![Stranger #373 • Special Edition from a(bro)ad •
Location: Edinburg, TX
I know nowadays with the internet and all that, anything foreign is not as wowtastic as it used to be. In fact, odds are you might not live in the same city as me (Vancouver, Canada), but this past week I woke up to a very awesome surprise: my brother, who lives and studies in a relatively small city in south Texas, decided to give the project a shot. That is, talk to a stranger and try to collect a tattoo story. I didn’t know he was going to do this until I got the email with a picture and its story. He wrote: “I hope you like the story and I hope you don’t feel like I’ve disrespected the project. I just did it in support of it and well… I also did it just because.”
In his own words:
After a whole night of not sleeping, cleaning my apartment, and making my first omelet, I decided to go to the gym to take advantage of the extra hours of the new/old day I had been living in the past hours. The gym was lonely just with a few guys and girls working out. I joined them. Almost at the end of my routine, I saw this big dude lifting some heavy weights. I noticed he had a tattoo on his shoulder. I wasn’t able to identify what it was because I didn’t have my glasses, but I could notice the colours in it. I thought, this kind of tattoo may be one whose background story my sister would like to know about. So this crazy idea came to my mind: lets go ask him in the name of “a stranger a day.” The idea exited me; I wanted to give my sister a gift related to her project. So I approached this guy, hopping he won’t hit me because of my clumsy English. I explained my sister’s project to him (I felt like I was showing off my sister and then I felt guilty). To my surprise, he was really understanding and started telling me his story. I had to pause him because I forgot to record him. After I got the iPod in recording mode, he started over and explained to me:
“The bottom flag is Mexico, that’s where my dad is from. The middle flag is Colombia, that’s where my mom’s from, and I’m from America. I also have Texas and Illinois ‘cos I was born in Illinois, raised in Texas, and I have 7 total siblings, that’s why I have the big two stars (?). Illinois is kind hard to see but I need to touched up again.”
He also told me that it was his design and that it took him 7 years to come up with it. After that, I thanked this guy for his time and for not stepping on me, and then I just left the gym.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Daw! That was awesome! It was so heart-warming to get this story on the mail, coming from my own brother, and seeing with how much respect and kindness he approached the project, the stranger, the story and all of that. :) So cool!
There is another story from last week coming soon.
Thanks brothah! And thanks, stranger from afar! :]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzm1deq9Xi1qdhcq8o1_1280.png)
Stranger #373 • Special Edition from a(bro)ad •
Location: Edinburg, TX
I know nowadays with the internet and all that, anything foreign is not as wowtastic as it used to be. In fact, odds are you might not live in the same city as me (Vancouver, Canada), but this past week I woke up to a very awesome surprise: my brother, who lives and studies in a relatively small city in south Texas, decided to give the project a shot. That is, talk to a stranger and try to collect a tattoo story. I didn’t know he was going to do this until I got the email with a picture and its story. He wrote: “I hope you like the story and I hope you don’t feel like I’ve disrespected the project. I just did it in support of it and well… I also did it just because.”
In his own words:
After a whole night of not sleeping, cleaning my apartment, and making my first omelet, I decided to go to the gym to take advantage of the extra hours of the new/old day I had been living in the past hours. The gym was lonely just with a few guys and girls working out. I joined them. Almost at the end of my routine, I saw this big dude lifting some heavy weights. I noticed he had a tattoo on his shoulder. I wasn’t able to identify what it was because I didn’t have my glasses, but I could notice the colours in it. I thought, this kind of tattoo may be one whose background story my sister would like to know about. So this crazy idea came to my mind: lets go ask him in the name of “a stranger a day.” The idea exited me; I wanted to give my sister a gift related to her project. So I approached this guy, hopping he won’t hit me because of my clumsy English. I explained my sister’s project to him (I felt like I was showing off my sister and then I felt guilty). To my surprise, he was really understanding and started telling me his story. I had to pause him because I forgot to record him. After I got the iPod in recording mode, he started over and explained to me:
“The bottom flag is Mexico, that’s where my dad is from. The middle flag is Colombia, that’s where my mom’s from, and I’m from America. I also have Texas and Illinois ‘cos I was born in Illinois, raised in Texas, and I have 7 total siblings, that’s why I have the big two stars (?). Illinois is kind hard to see but I need to touched up again.”
He also told me that it was his design and that it took him 7 years to come up with it. After that, I thanked this guy for his time and for not stepping on me, and then I just left the gym.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Daw! That was awesome! It was so heart-warming to get this story on the mail, coming from my own brother, and seeing with how much respect and kindness he approached the project, the stranger, the story and all of that. :) So cool!
There is another story from last week coming soon.
Thanks brothah! And thanks, stranger from afar! :]
