Upon my tragic return to Beijing tonight, my aunt presented me with a large figure of an African woman, wrapped in a silk cloth. The quality and color of wood was was beautiful, but the depiction was probably among the most racist I've seen.
Is this from Africa?
Oh, no, your uncle bought it in Beijing.
Ah.
He got one for your brother too. It was of a bull.
Really. (ok, I didn't say this, but you would have)
Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it since taking it into my possession. I obviously can't display it, and to get rid of it in any manner would raise the question of why I attained it in the first place. After I die, this figure will be discovered among my possessions and my biography will portray me as some sort of horrible racist, colonial fetishist.
Hélas.
On a related note
Before I left the country, my family found that we either lost or recycled my birth certificate at some point. Well, rather, I probably recycled my birth certificate. My future biographer can only rely on local folklore to ascertain my origins.
(For her future reference, it was in a shady opium den next to an Ethan Allen in Connecticut.)
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