The People’s Republic of Desire

by Annie Wang

  "Like many young, ambitious people, we managed to stay in Beijing, the city of opportunities, but we didn't have a place of our own. The only time we had together was when our roommates were not around," the art teacher said.

  "So sad," says Lulu, shaking her head.

  "We lived such a sad life for five years. Finally, my school assigned me a twelve-square-meter flat in an old building. There were many cockroaches, and the flat had no private bathroom or kitchen. I had to run fifty meters to use the public restroom," the art teacher exclaims.

  "Life is about struggling," I add.

  "As I struggled to survive, my former roommate Colorful Clouds appeared," the art teacher said.

  "Colorful Clouds?" Lulu and I can't believe it when we hear the familiar name.

  The art teacher nods.

  "She wasn't smart enough to get into our college, but she sat in on the classes. She wrote love letters to our teacher. Our teacher thought she was shallow. Later, she seduced the father of a classmate and went to Beijing with him. We later heard that she married an old American and went to the United States."

  "Sounds like a manipulative bitch!" chimes in another girl who isn't familiar with Colorful Clouds' notoriety.

  "By the time I saw her, she had become the wife of a handsome American physicist and the mother of three children. She came back to Beijing and stayed at the Great Wall Sheraton." The art teacher's sob story continues.

  "A posh hotel!" I say.

  "She called me up and invited me to the free breakfast the hotel provided. I saw her act like a queen in front of me…"

  "Who does she think she is? She only uses men," Lulu says.

  "That is the whole point. No matter how we dislike her, through divorce and marriage, she could afford to stay in a nice hotel. What about me? I was a hard-working woman with a college degree, and a good and faithful wife, but I lived a poor hopeless life without even my own bathroom!" The art teacher cries out.

  "Nowadays, the world is for bad girls. What is that saying again? Good girls go to heaven…" Gigi says. "Bad girls go everywhere," I add.

  The art teacher nods. "I realized it, too. After ten years of marriage, I finally felt it was so stupid to be a good girl. Love and faith are meaningless when they can't give you a place with a private bathroom. I left my ex."

  "What do you feel now?"

  "It feels damn good to be a bad girl. I'm going to Australia with my new boyfriend next month!"

  Lan Huahua tells her story. She is a new singer at Beibei's Chichi Entertainment Company.

  "There was no particular reason for my divorce. Everybody I knew divorced, but I was still married, so it made me look boring."

  "You divorced your husband just because you didn't want to look boring?" asks Gigi, sounding shocked.

  "As a singer, the last thing you want people to think is that you're boring," says Lan Huahua.

  "A good voice is not enough?" Gigi still can't believe her audacity.

  "Of course not. To become a star, a celebrity, you have to have interesting things about yourself to tell the media. Divorce is just my first plan. If necessary, I should also be prepared to become a single mother, a lesbian, or a bi."

  POPULAR PHRASES

  CHILE MA: Have you eaten yet? Traditional Chinese greeting, equal to "How are you?" This phrase expresses the importance that food plays in Chinese society.

  LILE MA: Have you divorced yet? A new Chinese greeting, since the divorce rate in China is skyrocketing.

  WAIQI: Foreign enterprise. With the market economy, those Chinese who are able to land a job with a foreign enterprise make several times more than their domestically employed countrymen. These people are both admired and resented by other Chinese.

  13 A Kid in a Candy Store

  Lulu, CC, and I have just finished drinks on the roof terrace of the Beijing Grand Hotel. As we come out of the elevator, we notice a forty-something American staring at us. His eyes almost pop out behind his thick glasses.

  He clears his throat, as he walks toward us to make conversation, "Excuse me, ladies. I'm James, a banker from the States and new in Beijing. I haven't talked to any young Chinese people before. May I talk to you for a few minutes?" We think this curly-haired pointy-nosed guy is a geek, but nobody shows it.

  Lulu speaks for the three of us, "Yes, sure. What can we do for you?"

  "Where did you go to school?" James asks. None of us expects such a question.

  "Are you looking for alumni?" CC asks.

