Posted by: agsharma on: October 20, 2008
A Western journalist called me the other day to ask what Asians thought of Sarah Palin.
“Just a minute,” I said. “I’ll ask them.”
I held my hand over phone, counted to 20 and then got back on the line. “They like him,” I said. “But they think he should make more episodes of Monty Python.”
There was a long pause. I heard the journalist’s brain cell click into place. “That’s not Sarah Palin,” she eventually said. “That’s Michael Palin.”
“Well, Asians would like her to tell her husband to make more episodes of Monty Python.”
“Actually, I don’t think Michael Palin is her husband.”
I took a sharp intake of breath. “They are not legally married? That’s something that Asians definitely do not approve of.”
“No, no, no, she’s married to someone else, not Michael Palin.”
“That makes it worse,” I said.
There are few things in life more pleasurable than tormenting American journalists. The only downside is that it is so easy. They are absolutely convinced that the rest of the world watches every detail of what happens in the United States as if it was some sort of wacky global sitcom designed to entertain the rest of the planet. Actually, that IS more or less the case. But I still like teasing them.
