As I was boarding the tram, two inspectors stepped out. One went back in immediately and tried to get a passenger, who was Asian and looked about my age to presumably follow the inspectors and step out of the tram. The moment I stepped foot on the tram, the Asian man started rushing out of it and attempted to make a run for it. The inspector got hold of the man's bag so he didn't get away. The tram then moved and three inspectors surrounding one particular defeated-looking Asian man was the last sight I saw at that stop.
Beside two giggling younger passengers, a medium-built man was draped in the Australian aboriginal flag standing on the tram's deck looking out of the automated folding doors in silence. "Telling me what to do in my own country.." I heard the man mumble. As I studied him interestingly, I learned that he spoke fluently and had a t-shirt on with the same flag - with the stripes and shape and colors - imprinted on it. He politely excused himself past me and took a seat behind me. All of a sudden, in a quieter than usual packed tram, the man suddenly raised his voice and spoke out in a more than audible tone, "white people, black people, the only race is the human race!" Unsurprisingly, the typical Melbourne tram filled with passengers from extremely diversed ethnic backgrounds started looking around for the source of the voice. Not only did the man didn't seem perturbed by the attention he suddenly received, he continued talking in what reminded me of some street preachers I saw before, but only this time about white people and races, I cannot really remember specifically. Right before I got off at my stop, he said something again to which I cannot recall unfortunately. But it was well-phrased and almost felt scripted, like it came out of a RPG game where you sometimes encounter characters muttering (or generating rather) random phrases and sentences on a consistent time-to-time basis.
A lady, seated not far from me, whom I noticed from before after the Asian man tried making a run and right before I overheard the random preaching man voicing his first statement was talking to a random passenger she did not know about spending 9 years jail-time or something along those lines when I first got on the tram. She was quiet as the man spoke.
Everyone was. All but the man and his echoing words.
A strange anecdote which occupied my mind throughout the whole walk home.
-alexeO-
1 comment:
you know something.
i had the almost exact same experience when i was boarding the bus from morwell train station back to churchill.
some young punk got pissed at an asian lady for being slow cuz she didn't know how to work the bus fare thing, and said something loudly at the top of their voice.
then this indigenous old lady started muttering and staring at the dude. then as she was getting off, she started scolding all the white people that were boarding the bus.
lol to us who have been so used to different races, i don't see what's the big issue about race really. just baffles me.
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