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| 2008
ProgramAuthorsVideo
Media |
Extract
from Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung
Here they all are, standing carefully on the curb at a road
crossing – my
grandmother, my father, my mother and my Aunt Que. It is early morning, and their
grins are so wide that it seems they all went to bed with clothes hangers shoved
in their mouths to save storage space at the Midway Migrant Hostel. “Wah!
Look at that!” cries my grandmother as they meander down the street draped
in their De Paul finery, exclusive new arrivals from the St Vincent line. A polyester
peasant blouse covers my mother’s protruding belly with purple pansies,
and she has carefully coordinated her white low-heeled pumps with pink Adidas
pants. Aunt Que sashays around in a brown dress and a fifty-cent jacket that
has real fur on the collar and real mothballs in the pockets. She is followed
by my father, sauntering in his fine denim bell-bottoms with brown plastic thongs.
He is wearing one of those shirts with the wide fl aping collars that point like
two arrows at the women on either side of him. Woohoo, look here at my stunning
sister and my spectacular wife. Finally, my grandmother pads along in a light-blue
cotton pajama suit she has sewn herself. A pair of sunglasses sits on top of
her head – a second pair of eyes gazing skywards, beseeching the Lord Buddha
to bless St Vincent and his kind fraternity for vesting the family with such
finery. |
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