Packed with meaning

Phumla Matjila: It takes only 17 hours to fly from Johannesburg to Beijing. However, it takes only a few seconds to be offended by the behaviour of some of the older generation in China - they pick their nose in public.

It also takes only a few seconds to realise that, in China, the common American and European thumbs-up sign - or what we in South Africa call the "sharp-sharp" sign - does not mean that things are good.

The gesture there is as rude as giving someone the middle finger. But, then again, in some Mediterranean and Arab countries showing the index finger is just as obscene as flipping someone the middle finger.

Gestures and symbols are tricky.

Remember George W Bush Snr's faux pas in Australia in the early 1990s? Bush thought he was giving the peace, or victory, sign to farmers in Canberra who were protesting against US farm subsidies. In fact, he insulted them.

Bush didn't realise - or maybe he did - that the victory sign popularised by Winston Churchill is made with the palm facing outwards. He gave the sign with his palm facing in, which in Australia means "Up yours, mate".

But there are symbols that are unambiguous.

One of them is the Burberry of the disenfranchised, the homeless, the home-bound and the homesick.

Stuff it! Bag Burberry! It's the universal symbol for the dislocated, the disadvantaged, the disgruntled, the dissed and the rejected. It is a bag full of problems - and promise.

What am I talking about? The refugee bag.

In South Africa, we call it the Shangaan, or Zimbabwe, bag.

It is a sack of woven nylon, usually square, chequered in red, black and white.

To call it a utility bag would be an understatement; it is a bag to end all bags.

The refugee bag is one of the many gaps that China has filled in the market for a cheap, but durable, large bag for all kinds of baggage.

In Nigeria, they call it the "Ghana must go bag", in the UK it is a "Bangladeshi bag" and here at home, before the Zimbabweans were a target of our prejudices and narrow-mindedness, it was called the Shangaan bag.

China has given us not only a multi-purpose bag but also a symbol of dislocation.

Around the world, the refugee bag carries sad connotations.

Here in South Africa, beyond the bigotry we show to refugees from elsewhere on the continent, the refugee bag speaks of loss, of hardship and sadness.

My uncle likes to joke that, when you come back to your parents' house with your belongings packed neatly in a refugee bag, even your parents understand that life has been hard on you.

They welcome you with open arms; you don't even need to explain your woes, the bag says it all.

The bag also speaks of the survival instincts of people who are forced to leave their country of origin because of a range of problems, some economic, others political.

It's the bag they use to send food and supplies back to their families in Zimbabwe, Mozambique or wherever.

Even South Africans who have left their family in the rural areas pack their monthly groceries into refugee bags destined for home.

These bags are also symbols of hope and life for those left behind.

Unlike many other symbols, open to interpretation depending on personal and cultural background, there is little ambiguity when it comes to refugee bags.