A "ha ha" but not "ho ho" story
Something rather out of the ordinary happened on my way to the Japanese supermarket this evening. I had just gotten out of my car, excited to soon be partaking in the green tea mochi ice cream that I had come specifically for, when two small Asian men shouted at me and started running my direction from clear across the parking lot. I stopped, admiring this spectacle, as they were both carrying what looked like camera equipment that weighed more than both of them and which appeared to be very cumbersome. When they finally approached me, I was not entirely prepared for the barrage of questions to come: “Are you Japanese?” “No”, I replied, as they inquired further: “Korean?” “Chinese?” After they had seemingly exhausted their Asian ethnicity options, I finally offered up that I was Vietnamese. “Oh”, they replied in unison, looking genuinely disappointed, which consequently deflated my own ego a bit. They started to walk away, until the one on the right (as I’ll call him since they were almost indistinguishable to me) showed a slight glimmer of hope in asking, “do you perhaps watch Korean programming?”
Now a normal, sane person might give a more negative answer, but it being said, and it also being me, answered, “Why yes!”, as I actually have in the past. If I’m by chance at my parents’ on a Saturday night, there’s a Korean subtitled mini-drama soap opera that my mother is hopelessly addicted to and will go to great lengths to not miss. And so being the dutiful daughter as well as the ever-so curious cat, I have sat through a couple of episodes. I found them appealing enough to watch intently for an entire hour, a couple weeks sporadically.
It turns out that these two brothers, as I was told, were from the Korean station that broadcasts this show, and they were interviewing people in response to the recent Chicago Tribune article reporting that many more Chicoland viewers were tuning into Korean soap operas. They asked me to do a short interview with them, in which I happily complied, even though I sincerely hoped that my stomach grumbles would not be noticeably audible. The entire interview probably lasted 5 minutes, and then we three proceeded along our merry ways.
It was only afterwards the self-critic made her appearance, recalling that I had just left the gym and thus had been in sweaty work out clothes, my hair terribly askew, and when asked to look at the non-speaking camera person, I found myself irresistibly drawn to speak to person directing his questions at me; (aka the one on the right).
Alas, I probably have little to worry about, as even with the Tribune stating increased viewership, there will probably be at most 6 people who will ever see this interview. I’m sure it’ll be nothing to lose sleep over. The most that will happen is what has happened during past interviews; copies of the paper or tape will distributed to close friends and family members and gratuitously laughed over during every single function and get-together to come. Indeed, nothing to worry about.
posted by Sheila @ 1/19/2006 06:16:00 PM
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