Lumberjack part 2 of 2

The basic premise for the "American Lumberjack Show!" was that two teams –red and blue- were engaging in a variety of lumberjack competitions ranging from axe throwing, to wood chopping, to two-person hand sawing. Members of each team wore either a red or blue flannel shirt of which all the sleeves had been cut off. The men on each team wore either a cowboy hat or a mesh truckers ball cap.

It was really more redneck than it was lumberjack.

In addition to the several young ladies who were dressed like the barmaid Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, each team had a young woman who was an active participant in all the rough and tumble lumberjack activities. They each wore short Daisy Duke denim shorts, pigtails, and a sleeveless flannel shirt that was tied off to bare their midriffs. They kind of looked like a poor man’s EllieMay from Beverly Hillbillies. Classy.

In between log-rolling and wood-chopping competitions, there was a lot of trashing talking –actually it was more trash gesturing since it was a Chinese audience and the actors didn’t speak Mandarin. The Chinese emcee did all the talking, whipping the characters into a frenzy. Three-fourths of the way through the 45 minute show –when the “score” between the red team and the blue was tied at 3 to 3- it all spilled over into an on-stage brawl.

Punches were thrown, groins were kneed, and several people ended up in the water tank. The lovely lasses and their bared midriffs were right in the middle of the fray. In fact, two of their team members had to pull them apart. It was straight off of the stage of The Jerry Springer Show. Classy.

When most Americans think of traditional Chinese culture, they think of silk robes, Mandarin scholars, emperors, Buddhism, natural medicine, and tea.

Nice to know that when the Chinese think of American culture, they think of barroom brawls, sleeveless flannel shirts with trucker hats, and feisty maidens in shorty McShort denim shorts.

It makes me want to wear my “Proud to Be an American” t-shirt for the rest of the week.

-Jack