Open Mic Read online

  Introduction

  Becoming Henry Lee

  DAVID YOO

  Why I Won’t Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie

  GENE LUEN YANG

  Talent Show

  CHERRY CHEVA

  Voilà!

  DEBBIE RIGAUD

  Three-Pointer

  MITALI PERKINS

  Like Me

  VARIAN JOHNSON

  Confessions of a Black Geek

  OLUGBEMISOLA RHUDAY-PERKOVICH

  Under Berlin

  G. NERI

  Brotherly Love

  FRANCISCO X. STORK

  Lexicon

  NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

  About the Contributors

  Conversations about race can be so serious, right? People get all tense or touchy. The best way to ease the situation is with humor. There’s actually a lot of bizarre comedy material when it comes to growing up “between cultures,” as I like to call it. It’s a weird place.

  Take being Indian-American, for example. Why did that lady at the grocery store feel compelled to tell me about her random bad experience with chicken tikka masala? Do I want to know? We don’t even eat chicken tikka masala in my part of India. It’s just as orange and soupy and strange to me as it is to her.

  And did that dude really just ask if I know his doctor? There are over a billion of us on the planet — why should Dr. So-and-So-ji and I be best buddies? (It’s even stranger when I do know his Indian doctor, which happened once.)

  Then there’s the boring dinner party conversation during which an artsy type describes — in lengthy detail, ad nauseum — the plot of that one Bollywood movie he simply adored. I grew up with those “fillums,” man. There are a bunch of them. It only makes things worse when you apply a weird lilting accent, add a head waggle, and laugh hilariously at yourself. Awkward.

  What works better (at least for me) is when I share stories about how strange it was to be squeezed between cultures. Like when I was seven and wondered why the fat guy in the red suit skipped our house completely in December. And then some stupid bunny forgot to come in April. Or later, in high school, wanting desperately to date guys, which wasn’t going to happen because (a) I was the color of pastrami and they preferred provolone, and (b) my parents dated after they met and got married, both of which happened on the same day.

  When I tell my stories, I want listeners to laugh (not at me, I hope, but with me). Humor has the power to break down barriers and draw us together across borders. Once you’ve shared a laugh with someone, it’s almost impossible to see them as “other.” Poking fun at my marginalized life also sets readers free to see the funny in their own lives, a key to surviving the stressful experience of becoming an adult.

  I do have some ground rules, however, for what I consider good humor, especially in a tension-filled arena like race. Here they are, take them or leave them:

  1. Good humor pokes fun at the powerful — not the weak. Using the gift of wit to pummel someone less gifted physically, socially, emotionally, or intellectually may win a few initial laughs. Soon, though, audiences sense the power-flexing of a bully behind the humor, and they’ll stop listening. The most powerful person of all, of course, is the storyteller (see rule #3), so no holds barred when it comes to humbling that target.

  2. Good humor builds affection for the “other.” At the close of a story, poem, or joke about race or ethnicity, do we feel closer to people who are the subject of the humor? If not, even if the piece is hilarious, it’s not good funny. Sometimes comedians use wit to alienate the “other” from us instead of drawing us closer to one another. Again, they may get a few laughs, but they’re cheap laughs. Of course, I don’t like any humor where someone gets hurt — I rooted for Wile E. Coyote, winced at the Marx brothers’ physical (painful) humor, and stand stony-faced while my sons laugh at videos of people falling and crashing into things. So take rule #2 with a caveat: if watching someone take a hit or a blow makes you like them better, you might appreciate some humor that I don’t. And that’s okay.

