The rabbit hole of my life opens for the moment on a small city in the mid-south of South Korea. I have been here for a little short of three months, and am only beginning to become aware of the ridiculous nature of my situation. Fortunately I am well prepared.
A white, English-speaking South African has to face up to their own ridiculousness pretty early on. Most blind-side it, choosing to obviate the tenuous nature of their position as “white Africans” with a combination of arthritis-inducing contact sports and a relentless belief in their own abilities, but when you can’t catch a rugby ball and tend to trip over your laces you get to enjoy this moment of unveiling in all its madcap glory. When one realizes the disavowal that goes on, a Wonderland opens up that puts even a smoking caterpillar to shame. And all this without having to travel to a small peninsula in North East Asia… The fact is that, although the “Net blankes” signs have been turned into home-bar novelties, benches can be sat on by bottoms of all colours (so long as they’re covered), and the beaches can be mowed down by 4×4’s driven by maniacs of all creeds and affiliations, the average white South African still regards him or herself as something special. The difference is that this average white South African (apart from the rugby ball, and the shoe laces) does it by being a freak in foreign climes.
If its a mad enough situation that you live at the toe end of Africa because a couple of ancestors plugged into gold rush fever, try engaging with a pseudo-African identity on Asia’s pinkie. The problem, of course, is that you end up just disavowing what you ran away to avoid in the first place. So much for the implicit connection to the naive narration of Christopher Boone of my first post: maybe if I’d paid more attention I’d have realized that he doesn’t use the Fibonacci sequence at all. Like Prime Numbers make ANY sense as chapter titles.
