Yellow Peril by Tze Ming Mok

Is it just me, or is the email urging you to write 'New Zealander' in the ethnicity box for the Census circulating primarily amongst... Pakeha New Zealanders? Quelle surprise. I guess people who have a burning need to deny their ethnicity are predominantly white, and they know it.

I mean, the Herald got the email from 'several sources', whereas I only got it once, and not from anyone I actually know. It's only just today come up on the Aotearoa Ethnic Network webring, and that's because of the Herald article. Funny, all those hundreds of influential people on AEN with ethnicities just ripe for discarding, and nobody thinks to forward the 'New Zealander' email to us directly! Geez, some inclusive non-ethnic ethnicity this 'New Zealander' thing is turning out to be.

PA reader Aaron kindly forwarded the ridiculous thing to me a few weeks ago, while I was still in a dumpling coma, and also included his informed comments that he sent in response. It seems that the email has by now mutated from the reactionary ignorance of its original form, which you can witness below, possibly because of feedback such as his. Either that or it's a completely separate email. The new one seems to not only categorise 'New Zealander' as an ethnic group, but 'proud New Zealander' as an ethnic group (therefore, if you don't put 'New Zealander' as your ethnicity, I guess you're not proud of being one). Anyway, this is what I received.

G'day all.

March the 7th is the day that New Zealand is holding a census. So what you might ask. Well remember last census, there were 1000 plus New Zealanders that thought it was important that they put down that their religion was a 'Jedi Knight', as it only that's 1000 people to make a change.

Stupid eh!

What I am asking you guys to do is, when you are asked what ethnicity you are you are given a range of choices from New Zealand Maori (which is cool) or pacific Islander (which is cool also) and/or New Zealand European or Pahkiha which too is cool - if you are one.

Pahkiha' means 'white pig' or 'White meat' depending on which end of the island you come from.

Aaron: Well, for one thing it's spelt Pakeha not Pahkiha. And it definately doesn't mean that. This article gives some interesting explanations.

Most of us have never been to Europe and descended from Europeans, but how many generations ago, for me, it's 6.

How come if you want to be called a New Zealander you have to tick 'other' and write in next to the tick New Zealander.

If Teri Henry (Striker for Arsenal) were to ask for residency in New Zealand would he be then deemed a New Zealand European?

Aaron: Because New Zealander isn't an ethnic definition. It's a definition of citizenship, not nationality [I would use 'ethnicity' in place of 'nationality', given that the meaning of the word 'nationality' is generally conflated with citizenship - TM]. Maori, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc, are all nationalities. It is interesting that many places have a state that is almost completely made up of one ethnicity. This is what we call a nation-state. However, New Zealand (like America or India) is made up of many nationalities. Americans wouldn't be able to put American as their Ethnicity and, if the Indian census takers are smart, they'll actually try to get to the different groups that live there.

This is not about racism and being a Maori or a pacific islander or a European (which is cool too); it's about us being NEW ZEALANDERS.

We are aren't we??

Aaron: Yes, by citizenship within a state that harbours many nationalities. The census would like to try and find out how many and what sort of nationalities.

Please forward this to as many 'New Zealanders' that you can we need at least 1000 to make a change - stupid eh?

Aaron: Well, in my opinion, yes. There is no change neeeded because your ethnicity is still something different to New Zealander. And that you can't change the census in this way anyway. How many references to Jedi as a real religion have you seen since? But hey, it's your census. Write whatever you like on it.

Quite apart from the weirdly inaccurate urban myths about both the etymology of 'Pakeha' and how Census categories are affected, we can also see from this email that the writer is obviously Pakeha, and is directing his call to other Pakeha to reject the label 'Pakeha/New Zealand European' and adopt 'New Zealander'. S/he specifically says "when you are asked what ethnicity you are you are given a range of choices from New Zealand Maori (which is cool) or pacific Islander (which is cool also) and/or New Zealand European or Pahkiha which too is cool - if you are one."

The writer is implying that if you are Maori or Pacific, or some other non-European ethnicity, then your ethnic definition choices in the census are basically unproblematic. Pretty fair implication. Her/his problem is only with the New Zealand European/Pakeha category.

