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Ep 2 Karate Kid Revisited · Japanese America

0:00
Michelle, how would you do in a fight?
0:02
I'm not a fighter.
0:04
Does that mean you're a lover?
0:05
No, no, no, I'm not a lover either.
0:08
I don't show love.
0:09
What are you, then?
0:10
Um. Japanese?
0:11
Yeah. I was telling my son recently that I probably hugged my mom and dad.
0:18
Maybe once in my life.
0:19
I never hugged my parents before.
0:21
I've never seen them hug.
0:23
Hug? Yeah, and I don't know.
0:26
That's too much.
0:33
Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode two of the Japanese America Podcast.
0:37
My name is Koji and I am one of your hosts.
0:39
And I'm Michele. I'm the other host.
0:41
Michelle. How have you been?
0:43
I've been doing good.
0:44
I it's been raining here and there.
0:46
It's too much rain.
0:47
Too much.
0:48
Yeah. My baseball schedule has been all messed up because it rained so much.
0:53
This is where we look at all things Japanese American.
0:56
We'll bring alive the history, culture and people that make up this diverse community.
1:01
In this episode, we'll look at Karate Kid.
1:03
First, let's give a little background.
1:06
The original Karate Kid was released by Columbia Pictures in 1984.
1:09
John G. Avildsen directed the film.
1:12
Just in case you've locked yourself in a room for the last 40 years, here is the brief and I mean brief synopsis of the movie from Rotten Tomatoes, and the link will be in the show notes. Daniel, aka Ralph Macchio, moves to Southern California with his mother, Lucille, who's played by Randee Heller.
1:27
Still, he quickly finds himself the target of a group of bullies who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo.
1:33
Fortunately, Daniel befriends Mr.
1:34
Miyagi, aka Pat Morita and an unassuming repairman who happens to be a martial arts master himself. Miyagi takes Daniel under his wing, training him in a more compassionate form of karate and preparing him to compete against the brutal Cobra Kai.
1:47
Amazingly, the film still has an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
1:50
Michelle, have you seen the film?
1:51
What did you think?
1:52
I think that's kind of weird, that 19, it was released in 1984 and it has 84% ratings.
2:00
And is that just me?
2:01
I love the movie.
2:03
I saw it first time in 1984, and I just saw it a couple weeks ago.
2:08
Were you in America?
2:08
Yeah, I was visiting America, and that was like one of the first movie I saw at the movie theater.
2:14
Did you understand what was going on?
2:15
Not really. I thought I saw this Chinese guy and he was Japanese.
2:21
And then I thought it was like an oriental garden and like it was somebody's house.
2:27
I thought that was kind of weird.
2:29
And wait, it took you ten hours to watch the film recently?
2:31
Why did it take so long?
2:32
Oh, because i don't like the suspense.
2:34
Like, are they.
2:35
The bullies are too much.
2:39
That ten hours is a really long time.
2:41
I mean, did you eat and sleep between that or.
2:43
Well, I took a nap.
2:45
And then came back and watched like five seconds.
2:48
And then, I don't know, I've seen this movie before, but then I didn't notice a lot of details before.
2:55
That's funny. I've seen I recently saw the movie with my son.
2:57
We watched it again first time.
2:59
He was really impressed. He really liked it.
3:00
And then I think now that he's older, he's like, do Japanese people really do that?
3:04
No, no, this is just a weird movie from the 1980s.
3:07
Before we get started, I want to say I love Pat Morita.
3:09
I never got a chance to meet him, but he was one of my heroes growing up.
3:12
But because he was such an important trailblazer, he was there when I watched movies or television showing a face like mine, making me think I could have a career in entertainment as well.
3:21
Michelle, should we get started?
3:23
Yes, Let's do it.
3:24
So in this episode, we are going to look at some of the iconic scenes from the movie and reimagine them in ways that are more realistic or less, uh, how shall we say, Racist?
3:35
Your words, not mine.
