LITTLE YELLOW PEOPLE

One of the themes to which my apartment mate occasionally returns is that martial arts are not for everybody. She's been doing wu-shu for years, and she's got belts in aikido. So she's more of an expert in this field than I am.


"We never shouldha' taught you guys kungfu, now you're all making movies in which great white master goes around beating up little yellow people!"


Mm, okay? As the only white person in this household she can't be referring to me. My cousin's brilliant kid makes movies, I don't. I have nothing to do with the movie industry. Zero.

And I'm fairly certain Sammo Hung has never played a little yellow person.

Are there many movies in which big white men go around terrorizing little old Cantonese ladies?


But I know what she means. White dudes have rather fallen for the magic and mysterioso elements, and Caucasian martial artist movies make some of them feel much less like putzes. Grashopper.
Gandalf with lightening moves.

Besides, she's a little yellow person.

As white people go, I am not a giant, and it turns out I am only three or four inches taller than her. I not sure exactly how much, because miss Mak over at the hospital measured me recently and stated confidently that I am five seven -- until then I had always thought that I was five nine, so I argued with her, and we compromised on five eight -- and my apartment mate's height is slightly taller than the average Cantonese woman. But she weighs about one hundred and five pounds, which is only forty pounds less than me.
And some of that is because I have a thick head, I'm sure.
She's fine boned, I'm not.


On the other hand, I've seen several white women recently who make me feel shrimpy. Which is a good reason to never visit the Midwest.
Or the South. Texas especially.


What we really need, cinematically-speaking, is a movie in which a normal size man such as myself beats the living snot out of a football player.
After already trouncing him or her at chess.



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