People are worried that this could throw a spanner in the works of rigorous accounting of New Zealand's ethnic demography, screw up needs-based service funding etc. But, as I said in my previous post on the matter, I think we can be pretty safe in assuming that the market for this muddy thinking is nearly entirely Pakeha, and nearly everyone writing in 'New Zealander' on the Census ethnicity count is Pakeha. This dumbass attempt at 'bucking the system' is not only transparent and nonsensical, it's also not our problem. Like I said guys, sort it out amongst yourselves. Aaron is making a good start; I'm sure he wouldn't mind a cut and paste.

Okay, and one more time kids: the received definition of an 'ethnic group' from Michael E. Brown's 'Ethnic Conflict and International Security', p 4-5.

First, the group must have a name for itself. This is not trivial; a lack of a name reflects an insufficiently developed collective identity. Second, the people in the group must believe in a common ancestry [my emphasis]... Third, the members of the group must share historical memories... Fourth, the group must have a shared culture, generally based on a combination of language, religion, laws, customs, [etc]. Fifth, the group must feel attachment to a specific piece of territory, which it may or may not actually inhabit. Sixth and last, the people in the group have to think of themselves as a group in order to constitute an ethnic community; that is,they must have a sense of their common ethnicity. The group must be self-aware."

I don't know about you Mabel, but I've been seeing that P-case couple everywhere. You can't even go to the beach without them popping up all chirpy in Smokey-and-the-Bandit hats and lifejackets to lecture you on the dangers of rock-fishing.

Bloody crims.

Look, that couple there coming out of Yifans! No, no, there, the ones looking dissatisfied with their frappacinos in Starbucks! Ah crap, no, here we go, there at the panellists' table of the 2006 Going Bananas: Multiple Identities mini-conference! No? Wait, look, over there in the changing rooms at Mofo in Midcity ...whoops, that was my own reflection, sorry. Cute top though, don't you think?

Yes, that was my friend Tessie in the paper on Friday, looking heroically out to sea in the water-safety-ranger hat and walk-shorts. It's not too surprising that she's recently getting mistaken for a P-dealer - just like that couple who got phoned-in to the cops in Whakatane for looking like they were having a bad time in Whakatane. Go figure. Anyway, those Herald pages kind of all blur together sometimes.

A good thing we have all those 'multiple identity' conferences. Or just one of them. Same thing.

A visiting Asian-American West Coast Hongkie journo I met last week was strip-searched at Auckland International Airport, for making the mistake of spontaneously flying in from Bali. What are these Asian people thinking, flying in to a Western country, from, like, Asia?

Isn't it the people going the other way that are the drug problem?

At least Chinese people don't get stopped at the airport for 'looking like terrorists' like the South Asians do (which is kind of like stopping white Australians at the airport because they look like they could be from Italy and therefore might have contracted bird flu from the Papal swans). But man, once the airport authorities figure out that there are around 30-40 million Muslims in China, 10 million of which don't look any different from Han Chinese, and maybe three of whom have blown something up - we are so totally screwed.

Reader: "Well Tze Ming, I suppose you have some kind of (yawn) insightful sociological observations to share about intra-Asian, intergenerational and cross-cultural confluence at the Lantern Festival this weekend." Tze Ming: "Can't talk. Eating."

It went like this:
(Saturday)
satay
roti
murtabak
rendang
otak otak
rojak
wa kueh
watermelon
(Sunday)
another wa kueh
more rojak
su cai bing
baozi
auspicious noodle
potato pancake
Sarsi
cold sesame noodle
banana-leaf rice
another potato pancake
Imitation Sarsi (there does indeed appear to be such a thing)

Monday breakfast:
tonic water

Sorry it's a bit late, but here are some survival tips and techniques for maximising your culinary pleasure at the Lantern Festival (you can use them next year) as ably demonstrated by my family's years of accumulated experience.

1. Go early.

2. Three people is the optimal number for tackling the food street. For example, you and your parents, or you, a friend, and someone stuck on a stall. You will be able to tag-team the foraging, leaving one person as the 'base' in the centre of the food street out of harm's way or at a stall, while two people run around getting snacks and bringing them back to the base to share. You maximise the variety of snacks without overstuffing yourself too quickly, but don't have such a large pack that you lose people.

3. Don't be embarrassed to bring your own cutlery. This is especially useful for sharing, and minimises the waste of plastic. Yes, my mother brought her own spoon. She almost brought her own plate, but then worried the stallholders might think that was kind of over the top.