3:37
So we've enlisted the help of veteran actor writer professor Don Magwilli and newcomer actor Terrence Chin to read the reimagined Karate Kid scenes.
3:48
Koji wrote, the first scene we are looking at is the infamous fly scene.
3:53
Daniel surprises Mr.
3:55
Miyagi in this scene when he catches a fly using his Hashi the chopsticks.
4:00
The scene begins as Mr.
4:02
Miyagi sits on a tatami mat trying to catch flies with his hashi.
4:05
Daniel arrives on his bike and enters without knocking or taking off his shoes, I might add. He sees his mentor trying to catch a fly with a chopstick.
4:12
Daniel asks rather sarcastically, wouldn't it be easier to use a fly swatter?
4:16
Miyagi tells Daniel that a man who catches a fly can accomplish anything Daniel wants to try. This is where our reimagined scene begins.
4:23
You can try.
4:24
He hands him the Hashi. Daniel attempts to catch a fly a few times and finally manages to do it.
4:29
I did it, this is me and I can do anything.
4:31
Only if you eat it.
4:33
Daniel, reluctant at first, puts the fly in his mouth.
4:36
Now, does it mean I can do anything?
4:38
Only if you wash all my cars out back.
4:41
Cut to later in the day in Little Tokyo, Miyagi tells his old 442 buddies.
4:46
And then he ate it.
4:48
He actually believes all of this mystical Asian crap.
4:51
I think I'm going to make him paint my fence next.
4:55
End scene.
4:56
Yay, Yay! Good job. All right.
4:58
Michelle, Michelle, what did you think of the scene and the original one?
5:02
Yeah, but the first time I saw that scene, when I was very young, I never saw anybody catches fly with chopsticks in Japan.
5:11
So I thought, oh, my gosh, they are making fun of us.
5:15
I never felt that way, but I thought, I think I was offended a little bit.
5:20
Yeah.
5:20
But then I don't know.
5:21
I look it up and Miyamoto Musashi has a story of some man catches fly.
5:28
I didn't know that.
5:29
He's a samurai, right?
5:30
Yeah.
5:30
He wrote a book. He wrote a famous book about samurai?
5:32
Yeah.
5:33
It's real.
5:33
It's real. But I didn't know.
5:35
Yeah. Oh the chopsticks that.
5:38
Oh my gosh, that one Mr.
5:40
Miyagi uses in a movie that's like so long.
5:44
You said everything in Japan is small, but that those chopsticks are long.
5:48
Those are not for eating.
5:50
Those are for cooking.
5:51
Wouldn't it make it harder to catch if they're big hashi?
5:53
I think so Wouldn't it be easier if it's smaller hashi?
5:56
Yeah, like a little tweezer kind of hashi.
5:58
Yeah, I think that would make it a lot easier.
6:00
Also, like, there's a lot of rules around chopsticks.
6:02
Maybe we could talk about.
6:03
Yeah. You can't stop.
6:05
Like some people put rice.
6:07
And then put it inside.
6:08
And then put it on in the middle, like sticking up.
6:10
Yeah. Why can't you do that?
6:11
Oh, that's for the dead people.
6:12
That's for dead people. Also, hashi to hashi like chopsticks to chopsticks.
6:15
Right? Because you pass.
6:17
The bones.
6:18
At.
6:18
Bones. Yeah.
6:19
Um, Cemetery, not cemetery.
6:21
The cremation site.
6:22
Yeah. That's crazy, by the way.
6:23
I can't.
6:24
And you can't lick the chopsticks.
6:26
Oh, People wait. People lick chopsticks.
6:28
You can't. But some people do because they don't know the rules.
6:31
Really?
6:32
And also, it really annoys me when I go to a Japanese restaurant and especially, like ramen place, and people get the chopsticks and then they start.
6:44
How do you call that?
6:44
Oh, they like, rub it together.
6:45
They rub it together. You're not supposed to do that.
6:47
That's so rude.
6:49
Yeah, people. People do. I didn't know that was rude.
