Fuckin Chink

---

No two people are ever the same. But some are similar.

It’s strange, meeting someone that feels like you. A reflection, gently mirrored in calm water. Not quite the same, but certainly not quite so different.

I met her when I was eight. We were both eight, and she was a new transfer. And because we looked alike, we had to be friends. And because we were alike, we wanted to be friends. 

Whilst opposites may attract, there is a defined comfort in similarity. We had our own language in common. We had our own culture, our own food, clothes, movies, music. Our own world, inaccessible to outsiders. 

But Australians are loud, entitled. 

“Go back to where you came from.”

“You’re smart because you’re Chinese.”

“Dog eater.”

“Fuckin chinks.”

We were taking peoples jobs, taking their money, couldn’t even speak English properly, couldn’t open our eyes, didn’t belong here –

We were kids. We were Australian citizens, born on Australian soil. 

But we were Chinese. 

Fuckin chinks.

There’s a certain smell, in the quiet, smaller towns of this large, beautiful country. It smells of racism and white superiority. But with all smells, once you’ve spent long enough in its presence, you become more immune to it.

Something changed in her as we grew older. We were still friends. We had to be. But when we moved to high school, where a lot more kids from further away attended, we had more options in who else to be friends with. 

She didn’t want to be seen with me, didn’t want our friendship to be public.

Whilst I carried resentment to those who had oppressed me for who I am, she carried shame around who she is.

Fuckin chinks.

Under the gaze of society, she couldn’t be seen enjoying her own culture. I watched, little by little, as she rejected who we were, painfully moulding herself into someone else.

She wanted to talk like them, walk like them. Be like them. 

I wanted to be as far away from that as I could.

The interesting thing is, we were still friends – albeit only on Sundays.

I spent every Sunday at her house – a tradition our parents began in primary school. It was Sundays, only Sundays, where I got her back.

In my mind, there were two versions of her – the Sunday friend, and the stranger.

But I understood. Society convinced her to hate us. I was a fuckin chink and she wanted nothing to do with me.

And so she became friends with the fairer skinned, light haired students in school, and I became friends with everyone else. Not that there were many of us.

The divide between us was a chasm, Sundays was the bridge. On Sundays, she’d tell me about her friends at school, and I’d tell her about mine. On Sundays, I’d congratulate her netball team for their win, she’d compliment my saxophone solo in morning assembly. On Sundays, we ate fried rice and pandan cake. 

On Sundays, she could enjoy her fried rice and pandan cake.

But school came to an end, and so one final day we cut the ropes of our bridge. 

We had applied to the same universities, crammed the same subjects. The Sunday before our final exam, wished each other luck, knowing we couldn’t do so on the morning of.

“Thanks for all the studying.”

“Yeah, we got this.”

A reflection, gently mirrored in calm water.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

But actually, I never saw her again. We ended up in the same university, but we were strangers. My friend was gone. Sometimes if I saw her around, I’d feel the ache of nostalgia. For the girl I grew up with, the girl I watched Chinese TV shows with, the girl I ate rice and drank tea with. But whilst I treasured these memories, she wishes to forget them. The magic of Sundays was broken, and whenever she saw me, I knew all she saw was just another fuckin chink.