the emerald city basking in sunlight on a glorious spring day as i wander through the streets, accessing public transport like a citizen in my undercover suit and skin, the eyes of authority flicker past me without suspicion as i weave through the crowded streets of asian markets and hive central. i should shift my plans and stock up on cheap nutrition but i have a magnetic pull towards the japanese bookshop where i pick up some interesting novels.
i stop in at the japanese shop for a black sesame ice cream and green tea cake. the lady who serves me looks bemused as i offer her a calculated and flirtatious bow, instead of being impressed with my efforts she just laughs, 'have a good one mate.'
my romantic moment shattered i seek solace in my ice cream, and prepare for the journey home.
i'm currently reading paul trembley's novel, 'disappearance at devil's rock' after reading, 'a headful of ghosts,' im ploughing through this one, it's excellent and i can't turn pages fast enough.
4 comments:
Cap..
I don't like to say this but..you know that Japanese lady
in the tea shop
...she and her family, probably came to Australia
to get away from all that bowing and cow towing
and stuff in her old country..her family might
have thought they got away from the terrible
oppression of class
observance of little rules of subservience
there, and you in your blissful ignorance
(meaning well of course) confronted her
with the past...and her reply blew away
your reading of what you thought was some
sort of respect to her..thinking she might
actually admire you for the gesture..
She obviously thought you were being
patronizing.
I think Australians (you now included
after all these years) think that all
you meet in Australia have to same
attitude and world view but this
is far from the truth..
you might like the writer Octavia Butler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
"Who am I? I am a forty-seven-year-old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer. I am also comfortably asocial—a hermit.... A pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive."
Octavia E. Butler, reading the self-penned description of herself included in Parable of the Sower during a 1994 interview with Jelani Cobb.
unknown- i thin you may be correct. i will read that novel. i have heard of her and what you have written intrigues me. thanks.
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