Tourist
transport
Sunday afternoon, just past two pm
I'm at Flinders street station
My unlimited 2 hours tram, train and bus travel has ended
I'm five cents short of another ticket
No destination, and no plans for the day
Footy's on there's solidarity in blue and red scarfs, jackets and beanies
A vermilion tram rolls behind the yellow and greens
City Circle it advertises itself
The pedestrian lights beep green
I follow the small team of footy revelers crossing the street
I pause at the tram stop and look up
"Catch the City Circle Tram Here: For A Free Ride around Melbourne"
Melbourne, the city of trams and light rail networks
I hop on for a tram ride
As there's hardly anything free except for walking
"Welcome to Melbourne's city circle trams.." a disembodied
voice welcomes its passengers
Like a dutiful tourist, I pick a brochure and sit in a corner
Across the aisle a family of three
The brochure unfolds to a map of the tram route and points of interests
Trying to distinguish the tourists from the locals, I make stereotypical
guesses
Tourists are pouring over their maps of Melbourne, speak languages beside
English, and look excited about buildings
Across me, on the left two white men and a woman speak in German
They occasionally laugh, shift in their seats, look up and I hear footy
in their conversation
The tram rolls slowly past Federation Square, Kennett's ongoing legacy,
a belated commemoration to the centenary of Australia under a central
federal government
I catch an Indigenous place name, Birrarung Marr
I scan the brochure for a description
There's none that I can see
Passengers embark and disembark
The German tourists get off near Parliament Station and Hard Rock Cafe
On La Trobe Street, in between RMIT and the State Library
Two young women get on and sit opposite me
They carry bundles of plastic bags which they prop between their legs
The one with long brown hair has a calendar sticking out
She looks across at the family of three
A little girl chatters excitedly next to her mom, her dad smiles benevolently
"Hello, what have you got there?", the young woman says
An opening in a tram of strangers here for a free disembodied tour of
Melbourne's colonial buildings and place names
The little girl is keenly animated, but controlled in her seat like
her mechanical puppy in the box
An exchange of smiles and conversation begins between the mother and
young women
"Did you go to the Markets?"
"We've just been there."
"Its great, isn't it?"
"The markets are brilliant."
"Have you been to Melbourne before?"
"Yes. We're from Sydney. And you girls?"
"New Zealand." No
one asks where I am from
I can pass now as a local having lived in Melbourne for 11 years
A local with an outdated Malaysian passport and no citizenship papers
After warm farewells the family disembarks, and there's the Saturday
Age on the vacated seats
I cross the aisle, pick up the paper and flip through yesterday's
news
As I'm about to put it down, I find a black and white ad for the Immigration
Museum
Above the painting of a white girl, a top naked Aboriginal boy, and
what looks like the back of an Asian girl holding hands in a circle,
There is a heading: 'we are australian'
It says, "Three hundred Australian artists have contributed work
to honour the cultural diversity of Australia"
The sponsors have their national identity enshrined and stamped officially
'WE ARE AUSTRALIAN', DIMIA, 'YOU ME AUSTRALIAN', 'OzLink'
The tram makes a turn from Spencer onto Flinders Street
"... and to your left is the Immigration Museum..."
I end my free ride just before Flinders Street station
And on the metal pole with the tram timetables, a sticker catches
my eye
It states in white borders around the Australian flag, 'Young and
Free'
in conflict with the handwritten red texta "We are on Aboriginal
land"
confusion
inside a carriage
you'll get confused
staring out the wide windows of a train carriage at night
you'll catch the city lights
or your own reflection
Raw
meat market
the last time i was in the meat section of a market was in kuala lumpur
it was hot, i was sticky with sweat and my throat was dry
i'd walked in to rows of crowded hanging body parts by mistake
it was a landscape of red, pink and purple on soiled month old newspapers
there was blood on the bitumen washed away by tap water
some animal's throat had just been sliced
live animals locked in cages and crates next to dead carcasses
the smell of raw meat made me swallow vomit
i coughed, and just as my stomach was about to heave
there was the exit
this time i found myself wandering in to the meat section at the Queen
Vic Markets
i stared down at the cut up, carved up red meat
under allocated stalls of glass paneling and zinc tops
looking up to hangings of internal and external body organs next to
bundles of white and blue plastic bags
my eyes rushed past the red and pink squares and rectangles arranged
on rows of white trays
the butchers and their staff were in aprons and hats
And under the dizzy glare of fluorescent lamps
i found myself staring at the tags of blue prints and red dollar signs
there was a name for everything
lamb shanks, beef flanks, minced meat, pork trotters, ox tripe, chicken
schnitzels, drummettes
i walked out not about to buy anything and had a sip of water
Welcome
to hell
No need to worry about your future, old age or death
You'll be chopped, sliced, minced and diced
Your heart, head, feet, tongue, liver, breast, shoulder, leg, neck
on display for a price
No need to worry about your future, old age or death
You have come to the right place, the lucky country
Join the queue, but don't jump your turn
Every one will be tagged and priced according to their weight
There is always the right price for freedom
An
elderly man props on an open car door
Feeding the pigeons as he does every week
when he finishes he realises he'd fed them liver instead of bread.
"Can I have one with more meat?"
The butcher raises his cleaver, and slices into the flesh. The plastic
chopping board turns bloody
You want the head or the feet?
I want the tongue.
The tongue is the choice-ist morsel there is.
Snippets
"Attention Platform 1, the 7:19 Eltham train via Flinders and
Parliament is now approaching"
you can play hide and seek
around the corners of these dark cream skin coloured station
up and down the escalators and four platforms
ignore the orange digits recording time
And portholes to another destination
Leftovers
MXs thrashed, or left on the seats for another quick read
not many seagulls at night
pecking at leftovers
tonight there's sausage rolls, popcorn, fried chips, melted ice cream
and a burger
"passengers for the Sandringham line, please wait at platform
one"
styrofoam cups, takeaway containers, plastic fork and knife, cigarette
butts, boot marks
imprints from tonight
until tomorrow, another day
different rubbish except for the MXs
"The
next train to depart on the Werribee line is on Platform 3"
Screen flickers Werribee, the suburb stops, and the time in white
print
2 minutes
1 minute
MXs, books, magazines fold under arms or inside bags
Passengers stand along the long yellow line before the empty tracks
Whistle warning and a long hoot
Two piercing light orbs shine from the tunnel
A long silver caterpillar arrives
Passengers inside and outside crowd around the doorways of the carriages
Unconsciously choreographing an exchange of arrival and departure
"Stand clear please. Doors closing. Train now departing" |
