Returning to Johannesburg after time in Taipei proves a rude awakening.
The News Lens
Date: 2017/12/22
By: Hallie Haller
Take this text for what it is – the highly subjective story of a big switch. I’ll spare you
Photo Credit: Depositephotos
comparisons of public transport infrastructure and grocery store prices, or the romanticized retelling of two cities’ novelties. Let’s rather look at how place makes us. Makes us revisit the us we take for granted. Where you are makes up so much of what you are. That’s the lesson here, and I’ll get to it.
I lived in Taipei for six years before I traded her in for Johannesburg. In that time, I learned patience. My Taipei cab rides eased me into conversations about race in ways that I did not expect.
Yes, I am very dark.
Nope, not Indian. I’m South African. Yep, Mandela.
My parents are South African, too.
Yes, I’m sure.
What do South Africans look like? Phew. Tough. We’re a little different to Taiwan that way – we’re really diverse, racially.
This would unravel into talk that my Chinese vocabulary couldn’t always keep up with. I’d offer the explanation that darkness didn’t have negative connotations back home – less of a field worker, more of the wealth to vay-cay vibe. Then, chucklesome uproar as the person in the front seat tried to fathom that city-slicking SUV Susan is paying for tanning sessions; while the women of Taipei maintain their lily-white aesthetic with draconian discipline. And from the yellow Taipei taxi, I’d point out the women on scooters – pulling into the shade of street signs and wearing sleeves-sold-separately over their arms, to avoid browning.
[FULL STORY]
