In Indonesia, there are 3 social classes (we won’t admit it, but it’s there for anyone who happen to be in Indonesia to see):

1. Native Indonesian.
(I belong to this class)
Is the lowest. We’re labeled as poor, uneducated, stubborn, uncivilized.
In malls we are being watched as if we’re all shoplifters, we’re not treated like a cusomer.

2. The Chinese.
They always worry the natives would raid their neighborhood, while…
The natives always worry about when our Chinese employers give us a raise (salary).

3. The White.
This is the highest class. Your salary is usually about 10 times higher than the skilled-and-educated-kind-of-native’s, while…
The natives are wearing out their body just to have at least something to eat.

(*My brother and I could only wish for and envy that kind of “free ride” as we worked our way through university (while knowing that being able to get into an American university and work our butts off to get through to graduation was a middle-class American advantage that many people elsewhere would (and sometimes did) die for.))

The one typical American middle-class advantage he doesn’t have, though, is that he’s not white. Both my nephews are adopted, and while his brother and everyone else in our family is white, his birth father was Polynesian.
(His genome map may be closer to yours than to mine: is that wierd or what?)

Nevvie’s black hair, almond eyes, and delicately-dark-tan skin make him a very handsome lad; but have also gained him a lot of grief growing up among almost all white schoolmates. Coming home to a family that worries almost constantly about stuff like sunburn and skin cancer probably didn’t help much either.

Told you I was ambiguous about the birth of Great Nevvie: it’s wonderful, it’s terrible, I admire Nevvie’s determination and bravery and stubborn fortitude, I am blazingly angry with him for getting himself into such a stupid and limiting situation –
- and my heart melts completely at just the thought of seeing my new infant Great-Nevvie.

Oh, why doesn’t everybody in the world behave just exactly like I think they should? :) :) :)

(Half the time, even I don’t behave like I think should. :) )