6:50
Yeah, well, not rude, but like, you do that at a cheap place because the chopsticks are not smooth.
6:57
Oh, okay.
6:58
But if you serve with better chopsticks, it's not gonna have, like, little stray pieces of wood, so you don't have to rub it.
7:07
Wait. The most important question.
7:08
Can you catch a fly using hashi?
7:10
I tried, You did?
7:12
Yeah. When I went back to Japan, I tried and my mom was like, stop! You are disgrace.
7:18
Wait. Can she catch a fly?
7:19
Maybe. I think she was trying to catch a fly when I wasn't looking when I was at.
7:24
School, but i don't know.
7:26
She said don't do it.
7:27
I'm terrible at hashi, so I would never be able to catch my catch.
7:31
A fly with a hashi.
7:31
Koji. Why? Why did you make Daniel eat fly in your scene?
7:36
A lot of times, like, people think Asians have this mystical power and that there's something special about what we do or what we say.
7:43
And it reminded me of a time when my mother, when she was dating a Caucasian guy, she made him eat, uh, one of the persimmons or kaki.
7:50
That was like the ones that you're not supposed to just eat.
7:52
Like you have to wait till, like, it gets, like, overripe.
7:54
Right? And I remember she was telling me that he was, like, crying.
7:59
Oh, Because it's bitter, right? It makes your mouth dry.
8:01
Yeah, because there are two different persimmons.
8:04
Yeah.
8:04
Shibugaki. That's the one that you're not supposed to eat.
8:07
Because I think they use the skin to use it for the urushi.
8:12
Yeah. And then he ate the whole thing because he saw her eat it, and so he.
8:16
So he thought that it must taste good because she eats it all the time.
8:19
But she didn't know that it was the other one.
8:22
And I always think that, you know, secretly I think like, well, I told my mom that it was very mean to her to do.
8:27
But secretly I was very proud of her because I thought that was really funny.
8:30
Or maybe persimmon is a racist fruit.
8:33
Hahahahahahaha. The next scene we're looking at is the moment toward the movie's end, when Miyagi claps his hands and magically heals Daniel.
8:40
The scene begins in a locker room.
8:42
The Cobra Kai guy just broke Daniel's leg.
8:45
Daniel lies on an examining room table.
8:48
His mom kisses him and his girlfriend tells him she's proud of him.
8:52
Daniel tearfully tells Mr.
8:54
Miyagi he wants to go out there.
8:56
This is where our scene begins.
8:58
Isn't there anything you can do?
9:00
If you have no failure in life, you will fail in life.
9:04
I mean, don't you know any ancient eastern wisdom that can heal this?
9:09
No. Your leg is broken.
9:11
I should really be taking you to the emergency room.
9:14
Why are you talking funny?
9:17
Oh, uh. I mean, let me see what I can do.
9:21
Mr. Miyagi claps his hands and begins to rub them together.
9:25
He then touches Daniel's leg.
9:27
It's working, it's working.
9:29
Daniel climbs off the examination room table and limps back to the match.
9:34
The things I have to do.
9:36
End scene Koji.
9:37
What did you think of this scene and the original scene?
9:40
The scene I remember as a kid.
9:43
I was super confused by it.
9:44
I didn't understand how Mr.
9:45
Miyagi could heal somebody by clapping his hands.
9:48
And I remember asking my mom at the time if we could heal people by clapping our hands, and she said I was stupid in Japanese.
9:58
I think she called me baka.
9:59
Oh, and then she said that.
10:01
Of course we can't.
10:02
That's why I wanted to kind of reimagine this scene and the scene.
10:05
If it keeps going on, he'd go out there and lose because he's a broken leg and you can't do karate with a broken leg.
10:12
Yeah, I didn't know. He had a broken leg.
10:13
I thought he just hurt his leg, but are.
10:17
They snapped his leg.
10:18
Oh he oh my gosh, I see I couldn't watch, so I was like I had the movie going by.
