I waved a final goodbye to Mr. Singh. He waved back at us and smiled. Then he turned and disappeared among the wrecks. Thank goodness the bullies were gone, although it would have been fun to toss a couple of rocks at them.
“He’s a nice guy,” I said.
“Pretty nice. You should have seen your face when you turned around and saw him.”
“My face? You should have seen your face! I thought you were going to wet your pants!” I exclaimed.
“Can you blame me?” he asked.
“Not really,” I admitted. “He’s an Arab, right?”
“He’s Sikh.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“They’re from India.”
“And they all wear those turbans?”
“Not all of them, but many do. I can’t believe you don’t know about Sikhs.”
“There’s none where I used to live.”
“That’s hard to believe. They’re everywhere,” he said.
“Not everywhere. Not in my town,” I said.
“Well, everywhere around here.”
“I’ve seen them around here, but I’ve never talked to one,” I said.
“Of course you have. What about Aminder in our class?” Simon asked.
“He’s Sikh?”
“Of course he is. Do you think that thing on his head is a new fashion trend?” Simon asked.
“But it’s not the same as the one Mr. Singh had,” I said.
“That’s because he’s still a boy. When Aminder gets older, he’ll replace that cloth with a full turban, just like Mr. Singh’s.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know.” He shook his head.
“I can’t believe there are no Sikhs where you used to live. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me there are no Koreans.”
I shook my head.
“None?” he said.
“There was one kid who was Chinese.”
“Chinese is way different from Korean. How did you know he was Chinese?”
“He told me, and I even heard him speaking Chinese.”
Simon laughed. “There’s no such language as Chinese.”
“Of course there is! What language do you think Chinese people speak, Japanese?”
“People from Japan speak Japanese. People from China usually speak either Cantonese or Mandarin.”
“Mandarin, like the restaurant near our school?”
“Why do you think it’s named that?” Simon asked.
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Mandarin is the official language of China. There are eight hundred and fifty million people who speak it, compared to only about seventy million who speak Cantonese.”
“So he was probably speaking Mandarin,” I said.
“Maybe not. More Cantonese-speaking people come to North America than Mandarin, so he could have been speaking Cantonese.” Simon paused. “But he could have been speaking Wu. There are more Wu speakers than Cantonese. Or even Min Nan or—”
“Are you making this stuff up?” I asked.
“Of course not. I think China has over a dozen different languages. Think about it. You’re from Canada, do you speak Canadian?”
“I speak English. Just like people from England speak English and people from France speak French. Are you sure Chinese people don’t speak Chinese?”
“What about Rupinder? He’s from India, so does he speak Indian?” Simon asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“The official languages of India are Hindi and English, but there are over twenty-two official languages in different regions across the country.”
“I didn’t know that. Wait, Mr. Spence was talking about that the other day, right?”
“Yeah. When he was talking about the languages we posted on the class bulletin board,” Simon said.
“It’s hard for me to keep it all straight. At my old school everybody just spoke English,” I said.
“How boring. Remember what Mr. Spence said about Toronto being the most multicultural place in the entire world?” he asked.
“I remember,” I said. “And speaking of different languages, what languages is our school newsletter in?” I asked. I didn’t know what they were, but I remembered that there were four of them.
“English, of course,” he said.
“That one I had figured out. What are the other three?”
“Mandarin.”
“I guess I should have known that.”
He laughed. “Then there’s Arabic and Hindi.”
“So Hindi is for Rupinder and Raj and Emal.”
“Not Emal. He’s from Pakistan, not India, so his family speaks Urdu.”
“Would Mr. Singh from the junkyard speak Hindi?” I asked.
“Hindi and at least one other language, but maybe a couple, besides English. Most people speak two or three languages.”
“I speak a little French,” I said, feeling defensive.
“From what I can tell from French class, you speak very little French,” he said.
I would have argued with him if it wasn’t true.
“Okay, so let me say this in English,” I said. “Thanks for standing up to those guys with me.”
“What choice did I have?”
“You could have taken off when he offered to let you go,” I said.
“Friends stick together.”
“And you’re saying you didn’t at least think about taking him up on his offer and walking away?” I asked.
“Not a chance. There was no way I was going to walk away.” He paused. “I was giving serious thought to running away, fast, like a Korean rocket, leaving behind a trail of flames like in the roadrunner cartoons.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t.”
“There was no way I was going anywhere after that rickshaw comment. There’s nothing wrong with being Chinese, or anybody else, but I hate it when people assume we’re all the same. Or worse, they assume I’m not Canadian because of the way I look. I’m just as Canadian as you,” he exclaimed.
I held up my hands. “No argument from me. You speak Canadian better than I do.”
He laughed and gave me a slap on the back.
“That guy wasn’t the brightest,” I said. What I didn’t say was that the first time I saw Simon, I thought he was Chinese and I was surprised by his perfect English.
“You know, you shouldn’t talk about anybody not being too bright,” Simon said. “You were ready to get beaten up for a bunch of stupid cats. How smart is that?”
“They needed our help,” I said.
“And we almost needed the help of a team of trained doctors. Try not to do that again, at least until I become a doctor.”
“You want to be a doctor?”
“I’m Korean,” he said and shrugged. “I’m expected to become a doctor or a lawyer, or something with a lot of education where I can make a lot of money and make my parents proud.”
“You’d be a pretty good doctor,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“Not that I’d ever let you take care of me, unless of course I got hit in the head with a rock or something,” I said.
“Let’s hope only the doctor part of that comes true.”