by Annie Wang
For a long time, whenever I saw a Jaguar, I thought of Len – this Len, who sometimes did crazy spontaneous things. After he had made love to me so many times, suddenly one day he said, "Don't fall in love with me. If you love me, I will hate you. I can never forgive women who love me." This announcement came out of nowhere and took me completely by surprise. What was so bad about being loved, and why was Len so afraid of it in the first place? I wondered what had happened in Len's past to make him so unwilling to let someone love him.
Now I am with my girlfriends. I'm happy, I'm confident, and I'm having fun. I tell myself, you don't need his twisted passion and pain anymore.
After watching Eminem's My Name Is, Beibei says, "I think we've found our inspiration. With a bit of brainstorming, I've come up with an idea for the Young Revolutionaries."
"How do you plan to position them?" I ask.
"Rebel meets Slacker meets 'To Revolt Is Good,' " Beibei smugly replies.
"Not bad. Revolt you definitely want. These days, everyone is cynical; you can't not be a rebel," Lulu agrees.
"I think they should have a little of the Backstreet Boys' youthful vigor, don't go too overboard with the bad boys style. After all, this generation still needs icons," I say.
"Why does this generation need icons? I don't agree. These days, nobody gives a damn about anything or anybody. We need iconoclasts, not icons," Lulu retorts, appearing to be very deep.
"True. Nobody believes in anything anymore. Everyone can see through those shallow, fake posers!" Beibei nods.
"Don't you think that, precisely because there's nothing to believe in, people need idols even more?" I retort.
"What do you mean?" Beibei asks.
I consider my own observations on the current status of religion in China, "Everyone rebels back and forth until they've got no faith. When they've got no faith, they've got no spirit. Without spirit, everybody feels lonely and confused. When people are lonely and confused, they desperately look for something to believe in. Sometimes they turn to cults, money, the opposite sex, or a band. In a faithless time, it's easier for a band to have a cult following and become an icon."
"You're quite right that everybody revolts back and forth until they've got no faith. Nowadays, we don't lack people to encourage others to revolt. What we need is to build something new and to bring hope." Beibei sees my point.
"That's why I said the Young Revolutionaries can't just be all beating, smashing and looting, and insisting that to rebel is good. The aim of revolution is to build a fairer world. Let's take the Beatles as an example. They were antiwar and antitradition, but they wanted peace and love. Bob Dylan talked about human rights. Even today, P. Diddy ran the New York marathon to raise money for inner-city schools. Your Young Revolutionaries have got to have something," I declare.
"It would be great if they could have both ideals and edge," Lulu concurs.
"They should not be as heavy as those old fogies Black Panther and Tang Dynasty. Nowadays you don't see any angry young idealistic proletarians anymore. In a market economy, people want lighthearted entertainment." Beibei is clearly annoyed.
"What style of music do they plan to play?" I ask.
Beibei answers, "Pop, rap, hip-hop, rock, reggae, a bit of everything. A hodge-podge. I don't want us to be pure rock 'n' rollers, because the majority of the Chinese audience doesn't understand rock."
"Why don't you add a bit of revolutionary opera? It's got a Chinese flavor, as well as satirical overtones," I suggest.
"Yeah! Great idea! Why didn't I think of that? Niuniu, I think I really should hire you to do strategy for us full-time. People who come back from overseas really are different! Gosh, I can't afford you. The British pay you much more. Isn't it sad that the most talented people all work for Westerners!"
"Don't be so nationalistic. I think you should just make the Young Revolutionaries internationalists. Isn't everybody talking about globalization? Their ideal world should simply be a fusion world. Get someone to write that kind of song for them," I recommend.
"Right, that suits the Young Revolutionaries' positioning."
"But isn't their communist flavor a little too strong? In the future when they try to make it overseas, this might be a problem." Lulu holds different political views.
"We'll worry about that later. For the Young Revolutionaries to make it here in China first would be a good start. These days stars are on a merry-go-round. Almost every star's fame is ephemeral," Beibei educates us.
