May Day in the Pearl District

The march paraded by work yesterday and my co-workers and I stood on the sidelines handing out mini-flyers for free GED and English classes, which were eagerly snatched up by reaching hands. It flowed by as if it would never end, a sea of brown faces with a speckle of white here and there. The last march I went to showed a higher ratio of white faces among the brown, but by now so many more of the targeted population have been scared off their behinds that the white percentage has shrunk in comparison.

The usual hordes of bike cops swarmed the edges of the throngs. My pictures of them are just like the last ones I took so I won’t post them. (scroll to March 8th, 2006)

One thing I notice about protest marches is that invariably you can find the odd person who is completely off point but participating out of a love for protest marches. They’re easy to spot because they don’t bother with appropriate signage but instead root around in their garage and haul out some previously used placard – and previously can mean several decades back. This time I saw a white guy in his 60s carrying the torch for Mao. Honestly! Would someone please tell me what Maosie Dung ever did for immigration? Mr. Cultural Revolution who couldn’t even deal with any of his own people doing something slightly different? I can’t see him warming up to a tide of immigrants, can you? As IF anybody was breaking down the door to get into China while he was in power anyway. Am I missing something?

I wanted to tell that guy to go home and quit confusing people.