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88 Chapter 3 On Using Definition

I Was a Member of the KungFu CrewHenry Han Xi Lau

New York City is still in many ways a city of neighborhoods, many ofwhich are ethnic ones. The Chinatown that Hem)! Han Xi Lau writesabout is one of the oldest, and it's where you can still walk down thestreet and not hear a word of English. To Lau, it's also bome, eventhough he and his family have moved to Brooklyn, which, likeManhattan, is one of the city'sfiue boroughs or districts. A sophomore atYale University at the time he wrote this essay, Lau describes thepeopleand places of Chinatown, defining it as "ghetto." 17Jepiece was pub-lished in the New York Times Magazine on October 19, 1997. After theessay came out, Lau objected to the way it had been edited, and in alater piece he wrote for Discourses, an undergraduate journal at Yale,he.called it a "warped presentation. "If you'd like to read his critique,you can find it by typing his name into a search engine; it wasreprinted in Microcosm, a Web journal published by Rice University.Wbat's missing in the Times version, according to Lau, is the "resource-

fulness and hard-working side of gbettoness." See if you agree.

What to Look For Lau relies heavily on definition to convey whatit's like to be a member of the Kung Fu Crew and to be "ghetto." Manyof the techniques he uses are ones that can carry over to your ownwriting, so be on the lookout for the details that define the Crew'sphysical prowess, hair, pants, attitudes, accessories, and language, allof which add up to being "cool."

1 Chinatown is ghetto, my friends are ghetto, I am ghetto. I wentaway to college last year, but I still have a long strand of hair thatreaches past my chin. Ineed it when Igo back home to hang with theK.FC.-for Kung Fu Crew, not Kentucky Fried Chicken. \Ve all met ina Northern Sbaolin kung fu class years ago. Our si-fu was Rocky. Hetold us: "In the early ]900's in China, your grand master was walkingin the streets when a foreigner riding on a horse disrespected him. Sothen he felt the belly of the horse with his palms and left. Shortly

Lau J Was a Member oftbe Kung Fu Crew 89

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thereafter, the horse buckled and died because our grand master hadused qi-gong to mess up the horse's internal organs." Everyone said,"Cool, T would like to do that." Rocky emphasized, "You've got topractice really hard for a long time to reach that level."

By the time my friends and 1 were in the eighth grade, we wereable to do 20-plus pushups on our knuckles and fingers. Whenwe practiced our crescent, roundhouse and tornado kicks, we hadla-pound weights strapped to our legs. Someone once remarked,"Goddamn-that's a freaking mountain!" when he saw my thighmuscles in gym class.

Most Chinatown kids fall into a few general categories. There arepale-faced nerds who study all the time to get into the Ivies. Thereare the recent immigrants with uncombed hair and crooked teethwho sing karaoke in bars. There are the punks with highlighted hairwho cut school, and the gangsters, whom everyone else avoids.

Then there is the K.F.c. We work hard like the nerds, but weidentify with the punks. Now we are reunited, and just as in the olddays we amble onto Canal Street, where we stick out above theolder folks, elderly women bearing leaden bags of bok choy andoranges. As an opposing crew nears us, I assess them to determinewhether to grill them or not. Grilling is the fine an of staring othersdown and trying to emerge victorious.

How the hair is worn is important in determining one's order onthe streets. In the 80's, the dominant style was the mushroom cut,combed neatly or left wild in the front so that a person can appearmenacing as he peers through his bangs. To gain an edge in grillingnow, some kids have asymmetrical cuts, with long random strandssprouting in the front, sides or back. Some dye their hair blue orgreen, while blood red is usually reserved for gang members.

Only a few years ago,examination of the hair was sufficient..But now there is a second step: assessing pants. A couple of years ago,wide legs first appeared in New York City, and my friendsand I switched from baggy pants. In the good old days, Merry-Go-Round in the Village sold wide legs for only $15 a pair. When Merry-Go-Round went bankrupt, Chinatown kids despaired. Wide-leg pricesat other stores increased drastically as they became more popular.There are different ways of wearing wide legs. Some fold their pantlegs inward and staple them at the hem. Some clip the back ends oftheir pants to their shoes with safety pins. Others simply cut thebottoms so that fuzzy strings hang out.

