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One For the Yuppie-Haters

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Description: This image was taken (but not used) for a story that ran in The Manawatu Evening Standard on 9th March 1988.

"Tonight we're armpit deep in first year students; the real men are solidifying sweat, spilling beer and scoffing obnoxiously at a couple of bizarre Japanese women strutting onstage. But listen again buddy, that's you they're shooting down with their deceptively graceful black humour, set to electro-beat machine-music. Frank Chickens take no prisoners.

As shy geishas they match vocal lines about "... all de men love de yellow women -- you think we are born to sin, and yellow sex is just amazing..." with simulated vomiting, then twist the sword with "... we are stupid little Japs, you are splendid Western chaps."

Two Little Ladies is a love story about a pair of 19th century Welsh lesbians; it had them swirling and gliding ambiguously in traditional kimonos to the heavy drum-machine beat. UFO is a sly song revealing that all Japanese are in fact Martians, reinforcing the "us and them" side of racism which suggests that anyone who is perceived as "different" is inferior or dangerous.

Kazuko Hohki and Kazumi Taguchi combined mime, pre-recorded music, traditional Japanese theatre, storytelling and rapid costume changes in an act which jumbles and spoofs every popular stereotype of the slit-eyed nip. Hohki, who does all the talking, reveals that the real reason that all Japanese women have small breasts is because it's easier for them to cram into the Tokyo subway... Machine like rap, razor-sharp put-downs for the yobbos in the audience, arrogance and irreverence, Hohki and Taguchi had it all. To be sure, these chickens are no turkeys."