The Trouble with Asian Men

Sudha Bhuchar, Kristine Landon-Smith, Louise Wallinger

• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• eBook ISBN: 9781906582784
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

Macho men or metrosexual guys? Mummy's boys or blokes under their missus' thumbs?Self-made entrepreneurs, pukka professionals and successful executives with their Mercedes Benz lives and designer-clad wives; husbands, sons, uncles, brothers and fathers – these successful, soulful and spirited Asian men have come a long way from their origins but they've all got roots! The Trouble with Asian Men is a vital, tender and hilarious insight into lives that surround us every day.From the award-winning theatre company that brought us East is East, a revealing verbatim comedy that has played to sell-out houses internationally.

The Trouble with Asian Men

Parramasala Festival 2012

1. Woman 1 and Woman 2

Woman 1

I said I don’t do Asians. I mean if you find a good-un yes you can trust them but how, where are they? Tell me?

Woman 2

They’re hibernating, they’re hibernating Reens.

Woman 1

This is the newest thing now ‘You have to listen to what I say, ok, if you don’t listen to me then you have to go.’ Yesterday he phoned me up, he went mental, said um, ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in the pub.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m having some dinner and I’m gonna have a drink.’
He goes, ‘Ah, you’re having a drink, what’re you drinking, wine?’, he goes, ‘How many times have I told you I don’t like it, how many times I say to you you can’t have a drink and again you’re having a drink,’ and he went on and on and on…

Woman 2

She left me sat at the table for about an hour on my own.

Woman 1

No I didn’t half an hour.

Woman 2

Ok half an hour, all sat on my own.

Woman 1

And he is just driving me insane. Oh by the end of the night he says to me ‘Choose me or a drink?’

Girls both laugh.

Woman 1

And I… I just feel I just feel a bit stupid going ‘Oh I’d rather have the alcohol’. I said to him, ‘Listen you can’t say to me you are not allowed to have a drink, because my own mum and dad don’t say to me, "Rina you cannot do this you cannot do that," who are you to say this to me?’ He goes, ‘It doesn’t matter what I say, you have to listen to me, ok?’ He’s just a scratched record, ‘You have to listen to me, if you do not then we cannot carry on.’ I says ‘Well, we’re stuck in a rut here because I’m not going to listen to every single thing because’ I said to him ‘what the hell do you… you don’t even have anything’ I said ‘what am I… what am I listening to he ain’t even got a flippin passport (Woman 2 laughs) and you want me to listen to you.’
I says to him, I says, ‘Jesus, I accept you for what you are, and you ain’t got nothing’ but still I didn’t care about that because he was so lovely to me, so I…because I’ve had such shit times with blokes, I said ‘Ok, I’ll let go of that and we can just carry on.’
I said to him yesterday, I said ‘You don’t want to live in a mullah country?’ he goes, he goes ‘Oh because they suppress you yeah?’, he says ‘Yeah’, I says ‘Why you behaving like a mullah now, trying to be a mullah with me?’ (Woman 2 laughs.) ‘Am I correct?’

2. Man 1 and Woman 3

Man 1

Well, it’s lookin pretty good, I’m currently seeing uh… a Scandinavian girl, she’s uh she’s amazing. She’s yup she keeps me uh…keeps me in line, hehe. You don’t want anyone, you know, hassling you and saying, you know uh… shit like that, you know; ‘How come you’re there?’ ‘You should be here’.
Maybe it’s just the Indian-Asian girls I met… you know they’re a bit kind of strange I suppose… you know but uh, they’re always intense, just way too intense and kind of um…I just find them quite dull and shallow as well… you know apart from just… mm mm apart from a couple… the rest were just kind of dull and shallow and… I don’t know you you just run out of ideas you know… you just don’t know what the hell to talk about to them, you know they just talk about… you know silly, mediocre things and they don’t seem to be very ambitious so that kind of stuff really puts me off… you know I just… I don’t know I I like people with a drive, you know and I find Asian women don’t really have a drive. Especially the ones I have met, I am not talking about every single Asian girl, I’m just talking about the ones I have met. Maybe they were related or something… I have not idea but they were kind of strange. Yup, absolutely blondes are fun.
You know she she tends to be very love-y dove-y and she wants to… you know hold hands on Southall Broadway and I don’t know I just… kind of feel like… you know we’re just being watched and I just feel very uncomfortable and then I feel uncomfortable for her as well… that you know she’s being scrutinised being this white person with blonde hair… you know… walking with a with a… with a darkie, on Southall.

