THE DIGNIFIED RECYCLER and SEVERAL FOODIE SLANGS

Greetings,

Although I care about pragmatic recycling and reuse, this blog has a different focus. A human one.

Have you encountered a person in utter despair and misery under impoverished circumstances? Most of us have, I’m sure. Beyond their slumped posture, what strikes me are the eyes. Those tortured, distant-gazing irises that lack ‘sparkle.’

While helping in a refugee transit camp years ago, I’d witnessed people who owned literally nothing but the tatters they stood in. Men, women and children. Babies. Many didn’t even have footwear. In desperation to escape war or oppression, they fled their homeland with scant.

It would have been frightening to abandon everything and flee. More so, when they sailed on wooden coastal fishing craft - in poor repair - not meant to convey human ‘cargo’ or traverse the open oceans, let alone laden to the gunwales. The boats brimmed with people who proceeded on mere faith. Hoping some nation welcomes them.

The pirates presented another hazard to their voyage. Those evil wretches robbed them of the only assets they could carry on those cramped vessels - jewellery, gems and watches.

His pushcart was similar to this example but wooden and larger

Let’s move closer to the present.

Have you seen a case of dignity and happiness, defying hardship and pauperised circumstances? I did lately, and it was bizarre. But brilliant.

My significant other and I were on our regular brisk walk along the beach esplanade when we spotted a chap with a homemade cart. It toted collapsed boxes, and aluminium cans and bottles in sacks hung off the sides. He was head down, rummaging about a public garbage bin. It made me wonder what forced him into recycling material for a living. I felt sorry for him.

While he was at it, bin chickens were competing for scraps within the same fertile lode. With gentleness, he shooed them away. For the uninitiated, a bin chicken is Australia’s most notorious bird, which is fast surpassing the koala or kangaroo in fame. Such that a renowned British presenter shared it on Instagram a few days ago. It’s a white ibis with a long, thin arched beak that’s ubiquitous, smelly, brazen and persistent. Tolerated by the locals. By the bye, you can’t harm or eat them. It’d been said to taste like supermarket-bought poultry, not that I’d try it.

After we’d done our distance and ‘chucked a uey’ (a true-blue Aussie phrase for a U-turn), we took a bench under a modest pavilion. I love such mornings when the sky presents as a humongous cloudless azure dome, while breezes ease my body temp. Soaking in the sun and watching and listening to the breakers is pure serenity for me, for us. It was a typical Sunday morning.

Before long, the recycler showed, parking at an adjacent pew several feet away. He was a middle-aged Asian, in tainted overalls. Without ado, he repacked his morning’s gains into a more efficient load, then sorted and rejigged the bottles and cans. In short, it resulted in increased space for further takings. He was humming as he worked, with a constant smile and contentment on his face. Leastways, that’s how it appeared.

After which, he turned to a large grubby bag hanging off the cart’s front. I’d already got a glimpse of it earlier when I walked by, and it was trash (to use an Americanism). Used fast food wrappers, boxes, cups and napkins. The likes you’d get from McDonald’s or KFC.

Magician-like, he conjured a low stool from the depths of his pushcart and set it facing the bench. Then I watched aghast as he drew bundle after bundle and laid them on his table - the bench. With a slight grin, he sat down and organised his brunch.

Nick Knowles’ comment on the Chile episode of his South America TV series sprung to mind when I saw the state of the leftovers (yuk!). On tasting raw anemone, he said, ‘… it’s a bit like licking the leg of Brighton Pier… if someone had sneezed on it first.’ You get the gist. Indeed, like Professor Alice Roberts, Knowles is a favourite.

On a separate note, I find food-wastage deplorable. If your tummy won’t accommodate a normal-sized meal, order a small one, even a kiddies’ meal. Don’t waste, please! With millions starving daily - besides the strain on food production and disposal - there’s no other way to view it. My grandmother and parents had taught me to never waste even a single grain of rice, and I took their words to heart. I understood they’d endured hunger during the Japanese Occupation. I’ll keep that story for another time.

