Why are you so smart and beautiful?

Sometimes you do not realise how different people can be. Different faces, hair and skin. Different colour. They speak different languages and do not understand each other. They smile different. They use other movements to brush their teeth. Or they do not brush them.

It is amazing how these differences make people act.

I was told, my Friend, that I am White People.
I was told that white people are smart.

When we visited a school in the north of Thailand, the first question these children asked me was:

Why are you so beautiful and smart?

And I, my Friend, could not answer.

Firstly, the colour of my skin does not have any correlation with my beauty or cleverness, I believe. And I hope. Otherwise I was one of the "lucky" to be born where I was born.
Secondly, how do you know? I did not have any T-shirt saying "I am smart and beautiful". I did not solve any math case in front of them. Not physics or chemistry either. Yes, I wear glasses, but just because I can see very bad. Not an advantage at all, when you think about it.

All I could answer to their question was that I am neither smart or beautiful. I could not say more. My cleverness probably left me for a short holiday, only beauty stayed. Beautiful, but stupid - very stereotypical girl, right?

But if you ask me this question again, now I know what to answer.

I am exactly the same as you are. Not worse, not better. I sweat when it is hot and I freeze when it is cold. I have two hands, two legs, hair on my head despite they are wavy.

The Sound and Smell of Blue

this island made me lose my identity. I cannot tell exactly what it was, but most probably the combination of blue deep water, clouds reaching mountains and muezzins from the nearby mosques.

or maybe I was simply not careful enough and lost it last night watching crabs in the beach.

could be soya as well... now when I get it with every meal... Did you know, that soya makes your brain function very slow? Slower than a snail can move. And at some stage it gets so slow, that it cannot become slower. Then all the aliens point at you and give you hundreds of new names. Mostly animal names.
And then you are not able to separate between your left and right hand, but you are able to lose your identity. Without any difficulties, just with some black spots in your memory.

This is why every time I eat soya, I always think - which hand is the spoon in - left or right?

Does not sound like me?

You are right, my Friend, it was not a soya bean what took my identity away.
I gave it away.
Actually I took a big scissors and cut it off. All my identity, all my hair.
It was long and wavy. Yes, my Friend, it was.

And if you ask me why, I can answer - I do not need it here.
The sound and smell of blue make me feel balanced.

And balanced, my Friend, means when you can sit under a palm tree whole day with that smell of blue and breath. Without any feeling of guilt. Or of time.
Without any identity.