10:25
I was like looking away because it was a little too much for me to watch.
10:29
Maybe Mr.
10:31
Miyagi had tigerbalm.
10:34
Have you ever used Tiger Balm.
10:36
Or salonpas.
10:37
Salonpas? Yeah, yeah, but Tiger Bomb's got this smell.
10:40
I think that smell really works.
10:44
So he secretly got the Tiger balm put in his hand.
10:47
And then.
10:48
Rub it, And that somehow magically healed a broken bone.
10:50
Yes. That's what that's what my dad did to me when I heard somewhere.
10:56
And then he just put Tiger.
10:57
I mean, not like, cut wounds, but like when it's sore, he's like, he put Tiger Balm all over and then it smells so badly, but magically, everything got healed.
11:08
Like, uh, when my son plays baseball or somebody gets hurt on my one of my teams, I coach, there's two kinds of injuries.
11:13
There's an injury that's like a real injury and, you know, very serious.
11:17
And then there's the kind that just shocks the player, the person and what those typically like get up.
11:23
You're fine because it's that shock.
11:25
That's more than anything. But then uh, and usually if you just be like, stop thinking about it and you'll be okay.
11:30
This injury seems like it was pretty serious.
11:32
So like, like, you know, right away, like my son when he broke his arm once, like the moment I saw him, I'm like, oh, let's go to the hospital.
11:39
Yeah.
11:39
You know, it wasn't like, hey, get up and walk around.
11:41
It was like, no, no, no, we're going to the hospital right now.
11:43
And he knew by my expression that it was serious.
11:46
It wasn't like just something that you could get up and be okay.
11:50
So you claping your hands and rubbing.
11:53
It not going to work.
11:53
It didn't work.
11:54
You didn't want to go back to the mound and pitch again.
11:57
Like, why do people think that eastern people, Japanese specifically are have these mystical powers?
12:03
No idea. I mean, I wish I had the mystical power.
12:08
The mystical. Power, but I, I don't know.
12:12
There's something about the eastern country religions, eastern cultures that makes people think that we have some secret knowledge.
12:20
I think that's because from your European countries, Japan is the furthest out in Asia.
12:27
So I think they thought we have unicorns and stuff in japan because you can't, you know, it's so hard to get there.
12:37
It's even like, you know, like the medicines, the eastern medicines, you know, you just meet people who are like, oh, this works so much better than Western medicine.
12:44
I'm like, does it really?
12:45
Like, I don't know, Yeah like acupuncture.
12:48
Acupuncture.
12:49
I'm not sure.
12:50
Yeah. I mean it could help, but it's like, oh, you should go to the doctor first.
12:54
Yeah.
12:55
You know, like like my mom, my mom when she's no longer with us, but she would read Japanese magazines and anything in the Japanese magazine was like, like the truth.
13:06
So they'd like, she'd be like, oh, well, you know, if you're like, if you want to be healthy, you have to eat ten almonds every day.
13:11
And like, that was like what we had to do.
13:13
And it was really weird. I was like, well, why are these Japanese magazines, like, telling me exactly how to live?
13:18
Yeah, for one time they were saying, eat bananas for breakfast every day and you'll be healthy.
13:24
Yeah.
13:25
Like, really.
13:26
I. Love bananas.
13:27
I hope that's true.
13:27
I mean, me too. I love bananas, but, like, eat bananas for breakfast every day.
13:33
Can I eat a bagel?
13:35
That's funny.
13:36
The last scene we'll look at isn't just one scene, but his wisdom in general.
13:41
Koji and I will translate them all for you.
13:44
If come from inside, you always right one.
13:48
Is it?
13:49
I don't know, like that's such a weird.
13:52
I don't even know how to. I couldn't even read that out loud.
13:54
Yeah.
13:55
What do you. What do you think it means?
13:56
I so I guess the if the truth is coming from inside, it should be the right one.
14:04
Is that true, though?
14:05
No. I don't know.
