Chapter 9: One-Man Show Summary

The improvisation continues, for three nights. Instead of giving the same performance, the players continue the previous night's saga each evening until late into the night. As Chinese audiences like their morals spelled out, and American audiences are beginning to like being insulted, Wittman takes the stage for a diatribe the final night.

Wittman admits that only in America do the Sings keep the meaningless vocative "Ah" in front of their name. Alone and illiterate, the first Ah Sing immigrant had no other Chinese to correct him. He remembered being called ah Sing, like uhm, Jones, and told the schoolmarm that was his name.

Wittman derides the show's overwhelmingly positive reviews, which use expressions like "Exotic" and "East meets West" and perhaps worst of all "Snaps, crackles and pops like singing rice." Deeply offended, he points out that the...