  3. Good humor is usually self-deprecatory (note: not self-defecatory, although it can feel like that). While I usually don’t like edicts about who can write about whom, in a post-9/11 North America, where segregation, slavery, and even genocide aren’t too far back in history, funny multicultural stories work best when the author shares the protagonist’s race or culture. Funny is powerful, and that’s why in this case it does matter who tells a story. Writing that explores issues of race and ethnicity with a touch of humor must stay closer to memoir than other kinds of fiction on the spectrum of storytelling. Some writers and comedians have succeeded in poking fun across borders, but it’s challenging in today’s mine-filled conversations about race. Go ahead if you want to try, I tell them, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  Okay, enough with the rules. Time for some lighthearted storytelling about the between-cultures life. I’m thrilled about the authors who have contributed to this anthology. Some pieces, like Cherry Cheva’s “Talent Show,” Debbie Rigaud’s “Voilà!” and David Yoo’s “Becoming Henry Lee,” make us chuckle; others, like Greg Neri’s “Under Berlin,” Francisco Stork’s “Brotherly Love,” my “Three-Pointer,” and Varian Johnson’s “Like Me,” may bring a rueful, ouch-filled smile. Gene Luen Yang’s “Why I Won’t Be Watching the Last Airbender Movie,” Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich’s “Confessions of a Black Geek,” and Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Lexicon” make us feel like we’re exchanging a knowing glance of shared humor with the storyteller or poet — like viewers are supposed to feel when cast members on popular sitcoms catch the camera’s eye for a moment.

  When you’re done reading, or if something strikes your fancy, find us on Facebook (facebook.com/openmicanthology) to let us know what you think, and share your own weird, funny, or crazy story about growing up between cultures.

  Laughing with you, not at you,

  Mitali Perkins

  Ching Chong’s real name was Henry Choi Lee, but when he started the eighth grade, one of his classmates called him Ching Chong and it stuck. At first this bothered him — who wants to be called Ching Chong, after all? — but it would soon turn out that what his classmates called him was the least of his problems.

  Before his father was transferred to Connecticut for his job, the Lees lived in southern California, where Henry was surrounded by other Asian students. But at Renham Middle School in Renham, Connecticut, he was the only Asian kid.

  Renham was an affluent town and home to the best high school in Connecticut, which was the main reason Henry’s parents had moved there. They wanted to give their son a leg up toward getting into an Ivy League university, which would then give him the best chance of eventually becoming a doctor or lawyer. “A doctor or lawyer command respect in community,” they’d often say.

  “So does proper grammar,” Henry would retort, but they’d ignore him.

  The adult Lees fit some of the Asian stereotypes nicely. But not Henry. Everyone at school assumed he was a nerd. They were certain he was a whiz at numbers, music, video games, and kung fu. Like all Asians must be.

  But in fact, Henry was horrible at math and could hardly play the piano despite the private lessons his parents had arranged for him since he was four. He got dizzy playing first-person shooter games because of a balance problem caused by the perpetual inflammation of his inner ear. Which also meant that when it came to martial arts, Henry was clueless.

  Within a month of starting eighth grade in this new town, Henry decided that he absolutely hated being Korean. Or rather, he didn’t like being different. He made it his main goal to change people’s perceptions of him. So he never studied and swore off video games (which he didn’t like playing anyway) and Asian food.

  At the Renham Galleria food court,
Henry made it a point to eat pizza (even though the slices were always a little cold) and avoided the comic-book store and gaming depot. The cool white boys in his grade sat with their equally cool girlfriends, whose dyed hair always came out kind of blue-looking instead of the intended black, and ate the teriyaki combo #3 from Chang Gourmet after spending hours reading manga and trading used video games.

  Another problem, at least as Henry saw it, was that people could tell from a mile away that he was Asian. So Henry started wearing white baseball caps with the brim pushed down low, trying to hide his jet-black hair and smaller, upper-eyelid-deprived Asian eyes. One weekend, after watching an episode of some Nickelodeon show where the star had bright blond hair and was beloved by everyone, he ran out to the store, bought a bottle of Color-Me-Blond, and dyed his hair. At school on Monday, he hated himself for not thinking through his decision. Kids kept asking him if “the carpet matched the drapes,” which Henry didn’t quite understand, given that they’d never before seemed interested enough to inquire about his house, though deep down he had a feeling it had something to do with the fact that his newly blond hair clashed with his still-black eyebrows.

