It was a quiet night in Ron’s last night when all of a sudden the door opened and there was a distinct odour of sweet and sour sauce and monosodium glutamate. I looked up to see a Chinese man staring right at me. Normally this would have me reaching for my inside pocket. Not this time.
“TWINTY MAJORRR. HOW DE FECK ARE YE BOY?” he roared.
“Malachy Wong!” says I. “It’s been a long fucking time.”
“Dat it has ya langer. Now, are ya goin’ ta buy me a pint or am I goin’ ta have to do me kung-fu on ya like?”
So I bought him a pint and we got talking. Malachy Wong is a bloke me and Jimmy met in Cork one night we were down there for purely recreational purposes and not to put manners on some lad who had stolen a car Jimmy had stolen just an hour before. Feeling a bit peckish we stopped in at ‘The Golden Pond’ to grab a takeaway and Malachy was behind the counter. We asked him directions and being the kind and adventurous soul that he is he decided to follow us in case we got lost.
As it happened that was a good thing as the lad we were going down to talk to had four older brothers who were all built like fucking tanks. Jimmy hit one of them in the head with a piece of timber as thick as a government minister and he didn’t even flinch. As we retreated to our car to get out of there and come back another time there was a high-pitched shriek and in came Malachy and he Ju-Jitsued the shite out of all them.
“Tought ya might need a hand ya pair o gobshites”, he said and since then we’ve been firm friends. Fate brought us together and it was fate that brought his parents to Cork in 1962. They were heading for England to make a new life but the bloke that was smuggling them from the tip of France died and their boat drifted for days and days before it washed up in a little village called Baltimore. From there they made their way to the city and opened up the first Chinese takeaway in Ireland. As a tribute to the first man to help them onshore they named their first, and only, son ‘Malachy’.
“So what are you doing up here?” I asked him.
“Well, I need to get a copy of me birth cert so I thought I’d pay you a visit, boyo. How’s Jimmy?”
“Still a bollix, Malachy.”
“Ahh, some tings never change, eh? C’mere an’ I tell you though. Had a right laugh wit da young lad in the offices of Births, Deaths and Marriages. He made me fill out a form like, asking all kinds of shite like name, address, date of birth, and what ethnic group I belong to.”
“Right…”
“So I filled de feckin’ ting out and he calls me over and says ‘I tink you’ve got dis bit wrong here’. So I says ‘No, I don’t', and he says ‘I reckon ya do an’ all’ so I says ‘I’m telling ya I dooooon’t’. So he’s looking at me sorta biting his tongue and he says ‘Now I don’t wantcha ta tink dat I’m bein’ racist or nothin’ like dat, right, but there’s no way you’re white.’”
“He has a point, you know.”
“I know, ya spanner. Shut up. Anyway, I says ‘I am what I am and de box I’m after tickin’ is the one that applies to me’ so he says ‘Well, with the greatest respect an’ all I don’t tink it does’. So I pretend to be all aggravated and start swearin’ Chinese and runnin’ round the walls like Crouching Tiger Thingy Thingy. ‘Get yer supervisor in here. NOW!’ I shout so off he goes and a couple o’ minutes later in walks a fella with a big square jaw and curly hair.”
“Is that right?”
“It is. So he says ‘Mr Wong, I have discussed this case with my underling here and although you might think you’re white you’re not white so you can’t pick that box’ so I say ‘Is it dat you don’t want people like me in the same group as you? Is dat it?’ and he gets all flustered and says ‘No, no, no. Of course not. This is strictly in the interests of accuracy’ so I say ‘So you just want to categorise people and make sure dere’s no interbreeding because God forbid you might have a ginger child with slanty eyes running around Ireland ya bigoted shitehawk. I’m off to Dail Eireann to see my TD, so I am’.
“And?”
“So he says ‘Now I don’t think that’s necessary’ and I say ‘Don’t you tell me what’s necessary. My family has been delivering Wun Tun ta da Barry family for years and they’ve got some pull, let me feckin’ tell ya. I’m goin’ to the Daily Star and the Irish Sun and de Sunday Independent…’ – ‘NO! NOT THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT’ he interrupts. ‘Look’ he says ‘I’m sure if you’re happy with the box you’ve ticked then we’re happy with the box you’ve ticked. Isn’t that right, O’Neill?’ and the first fella says ‘Sure, absolutely boss’ so I say ‘Right den, glad we’ve got it all sorted, lads’ and 10 minutes later I had me birth cert and I went down to Davy Byrnes for some oysters and a pint.”
“You’re some man for some man, Malachy”, I said. “So how does it feel to be white.”
He looked at me for a moment like I was a knacker’s turd.
“I’m not white at all, Twenty, ya clown. I’m a Cork Asian.”
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