If It’s Yellow, Don’t Wanna Mellow

I’ve had my run-ins with little Asian girls. I envy their shoes that light up and their clothes picturing googly-eyed animals. At restaurants, we trade the evil eye and reach a détente when the shrimp arrive.

One day I was shopping at the San Gabriel Superstore – you know, the store where you can buy live frogs and diamonds in one place – and I see a girl tearing around the corner between the aisles of salted dried plums and Hello Kitty purses. She is running straight toward my friend and I. Realizing imminent impact into twin towers, she shuts her eyes and leaps through us, arms thrust wide as if breaking open the gates of hell. In that moment, I see Superman pry apart steel doors to rescue Lois Lane, the columns of the Acropolis topple, and the parting of the Red Sea. We twist out in time to avoid any contact, and she speeds away toward the cash registers unimpeded. No hesitation and she never looks back. I am bowled over all the same: three feet of pure moxie.

The girls pictured in the scroll paintings stand witness to this world in which we live, characterized by a global synergy of materialism, militarism, and medication. They stand witness to this landscape of folly and excess and are not afraid to engage it with a sense of play. Just don’t get in their way.