ask them to pull their pants down and see the colour of their pantat! – my father

my dad always had a turn of phrase which we could print on t-shorts. he was referring her to our cousins in perth, the ones who had hidden among the white folk in their mown suburbs, who had two children and a dog, who had a barby in the backyard, who had a garden in the front, who said their yes and naur, who complimented that we were tanner than usual, who prayed by holding hands at the dining table, who looked in horror when we did not use the serving spoons, who gasped at using our hands to rip chicken apart, who called them chooks, who instructed us which sauces go with which dishes, who said chilli jam instead of chilli sauce, who summoned forth the wiggles to entertain a toddler, who drove us to the hotel, who gave dad ten dollars to buy a bouquet for his mom’s grave back in singapore, for whom we never saw again for the rest of the trip, for whom we gave the angbao and casually put it on the table without saying thanks, who told us moving from a bungalow to another bungalow was considered an upgrade, who told us about wildfire warnings, who told us about reading the bible right, who said he liked his curry mild, who said we no longer do those things here.