I can only explain to people back home what things are like here only so well. It’s somewhat difficult to discuss what the racial tensions are like, what daily situations are like, or the bad grammar that rural South Africans really have. So instead of explaining it, you will hear it straight out of the dragon’s mouth. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you the best quotes from South Africa and perhaps the most controversial as well.
Real quotes from real people. Some quotes are translated from Siswati to English.
“Hello China how are you?” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A 7 year old boy in my village inquiring how I am doing. My response being my name is not China and I’m not from there.
“Hello mlungu how are you?” - A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-Same 7 year old boy in my village inquiring how I am doing. He explained that if I’m not a China then I’m a mlungu or a white person/foreigner.
“Hello Sibusiso how are you?”- A Village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-Same 7 year old boy in my village inquiring how I am doing. After several days of explaining my name is not China or Mlungu and that my name is Sibusiso, he finally caught on.
“You’re still whiter than the people that serve him coffee.” – Pretoria/Tshwane, capital of South Africa
-A fellow PCV’s response after a white South African spoke to me in Afrikaans. The above statement was a response to my question of “what about me (being of Asian heritage) would indicate that I speak of Afrikaans?”
“I cannot believe your parents would actually let you live in the townships with the black people.”
-Pretoria/Tshwane
-An Afrikaaner man during a discussion we were having as to what I was doing in South Africa.
“They say Apartheid is over, but then why are we the black people still suffering? Why is it that all the white people have all the money and all the black people are poor? Why is it that the only chance for a decent living for the black man is to serve under the white man. They say Apartheid is finished, but I assure you it is still the same.” – A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A black man in my village during a discussion of what some of the underlying issues that need to be addressed before any real progress can move forward.
“I love when people say ‘borrow me’ may I borrow or can I borrow. It’s just so much more efficient.
-A fellow PCV giving her opinion on the statement ‘borrow me’ vs ‘can I borrow’.
“Can you borrow me your pen?” – A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A student I help tutor asking me if I can let him borrow a pen.
“Can you borrow me R20?” – A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-One of my coworkers asking if I can let her borrow R20.
“Borrow me your bling.” – A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A village rapper before the start of making a rap video, asking a fellow PCV if he can let him wear his gold necklace so he has more bling during the video.
“Is that your son?” – A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A young boy pointing at my friend a fellow PCV that is blatantly a female and around my age. My response was yes. She is my son.
“Sometimes I wish I was white or at least born in an area where there are a lot of white people since I hear the schools are amazing. Maybe then I’d have a chance.” – A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A kid in the village as he looks around at the dilapidated area around him and a score of 9/30 on this quiz which happened to be the highest score in his 67 person class. 2nd highest score was a 5/30.
“Better start running India.” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A kid in my village informing me I better start running after the police started firing rubber bullets into the crowd after he started running.
“We’re bringing you back home, back to India where you belong.” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A police officer after he arrested me for walking on the street and subsequently tried to deport me back to India where I belong. He claimed the reason I was detained was because I was inciting racial violence during a riot.
“YOU! PASSPORT! NOW!” –A police checkpoint on the way to Nelspruit
-A police officer demanding documentation from me (and only me despite 15 other people being in the taxi) after our mini-bus taxi was stopped at a police checkpoint. He informed me that the reason he asked because he thought that I was potentially trafficking people over the South Africa-Mozambique border because there was a large influx of Thai prostitutes during the World Cup.
“You Indian people think you are so smart don’t you? Think you are good business people…You think you can come into our villages and take over our businesses leaving nothing for us black people. Think you are so smart as you try to go to Naas to go back to work at Patel, but say you are going to Block B so you can save R1.” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A man working at my local mini-bus taxi rank as I try to go to my village that does not have a mini-bus taxi going directly into it and instead goes via Naas plaza (my shopping town). The man thought that I was an Indian person that worked at a hardware store called Patel that is owned by people of South Asian descent and that I was trying to cheat him out of R1 by saying I was going into Block B instead of where I allegedly work. This happened on more than 1 occasion.
