written by owen on 2007-Apr-29.

Sometimes I end up at a party with a social piranha. A party like every other party where everybody is a stranger to me. But its one of those uptown parties with rich celebrity guests, television cameras, a hired host from Lime Tree Lane and Chinese people. I don't know any Chinese people, at least not personally. Not counting the woman who sells me my chicken fry rice on weekends. I can't call her a friend. But we have a special unspoken bond like strawberries. Whenever I come through the door without me saying a word she says "chicken fry rice?" and I say "yes" - the simpler of my relationships. I smile.

I make a game of it and try to befriend a china-woman at the party. But stalking and hand signals appear to be not enough. I've found that Chinese people are very reserved and rare like monkeys. And if you study the crowd carefully you will see them huddled together in mother-daughter configurations that are hard to penetrate. They are like baby cubs in a herd of short angry Chinese adult elephants. Sweep me off my feet.

If the the opportunity presents itself I try to pass myself off as a black chinaman by standing in the glow of a bright light so that I have squint my eyes all the time. But it never works, they usually runaway before I can pounce and wound. Its hard to see when your blind and disoriented. Disoriented. Small talk fails when she keeps saying what? what? WHAT? And all I can reply is "komichi?". Luckily, the social piranha has me in the corner of her eye and will often rush back to save me before I succumb to the five point palm-exploding heart technique. Put my feet back on the ground.

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