The People’s Republic of Desire

by Annie Wang

  "I guess that's your excuse for not being able to say no, you big hopeless romantic!" I speak matter-of-factly.

  "I thought it was amour. I overestimated those creatures we call men once again." Lulu speaks with tears in her eyes.

  "You didn't end up in his bed, did you?" Beibei asks.

  "Almost. After the boat ride, he told me that he had bought a new apartment in Tongxian and would like to take me there. I said yes right away because I thought he might propose."

  "We drove for an hour and a half. As the miles rolled by, I was envisioning the two of us living in the new apartment in the suburbs and sharing a car together to go downtown to work each day. But then, he took me to a scruffy old house. In front of a rough wooden door, he told me, 'Here is our nest of passion.'"

  "What was the inside like?" I ask anxiously. Beibei's eyes are also wide open in disbelief.

  "The first thing I noticed after entering was the faint smell of cooking. Then I saw a pink coat on the hanger, pink slippers on the carpet. I went to the bathroom and saw a woman's toothbrush – and tampons. I confronted him. 'A woman lives here." I said.

  "He nodded. 'Yes, but she's not here tonight.' He responded so brashly – as if I was asking him if he owned a pet. He tried to lead me to the bedroom. There I saw the picture of him and a woman hanging on the bedroom wall. It was clear that he had brought me to the apartment where he and his wife live every day."

  "He didn't even bother to hide his wedding picture?" I yell out.

  "Why did he tell you that it was a new apartment that he had bought?" Beibei asks.

  "I asked him the same question. Guess what he said? He had been living there for five years, but just newly owned it. He used to rent it. I feel stupid even repeating his words!" Lulu is inconsolable.

  "He took you there perhaps because his wife was out of town," I say.

  Lulu says, "I asked him to take me back to town right away. He said, 'It's late. Stay here and I'll drive you back tomorrow.' I said, 'Let me go now.' Guess how he answered?" Lulu looks at Beibei and me who are holding our breath, waiting for the ending. "'I'm tired. If you want to go, go ahead, but I can't give you a ride. You'll have to get a cab.'" With these words Lulu starts to laugh hysterically.

  "So did he help you call a cab?" Beibei asks.

  "No. I did it myself. But there is no such service in Tongxian at night. It's too remote. "

  I could picture the rest of the story: cold, scared, angry, and humiliated, Lulu, in her miniskirt, standing alone in the bleak suburb of Tongxian in the middle of the night, trying to hail a cab. Forty minutes passed, or maybe an hour, before she could finally get a cab – and then of course the cabdriver overcharged her.

  "What he did to you was criminal," I yell.

  "We have to get that bastard!" Beibei becomes enraged too.

  "This time, I refused to be a victim," Lulu says. "I wrote to his work unit, telling them that he, a diplomat and married man, tried to seduce women on the Internet. I gave them his name, described his looks, and told them everything I knew about him."

  "Good. You need to be a woman warrior!" I say.

  "I bet his work unit fired him the next day. He made the glorious motherland lose face. He should not be allowed to receive French guests anymore," Beibei says.

  "So did you hear from them?" I ask.

  Lulu says, "Yes. In their reply, they said there was never any such person working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

  "They didn't say that!" Beibei whines.

  I am speechless. One thing is for sure, I'd rather live alone for the rest of my life than try to find a date from the Internet.

  "Yes, they did. Can I sue the Internet?" asks Lulu, almost crying.

  33 Internet Date No. 3

  After two cyberlove debacles, Lulu tells me, "I'm still a young woman, in my prime. I can't live my life like a nun. If I can't find love, perhaps I can meet someone online for a one-night stand."

  "Lulu, you have always talked about how sex should be the 'ultimate fusion of body, mind, and emotions.' I thought you didn't approve of one-night stands," I say.

  "I guess I'm a bit desperate now. I simply want to find somebody to love and to marry, but I've been so unlucky in that department. So what's the point of clinging to those old values? I have a girl's needs too!" Lulu exclaims.

  "Anyway, you don't have to go on the Internet to get laid. Girls like you could walk into any bar any night and pick up whoever you want, " I say.

