Have you ever been in a situation where you want to do something but you end up just not doing anything? It could be anything from a brawl or an accident, it doesn’t even have to be anyone you know. When I went to Canberra for the Nicta Showcase there was an incident where it appeared that a man was assaulting a woman trying to snatch a purse out of her hands. She was screaming “Get away”, “Stop it” etc etc but nobody did anything. A whole block full of people observing her screams but nobody did anything. This one woman screamed across the block “Leave her alone! I’m going to call the cops!” yet I don’t think she did. After a while I’m not too sure what had happened, everything was quiet and we moved on.

Today I visited MSY, the line went up to the door. At first I thought it would be a boring wait but things got a bit interesting. At the first counter was a man in his mid forties talking above the normal speaking level at the shop assistant, demanding for some sort of “Hardware Faulty” document. Personally I felt that if you’re purchasing from MSY you shouldn’t really complain. You don’t go to MSY for the service, you go there for the MW(cheapness). Anyway, this man began yelling over the counter, the MSY sales people began walking around the shop doing who knows what. Personally I feel this is just another example of a Gaijin Smash. What is a Gaijin Smash? It’s when a white man just stomps over the little Asian. If it was another Asian dude, I’m sure they would be able to handle it calmly. But in this case it just seemed like they didn’t  know what to do. As this was happening, the man began explaining to his “girlfriend” this concept of “warranty” etc etc. As he was speaking the salesclerk interrupted him. Now if this was a normal situation nobody would be fussed when interrupted by a salesclerk but this guy just tore into the guy, “DO NOT INTERRUPT ME WHEN I’M SPEAKING. IT’S RUDE. WAIT UNTIL I AM FINISHED.”

The man then began to try explaining the situation again to the salesclerk who merely stood there with a blank expression. The man then said something along the lines of “I’ll say it in the simplest of English so you can understand”…proceeded to explain in this extremely patronising way…and then ended it with “That’s the simplest way I can put it in ENGLISH, if you have a dictionary I’ll translate it for you”. Another salesclerk came over and told this gentleman to move to another counter as to  not hold up the line and inconvenience the other customers. He moved to another counter after having made yet another smart remark about the situation. He tried to tell the salesclerk what to do after which he made another comment about understanding simple English…

To my surprise somebody yelled out “FUCK OFF, get out of here you racist prick”. At first I didn’t know what was going on but I knew things were going to get a lot more interesting. The man that was yelling, let’s call him Tony for simplicity, walked towards him as if him to try and scare the man that exclaimed aloud, let’s call him Bob. Bob then yelled out “You shouldn’t be so rude to these people, why can’t you treat them like a gentleman?!” At this point the “girlfriend” held him back. At this stage I thought that it was all over. Everybody would settle down but Bob said something which made me ROFL on the inside. He said “Yeah, look after your boyfriend although you look like his daughter.” At this point there was a lot of yelling and swearing where Tony began saying crap like “Why don’t you go back to where you came from you convict” and “At least I have a country!”.

In the end, Tony somewhat got what he wanted and made another comment somewhere along the lines of “Fuck you, you fucking convict asshole” before leaving the store. I just found it rather ironic that a man who comes from a country stereotyped for terrorism is attacking an Australian for being a convict. The insult “Go back to where you came from” shouldn’t really be considered an insult, it shouldn’t even be used by anybody that’s not of Aboriginal descent. What I found more ironic was the fact that of all the people in the store it was the minority group that decided to stick up for the salesclerk.

Could there have been a better way to resolve the above situation without having to result to swearing or aggression? Probably.

As I was walking home I began to wonder what would happen if everybody in the line at MSY were people I knew. Who would have said anything? What would they say? Maybe next time when I encounter a similar situation I might step up and say something.

Edit:

Clarifications: Tony is of Lebanese descent and Bob looked Australian.