The chairman, the dragon lady, and me

I often wondered about the sort of responsible, productive life I could have led had I not befriended people with vivid imaginations. Truly they have ruined me with their whimsy and their talk of fairies and ‘taters and hobbit warrens. Had my friends been the sort to talk in terms of five year plans and future interest rates, I might have amounted to something, but instead I while away my time having funny and wonderful conversations about the most absurd things in the universe.

I still chuckle every time I recall one conversation - it took me away from the confines of my ordinary suburban life, and made me the lovechild of Chairman Mao and Lucy Liu.

Mao, for the uninitiated, was the dude who led the Communist party to power in China in 1949. He was a paunchy man with a receding hairline, and his closes friends lamented at his poor personal hygiene. Also he caused the deaths of nearly 40 million people. Lucy Liu on the other hand is the female equivalent to Hugh Grant – I don’t know whether she trawls Sunset Boulevard looking for hookers, but her hair does most of the acting for her. So I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be accused of carrying their combined DNA. Since the accusation wasn’t based on looks (I resemble neither Mao nor Lucy), it can only be concluded that my friends see me as a despotic kung-fu hussy with unusually animated hair.

A little after that conversation, and during a quiet moment at work, I actually thought about what life would be like as the child of Mao and Lucy. An ordinary day might go something like this:

“Dad can I get a lift to school?”
“No, you bourgeois capitalist roader, you can get yourself to school the proletariat way”
“But Dad, we live nearly 150kms from school, I can’t walk”
“Back in my day we walked 10,000kms through enemy territory, with bad shoes and hardly any food. Kids these days! Don’t you walk away when I’m talking to you, you revisionist little ingrat…”
“Mum, can I get some money for the bus?”
“Honey don’t bother me now, I’m waiting on a very important call from my agent. He thinks he can get me an audition for a role as a cancer patient undergoing chemo who discovers that she was Elvis’s lovechild”
“But Mum, you would probably have to shave you head for that role”
“What! Don’t be ridiculous, I’m sure we could say that the character is undergoing a special type of chemo, one where you won’t lose your hair and you always look fresh and kissable”
“Whatever. By the way, people from “Where are they now” called, they want to do a special on your hair”

Yep, not a well adjusted child make. It certainly made me appreciate my real folks a bit more. It used to mortify me how Dad gives friends and visitors to their house Chinese triad names just cause its funny, and how mum misinterprets nearly every song she hears so that regardless of whether its hip hop, rock or country, she’ll sing it like its an aria. But compared to Mao and Lucy, they are not so bad.