Tiffany Glass House, Square One Mississauga
[Photo By: KPA]
Yesterday I went back to the Holt Renfrew exhibition of Tiffany's small "glass house" installed right before the department store's entrance (there is a full Tiffany section within the store). It is a lovely and enchanting magic box (but more on that later).
I was walking towards it from a few yards back when I saw a woman taking photos of the installation. But there was something not quite right with the way she had positioned her "iPhone." It seemed to be pointing towards me.
To avoid a "mall picture" (I had on my big orange sun hat and could be a Tiffany model - joke, but maybe not!) I walked a full half circle around the installation. By the time I arrived at the entrance of the glass house near where the woman was standng (I was checking her out), she was indeed taking a picture of me!!
She was Chinese but I figured she could speak English.
"Are you taking a picture of me?"
No answer, but continued picture taking of, now, the installation.
I guess no English either, or a pretense of no English.
I turned to a younger woman in her twenties standing by her, and who looked like she could be her daughter, there was definitely some connection.
"If she is taking any pictures of me make sure she deletes them," I said somewhat forcefully.
Who knows what they will do, but at least I made sure that it was unacceptable to me.
There have been a large number of Chinese speaking very little English and loudly filling the mall with their Cantonese guttural language.
These are the influx of "visitors" who are coming to survey Canada for the next big deal, whether it is real estate or diamond jewelry.
But I don't think they have much money. The Chinese government has been very secretive about disclosing its real economic state, and I believe that all these "visitors" are taking advantage of the more lenient government controls on travel, and planning to immigrate to Canada. I doubt they have much money at all.
Hence all that snapping to check things out.
The woman was unfriendly. She could have at least shown me what she was doing or somehow indicated that all was OK. But her subservient smile with no additional information tells me what the future holds for our wonderful, happy multicultural mosaic.
Tiffany Glass House Reflection
Square One, Mississauga
[Photo By: KPA]
Here s my more artistic version of a snapshot of "someone."