The summer Sook-Yin Lee spent in a noodle costume changed her life forever

Globe and Mail

a day ago

At 17, filmmaker Sook-Yin Lee took a lowly job that nobody else would, as – get ready for this – a 10-foot-tall piece of pasta with a mustache named Mr. Noodle. Was the rocker by night, pasta piece by day humiliated? Demeaned? Did the future artist and MuchMusic VJ file the gig away forever in the embarrassing-job vault? She did not.
In this instalment of 'How I Spent My Summer,' Ms. Lee shares how being Mr. Noodle turned into something delicious and eternally filling.
I ran away from home as a teenager to become an artist. I was fortunate to meet a supportive queer community with a vibrant and collaborative art scene that encouraged expression. I was in a band, screaming didactic political songs mostly, and we had this gig in Vancouver in an underground nightclub. Literally underground. Above was this unpopular pasta bar.
One day I was lugging my gear out of the basement when it caught my eye: this sad-looking, forlorn, empty noodle costume in the window. Kinda like Gumby, but a noodle. He was a 10-foot-tall foam rectangle with big googly eyes, a French beret and a mustache. Even though I didn't have an audience, I was into performance art and social experiments, so he was perfect.
I went into the restaurant and asked the guy who ran the place, Lyle, 'Hey – is anyone here the noodle?' Lyle said, 'No, no one will be the noodle.' I didn't care about the money, which was minimum wage, and I didn't really need the job, but I wanted to see what being the noodle was like in society.
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Lyle gave me the lowdown on Mr. Noodle. He said, 'Mr. Noodle is Motown and he walks like this.' It was like a jive turkey walk, super stupid. He wanted me to walk like that and give out menus. I did that in front of the restaurant, where Lyle could see me, but as soon as I was out of view I took on a different noodle personality entirely.
I made rules for myself as Mr. Noodle: Never speak words, as then the spell will be broken. I let myself make strange sounds and onomatopoeias, like brrrrrrrreeeeakkkk! or kwauk-kwauk-kwauk! I lost the Motown strut; I didn't give out the menus. I just walked, kinda listless, being a noodle. It was hot in there, and Mr. Noodle was suspended on two strings on my shoulders. I'd stack dishtowels as padding underneath the strings but it still got pretty painful.
A lot of people were intolerant or rude. Many told me to move or get out of their way. Children liked Mr. Noodle, though. They'd run up and say hello and want to introduce me to their parents. There'd be the dad, sunbathing on the beach, and I'd deliberately block his sun. Elderly European men were really nice to Mr. Noodle. They'd sit down and talk to him, like really talk to him, regaling them about their day.
One day, I got beaten up on Granville Street by a gang of skinheads. They thought Mr. Noodle was funny, so a crowd gathered around and they started pushing him back and forth. Luckily the body was made of foam, so it wasn't physically painful, but I watched sadly from the inside through the mesh face. I stayed in character the whole time as Mr. Noodle got beat up.
Every day, I kept a diary of what happened to Mr. Noodle. It resonated with me that he was the ultimate outsider, and I wanted to see who embraced him and who didn't. I didn't have any big plans, but later that summer a friend told me about a film contest she was entering. I decided to enter too, and had one weekend to get a submission ready. It was immediately obvious to me that I'd make Escapades of the One Particular Mr. Noodle.
A few months later, I found out Mr. Noodle was one of 10 scripts that was chosen to get made. It became my first legit film. I basically mobilized my neighourhood to be actors. I filmed in my house, remade the Mr. Noodle costume and re-enacted my summer as Mr. Noodle. It got enough attention that I was hired to make another film, and that's how my filmmaking life was born.
All of this happened because of Mr. Noodle. Had I not followed my curiosity, had I not taken a low-paying horrible job, had I not found inspiration in him and related his experience as an outsider to mine as a Chinese-Canadian, my life would have been different. Without Mr. Noodle, I might never have become a filmmaker.
As told to Rosemary Counter