Call The Whaaaaambulance!

Anna Chen sulks and pouts and whines (in an inscrutable fashion):

It's no fun being bred out of the cultural gene pool.

Eh..?!?

Watching TV, theatre or film, I'm on constant alert for a glimpse of someone who looks Chinese, for the slightest resemblance to an estimated 499,999 others like me living in the UK.

Blimey! Can’t you just relax and watch the programme, like other pe…

Oh. Right. I forgot. This is Grievance Land.

Barring Gok Wan, scientist Kevin Fong and the odd TV chef, UK Chinese are virtually absent from mainstream media.

Well, you must be ecstatic about the new 'Sherlock Holmes' adaptation, then! But a word of warning - don't discuss it at the 'Guardian' watercooler with some of your colleagues, eh?

So it was with a sense of "here we go again" that we learned that the esteemed Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is mounting the classic play The Orphan of Zhao in the way prize trophies usually get mounted: gutted and stuffed. This 13th-century Yuan-dynasty masterpiece may be the first Chinese play, to make it to the hallowed RSC, but the only parts given to actors of east Asian heritage are two dogs. And a maid-servant. Who dies. Tragically.

OUTRAGE BUS!!!! ALL ABOARD!!

All director Gregory Doran came up with is that the blizzard of complaints is a case of "sour grapes", and that the critics should "get real"; not the most eloquent response you might expect from the intellectual heavyweight described as "one of the finest Shakespeareans of his generation".

Maybe he just feels it’s all you deserve? I mean, why waste any effort on such a pathetic attack?

Playwright David Henry Hwang of the Asian American Performers Action Coalition which fought in the Nightingale battle, says: "By producing The Orphan of Zhao, the RSC seeks to exploit the public's growing interest in China; through its casting choices, the company reveals that its commitment to Asia is self-serving, and only skin-deep."

Waah, boo hoo, etc *repeat ad infinitum*

Clearly, Anna feels only the nuclear option will do:

The RSC casting is something of a litmus test, indicating how a failing superpower asserts its cultural dominance when its economic base is disintegrating.

Ummm, what? Is the 'failing superpower' the RSC? Or the British Empire?

Such minds are hard-wired to eliminate an entire group's cultural representation, and they don't even realise it. Amanda Rogers of Swansea University, says: "As a national company they have a responsibility to represent all sectors of British society. There is a real paucity of east Asian representation in this country, and when we do see it, it is usually confined to minor or stereotypical roles."

Victimhood Poker is in play, folks!