  James decides to introduce himself, "I went to school at Yale. Have you heard of Yale? It's a very old school, on the East Coast. I guess it's somewhat prestigious. Rupert Murdoch's wife graduated from there. She's Chinese, like you." James pathetically attempts to be subtle.

  "Who is Rupert Murdoch?" We play dumb.

  James has to switch the topic. "What do you like to do in your spare time?"

  "Cooking!"

  "Cleaning!"

  "Sewing!"

  We joke around.

  "I guessed as much! Being a Chinese woman is difficult, isn't it? Because the society has many expectations of you! Do you want to know what I like to do in my spare time?"

  James can't wait for us to say yes and starts to volunteer his long-prepared story.

  "I love cars. I have a Mercedes E-class 420, a BMW 740, a Honda CRV, and an RV, but my favorite is my red Porsche convertible."

  Look at him, trying to impress us with his Yale and his cars. I wonder if he thinks that we're local bar girls who have never seen foreigners before. I do a quick study of the hotel lobby. Most of the women are accompanied by men who look much older than they. Perhaps James has been standing in the lobby, eyeing the girls that pass by and awaiting his chance. He may think we're easy targets, but his pickup lines are lousy.

  CC, Lulu, and I plan to go to The Den. James offers to hail a cab for us. After we get into the Volkswagen taxi, James squeezes in before we can say no.

  He stares at us with shining eyes and says, "You are all very beautiful. It's a cultured kind of beauty, different from so many of the other Chinese girls I've seen in Beijing. You," he points to me. "You have that kind of innocent beauty, with a touch of punk, an extremely mysterious combination." He points to Lulu. "You are gentle, but your eyes have fire in them." He points to CC. "You look like Gong Li."

  We look at one another, giving a what-a-nerd facial expression to each other. Nobody says a word.

  The Den is located in Sanlitun, Beijing 's bar district. It's known as the Meat Market. Every night trendy Chinese girls with long hair and plucked eyebrows haunt The Den. They are willing to try anything, without any limits. They dance dirty and wantonly cast their eyes left and right, looking for an opportunity, looking for romance, the corners of their mouths twisted with desire and boredom. Nevertheless, we love to go to The Den once in a while because of the DJ who plays 1970s and 1980s retro Euro house music.

  The decor is trendy and funky. The whole bar is decked out in red, reminiscent of the madness of the Cultural Revolution. Antique carved mahogany doors, copper door fittings, wrought-iron tables and chairs, carved lanterns, flickering candlelight, Cultural Revolution posters, Chairman Mao badges, HBO, EPSN, and MTV, Africans with braids, Japanese with small black-rimmed glasses and dyed-blond hair, Michael Jackson's androgynous wail, Ricky Martin's hot writhing Latin hips. This combination of cynicism and hysteria suits everybody's night mood perfectly.

  Another reason my friends and I like The Den is because it isn't like other disco clubs, which are full of "head shakers" – teenagers who have taken too many yao tou wan pills, more commonly known as ecstasy.

  As soon as we walk in, James realizes he is the only person in the place wearing a suit. Looking at the young Chinese girls in miniskirts posing flirtatiously in the lights, he is pleasantly shocked. "Am I mistaken? Isn't this a paternalistic society based on Confucianism? Not long ago, women still had bound feet, but look at this! Girls are wearing colorful sandals, with toenails paint
ed a rainbow of colors, sexy, liberal, and seductive."

  It goes without saying that James sticks out like a sore thumb, and the reaction from the club-goers is not one of acceptance. He is completely oblivious to the funny looks that are being sent his way by everyone that sees him. I hear all the kids joking about him in Chinese as he walks around completely clueless. "I didn't realize it was senior's night tonight." "Looks like someone's father came to pick them up." "Is that guy lost?" It was embarrassing just being around him.

  Tonight it's a typical Friday night. It's twelve o'clock. People are still streaming in, like the day is just beginning.

  James keeps babbling, "Look at these guys, Nike baseball caps on their heads, wearing Ralph Lauren cotton shirts and Calvin Klein watches. Where does their money come from? Or are all these things counterfeit? What kind of work do they do, to be able to come to a place like this? This is truly an unbelievable, illogical country."

