Following breakfast we take a walk in the city. The oddly dressed people are strange enough to the eyes of my guests, but they are absolutely mesmerized by their diversity. They have never seen nor envisioned Asians before and the many Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese and Vietnamese who enjoy Canadian citizenship are strange to their eyes. Juan, who seems the less tolerant of my two friends, looks on them with disdain. Ilhuitl appears to see them with a good natured curiosity. I am finding that of my two friends, the Spaniard and the Aztec, that I really do like Ilhuitl. Juan I find to be arrogant, intolerant, with a very closed mind and an attitude towards ambition and avarice. Three men of African heritage walk past. Juan wants to know who owns them and is absolutely gobsmacked as I inform him that slavery was banned in the British Commonwealth (when it was still the British Empire), of which Canada is member, two hundred years ago. Who does all the work? he asks and I reply that we do. He is scandalized, muttering about how no self-respecting Spanish hidalgo, no matter how poor, would ever degrade himself performing manual labour. I intentionally neglect to reply something about how I have noticed his soft white hands, very much like a young girl's, but I do inform my friends that the three black men are likely university students. Juan cannot disguise the look of shock and horror on his face and I try not to laugh in resignation.
Two young Middle Eastern women wearing hijab walk by. Juan comments on their headscarf. I reply that they are Muslims and he goes nearly apoplectic with rage as he begins reaching for his nonexistent sword. I warn him that if he were to harm anyone here, regardless of how little he likes them, he would be in jail so fast he would long for the days before he ever discovered the joy of toilet paper. Ilhuitl asks about the many street beggars. I reply that this city, for all its wealth and abundance is also full of people too poor to find a roof over their head and too sick or broken down from stress and being unwanted to be able to compete for work. I also add that it is very difficult to afford a roof over your head here. Juan seems to think they should all be rounded up and put to work in the mines and the fields and that anyone who doesn't would be hanged. Ilhuitl comments that in Tenochtitlan there was a role and work for everybody. You were born into your strata in society and you simply learned your work or your craft and came to excel and no one did without because everyone belonged. Juan simply scoffs that the lazy should be whipped and if that doesn't motivate them then they ought to be hanged.
I find my friends' responses to women particularly interesting. Ilhuitl looks at all of them with a childlike wide-eyed wonder that couldn't possibly be misinterpreted. He is a true innocent, despite his background of human bloodshed in ritual sacrifice. Juan I find troubling. Older, or not noticeably attractive women, provided they are white, he treats with courtly deference, as towards an honoured aunt or beloved sister. The young, and not so young, flaunting as much of their bodies as they can legally get away with he simply leers at. To him they are putas, and his for the asking and has already asked me a couple of times for the loan of some money for the purchase of sex. I ignore his request and steer both my charges along a different street.
No comments:
Post a Comment