I thought I might have better things to say this week or so but one bad experience on Wednesday left me burned for quite a while...It must be told so I will relive it once more before I try to wipe it out of my system.
I was at Wynyard station in the evening with DH on our way home. When the train came, the door in front of us was damaged but I was kinda tired so DH realised it before I did so he rushed to the next entrance on the right so that he could get us a seat. I was left behind, following a lady into the same entrance when this potato-chip (Smith's, blue packaging) munching guy, clad in a grey stripe suit pushed me away, I tried to make my way ahead nonethesless, and guess what?! He ELBOWED me forcefully off the train! I was staring at him in disgust. Shocked and appalled, I didn't do anything except staring in disbelief. He muttered in disgust. I couldn't hear what he had to say amongst the noise and chip-munching. I ran up the upper deck of the train hoping to find DH. I related the incident in shock and disgust and boy was he mad. He wanted to get even but I told him not to.
In all my years in Sydney, about 5 now, the whites and the asians here had a mutual understanding that they hate each other. No offence to whoever's reading, its just how it looks to me. Its even easier for me to just say the whites hate us for invading their space. It doesn't matter how eloquent we may be in English, asians are mostly regarded as dumb country bumpkins. Its sad coz sometimes the opposite can be said of them. Yes we have to share our spaces but instead of being vehement about the asians being hardworking and thus, dare I say it, achieving more than others, shouldn't we all just strive for the good of ourselves and for the good of the earth instead? It starts to look extremely childish to me when we focus too much on the differences of class, race, gender, political leanings, whatever.
As I was pondering on such differences of "us" and "them", another incident happened yesterday that really knocked my socks off. I was at a Western Sydney suburb - Parramatta, kinda like a Western Sydney central with the slightly poorer and more Aussie-esque people. There's this fabulous museum of antiquities called Grandma Pickles to which we make our yearly pilgrimage to. It was gone this time. Disappointed but we had a Westfield Shopping Centre around so in we went. As I passed by this shop, an asian girl was trying to enter but the door alarm sounded. She tried again and it sounded again. Then I overheard a bunch of guys who walked by talking about the ASIAN girl trying to enter the store, causing the alarm, the other guy said, "yeah, maybe she stole something from the outside." The companions started laughing. Suffice to say I was amused by the whole thing and suddenly realised how marginalized the asians have become in this society.
No rights to vote, no rights to enter store, no rights to get on the train....
hell, no rights to even exist.
There's no more room for pink in the grey reality.
Disclaimer: Before you send me angry emails, I just wanna say that I personally don't give a rat's ass about differences. I'd love you even if you're black, white, yellow or pink, as long as you're nice, not naughty. That said, it just makes me sad that people care so much about skin color and to categorise and rate people that way. On the plus, I have met fabulous friends of all kinds, colors or lifestyle choices, united only by one quality - They're nice!
C'mon earth people, root for world peace!