  Neither CC nor Lulu bother to talk to James. They sing along with the music and start to dance. I have played the role of a listener and decide to escape. I say to James, "Enjoy yourself," then join my friends.

  Half an hour later, James pushes through the crowd and comes back to us. "You girls are hyperactive. You simply don't stop. I'm an old man. I'm exhausted and have to go back to my hotel and lie down. Before I leave, I wonder if you can give me your phone numbers. Your English is good. I might need some help from you."

  "Gee, he's audacious!" CC whispers to me.

  I thought James might have felt like a kid in a candy store. With so many inviting, sexy girls, we thought he'd soon forget about us since we weren't impressed by his Yalie background. But to our surprise he comes back to us. Before I can say anything, Lulu has already given him our phone numbers.

  "Why?" After James leaves with his sleek smile, I ask Lulu.

  "If he can't get any girls here, there's no threat in him having our numbers," Lulu says. "The only reason that I gave him our numbers was I wanted him to disappear."

  After The Den, Lulu, CC, and I go to a twenty-four-hour noodle shop. It's already two in the morning.

  Just then Lulu's Nokia rings. "Damn, who's calling me so late! Lucky I'm not asleep!" she curses as she looks at the strange number on her mobile.

  "Who is it?"

  "Darling, it's me, James. Do you want to come around here for a drink? I've got red wine, white wine, whiskey, Jim Beam. I'd really like to see you."

  "I'm going to sleep."

  "Really, Lulu, please come! I like you. Do you know you're very beautiful? We'll have something to drink, put on some relaxing music, turn the lights down low, dance slowly, you'll find it very relaxing, and very romantic. Then we'll have a bubble bath. I'm good at massage, too. I can give you a full body massage. Then, I'll gently, patiently kiss you on the lips; kiss you all over your body…"

  "Get out of here, you freak!" Lulu hangs up.

  "Who does this guy think he is? Richard Gere or Pierce Brosnan or something? And with those fucking thick little glasses!" Lulu starts to swear again.

  Before I can voice my opinion, my mobile rings to the tune of "Fur Elise."

  "Niuniu, it's James. Sorry to be calling you so late. I'm leaving tomorrow, I don't know if we'll still have a chance to meet. You know, I like you. You're a sweet girl. You know that. I can't get you out of my mind. Let's have a drink, okay?"

  "I only drink with Harvard men, not Yale men." I hang up.

  CC's phone beeps.

  "Beijing Hotel!" CC yells.

  "Let's have some fun!" She picks up the phone. "Yes, I love men massaging me, and love even more a lover who can use his tongue. You sound amazing. But I can't go to your place. The twenty-four-hour security there is not very convenient. And you can never be sure they don't have hidden cameras!" CC strings James along, barely containing her laughter.

  "Then what will we do? I want to hold your body right now."

  "Well, why don't you come to my place? I'm home alone, my parents are away."

  "Okay, I'll come over. What's your address?"

  "Number Nine, Donghua Gate. The taxi driver will know it."

  "Okay, see you soon."

  "Okay, bye-bye, sweetie."

  After CC has hung up, I ask, "What was that address?"

  " Beijing Public Security Bureau."

  POPULAR PHRASES

  SANLITUN: A district of Beijing that houses many foreign embassies; known for its night life and bars.

  YAO TOU WAN: "Head-shaking tablets," better known as Ecstasy. Drug use is becoming increasingly popular and hard to control among Chinese youth.

  14 Chinese Beauty in Western Eyes

  Colorful Clouds came from the Guangxi countryside.

  By sleeping with a guy from the city, she managed to leave her native village.

  By marrying an American man forty years her senior, she managed to leave China.

  By divorcing her husband and marrying his grandson, physicist Brian, she became an upper-middle-class American suburban housewife.

  Forty-two-year-old Colorful Clouds, a has-been small-time actress, thinks her men have helped her successfully upgrade her race and status. Now is the time for her to return to China to show off. In Beijing, she finds every journalist she knows, including me, whom she met back in St. Louis. "You see, I'm an actress and a self-made Chinese-American success story who drives a Jaguar. My fellow Chinese should admire me!"