“He doesn’t work for Patel. He works at the home based care in Block B trying to help people with HIV. Show some respect.” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A woman at the mini-bus taxi rank that explained to the above man the actual situation. After the third time I was harassed by the above man.
“Of course you don’t think it’s that dangerous. The reason being no black people are going to mess with you because they think you’re Jackie Chang or something.
-A discussion I had with a white South African as to the safety issues of riding a mini-bus taxi or being around the taxi ranks not realizing that the guy is named Jackie Chan, not Jackie Chang.
“Ni hao?” Witbank, home of Eskom the biggest electrical company in South Africa
-a black South African working at the mini-bus taxi rank asking me how I am in Chinese.
“Wait you’re not from China?” –Nelspruit, capital of Mpumalanga
-a black South African working at the taxi rank sparking up conversation with me.
“Ah sorry I thought you were a China or something.”-Johannesburg, 2nd biggest city on the African continent
-An Afrikaaner sparking up conversation with me.
“You are not a China?” –Port Elizabeth, capital of the Eastern Cape and a major port city
-A China disappointed that I wasn’t a China.
“I cannot believe you North Koreans beat us in the soccer last week. I thought you guys weren’t allowed out of your country.”
-An Afrikaaner man after I informed him I was Vietnamese and that is where my family is from.
“I don’t know how you Japanese people do it. I mean the whole Kamikazee thing. It just seems like a totally ineffective battle strategy.”
-An Afrikaaner man after I informed him I was Vietnamese and that is where my family is from.
“Vietnam… Wasn’t there a war there a few decades back? Yeah I think I’ve heard of it. Near Japan right?”
-An Afrikaaner man after I informed him I was Vietnamese and that is where my family is from.
“Obviously there were a lot of things that were terrible about Apartheid, the segregation, human rights violations, police brutality, the killings, the list goes on. But for me I think the worst thing about Apartheid was the loss of human potential. You think about all the problems of South Africa, that span from a lack of doctors, HIV/AIDS, lack of engineers, to massive poverty in the townships and the rural areas, and it makes me think what if during the Apartheid era we didn’t deny those people an education, didn’t restrict their freedoms and their opportunities… I wonder if South Africa would have those problems today if the people that suffered under Apartheid were given a chance.”
-An Afrikaaner woman giving a tour to a few people on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town
“The teacher took out his belt and started beating me. He whipped me 7 times with his belt. It hurt to even stand afterwards. He said to the class afterwards let this be a lesson to all of you that come late to class but sometimes there was no reason for us being beaten. I was afraid of going to school but I didn’t want to disappoint my mother. So I went and the beatings continued.” –A village in central Mpumalanga
-A man speaking about what it was like going to school during Apartheid
“How can we discipline our children if these laws are in place? What will make them stop going crazy? They are starting to go absolutely wild with no control. These laws protecting children’s rights are destroying our culture.” –A village in central Mpumalanga
-A woman speaking about anti-corporal punishment laws and how she thought it was affecting South African society
“A lot of the educators around South Africa keep saying how they cannot stop the learners in their classrooms from misbehaving. How they are not willing to learn. How with the new anti-corporal punishment laws in place the teachers cannot control their classes and cannot discipline children when they misbehave. The educators say the learners have no respect for the teachers. That may be true as it is a reality here in South Africa, but as a teacher myself I can say that they are not totally right. Kids respect knowledge. Kids respect the fact that you respect their ability to understand the material you teach. And they also respect good teaching abilities. And if you have those things and do those things then they will respect you as an educator. You will then see the true willingness to learn amongst learners in South Africa. But you cannot blame some of these teachers that they themselves went through a system of Apartheid that did not allow them to learn the things that these learners today are learning. There was no access to physics or maths or arts. They were simply taught skills and knowledge that made them effectively servants to work under white people like how to clean or how to cook or how to fix an engine, but not letting them understand why an engine truly worked. Higher education standards was not a reality as there was a fear of knowledge is power and if black people had too much knowledge they would then take power away from the whites. They were beaten if they asked any critical questions. Critical thinking was not allowed. If all the teachers these days went through this system and that’s all they know and were never taught the material that they are teaching. Then why should we be surprised that the state of South African schools 16 years after Apartheid is this bad?” –A village in central Mpumalanga