  Kids also teased Henry by pretending to talk in broken English, even though he had a perfectly good American accent. He decided he had to make it even more obvious that he didn’t speak the way they thought a Korean would. The following weekend, he decided to adopt a southern accent, so he rummaged through his parents’ old DVD collection. Unfortunately for Henry, the one movie the Lees owned that took place in the South was their boxed set of Roots, an epic TV miniseries about slavery. That Monday students were more confused than convinced by his new accent.

  “Late for class again, Ching Chong?” a kid asked as Henry struggled to open his lock.

  “Never you mind, boy,” Henry replied in his best Roots voice. “I hear tell the teacher’s fixing to be late for class on account of the coffee machine in the lounge being done busted, so he gone have to get his coffee from down yonder in the cafeteria where done —”

  “Chinese sure sounds a lot like English,” the kid said. “What the heck did you just say?”

  Dashing off to class, Henry tried to get a laugh by insulting the teacher in his new voice. “Lawd almighty, I done hear tell you smells right like a hawse,” he told her. Sadly, his classmates didn’t understand what the heck he was saying. The teacher must have, though, because she gave him three days of detention.

  For the rest of the day, Henry simplified his southern accent by sticking the word ain’t into every other sentence. Nobody paid much attention. Obviously, his linguistic efforts were failing to convince anyone that he was a white boy whose daddy owned a plantation.

  When Henry’s mom picked him up after school, Henry was so depressed that he didn’t see her pull up. She rolled down the driver’s side window and hollered, “Henry! You get in car, now!”

  “Yeah, Ching Chong, you get in car, now!” the other kids hooted.

  Henry hurried to the car, embarrassed by his mom’s broken English. The next afternoon, even though he lived several miles away, Henry walked home after detention. His mom saw him walking down West Renham Road and slammed on the brakes.

  “What are you doing? Traffic is dangerous! Get in car now!” she shouted.

  “Thought I’d save you some gas,” Henry said, looking around feverishly before diving into the backseat.

  Thanks to the unchangeable shape of his eyes and his parents’ undeniable Asian accents, Henry realized he was never going to convince his peers that he was white. It was going to take a miracle for things to turn around, but luckily for Henry, a miracle was waiting for him in study hall the first day back from winter break: Marcy Spetucchi, the most popular girl in the eighth grade. And although she had never said a word to Henry before, when Marcy saw Henry sitting there all alone, she asked him out of the blue, “You’re good at math, Ching Chong. Can you help me with my homework?”

  Up to this moment, Henry had always gotten frustrated when classmates asked him for help on math homework, but this time, he agreed. Marcy was too pretty to deny. As he taught her how to do math, making up rules and formulas as he went along, he realized that he’d finally stumbled upon the solution to his social woes. He’d been going about it all wrong, it turned out; rather than trying to convince everyone he wasn’t Asian, the key was to become über-Asian. Wasn’t this proof? For the first time ever, Henry Choi Lee was hanging out with the most popular girl in school.

  After school that day, he accompanied his one sort-of friend (a pale, perpetually bloody-nosed kid named Sam, who lived down the street) to the mall, where they happened upon a group of kids from a rival middle school talking smack with kids from Renham.

  Henry decided to test his new theory. He stalked over to the fight, crouched low, and started growling and shoving air around with his hands.

  At first his classmates looked as stunned by his maneuver as their rivals, but then one of them moved closer to Henry. “You mess with us, you mess with the Karate Kid,” he said.

  “Yeah, Henry could kick anyone’s butt at Farnham,” another one added. “He’s got a fourth-degree black belt in kung fu.”

  “For real?” one of the Farnham middle-schoolers asked.

  Henry nodded and kept yowling. For the first time, he saw his classmates beam at him.

  “Why’s your nose bleeding?” the rival kid asked Sam.

  “He got out of line,” Henry muttered ominously.

