The People’s Republic of Desire

by Annie Wang

  Status, prestige, and education are what people care about most in a Confucian society. Perhaps that explains why Harvard is the most desired brand name in China.

  My girlfriend wrote a novel called My Lover from Harvard, about a love affair between a Chinese girl and a Harvard-educated man. It's popular in China. Following its example, a recent Chinese graduate from Harvard wrote his own memoir, Being a Lover from Harvard. Every book that has Harvard in its title becomes a bestseller.

  A girl from Sichuan Province was accepted into Harvard University and her parents wrote a book called The Harvard Girl. It has sold two million copies so far. Her parents have made enough money for her four-year tuition. Walk into any bookstore in China and you will see titles such as How to Get into Harvard, The Harvard Genius, The Harvard Boy. Parents buy these books to educate their kids. Kids buy these books to learn about the road to Harvard.

  Travel agencies, English workshops, and bookstores are named after Harvard. Harvard professors have been invited to give talks all over China. A girl who took a couple of summer open-university courses in Harvard gave lectures to college students about "My Days at Harvard." The fact that she didn't actually go to Harvard didn't matter at all.

  When Chinese people ask me which school I went to, I tell them it's Berkeley. Not many people have heard of it. Even Yale can't compete with Harvard when it comes to fame in China. Harvard is the only school that matters. Mother suggested I apply for Harvard graduate school after I received my degree in Missouri, but I didn't listen. The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin" and the Eagles' "Hotel California" brought me to Berkeley.

  "You think what you did is called romanticism? No, it's called stupidity," Mother said. "How can you make such a big decision of your lifetime based on some pop songs?" Like many Chinese parents, Mother is obsessed with her kids being number one, not number two. There is only one number one.

  My friend Lily came back to China after getting her M.B.A. from HBS (Harvard Business School). In this era of Harvard worship, she expects to find herself a good job and a good husband in China. Apparently, a husband is more important to Lily than a job. Instead of posting job ads, she posts a personal ad on the Internet. At Matchmakers.com, she says: "Lily, female, in her late twenties, master's degree, five feet three, average body type, long black hair, and a thin waist, not model type but kind of cute, introverted but easygoing, kindhearted, enjoys hiking, walking in the moonlight, quiet dinners, and reading on the beach. My favorite book is Jane Eyre, my favorite food is fish, my favorite actor is Tom Cruise, my favorite color is lilac. I'm proud to say I can make a good wife, a good mother, and a good career woman.

  "You: love children, family-oriented, well-mannered, speak fluent English, well-educated, kind, honest. You don't have to have a car or a house, but you should have a nice job. You don't have to be Tom Cruise, but you should look sexy. Ple ase no: party animals, playboys, one-night standers, male chauvinists, perverts, mama's boys, liars, or bald, overweight, divorces."

  Lily purposely makes her ad a bit dull because she doesn't fully trust cyberdating, but she still gets sixty replies in one day. Despite all her stipulations, many replies are unexpected.

  Four married men are seeking trysts and sexual adventures during the day, one respondent wants to exchange nude pictures, another guy offers to clean her house naked, two claim that they like to please women in bed in creative ways, three invite her to have threesomes with them and their wives. Lily is surprised at the level of sexual liberation in her own country thanks to development and modernization. She deletes all the unsavory ones, which leaves thirty-eight replies. Among those, she finds that each starts with a similar sentence: "I'm a graduate from Tsinghua." "I have a master's degree too, but not from China, from Australia."

  Lily picks an IT guy named Jason who started his own online auction site in the high-tech zone in Zhongguan Cun. He doesn't mention his education in his reply. Instead, he talks about his hobbies and the books he loves. From the pictures he has sent Lily, he is also good-looking.

  They meet in a bar called 1952. Lily carries a newspaper under her arm as a sign. Jason wears a baseball cap. He is not as handsome as his pictures, but he's still cute. They nod, sit down, and order gin and rum. Then, the famous drag show at 1952 begins. As they watch the transvestites in miniskirts miming to Teresa Teng's songs, Jason complains about how he was harassed in Thailand by a girl whom he later found out was a boy. "I wanted to throw up after finding out they were men. It's like the movie," Jason says, scratching his head, trying to think of its title.

