Thursday, December 30, 2010

MY CHEESE IS GONE!

A mind is a terrible thing. And often, it is your own worst enemy.
Fortunately the little bastard is easily distracted.........

For instance:

On the way out of the building for a smoke, I overheard two other smokers on their way in. One of them was saying "and then you do it with cream and butter and bacon".

Damn, girl, the only thing missing is cheese.



WHERE'S THE CHEESE?

Several years ago there was a Taiwanese soap opera which I thoroughly enjoyed. The story involved a handsome professional, his suicidal former wife, the beautiful new wife, a Shanghainese ex-mistress, his darling little daughter, and his daughter's amah, who only spoke Taiwanese Hokkien.

Except for whatever the amah said, the series was in Mandarin. Pretty decent Mandarin, too.
Even the Shanghainese bint spoke understandably (normally those people sound like exploding soda water siphons).

Every episode included at least one tantrum, several weepy moments, and scenes of utter heart-rending drama in which the little girl yanked the tears from the viewing-audience with brute force.
The amah was stellar too, especially when she wailed and hiccoughed, kvetching and shraiing in that language no one else in the series spoke but which all of them miraculously understood.
Come to think of it, all the females wept beautifully - rich, dramatic, sobbing from the gut, crying, lamenting and accusing at the top of their lungs. Misery, heart-ache, and spoiled pouty dejection on an epic scale.
It was utterly delightful. I've always appreciated over-acting.

Savage Kitten, who is my erstwhile significant other and still a darn good friend as well as my house mate, speaks English and Toishanese. Her Toishanese is worse than my Cantonese. She does not speak any Mandarin or Hokkien at all.

She can't stand pouting females, and she absolutely hates weepy bitches.
Hong Kong, mainland, or Taiwan television bores her. Unless they show lots of food.
Whenever we watched Chinese soap-operas, she would invent her own dialogue in different voices.

The one episode of this Taiwanese weep-and-scream fest that she saw, she decided that the cause of all the distress was that there was NO cheese - that lack explained everything.



IL N'Y A PAS DE FROMAGE!

In the first scene, the ex-wife tearfully bids farewell to her daughter, as shown in remembered flashback. Everyone cries buckets.

VOICE-ONE: Oh woe, my cheese is missing!!!
VOICE-TWO: Mom, how could you, that was the BEST Cheese EVER, we are undone!!! Waaaah!!!
VOICE-THREE: Oh stop wailing about the cheese, bitch, now you're making me cry.
VOICE-ONE: You're heartless, you lactose intolerant beast! It was Edam!

All three females start screaming hysterically, while remembering the cheese.

Shortly afterwards Savage Kitten went into the kitchen to fix herself a snack.

Several scenes later, the handsome professional is in the very modern kitchen of his luxuriously appointed house, explaining something to the amah that involves the rice cooker. The amah is stubborn and angry. The child, standing next to the amah, is pouting. Everyone is tense.

VOICE-ONE: You never should've put the cheese in here, moron, you've RUINED this expensive appliance!
VOICE-TWO: Stupid man, it was made in Japan! Remember what they did in World War Two? Those bandy-legged goblins, they DESERVE cheese up their cookers!
VOICE-THREE: Waaaah, I want some cheese, waaaah!
VOICE-ONE: Well you can't have any, you sickening little brat - miss Stupid here shoved it up some Japanese businessman's exhaust pipe! All of it! Pound pound pound!
VOICE TWO: Ementhaler! Gouda! Stilton!
VOICE THREE: Waaaah!

Both females start howling, the man looks fed-up.

During the commercials that followed, Savage Kitten went to the store to get some chips.

In the final scene, there's a view of the handsome professional's mansion during a typhoon, with rain slamming the building in nearly horizontal sheets, gusts whipping the trees. It is night. Cut to the living room, where the man, his daughter, the beautiful new wife, and the amah, are closely clustered with their arms around each other in the darkness, as the storm buffets the house.
The two women and the little girl are emotional.

VOICE ONE: Oh no, we're all going to die!
VOICE-TWO: It's your fault, bitch, I told you to cook dinner while we still had electricity! Now there's no rice!
VOICE-THREE: We couldn't have rice anyhow, she ruined the rice-cooker with that cheese!
VOICE-ONE: So why didn't you buy another one, idiot! And if you paid the electric bills once in a while they wouldn't cut us off!
VOICE-TWO: Yeah, but WHO insisted that I get more cheese instead, huh, who? Who?!?!?
VOICE-THREE: Oh shut up about the cheese already! That stuff gives me the runs!
VOICE-FOUR (the daughter): I remember the last time that happened! And we couldn't leave the house then either, it was HORRIBLE!

All three females start weeping copiously, one of them (the amah) flailing about uncontrollably.

VOICE-THREE: The pressure, the pressure, my intestine's gonna give way any moment now, save yourselves, aaaaaaack!VOICE-FOUR: It smells like cheese in here, we're gonna die! Waaaah!

During the ending credits, Savage Kitten happily speculated that all 'northerners' (meaning everyone except the Cantonese) were crazy, talked funny, and didn't know beans about good food. She was scarfing down an entire bag of Bacon Cheddar Fries while she spoke.


Savage Kitten has never had a problem with cheese. She is not lactose intolerant. Loves the stuff.



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1 comment:

What's Up, Tiger Lily said...

At least the hoo-hah is about cheese, and not some stupid secret egg salad recipe.

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