Watching Magic Kimono while waiting to start work, I ponder my recent fascination with South-East Asia. I am a perfect example of the role ignorance plays in racism.
I visited Singapore in my twenties, but I didn’t enjoy it the way I had enjoyed all my travels until then. It was my first Asian country. I don’t remember paying much attention to its people. Unlike the people who welcomed me in other countries, Singaporeans didn’t seem real to me then, but rather part of a world that felt totally alien, completely different from mine. My 1970s–80s Spanish upbringing had given me very little contact with that world.
And yet, I had always preferred Asian traditional architecture and spirituality, and their communion with the natural world —probably a result of my love for early manga and anime.. When I was a child, I wanted my parents to decorate my ample room like a Japanese room. All I got was a paper balloon lamp and a mattress on the floor.
Who knows what my life would have been like if I had ever considered migrating East instead of to the UK. I know, I know — it’s pointless looking at the past that way. Just curiosity, not regret.
I am pleased I got to know more about our brothers and sisters from that world at last, even if it took me this long.
Happy Sunday all.
xx
Lu
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