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I’m not sure what I feel about having a racial slur called at me.
I’ve been ambushed by kids with sticks before when I walked to school in Toronto as a 8 year old or whatever. They did say a load of crap as well, but honestly, I have little collection of what they said. But I did remember them saying some shit to my dad once, who doesn’t speak English and so it had little effect. Ha, ignorance is bliss I suppose.
As I jogged past a couple of youths hanging out in Victoria Park the other night, one of them casually looked at me and said, “Chink chink. I love you long time.”
Now, to have someone declare their love for you is always good isn’t it? Perhaps I should evoke positive thinking and take heart in the fact that someone who’s never met me before loves me.
I suppose I could’ve taken offense and punched him for the chink part but I didn’t because:
1) I was in the middle of an army bootcamp fitness session and was having a doggedly hard time keeping up as it was. I needed to conserve any energy reserves for the next round of sprint to that tree, do 10 touch jumps and sprint back and get into the plank position NOW!
2) As far as I can remember, I don’t recall anyone ever calling me a chink and so I was surprised and confused more than anything really. The offense part came only after I’ve rested my legs enough to think about it.
But am I really offended though?
I suppose it didn’t really affect me because, although I know the word and its connotations exist, I’ve never really seen it used, against me or anyone else. A word can mean anything, it can be a slur or not, depending on how it’s delivered. I’ve read about black people reclaiming the word “nigger”, and by using them in a different light, they turn the word back on itself and makes its use less offensive.
Perhaps because I’ve never experienced the use of “chink” in real life, it didn’t really get to me.
On the other hand, I know I will be definitely upset if people came up to my face and start going “Ching chong kong bing ding ding” or shit like that, because I’ve had that used against me and others, together with much taunting and sholving, and so I know I’ll feel it if it’s ever used again. For that, I would definitely stuff your nose in.
But then, isn’t that the whole point though? The more you take offense, the more delight people take in using the terms. Perhaps I should start referring to myself as a chink then?
(At risk of undermining its offensive impact: On reading what I’ve written above, I decided to read “ching chong kong bing ding ding” out loud. Try it. To be honest, if not for the way it’s been used, I actually find it quite funny.)
I take the train to work everyday. National Rail. And this is what I have to endure.
It’s become worst recently. They’re not officially on strike, but the union is just refusing to work extra hours and all that, working just the bare minimum until they come to some sort of agreement with management.
First, the only ticket counter at my station, which also has no ticketing machine either, is closed.
Then, trains are delayed and cancelled.
Nearly everyday for the past month or two, it’s been “We’re sorry to announce, that the 18:38 train to London King’s Cross has been cancelled due to a shortage of train crew.”
Being in a recession where anyone would kill to be paid £38,000 or whatever it is a year to press buttons on a train, to say that they haven’t got enough people working is just ridiculous.
Next, the ENTIRE bloody station is closed. I have never seen anything like it before. Hey, at least on official strikes, you’ll be informed of cancellations and closures!
Just go on the bloody strike and get it over with! At least then, hopefully, the media and government will be involved and perhaps help push it to a resolution! I don’t want to rush to catch my train only to realise it’ll never come!
It was a really cold morning when I took this last photo, but this sign made my blood boil and I sweated all the way to work.
We met up with a girl from Beijing a few weeks ago, who was on her first visit to England.
Perhaps because, most notably, it was her first trip ever outside of China, many of her questions and comments about London amused and baffled me at the same time.
Her first question about the country: Why don’t people beep their cars here?
On her first visit to London: Why is everyone in a rush? Why do they walk so fast?
On her first ride on the Tube: Why is everyone reading?
On Essex: There is absolutely no noise at night! It’s dead quiet! Very wierd.
Her overall impression of England (of what she’s experienced in Essex and London anyways): I don’t like it, esp. London. Essex is alright, with all the greenery. But I don’t like London.
It was only by chatting to her did I realise the huge cultural gap between her and I.
Mind you, she is not some peasant girl in rags from the poor countryside who’s never seen an escalator – although originally from Mongolia, she has a big city job, earns enough to have just bought an apartment, eats out and hangs out and dresses like any other city girl.
Coming from the massive city of Beijing, and having been there a few times myself, I would imagine that people walking fast wouldn’t be such a novelty, and that the silence of the countryside would be appreciated. But apparently not. Thinking more about it, I wonder if busy streets and city life is considered privileged and prosperous while the dead quiet of the countryside is frowned upon for associations with poverty and deprivation? Yet, she liked the greenery and it certainly does not explain the everyone-walking-too-fast thing.
As for reading on the Tube – I guess it’s less common than I thought. Isn’t reading on public transportation somewhat universal? Don’t people get bored? But I have to say, the PSP or the Nintendo DS is a more common sight in Hong Kong. I once sat on a bus with a husband on my left and the wife on my right, battling it out on their Nintendos, calling to each other through my ears. Unpleasant, to say the least.
She speaks English well. Not fluent, but able to hold her own in a noisy pub conversation, which is probably better than anyone’s French in this country.
So language is not a problem, nor is big city life.
Surprising myself, I was a bit miffed that she didn’t like London. Like any place, I don’t expect anyone to love everything about it, but there surely must be bits of it that appeal to different people? The museums? The riverside? The parks? The theatres? The markets? Even just a little bit? Surely the air is nicer than dusty Beijing? Saying that, she was in town for only a few days, and I do recognise that the things I love most about London, the little gems hidden here and there, take time to discover.