  "The Crying Game?" Lily suggests.

  "Yes, exactly. That's the movie I am talking about."

  Instead of asking personal questions, such as Where do you live? and What do you do? they start to talk about their trips around the world. Lily gathers that Jason is also a returnee who got a degree from overseas; local Chinese would not have the freedom or the financial ability to travel so often.

  One hour passes.

  "Where did you go to school?" Jason asks Lily. His first personal question.

  "A school in Boston." She tries to avoid going into details.

  Jason continues his travel talk, on the cuisine and customs of other cultures. Lily listens attentively and enjoys Jason's humor. She likes men who have a sense of humor.

  Another hour passes.

  "So what's the name of the school you went to?" Jason asks Lily again.

  "Harvard," Lili finally says reluctantly.

  Jason nods. Quickly, he pays the bill and says to Lily, "I have to run, but keep in touch. It was great to meet you."

  Lily never hears from Jason again. She has the same experience with Frank, Brian, and Tony. Each time, men leave when they hear the name of her school.

  Why? Lily asks me for help.

  To solve Lily's puzzle, I invite my girlfriends to a teahouse named Purple Wind as her consultants and focus group. We ordered fifteen-year-old Puer tea and some sunflower seeds and dry prunes. One of the women, Dr. Bi, a psychology professor, says, "Chinese men like their women to admire them, not the other way around. They can't stand their women to be better than they are, especially in the education field. The more educated women are, the more difficult it is for us to find husbands nowadays." Lulu comments, "Harvard is almost divine in the minds of many Chinese. But who wants to marry someone who's divine?"

  Harvard may make some people rich and famous in China, but it keeps Lily single. Maybe it wasn't so bad that I chose Berkeley instead of Harvard after all.

  8 The Tragic Love of Jeremy Irons

  Who is your favorite male actor?

  This is the question my girlfriends love to ask one another.

  Among our group, 30 percent are Ricky Martin fans, including me – by far the largest group. Richard Gere and the Irish-born Pierce Brosnan have the second and third biggest following. Tom Cruise and Leonardo Di Caprio arguably rank fourth and fifth. The fans often meet in online chat rooms, gossiping about their idols: whether Ricky Martin had seven children with different women, how Tom Cruise likes women that are taller than he, how the color of Pierce Brosnan's eyes changes in different James Bond movies.

  Fans of different actors form their own factions to fight against other factions. Ricky Martin haters circulate e-mail rumors regarding Ricky's sexual orientation. Tom Cruise haters call him a big-butted dwarf. Richard Gere haters post his anti-China comments and mock his narrow eyes. It's ironic to imagine a group of Chinese sitting around mocking Richard Gere for having narrow eyes. They expect their idols to look European, not like them. It's part of the inferiority complex the Chinese nation suffers from.

  However, one fan club does not bother to attack others. Instead, they totally indulge in themselves. It's the fan club of Jeremy Irons, the English actor with the fatal elegance of an aristocrat and a voice that comes from heaven and hell. The group, which was formed over the Internet by me, is small but exclusive. It does not take a detective to realize that the women in my clu
b share many of the same characteristics: city girls (40 percent from Shanghai, 40 percent from Beijing, and 20 percent from Guangzhou); educated (all have B.A. or M.A. degrees); like to wear straight black long hair or short gelled hair; prefer to wear black or white outfits in cotton or linen fabric. They look mild, favor dark lipstick, but are sometimes neurotic, arrogant, and narcissistic. They are also romantic. They read Marguerite Duras, listen to Irish music, buy prints of Van Gogh's paintings, drink cappuccino, shave their legs (most Chinese girls don't), have several cyber names, own a bottle of imported perfume (the size of the bottle depends on how much money they make), and are open about sex, though they may fake orgasms during intercourse.

