Uncle David

We interviewed my cousin, Alison Doughty (we share an uncle) in church last night. It was a great testimony to God's provision of contentment for her, working in a polluted city with a difficult bunch of students in Thailand.

Talking to her afterwards she told me how Uncle David (Cheng) and his wife, Aunt Jennifer, used to be shunned and avoided in Bondi in the 1950s, because it was a mixed marriage—he an Australian born Chinese, she a fully Anglo Australian.

I've never heard a whisper of bitterness from either of them on this subject, or for that matter from my parents. Although mum had endless complaints about Australians; their habits, their lack of frugality, their casualness, their misuse and abuse of the English language. So if anything I grew up as a Swede thinking racist thoughts about Anglo Australians.