However, she is not the first Chinese I know that dislikes London.
I remember Xindy, an ex-flatmate from southern China who was doing a Masters degree here. She never ventured out, ate only Chinese food and told me she was going home as soon as she could when her course finishes. She did not enjoy being here at all. I do wonder,what’s the point then? Isn’t experiencing a different culture half the reason itself to study abroad?
Based on our combined experiences in China and with the Chinese, Nasty and I think that it’s not London, and it’s not England that’s the problem. It’s basically anywhere that is “not China”. It’s as if they have this stubbornness in which things must be “just like China” to be right. If not, then they can’t adjust to it.
I went on a work trip once to New Jersey with a colleague based in the Beijing office. He shunned salads because they were “cold, tasteless, uncooked vegetables” (which on second thought, is what they precisely are).
I can’t speak for everyone, and I’m sure there are many others who enjoy being in London, or anywhere else, but I can only write what I know. Those people above that I’ve spoken to, it seems to me that it’s food and the overwhelming differences in culture that are too great to overcome.
And let’s be honest, there isn’t much in the food here to write home about, is there? ;)
This will make you feel better.
- unless you can beat this:
Nasty and his flatmate’s bikes were stolen from inside their secure building last week.
No, that’s not the unlucky bit.
The flatmate had spent a couple of days searching high and low all over London for the bike that he wanted, and when he finally found it, he paid £1200 to take it home on Thursday.
The bike was stolen on Friday.
Oh, how I love London…
The end of August was a bank holiday and we all got a three day weekend. Woop woop! The Sunday and Monday were also the 2 days of what is Europe’s largest carnival – the Notting Hill Carnival.
This annual event in a normally quiet and upmarket west London neighbourhood is a celebration of Carribean dance and music, with parades, floats, extravagant costumes and plenty of Jamaican jerk chicken around.
The party is however dogged by annual reports of trouble as night falls and many shops and residents in the area boarded up in preparation, as if in anticipation of some apocalyptical event.
The day we went, the Sunday, is said to be more family orientated and children-friendly. Whereas the second day is when people get wild, smells of weed fill the air and inhibitions are let lose.
I thought I might be put off by a kids-and-prams day, however it was nothing but and the atmosphere was great, with blocks and blocks of residential streets transformed into a series of big open-air dance clubs and street parties all linked together by a wandering stream of people, with speakers bigger than humans stacked high on every few street corners, each accompanied by its own DJ set and a big crowd of people drinking and dancing in front of it.
(Note big black speakers on the center left and food stalls on the right.)
However, the question that I kept asking for the whole time that we were there was: “Where’s the carnival?”
As published by news photos the world over, I expected to see the world famous women with skimpy costumes and peacock feathers and big headsets, a colourful parade and exciting dances.
Although I dragged Nasty up and down the streets chasing the “parade”, this is the best of the costumes I saw:
Puppets (or whatever they’re called) and people all decorated in supermarket plastic bags, championing recycling.
These are some of the other “costumes” we saw:
The parade was basically a series of giant stripped-down lorries with humongous speakers stacked on them, DJs hyping the crowd up, large advertising banners and groups of loosely gathered people dancing/walking/head-shaking behind to the music.
Stripped lorry with advertising banner. Usually a reggae record company, food or booze.
A DJ and his gear.
Giant speaker sets.
“Dancers” following behind the speaker-trucks….
…..and more random-type people following behind the trucks, which is what most of the parade was like.
It was basically a moving version of the street corner parties, with each truck blaring it’s own music, followed by it’s own group of “dancers” who aren’t necessarily dancing.
If that is Europe’s biggest carnival, I’m dully disappointed.
But if it’s called Europe’s biggest street party, then I’m very very impressed.
Less impressed though, was I of the highly overpriced food: £7.50 for a set of barbequed chicken leg, chips and salad, £3 for a can of beer, £1.50 to £2 for a corn-on-the cob. Lots and lots of food stalls and people queued 10-deep for Carribean specialities like jerk chicken, grilled fish and goat curry. People also queued 10-deep for porta-toilets.
Enterpreneurial residents also opened up their houses to charge £1 a go for their toilets and sold food and drinks on their front lawns.
The police maintained a distant but highly visible presence throughout. (Unavoidable I guess, with neon yellow jackets…)
Asis the norm with London, there were no bins because they’re afraid of bombs. But I suppose, if you really want to, you can just bury one under the trash. (Now please don’t get any ideas there….I don’t want to get into trouble for instigating…anything?!)
Towards the evening, we saw police in riot gear, and then there are these three rows of police officers, standing staggered behind each other, allowing everyone to pass, but making you weave through them first. This is apparently a method to break up groups and chill people down?
Unimpressed by the lack of a real carnival, we thought perhaps the second day is when things start happening. But my workmate went the next day and described pretty much the same thing, except that she thought she was getting high from all the weed in the air. I thought I might be biased, but she’s gone a few times before and says it really isn’t the same as it has been.
Perhaps, next time, we should go earlier in the morning. Since the parade basically does a continuous 3-mile loop around the area the whole day, I don’t suppose all the people can last wearing those costumes and dancing around and around for the entire day…
Greatest street party. Still looking for the carnival.
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