  Jeremy Irons! He is not particularly handsome, but tall, pensive, cultured, and complex – the complete opposite of the cowboy-styled George W. Bush. He's not an actor who is well known in China since he doesn't play in films that are popular here, except Chinese Box. The girls know about him through pirated DVDs.

  In Damage, he is a middle-aged man infatuated with his son's fiancee, whose damaging love destroys his son's life, his family, and his promising job. He shifts from being a successful politician with a happy family to being a hermit who relives the passionate moment in his memories.

  In Chinese Box, he is a dying English journalist, who falls in love with a Chinese woman, the manager of a bar. He uses his camera to record his own death.

  In Lolita, he is the notorious middle-aged French-language professor who marries an American woman, but secretly falls for her twelve-year-old daughter, Lolita. His love and desire for the girl destroys both him and Lolita's innocence.

  In Waterland, he is a history teacher who lives in the traumatic memory of his past.

  In M. Butterfly, he portrays a French diplomat who falls in love with a male Beijing opera performer. The diplomat lives with the performer for eighteen years and believes for the whole time that his lover is a woman. When he finally realizes that his lover is a man and a spy, he commits hara-kiri.

  In all of his movies – from Damage to Lolita, from The French Lieutenants Woman to Chinese Box – he brings to life men whose love is insane and perverse. These men often combine the evilness of a serpent and the purity of an angel.

  Lulu, Beibei, CC, and I are all fans of Jeremy Irons. Lulu claims that Jeremy Irons "is the secret signal of thinking women and women of taste."

  After CC and I settle into our courtyard house, we invite our fellow Jeremy Irons fans around for dinner. Mimi, a lawyer and an alumna from Cal Berkeley, and Harvard M.B.A. graduate Lily are two die-hard fans who show up at the get-together.

  I make cold appetizers, sliced cucumber, tiger salad, cold tomatoes, and deep-fried peanuts and cook some three-delicacy dumplings. After growing up with a maid in my house, I was forced to learn how to cook during my seven years living in the United States, a country that advocates an independent spirit. In the States I lived alone, and I had to learn how to cook and clean. Now I am self-sufficient. I don't need a cook or a maid, and I certainly don't want to be a cut above others.

  Beibei thinks differently. She teases me: "Niuniu, why do you have to cook? I'd order catering service if I were you. There are so many Chinese people who'd work for very little money. You've got to give them job opportunities. You can't just think of entertaining yourself by cooking." She has brought Starbucks coffee and a pound of caviar.

  CC has bought beer and Chinese corn liquor called Erguotou.

  Lulu has brought some candied chestnuts.

  Lily has brought all the DVDs of Jeremy Irons's movies.

  Mimi has brought a ch eesecake.

  We sit under the pergola in the courtyard, eating dumplings, drinking beer, watching DVDs, and talking about Jeremy Irons.

  CC, who grew up in London, comments, "I love his madness, his passion, his English accent, his pain, and his heartbreaking gaze. His English gloominess reminds me of the rainy days in England."

  I remember CC had said before that modern Chinese men lack any poetic quality. Perhaps that's why she always prefers English men.

  Mimi analyzes Jeremy: "He is a mature and successful man, but becomes obsessive-compulsive when it comes to love. His lack of control leads him to despair and damage. I knew a man like this once, too."

  Lulu cuts in: "Nowadays, men are all cowards. Before they fall in love, they ask if they will be hurt. If there is a chance of getting hurt, they won't fall in love in the first place. But what type of love doesn't hurt? I've had three abortions for love!"

  "We love the Romeo and Juliet story because modern people are not that romantic anymore," says Lily. "Especially men. They always want to know what they can get from their women. They are takers, not givers." She frowns.

  "Jeremy Irons can be cruel, even sinister," Beibei says, "but when it comes to love, he gives his all. I dream of this kind of passionate lover and dramatic soul-stirring love! But I don't have any. The men I've met are not romantic. They want to use either my connections or my money." Even though she complains, everyone knows Beibei likes to mention her connections and her money.

