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On Thursday night, Eric and I decided to try out a new restaurant near us, a Indian Chinese (!) place called "Royal India."
The food turned out to be, at best, mediocre. Slightly scorched garlic naan, dry keema mutter. Their "Chinese" dishes are supposedly Hakka Chinese, which Eric says is a non-Han Chinese ethnic group. Unfortunately, Hakka style appears to mean "breaded, with lots of chili sauce." The "Drums of Heaven" (spicy faux chicken wings) were okay that way, but breading the pieces of lamb in the spicy lamb stew made for a fairly noxious concoction.
However, the restaurant had a large flat screen TV that was continually playing music videos. Hindi music videos. All of the songs had female lead singers (with very pleasant voices) and all of the music was quite forgettable, except for the Hindi attempt at Jamaican-style rap music, which was just weird. What kept me watching was the oddness of the images. Unlike a lot of Western music videos which merely show the singer in concert from umpteen different angles, these videos tried to tell a story.
And what strange stories they were! One was clearly about a young Hindu working girl. We see her getting dressed in salwar kameez (a kind of tunic top with loose pants combination that is often worn by young Indian women in place of a sari), and hopping a rickshaw bicycle cart to get to some kind of classical Indian dance class. Later on, we see her girlfriends trying to match her up with a young Hindu man who is acting as though he is very interested in her. They re-dress her in a tight sleeveless top and blue jeans for the Big Date.
Another number featured a European-looking young man, who keeps admiring and fondling (only the non-sexual body parts of) a young, sleeping Hindu girl. Repeated shots of Russian saint icons and snow-bound cemeteries are apparently meant to tell the viewer that the man is Russian. However, why the girl doesn't wake up and either cooperate with his caresses or slap him is beyond me, since I don't understand Hindi.
There was another video featuring a high-voiced woman in a red sari (a wedding sari?) and a man in a white shirt and black pants. This video gave me the impression of being a Hindu version of a Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sitcom. Judging by the gestures, she seemed to be trying to tell him that she was going to have a baby, and he was being extremely clueless and kept missing the point.
And there were many, many more--including a strange one with horror movie imagery and another with spy movie imagery.
It was also interesting how little skin was showing on the attractive women singers and extras. Many of the videos had large batteries of female dancers, and all were very good looking in the modern conventional sense--slender, long-legged, clear skinned. But the only skin showing, for the most part, was torsos, arms and faces. Some of the numbers put their dancers in long filmy skirts with bra tops, but most of the outfits didn't even show cleavage. It was as though the producers wanted to hint at the erotic without actually going so far as to *be* erotic. Pretty sorry stuff for the home of the "Kama Sutra" to have generated.
The food turned out to be, at best, mediocre. Slightly scorched garlic naan, dry keema mutter. Their "Chinese" dishes are supposedly Hakka Chinese, which Eric says is a non-Han Chinese ethnic group. Unfortunately, Hakka style appears to mean "breaded, with lots of chili sauce." The "Drums of Heaven" (spicy faux chicken wings) were okay that way, but breading the pieces of lamb in the spicy lamb stew made for a fairly noxious concoction.
However, the restaurant had a large flat screen TV that was continually playing music videos. Hindi music videos. All of the songs had female lead singers (with very pleasant voices) and all of the music was quite forgettable, except for the Hindi attempt at Jamaican-style rap music, which was just weird. What kept me watching was the oddness of the images. Unlike a lot of Western music videos which merely show the singer in concert from umpteen different angles, these videos tried to tell a story.
And what strange stories they were! One was clearly about a young Hindu working girl. We see her getting dressed in salwar kameez (a kind of tunic top with loose pants combination that is often worn by young Indian women in place of a sari), and hopping a rickshaw bicycle cart to get to some kind of classical Indian dance class. Later on, we see her girlfriends trying to match her up with a young Hindu man who is acting as though he is very interested in her. They re-dress her in a tight sleeveless top and blue jeans for the Big Date.
Another number featured a European-looking young man, who keeps admiring and fondling (only the non-sexual body parts of) a young, sleeping Hindu girl. Repeated shots of Russian saint icons and snow-bound cemeteries are apparently meant to tell the viewer that the man is Russian. However, why the girl doesn't wake up and either cooperate with his caresses or slap him is beyond me, since I don't understand Hindi.
There was another video featuring a high-voiced woman in a red sari (a wedding sari?) and a man in a white shirt and black pants. This video gave me the impression of being a Hindu version of a Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sitcom. Judging by the gestures, she seemed to be trying to tell him that she was going to have a baby, and he was being extremely clueless and kept missing the point.
And there were many, many more--including a strange one with horror movie imagery and another with spy movie imagery.
It was also interesting how little skin was showing on the attractive women singers and extras. Many of the videos had large batteries of female dancers, and all were very good looking in the modern conventional sense--slender, long-legged, clear skinned. But the only skin showing, for the most part, was torsos, arms and faces. Some of the numbers put their dancers in long filmy skirts with bra tops, but most of the outfits didn't even show cleavage. It was as though the producers wanted to hint at the erotic without actually going so far as to *be* erotic. Pretty sorry stuff for the home of the "Kama Sutra" to have generated.
contemplative
(no subject)
I've seen such videos, and a tiny number of Bollywood films, and I've always been *pleased* by the fact that not much skin is shown. It's as though the Indians understand that it's JUST NOT NECESSARY to show skin when conveying beauty. It's like cleavage on a wedding dress, which Miss Manners has gone on record as saying is redundant. :-)
(no subject)
It wasn't the restraint shown in the costuming of the dancers, etc. that bothered me. It was the way they tried to have it both ways; flaunting the girls' bodies without actually undressing them. Something about the way they did so struck me as hypocritical, not tasteful. And the video with the Russian fondling the sleeping girl was just repugnant.
(no subject)
Indianized Chinese food is really a genre all its own, much like Americanized Chinese food is. It has its own rules, and can be very good (try "Gobi Manchurian" if you get the chance). We're starting to see more of it here in SE Michigan. But they shouldn't try to pass it off as Hakka or something.
(no subject)
Eric wondered aloud, "But why would they claim it was Hakka? Most people in this country haven't even heard of the Hakka; it would hardly act as a marketing hook." My current theory is that the chef's grandmother claimed to be Hakka and he/she therefore assumed that her recipes were genuine "Hakka" cooking. I don't care much, because even the purely Indian food the place served wasn't worth a return visit.