  Inspired by the fact that the Oscar-winning film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon received only a lukewarm reception in China, I want to do a story on different perceptions of beauty. After I talk to my friend Yi, who is CEO at ChineseSister.com, she says to me, "Why don't we organize an online forum on East-West concepts of beauty on my Web site? You can do a story about it!"

  Colorful Clouds hears the news about the forum and begs me to invite her as a special guest so that she can have her fifteen minutes of fame.

  Special guests that day are Colorful Clouds; Ken, an executive at CC's firm Ed Consulting; a couple of foreign students; and a Chinese movie director. CC has told me that Ken is a Western expert at chasing Chinese women. Colorful Clouds is wearing a low-cut black velvet dress and a fake diamond necklace – and yellow high-heeled shoes that clash with the rest of her outfit.

  She has brought a stack of photos of her house, her cars, her husband, and her beach house. This was the moment she had been waiting for: everybody in China would now admire her.

  As soon as the forum starts, all of the questions from the people online are directed at Ken and the foreign students.

  Purple Lemon: "Why is it that Westerners' Chinese wives are always considered ugly by Chinese people? Sometimes, there's a huge difference – the guy is tall, the woman is short. And why are the girls who hang out with foreigners always so wild?"

  Ken and the foreign students look at each other dumbly, and finally a tall guy called Dennis replies:

  "It's not that we Westerners can't tell the difference between ugly and beautiful Chinese people, but we pay more attention to personality. Some girls may not be attractive on the outside, but they are thoughtful and independent, and to me that is beautiful. As for the question of height, I don't think it's a problem. I know that you Chinese probably consider height important, because you are all generally short. But I don't care about a girl's height that much."

  "Sometimes" – no one has spoken to Colorful Clouds, but she butts in anyway – "I think many Westerners like the feeling of a small woman, especially in moments of passion. They can wrap a small woman up in their arms; it's very masculine and dominating. Am I right?" Colorful Clouds glances hotly at the young foreign students and Ken.

  They are a little embarrassed.

  So-So: "Why do Westerners think Gong Li and Lucy Liu are so beautiful? Why don't we Chinese think so?"

  Lily: "Especially Lucy Liu, she is very plain. We think Ning Jing and Zhao Wei are pretty. What do you think?"

  Ken laughs. "Personally, Gong Li and Lucy Liu aren't my favorit
e stars. My favorite Chinese celebrity is Faye Wong. But I do think they all have some things in common: individuality, style, and they're good actresses, not just pretty to look at. I think Zhao Wei is quite cute. She's a comedy actress. I think she could be made up to look really sexy."

  At that moment, Colorful Clouds interrupts again. "Let me say a few words since I used to live in Hollywood. Lucy Liu and Gong Li both have full lips. Full, large lips are very attractive to Western men, because they're very important when kissing or giving blow jobs. And what's more, their faces are very well defined, with high cheekbones. That is what Westerners like."

  Colorful Clouds will not rest until she gets enough attention.

  Foxy adds, "Chinese people like small, cherry mouths and homely beauty. And Westerners like a sexy, wild beauty."

  "Why do Chinese like small, cherry mouths?" Dennis asks.

  People on the Internet immediately post replies.

  Snuff Bottle: "Smiling without showing your teeth is beautiful. If your mouth is extremely small, then when you smile, it's difficult for your teeth to show."

  So-So: "A small mouth means that a woman doesn't talk too much. A quiet woman is a beautiful woman."

  Colorful Clouds continues in an authoritative tone: "You're all missing the most important point, and that is the Freudian perspective on this question. A woman's mouth symbolizes a woman's genitals. The smaller her mouth, the smaller her genitals, and the more stimulation for men. This is what the Chinese man is after."

  Oval Face: "I'd like to ask the French foreign student, Sophie, what kind of Asian men do you like?"

  Sophie: "I like Jackie Chan's sense of humor and Bruce Lee's body. But if I were looking for a husband, I would probably go for Tony Leung. He's gentle, sophisticated, and handsome. In The Lover, his heavenly butt was unforgettable. I also like men who can cook."

  A German student called Marcus says, "Can I ask the Chinese people, what kind of Westerners you think are good-looking?"

  The people online leap in: