“I’m one thing. An Asian Man. And that’s all I am. Trust me, it’s better to be you than me.”
“Oh, boo hoo, I’m a poor helpless Asian Man. It’s so terrible being me.”
“I have to talk with an accent because no one can process what the hell to do with me. I’ve got the consciousness of a contemporary American. And the face of a Chinese farmer of five thousand years ago. Asian Man. It’s a fact. Look it up. No one likes us.”
“Not with that attitude they won’t. And by the way, I think I might like you. Maybe. A little.”
Wait, what?
LOVE STORY FOR A GENERIC ASIAN MAN???
No way.
LOVE STORY FOR A GENERIC ASIAN MAN???
For real?
LOVE STORY FOR A GENERIC ASIAN MAN???
They’re rare, for your kind, but if you’re lucky, in a lifetime, you might get one good one. Make it count.
LOVE STORY
You and Karen. The scene is set. Take your places. She’s a tourist, you’re a Delivery Guy. You can’t stop looking at her.
BEGIN ROMANTIC MONTAGE
KAREN
Oh.
Are we starting already?
SPECIAL GUEST STAR
And for some inexplicable reason, she likes you.
KAREN
I guess we’re starting.
Why inexplicable?
SPECIAL GUEST STAR
Because look at you.
And look at me.
KAREN
Why are we talking like this?
“Sorry,” you say. “Force of habit.”
“I don’t want to practice dating, Will. I want to actually date.”
“How do we do that?”
“You don’t know how to date?”
“Not really,” you say, looking down.
“Oh. Oh! I thought you were kidding,” she says, realizing you are not. “Why don’t we start with coffee?”
“I like coffee.”
At coffee you ask her questions. What are her hopes, her fears? Where does she see herself in five years? She says those are bad questions. Those are questions if she were interviewing for a position at a law firm, not questions to ask on a date. You say right, right, as if you knew that, and then it is quiet for a second and she starts laughing and your face goes flush and you feel like you might have to run out of the coffee place but instead you start laughing at yourself and it feels so good. To have no idea what you are supposed to do or say and to be sitting across from this person who has just taken your hand and squeezed it then let go right away and then you’re walking EXT. BOARDWALK—NIGHT, under the moonlight and she says, hey, how did we get here? You say moonlit strolls along the water are supposed to be romantic and she says this isn’t a place, it’s an idea, a generic romantic setting and you say well they don’t call me Generic Asian Man for nothing and you laugh at yourself and this time it’s easier and she laughs, too. This time instead of her making you laugh, you made her laugh and that feels good, making this person laugh, and you tell her that. She says she always thought you were funny. She’d worked with you before, and in the background you were always making cracks, whispering stuff to Fatty Choy or one of the other guys, little jokes under your breath, pretending that you were just trying to deliver a takeout order of Fried Rice Combo but then you accidentally witnessed several murders and that BLACK AND WHITE was really, at its heart, a show about the dangers of eating too much Chinese food.
You really noticed me? You want to ask her but you don’t. You just let that fact sit with you—Karen Lee was aware of your existence before the two of you met. She saw you back there, not in the light, even when you weren’t able to see yourself, and that fact changes everything. Now you’re INT. CHINATOWN, sharing a bowl of tsuabing shaved ice with red bean and condensed milk and you’re asking her questions about herself. You find out she has four younger brothers, the youngest of whom is in middle school. Her dad died when she was fifteen and her mom remarried. You like looking at her, it’s true, seeing in her face, her features, little habits that you recognize, a Chinatown face, and also things that you don’t, some threshold ratio of familiarity and difference, of comfort and newness, extending not just to the way she talks, the tones and rhythms of speech, but also thought, to the way she sees the world—from the background, from the margin. She may look like a future leading lady but she has the clear-eyed pragmatism of someone who started in bit parts. She takes care of people—her brothers, her mother—and you start to imagine ways that you could take care of her, care for the one who is always caring for others. You like how she is self-aware without being overly self-conscious, how she says what she means and does what she believes in. Your whole life you’ve wanted to be Kung Fu Guy, to be something you are not, and here is this person who is whatever she is at all times.
More coffee, more cold desserts. Talking. Some kissing happens. More talking. You play games. Would You Rather. Would you rather: be Handsome Dead Asian with no lines or Silly Oriental who says silly things? You do voices, slip into roles you’ve both done, share the dumbest things you’ve ever had to say at work. More tea, more eating of fried things, things on sticks, and laughing and taking on goofy roles. You want to tell her how you feel. You rehearse what you’re going to say, imagine yourself in profile, dewy and tender-eyed. She notices you rehearsing.
“Will? What are you doing?”
“Being in love with you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re falling in love.”
“Same thing.”
“Not the same thing,” she says. “Falling in love is a story.”
She says that telling a love story is something one person does. Being in love takes both of them. Putting her on a pedestal is just a different way of being alone.
You try not to ruin this. She doesn’t let you ruin it. It’s going well. It keeps going well until the point where it normally stops going well and seems like it’s going to start going less well, but then it gets to that point and it doesn’t stop going well.
Karen sees you, talking to your mother. She approaches, smiling, nervous, sweet. A feeling rises up in you, a taste in your mouth, metallic, like fear. Karen and Old Asian Woman, meeting, in conversation. You can’t imagine it. You can’t imagine it so you can’t let it happen. How do you stop this? Run away? Tackle her? Tackle your mom? But none of that’s necessary. All that happens is you do a thing, small, a turn of your head.