4. Cut through the crowds. They're mostly just milling, wondering what to eat. Just weave on through, zap zap zap. You know what you want. Said Alistair to me: "wow, you really do move fast when you're moving towards food." Sigh. It is true. That said, one of the most disturbing things overheard coming from the mouth of a laowai was: "use the buggy like a weapon!"

This mode of movement goes hand in hand with queueing technique. ie, there is none. It is notable that the only actual fully formed queue I saw on Food Street, was the one made up of non-Asian people, queueing patiently for chips, kebabs and hot-dogs.

Compare with mob clamouring for Taiwanese xiao chi.

Which brings us to this very important tip:

5. make sure your mother is wearing a loudly patterned shirt.

This way you can find her just when you think that she has been devoured by the mob above clamouring for Taiwanese xiao chi. Jesus freakin' Christ, where is she?? Has she been trampled into cold-pressed sesame? Where... I... my... Ah. There she is.

Eventually, I noticed that there was some other stuff going on actually inside the park. A few of the DMP affiliates I know were performing, and they managed to wing it acapella to impressive effect, after a sound-glitch left them without a backing track - David Tsai's Mandarin/English flow was nearly as tight as his singlet, and l'il Japanese Dato (he who was once stabbed at a tinny house) was crackling like a Tom Thumb. It was good to see hip-hop hit the Lantern Festival for the first time, complementing that other East-Asian contemporary performing art-turned-Lanternfest Staple - Karaoke. Marc Laureano wowed'em with Spandau Ballet; Roseanne Liang and I did a little Blondie. The MC asks all the singers where they're from; I got quite a cheer when I said "Mt Roskill." In turn, Roseanne raised her fist and chirped: "Remmers!" Dead silence. "Goddamn girlfriend," I said later, "you should've said Howick!"

Further on the 'cool-people' tip, Dr Drasnor's Chinese-themed stencil/graff art is showing at the Auckland Museum again, this Saturday (scroll down). Here's a recent fu and one of his skateboards. This time his dad is doing some too! 'Very collectable' as they say...

Meanwhile on the 'little Chinese geeks' tip, I'm waiting eagerly to see whether this entry wins the primary-school lantern-making competition. Surely the Embassy would, you know, call a few people. A fascinating attempt this, not content with making a lantern with the PRC flag on it, this kid has made a lantern in the physical shape of a flag. It's ...a double-layered symbolic physical recreation of the physical manifestation of a symbolic two-dimensional design! And if you tried to put a candle into it, it's so narrow that the whole thing would start burning; a savage twist to the whole convoluted patriotic exercise in mimesis. Bloody hell! Entry number 234, you are an awesome, awesome artiste-savant, and I ain't making no fun here.

Money quote of the evening from a member of the Embedded Asian Underground, concluding a discussion on how we should feel about the laowai all wandering around the park wearing their Chinese/Vietnamese peasant hats:

"Well, they're the ones looking like idiots."

[***contains Helen Clark anecdotes***] The year I moved to Wellington one of my flatmates got incredibly excited that I knew someone on Shortland Street. People get excited about that sort of thing in Wellington. I got excited that she knew Kate Camp - and yes she thought that was weird.

If you're an Aucklander, knowing actors is not a very big deal. New Zealand actors, even if they're in a movie, are generally still poor and just shlumping around, freely accessible. Writers, even if they're in Sport or Landfall a lot, ditto. So there's something about fame in New Zealand that is completely removed from material success. This is why, out of many anecdotes sloshing around the after-party (at Cafe a la Raskil) of the No.2 premiere on the weekend, my favourite was the one where an actor I know from No.2 met Helen Clark at the North Country premiere a few days earlier. The actor in question asked a minder how he should address our dear leader. The answer (take note) is "good evening Prime Minister", but if she says "call me Helen", you may call her Helen. Happily, it came out as "good evening Mister Prime Minister".

Yep, he had been completely relaxed upon meeting and spontaneously hongi-ing Charlize Theron - but became hopelessly tongue-tied upon meeting Helen Clark five minutes later.

