Rhonda Bracey: At Random

It was like something out of a 1930s movie depicting British colonial times. In front and to the side of me on the flight from Hong Kong was a family of six: grandparents, parents, and two toddlers. The first thing I noticed about this family was the incredibly plummy English accents, and the exclamatory statements about everything. You know, “Thenk ewe!”, “Oh, Betsy has a glass of champagne! Jolly good, Betsy!” etc. So, everyone has an accent and some people talk in exclamation marks – big deal. It was what happened next that made this like something out of an old movie.

As the family arrived and started settling in to their seats, I noticed that there were another two people with them – an aging Chinese woman (Betsy) and a youngish Chinese boy perhaps in his late teens. This was the Betsy of the champagne.

After a short while, Betsy and the young boy handed the toddlers back to the parents, then were shoo-ed back to their Economy class seats by the “oh, so colonial” grandparents. Both carers popped back in to Business class during the flight, presumably to take care of the toddlers. We couldn’t have Mummy and Daddy doing that, now could we?