At lunch today A., who counts among her other fine qualities a talent for playwriting, tells us about a new piece that she’s been working on (it happens to be a satire of the industry we work in, the prospect of which I find delicious). Describing the play, she mentions that one of its main characters is a Mr. Miyagi-like figure, whose wise pronouncements sometimes sound like lunacy.

I stare blankly at her.

“Mr. Miyagi, you know. From The Karate Kid.”

Ohhhh. I LOVE The Karate Kid.

No really. I love the Karate Kid.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I first saw the film — but since it appears to have come out in 1984, when I was 5, and I’m pretty sure it would have taken several years for it to finally make its way onto one of the (three) channels we had on television in Singapore when I was growing up, I estimate that I was probably about 9.

So nine years old, then, sprawled on the floor in front of our clunky brown tv set. It had a dial to change the channels, and it made a popping sound when you turned it on and off, and they still showed test patterns after about 11pm at night. I was born in the good old days after all.

Nine years old, already a pair of enormous pink plastic glasses perched on my nose, and I’m watching some dorky kid from Newark, New Jersey (where the heck is that?) move to Reseda, California (at least I’ve heard of California, although I still don’t understand exactly what a state is), get beat up by bullies, become discipled to a cranky old Japanese guy, and fall in love with a rich blond chick named “Ali. With an I.” (Huh? Ali is a Muslim boy’s name. Crazy Americans).

Nine years old; completely blind to all of the film’s cultural context; having no idea that cars are supposed to be waxed on, let alone off; unaware that when Mr. Miyagi gets plastered and cries about his dead wife, we’re supposed to understand that she’s died in an internment camp while he was serving in the U.S. army; not even comprehending that “Daniel LaRousso” is an Italian name, and why that makes any difference whatsoever.

Nine years old, watching a story unfold in an alien landscape, and falling totally, completely, absorbingly, in love with Ralph Macchio.

He was my first crush, that gangly black-mopped kid with the strange accent and no social skills whatsoever. I didn’t even really know what kissing was, and here I could have died when I saw him practicing his Crane Kick against the sunset by the sea, my heart nearly twisted up with fear and admiration when he won the tournament even with a broken leg. I’m pretty sure I wrote Ralph Macchio’s name out on pieces of paper, just to see the letters in my own hand — pieces of paper which I then destroyed, because even at nine I knew that kind of thing was a gold-embossed invitation for vast stores of embarrassment to enter into your life.

Man. That Karate Kid, he sure was hot. And I sure was young. And that crush sure was heady.

I wonder if A.’s play contains a Daniel LaRousso character, too.