YES. I EAT THE FISH.

When Jian Yang (Jimmy O. Yang) calmly and almost as if talking down to a child tells T. J. Miller (Ehrlich Bachman) the second time that he ate the fish of which Ehrlich found the (to him) displeasing remains in the kitchen, it's seminal. The phrase is a defiant statement of existential self-definition and finality. I eat the fish. I ate the fish.

I will eat more fish, because I eat fish. Perhaps many fish. This is how it is. I eat fish, kwailo.
Why don't you get that, and what are you going to do about it?

Basically, you gibbered on a bit about the fish guts, which upset you, but the stand-out fact here is that I eat the fish and if you had any sense you would too.
But I actually don't care. I eat the fish.
If you do or don't, meh.


For Ehrlich, perhaps the most important thing is that he really does not like finding fish offal in the kitchen, whereas for Jian Yang the quintessential fact is that he eats the fish. That's what needs to be stressed. Everything else is immaterial. Why doesn't Ehrlich see this?

This is a matter of fact statement about reality.

Nothing could be more right and good than that I eat the fish. It defines the purpose of life, and of that fish specifically. It's not just that I eat fish, it's that I eat that one, in particular, among all the fish in this time line. Past, current tense, and future fish. There will be more, which maybe you won't be aware of then or later, but you may rest assured that whatever else is happening, that fish, by me, is eaten. I eat the fish.

It could be the Hong Kong motto.
It's definitely an attitude.

I eat the fish.



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