14:07
I mean. I think that that's I would I mean, what if you're like, stupid or what if, like, if my son has a thought at 12 years old, I don't know.
14:15
I'm telling him. Probably don't think of it.
14:17
Consult me.
14:17
Yeah.
14:18
Whatever's inside of him is probably not right.
14:19
But maybe, like, the gut feeling is always the right one.
14:23
But is it?
14:23
I don't know, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
14:27
Because, like, I don't know, I never learn.
14:32
You trust the quality of what you know.
14:34
Not quantity.
14:36
Oh, that hurts me because I know a lot of stupid things.
14:39
Itty bitty things.
14:40
But it's not the quantity, it's the quality.
14:44
I don't know any.
14:45
I don't have any quality knowledge.
14:49
So you.
14:50
So it's basically saying that you have to know something really deeply, more than know a lot of different things.
14:55
Yeah, I think so.
14:56
And that makes me feel less, You know, you should talk like Miyagi.
15:01
Yeah, I should, I think. I think your whole career would be way different.
15:04
Okay, well, but I don't know how because his English is too hard for me.
15:11
It's hard enough to speak American English.
15:14
Start with the last part of the sentence, Okay?
15:16
And then.
15:16
Go back.
15:17
Then go back to it. Like, so, like let's let's look at something from our script here.
15:21
We could say something like, uh, you wrote.
15:24
Miyagi claps his hands and begins to rub them together.
15:26
Together? Miyagi claps his hands.
15:30
Oh. So I.
15:33
So maybe I should just think before I talk or talk before I think.
15:39
No, it's the same, same thing, so I can't.
15:41
Yeah. This is, this is too hard.
15:43
Okay.
15:44
1 to 1 problem.
15:45
Yes. 5 to 1 problem.
15:48
Too much. Ask anyone.
15:50
Um 1 to 1 problem.
15:52
So this is from the part of the movie where.
15:54
When they fight.
15:55
Yes.
15:55
And, um. Oh, that guy at Cobra Kai dojo.
15:59
The sensei. He is so mean.
16:02
Ah.
16:03
Although. Have you seen.
16:05
The new one?
16:06
No. Have you seen the, um.
16:07
There's this whole video about how Daniel was the bully and that Daniel started all the problems.
16:12
Oh, he did, Because if you think about it.
16:14
Yeah. Like, he goes to the party and he tries to talk to the girlfriend, and then the guy is just defending his girlfriend, and then he goes to the dojo, he goes to Cobra Kai, and they start the beef.
16:24
They never come after him.
16:25
And then when they chase him and they beat him up, he puts the water on them.
16:29
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:29
So he actually started everything.
16:31
So he's actually the bully.
16:33
And the kids were just defending themselves.
16:35
Now the, the fight was unexcusable like at the end when he break his leg.
16:38
But other than that, it seems like it's okay.
16:40
It was so funny that Daniel showed up to the dance with the shower curtain around him.
16:46
That's more that's that makes him more visible than invisible.
16:52
Exactly.
16:53
To make honey young be need young flower, not old prune.
16:58
I didn't like that one.
17:00
Well, what does it mean.
17:02
So ah ah to I.
17:07
Ah I maybe I interpret it like wrong, but like uh to make baby.
17:15
You need like younger woman.
17:20
I don't, I don't think that's what they mean by I want.
17:22
No no no but I want to go by that though.
17:24
Yeah.
17:24
That's the one we're going to go with because I think that's funnier.
17:26
Okay. Yeah. Because um, like.
17:28
Uh, isn't that you can't say that in 2024, maybe 1984.
17:33
Yes. But 2024, uh, that's a.
17:35
Little too much.
17:37
First learn stand, then learn fly.
17:41
Nature rule. Daniel san, not mine.
17:45
Um, what do you think?
17:46
I mean, first why is all his sentences like three words?
17:50
That maybe that's how you have to do it.
17:51
Every sentence he says is like 2 or 3 words.
17:54
You'll. You're right to make honey 1 to 1 problem.
