Monday 24 May 2010

Figs are not exotic

They are in my childhood, in my grandmother's garden. They are home-grown and common to my taste. Who are these people, born and bred on an isolated island who call this a ' foreign fruit'? How silly, that minds from an area the size of a single province in my land can globally and collectively label something they do not know as strange. Weird. Unpleasant, even, if all you know is apples, berries and pears.

You must be powerful, if you have managed to colonise the world with your arrogance. Powerful in your confidence. Why do we, the exotic other, trade in the sweet, majestic wonder of our colourful culture so easily for your grey rain ideals? Your tedious marketing tactics; your rigid, formulated brickwork ideals; What is it, I wonder, that stands out from your precipitated, monochrome mud-saturated country that makes us deny our electric thunderstorm wonder of a country to come here, looking for opportunity, of all things?