Another of the No.2 actors I know had been asked by Mr Prime Minister what her job was, as the PM didn't recognise her. The actor said she was an actor, then said with much grace (great deadpanners these actors): "and what do you do?" Helen went: "Hurh hurh hurh. I'm in the public service." "Oh, that must be a good job, a nice steady income." "Well yes, it is actually, hurh hurh hurh. Excuse me." From the telling of this particular anecdote, I ascertained that there is an entire new generation of young actors who have mastered the art of brilliantly impersonating politicians. Apparently, Madeleine Sami can do an entire album of Beyonce songs as Helen Clark.

Helen Clark was not at her most intimidating the night of the No.2 premiere however. To introduce the film, she pumped out a few boosterish homilies to the multicultural audience, to warm effect - then said that No.2 will do for Mt Roskill what broTown has done for Mt Albert, and perhaps soon

they'll be saying 'Mt Roskill forever!' - just like 'Morningside forever!'"

Cue the sound of five hundred people putting their heads in their hands, then turning to their neighbours and silently mouthing: "Morningside for - ever? Not even ow!"

As well as myself, others must have been struck by how endearingly uncool this was, as shortly afterwards someone called out from the audience: "You da man, Aunty Helen!"

Helen Clark is never going to be cool. This is also what we from Mt Roskill once thought about Mt Roskill. And you know, it's still true. Mt Roskill is demographically one of the most interesting, 21st century ethno-cultural melting pots in the country. But there's still nothing much to do in Mt Roskill except visit your parents. I mean, that young 1.5er Korean guy who works for his folks at Roskill Fisheries is pretty hot, and there's the Halal butcher if, if you need, like, meat... oh that cafe next to the Post Office is secretly Malaysian, and there's... um, United Video... but well, somehow it's not enough to get me round there more than once a week. Needs a bookshop or something, or as previously discussed, a Sci-Fi-Chinatown with cool robots. There's still not even anything much to do in Morningside, except go to Briscoes or the Zak factory shop. But something has changed. The people who grew up in those nothing places with nothing reputations have become adults and learnt the ways of the outside world. In interpreting that world, we've come to take pride in the places that we left. Maybe it's because they defined our self-deprecating humour, or because the people we left behind are so definitely stuck there that they'll always be there for us when we need to go back, or because the boredom and limitations of living there made us exercise our imaginations and ambitions, and also perhaps because the modesty of a Mt Roskill mise-en-scene is the perfect humanist-scale backdrop for evaluating your life in context, should you wish to do so. It's rare that when out with for example, the literati, or hipsters, or Asian Movement cadres, or musicians, journalists, academics, that when two people from Mt Roskill meet, there

is not a sudden wild grin and a not-actually ironic round of high-fives... although I have had to threaten to 'smash' some people once for saying that 'Hay Park Primary were the bad kids.' We never thought it would happen, but it does appear that we do now in fact matter - that those demographics left to ferment and foment down in the average lower-middling state-housey suburbs, have actually turned out to be the centre of something. The centre of...

...the Labour Party constituency during a period of unstable minority-government.

Whoops, sorry, no, what I meant was: Increasingly, we, the dirt-coloured children of migrants and white trash from Mt Roskill... are the voice of Mainstream New Zealand. When Aunty Helen drags out that dessicating cliche 'telling our stories', she's talking about us. Bloody hell.

Attempting to peel away the Roskill parochialism now, I can say that yes, objectively, the film is really good, just ...bloody strong all round: script, direction, cast. It's all they say it is, warm, funny, true, sparky, gutsy. And full of hotties. You may notice a definite cross-polination in its strengths, style and cast with Rene Naufahu's Otara blinder 'the Market', which was buried late at night on TV1, and definitely the best New Zealand television to screen in 2005.

Returning to Roskill parochialism now, as my mother said: "Oh Ming, King Kong was so stupid! I want to see No.2! It's set in Mt Roskill!" We went to the premiere together. After you follow my mother's example, (I think the film goes on general release mid-February), or perhaps before, visit Gareth Fraser at Cafe a la Raskil on K Road to see what the character 'Soul' is like in real life, and to check whether Taungaroa Emile gets him right in the film. Yes, once known as 'the place all the Christians come from' which banned the practise of Yoga from its municipal hall because of its heathen origins, it's now a suburb with a film, a soundtrack, and a theme cafe.

Link to the previous entry in the 'Mt Roskill will take over the World' series.

