Talking Story 
by Polo

Bad Asian hair prohibited under the new accord, worn by Aleix Catalani.

From The Asian Reporter, V20, #2 (January 12, 2010), page 7.

Okay. We have a deal. A good one.

After a week of Kailua Starbucks mornings with President Barack, then a packed New Year weekend of pedal-to-the-metal shuttle diplomacy between Asian and Anglo America — a 2010 peace settlement is in the bag. An accord is ours, at last.

This is not to say that there’s any relief from CNN’s Muslim menace. Far from it. Please stay tuned to the "Situation Room" for live updates. And the Kailua Peace Accords provide no moratorium on Mother Mexico’s energetic children wanting to work. And work and work some more. But today, for the first time since the 1975 Fall of Saigon, since the April afternoon Asian America moved from miniscule minority class to annoying ethnic enclave status: We have a ceasefire.

Peace is expensive. So here, my stubborn sisters and brothers, is what we’re giving up to get some:

1. Tube socks.

Grown men wearing white tube socks is out. Outlawed. The kind our aunties pick up on sale. Then brag about. Da kine dat come in three-packs. Two colored stripes on top. Banned. Forever. Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and Kmart have each solemnly agreed to bargain-table, only L-shaped, all-black men’s socks.

All cotton.

2. Stupid haircuts.

The 2010 Kailua Peace Accords mandate an immediate cessation of bad Asian hair.

Because this is an intergenerational problem, this is also an intergenerational prohibition. Asian orang will no longer be allowed to do the same dumb haircut (including Oregon’s Congressional Rep. David Wu) from age six to 86.

The same provision bars dads and sons from buying the same bad do, on Saturday mornings. No exceptions. Not even for U.S. Commerce Secretary (and former Washington governor) Gary Locke and his son Dylan.

No governmental immunity.

3. The uncontested territory between saggy and preppy WILL be occupied.

Commencing February 14, 2010 (Lunar New Year 4708), no more official neglect over our guys segregating neatly into polar camps of oversized gangsta Ts on the left, and pastel Eddie Bauer Asians on the right. Separate bad boy and Ivy leagues are over. Every manly style opportunity, to quote the Kailua Treaty, "will be made immediately available to all Asiatics of all orientations."

Thank you Mr. President.

In exchange for giving it all up, Asian America gets a lot.

1. White folks will no longer be allowed to park on mall escalators.

Local, state, and national legislation on energy conservation and climate protection notwithstanding, Anglitos will comply pronto with internationally recognized norms to either: a) continue to move your feet on moving stairways, or b) move your bhawa to one side so that the more hurried and the less lazy can blow by. Python-armed TSA cops will be stationed at escalator tops and basement bottoms.

2. The ubiquitous American bend, bump, huggy-pat, is officially prohibited. In perpetuity.

That’s forever, baby.

Negotiators agreed on the record that no one knows when or where or why this onerous contemporary urban convention started. None could say what happened to the good old handshake, the cheek kiss, the reciprocating bow or wai.

No matter. The new binding regs declare Zero Tolerance for that little huggy-thing that makes Asians feel relatively small and awkwardly cute; the little chest bump white folks don’t really want to do, but do anyway. Squealing at the sight of someone you just saw Tuesday; planting your two feet two feet from his or her feet; leaning into the other party’s lean; making only deniable breast-to-breast contact; punctuating it all by three rapid pats onto the greeted party’s non-erogenous shoulder blades — pat-pat-pat (three pats) — is now unlawful. Unwelcome.

Sanctionable by big fine or bad jail or both.

3. The final provision of the Big Treaty took an all-nighter, on account of western personal liberty concerns.

Alarms went off. Agitated Yank negotiators threatened to alert the ACLU. We suffered simmering Clint Eastwood glares and icy Jet Li stares, but by daybreak Friday, our landmark agreement got us hammered into history. Our bad history.

The last impasse had to do with mouths. What the party of the second part does with ’em. And I don’t mean foul language because, as every Oregon fifth-grader will tell you: Potty mouth is a constitutionally protected value.

Tidak dudes, the present accord covers only yawning in others’ faces; talking while gobbling; and of course those inexplicable displays of chewed-up bubble gum (between smiling incisors) young white women are wont to do.

That’s all now prohibited.

And this is unprecedented.

About our tense closed-door negotiations, I am authorized to disclose only this: Asians conceded that Tokyo office girls covering giggles with a polite hand are an instance of eastern modesty-excess, and Middle America acknowledged that some big white dude yawning not a foot from my face, showing me his filled molars, upper and lower, represents the equal opposite extreme.

It’s all about surrendering into a certain new kind of symmetry. And the 2010 Kailua Treaty significantly gets us there.

Just as our president has nuanced new directions for African America, so will this Hawai’i-born and raised, Indonesia- schooled, Harvard-trained, Chicago- shaped, world-class leader gently shove Asian America into letting go of some our more stubbornly stained FOBed-up ways.

He’s suggesting how we might get over our little (daily) beefs and our Big (historical) Bitternesses. Yes, we can.

So that we can take a more present place around our country’s big new kitchen table — where all souls are fed, essential decisions are discussed, and all our futures are made.

* * *

da kine (Hawai’i patois): "You know, that kind."

FOB: Fresh off da Boat. Just-arrived newcomer.

little beefs and Big Bitterness: A great deal of dishonesty and consequently an enormous quantum of emotional distortion lives in East-West relations. I cannot comment on white folks contribution to this bad marriage, but who would deny Asian cultural inclinations of avoiding conflict, or saving face, and insisting on persisting under awful burdens. In the second decade of our second millennium of intercultural coexistence, in the cool lexicon of all Portlanders: This is no longer a sustainable strategy. Both our everyday beefs (da kine we kid about) and our bitter history — western colonialism, American betrayal, racialized U.S. institutions — need to pass a new sincerity test. A sustainability test. Honesty (over not correcting white folks’ errors) is now not optional. Telling truths our mainstream may not like you for, is now a necessity. America needs us at the adult table. Our America needs us real.

orang (Bahasa Indonesia): Man. Person.

parody: Literary device using imitation and humor to make a point otherwise too strong for the dominant culture or its overbearing government. Common in Asian, African, Arabian, and Latin American neighborhoods, both here and back home.

tidak (Bahasa, Malay): Nope.