Fearless

The elderly Chinese woman makes her way down the path that passes by our village house.

She wears a flower-print pullover, simple loose-fitting pants, green rubber boots and a Hakka hat that shields her eyes from the sun's harsh glare. She treads with great deliberation, her back bent from decades of farming.

As she approaches, the neighbour's dog, which is chained to the house near the main gate, hears her coming. The dog is large, black, and has crazy eyes; when he stares you could swear he's fixated on taking a bite out of your ass.

He goes berserk. He lunges at the gate, arrested only by the chain around his neck. Fangs bared, he barks and snarls with unbridled ferocity. Growling, he leaps into the air, only to be yanked to the ground as he reaches the end of his tether. Spittle flies from his snapping muzzle while he claws at the stone tiles for purchase.

The old woman doesn't even flinch. In fact, she barely acknowledges the dog's existence.

It's not that she feels safe because the animal is chained and trapped behind a gate too high to leap over, it's just that she's tough, and at her age, she's seen it all. The dog is little more than a nuisance.

Fearless, she totters past the gate at her usual careful pace. She leaves the dog behind; he shuts up when he realises she's gone.

It takes a lot more than a fierce display of territorialism to make a village grandmother shake in her boots.

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