The endless joys of discrimination

I now wish I didn’t know some of the Chinese language. Wherever I go in mainland China, and I mean wherever, I know people are talking about me in Mandarin. Look, a lawei (foreigner)! He is so fat, such a big tummy. Sometimes they run over to pat and stroke my boep which is shrinking with the diet and exercise programme I am on. Apparently rubbing the laughing Buddha’s extravagant bread basket is meant to bring luck. I am thoroughly discriminated against, firstly as a white foreigner and secondly as a fatty. Man oh man, has it taught me tolerance and not to lose my temper. Well, sometimes. I love living in serenity and these discriminatory intrusions into my personal space teaches me to not let external events affect my serenity. Sometimes.

Now on the note of fatness. It sounds like I am somewhere between Ndumiso Ngcobo and The Sumo, and, in my denial, I know I lean more to Ndumiso’s dimensions. At least when I slap my left boob my tummy no longer wobbles. When I smile I no longer see my facial cheeks (and I am not talking about looking in the mirror). When I sit in a pub the person on the barstool next to me is no longer still me. Those are great advances. One step for a man, no longer one great pavement-cracking thwack when I fall.

What is slightly thin to a Westerner is slightly fat to a Chinese. Seriously. Some Chinese men will say a woman is fat, thus discriminating against her, and will never make advances on her. I scratch my head, looking the said woman over, and haven’t the faintest clue as to what they are talking about. You mean that well-rounded, cute backside that’s doing all the talking while I do all the aching with my worshipping mouth wide open?? You’re mad. Someone should write an erotic love song about her. Some Chinese lasses’ thighs I could probably make a circle around with both hands and my thumbs and fingers would touch. And no, that’s not one of my fantasies. I do not believe in the notion of closer to the bone the sweeter the meat. (I do have fantasies. I would love to hop in the sack with two naked women.) I love female bubble-bums, not what you generally get here in China. I have seen Chinese babes in tight biker leather jeans but the jeans sag, even hang, in the butt area. Because where there should be sexy buns there just ain’t anything. Nothing to perve or fantasise about. And on the subject of perving, there is nothing wrong with that. How dare you discriminate? I think about 80% of heterosexual men will admit to feasting eyes on sexy babes whenever they have the chance and the other 20% are lying or are in deep denial. That’s just how we guys are. Learn to live with it, girls. A skirt flung up by a passing breeze will always make my day.

I have learned to laugh at discrimination. Take BEE for example. I would never have had the wonderful opportunity to leave SA and explore the world on a shoestring budget and nearly get deported from one country: the last five years have put iron and rich experience in my soul. BEE is directly responsible for my weight loss and the various books I have written. Heck, I wouldn’t have been offered my “Cracking China” blog by Thought Leadership. Just think what you would be missing right now. You could have been reading yet another dreary blog for or against the ANC, Cope or the DA. Or one individual who has now written two blogs almost in a row on why he is voting ANC, as if his own decision among the millions and millions should be of extreme relevance to the SA readership.

On the note of blog topics, what would happen if bloggers were required not to write about SA politics on Thought Leadership for just one month? In other words, write something refreshing and original, or at least just “different”? Just think of it. Then it would just be Ndumiso Ngcobo, Sarah Britten and myself swapping first, second and third places all the time with, hopefully, Bert Olivier and The Sumo not too far behind. Did I just compliment myself and get discriminated against as being an egotistical pig-head who holds his writing skills in too high a regard? No, I am just saying blog spots that deal with politics all the time is about as fascinating as watching grass slowly wilt in winter.

So yeah, this is partly a response to Ndumiso’s great blog on discrimination. I don’t do borderline discrimination or get borderline discrimination here in Shanghai. Here I get, and do, honest, huge, in-your-face discrimination which is an opportunity for personal growth to go off the charts. And for weight loss. One motivation for losing weight is that I dream for the day, just one day, when some fricken Chinaman does not say ta tai pangle, he is too fat. Dream on, boy. And I don’t do denial of discrimination either. For cripe’s sake we discriminate all the time and sometimes it’s practical. Here’s an example.

I’ll never forget attending a charismatic church meeting and trying to maintain my willing suspension of disbelief. The pastor was talking about the sin of racism. He said if someone at a party asks you who Mr X is and you have to point out and describe him using skin colour, then you are a racist.

Oh for crying out aloud. So now I am at a cheese and wine party filled with white people and only a couple of black people. A male friend asks me, “Who is Mr Sipho Belewa? I need to chat with him”.

“Oh he’s the chap with the wine glass.”

“Um … ” your friend replies, “every one is holding a wine glass.”

“Okay, he’s the chap perv … I mean talking to the blonde.”

“Which blonde?” my friend says, getting exasperated. “There’s quite a few.”

“Oh, the one with the low-cut blouse showing roughly four-fifths of her gorgeous, 36D cleavage and silky, milky heaven.”

“Oh, that one!” my friend immediately exclaims.

But now in my description of where our Mr Belewa is I don’t get accused of racism; my discrimination charge is sexism or being a pervert (to the latter accusation my chest thrusts forward with pride).

I find it amazing when I read commentators here on TL concluding their remarks about me and others to say we are racist. It is as if they have come to some profound observation and need not say more because their observation was so overpoweringly insightful. This reminds me of marking essays for English undergrads. One twat concluded his essay by saying the novel he was appraising was ironic. So what? What’s the entailment? So your point is … ?

Who isn’t racist and/or discriminatory? In previous blogs I introduced a new word to the English language, the acronym “inarb”, I Am Not a Racist But … Heck I love jokes about Indians or other races and blondes and so forth. The Chinese are a constant source of head-shaking frustration and amusement. A Chinese plumber will think nothing about walking into our apartment with smoking cigarette dangling from his mouth. He would never dream of asking for permission to smoke in our home. He has too much self-respect. And then he will drop the cigarette butt in the toilet after he’s fixed it. That’s happened to us on more than one occasion. I love the daft Irish and that is my ancestry and the tribe I identify with. Bunch of Guinness-glugging nutters.

Here’s a favourite Irish joke. A consultant is sent to find out from people in different countries what they think the greatest invention of the 20th century was. The German says, “it vos zee computer, ov korse.”

“Why?” asks the consultant.

“Because it can do millions of calculations in a second, zat’s vy.”

The American replies to the consultant, “buddy, it had to be the rocket ship”.

“Why is that?”

“Waal … because it was able to go into space, land on the moon and extend our knowledge of the universe. And besides, we made it.”

The consultant asks Paddy in Ireland. Paddy says, “aah, it was the thermos flask, without a doubt”.

The consultant scratches his head. “Why?” he asks. “Paddy, it just keeps cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot. That’s all.”

Paddy leans forward with a twinkle in his eye. “Aye, but the marvel of it is … how does it tell the difference?”

And there’s something about that joke which just will not work if, instead of Paddy, we had Sandile, a black person for the punch line. Or a Jew. Or a … There is something archetypal imprinted in our consciousness about the wittiness and daftness of Irish people that virtually demands we use an Irishman for the thermos flask gag.

Laughter is like a sneeze. For that delicious, nostril-exploding moment you are neither here or there. Sniff some pepper and try it out. Our accusing egos are only important if we let them be, and they should be neither here or there. Pretty much all of us have racist and other discriminatory tendencies. Get over it. Being honest about it is so freeing.