WHERE IT'S ALWAY DIFFERENT

There's a sign in a Chinatown shopwindow that says, as an explanation for the extremely reduced prices, "I want to go home". 要回家。Which is one of the saddest things I've seen. Came to this country. Worked hard. Saved up, opened a shop. And now feels: 'bugger it all, this isn't the place for me, must get out'. Personally I would want him to stay, because even though I've been back here for decades, I feel outnumbered at times, and want allies.

The news. The bullpuckey from the rightwing. The maskless idiots on the bus. The people who accusatorily ask me where my accent is from, or say that I don't sound American (enough). The sense of being an outsider, a freak, a strange natural wonder.
The sheer damned whitebreadness of it all.


Someone asked me the other day why Tabasco wasn't good enough. He probably thought that if McIlhenny's fine product was good enough for Jesus Christ, then I had no business choosing something else.


Mmm, okay dude. You can have it all.
I'm generous that way.

Elsewhere.

The headmaster of the grammar school to which I went taught us geography, which also meant other people's history, customs, and culture. There were huge maps on rollers above the blackboard -- countries, continents, world trade and climates -- and by the time I went on to middle school I could name all of those blobs. Many American educated people have a hard time finding some of their own states, and couldn't tell Vietnam from Ghana.

Following WWII we Americans had inherited the world that used to be English, Dutch, and French. Most of my fellow Americans don't even know where all of it is, or even what the significant differences are.

Surely ketchup and fries are everywhere?

And why do they all talk funny?



There's a warung not far from Green Robe Island, wich has skewered meats, bakso, cendol, and rojak. They have sambal. They speak five languages there. They don't make a fuss about accents. Or condimental preferences.




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