  "Humph. I can't do it. I need to take revenge on men with the help of the Internet, " Lulu says, terse and firm.

  Lulu's new online identity is Beijing Lover, a bored forty-something married housewife looking for a hot one-night stand. After she posts her ad, she receives 120 replies in less than a week. She screens out all replies without pictures and those less than two lines long. Out of the twenty-one "candidates" remaining, she sends replies to the top two men, along with five of her pictures.

  One of them, named Wild Heart, answers her right away through Yahoo Instant Messenger.

  "How do I know your picture is real?" Lulu writes.

  Wild Heart turns on his webcam. He has a handsome face and a fit body.

  "Your webcam is great. Why don't you do a touyi wu, a little striptease for me?" Lulu types. She is shocked that she has settled in so quickly to her new bad-girl Beijing Lover identity.

  "???" Wild Heart is shocked too.

  Perhaps he is not as wild as his name. Lulu thinks, then types:

  Beijing Lover: "Sensual body movement turns me on."

  Wild Heart: "I've never done it before. I'm afraid of disappointing you."

  Beijing Lover: "Are you a good lover, then?"

  Wild Heart: "Yes. Satisfaction guaranteed."

  Beijing Lover: "Show me."

  Wild Heart starts to dance naked in front of the webcam. Because of the delay of the live video transmission over the Internet, Wild He art looks ridiculous. Lulu feels guilty, but then she reminds herself; "This is my revenge. I'm regaining power."

  Soon, they agree to get together, and arrange a time and location to meet. Wild Heart suggests a room in a public bath-house. Lulu vetoes it because she doesn't like cheap, sleazy places. Even a one-night stand ought to be romantic, according to Lulu.

  Wild Heart mentions the Kunlun Hotel, a five-star hotel that is past its prime. They agree.

  At three-thirty in the afternoon, standing in the lobby of the Kunlun Hotel, Lulu suddenly becomes nervous. Wild Heart strides in. His images from the webcam are mainly in the nude, so he looks just a little strange wearing a suit and tie. Even though he has a model's good looks, Lulu isn't excited. "Am I really going to do it with some guy I've just met on the Internet?" Lulu asks herself.

  "Hi, Beijing Lover, is that you?" Wild Heart recognizes her and walks to her with a full smile. He looks confident, not nervous at all. She greets him as casually as possible.

  "Should we get a room?" Wild Heart says.

  Lulu nods, biting her lower lip. Would they be noticed and stopped by the hotel security staff? Would the police think she was a hooker? If she was questioned, she wouldn't even be able to tell them his name.

  Wild Heart goes to the counter to register. Lulu stands two meters away as Wild Heart shows his ID card.

  "The executive business suite is 888 RMB per night," she hears the room clerk quote the rate.

  "Sure." Wild Heart nods, patting his pockets. "Sorry. I left my wallet in my car – I'll be right back," he says to the clerk and Lulu.

  "I'll split half of the cost later," Lulu thinks to herself. "At least, it shows I am his equal."

  Lulu waits in the lobby alone, trying to ignore the occasional searching gaze from other men and some disapproving glances from the women who walk by. Women who loiter in Beijing hotel lobbies always arouse suspicion.

  Half an hour later, Wild Heart has not returned. Lulu finally realizes that he is not coming back. She's been fooled again, but somehow, this time she is happy to be f
ooled. It stops her from doing something that she'd regret later.

  She tells the story in great detail to me immediately. I understand why she prefers the Internet. After all, it is Beijing Lover's afternoon that has evaporated, not hers.

  POPULAR PHRASES

  TUOYI WU: Strip dance.

  34 Lining Up in China

  Ask any Chinese and they'll tell you that China is undergoing sweeping changes at an incredibly fast rate. Building construction, highways, and new goods for sale in new shopping centers have changed the face of Beijing and Shanghai. But some things never change.

  Take lines. For practical reasons, lines are not part of the Chinese psyche. And far be it for me to suggest that they should be. If you want to line up for something, let's say movie tickets, then be my guest. And while you're at it, feel free to politely yield to those who seem to be in a bigger hurry than you. After all, it's the civilized thing to do. But don't expect to see your movie. Not that day, anyway.

