I am Wang Lin Han. I am nineteen years old. I am here as a representative of the Panda Joy rug company. This is my passport. This is my visa.
Rona Munro
WHO Lin Han, nineteen, Chinese.
TO WHOM Madeleine, a forty-something woman, who has just shot her ex-partner, and James, a police officer – although, because she is speaking Chinese, he cannot understand her.
WHERE The interview room of a police station in Edinburgh, Scotland.
WHEN Present day.
WHAT HAS JUST HAPPENED Lin Han, who works for a rug company in China, has travelled to Edinburgh to establish further links with a distribution company which is looking to import Chinese goods. Over an eighteen-month period and before she arrives, she has exchanged emails and jpegs with Jie Hui, a young Chinese man who works for the British distribution firm. During that time she has fallen in love with him, and when she arrives in the UK she hopes that he will feel the same. Before the play starts, they have been up all night talking, and when we, the audience, first meet them, she is still questioning him about his feelings towards her. He tells her he cannot feel the same way, that it is too soon and that he would like to slow down a bit. He then has to go to meet Alan, his business partner, and suggests to Lin Han that she meet with him and Alan an hour later. Alan has forgotten to bring the keys to his office, and, while he and Jie Hui are trying to gain entry, Alan is shot in the bottom by Alan’s ex-girlfriend Madeleine. But when Lin Han shows up at the allotted time and Alan is lying injured, she is convinced it is Jie Hui who has tried to kill him. While Madeleine is being questioned about the attack by James, a police officer, Lin Han rushes into the police station claiming that Jie Hui is guilty of the murder. She is speaking in Mandarin and no one can understand her. Madeleine, who is an entomologist and has spent much time in China studying the lice that are found in the fur of giant pandas, happens to speak Mandarin. As there is no interpreter available at such short notice, and in need of more information about the attack, James asks Madeleine if she will translate.
WHAT TO CONSIDER
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Although the speech is in English, Lin Han is actually speaking in Mandarin Chinese. You don’t therefore need to speak with a heavy Chinese accent or in broken English. You may even wish to speak with a standard English accent or your own regional dialect. |
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The play follows the stories of six characters whose lives are strangely interwoven. Read the play to understand all of the connections. |
WHAT SHE WANTS
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To report Jie Hui. However much she loves him, she feels compelled to tell the truth. |
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To share her story. People in love often need to talk about it. |
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Comfort and reassurance, despite the fact that she knows she has been foolish. Decide to what extent Madeleine’s presence, being a woman, allows her to be open about her feelings. |
KEYWORDS upset happy smile joke marry sad angry crying love horrible crazy real
I am Wang Lin Han. I am nineteen years old. I am here as a representative of the Panda Joy rug company. This is my passport. This is my visa.
I’m sorry. My English is very good but I’m upset. […] I’m very upset and I can’t think of the words. […] I am our company’s international representative. Because of my language skills. […] I have been in communication with the representative of a distribution company. He finds contacts and investors to distribute the products of small-scale Chinese manufacturing companies into Europe. […] Sometimes I wrote to this man in our language and sometimes we wrote in English, to practise. We had a very… happy correspondence, we made each other smile… at least… he put smileys in his messages too. So after a few months my father made a joke. He said this man would be the perfect husband for me because it would be so good for the family business. You see my father and my mother would like me to marry very soon but they know I think I shouldn’t get married before I’m thirty. So they say things like that, as if they’re joking, but I know they mean it too. […] So I stopped the messages with the smileys in them. It was all business. And then he sent me another message with sad faces, and he asked if I was angry with him… […] I thought, I’ve studied English for so long because I wanted to travel. And here I was just working in the same little factory I grew up in, in the same little town. I thought, this man could help me travel. It would be great for business so my mum and dad would be happy, I could escape without anyone crying about it.
And I’ve been in love and it was really horrible. It’s really horrible to want someone and be in their power like that. […] So… I thought I should think about a relationship with this man. It would be a practical choice. It would get me what I want. I asked him to send me a picture. […] It was a beautiful picture. I loved his picture. […] And it wasn’t a studio picture! It wasn’t lit and airbrushed and all shined up in Photoshop. It was just a casual picture. He was on the beach. He was smiling at me with such a look… […] I fell in love with his picture. I have to be honest now. I hoped he would love me first but that’s what happened. I fell in love with a picture and a set of letters. Like a crazy girl who doesn’t know what’s real. […] He was right. He was right, I know nothing about him. And now I love him. Do you know the story about the baby ducks? […] The first thing a baby duck sees moving when it breaks through its shell it will love as its mother. You can make them love cats that want to eat them or chase after bicycle wheels and die in the road. I was just breaking out into the world. I’m a baby duck and I’m following a killer. […] I saw him with the body of this man. He said it had nothing to do with him, he was talking and talking and I looked in his eyes and I saw a lie. Now I’ve realised I’m a stupid little duckling with shell in my baby feathers. I’ve stepped out into the world and it’ll squash me. I thought I knew how to do anything but I’m just a stupid little girl. […] And I really do love him. Even though he probably is a killer and a liar. 