Whiteness
(Outside Ying’s office a pond is cleaned and all the Koi are caught in two inches of water, their bellies scraping the floor)
One of the funniest things about being white here, and I mean really white is the staring. In the UK, I’m very pale and I feel a little conscious about it, especially that my legs look like plastic chopsticks. I’ve almost been edging towards some kind of tanning product, simply because if I stand with other girls, I look as if I never go outside. Here, it doesn’t matter if I do or not – I’m still going to be much paler than everybody else! People will still stare anyway. I’ve decided not to worry about it. The highlight of yesterday was visiting a manufacturer through Ying’s work and having a less than surreptitious picture taken by a worker on his mobile phone.
Perhaps if you wear some googly eye glasses and very high platform boots they may revere you as some sort of God? ‘The Pale Woman, she who sees around corners and can spot balding men from thirty paces…’
Glad you arrived safely, and made it to the top spot in my RSS feeds
How’s Ying’s work and the flat-hunting going? You could start with that pagoda in the back garden.
|G|
x
I buy all my accessories from Pale and Wan. They do a sensational line in kitchenware, including sturdy, stumpy chopsticks for the vertically challenged. Should go down well in your new environs.
Keep the alabaster faith, sister.