The Chinese in Cornwall Park are interesting.
One lady claps her hands above her head
while walking slowly backwards.
A man strides ahead of his wife,
beaming and loudly greeting
every one he passes. Hurro! Hurro!
Morning! I reply, catching his cheerfulness,
but not knowing whether the downcast eyes
that trudge behind reflect respect
or embarrassment, I long to greet her too.
One old man with a bucket and scoop
is gathering sheep poo for his garden,
and later, over the other side, I see
his counterpart stooping and picking
under the stinky ginkgo tree.
I would like to reassure a lone woman
wearing sunhat and surgical mask,
that the sun is weak at 7 o’clock
and while a mask is wise on the bus
and in the supermarket, out in the breeze
she could safely enjoy the fresh air,
but I don’t intrude.
The Chinese I boarded with as a schoolboy
taught me the art of wielding chopsticks
with my rice bowl in my left palm,
and the etiquette of taking the piece
of chopped meat nearest to me,
even if it had the most bone.
I learned to suck on a salty pickled dried plum
and enjoy it, how to prune tomatoes
and to pick and pack strawberries
with the best specimens always on top.
I drank weak black tea and learned ngor i nee
means I love you, although I may have that wrong.
And younger still, when I fell in the deep sluice pit
by the neighbour’s milking shed,
I was hauled out by a Chinese boy called Hylee Ahoy
and as they said he had saved my life
I let him have one of my plastic cowboys.
When we lived in Nepal and worked
at learning to communicate in Nepali
I doubt that we appreciated then, how weird
we must have seemed, with my bushy beard,
mispronunciations, and our walking
hand-in-hand in public.
The locals laughed and smiled
and welcomed us despite our strangeness
and their poverty, ever friendly,
even when cheerfully ripping us off.
Who would want it any other way?
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