  The Farnham kids backed off, and his classmates gleefully patted him on the back. As Henry fist-bumped them one by one, he wondered why he’d hated stereotypes so much. What was so wrong with people mistakenly assuming he was a genius? That he was good at math and science? That he was a martial arts master? Obviously the key was to prove that he was the most Asian Asian student in the history of middle school.

  That weekend he did research online on how to be Asian and began crafting a persona that incorporated all the major elements of Asian-ness imaginable. His first move was to use tai chi and meditation.

  In gym class, Mark Porter shouted in pain as his back seized up from trying to do a pull-up. As he writhed around like a grub on the cushioned mat while the rest of the class and the gym teacher stared at him in fascination, Henry gravely walked to Mark and stood over him. He clapped his hands loudly once to get everyone’s attention, then proceeded to rub them really fast like he was trying to warm them up. Mark looked up at Henry, puzzled but still making appropriate sounds of pain.

  “I will now use tai chi to help your back feel better,” Henry said, and closing his eyes, he proceeded to move his arms in a dance-like motion à la Mr. Miyagi, pretending to shoot waves of chi into Mark’s back.

  A moment later, Mark stopped groaning. “I think I feel something,” he said, keeping his eyes on Henry.

  “Usually you do tai chi on yourself, to relieve stress,” Henry explained, “but if you’re really one with the life force, it’s okay to use it on others. What I’m doing here is re-directing positive energy to your back while at the same time pulling away the . . . er . . . evil energy.” Henry shook his head slightly as he concentrated with his eyes closed.

  “It’s working!” Mark said.

  Henry opened his eyes. Everyone, even the gym teacher, was looking at him like he was some kind of Zen wizard.

  By the next morning, circles were forming around Henry wherever he went. Students wanted to see him perform tai chi again, but they were hesitant. Finally, a kid asked if Henry could help his strained wrist feel better.

  “I only have a certain amount of chi to work with each week. Maybe next week,” Henry said.

  “But —” the student protested.

  “I said be ready for you next week!” Henry shouted, imitating the angry Chinese dry cleaner who yelled that exact same grammatically incorrect sentence at his dad any time Mr. Lee tried to pick up his dress shirts.

  Some of the students didn’t believe in Henry’s magical tai chi abilities
, so in homeroom, he decided to prove them wrong. Extending a stiff index finger, he zapped one of the beta fish in the bowl on Mr. Parson’s desk with a dollop of invisible chi. Nothing happened.

  “The fish is fine,” a skeptic noted.

  “Not so, young grasshopper,” Henry said, lightly patting the kid on the back. “I just used chi to scramble its internal organs. You’ll see: in a few days that fish will be dead.”

  Sure enough, a few mornings later, the students arrived to find one of the beta fish lying sideways at the top of the water. Everyone was officially convinced that Henry was a tai chi master. No one seemed to remember that before Henry’s zap, beta fish seemed to die every few days since they didn’t have long life spans to begin with.

  The kid with the wrist injury approached him again for his services.

  “It seems pretty serious,” Henry said, feeling the kid’s wrist. “We might need to do some acupuncture. I don’t have my needles with me. Why don’t you go sharpen a half-dozen pencils, and we’ll see what we can do about this wrist pain you speak of.”

  The kid raced off without a moment’s hesitation, and Henry was taken aback. Wasn’t the threat of getting punctured by pencils enough to deter this patient? The kid returned, clutching a handful of newly sharpened pencils. “Um, wait — are those lead pencils?” Henry stalled. “Yeah, no, that’s not going to work. Let’s just stick with the tai chi.”

  Pretending to know stuff was exhausting. Henry almost fell asleep in English class. The teacher shouted for him to wake up, and Henry, startled at first, glanced at his peers before explaining, “I wasn’t sleeping. I was meditating.”

  The teacher rolled her eyes, and Henry leaned over to James Murphy to whisper, “I used my meditation to visualize tomorrow’s multiple-choice quiz. Choose B when you don’t know the answer.”

  This, of course, hadn’t come from meditating. The “B strategy” was something he’d learned about multiple-choice questions when his parents had forced him to take a PSAT training course the summer before.