This week at the radio station, we're in fundraising, and I've been manning the phone room from time to time at nights. In past years I've met some bizarre people during fundraising, randoms who just kind of show up and talk shit to me for hours on end.

During a reggae program, a middle-aged lady at the phone desk expressed such genuine sadness and surprise when it was announced on air that Bob Marley's mother had just died. In tribute, they played "No Woman No Cry", and predictably, the lady started singing shamelessly to every word. Normally I wouldn't give a shit, but she revealed herself to be the biggest prick I'd ever met in my life.

"I saw him live at Maple Leaf Gardens!" she started, excitedly swaying to the music and closing her eyes as she described what it was like to see him in person.

"Who opened for him?" I asked.

"Oh Jeez, I dunno, I was really stoned at the time. I can't remember, but wow, Marley was incredible!"

Minutes passed awkwardly, until my friend Pete and I began talking about some stuff. There was a newspaper on the table, with a headline about Tibetan protests and the Olympic Torch.

"I don't know what to make of this," Pete said. "It just seems to be in the news because of the Olympics."

"Yeah," I said, "I mean, Darfur is still happening, and Iraq and all that other stuff...Tibet's a cause celebre, but you could argue that it's about something larger. It's not just the Beastie Boys throwing a concert, it's a part of a wider criticism of the Chinese government, who treat not just Tibetans but a billion of their own people like shit."

"Ok, fair enough," he replied. He was worried, though, that he might sound racist at what he was about to say. Keep in mind that my friend is a Sri Lankan who says "nigga" in public like it aint no thang. Call him a product of diversity, if you will...Anyway, he continued: "Haven't the Chinese people always had a shitty government? And even if there's a revolution, don't you think they'll always have a government like that?"

Here's where the hippie lady interjected with her own disclaimer. "Can I just say something?" she said. "I just see the Chinese people like ants, they just move all over the place in these neat little lines and they consume. They consume everything...like little ants!"

I think Pete was no longer worried about being called a racist.

She told us about how the Chinese had even consumed her neighbourhood bank machine. "I was taking out some cash in the Beaches, and I could see the instructions in three languages. English, French and Chinese! I mean, c'mon, I don't see why my yuppie white neighbourhood needs Chinese all over the place!"

I wondered if she'd at all have a problem with her bank machine giving her instructions in Jamaican patois. Would she mind if instead of "Welcome", the teller screen said something like "Big Up Mi Bredrin Most High, I and I...Selassie Rastafariaiieeeee!" She'd probably be ok with that happening, especially if the transaction record came out as a pack of gold-red-and-green rolling papers.




She finished with her least subtle point: "If you think about it, a lot of negative things originate from China. Like SARS."

"AIDS began in Africa," I pointed out. "But we don't assign it to blacks, do we?"

"That's different!" she said. "Look at the way the Chinese consume things!" She had to hammer that point home again.

I reminded her that Canadians, per capita, consume more energy and resources than any other nation of people on earth. She shrugged it off by saying she didn't have a computer, a cell phone, or even a toaster, and that she actually didn't miss hot dried out bread at all.