"What's their styling like?" Lulu, who mixes in fashion circles, asks.
"Dyed hair, pierced ears, baggy pants, Japanese samurai tattoos on their arms, and backwards baseball caps – typical Generation X – and Y – style."
I throw my comments out first. "It sounds too familiar – like a Chinese smorgasbord of every foreign band and style. Gives people the feeling that Chinese people can't do anything else but pirate. I think that to copy others is an expression of lack of self-confidence. They should be unique."
"Yes, I agree," Lulu cuts in. "Dressing up like that won't make you look fashionable. On the contrary, you're just following the herd. I think that to highlight the Young Revolutionaries, you should let them wear military hats and belts like the Red Guards. In this way, they have their own revolutionary character."
I add, "Like designer Vivienne Tam using the Chinese flag and Mao's portrait in her clothes designs – what does she call it? China chic?"
Beibei says, "Yeah, that old Cultural Revolution stuff is really popular these days. It's China 's own retro chic!"
No one seems to notice or care that there is nothing unique or rebellious at all about having a marketing agency create an image for the band. Just because Beibei's company has deemed the Young Revolutionaries "unique" and "rebellious" does not actually make it so. However, that is the nature of the industry under the new market economy. To survive, you must please the crowds, even if that means selling out.
POPULAR PHRASES
BAOTANG: To make soup.
CEHUA: To plan, promote, position, and publicize. One of those flashy new words that has entered the Chinese vocabulary along with the opening up of the market economy.
21 Matters of Size
My friend, Diana, is half English and half Norwegian. When she was sixteen, she saw the movie The Lover, about French author Marguerite Duras's affair with her Chinese lover in Indochina. Diana fell in love with the Hong Kong actor Tony Leung, who plays the gentle and passionate lover in the film.
Diana started to learn Chinese and fantasized about dating a Chinese man someday: a Chinese man with hairless, silky skin and a tight butt, who looks younger than his age, is faithful, gentle, and wealthy like Duras's lover. It would be a great way for her to practice her Chinese – and he would, hopefully, be a good cook or the son of a good Chinese cook. Diana loves Chinese food.
After graduating from college, Diana's Chinese dream is realized. She was sent to work in a nonprofit organization's Beijing office. After moving to Beijing, Diana often saw many Western men dating Chinese women, but very few Western women with Chinese men. Most of her girlfriends are not attracted to Asian men. Sure, she saw those Chinese punk artists hanging out at places like Moon House in Haidian with their Western wives. But most of the Western wives are unattractive from a Westerner's perspective. And those sorts of relationships seem to her a bit mutually masturbatory. The Western girl feels cool because she is married to a "dissident artist," and the Chinese dissident artist guy feels proud that he is good enough to score a Western girl – and he can get a visa!
Diana is determined to break the stereotype and find a Chinese man. To her disappointment, it is not such an easy task. At nearly six feet tall, she is taller than most men and the rare ones who are taller are often male chauvinists. Of course, many of those Chinese punk rockers and avant-garde painters chase after her, but they are not really her type. Diana tells me that she thinks they are too westernized. She prefers conservative family men.
One evening, in a bar called Schiller's, she meets Mr. Lee, who is on a business trip to Beijing. Mr. Lee is a venture capitalist in Hong Kong, more gorgeous and gentler than Tony Leung. He is half Chinese, half American, and speaks both Chinese and English perfectly. Other than his unusual height and high Western nose, he looks like a pure-blooded Chinese man with black hair, Asian eyes, and fair silky skin.
Mr. Lee tells Diana that he is not attracted to Asian women because he prefers "big breasts, blond hair, and intelligent conversation," although he doesn't specify in what order. Diana thinks she can provide him with all three. He says, "Too many Asian women are flat-chested, materialist airheads." Hanging out with other foreigners in Beijing, Diana has met so many Asian fetishists – Western men who have caught "yellow fever" – that Mr. Lee's comments make him stand out from the crowd.
