2 posts tagged “abc”
It’s Max! It’s 林立丰! It’s the international super-spy, master of disguise! Is he Chinese? Japanese? Mauritian? Martian? Nobody knows!
He likes to stand innocuously at the street corner, blending in with his fellow Chinese. They all look like innocent, law-abiding pistachios, but only he knows that underneath his pistachio shell… lies a cashew! Not pistachio!
It is too fun!
Sometimes he encounters lost Mexican tourists on the subway. They discuss their plight and scratch their heads. All hope is lost. They beckon to the friendly local in the green t-shirt and pantomime their woes with the aid of the subway map. Out of this stranger come instructions in fluent Spanish! They are surprised! They are astounded! Their mouths are shaped like little Os!
Surprise!
A young man orders a chicken sandwich. The Burger King lady asks if he wants the value meal. The young man has never heard the phrase “value meal” in Chinese before. He stares at her with big dinner-plate eyes. Is he still deciding? Did he not hear her? Is he Korean? Is he having a stroke?
Who knows?!
*Chorus*
ABC Man, ABC Man,
American Born Cashew man,
Goes wherever the Chinese can…
A pretty girl in front of me. A pretty girl behind me. Next to me, in the aisle seat, a gentleman in his 50s sucking snot down his post-nasal cavity as though it were ambrosia.
Four years ago I came to China as an intern by day, party-boy by night, one starred-and-striped herring in a school of Westerners. Socially speaking, nothing was expected of me. If I was a conversational deadbeat or a social delinquent, I was forgiven on account of my age or my nationality.
Yes, this time will be different. There will be no get-out-of-jail-free cards when I commit faux-pas. I will pour tea. I will buy gifts for my bosses and their children. I will host dumpling dinners.
A few hours later, nose-suck man is still going strong. A diaspora of fellow mucus lovers joins the chorus from various points across the fuselage. Is this the cacophony of disgusting old men? I kill the thought. When in Rome, don’t put down the Romans.