  "The reality is that such men don't exist," adds Lulu. "Perhaps that's why there are more and more single women like us now."

  "That's why we need Jeremy," I say with a dreamy smile. "He can make us fantasize we would fall madly in love at least once in our lives."

  I think of Len again. Len had Jeremy's introspection, gloominess, and fervent hope. When the movie Lolita was showing in the States, everyone talked about it. Many people disliked the film because they thought it was immoral. But Len liked it. He said that he was fascinated with destruction and perversity. Perhaps this was a sign of how things would turn out between us. I was falling into my own morbid love with Len back then.

  It snowed a lot that day, in the little town called Jackson Hole, by the Rocky Mountains. I was in a cowboy bar with country music playing in the background and Budweiser on tap. I called Len on my mobile phone. We were talking about Lolita. He said to me, "Perhaps because I'm a doctor, I pay particular attention to pathology. Often, I think illness is the principal part of life. Lolita allows us to see the abnormality beneath normal people."

  Len has the pensive look of the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He never spoke much, and had an air of elegant despair about him. Although he may have seemed stone-faced and emotionless, his eyes betrayed the passion and intensity with which he lived his life. When he did speak, the whole world listened.

  Perhaps I never truly understood Len. He told me that he wasn't a healthy person. He wasn't a man who could give women happiness. "If you are smart, you'll keep your distance from me."

  In the States, I had taken advantage of being far away from my parents and my rigid culture. I was like a free bird until I met Len, the man who taught me about pain, cruelty, madness, and suffering.

  When I was a child, a Buddhist master who passed through my house told my mother that I had some affinity for Buddhism. They call it huigen,wisdom roots. He could see the halo behind my head. Because I had a round, smiling face, all of the adults called me Little Buddha. It's strange that the little me could sometimes see many things. I had premonitions about my primary school language teacher's suicide, my math teacher's lung cancer, and the disappearance of the retarded boy from down the street. I even predicted my parents' separation. They divorced when I was eleven years old – I was so calm people found it incomprehensible. I wonder when I lost the ability to see things as a child. The Little Buddha with wisdom roots couldn't resist the intensity of Len's ardent but melancholy gaze.

  There is this Buddhist asceticism: "Free from human desires and passions; physical existence is vanity." I discover that as I grow older, I'm further and further away from being "free from human desires and passions." Why did I succumb to obsession, violating the greatest taboo in Buddhist doctrine? Why did love so confuse my heart and mind? Beibei says I'm a qingzhong, the seed of emotions. I don't object to it. After all, my parents pursued their forbidden love out of their mutual irresi
stible attraction. I'm a product of passion.

  Here, in this entertaining, ever-changing China, all those memories of Len and the times we shared seem so far away – as far away as America itself. I sometimes find myself going days, or even weeks, without thinking about Len at all. When I do think about him, it is as if he is a burglar who has somehow snuck past the security of my busy mind and is robbing me of the peace I came to China to find.

  I, the young female journalist, seem to have it all here: good pay, a nice job, a busy social life. But I still get bored easily, and I constantly look for excitement. Seek pleasure, avoid pain: perhaps I'm becoming a hedonist like Beibei. Even if a hedonist's life has no meaning, at least it is comfortable. Comfort, home, for me are vital.

  POPULAR PHRASES

  ERGUOTOU: Fiery Chinese corn liquor.

  QINGZHONG: The seed of emotions; refers to awful romantic partners.

  HUIGEN: Wisdom roots, affinity with Buddhism.

  9 Taking Revenge on Chinese Women

  As my friends and I are talking about Jeremy Irons, the doorbell rings. Here comes a Chinese man, a stranger.

  "Is this where the Jeremy Irons fan club is meeting?" he asks, hesitating.

  "Yes. Are you a fan as well?" I ask.

  "Yes. My name is John," the man says. He is a bit nervous.

  "Yes. Come on in. Let's watch Damage together." I let him in.

  John has reasons to be nervous. All the other fan members at my house are women.