-A young teacher born at the end of the Apartheid era but matured through the beginning years of independence giving his thoughts on South African educators/teachers
“Looking at the crumbling health systems, increasing HIV/AIDS, the increasing poverty, and the problems that a relatively rich nation has in comparison to the rest of Africa… Sometimes I really do think in some cases we were better off under Apartheid.” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A black female nurse after I asked her what her thoughts were on the progress of the health of South Africa
“Living on the borders of Mozambique and Swaziland. It should not shock you that here in Block B there are more Mozambiquans and Swazis in this area than actual South Africans. In fact at one point almost 80% of the students at this school were from Mozambique. It broke my heart to know that none of them would be allowed to graduate since they did not hold South African IDs. It seems another promising generation of youth will also fail like our generation did because of the way the schools are.” –A village in Eastern Mpumalanga
-A local school principal discussing migration issues along the border of Mozambique and Swaziland in our area
“So you came to see me die too?”
-A man after he asked me if I could cure his AIDS and I said I could not. He died 2 days later.
“Don’t worry. I wear a condom every time and I go for testing every 3 months like I’m supposed to.”
-A young friend of mine in the village after I went to talk to him about his “risky behavior” and rumors that he is sleeping around. It’s a start.
“Did you drive here from America?” A village in Central Mpumalanga
-A child in the village asking about how I got to South Africa.
“The movie Invictus was alright. It was a little too Hollywood American and it probably would have been better if there were more South Africans in it. Also I think that it left this large impression that the problems concerning racial tension and divisions in South Africa are over, when it clearly is not.”
-An Afrikaaner man giving me his thoughts on the movie Invictus and the lingering racial
Issues in South Africa.
“But everyone has DSTV (satellite TV) in South Africa right?”-Port Elizabeth, capital of the Eastern Cape
-An Afrikaaner woman after her boyfriend was explaining to me that it was unfortunate that the only access to independent news stations that are not owned by the government are only accessible through satellite TV, which ultimately affects the bias in news coverage.
“No I would say that there really is only about 8 percent of South Africans have DSTV and that an extreme majority of black South Africans do not have DSTV or satellite Television.”
-Her boyfriend’s reaction to the above statement.
“The Afrikaaner is indeed uniquely African.”
-Nelson Mandela
“No the only real African is the black man.”
-A Black South African giving his thoughts on whether he thought that Afrikaaners are to be considered real Africans.
“There not African they are Dutch, they should get over themselves.” –Pretoria, South Africa
-An English South African proving that there is racial tensions even amongst different white ethnicities in South Africa.
“I can see why some would not consider us to be indigenous Africans but the matter of fact is over 6 generations of my family have been in this country and have been calling home for all that time. I hope that one day that the black South Africans that have this view can consider me proudly South African as well.”
-An Afrikaaner explaining why he sees himself as truly African and his hopes that the racial divide can be bridged in South Africa and all South African people of all races can be seen as truly African.
“Eish! Zulus. A bunch of pompous arrogant pricks if you ask me.” -Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape
-A Xhosa man proving that there are racial tensions amongst different black ethnicities in South Africa.
More quotes to come someday soon!
thank you for sharing! i remember hearing some similar quotes in south africa. jackie chang is funny though ;-)
ReplyDeletegreetings from germany
- Anja
Unbelievable. After the World Cup I would think with Japan, South Korea, and North Korea would have exposed the South Africans to other nationalities of Asia. But I guess the Chinese that were hired by NK are all they remember!
ReplyDeleteFunny though about the last name "Chang" who knew the letter G makes that much of a difference.