17:58
Yes. So it's very like.
18:00
Yeah, like choppy.
18:01
Choppy. Choppy. Yeah.
18:02
I think that's the way.
18:03
So from now on when I write Asian characters, I'm just gonna have them like, have a period after every other sentence, every other word.
18:10
Just call it a day.
18:11
But I think that means to me that, you know, before you could, uh, before you could kind of do the crazier thing you have to do the you have to start with, like, basic stuff.
18:20
Yeah. Like, I don't understand why Miyagi couldn't just say, you can't go fight in the tournament. You have to learn the basics first, which is like, wash the cars and, you know, Wax, Wax on, wax off and all that stuff, and paint the fence, paint the fence, Walk on road.
18:37
Walk. Left side safe.
18:39
Walk. Right side.
18:40
Safe. Walk.
18:42
Middle. Sooner or later get squished.
18:46
Just like grape.
18:47
why grape.
18:49
Are there grapes in Japan?
18:50
Yes.
18:50
Oh, okay.
18:51
But why grape.
18:52
I thought that was kind of odd.
18:54
Grape.
18:55
But you know. What's funny is that in America or in Japan, you drive on the other side.
19:01
Yes. We drove.
19:03
We drove on the right side.
19:04
Right side. Not the wrong side.
19:06
Yeah. So. So then this is wrong.
19:10
Yeah. But Miyagi is.
19:14
Mr. Miyagi is from Okinawa.
19:16
Yeah.
19:17
Back then, maybe in Okinawa, they are driving like America.
19:21
Oh, because all the Americans and bases and stuff.
19:24
Yeah.
19:24
Oh, Maybe.
19:25
Oh, that's very that's very kind of you to think it.
19:29
Maybe that's why he talk funny.
19:31
Oh, because.
19:32
Because he's from Okinawa.
19:33
Oh, am I racist against Okinawan people?
19:36
I don't know.
19:38
My mom was super mean to Okinawan people or Japanese people generally.
19:42
I don't know, I've never been to Okinawa, so I don't know what to say.
19:45
But it's like Samoan in America.
19:49
Yeah. American. Samoan.
19:49
Yeah. Like American Samoans are Americans.
19:52
Yeah, but American Samoans don't equal America.
19:56
Yeah just like Okinawa, too.
19:58
Like Japanese.
19:59
Okinawans are Japanese, but Japanese don't equal Okinawa because Okinawa had their own kingdom.
20:08
Yeah and they have their own culture.
20:10
Yeah.
20:10
So it's part of Japan, but it's not really.
20:13
They have their own culture, so it's different.
20:16
Yeah. My mom was kind of racist against everybody though.
20:18
So she's old school Japan.
20:20
Oh she's like don't get dark.
20:23
Don't get. Yeah. My my grandpa wanted to be lighter skinned.
20:28
So he I mean he, he was born in like 100 years ago, maybe more.
20:34
But my grandpa bought Rosetta Pasta face wash, and he, like, diligently washed his face to get whiter.
20:42
Really?
20:43
But it didn't Work.
20:44
I thought it was only a woman thing.
20:45
Men did it to.
20:46
My dad. I mean, my grandpa wanted to be whiter.
20:49
And then my mom found this guy at the church youth group.
20:53
He is much whiter because he's from Hokkaido.
20:57
And so my grandpa really loved him.
20:59
Like, ah, white guy, but he's Japanese.
21:03
Would he be okay if he. She married a white dude though.
21:05
I don't know. I don't know because he he died.
21:08
My grandpa passed okay before I was born, so I didn't get to ask him.
21:12
Oh. Okay.
21:13
Yeah. Maybe he didn't know.
21:15
There are white. White people exist.
21:17
I don't know.
21:20
Michelle. You watched the movie recently.
21:21
What do you think about all these sayings?
21:23
Ah, I don't know. Some of them make sense, but some of them like.
21:27
Huh? I had to think twice, and then I had to Google what it meant.
