Secrets and ries

I.
From John Updike's 12/3 New Yorker review of Ha Jin's A Free Life:
"In China every day I wanted to jump up and fight wiz someone....Zere you have to fight to survive, but here I don't want to fight wiz anyone, as eef I lost my spirit."

II.
"During this trial, I've had to sit there and listen to rie after rie," he said, maintaining the mock Asian accent. —"Accused Triple Murderer Dons Asian Accent During Testimony," New York Post, 12/3/07 (via Hua)

More in today's Times: "Though he was born Stephen Sanders in Queens and has no passport, Mr. Sakai testified in a thick, wavering accent, transposing L’s and R’s."

III.
Back to The New Yorker: "In retrospect, it figures that a serial “ninja burglar” would turn up on Staten Island, a borough whose biggest cultural export, the Wu-Tang Clan, long ago nicknamed the place Shaolin, in honor of kung-fu movies. This particular bandit, who is now thought to have robbed eighteen homes on the island in the past seven months, acquired his honorific in September, when he encountered a Dongan Hills resident named Phil Chiolo while raiding Chiolo’s home. He was dressed all in black, with a black face mask, Chiolo said, and he carried nun-chucks, which he used to club Chiolo in the chest, head, and shins..." —Ben McGrath, "Ninja Hunt," 12/10/07