PRETTY!

One would be hard-pressed to call her glamorous. For one thing, she had an intelligent look in her eyes, and seemed curious about everything.
For another, there was no air of mystery about her.
And she wasn't standing still.


"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid."

---Hedy Lamarr


In addition, she might not even have been five years old yet.

I took a quick bus down to Chinatown after work yesterday, because my apartment mate was in the kitchen cooking up something scrumptious for her boyfriend -- poor bastard can't cook, or something, and has no clue about food and nutrition -- and the smell was making me hungry.
I picked the wrong time to go. It started raining.

At the second stop up the hill a little girl and her dad got on, and sat across from me. I noticed that she was staring at me, and while from women of a certain age that can be alluring, when a tyke does so, it is disturbing.
Do I have a moustache hair sticking up my nose?
Or is one of my eyes bloodshot, perhaps?
Hasn't she ever seen a white dude?

She was the cutest thing, all clean and bright and twinkly, and her clothes were neat, and she looked a real little lady sitting there all proper and well-behaved. But then there was that determined face and the gimlet gaze, which was firmly fixed upon me.

No, I didn't have my Hello Kitty backpack.
So it wasn't that.

Had to break the ice somehow, her concentrated and unwavering focus on my face was starting to freak me out. As being stared at by a women of any age might, to any man. Not just a middle-aged white guy with what must have been obvious defects to a little Chinese girl.


I screwed up my courage, and gently asked "妹妹，你叫乜名啊 ('mui mui, nei kiu meh meng ah')?"
Which is Cantonese for "what is you name, little girl?"

She looked at me as if I had gone off my nut.

Then said happily "I have pink rain boots!


I think she was very pleased about her boots, which were indeed pretty, and wanted to share the joy. They were a very bright pink.


If I were a small female Chinese person of that age, I too should wish for boots of that exact hue.




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