And when Miss Saigon came out, it started a lot of arguments
that I have with different friends
about the fact that they wanted to cast
a white guy as a Eurasian and about the way that they
took the Vietnam butterfly plot from Madama Butterfly
and just foisted it onto Vietnam as if Vietnam and Japan were
just the same thing.
And the plot, David Henry Hwang goes over
how ridiculous the plot is about this Asian woman who
committed suicide over the white Pinkerton or the white GI.
Anyway, I have a long poem in the book about my new book
about that, but I'm not going to read that,
because it's so long.
But I'm going to read you a little afterward that I
have to this.
It's called "Two Imperialist Ditties."
The first is called "A Little Song From Kipling."
"There was a little brown brother.
There was a little brown sister.
The brother called us master.
The sister called us mister.
And yes, their country was warm and easy like a woman.
We sampled each and all their charms
until she turned a demon.
Oh, damn the East and all its lies,
oh, damn those ugly heathens.
Damn there beauty and their spies,
and take me back to heaven."
The second is "Caliban's Curse."
And there's that line in The Tempest where Caliban says,
"you taught me language and my profit on it is I
know how to curse."
"Oh, Mr. Moto, Fu Manchu, Kung Fu ninja
chopping you, Charlie Chan, chink and Jap man, houseboy,
gardener, laundry coolie, Miss Saigon's chop chop suey.
This is how our balls were banned.
This is where they played our parts.
Fuck their yellow minstrel farce.
Fuck them in their white, white hearts.
Fuck them till they fall apart, weeping
for their white, white art."
And that came out of the fact that when I saw Miss Saigon,
the woman next to me was just breaking up and tearing up.