Chapter Text
Excerpts from the comedy special Sunny Keep Talking, recorded live in West End, London, 2040.
Oh hey, didn't exactly expect this big a crowd. Got nothing better to do on a Friday night, have you? You're going to hear a lot of rude jokes about the distortion of East Asian families, and, if you honestly don't get one flashback of some family trauma, count yourself a lucky bastard.
Speaking of bastards, I am one. And yes, both in the sense that I'm a terrible person and a child born out of wedlock. What can I say? Daddy's a bit, what-do-you-call-it, shameless—there really is no better word. Objective fact. Papa always hesitates to admit I got that straight from him. The kind of proof you probably don't want for a paternity test—and yes, that is exactly what Dad ordered when he found out I was, not only very much not the pathetic, shelved memory of something long dead, but practically bouncing onto his late-coming mid-life crisis with more energy he could master.
Self-introductions! I see from your confused little faces that some of you must be thinking, 'Have I really paid actual money for this?' And I'm going to take a wild guess and say that no, you didn't. You probably clicked some buttons and typed some digits into a computer or a phone or a smartwatch or whatever it is that beeps and vibrates and signifies the comings and goings of numbers in your bank account. Which, for all I care, is not actual money. If you physically bought a ticket with the contents of a wallet from the reception desk like a freak, well, don't worry, you're not alone. At least that's what I've been trying to tell Papa this afternoon when I found him at the reception desk trying to pay for a seat, probably too embarrassed to enjoy one of the few real perks of having a quasi-famous child in the entertainment business: free entry to a comedy special where you sit through said child vomiting family traumas onto the stage and a paying audience.
OK, don't bother trying to spot him in the audience. I've personally made sure there are exactly eight Asian men with glasses in their fifties in each corner of the stalls purely to stop you from doing that and to stop him from digging a hole into the very expensive carpet of this premise to hide and causing me more debt than I care to pay. I've also personally made sure all eight men are wearing the same shade of cosmetic blush so he could blush for real when I say this: I love you, Papa. Seriously. Dad's not getting any of this because he's not here, but I guess he's all right too. Sometimes. I love you enough to attempt to love him and he me. Happy, functional family trio.
And after a long and uncomfortable silence for any Asian people in the audience, finally, good evening all, my name is Sunny and welcome to my show.
If you bothered enough to buy a ticket for this, then I assume you have probably heard of me from somewhere before, whether it's from pub gigs or YouTube shorts or, dare we curse it with the same masochistic passion as we bear for our East Asian upbringing, Rednote. It may come as a surprise to you—it really shouldn't, in this day and age, but it could just be that you're a monocultured bore in the heart of London—that Sunny isn't my real name. I had to acquire an English name for the competitive bilingual school I went to, and Papa chose Sunny for me, because he wanted me to be as happy and delightful as a ray of sunshine. That's the real essence of the Chinese naming method: you just coin up whatever emotion, ambition, or bitter resentment you hold for your child and make it a name, not unlike how Germans make up their compound words but with distinctively fewer syllables. If you like, you can even use the opportunity to record current events and name your child after, I don't know, General Election sounds like a good English Equivalent, or Death of Monarch, etc. Now, Daddy was going to choose whatever old-school English name that was used by someone successful that he knew of, but none of these names meant anything to Papa, so he put his foot down for once and said, 'We are going for Sunny.' You've got to respect a man who chooses to English-name himself Magic. That's Papa for you.
Should probably point out now: I don't actually call them Daddy and Papa. Dad, maybe, sometimes, when I'm trying to pinch money off him or when he's trying to show off how internationally educated I am, sponsored by aforementioned money. Papa, never. At least not what it sounds like in English, because hell no, he would die of embarrassment if we sounded like Downton Abbey at home, despite said home being located in Shanghai where local four-year-olds speak better English than the average American teenager. Sorry not sorry. Funny isn't it, how we all address mothers in almost identical ways no matter where we're from, but the differences between words for 'father' can be as diverse as ways to find out the jarring need for a paternity test.
The way Dad found out was through one of his Human Resources Managers. And by 'through' I mean he physically had to thrust a finger into the bleeding hole on this manager's body while waiting for the ambulance. Not exactly the type of office drama you'd expect in CBD Shanghai in the early 2020s, but it happened. Ex-Employee Seeks Revenge After Getting Fired. Standard textbook material, really. The plan was simple and effective: you shove a screwdriver up some VP's chest and bask in bloodshed. And not just any VP. It had to be the Jeffery Xu, whose name, among employees, brought about clenched teeth and, at times, buttocks, in addition to the general nebula of fear, anxiety, resentment and voodoo rituals to expel him from Earth. The man who was responsible for sacking six thousand people without so much as a blink of an eye. And I can only guess the general mass of nebula, or something far more stupid and solid catalysing from all those years of industrialised slaving, blocked our Avenger's vision, because in all the versions of this story that I've been told, the screwdriver found its way into the HR manager's chest instead. The very same HR manager who had publicly rioted against the VP and almost landed him in jail at the company's annual gala. He had no business being in the parking lot with the VP, other than being disembowelled perhaps. Well, that sort of came true, however convolutedly.
Of course, I wasn't there to see it happen, but I find it very hard not to laugh when picturing this: this HR manager, falling valiantly into the arms of the VP, his nemesis, blood trailing down his chin or torso or whatever, with a little Disney tune in the background. Sick, I know. But funny nonetheless. Especially when the HR manager blurted out what he thought to be his dying words—translated and paraphrased for this show and my personal whims, of course, but the gist remains intact—'Jeffery, remember my kid? Turns out, that's actually your kid! Your sperm in my ex-wife's uterus after all! Why don't you take care of this when I die dramatically without sufficient explanation?'
And that's when Papa passed out and bled all over Daddy's hands.