Bird's Hair

This photo has been titled “Being Black in China”. It reminds me very much of being White in South Africa, although I don't have a photo to show it. Waiting for dinner one evening in a Black home, a young girl stood silent behind me and breathed in my hair. I asked her her name. She didn't answer. I asked her if she went to school. She didn't answer. Then her little fingers began to feel my hair, and to stroke it. I said to wife E., before she became my wife: “Your hair is like lamb's wool.” She said: “Your hair is like bird's hair.” Birds have no hair of course.  Presumably if they did, it would be delicate and supple.