There was no need to open my eyes to tell the difference; all I needed to do was breathe. One slow inhalation of air held in my body as long as possible. At the time, I couldn’t articulate exactly what it was, but what I could say was that with one deep breath my lungs were filled with the atmospheric odours particular to Hong Kong. The emphasis is on the word “particular.” It’s not pungent or sweet, not rancid or polluted, just particular and entirely different from the air I was used to breathing in Toronto. These are things I can tell you about Hong Kong air. It is certainly much more humid and dense. And the particles of pollution that mingle amongst the oxygen, carbon dioxide and ozone are more intense and intimidating. But as the air filtered through each vacuole of my lungs I began to get this subtle sense that Hong Kong air is also filled with something that isn’t so scientific, that doesn’t just arouse the odour receptors in my nose, but rather touches on something more intrinsic to my being.
excerpt
Potatoes Cause Brain Tumours (and Other Things His Mother Told Him)
The father, his wife and two children are standing in the basement when the bird flies in. It must have come in through the chimney. It circles and circles over their heads, desperately trying to find something familiar and get away from the faux wood panelling and green shag carpet. The bird’s circles get closer and closer to the ceiling, its black feathers glistening as if wet. The wife screams, covers her head and runs to the safety of upstairs. The two small daughters stand quietly, their fly-catching mouths open. They are too afraid to move. Don’t worry, their huge liquid brown eyes seem to say. Daddy will fix it. They are still at the age when children think their parents are part magic and believe everything they say.
The father’s eyes are fixated on the black bird. His thoughts are thousands of miles away. He’s thinking of something his mother told him long ago growing up in Murid Wallah, a tiny village in Pakistan. He thinks of the village and the mother he hasn’t seen for twenty years. Her words echo in his head: when a bird comes into your house it’s a sign of bad luck, a winged messenger sent to share bad news.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Amah
I found her in literature only once, hiding in Salman Rushdie’s short-story The Courter. London, 1962, an Indian nanny walking down a street in Kensington with the edge of her “red-hemmed white sari” in hand. Amah did the same as she cut through the pedestrian pathway at the end of our street, making a beeline for the 7-Eleven. But unlike Rushdie’s Kensington ayah, Amah never met and fell in love with the Eastern European hall porter of her employer’s building. She never had liaisons that involved a shared love of chess.
Amah came to Canada when I was eight weeks old. I was told that her husband beat her and drank, although I never met him and she never talked about the beatings. Romantic love was of no interest to her, and whenever she saw a couple kissing on television and in the movies she’d say “chee chee” in disgust and turn away. She arrived in our lives through the recommendation of an aunt in Delhi. Her previous charges had been the children of diplomats, although I couldn’t imagine Amah rotating through the three-year cycle of embassy employees.
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“Now she would sit peacefully beside me in a sari and green jacket as I drove the two of us down the Danforth. We drank south Indian coffee and ate dosas at the Madras Dhaba. Afterwards we would cruise the video stores for the newest Bollywood titles . . . ” —Danforth
“As soon as I got my driver’s licence, I began driving her to Gerrard Street on the weekends. Saturdays had been her market days, when we would go to Little India for vegetables and bhel poori at Bombay Bhel . . . ” —Gerrard Street
“They drove and had friends and went out on weekends(to sing karaoke at the strip malls at Bathurst and Wilson).They were a new kind of Amah, supported by social networks, mobile. Young. Ninety percent of domestic caregivers in Canada were Filipino women . . . ” —Bathurst & Wilson
january—ward’s island beach
yes, this places still exists in winter, although reduced ferry service and a wind that rattles the bones of the skeletal trees lining the beach certainly make it less accessible. and the sand is coarse and hard— the weight of too many ghosts has compressed it and the ice has cooled summer’s too-hot-to-stand-in dreams. but the pole we took turns throwing stones at still stretches from the sand and the spot we drifted to about twenty metres out still glistens from the sun and the memory of that moment . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
British Boy/Canadian Boy
A blown kiss floats above the ocean, lingers dreamt, a thumbprint stamped from nectarines with fuzz of peach and stubble of face, lobe of ear, grazed, bitten gently. The nectar drips down soft neck of smoke, sweat, sweet smell of Indian summer, legs and twigs entwined, not tangled. Burning blue and brown eyes look away, the music stops but doesn’t. And he and he fuck And he and he make love And he and he coffee through the rain walk that pours wine on his t-shirt of flowers . . .
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Plan to Make Do
—“Ow . . . yo, that hurt.”
A young woman jams her elbow into my chest shoving me out of her space. Her distracted exit from a department store propels her small pod of friends askew. My chest hurts, not in a call-the-ambulance kind of way but in a startled unexpected physical-contact-with-a-stranger kind of way. People simply don’t get that close, that fast, unless they’re force-fed onto public transport during rush hour and get stuck with a driver whose foot is as heavy on the gas as it is on the brake.
My squeak of protest enlists her friends, who now want to pick a fight—with me.
I get shoved. I know better than to shove back.
“Yuh must be making joke.
“Yuh want tuh fight me, after yuh almost knock mih ass down?
“But cross my stars. Chile, don’t let me go an’ find yuh mudder,” my finger wagging in the air like dragonfly wings.
But that would be small island talk. And I would have to look like a mother to make any such threat. A fifteen-year-old lost his life last week over a bus ticket. Instead I yell, “Why is it everyone is so ready to fight? ”
Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 2. Purchase the book to read the full piece.
Toronto locations referenced in this piece
“She knows she belongs. I can’t help but smile at my city with its small pockets of community about—Kensington Market, Little India, weekday afternoons in Chinatown . . . ” —Chinatown
“Today, a man bound tight in his navy blue suit, oblong tie and perfectly creased trousers—stands in the middle recess of the 501 Queen East . . . ” —Queen Street
“He exits at Victoria Street gripping his briefcase tightly in one hand and his take-away coffee in the other. His voice is tense as he negotiates with someone on the other end of his wireless headset in a lingo I don’t get . . . ” —Victoria Street
“My clothes are damp and I feel miserable. I rearm myself. And with my ball cap pulled low, brim arching my eyes, I stride through the newly renovated one-stop-shop of Gerrard Square. There is an uneasy swell of anticipation in the pit of my stomach . . . ” —Gerrard Square