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Talking Story |
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From The Asian Reporter, V17, #14 (April 3, 2007), page 7.
Me and my Ninja chick
How to forget about our frightening new world
You’ve got to hand it to the Middle Kingdom. These folks think of everything.
I mean, okay, they’ve already thought of everything, like noodles, like gunpowder, like rationalistic philosophy, and intuitive philosophy too. Like tofu.
It should be no wonder, that everything inside Target’s four square walls — their wool-blend mock turtlenecks and their red rip-stop nylon camping tents, those all-cotton fighting Ninja Turtle pajamas and that bent-iron garden furniture — is made by Chinese hands. All that stuff.
An enormous engine. Our neighborhood’s rousing dragon is.
And while there’ll always be those folks, all mopey about Old Shanghai, about her musty old colonial facades, leaning the way wistful Westerners do — there’s not a lot any of us can do about people eagerly pursuing progress. "All the bicycles are going away," a Portlander recently complained at our kitchen table. Everybody looked up, at her. "Everyone’s got motorbikes and there’s so many cars (!)"
No one spoke a word. Polite’s real big among Asians. But delicate rises in our ladies’ eyebrows, and that ever-so-slight tightening of our fellas’ lips, clearly said: "Hmm, you want us showing up at work sweaty. You drive a Saab Turbo but you need me pumping a Schwinn three-speed (?)"
Living with our new asymmetry
Okay-okay, all our asymmetrical East-West shoving matches aside for a moment, all these so-called Developed World versus Developing World differences notwithstanding for a minute, the PRC is now cranking out a new product. So new. So cool.
All right, maybe not so new, given Mother China’s long-long memory. Let’s just say it’s a product new to our robust contemporary marketplace.
What is it?
Personal protector girls.
Think: Michelle Yeoh as fantastic fighter Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yeow. Remember how Li Mu Bai (played by Chow Yun-Fat) brought her onboard as a super-security contractor, to protect his precious Green Destiny. To say nothing of his heart. Ouch.
Now, imagine your own personal security chica. Imagine her moves: elegantly executed two-knuckled larynx crushers; slow-mo chin-high roundhouse kicks. All of it, all of her, choreographed to virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma’s heavenly cello riffs. Yeah.
According to Master Xing Tianzhu, a former People’s Army Special Forces killer now in business as a female bodyguard trainer, "Every dynasty in China has had private security firms." Right. Like Michelle Yeoh.
"After all, the government can’t send troops and police to give private entrepreneurs personal protection." Right again. Why bother calling the cops for burglars at night, for abusive boyfriends or husbands, for arrogant DMV clerks or impatient Kaiser physicians? Just elbow your guardgirl. She’ll take care of the rest. Of him. Baam.
In the same "All Things Considered" (NPR) news story, a Yunnan security company boss said, "I think women tend to work more carefully and their powers of observation are sharper than men." You gotta agree.
I gotta get one. A sensitive Asian ninja chick, with a sharp left jab.
I’m thinking I’ll let her chauffer me around leafy Irvington. She could drop me off, curbside, at popular Pearl District happy hour stops. Imagine her standing by her man, me, wrapped tight in Italian leather, humming with martial vigilance. An ancient aaand an utterly urbane style statement, we’d make. My muscle babe and me. Tiger Balm in her Gucci bag.
You’ve got to hand it to the Middle Kingdom. Roused again. These folks think of everything. There’s no resisting it. There’s no beating them. Better you get someone else to do your fighting for you.