  It just isn't practical to line up because you'll only be beaten out by anyone with fewer scruples, and sharper elbows than you.

  When I'm with foreign guests, I refuse to engage in such tactics, so I often feel embarrassed because I am the last to be seated in the restaurant, last to get a cab, and first to be turned away at the ticket window. However, when I'm not entertaining foreign guests, I can be as rough and rowdy as anyone. I love to come away from a ticket window proudly clutching the spoils of the ticket war and leaving a wake of disappointed people.

  Today, I am pushing my way toward the ticket window of the Beijing Fine Arts Museum. Tickets to the popular exhibition of European expressionism are limited. I am packed in a throng of winter-coated bodies reeking of garlic and boiled cabbage – and I am having the time of my life. But, suddenly, I am attacked from behind. I am being pushed and poked at by a squat old woman who has obviously been part of a mob before. I feel a fleeting sense of compassion: I remember the "silver seats" on public buses in California, and how people would yield a seat to a senior out of either kindness or fear of legal action. "But this is China," I think. "I must stick to my guns. If I yield, I will only be taken advantage of by every other nasty old woman in this horde."

  I feel the rush of competition brewing. I face forward, ignoring the woman ramming me from behind. I have about three meters to go before I reach the window, and even then my position is not guaranteed.

  I'll need to have my money out and on the counter before the others and hope the cashier chooses my offer first.

  I take out some crumpled bills from my pocket and make one last surge toward the window. I push hard, and the way in front momentarily opens up when a young girl stumbles to the side – rookies! But I am not moving forward. I am being held back. I can't believe it. The old woman is holding me by the belt of my coat. That isn't in the rulebook.

  Now, you might ask, isn't patience rewarded in Chinese culture? Didn't Hu Jintao wait fourteen years before becoming president? Yes – but keep in mind that Hu wasn't waiting in line for tickets to the European expressionism exhibition.

  "You feisty old lady!" I scream, more out of awe than anger.

  "Ay! Wait! I want to buy tickets!" the old woman is screaming along with the others in the crowd. I decide to unleash some Three Kingdoms – style war strategy, pitting two forces against each other by a third force, a tactic used after the fall of the Han dynasty, when China was divided into warring factions. I think this strategy is valid in a line for art museum tickets as well. I subtly push my opponent into a woman standing next to us, and as the two begin to quarrel, I make a triumphant rush to the ticket window.

  I force my arm into the window and am now waving my bills feverishly at the cashier. I have made it. The cashier reaches for the money – but not swiftly enough. The woman is back at my side and, this time, tugs at my coat sleeve, pulling my arm – and, more important, my money – out of reach of the ticket seller.

  "This is unprecedented," I think. I turn round – only to discover that the woman is my parents' neighbor, Grandma Liu. The atmosphere changes all of a sudden. In public, when we treat each other as strangers, we ignore how rude we act toward each other. But once we realize we know each other, the hostility melts away. We yield and help each other.

  "Why'd you have to step on my toe, you brat," Grandma Liu says, smiling. "I ought to tell your father. Never mind. Let's go have tea first. I'm paying!"

  "Let me help you get our tickets first," I say with a smile.

  As I clutch the tickets just placed in my hand, I think, "Chivalry is alive and well in China. You just have to know where to look amid the rudeness."

  Changes are evident everywhere. Just look at the skyline here. Indeed. I ponder that for a moment before making a note to remember Grandma Liu's patented coat-belt tug and arm pull for the next time I'm in a line.

  35 City Girls and Country Girls

  I go to an impoverished countryside to report on female hygiene and birth control methods. The women I interview talk to me about such exciting topics as rural abortions, improvised tampons, and child abandonment. Let's just say that, upon my return, I have a newfound appreciation for the conveniences of modern city life.