Okay, and I usually never do this as it just encourages the nutters, but this response to my last post was just too hilarious:

I think your views are very immature,i love how you manage to turn it against us when you are the one over-reacting.It was a cartoon is all.And what do the Towelheads to in return?Set off on their little racist attacks and expose their extremist values.Gooks and dune coons are a threat to the Western Civilisation.How can you disagree when they chant slogans like "death to Europe" I enjoy reading your biased one sided opinion but honestly you're just a stupid nip.

Bwaahahahahaha! Textbook!

When oh when will the defenders of Western Civilisation learn how to punctuate?

Amid the fiery noble talk of a free press, one question seems to need a little more attention, and it does not really have anything to do with freedom of speech: Must you people be such cunts?

Why be so determined to publish low-quality cartoons only, and specifically only because they will upset a vast amount of people who never did anything to you, but who, rather, have had to put up with this crap in escalating doses since September 2001? The right to 'take the mickey' is truly satisfying when the powerful are being mocked. What kind of satisfaction are these newspapers taking from putting the boot into people who are already floored? I mean, what is the point?

What I hate the most about these 'freedom-of-speech' moments, is that when the desired outrage is elicited from some cheap shot (eg, a newpaper gets called a pack of cunts, people stop buying Danish cheese) then those reactions are deemed attacks on freedom of speech. Well, they're not. They're further expressions of freedom of speech. Sow, reap, eat.

Okay, death threats, setting stuff on fire, not expressions of free speech, rather, anti-free speech. Very clear, very bad. The same introductory question applies (ie 'Must you people...etc). So the publishers didn't expect this kind of reaction? Geniuses. Statements however, to the effect of "You publishers should have expected this kind of reaction, and it'll only get worse if you keep being such assholes", are expressions of free speech, not an attack on free speech. People who say such things are not making anti-free speech statements. They are merely asking 'Must you people be such cunts?'

Here's what the Guardian has to say anyway

newspapers are not obliged to republish offensive material merely because it is controversial. It would not be appropriate, for instance, to publish an anti-semitic cartoon of the sort that was commonplace in Nazi Germany. Nor would we publish one which depicted black people in the way a Victorian caricature might have done. Every newspaper in the country regularly carries stories about child pornography, yet none has yet reproduced examples of such pornography as part of their coverage. Few people would argue that it is essential to an understanding of the issues that they should do so.

Very nice, you bleeding-heart poncey so-called 'Guardian', but you're dead wrong. In the current press climate, newspapers clearly are obliged to republish offensive material, precisely because it is controversial and therefore highly saleable, even if it will not contribute at all to any level of debate or increase understanding whatsoever, but merely reinforce prejudice, inflame hatred and even provoke unnecessary violence (or, in the case of relatively non-flammable New Zealand, make Javed Khan sad, Chris Carter antsy, and sheep-exporters poor). John Stuart Mill didn't say that his favourite spin-off of freedom of speech was that it was materially useful for spurring the intellectual progress of civil and political discourse, and supporting the development of wisdom and good judgement, did he now. Oh, he did? Bugger.

To be fair, context is everything, and I've not seen how the Dom or the Press have handled this at first instance - my guess is something like: 'oh dear, look at this complex controversy over freedom of speech raging across Europe! In the interests of our readers' curiosity, and with the utmost respect to our chilled-out Muslims who have never blown up or firebombed anything here (unlike the French and the National Front), and who we are not trying to piss off at all, here is a picture of Mohammed growing a bomb out of his turban. Cute eh? Discuss.'

[EDIT: okay, so the actual Dom angle was even more stupid, more like 'we are doing this to annoy you nice chilled-out New Zealand Muslims, but it's a test of your tolerance to see whether you're fit to live in our secular liberal society'. Since when did newspapers stop reporting news and start conducting sociological experiments in offensive provocation in the guise of citizenship tests, and laying bets on whether anything gets set on fire as a result? Like, roundabout the time of 'Dancing with the Stars'? You dicks. Why don't you just openly invite those National Front kids (sorry, 'ex-National Front kids') to start faking 'Muslim rage' attacks on churches and newspaper offices? They're probably thinking about it now, believe you me.]

Meanwhile, this op-ed in De Spiegel equates a newspaper's apology for causing offense with kowtowing to totalitarianism. In fact, it equates simply choosing not to publish the cartoons, with kowtowing to totalitarianism. I guess if you're not a total cunt... you're a pussy?

