Hi ihr,

der folgende Text findet sich in "J.M. Coetzee: Boyhood". In dem Buch geht es um eine Kindheit in Südafrika um 1950. Ich habe leider nur die englische Fassung. Die folgende Passage finde ich hochinteresant, weil aus der anderen Perspektive...

"Once a week he and his class troop across the school grounds to the gymnasium for PT, physical training. In the changing-room they put on white singlets and shorts. Then under the direction of Mr Barnard, also attired in white, they spend half an hour leapfrogging the pommel-horse or tossing the medicine ball or jumping and clapping their hands above their heads.
They do all this with bare feet. For days ahead, he dreads baring his feet for PT, his feet are always covered. Yet when his shoes and socks are off, it is suddenly not difficult at all. He has simply to remove himself from the shame, to go through with the undressing in a brisk, hurried way, and his feet become just feet like everyone else's. Somewhere in the vicinity the shame still hangs, waiting to return to him, but it is a private shame, which the other boys need never be aware of.
His feet are soft and white; otherwise they look like everyone else's, even those of boys who have no shoes and come to school barefoot. He does not enjoy PT and the stripping for PT, but he tells himself he can endure it, as he endures other things.
Then one day there is a change in routine. They are sent from the gymnasium to the tennis courts to learn paddle tennis. The courts are some distance away; along the pathway he has to tread carefully, picking his steps among the pebbles. Under the summer sun the tarmac of the court itself is so hot that he has to hop from foot to foot to keep from burning. It is a relief to get back to the changing room and put on his shoes again; but by afternoon he can barely walk, and when his mother removes his shoes at home she finds the soles of his feet blistered and bleeding.
He spends three days at home recovering. On the forth day he returns with a note from his mother, a note whose indignant wording he is aware of and approves. Like a wounded warrior resuming his place in the ranks, he limps down the aisle to his desk.
'Why were you away from school' whisper his classmates.
'I couldn't walk. I had blisters on my feet from the tennis,' he whispers back.
He expects astonishment and sympathy; instead he gets mirth. Even those of his classmates who wear shoes so not take his story seriously. Somehow they too have acquired hardened feet, feet that do not blister. He alone has soft feet, and soft feet, it is emerging, are no claim to distinction. All of a sudden he is isolated - he and, behind him, his mother."