“Last time out with the boys before wedding.”
I say:
“Vincent!
No say last time!
No say last time . . .
Bad luck.”
(Sound of baseball being hit. A crowd roars.)
MICHAEL:I didn’t see anybody throw blows
but I saw Chin standing in a position
where he had got done
throwing a couple of blows
and Ebens—you know, the big white guy
he was on the floor, you know . . .
and his stepson, Nitz, you know
the one with the mustache
I think he was on the floor, too . . .
and then they took it outside . . .
CAST: Chow chow chow . . .
PROJECTION: 29.
ALL: 29.
ALETA: Between 1800 and 1842,
RIC: over four hundred thousand chests of opium are smuggled into China illegally.
MICHAEL: The Chinese addiction to opium was so severe that for the first time in the long history of the country China had to export silver to pay for the opium of the “barbarians.”
PROJECTION: 30
ALL: 30.
RIC: British opium was so strong, the Chinese believed that the British had mixed it with the sacrificial flesh of little girls and the dried corpses of crows.
PROJECTION: 31
ALL: 31.
1839.
RIC: In 1839, Commissioner Lin, appointed by the emperor to deal with the illegal opium trade, orders twenty thousand chests of opium to be dumped into the sea.
MICHAEL: Was this a patriotic act or an act of terrorism?
PROJECTION: 32
ALL: 32.
ALETA: Although the British Parliament sent confused and confusing comments about the unacceptability of the opium trade, it didn’t matter as long as it turned a healthy profit ...
PING: The British had found a way to balance their budget.
RIC: And the Beatles are not even born yet.
MICHAEL: Whose history is this anyway?
PROJECTION: 33
PING: 33.
MICHAEL AND RIC (Singing):Are we to be
silent as swans
are we to be
precious and calm
used and abused
opium in our shoes
silent as swans.
CAST:Are we to be
free of its charms
sinuous charms
a killer’s kiss
the kiss of death
silent as swans
silent as swans.
(Sound of cannonball.)
PROJECTION: 34
PING: 34.
A letter to Queen Victoria.
(Shi-Zheng speaks the following in Chinese. Ping translates simultaneously:)
The way of heaven is fairness to all. It does not suffer us to harm others in order to benefit ourselves. Men are alike in this the world over: that they cherish life and hate what endangers life.
Your country lies twenty thousand leagues away; but for all that, the way of heaven holds good for you as for us, and your instincts are not different from ours.
Over many many years, Englishmen have traded peacefully and profitably at Canton. Lately however, some of them have taken to introducing opium. This poison, it appears, is manufactured by certain devilish persons in places subject to your rule.
Why do you permit it to be produced and carried to China? Perhaps it is because you have never been clearly or formally warned.
I now give assurance that we mean to cut off this harmful drug forever. What is here forbidden to consume, your dependencies must be forbidden to manufacture. And what has already been manufactured, Your Majesty, must immediately search out and throw to the bottom of the sea.
Calamities will not be sent down on you from above; you will be acting in accordance with decent feeling, which may also influence the course of nature in you favor.
Sincerely, Lin Tse-Hsu
(Percussive music starts. The Cast performs an abstract movement sequence in a diagonal on the carpet. Sound of multiple cannonball explosions.)
PROJECTION: Queen Victoria Never Received the Letter
PROJECTION: The Opium War 1839–1842
PROJECTION: China loses the war. Hong Kong is ceded to Britain for 99 years, and 21 million dollars in indemnities are paid. China’s humiliation is complete. A sign outside a British country club in Shanghai reads: “No dogs or Chinese allowed.”
PING: 1994.
San Francisco.
I am sitting alone in a stylish restaurant. I am waiting for the bill. While I am waiting, I see a tall man with a crew cut in full camouflage walk into the restauraunt. A flash goes through my brain—is this a hip outfit he ’s wearing or is this the real thing? The man walks over to the bar which is an island in the center of the restaurant. He starts talking to a man who is sitting at the bar.
I can tell that the man at the bar does not know the man in the camouflage outfit. My eyes scan for the maître d’. He sees what I see. He makes a beeline for the bar. I hear the man in the camouflage outfit speak: “Tellin’ me I can’t have a drink at this bar? That’s what you’re tellin’ me, right? Tellin’ me I can’t sit down at this bar.”
