Flower Drum Song

Flower Drum Song: Rodger's and Hammerstein's eighth musical collaboration, based on the novel by C. Y. Lee, is set in San Fransisco's Chinatown during the 1950's and follows the clash between the traditional values of immigrant Master Wang and his more Americanized son Wang Ta as the latter seeks a wife. Ta impulsively proposes to Linda Low, a highly Americanized nightclub stripper posing as family girl on their blind date. Meanwhile, his father accepts a proposal with nightclub owner Sammy Fong to take over the marriage contract with Sammy's recently arrived picture bride, Mei Li, because Sammy finds her far too shy and submissive for his tastes. When Linda arrives at Ta's aunt, Madame Liang's citizenship graduation celebration, Sammy recognizes her as his girlfriend and employee and outs her to the Wang family. Humiliated, Ta spends the night at Helen Chao's house, his family's seamstress, who harbors unrequited feelings for Ta. When Mei Li arrives at Helen's house to deliver a sewing job for the Wangs, she sees Ta's jacket there and assumes the worst. By the time Ta confesses to his father that Mei Li is the right girl for him, she will have nothing to do with the young man and her father decides to enforce the original marriage contract with Sammy, who has finally, after five years, agreed to marry Linda. The confusion eventually ends happily when Mei Li picks up a legal trick from watching American television.

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