Woman 3

Mmm

Man 1

Do you understand?

Woman 3

Yup

Man 1

Good. So you know I think it just depends and you know…if she’s a…she’s a, she’s giving me funny looks.
(Woman 3 laughs)
She’s been on Religious marches when we celebrate Vasahki. She in fact has translated uh a Sikh prayer called the ‘jup jee sahab’ into the Finish language which is going to go online…for everyone you know…for the five, six million Finish people, huh?
And she wears a kara as well and why do you wear a kara?

Woman 3

Because you gave it to me.

Man 1

And what does it symbolise?

Woman 3

It symbolises that God is one.

Man 1

Good. And Meena goes to the Gur-dwaras with us, we have lungars together, we sit down on the floor. So it’s… it’s just amazing seeing her making that effort… you know wearing an Indian suit and going to a Gur-dwara in Southall, takes courage.
So do you want to say something in Punjabi?

Woman 3

Neh (Woman 3 laughs)

Man 1

Go on…

Woman 3

Ha Ha… Sat Sri Akal…

Man 1

What else…

Woman 3

Mira nam Meena hey… Twada ki haal hai… (Woman 3 laughs)

Man 1

Good. And what am I to you?

Woman 3

Um… shall I say that what I…

Man 1

Say it, say it.

Woman 3

Shall I say it?

Man 1

You can say it, don’t worry.

Woman 3

Mira jani man punjabhi sikh hey…

Man 1

(laughs) Fucking hell…

Woman 3

(laughs) It’s a bit weird… now I said something silly… did I say it wrong?

Man 1

No No No you said it so…

Woman 3

Mira jani man punjabhi sikh he.

Man 1

Jani man… jani man means… Jani man hun… darling.
At least I know my kids are going to be ok now.

3. Man 2

Man 2

Mum and Dad had no idea, you know, and the– they… they spoke English, but they were treated as ‘The Immigrant Lot’, you know. And in Australia that didn’t (starts to laugh) mean that you were somehow regarded as Oh! As modern-… multiculturalism came in in the 80s as a word, you know, but in the early 70s when they were here, er, under Whitlam, errrahh… and there were a lot of people against it, you know? The White Australian policy had just been dismantled –

Other voice

Only just.

Man 2

Only just, you know. And ha– and had it not been, we wouldn’t have been here, you know, so (sniffs) um… There was a lot of… flak. I mean, my Dad talks about stories where he’d go for jobs and the bloke next to him had far less qualifications, you know. He knew this ’coz he was speaking to him just two seconds ago, before he went into the interview. But he was a white Australian bloke, and he’d get the job above Dad. And I thought Ah, Jeez, I hope, ah… That – that… really… shat me. Ahh I think it still shits me because it’s not gone, it’s still there in some ways in Australian culture, you know, I mean… Stop the Boats. The idea that they’re being infiltrated by immigrants, and in so called illegal immigrants, which is…
I remember when I was doing my my course that I hated – a Bachelor of Accounting degree – and these – all kids picked around Austra – hand-picked to to study this course, it was a very select course, and there was one bloke, o...

Table of contents

• The Trouble With Asian Men
• Copyright
• Title
• Dedication
• Support Us
• About Parramasala
• Creative Team
• Actors
• The Trouble With Asian Men: Parramasala Festival 2012