I can see the maître d’ making depreciating gestures and at the same time smoothly guiding the man in camouflage away from the bar toward the exit. I know he is going to pass my table and I try to avoid eye contact, but my waiter returns with the bill just as the man in camouflage passes my table. I have to look up. He looks straight at me.
“You serve niggers here.”—There is a black couple sitting opposite me. “You serve gooks.”—That would be me. “We used to kill gooks and you serve ’em here.”
I think to myself, This man is honest about how he feels.
ALETA: Whose history is this anyway?
PROJECTION: 35
ALL: 35.
SHI-ZHENG (Singing in Chinese):Take me out to the ball game
take me out to the park
buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks
I don’t care if I ever come back.
’Cause it’s root, root, root
for the home team
if they don’t win it’s a shame
and it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out
at the old ball game!
PING: Again!
SHI-ZHENG (In Chinese) AND RIC (In English):. . . and it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out
at the old ball game!
PING: Again!
CAST:Take me out to the ball game
take me out to the park
buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks
I don’t care if I ever come back.
’Cause it’s root, root, root
for the home team
if they don’t win it’s a shame
and it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out
at the old ball game!
PING: Again!
CAST:. . . and it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out
at the old ball game . . .
(Sound of baseball being hit. A crowd roars.)
PROJECTION: 36
ALL: 36.
RIC, MICHAEL AND SHI-ZHENG:Boom boom boom
RIC:Next thing I know
while the other girls are
SHI-ZHENG:dancing
RIC AND MICHAEL:we hear boom boom boom
SHI-ZHENG:you know
RIC AND MICHAEL:and we run to the
SHI-ZHENG:stage
RIC AND MICHAEL:to see what’s
SHI-ZHENG:happening
RIC AND MICHAEL:you know, we go,
SHI-ZHENG:“What’s up?”
RIC AND MICHAEL:And we look
SHI-ZHENG:out
RIC AND MICHAEL:and I see men fighting out
SHI-ZHENG:there.
RIC AND MICHAEL:Men
SHI-ZHENG:fighting
RIC AND MICHAEL:going at
each
SHI-ZHENG:other
RIC, MICHAEL AND SHI-ZHENG:boom boom boom.
MICHAEL:I didn’t see anybody throw blows
but I saw Chin standing in a position
where he had got done
throwing a couple of blows
and Ebens—you know, the big white guy
he was on the floor, you know . . .
and his stepson, Nitz, you know
the one with the mustache
I think he was on the floor, too . . .
and then they took it outside . . .
I heard Ebens say,
RIC:“It’s because of you little
Japanese motherfuckers
that we’re out of work with GM!”
MICHAEL:I’m not a little Japanese motherfucker . . .
CAST:Boom boom boom!
MICHAEL: They jumped out from behind the truck
RIC: They attempted to grab and corner Vincent
MICHAEL: Nitz
RIC: Ebens
MICHAEL: Two big white guys
RIC: One with a mustache
MICHAEL: Two big white guys
RIC: One holding a bat
MICHAEL: A bear hug from behind
RIC: A full swing to the head
MICHAEL: A bear hug from behind
RIC: A full swing to the head
MICHAEL: He held the bat with both hands
RIC: A full swing to the head
MICHAEL: Again
RIC: Again
SHI-ZHENG: Again
CAST: Boom boom boom
MICHAEL: All I heard was
CAST: Boom boom boom
MICHAEL: Doubles, triples and home runs
CAST: Boom boom boom
MICHAEL: His skull was crushed
RIC: Pieces of brain bleed into tar
MICHAEL: The body released turns and falls
RIC: He was wearing white socks
MICHAEL: The body released turns and falls
RIC: Not a speck of blood on white socks
MICHAEL: A black man standing on the corner says:
PING: Ebens swung the bat as if a baseball player was swinging for a home run, full contact, full swing.
(Sound of baseball being hit.)
PROJECTION: 37
ALL: 37.
ALETA:I
I want
I
want
I want
I
want
jjjjjjustice for my son
for mmmmy Vincent
my precious bit of light and heaven
dragged out my heart in murder
I
want
I want
I
want
I want
jjjjjjustice for my son
a good boy
a Chinese boy and an American boy
you kkkkill him! You kkkkill him!!!
Like some wild beast!
Let me ask you
if Vincent were white and not Chinese
would you have been such savages?!
You kkkkill him!! You kkkkill him!!!
You . . .
