the culture show
In 2001, I was part of the Chinese Student Association at Berkeley,
and I was an officer. I worked the Public Relations department, and
that stint gave me the realization that placing these details on your
resume was about as useful as learning Sanskrit. Furthertheless, I
had a good time, and I certainly did my fair share of goofing around
with other Chinese people, although 100% of them could trace their
ancestral roots to Taiwan.
Speaking of ancestry, I participated in the club's annual culture
show, 龍的傳人 (long3 de4 chuan2 ren2), which when translated, is the
Descendants of the Dragon. This was a song title back in the late
70's that basically came to stand as a sign of ethnic identity for all
Chinese people (but only the most patriotic types). Ironically, a
long time ago, I went to a summer camp in Los Angeles with the same
name, but as a kid with limited vocabulary I thought I had attended
the summer camp for the Dragon's Boatmen. The word 傳 (chuan3) and 船
(chuan3) are unfortunately homonyms, with the latter standing for
boat.
Anyway, I was part of a sketch that re-enacted a famous story from the
Three Kingdoms era. The part that I played was the great 諸葛亮, Zhuge
Liang, the smartest and most cunning strategist of all time. He was
the Da Vinci of Chinese people, except way cooler. I was naturally
chosen to play him because the director needed a tall person to fit
into the suit that was already purchased, no returns. The scenes performed
were directly out of popular folklore, and we chose 草船借劍 (tsao3 chuan3
jie4 jian4) 'using straw boats to borrow arrows' in English. I was
familiar with these stories only because I played Romance of the Three
Kingdoms I and II on the original Nintendo. I always liked the Zhuge
Liang character in the game because he had the highest rated
intelligence factor, at maximum 100, and his advice is never wrong.
He also had the 2nd highest charm rating, at 98, which meant that he
was excellent at recruiting fighters for your army. He was a shitty
fighter though. The guy I hated the most was Cao Cao, as he was
inarguably the best general in the game.
I wish I had saved the pictures of us, especially when I was wearing the
hilarious costume. The headpiece was literally an inverted brown
paper lunch sack with some paint and the yin/yang symbol tacked on it.
I had this excellent robe and I pretty much looked like 林正英 (Lin3
cheng4 ing1) from Mr. Vampire, except that I didn't look 100% as cool.
So I found a picture of us in makeup and prep, much thanks to Julie
in the middle for it, and Brittany/Catherine on the left for their
work in locating the costumes. I may have called the costume
low-budget as well as some other comments, but at least it was
sincere and from the bottom of my heart. The guy on the right is Mike
Chan, who was a terrible actor but became a doctor in 2008.
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