21:31
Yeah.
21:33
I but Pat Morita auditioned for this role for like so many times, and they thought they wanted to pick Mifune Toshiro as the Miyagi.
21:44
But then he doesn't speak English.
21:46
So Pat Morita came up with this funny accent and then they chose him to play this character. It's kind of funny.
21:55
Yeah. I mean, it's it's just interesting.
21:58
I mean, you couldn't make this movie now.
21:59
Yeah. Yeah. Right. No.
22:00
When they portray Asian, it's like not seen as upper class.
22:04
It's seen as funny and seen as backward.
22:07
Like that's why they talk like this.
22:08
Whereas if you like Australian or especially English, it's seen as like high class, right.
22:14
Noble, Noble. Yeah.
22:16
Whereas it's just like sounds funny.
22:17
So I think that that's what's interesting when when people say, well, what's wrong with an Asian accent?
22:22
It's like, well, I mean, there's nothing wrong with people that obviously don't speak, you know, quote normally, but it's also like, well, why do these people speak like this? Because I've never heard anybody talk like this.
22:32
You know, like, I know a lot of people from Japan and Asia and none of them talk like this.
22:37
I never seen anybody talk like that except for Star Wars.
22:41
Yeah, but that was also.
22:42
Like a mythical little green person.
22:44
Yeah, Right. It's not like a normal human being.
22:47
Oh, one of the really interesting things when I was watching this movie, I recently reread this book by John Steinbeck called East of Eden.
22:53
It's like a book from the early 1900s.
22:56
It's really interesting because there's this Chinese-American character who is a waiter.
23:00
When he talks to Caucasian people.
23:01
He has this really heavy Asian accent, like a Miyagi kind of accent.
23:06
And then when everyone leaves and he talks to the regular people, he speaks in a regular like, regular voice because he's from America.
23:13
And one of the characters who overheard him said, well, why do you talk funny when people are around? And he said that it's because when when they listen to him, if he speaks normal, they won't understand him because they expect him to sound like funny.
23:26
You know, like, oh, like a Miyagi voice.
23:29
And I think at the time, people when they saw a Japanese character, they would like, want him to talk like this because that's how they expected them to talk.
23:36
And, you know, and what I wanted to do in these scenes is I wanted to show that there's like another side to him, that this was more of like a.
23:44
That whitewashing is not, uh, not the not the right word.
23:47
It's more like code switching.
23:48
I only have one way.
23:50
You know, I thought if I move to America and live here, I thought I'd be speaking like a white person.
23:57
Yeah, But, ah, it's not working.
23:59
You speak really well.
24:00
Oh. Thank you.
24:01
My mom, who was here from 1965 or something.
24:04
She spoke terribly, but it's mostly because she only spoke to Japanese people.
24:09
So her she hardly spoke English, whereas my stepdad, he came around the same time and he basically only spoke English.
24:16
So his English is perfect.
24:17
Wow.
24:17
But so I think it's just a matter of, you know, how much you have, how much you're forced to speak.
24:22
Yeah, well, I took some tutor and try to fix, I shouldn't say fix, but like, naturalize my English. And then she found out I wanted to be a stand up comedian, and she's like, ah, don't fix it. It sounds funny.
24:36
Yeah. That's terrible.
24:41
So I guess it's helping me.
24:42
Yeah, it's working, it's working.
24:43
It's working.
24:44
One of the things that I loved was that the filmmakers gave the backstory of being in the concentration camp, and a FourFourTwo veteran as a kid, that was really the first time I ever heard of the camps, and it led to a conversation with my father about the time he was in camp.
24:56
So, Michelle, do you have any thoughts about the filmmakers, including that part in the story?
25:00
Yeah, that was I thought that was a really nice touch, but I didn't notice that the first time I saw it didn't really register, but the second time I saw it, just a couple of weeks ago, I was like, wow, that's a really nice side story to put in a movie.
