Poul Anderson - How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson

“No. Freeman Snyder mentioned a float or display. Well, I’ll have to soak up cultural background, and develop a scheme, and clear it with a local committee, and design the thing—which had better be spectacular as well as ethnic—and build it, and test it, and find the bugs in the design, and rebuild it, and—And I’m no artist anyhow. No matter how clever a machine I make, it won’t look like much.”

Suddenly Betty exclaimed: “Adzel, you know more about Old Oriental things than he does! Can’t you make a suggestion?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps.” The Wodenite rubbed his jaw, a sandpaper noise. “The motifs—Let me see.” He hooked a book off a shelf and started leafing through it. “They are generally of pagan origin in Buddhistic, or for that matter Christian art…Gr-r-rrr’m…Betty, my sweet, while I search, won’t you unburden yourself too?”

She twisted her fingers and gazed at the floor. I figured she’d rather not be distracted. Rising from my mat, I went to look over his shoulder—no, his elbow.

“My problem is my father’s, actually,” she began. “And maybe he and I already have solved it. That depends on whether or not one of the possibilities we’ve found is acceptable. If not, how much further can we research? Time’s getting so short. He needs time to assemble a cast, rehearse, handle the physical details—” She noticed Adzel’s puzzlement and managed a sort of chuckle. “Excuse me. I got ahead of my story. We—”

“Hoy!” I interrupted. My hand slapped down on a page. “What’s that? Uh, sorry, Betty.”

Her smile forgave me. “Have you found something?” She sprang to her feet.

“I don’t know,” I stammered, “b-b—but, Adzel, that thing in this picture could almost be you. What is it?”

He squinted at the ideograms. “The lung,” he said.

“A dragon?”

“Western writers miscalled it thus.” Adzel settled happily down to lecture us. “The dragon proper was a creature of European and Near Eastern mythology, almost always a destructive monster. In Chinese and related societies, contrariwise, these herpetoids represented beneficient powers. The lung inhabited the sky, the li the ocean, the chiao the marshes and mountains. Various other entities are named elsewhere. The lung was the principal type, the one which was mimed on ceremonial occasions—”

The phone warbled. “Would you please take that, Betty?” Adzel asked, reluctant to break off. “I daresay it’s a notification I am expecting of a change in class schedules. Now, Jimmy, observe the claws on hind and forefeet. Their exact number is a distinguishing characteristic of—”

“Dad!” Betty cried. Glancing sideways, I saw John Riefenstahl’s mild features in the screen, altogether woebegone.

“I was hoping I’d find you, dear,” he said wearily. I knew that these days she seldom left the place without recording a list of numbers where she could probably be reached.

“I’ve just finished a three-hour conference with the board chairman,” her father’s voice plodded. “They’ve vetoed every one of our proposals.”

“Already?” she whispered. “In God’s name, why?”

“Various reasons. They feel Carmen is too parochial in time and space; hardly anybody today would understand what motivates the characters. Alpha of the Centaur is about space travel, which is precisely what we’re supposed to get away from. La Traviata isn’t visual enough. Gotterdämmerung , they agree, has the Mythic Significance they want, but it’s too visual. A modern audience wouldn’t accept it unless we supply a realism of effects which would draw attention away from the live performers on whom it ought to center in a production that emphasizes Man. Et cetera, et cetera.”

“They’re full of nonsense!”

“They’re also full of power, dear. Can you bear to run through more tapes?”

“I’d better.”

“I beg your pardon, Freeman Riefenstahl,” Adzel put in. “We haven’t met but I have long admired your work. May I ask if you have considered Chinese opera?”

“The Chinese themselves will be doing that, Freeman—er—” The conductor hesitated.

“Adzel.” My friend moved into scanner range. His teeth gleamed alarmingly sharp. “Honored to make your acquaintance, sir…ah…sir?”

John Riefenstahl, who had gasped and gone bloodless, wiped his forehead. “Eh—eh—excuse me,” he stuttered. “I didn’t realize you—That is, here I had Wagner on my mind, and then Fafner himself confronted me—”

I didn’t know those names, but the context was obvious. All at once Betty and I met each other’s eyes and let out a yell.

Knowing how Simon Snyder would react, I insisted on a live interview. He sat behind his desk, surrounded by his computers, communicators, and information retrievers, and gave me a tight smile.

“Well,” he said. “You have an idea, Jim? Overnight seems a small time for a matter this important.”

“It was plenty,” I answered. “We’ve contacted the head of the Chinese-American committee, and he likes our notion. But since it’s on behalf of the schools, he wants your okay.”

“‘We’?” My counselor frowned. “You have a partner?”

“Chaos, sir, he is my project. What’s a Chinese parade without a dragon? And what fake dragon can possibly be as good as a live one? Now we take this Wodenite, and just give him a wig and false whiskers, claws over his hoofs, lacquer on his scales—”

“A nonhuman?” The frown turned into a scowl. “Jim, you disappoint me. You disappoint me sorely. I expected better from you, some dedication, some application of your talents. In a festival devoted to your race, you want to feature an alien! No, I’m afraid I cannot agree—”

“Sir, please wait till you’ve met Adzel.” I jumped from my chair, palmed the hall door, and called: “C’mon in.”

He did, meter after meter of him, till the office was full of scales, tail, spikes, and fangs. He seized Snyder’s hand in a gentle but engulfing grip, beamed straight into Snyder’s face, and thundered: “How joyful I am at this opportunity, sir! What a way to express my admiration for terrestrial culture, and thus help glorify your remarkable species!”

“Um, well, that is,” the man said feebly.

I had told Adzel that there was no reason to mention his being a pacifist. He continued: “I do hope you will approve Jimmy’s brilliant idea, sir. To be quite frank, my motives are not unmixed. If I perform, I understand that the local restaurateurs’ association will feed me during rehearsals. My stipend is exiguous and—” he licked his lips, two centimeters from Snyder’s nose—“sometimes I get so hungry.”

He would tell only the strict, if not always the whole truth. I, having fewer compunctions, whispered in my counselor’s ear: “He is kind of excitable, but he’s perfectly safe if nobody frustrates him.”

“Well.” Snyder coughed, backed away till he ran into a computer, and coughed again. “Well. Ah…yes. Yes, Jim, your concept is undeniably original. There is a—” he winced but got the words out—“a certain quality to it which suggests that you—” he strangled for a moment—“will go far in life.”

“You plan to record that opinion, do you not?” Adzel asked. “In Jimmy’s permanent file? At once?”

I hurried them both through the remaining motions. My friend, my girl, and her father had an appointment with the chairman of the board of the San Francisco Opera Company.

The parade went off like rockets. Our delighted local merchants decided to revive permanently the ancient custom of celebrating the Lunar New Year. Adzel will star in that as long as he remains on Earth. In exchange—since he brings in more tourist credits than it costs—he has an unlimited meal ticket at the Silver Dragon Chinese Food and Chop Suey Palace.