Pride and Prejudice

“She’s a very brave girl – that was quite a tumble!” I say encouragingly with a smile.

I’m completely ignored by Brave Girl’s blonde and blue-eyed mother. Brave Girl who looks to be about 3-and-a-half tumbled off some foam steps onto the carpet more than 5 minutes prior, then picking herself up without even blinking. Nonetheless her slightly freaked helper went off to get her mum just in case, leaving her alone in the play area.

I know Mum of Brave Girl has heard me – she blinks when I speak from barely 3 feet away when she arrives to find her daughter across the room busily and noisily pushing toys around. Not to mention, a Caucasian dad who is a good 10 feet away (with a pretty, obviously mixed-race toddler) flinches, then frowns at her. Yet for the next 10 minutes, I’m the one who is so embarrassed I’m avoiding his eye.

Of course thereafter, I’m fuming. Feel the mad as I type this. Grr. It remains unclear, however, how mad I am at her, and how mad I am at, well, me.

Offhand, I’d say it’s at least my third prejudiced, racist, uninformed, uneducated, leave-it-to-beaver-trip-back-to-the-50s slight in 2 months. I haven’t come across nearly as much racial bias at work. Or is that just because I was well, too busy working? Oh wait, I didn’t have a child then, either. Could it possibly be that the rules are different with kids? My child could get Malaysian juice on their child? Surely not. But then I’ve had a Mean Girls encounter too – where do children learn to be that way

Then there was the Californian mum-of-two who’d been in Hong Kong less than a week and was wondering what the “multi-sensory playroom” at Wise Kids in Cyberport was (it’s a light and sound room complete with occasional fake smoke and fun-house mirrors), along with a (much, much more pleasant) New Yorker mum whom she’d met the same time as me.

Ms California thought it perfectly good form to roll her eyes and throw in a few condescending facial expressions to (very embarrassed) New Yorker mum at my English along the way. Which is interesting, considering I grew up in an English speaking family, always got straight-As for the subject (including in advanced papers at the British Council which also have conversational English tests) and have a Mum who taught senior high school English her whole working life. And even if I didnt speak good English, that would not imply I have the IQ or manners of a goat.

Maybe Ms California thought Malaysians don’t notice rude facial expressions? Oh hang on, I held back on mentioning I was Malaysian after the first of the condescending looks because I didn’t want them to mistake me for a Muslim fundamentalist. Yes, I’ve actually got that one too – from an American-born Chinese – who, aside from being unenlightened despite having come from the Land of the Free, had apparently not heard the earlier part of our conversation where I mentioned my pastor was from Texas.

How completely stupid can people be?

Especially when they continue to have conversations with people who think they are Muslim fundamentalists just from the mention of where they were born / raised.

Kings however, probably holds the record for absolutely brainless prejudicial slights. We used to be regulars at an old Sai Kung café that has since sold out to Starbucks. We don’t wait for the owners to come take our orders, we walk straight in and leave our orders at the bar counter (or in the kitchen if we’re eating), before settling at an outside table to watch all the spoilt dogs walking by, some dressed in their Sunday best.

The nice English lady who’d been fondling JD at the next table before we dropped the dog off at the groomers,’ was soon joined by another Caucasian lady who, shortly after she sat down, jerked her head at Kings, saying “Look at him. He thinks he’s perfectly entitled to sit here and – look – now he’s even stealing their electricity!” (Kings was plugging his laptop into a nearby power socket.)

Yes, she used the word “stealing.” That I will never forget. Nor will I forget her offended expression (at being corrected in front of her mortified English friend? At the fact I dared speak directly to her? At the fact I overheard her loud exclamation and butted in? At the fact we had not lived up to her expectations of being thieves?) and the fact she did not say a word of apology (or anything, for that matter) to me when I turned to her and patiently explained we were regulars (around which time the café owner came out with our orders and started messing with Kings’ laptop wires so he could work more comfortably.)

How is it possible for someone to move to a country (which I guess is very different from their own) and then so completely prejudice themselves against most of the other people in this melting pot (which hello, happens to be an international finance center and is bound to have many, many other races living in it) they come across completely uneducated in this day and age?

With more and more close encounters of the jerk kind, I can’t keep from getting affected. When I meet someone obviously foreign who is not like this, I am embarrassingly delighted far beyond the normal amount. Kind of like when I meet a polite taxi driver in Hong Kong. Oh wait – did I just display a little prejudice there?