25:15
In 2014, Ali Morita presented his FourFourTwo uniform to JANM at a program about the 30th anniversary of Karate Kid.
25:23
Here's a clip from the Program.
25:24
Aly, I just wanted to ask you.
25:26
I mean with again, a lot of the struggle that your father went through before this, do you feel like he had something he wanted to prove in doing this role?
25:34
He wanted to show the world?
25:37
Well, I, I feel like, um, um, that scene in particular, you know, it gives so much depth to Miyagis character.
25:44
Microphone.
25:45
Sorry. Um, I'm not used to doing this.
25:48
Um, um, it gives so much depth to his character.
25:53
Um, and, you know, I guess without that scene, he could sort of be a caricature.
26:00
But because of that scene, it gives him a pass.
26:04
It gives Miyagi a history.
26:06
He's he's a decorated soldier from World War Two.
26:10
He, you know, had family that was in the internment camps.
26:14
I mean, it was it was, um, what was the question again?
26:19
I was just wondering if he felt also as an actor with everything that he went through, if he really wanted to prove anything, you know, and show everybody, you know, I went through all of this and, you know.
26:29
Yeah. So. Well, I think so.
26:30
He was channeling again, you know, all of those experiences, um, all the histories that he grew up knowing what he had gone through himself.
26:39
And yeah, certainly I think that he felt like this was a moment that may never come again. You know, so.
26:46
Sure. And certainly the scene I'm sure had a lot of resonance for him, like you said, you know, he was in an internment camp, right, as a child.
26:53
When he was 13.
26:54
Yeah. He and his family were in Tule Lake and my mother's family was in Manzanar.
26:59
So it's, you know, for Japanese Americans that it's such a scourge, you know, in American history and, and, uh, and I think within families, Japanese American families, it's something that's not really talked about.
27:15
So to be able to see that on the big screen and for all of America to learn about this chapter of our history, um, it still resonates for me, like when I see it today, you know? So it's an important moment in film history too.
27:40
Every episode. We need to do something fun.
27:43
If you are going to rewrite Karate Kid, the new movie is being cast right now.
27:47
What would you do?
27:48
What I would do is I would make a joke about how Asian people, we all know martial arts secretly so that Daniel goes up to any Asian person and he he realized he finds out that all Asians know martial arts.
28:01
And he finds he somehow finds it out.
28:03
He hears about it, and he convinces one of his friends, who looks like a super nerdy kid, to teach him some kind of martial art, because obviously we all know martial arts, so that's what I would do.
28:12
Well, I know what I'm going to do.
28:14
I'm going to make the Cobra Kai dojo to a new K-pop sensation.
28:21
So everybody starts dancing and they're going to have a dance off at the match.
28:25
That's funny. Well, it's actually funny that you mentioned, uh, BTS and K-pop.
28:29
You know, one of the things that's changed in the last 40 years is that Asian people aren't necessarily just these minor characters anymore.
28:36
I was at, um, I was at Universal Studios for Halloween nights, and these four girls in front of me were looking at pictures of a bunch of Korean men on Instagram, and all I could think was, that's crazy, you know, because like 40 years ago, Asian men weren't seen as sexy or no one was looking at pictures of Asian men.
28:55
So I thought that was that's that's different.
28:57
I mean, in today's times day, the hero could be Asian.
29:01
Yeah. And also, I was told that a lot of non-Asian guys are taking K-pop dance classes like K-pop, hip hop dance.
29:11
Yeah. And it's like, I can't tell the difference.
29:14
I mean, just looks just beautiful, but they try to dance like a K-pop singers.
29:29
Thank you, Dom and Terrence, for your wonderful reading and all of you for listening. There are almost 3 million podcasts and we are honored you've chosen ours to listen to.
29:39
This podcast is a program of the Japanese American National Museum.
29:42
The mission of the museum is to promote understanding and appreciation of America's ethnic and cultural diversity by sharing the Japanese American experience.
29:50
Be sure to join us next month where we'll talk about the first pilgrimage bye.