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90 Chapter 3 On Using Definition

7 We grill the opposing punks. I unruck my long strand of hair sothat it swings in front of my face. Nel used to have a strand, but h:chewed it off one day in class by accident. Chu and Tom cut theirstrands off because it scared people at college. Jack has a patch ofblond hair, while Tone's head is a ball of orange flame. Chi hasgelled short hair, while Ken's head is a black mop. As a gro~p, ~ehave better hair than our rivals. But they beat us with their widelegs. In our year away at college, wide legs have gone beyond our24-inch leg openings. Twenty-six- to 30-inch jeans are beC~mlllg t~enorm. If wide legs get any bigger, they will start flying up like a skirt

in an updraft. .8 We have better accessories, though. Chi sports a red North Face

that gives him a rugged mountain-climber look because of t.h: jun-gle of straps sprouting in the back Someone once asked Chi, Whyis the school bag so important to one's cool?" He responded, "Cuzit's the last thing others see when you walk away from them orwhen they turn back La look at you after you walk past them." Butthe other crew has female members, which augments their points.The encounter between us ends in a stalemate. But at least theK.F.C. members are in college and are not true punks.

9 In the afternoon, we decide to eat at the Chinatown McDonald'sfor a change instead of the Chinese bakery Maria's, our dear oldhangout spot. "Mickey. D's is good sit,",Nel says. I answer: "13~tth~Whopper gots more tat ami meat. It s even got more bun. Nelagrees. "True that," he says. I want the Big Mac, but I buy the two-cheeseburger meal because it has the same amount of meat but

costs less.10 We sit and talk about ghettoness again. We can never exactly

articulate what being ghetto entails, but we know the spirit of it. InChinatown toilet facilities we sometimes find footprints on the seatsbecause F.O.B.'s (fresh off the boats) squat on them as they do overthe holes in China. We see alternative brand names in stores likeDolo instead of Polo, and Mike instead of Nike. .

11 We live by ghettoness. My friends and I walk from 80-somethlllgStreet in Manhattan to the tip of the island to save a token. We gorgeourselves at Gray's Papaya because the hot dogs are 50 cents each.But one cannot l~e stingy all the time. We leave good tips at Chineserestaurants because our parents are waiters and waitresses, too.

12 We sit for a long time in McDonald's, making sure that there is atleast a half-inch of soda in our cups so that when the staff wants to

l.au I U'?asa Member of the Kung Fu Crew 91

kick us out, we can claim that we are not finished yet Jack positionsa mouse bite of cheeseburger in the center of a wrapper to supportour claim.

13 After a few hours, the K.F.c. prepares to disband. I get in one ofthe no-license commuter vans on Canal Street that will take me toSunset Park in Brooklyn, where my family lives now. All of myfriends will leave Chinatown, for the Upper East Side and the LowerEast Side, Forest Hills in Queens and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. Welive far apart, but we always come back together in Chinatown. Formost of us, our homes used to be here and our world was here.

ORGANIZATION AND IDEAS

1. The essay is set out in chronological order. What paragraphs coverwhat times?

2. What categories of kids does Lau describe? Where does the Crew fit?3. Lau describes "grilling" in paragraphs 4--8. What is his point?4. Lau may have moved away from Chinatown, but he is still very much a

part of its community. How would you characterize that communityand its values?

5. Is Lau's thesis explicit or implicit? l Iow can you phrase it in your ownwords?

TECHNIQUE AND STYLE

1. Look up the term comma splice in a handbook of grammar and usage,and check what you find against Lau's first sentence. Why is it a legiti-mate comma splice?

2. Lau uses dialogue in paragraphs 8 and 9. What does it add to the essay?3. The essay piles on details and information that lead up to a definition

of ghetto. State that definition in your own words.4. Ghetto usually has a negative connotation. How does Lau make it

positive?5. The essay is written in standard American English. Why might Lau have

chosen to write it that way instead of in "ghetto"

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITII\G

Journal1. If you met the Kung Fu Crew on the street, you might find yourself

ignoring them, "grilling" them, admiring them, but no matter what,you'd have some sort of reaction. Describe how you would react.