  When I get back home, I invite Beibei, Lulu, and CC to my house to catch up over afternoon tea. The trip has opened my eyes to a harsh world beyond the neon lights of Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. I want to talk about everything I have seen – the poverty and the daily struggle for survival of the people in the country. With all of China 's sweeping changes and economic reforms, the suffering of the poor is something that is often overlooked by the more successful city dwellers. Whether city people choose to ignore the poverty of their countrymen or whether they simply don't know about it depends on whom you ask.

  Under the pagoda tree in the courtyard of my home, neither Beibei nor Lulu asks about my trip to rural China. They are too busy talking city-girl talk: men, parties, men, bars, men, celebrities, men, men, men.

  "There are so many nice Chinese girls that Chinese men can choose from. But girls' choices are so limited. I'd definitely want to be born a man in my next life, or if I can't be that lucky, at least make me a lesbian," Beibei says while drinking her usual Lipton.

  Lulu sips the two-thousand-yuan-per-pound oolong tea from Taiwan and sighs dramatically. "We modern girls just don't fit the traditional idea of Chinese women that Chinese men have stuck in their minds. We're too independent, too strong-willed, too well-educated."

  "Perhaps China just has a shortage of men," says CC.

  I see this as a good opportunity and finally speak out. "No, actually, it's the other way around. Chinese men far outnumber Chinese women – the disproportion is far greater than in most other countries."

  "So where are all these men then?" Lulu asks skeptically, but she is unable to hide her enthusiasm.

  Apparently, my friends are as naive about the world outside the big cities as I was before my recent trip. I direct the conversation toward my experiences in the countryside. "Many of them are in the countryside."

  "Oh, yeah." Beibei nods. "Those peasants need sons to do all the hard labor on the land, and traditionally, girls leave their family to join their husband's family when they are married anyway. Boys earn you money and girls cost you money, so of course everyone wants sons instead of daughters."

  Lulu pipes up. "How could I forget about the peasants? China has eight hundred million of them! Everybody here originally came from a peasant family. I guess we city people forget about our roots from time to time. It's too bad!" Lulu speaks half-jokingly, although she senses that they are about to receive a lecture from me about the plight of rural China.

  I say, "Although girls do make money for their families in one way: because women are so scarce, the groom has to pay a lot of money to the bride and her family for the wedding. The poorest ones sometimes have to save money until they are in their fifties and they still end up wifeless. Some families have to marry off their daughters in order to get th
e money to pay for their sons' weddings. In some extreme cases, two brothers have to share the same wife!"

  "Polyandry? I read about it from Ma Jian's novella Show the Coating on Your Tongue. I thought it was only practiced in some Tibetan and Nepalese communities," Lulu cuts in. "So unlike us, who can't even find ourselves one man to marry, these peasant women can easily find a husband – or two! Why, it sounds almost too good to be true!"

  "Don't be silly," I scold her. "Their lives aren't that easy. Many husbands in the countryside beat their wives. The wives are exploited. Unlike us – without gyms and health clubs to work out in we wouldn't be able to stay fit – they work from dawn to dark. And there are no beauty salons or foot massages to pamper the m at the end of their hard day's work."

  "No city girls would want to marry peasants, but city men sometimes are happy to take peasant women as their wives," Beibei says. "I guess they think they are caregivers and good mothers. Remember that famous Harvard-educated scholar from the May Fourth school in the 1920s, Hu Shi? He had so many intellectual female friends, including Pearl S. Buck, but his wife was an illiterate peasant."

  "So perhaps China isn't lacking men, it's just short of urban men of high quality. The best ones have all gone overseas to become doctors and engineers. That's why the leftovers – even though they're second-rate – can still afford to be so choosy!" Lulu says.

  "Plus, good men can become bad after being in China for too long: They become arrogant and selfish. They get used to the attention they get from women. Look at those returnees and those foreigners who live in China forever! Even the ones who are married are usually still looking," CC adds.

  I go on. "One thing that has puzzled me the most about the peasant women is that they look so much older than their actual age. They don't have any kind of makeup or skin care products to help them look beautiful. They even use coarse paper made from cowshit as sanitary pads. But, despite all of that, they tell me that they are happy. The peasant women I talked to were smiling ear to ear when I saw them, even in the harsh conditions in which they were living."