isms

I won’t cop to much but I’ll admit that one of my talents in life is blending in. Comes from a lifetime of moving and living in between cultures. I can “pass” for the dominant culture in North America and I’ve had people, even some who are staring right at me, not see that I’m Asian. So I think it’s always a bit of a surprise to people when I get my knickers in a twist on the big R...racism. Or what I perceive to be racism (as my poor sweet friend Ophelia found out the hard way when she used the term “mongoloid” to describe someone). You should come meet my parents some time and everything will become clear the way it did for Kirk when he first came home with me. I’m SO Chinese.

Anyways, so I’m walking around on Brunswick Street and minding my own when I look up and see a sign on a fast food place called...The Crazy Chinaman. And there’s a character. Or should I say...a caricature. So the next day I wake up, put The Bun in the stroller and start walking, ruminating on whether I can in good conscience bring up my child (who is half Crazy Chinaman) in this society? Because being in a new environment sensitizes you and being a new-ish mom makes you want to not fuck up beyond all redemption. So I walk right into a bookstore and there’s an autobio by David Suzuki. Reading the back, I learn that he was interned in CANADA during WWII along with his family (and I thought only the US was so f’ed up). So it was a defining moment in his life and he continues to live in Vancouver and he is brilliant and no insight or understanding comes without challenge. Like I’ve never experienced racism in all my years of living on the hippie North American West Coast.

Besides, a football commentator let this comment rip the next day: “you might as well be playing in a skirt!!” I think the Aussies do this all with a wink. Let us hope.