I Could Have Been Chinese, Back Then

I love old movies; but only the black and white ones. There's something about color that refuses to allow me to think of a movie as being old, it must be only black and white. I don't even like the colorized version of old movies, it's sort of like wearing a T shirt when you didn't go to the concert. Some things are better just imagined and not dictated.

I've just finished watching an old movie that surprisingly I'd never seen before, "The Good Earth" with Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, filmed in 1937. The movie was about China but you'd have been hard pressed to have found a true Asian in the whole lot of it. It looked like a bunch of Caucasians had raided a Maybelline factory and had grabbed all the eyeliner they could get their hands on. Evidently back in 1937 it didn't take a whole lot to be touted as the real thing if you had star quality.

I guess Hollywood must have figured that a movie wouldn't make it with "real" people...it threw me for a minute when one of the "Chinese" had a definite "Noo Yawk" accent. Think Tony Curtis playing Foo Ling Yu and you'll have it.

While I'm still in an Asian mood every time I go to the nail salon I am fascinated by the Vietnamese being spoken there. It sort of reminds me of the sound a basket full of puppies waiting to be fed make, especially when 2 or more are speaking at once. The language comes right out of their throats in a high pitched sing song that I can't imitate although I've tried. Cindy, the shop owner, laughs a lot and smiles even more and I love to hear her "sing song" to her husband. Her English is getting better but you still have to listen very closely. It's either getting better or I've learned to listen better.

I think if you're going to cast a movie about Klingons then hire Klingons. True Trekkers could spot Maybelline at a hundred yards.