And from the editor of the original Danish newspaper:

Humour, even offensive humour, brings people together. Because by making fun of people we've also including them in our society. It's not always easy for those concerned, but that's the price they've got to pay.

That has got to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I sure as hell have never felt 'included' into New Zealand society by a sidewalk 'ching-chong go home'. And Mohammed with a bomb for a brain is not exactly a bro'Town wink-nudge you know. What I hate the second-most about these 'freedom-of-speech' moments is when people who have been insulted or pissed off get accused of having 'no sense of humour'. Go ask Dave Chappelle why he just quit the game - on this highly recommended video-clip Chappelle describes a turning-point where he realised that some white guy on set was laughing at not with him after all. Go tell him he has no sense of humour, go on.

A recent expert on bFM declared that a woman's idea of a good sense of humour in a man was if he was funny. Meanwhile, (the expert believed) a man's idea of a good sense of humour in a woman was not whether she was funny, but that she laughed at his jokes. He'd done a study.

Women, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, are not going to laugh at your jokes when they're unfairly at our expense. Does the fault lie with our sense of humour, or your sense of humour? Ah, postmodernism.

Let's compare this whole affair with the next chapter on the War on Monsoon Poon. So far it's Angry Asians 2; Monsoon Poon 0. Shortly after I blogged on the appalling set menu experience at the Restaurant of Seasonal Downpouring Vagina (why didn't they just call it 'wet pussy'?) I discovered their appalling website. It was, to put it bluntly, racist.

I fired off an email to Angry Minsoo at Angryasianman.com, and he put up this mention on his site, frequented by squillions of angryasianamericans:

Oh boy. I guess New Zealand has its share of kitschy orientalist restaurant chains too. Check out this restaurant's site: Monsoon Poon. Every cheesy Asian restaurant needs yellow funny funny joke jokes on its website. Like here: "If you drink and drive, you bloody iriot dial a rickshaw." Or this oh-so-hilarious review: "That Monsoon Poon, i hear pretty damn good, now, where you go?" - Sum Yung Gy, Ricksaw driver Hanoi. T-shirts for sale include :"LOVE U LONG TIME" (with faux [Vietnamese] accents on selected vowels) and "Me hungry, you cook now, yes?" That's racist! ...Drop the restaurant a few notes of love at auckland@monsoonpoon.co.nz.

And so, before the local Movement got off its collective holiday ass to take on the Poon in a big way, they had already been undoubtedly bombarded via email, and had removed the two most offensive lines (the 'bloody iriot' and 'Sum Yung Gy'). Thanks angryasianamericanactivists! The website is still a shitter though, unevenly using 'Broken Asian' english, and adopting a tagline probably all Asian women in the West know, have a laugh at from time to time, but feel humiliated by if it's used by any non-Asian person to mock or 'sell' us. All the more reason for No Asian Person to Ever Set Foot in this Joint. Why are they going out of their way to make fun of us? What did we ever do to them? They're making money off this! Must these people be such cunts?

Anyway, for reference purposes on 'humour' here are some excerpts from the script of Full Metal Jacket, dir. Stanley Kubrick. If you like, you can replace 'me so horny' with 'me so hungry', 'love you long time' with 'feed you long time', and 'I'll skip the foreplay' with 'I'll skip the entree'. Hilarious! What a great restaurant. For imperialists.

FADE IN:

51 EXT. DA NANG STREET, VIETNAM--DAY

Motorcycles, cars, Vietnamese civilians. Swinging her hips with exaggerated sexiness, an attractive HOOKER in a mini-skirt walks toward a cafe table on the pavement where JOKER and RAFTERMAN are seated.

Music: Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walking."

The girl stops at JOKER's table.

HOOKER
Hey, baby, you got girlfriend Vietnam?

JOKER
Not just this minute.

HOOKER
Well, baby, me so horny. Me so horny. Me love you long time. You party?

JOKER
Yeah, we might party. How much?

HOOKER
Fifteen dolla.

JOKER
Fifteen dollars for both of us?

HOOKER
No. Each you fifteen dolla. Me love you long time. Me so horny.

JOKER
Fifteen dollar too boo-coo. Five dollars each.

HOOKER
Me suckee-suckee. Me love you too much.

JOKER
Five dollars is all my mom allows me to spend.

HOOKER
Okay! Ten dolla each.

JOKER
What do we get for ten dollars?