The Oriental unwrapped the meals others threw out: a half-eaten Big Mac, an almost devoured fried chicken pack, the remains of a salad, and tiny packets of salt and pepper. Also, he had bread and a near-empty bottle of ketchup (to risk using the term I grew up with); or ‘tomato sauce’, as we Australians insist on calling the peerless condiment. It’s hilarious that the mere utterance of ‘ketchup’ here would get some people ‘spitting chips’ (yes, an Aussie jargon) over its rightful label. No bull. Seen that often enough.

And while we are on verbal taboos, we refer to ocean crawlers as prawns, not shrimps. No one Down Under calls it the latter, despite our esteemed Croc Dundee Paul Hogan and his flaunt, ‘I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for ya!’ Uttering ‘shrimp’ could gain you a range of reactions, starting from a sarcastic return to a raised eyebrow. To the meeting of both brows in a scowl, if the person saw the term as an affront to Aussie culture. Again, I’d seen it. Nuts, I know. Especially when Aussies embrace Americana, for example Halloween, without blinking.

Speaking of prawns, a naturopath once defined the crustaceans as ‘aquatic cockroaches’. He was quite right. They consumed the wastes of the sea. It put me off the exoskeleton creatures for a fortnight.

It was clear the man’s modus of dining was a routine thing. Perhaps it ensued like this for each meal? He gobbled the once-ample burger first. Thereafter, he deboned the remains of chicken, amassing everything, French Fries too, on the burger wrapper. Then, meticulous in manner, he laid out a slice of bread and placed salad on it before piling on the shredded ‘chook’ (another Aussie colloquialism, in case you aren’t aware). Finally, he added the condiments - blobs of tomato sauce and (oops, I almost forgot) the contents of tartare and mustard sachets, with S&P sprinkled for further enhancement. A second piece of bread completed the ‘sanger’ (an Aussie alteration, too).

The humble sanger also commands another slang: ‘sango.’ Still, there’s ‘sammie’, ‘sambo’ and ‘sanga.’ Heck, I reckon call it anything starting with ‘sa’ in a cafe or lunch-shop here and you’d connect the server or waiter to your wavelength. Isn’t that remarkable? If that doesn’t entice your taste buds for jargons, this may: a sanger is yet a sausage. It’d always prompted me to wonder what a sausage sandwich is thus called? Sanger-sango? It cracks me up, but what’s life without musings, hmm?

And laughing at ourselves is something we Australians love doing. It’s a quality I adore about this country.

Right, enough about sarnies.

Straight away, he hoed into his brunch with gusto. No worries (another… oh, shut up, Gabe). And washed it down with… ah, yes… half-finished cups of coffee and cola, flat, ice long melted.

I can just see Danny Miller, my protagonist in Above The Jungle Mist, pondering over the sight, thinking that he’d favour a meal of laksa. Or mee goreng. Downed by a refreshing ais limau, a fresh, iced lime juice.

His eating habits were more than a little worrying. I don’t mean the gustation clash of the sauces - the ketchup and mustard versus tartare against the salad dressing. But the health aspects of his culinary undertaking. I wouldn’t risk it. Though he appeared the antithesis of an unhealthy man. I reckon he has an iron-clad stomach, like Dr Kariya Tetsu, a character in my novel, A Noble Fate.

The bloke was, to me, already a hero for recycling, despite his apparent impetus in eking a living. His poise, however, was what struck me as impressive. Different from the typical woebegone destitute, he oozed quiet dignity, while his lined face showed spirit. There was ‘mischievous light’ in his brown eyes, which danced around. He seemed perfectly happy with his life.

I may not be psychic, but I trust my observation. I doubt someone downhearted or depressed could carry themselves with such composure and self-assuredness. Such pep.

It stirred me. And pushed me to ponder whether I could survive and hold my head high if confronted with circumstances like his? Somehow, I doubt it…… which is a rather awakening and humbling thought.

May the sauce… er, force… be with you! 😊

Best regards,

Gabe