I was going to Colon to see the road conditions that have the locals blocking the Transistmica, check out a new eatery and scan photos on my sister's and her husband's computer. The bus rides there and back were the essentials. The movies were just gravy.
Getting on the bus at the terminal in Albrook, the video screen was tuned to Telemetro and a Colombian telenovela. One of the yucky predictable melodramatic kiss and slap and walk in on scenes of betrayal ones.
But just before we took off, we were saved, so it seemed.
The driver's assistant inserted the videotape and the sort of movie I have only seen on the Colon bus came on --- a Chinese kung fu zombie vampire flick, in Mandarin with Spanish subtitles! Alright, here we go!
Alas, the video system was defective. With every little jolt the movie would flash on or off, but mostly off, leaving a series of widely separated little flashes, from split seconds to several minutes, to interrupt the mostly blank screen.
As in:
Static, blank screen, JOLT.... "So, you're an expert on zombies? HEEYAH!...."
Several minutes of static and blank screen, JOLT.... "Family honor requires that I must remove your eyes...."
More static and blank screen, JOLT.... These guys have a zombie detector --- and here come the zombies! Hmmmm --- they're hopping along two-footed, kind of like in a sack race without the sacks. Or is this is a PUNK kung fu zombie vampire movie, complete with pogo dancing zombies?
...
Static, blank screen, JOLT.... The Vampire King has hidden gold, and the bandits are headed to his castle for a kung fu confrontation....
More static and blank screen, JOLT.... Eeeeew gross! This Chinese vampire has a maggot crawling out of his eye socket....
Static, blank screen, JOLT.... The good guy sets his fiancé down in a mud puddle and tells her that the water will protect her from the vampires. They ALL say that!
...
More static and blank screen, JOLT.... Cool --- a lightning storm and kung fu swordfight at the castle!
...
Static, blank screen, JOLT.... That bandit made a bad move when he reached into that box of gold bars. There was a venomous snake in there, a two-stepper. It turned out that this would be the only biting action I'd see on this trip....
Static, blank screen, JOLT.... "The zombies have begun to feed! Soon they will be vampires!" JOLT, static, blank screen....
And then my stop. I had to pay the whole fare, and never did learn whether it's a good idea to carry a pair of sharpened wooden chopsticks when traveling in Chinese kung fu zombie vampire country. In Transylvania you can back a vampire off if you cross your chopsticks just so, and then finish it off with a proper thrust of a properly sharpened oriental eating utensil (but don't try this with plastic chopsticks, kids). Is it a universally valid precaution, or just a Eurocentric one? What I didn't learn on the Colon bus might make me undead one of these days.
On the way back the video system worked just fine, and it was more mainstream American fare, a madcap comedy about a couple of straight guys who signed up for a singles cruise to rescue their failing love lives, and ended up on a gay cruise by mistake.
Nobody threw a religious fit, and this wasn't a series of bigoted jokes at the expense of gays.
Yeah, there were the stereotypes, but they tended to get stood on their heads. As in straight guys desperately trying to pretend they were gay. As in the shipwrecked team of blonde Swedish models and their ultra-butch --- and most decidedly heterosexual --- physical trainer. As in the badass retired British para, who came out after decades of service to the REAL queen.
Most of the captive audience seemed to enjoy the flick, and given that cruise ship tourism is about the only growth industry in Colon province, and that gay and lesbian cruises are an important niche in this market, maybe after all the laughs a few locally important messages were conveyed.
Yes, Colon has at least one decent new Chinese fast food place, and yes, the Transistmica has crumbled way past the point of being merely dangerous. But maybe this small advance in my multicultural education was worth the risk.