HOOKER
Everything you want.

JOKER
Everything?

HOOKER
Everything.

JOKER
Well, old buddy, feel like spending some of your hard-earned money?

RAFTERMAN

Just a minute.

RAFTERMAN raises his Nikon and starts photographing JOKER and the HOOKER.

The girl strikes quick poses for the camera and coughs.

JOKER puts his arm around her.

JOKER
You know, half these gook whores are serving officers in the Viet Cong.

The girl coughs again.

[...]

73
EXT. WRECKED MOVIE THEATER--DAY

The marines are seated outside the theater on rows of broken movie seats.

A motor-scooter, driven by a young ARVN soldier with a pretty teenage Vietnamese HOOKER sitting behind him, and pulls up in front of the LUSTHOG SQUAD.

The girl gets off slowly, swinging her hips as she walks.

Adlibs, hoots anal hollers.

COWBOY
Ten-hut!

More hoots and hollers.

COWBOY
Good morning, little schoolgirl. I'm a little schoolboy, too.

Adlibs and laughter.

COWBOY
What you got there, chief!

The girl stands facing them, hands on hips.

ARVN PIMP
Do you want number one fuckee?

Adlibs and laughter.

COWBOY
Hey, any of you boys want number one fuckee?

Adlibs.

JOKER
Oh, I'm so horny. I can't even get a piece of hand.

DONLON
Hey! Hey! Me want suckee.

ARVN PIMP
Suckee, fuckee, smoke cigarette in the pussy, she give you everything you want. Long time.

Laughter.

COWBOY
Everything you want! All right! How much there, chief!

ARVN PIMP
Fifteen dolla each.

Adlibs: "Nooooooo!"

COWBOY
Number ten. Fifteen dolla beaucoup money.

Laughter.

COWBOY
Five dolla each.

ARVN PIMP
Come on. She love you good. Boom-boom long time. Ten dolla.

COWBOY
Five dolla.

ARVN PIMP
No. Ten dolla.

COWBOY
Be glad to trade you some ARVN rifles. Never been fired and only dropped once.

Laughter and derisive adlibs.

ARVN PIMP
(angry)
Okay, five dolla. You give me.

Adlibs.

COWBOY
Okay, okay!

EIGHTBALL, a black grunt, walks up to the girl.

EIGHTBALL
Let's get mounted.

HOOKER
(speaks in Vietnamese)

ARVN PIMP
(argues in Vietnamese)

EIGHTBALL
Something wrong there, chief?

ARVN PIMP
She says, uh, no boom-boom with soul brotha.

EIGHTBALL
Hey, what the mother fuck?

ARVN PIMP
She say soul brotha too boo-coo. Too boo-coo.

EIGHTBALL
Hey, what is this, man?

COWBOY
(breaking up)

I think what he's trying to tell you is that you black boys pack too much meat.

Laughter.

ARVN PIMP
Too boo-coo. Too boo-coo.

EIGHTBALL
Oh, shi-i-i-t! (laughs) This baby-san looks like she could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.

Laughter.

ARVN PIMP
She say too boo-coo. Too boo-coo.

EIGHTBALL
Uh, excuse me, ma'am. Now what we have here, little yellow sister, is a magnificent...

(takes out his dick)
. . specimen of pure Alabama blacksnake. But it ain't too goddamn boo-coo.

The girl looks at it.

Hoots and catcalls.

TEENAGE HOOKER
Okay. Okay. Emjee.

More hoots.

COWBOY
(mimicking Vietnamese word)
Okay! Okay! Emjee! Emjee!

Adlibs of "Emjee."

EIGHTBALL starts to lead her away.

EIGHTBALL
All right! This is my boogie!

COWBOY
Hey, we need a batting order.

ANIMAL MOTHER grabs the girl's arm, EIGHTBALL holds on to the other one.

ANIMAL MOTHER
I'm going first.

EIGHTBALL
Hey, now back off, white bread. Don't get between a dog and his meat.

ANIMAL
MOTHER slaps EIGHTBALL on the wrist like he's a naughty boy and pushes the girl into the movie theater.

ANIMAL MOTHER
(jokingly)
All fucking niggers must fucking hang.

Adlibs of "Fuck you!" and laughter.

ANIMAL MOTHER
Hey, hey! I won't be long. I'll skip the foreplay.