North Terrace
Monologue written and performed by Safa Al-bekaa (Azraq)
Browse the tour
Route A
1) Pho Minh Temple | 2) Marion Street | 3) Bankstown Gospel Hall | 4) Bankstown Library | 5) Bankstown Library | 6) Paul Keating Park |
Route B
7) Bankstown Arts Centre – RS1 | 8) Amitabha Buddhist Association | 9) Bankstown Train Station | 10) My Dads Work | 11) Bankstown Centro | | 12) Bankstown Arts Centre – Gallery
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Transcript
To most, Bankstown Centro is not considered a warm place.
As a 16-year-old, asking my friends to hang out with me at Centro came off as me asking them to partake in watching gang activities facilitated by 15 year old eshays in their Adidas tracksuits and bumbags with their Kmart speakers. Or watching a dog fight.
“Safa… it’s Bankstown. I’d rather not get shanked.”
[SFX: message notification]
The purple bubble of an Instagram message stares at me. Daring me to challenge my so-called friends’ prejudice about Bankstown. Friendly-firing from neighbouring suburbs in South West Sydney like Revesby, Cabra, Glenfield and Holsworthy – isn’t the least bit surprising. Anything to ensure that they aren’t compared to the so-called “hell” that Bankstown has been dubbed.
To most, Bankstown Centro is not considered a warm place.
[SFX: shopping centre noises]
The echoes of people’s conversations are too uncomfortable to listen to, the mixed yellow and blue-tinted fluorescent lighting is overstimulating. The Kmart that dominates the centre sends shivers down most people’s spines at the lack of stock, and overabundance of a seemingly awful time. Every corner you turn there’s kids from ages 5-16, all the same levels of menacing.
[Background noise fades out]
The women’s section stocks custom designer clothing featuring coffee stains, makeup that’s come off while trying clothes, or clothes that definitely don’t belong in that section. Going to Kmarts in suburbs like Burwood, or Macquarie is a major culture shock, because what do you mean you have stock? I’m talking e.l.f foundation in every shade, eyeshadow pans that are still sealed and new, setting powder that hasn’t exploded everywhere and, shelves that aren’t sticky with an unidentifiable substance!
Because with every shelf you attempt to browse in Kmart Bankstown, you’ll be met with a lovely selection of sticky, milky, finished drinks that were either willingly, or unwillingly finished; spilt on the shelf, or completely drunk but the person just couldn’t be arsed to keep their cup with them until they found a bin – what better way to dispose of it, than to leave it to rot on a shelf until the next stocktake?
SFX: shopping centre noises return
Centro is the area where I experienced my first moments of proper socialisation, and realised shortly I’m not cut out for that. I suppose having uncles ask really loudly “WHAT DO YOU WANT ON YOUR FALAFEL HABIBI?” in the loudest food court known to man, and being told to “SPEAK UP! Wow, your daughter’s a mouse!” isn’t an experience most are used to. It takes time to acclimatise, except I just got a diagnosis for anxiety instead. At least the HSPs taste phenomenal.
[Background noise fades out]
Bankstown, as an area and culture, resembles a cat. And to reflect the ethnic demographic, the Arabian Mau.
[SFX: cat purr followed by growl]
To outsiders – or dog lovers – cats are terrifying, misunderstood and generalised as a dangerous entity that’ll claw at you, leaving scars behind. The blazing orange fur feels icy blue, cold to the touch, unwelcoming.
Visitors of Bankstown generalise it as a dangerous place, painting an image of locals as lost causes, ghetto, having no potential or future. It’s saying I’m a lost cause and ghetto. I’ve spent my whole life – that’s only just begun – trying not to feel that way. Trying to prove everyone wrong, and blow expectations out of the water, just to be on the same level as those who possess more privileges than me. The thinly veiled racism about a suburb sets my body ablaze, leaving blisters from third-degree burns that are simply, aggressions. Not even micro-aggressions. What do you say to those comments?
I suppose.. to most, Bankstown Centro is not considered a warm place.
But- it’s the first resort, a second home to me. Those who fear Bankstown, don’t understand the relief of going there, back home. The closest thing I can get to home. Home that is thousands of kilometres, dozens of deep oceans away.
[SFX: escalator noises]
Most don’t understand this anticipation of taking the extremely slow escalator from the underground carpark to the ground level of Centro, being met with the reverberation of a comforting chaos. To others; it’s overstimulating. To me– it’s merely white noise.
[SFX: hair drying, milk aeration, chattering]
Customers buying items from the various dollar stores and niche stands that supply phone cases and kitchen appliances, drowned out by the whirring of hairstyling tools in the neighbouring hair salons, the screaming of milk being aerated for coffee orders at Cafe Dibi and Oliver Brown, and the accompanying chatter of strangers getting their coffee fix, are scenes I know and love all too well.
Dr. Candy, the lolly shop that has remained the only rock in my life that not even therapy could provide. Bubbling memories of getting ivory white paper bags, stuffing it full of Maltesers, nonpareils, cola bottles, sour straps, fruit flavoured lollies that vaguely resemble peach, or citrus flavours. Red lollies that never tasted like strawberry, gummy bears and snakes, which colours span the rainbow. Neighbouring an ugg boot stand that resembles a money laundering scheme – I swear I’ve never seen anyone buy a pair from that store – and the equally gimmicky massage chair stands that people try, but never buy.
Centro was the milestone of my first job, my first paycheck, my first moments of… character-building as I got a job at the now no longer Target. Getting my job through my older brother (I will not be addressing nepo-baby rumours, thanks!).
I remember my first shift during the Christmas season, then the first Easter, and my first stocktake, where I found *beep*-smeared pants in a dressing room. Emphasis on my first character-building moments. No sixteen-year should be going through that.
The image of Christmas in Centro is unique to Bankstown, where else will you find a congregation of Arab men and boys dressed up as Santa Clauses and dabkeeing?
[SFX: cat purring and shopping centre noises]
No matter how many developments occur, if a new metro is built, a carpark is added, or a bus stop moved, Centro will always be a warm place to me and will always resemble a warm, loving Arabian Mau curling around my leg, calling for my attention, in the hopes I don’t move to some place considered to be “better”.
To most, Bankstown Centro is not considered a warm place.
But neither am I.