Mr. Lee flies from Hong Kong to Beijing to meet with Diana every weekend. Every time, he brings her nice gifts, perfume, jewelry. They always have pleasant conversations and candlelit dinners, but he never kisses or touches her. Diana calls afterward and tells me, "Wow, Chinese men are so much more conservative than Western men. He'll make a good husband."
Four months have passed and Mr. Lee always treats Diana with respect. She decides to take the initiative.
One Saturday night after Mr. Lee takes Diana to the St. Regis Hotel for dinner, Diana invites Mr. Lee to stay overnight at her apartment in Maizidian. Mr. Lee doesn't refuse.
In Diana's apartment, Mr. Lee asks Diana politely, "Can I make love to you?"
"Yes," Diana agrees eagerly. She has been waiting so long for this night!
"Do you have a condom?"
"Yes. I do." Diana planned ahead, and earlier that day bought a box of condoms at a nearby store.
Their moment of passion is building up when the unexpected happens. The condom doesn't fit: it's too small. "Gosh, this part of my body is American, not Chinese," Mr. Lee chuckles. "The Chinese have always believed that the size of a man's nose reflects the size of his pecker. With my Western nose, it seems to make sense."
"Gee, if the size doesn't fit, I wonder what other foreign expatriates use in Beijing. Do they need to carry boxes of condoms from home every time?" Diana is frustrated. "Can we do it without a condom?" she asks.
"No, we can't. My wife says I have to wear condoms whenever I'm with other women."
"What?! You're married?" Diana is so stunned that it takes a minute for the anger to set in.
"Yes." Mr. Lee answers. Diana later tells me that he answers her question calmly without a trace of embarrassment.
Diana's fury finally emerges. "What are you doing here, then?"
"Lots of men in Hong Kong have xiao mi – mistresses on the mainland! What's the problem?"
"How can your wife tolerate you having affairs?"
"My wife understands. She is fine with it. If other taitais from Hong Kong can put up with affairs, so can she."
"But how can your wife be from Hong Kong? I thought you said you aren't attracted to Asian women because they are too materialistic."
"One good thing about materialistic women is that they care more about how much money you allow them to spend than how many affairs you have. As long as she can still buy her Prada handbags and Gucci sunglasses at Pacific Place, she is happy."
Diana can't stand it anymore. She kicks Mr. Lee out of her apartment. She calls me, telling me everything in detail. Eventually, she says, "Niuniu, I'm grateful to the Chinese condom manufacturer for saving me from becoming Mr. Lee's latest mainland mistress. "
"Do you still want a Chinese man?" I ask her on the phone.
She pauses for a second, and then says, "What is the Chinese word – couhe? Perhaps one of those Chinese dissident artists might be okay after all."
POPULAR PHRASES
XIAO MI: "Little secret," slang term for mistress.
TAITAI: Wife, usually one who doesn't have to work to support the family.
MAIZIDIAN: A funky artistic, counterculture district in eastern Beijing
COUHE: "To match and combine"; settling for second-best.
22 The True Color of Ximu
I come back to Beijing from a small southern village where I covered a story on how villagers made a living through drug trafficking. Before I even get inside my courtyard house, I discover that someone has torn the badge off my Jeep, which I have left parked outside in the alley. There are also a couple of scratches down the side of the car, and someone has thrown a banana peel on the front windscreen. It is obviously a deliberate act of vandalism. My mother Wei Mei was right: it s not safe to park a car in a Beijing alley. This is the first time I have encountered something like this since moving out of the diplomatic apartment compound. In a country where people used to be equally poor, it's hard not to hate the rich – I'm not rich, I simply own an automobile. What if this was not a car, but a horse, a living, breathing animal – would it suffer the same treatment? I wonder.
I drag open the door to my courtyard and go in. I'm startled to find Lulu sitting there under the grapevine. Why is she in my house? Isn't she working today?
She is wearing a Chinese-style jacket with the collar turned up, and her hair hangs down messily. There is an open bottle of rice wine on the table next to her. She is swigging from the wine bottle and tugging at her own hair.
