Okay

“You see this? This is…”

Normally, I wouldn’t have responded at all. But this was one very persistent kid. Her rounded Australian vowels, sounded so early (not to mention loudly) into the morning, was grating to my sleep-lack frayed nerves.

I opened one eye.

In place of the chubby blonde kid I had expected, I saw a skinny little Asian girl. At least I got the hairstyle (2 ponytails on each side of the head) and clothes (pink top, pink pants, pink shoes) right.

She wasn’t talking to me, if you were wondering. She had knelt in front of a seat, busily colouring or drawing or doodling something on a piece of paper. A middle aged lady was peering over the top of her head, fondly smiling at her non-stop chatter. The lady was the blonde haired one. I briefly wondered if the kid was adopted.

The train chugged along quietly, save the occasional shudders and sways. Unable to sleep, I stared out the window at the green fields, the suburban houses passing by. Occasionally, my eyes would wander back to the little girl.

By now, she had sat down and was expressively explaining about something else to the blonde lady. She glanced up once or twice at my gaze, but there was no sign of recognition.

When I talk about recognition, I mean migrant to migrant acknowledgement. Here, in a land of everyone from everywhere, when you catch sight of someone of similar colouring or familiar mannerisms, you look at each other in the eye. You might smile, you might not. This reaction, for those of you who have spent time in a foreign land as an adult, are likely to understand what I mean. It’s completely involuntary. Maybe you grow out of it, maybe you don’t. I’ll let you know in a few years.

As I stood up to disembark at South Bank, an Asian man sitting across the aisle with his back facing me, got up, a pink bag in his hand. The other reached for his daughter, who waved to her new found friend. The blonde lady waved back.

The Asian man smiled hesitantly at her.

We happened to walk side by side. The man, clearly not native Australian, gave me the aforementioned look in the eye.

I knew what he was thinking. Are you from here? Do you speak English? Mandarin? Are you Chinese? Are you working? Studying? Do they treat you well here? Do you fit in?

When my daughter grows up, do you think she’ll fit?

As we got into the lift, the little girl asked, “Baba, where are we going?”

Baba replied falteringly, the words unfamiliar on his tongue, “We… we go up.”

He gave me one last look before we went our separate ways.

I wanted to run after him and tell him, Yes, she will fit in. And when she turns 12 or so, she might get ashamed of you because you don’t speak in English, because you like eating chicken feet, because you don’t dress like her friends’ fathers. And your heart will break because you clearly made every effort not to speak Mandarin in her presence so she would have a firm grasp of English here.

But yes, she will be okay.