching to slap his temples a few times in order to stamp out the disembodied voice he had just heard.
I wondered whether the general assumption of strangers as to my inadequacy in their language was such an unfortunate thing after all.
The ethnocentric standard of pity
Not an hour later, I stopped by a food shop for a long-forgone meal. As I tried not to utilise the waiting time for my order by activating my salivary glands through excessive gawking of the window display of cakes and pastries, I listened in on a nearby couple’s conversation about a news piece spooling out on an overhanging television.
“Terrible,” the man commented.
“Can you imagine if that was one of my parents in the rubble?” his companion asked.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” the man replied, patting her hand.
At that moment, she noticed that I was also following the news bulletin.
“Hey,” she said, drawing my gaze. “Hey, do you have any relatives who were caught in the earthquake?”
I, for lack of a better term, gawked at her. The man patted his companion’s hand again.
“She probably doesn’t understand you,” he whispered, nodding his head smartly.
Never mind that they’d just seen me listening to the news bulletin. Never mind that I just might be a little stunned that they couldn’t contemplate the possibility that for starters, I’m fucking Vietnamese, not Chinese, no disrespect intended to the earthquake victims, thank you very effin’ much.
Departing with my order, I wondered whether it was possible to answer one question borne from cultural idiocy with an act liberally ensconced in even greater doses of stupidity.
Enter an addendum, stage right
Australia is not a racist country.
In my experience with foreign friends and associates, my country is often deemed a redneck-teeming nation stained by the sins of past atrocities against Aborigines and current, everyday racial slurs against overseas-born dwellers. Certain local productions have been the most effective in dampening any movement in simmering opposition to this view through the entertaining utilisation of footage of shifty dog eye-esque Chinese and stuffed crocodile-wielding Romanians.
Yet, underlying a truth prevalent in all countries, racism is itself a minority in Australia. While I have been subjected to my fair share of mock broken English from local strangers, and in turn witnessed their cringes in preparation for an onslaught of my own imagined broken English, I’ve more often found these stereotype-fuelled encounters a well of potential devious fun.
Extreme cases, as occurred yesterday, have in turn led to paralysis of the humour-induced kind which, in another universal truth, is the sort which we at every opportunity should appreciate the most.
