'The problem with all you bloody white Sawth Effricens ...'

“The problem with all you bloody white Sawth Effricens is that yer all racist but yer’ve all got black blood in you,” Hamish the British journalist cheerily announced to me in Long Bar, a pub with a truly colonial feel to it on West Nanjing Road in Shanghai, near where I live.

I winced and snorted at Hamish’s artful attempt at conversation. Well, he sure got my attention. “Have a nice night, Hamish, I think I will sit somewhere else.”

I watched him then annoy an elegant British lady I slightly knew, who came over and asked if I would mind awfully if she could sit next to me to get that twat off her back and other areas of her anatomy. No problem, I said.

Hamish then initiated one of his diplomatic debates with a table of Americans. After a few minutes the table was in an uproar and a waitress was yelling for the security guards.

As Hamish staggered away from the table, one of the Americans yelled something like: “No, the US of A is not exactly imitating the old British empire, pillaging everyone the way you put it, and George Bush may make some mistakes but, pal, he’s not the real Osama bin Laden or whatever you’re trying to infer. Fuggoff.”

Hamish, confused by the belligerent response, duly did.

Hamish did not last long in Shanghai, as far as I know. He was on a permit with no known expiry date and that only perturbed him when he was sober, which was not very often.

Two days after this incident, Robin, a British mate of mine strolling along with me, saw Hamish in an American diner, Malone’s, even closer to where I live than Long Bar.

Robin and I inquired about his visa, a worrying topic among many foreigners prior to the Olympics as Beijing was tightening up on security and who could stay and who couldn’t. Hamish poured a cup of tea with nary a shake in his hands, surprisingly enough. The conversation was perfectly friendly. He smiled at me owlishly through his glasses. I doubt Hamish even recalled his curmudgeonly behaviour of two nights ago. He disappeared.

I’m sorry about that; Hamish was a great character.

I love writing and constantly need material. A lot of the blokes have temporarily left as a result of China’s crackdown on visas (quite rightly; many are here on tourist visas and so forth, illegally working). But the temporary departure of eccentric and otherwise interesting foreigners is much to my chagrin, as I wished to blog about a number of them. Hope they’re back soon. I enjoy lampooning just about any subject, including myself.

Perhaps Hamish said forthrightly what many of us only think or are too scared to think.

I am a South African-born Irishman and am sure more than a few of us who have been around a few generations in South Africa wonder if there has been a spot of blood coming through from another race. And we shouldn’t care.

If you’re African, you’re African. Why should Hamish’s remark offend me? It didn’t really; I was just tired of his provocations.

And maybe George Bush is the real Osama Bin Laden, metaphorically speaking, raising Cain in various areas of the world in which he and his pillaging henchmen and goons have no business being. And now the Russians are playing him and his empire at their own game.

We don’t always speak about the things that are really going on inside us, or when we do — as per some Thought Leader commentaries — it is pure vehemence, which we can get away with because cyberspace is a safe place and precious little responsibility is needed.

The things unspoken remind me of a poem sequence I wrote, which is about growing up in the apartheid era as a white boy, titled The Faces:

Caked in mud from kleilat fights, we sneaked
Along a wall erected near our homes.
The bricks
Reeked of burned paraffin and chickens.
One of us scrambled up the wall, grinned and gestured
Frantically. We peered over at a woman, massive
Bare breasts shiny, black and quivering
As a cream was slopped on.
The nipples
Gazed up at us, impossibly long, purple and pointed.
And unbelievable as the feelings — like icy water splashed
Suddenly against the stomach — tingling
And delicious while we sniggered.

That day you had no face, nothing I could touch.
But mud, squished in our hands and slapped
On the tips of tall, whippy sticks,
Was no longer as palpable as our desires
While we giggled on the wall:
Those were faceless, never spoken.