"Lulu, what's the matter?" I rush over. I know immediately it must have something to do with Ximu.
Lulu raises her head, her eyes full of tears. She bites her lip. Her expression is flat, ruthless, and hateful.
She suddenly stands and opens up a big colorful biscuit box beside her. It is full of ashes.
Those ashes make my hair stand on end.
"I burned all of my diaries," Lulu murmurs. "All those years, what did I write? It was all about Ximu. How to love him, understand him, wait for him, tolerate him, appreciate him, adore him, be his loyal audience. When I was hurt, I healed myself at home, and when my hurt was healed, I went back to him so he could hurt me again. All those years, everyone around me was going overseas, getting married, making money, having a career. And me? Other than him, my world has nothing. I used to think my love was so great, but only now do I realize that with all that loving, all I loved was a joke. I'm just a joke."
"Lulu, tell me, what has that bastard done?" I hold Lulu's hand and look at her, worried and distressed.
"It's not worth it. This kind of man is not even wo rth a beating." She waves her hand and shakes her head violently.
"Tell me, what has happened?" I press her for the story.
"What happened?" Lulu laughs coldly. "Something I should have discovered long ago. I was just an idiot. I always believed him. He said his marriage with his wife was a failure, and it was enough for his lifetime. He said he was an artist. Artists must get inspiration from the bodies of different women, so he couldn't be a monogamist. The funny thing is that there was a fool like me to believe his bullshit. I listened to him so adoringly. I accepted him staying married and fooling around with other women. He lived with other women, and I even tolerated that. I said to myself, successful men need space."
"He isn't that successful! Going to study in France is nothing special! It seems like he couldn't make it there, so he had to come back home," I say.
"Sometimes he spoke about his own dreams and ambitions for hours. He said of all the women, I was the only one who understood him. I was so flattered. I listened attentively, I applauded. If Ximu is Sartre, then I can be his Simone de Beauvoir! It didn't matter if we didn't get married. Our love had long ago surpassed such a wo rldly th ing."
"Didn't you know they were all excuses? Men will say all the romantic, sweet-talking stuff in the world to get a woman into bed," I scold Lulu.
"When people are in love, when they are madly in love, they are fools. Don't you remember Jeremy Irons in Damage?
He was a successful politician. Was he stupid? But in the end, didn't love leave him with nothing? Some people are demons – like Anna in Damage.
If you love them, it's like swallowing poison, because for them you would be willing to climb razor-sharp mountains and swim in a sea of fire."
Loving them is like swallowing poison. Aren't Beibei and I the same? After Chairman Hua's betrayal, Beibei has decided to never again believe in love. She seeks comfort in the arms of young men. And I? My past with Len is like a sleeping forest. I don't talk about it with anyone.
"Psychologists say that some kinds of love are a sickness, an uncontrollable obsession," I say.
"Perhaps I'm one of those women who easily become obsessed," Lulu says. "The woman in Ricky Martin's song 'Livin' la Vida Loca' is a devil woman who runs men around in circles. Beibei often blames me, saying that I'm pretty, why can't I find a man and run him around in circles? I'm always the scapegoat. I let my girlfriends do the worrying for me. But I just don't know how to be manipulative!"
Lulu continues her story, "Recently, Ximu had disappeared for over a month. I missed him so bad, missed his big beard, his fiery eyes, his passion and wildness in bed. So, I phoned his mobile. No one answered. I knew I shouldn't have phoned, because he didn't let me ring him. Later on a woman phoned my house and asked if I was looking for Ximu.
"I asked her how she got my phone number. She said her name was Liu Hong, that Ximu was not there. She was looking after his mobile phone for him, and she saw my number on his phone. I knew this woman. She was the Japanese woman who had grown up in China, who lived with Ximu. Ximu had told me that there was nothing special about her, but she had a good body and she could do accounting. His math was terrible, and Ximu needed a woman to keep his books, so he lived with her.
