How many of you have watched Yan Can Cook?
You know that [INAUDIBLE].
He's Martin Yan.
He has a cooking show on PBS, and in this show--
can I raise the volume on this a little bit?
Yeah.
And in the show, he speaks--
I'm sorry.
We should have this part.
In the show he speaks with a Chinese accent,
but I met somebody who's met Martin Yan
and said Martin Yan doesn't speak with a Chinese accent
in real life.
So the question is why is does he speak with a Chinese accent?
I don't know if this is true or not,
but we came up with this piece which
explains why Martin Yan speaks with a Chinese accent.
It's show on PBS done by his brother, Martin Chan,
and explains why his brother talks the way he does.
You have to remember that like my friend, Kelvin,
he's a wonderful actor.
He's like an Asian-American Larry Fishburne.
He can do like Shakespeare, but he's also
got a street sense of danger.
But on his biography, he lists "Kelvin"
as one of Don Johnson's favorite villains.
Those are the roles that he gets as an Asian-American actor.
So this is part of it.
So there's two characters that I keep weaving back and forth
in this little piece.
One is actually a poem from my book,
and one is this performance piece.
The second character is young Chinese Vietnamese-American
who comes to this country and has to learn English
and then has to deal with the fact
that once he learns English, he has
to take his parents around and lead them
to the society about how scary it is.
So these two characters.
[SPEAKING CHINESE] Welcome!
I am Martin Chan, and I would like to welcome you
to "Chan Can't Talk".
This is a show where I teach you how to make the Chinese accent
work for you because if Chan can't talk, neither can you.
Today, I'm going to teach you how to become a stereotype.
Wow.
I'm going to show you how to speak
English with a Chinese accent.
Listen to this English with that spicy all you can eat flavor
because I'm talking to you for a half hour
in this thick Chinese accent, you
don't understand a darn word I say.
Oh, but if you're a Asian-American actor
you must do accents.
You have to have that flavor.
OK.
Now listen up fast.
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
Yeah, man, let me my motivation [INAUDIBLE]..
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
No, no, no, no, no.
The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.
By golly, I think he's got it.
See it's so simple.
Just let me teach you.
Chan can, can talk.
I am not sitting in the circle with a teacher.
I am to read out loud.
Oh, I hope these words ball, the, I, throat, boy, girl, they
lodge in my throat dry as cotton balls, a cough that
won't leave.
My teacher wears a look of concern or impatience,
it doesn't matter.
My classmates giggle or shift in boredom.
It doesn't matter.
Words lie like ammunition on the page.
I would not fire them.
The minutes pass.
The day is long.
Finally, my teacher asks the next student to read on.
We were Chinese from Sa Đéc just outside Saigon.
We escaped on a boat so heavy with people
we had to throw our luggage overboard.
That night, that first winter in America,
I lay in the cupola of my sheets and rub my hands together,
half in prayer, half like two sticks praying for fire.
Like those who took us in as sponsors on Sunday,
I was asking for the Holy Spirit to enter me,
to speak in tongues of flame.
Martin Yan is my brother.
Yan can cook, but he can't talk too
or he could lose that flavor.
But then who would watch the darn show?
I know what you were thinking.
Martin Yan, he don't talk right.
He is a stereotype, ancient Chinese secret.
Housewives home in Peoria think his accent is cute,
non-threatening like a little Pekinese.
Woof.
No bite.
I knew I spoke with this accent.
It was visible as a hump or the limp my sister walked with,
the metal braces that reverberated with the steps.
And the noise that empty from my mouth
contained the color I could not eradicate,
a grating sing-song like horsehair
of the violin, the Chinese violin.
And even as I opened my mouth.
I could see in the eyes of the listener spreading
in every direction across their face,
the judgment as inevitable as an evening comes the descending
night.
And they call me noise.
Ugly noise.
Ching chong Chinamen noise.
Cavity written and sounding the brown gums,
yellow teeth contorted lips struggling like some ape speak.
And unlike the splinter, my father
drew with delicacy from my palm removing
the pain I've lived with down the streets
of the city the graffiti and traffic all the day.
There was nothing my father could do, nor my mother.
The words sat on my tongue like the questions
that sat inside my ear.
What did you say?
What did he say?
Yeah.
Even then I was moving away.
Coming to the time when I would stand before my teacher
and translate to my parents both the praise,
which I embellished.
The checks, which I altered, vice on the asphalt
schoolyard and a rumbling in my stomach
that spoke incessantly of fear.
Deep in the magical jungle in some country we traveled to,
my parents were wandering, and I had
to lead them in the grocer's, before the lawyer, my teacher,
to mean, sweet land of comprehension rising
like an island from the chaos of oceans
back in the beginning when God made the word and the world.
You children, you take your foreign parents
into these unfamiliar streets.
No, there's friendliness here, and even though you speak
for them, you cannot speak your fear.
You get the minutes pass.
The day is long, and it almost vanished
like the words I spoke as a child once upon a time
long ago.
Boy.
Ball.
Throw.
Me.