Copy of a Copy of a Copy

Alex is a seventh-grade boy at our school who is a non-Chinese American. He is well-liked by his fellow classmates.

Alex has this little shtick he does where he good naturedly slips into a Chinese accent. While a little stereotypical, it’s pretty good and actually quite funny. He does it a lot. It’s kind of his thing.

Because he’s genuinely funny and because he is popular with the other seventh-grade boys, they are inclined to copy whatever Alex does.

So we find ourselves in the surreal situation that we have thirteen-year-old Chinese boys doing really bad imitations of a western boy imitating a Chinese man.

Anybody else getting the irony in this besides me?

-Jack

(posted with permission)