SMALL FRIEND OF PENGUINS

The most frightening thing you will likely run across in the tropics is a poisonous snake. Fortunately they are rare in urban areas.
Evenso, many people who come from a hot place have programmed into their souls a healthy respect ("unhealthy psychotic phobia") of those creatures that has been festering since infancy.
Once, at the restaurant where I worked, we yelled "snake", and several Desis nearly jumped on the table.
The Punjabi headwaiter practically bust a gut laughing.
The next day we pulled the same joke on him.
You ever seen a Punjabi go white?
It's VERY amusing.

I come from a cold place. So you can't pull that on me.
But it's really cute when you try.


LITTLE FIREFLY

Siu Ying (小螢) did not live in a city but in a small town with a canning factory and a fish-sauce bottling plant. One day she came across a snake under one of the banana trees.
The little girl and the reptile reacted precisely as you would expect.
She screamed and froze, it hissed and reared up ready to strike.

I was the first one to come running, and without thinking I picked up a fallen branch and threw it at the beast. As the serpent struck at the object that had hit it, I snatched the little girl and yanked her back.
I did not stop moving till we were several yards away.
Her uncle beat the viper to death with a long pole.

I was told later that the snake in question normally stays in undergrowth and copses of bamboo. It eats the rats that feed upon the rice, and is actually a beneficial creature in that sense. But you would still far rather encounter a python (ulag sasawa), which is not venomous, than a green arrow (panan idjo), which is quite deadly.

To calm the wailing tyke I offered to take her to get icecream at the store.
Sweets are remarkably therapeutic, and the prospect of a ride in the car with the chaffeur, her older sister, and Uncle White Guy, helped her go from terrified hysterics to sniffles and a whispered 'yes please thank you'.

After she had eaten her ice cream I asked her what sort of stuff she liked, figuring that talking about something nice would chase away all thoughts of what had scared her so.
Turns out she like birds.
Birds were beautiful.
"Very well, let us draw birds. You know how to draw them, don't you?"

"Yes, but we only have pens, no colours! Birds need colours!"

There is one kind of bird which doesn't need any colour - the penguin.
She had never heard them.
I explained that penguins were black and white, because they lived in the antarctic, which is a very cold place where there were no flowers or trees, and it was very cold all the time so everything was covered in ice like the inside of the refigerator or Pak Warno's shave ice cart. You never developed colour if all you saw was the white-white of ice, the black-black of shadows.

"Shadows are purple!"

Oh. Minor problem.
When the sun isn't as bright as it is here, shadows are actually black, especially if seen from a distance.
Trust me, dear heart, shadows on snow and ice are black.

Okay, so I lied to the kid. I know that shadows even in the antarctic have colour - sometimes rosy pink or cerulean blue - but I convinced her that everything there was only black or white.
The more I explained about penguins, and the more cartoons I drew, the more she fell in love with the idea of dignified flightless waterfowl wandering around a peacefull white paradise and having cold treats all the time.
Mmm, shave ice! With sugar syrup, condensed milk, lychees.....
Rambutan, even mangustan.....
Longans. Grated young coconut.
Gingko, sweet jelly squigles, lotus seed.

"And red beans!"

Sorry, no red beans at all. Obviously in a white and black place, red beans do not belong.
Sweetened adzuki is very common in pastries and desserts among South East Asian Chinese, and this ommission upset Siu Ying immensely.
No es katjang (red bean shave-ice), how can?!?
There should be red beans!
I felt very strongly that such things, because of their colour-connotation, were entirely inappropriate, so I convinced her that in reality penguins much preferred the lovely pale lychees and rambutans.
Those fruits were sweet white juicy crisp, and canned imported luxuries besides.

This she understood - her kin owned the local canning factory.

The last picture I drew was of a big penguin and a little penguin in a silvery landscape, happily waddling off (in a dignified way) to have a refreshing swim after a feast of shave-ice with sweeties.


Later, throughout dinner, she kept talking about penguins. Such adorable creatures! So handsome! She wanted a penguin friend! A big huggable feathery penguin!
Penguins, yay!

After she had gone to bed, her older sister asked why I had taken the little girl out for ice cream. After all, I had saved the child from the snake, so really I should be the one rewarded with a treat.
Well, I wasn't the one who was scared - I did not mention that I wasn't even thinking and had just acted - and Siu Ying needed something to make her happy again.
Ice cream and penguins did the trick.

For the next two weeks I didn't get the time to draw anymore penguins, but Siu Ying didn't forget about them. She loved the idea of a big reassuring penguin pal.
Penguins were the ultimate cool. Could I please draw again?
I promised her I would

The day I left I tucked a drawing under her pillow for her to discover when she went to bed.
It showed a big penguin hand in hand with a little pigtailed girl, whose thick black hair was bunched together with bows, just like Siu Ying.
I made the ribbons red. Precisely like hers.


Sometimes, you have to put colour in a black and white world.



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