And I
I want
I
wwwant
I wwwant
jjjjjjustice for mmmmy son
for my precious bit of light and heaven
dragged out mmmmy heart in murder.
PROJECTION: Vincent Chin’s murderers never served any jail term. They were fined $3780 and released on probation.
PROJECTION: 38
ALL: 38.
ALETA (Singing):Moonlight will protect me
from what I don’t want to know
moonlight comfort
soothe and smile
moonlight will protect me
from what I don’t want to see.
PING (Spoken):It rises and rises
then falls
history flowing past me
ending
is this the end or
a new beginning?
MICHAEL (Spoken):What will our world be like
when we cease being the world and reconciled to simply
being a part of the world?
A world no longer our own
a world no longer in servitude
to emperor or king
the banality of an ordinary world
filled with ordinary men
wearing ordinary shoes and hats
walking common steps
left right then left right . . .
PING: They tore down the Berlin Wall.
MICHAEL: Will the Great Wall be next?
PING: Only time will tell
MICHAEL: and what time cannot tell is really none of our business . . . ah yes.
ALETA (Singing):Moonlight will protect me
from what I don’t want to know.
Moonlight protect my Vincent
moonlight comfort
soothe and smile
moonlight will protect me
from what I don’t want to see
moonlight protect my Vincent
moonlight comfort
soothe and smile.
(The music from the song continues under the following section.)
PING: 1994.
San Francisco.
I am trying to find the famous image of the meeting of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads at Promontory Point in Utah. The place where East met West, if only in a geographic sense.
MICHAEL: The Celestials—
ALETA: The Chinaboys—
MICHAEL: John Chinaman
ALETA: who had been considered too weak, too unmechanical, too unmanly to build a railroad through the solid rock of the Sierra Nevada, did rise to the task.
MICHAEL: The Chinese were quick to learn,
ALETA: slow to complain,
MICHAEL: did not get drunk on payday,
ALETA: and did not frequent whorehouses.
MICHAEL: They did, however, have the outrageous habit of bathing every day and drinking hot tea, which prevented them from getting sick from the bad water. And some of them did smoke opium.
ALETA (Spoken):The atmosphere is electric.
You can taste it in your mouth.
The historic event has gathered
a frenzied curious crowd.
East meets West.
West meets East.
This must be the event of the year.
Everyone is keyed to the arrival of the emperor.
What will he say to the British?
Will he offer them tea?
And more importantly
what will he wear?
PING: When the railroads finally met in the scorching desert of Utah on May 10, 1869, a commemorative photograph was taken of this historic moment in American history. Ten thousand Chinese pioneers or ninety percent of the workforce of the Central Pacific Railroad were not represented in the photograph.
PROJECTION: Famous photo of the joining of the first transcontinental railroad tracks, from east and west, Promontory Point, Utah, 1869
(The photo is black and white. There are no Chinese people in it at all. Gradually, the picture changes as a few Chinese workers are digitally added in color. Then more and more and more are added. Once the Chinese workers are restored to the photo, the following text is projected above the image:)
PROJECTION: 20,000 pounds of Chinese railroad workers’ bones were shipped back to China for burial. Some of the bones are still in storage and remain unclaimed to this day.
(Loud sound of a train passing. As the projections fade out, the musicians begin playing entrance music for the Emperor in a grand processional style, evocative of Chinese opera.)
PROJECTION: 39
ALL: 39.
(Shi-Zheng enters dressed in elaborate period clothing, as described below by Aleta. He crosses to the carpet and performs a formal movement sequence based on the style of Chinese opera.)
A
LETA: The emperor is wearing a mad yellow dragon robe with tapered sleeves ending in horse-hoof cuffs. The robe is embroidered with the twelve mystical symbols. This includes dragons—which, by the way, is the emperor’s personal symbol—stylized triple-peaked rocks rising out of psychedelic waves wrapped around the hem of the robe, the sun, moon and constellations for days . . .Around the emperor’s neck is a string of one hundred and eight precious pearls. To complete the ensemble the emperor is wearing knee-high riding boots made of black satin with thick, white, inflexible soles. On His Majesty’s head is a close-fitting hat with an upturned, black mole-hair brim. The ornate finial or spike on top is composed of three tiers of Eastern pearls each clasped by writhing golden dragons. The emperor’s jewel of rank is a single extra-large baroque pearl set in the top of the spike, and is rumored to be the legendary Azure Dragon. Azure like it . . .