Annie Wang - The People’s Republic of Desire

Last Samurai: "I agree. Ancient Chinese people had self-confidence, and their own sense of aesthetics. In the Tang dynasty, we liked full-figured women with short eyebrows. It was totally our own sense of beauty. In modern times, our aesthetics are all Western: long legs, tall, round eyes, double eyelids, high nose, white skin. Girls are having cosmetic surgery on their eyes, dying their hair blond – it's not natural at all. Why do they think their narrow eyes and short stature are ugly? We should create our own aesthetics."

The Chinese director nods. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. Our ancestors actually had a strong sense of aesthetics. But unlike in the past, modern Chinese lack confidence."

New Shoes: "I'm proud that China 's ugly women can become beautiful women on the world stage! I applaud China 's dogs becoming Oriental sex goddesses overseas! I am happy that those undesirable Chinese women who can't find a boyfriend in China can be in high demand in the West."

The hour-and-a-half online forum ends. ChineseSister.com thanks the special guests and then hands out mugs, bags, and T-shirts.

Colorful Clouds is extremely pleased, and tells me, "I am a sex expert. The kids all worship me. Some had me sign their T-shirts as a souvenir. I really need people to worship me – it's such a wonderful feeling. Oh yeah, that Ken, he's a real lady-killer! If I had the time, I'd take him for a spin."

Colorful Clouds shows up unexpectedly as Lulu, Beibei, CC, and I are having a manicure in a beauty salon called the Rich Wife.

She greets Lulu, who she knows is a big-time editor at Women ' s Friends, a magazine with one million circulation. Today, Lulu wears low-rise jeans with a Bebe T-shirt. She is also sporting newly highlighted hair and red stilettos. Her face is both fair and full of color and energy.

"Niuniu says you can make any woman famous in China. You have to write about me in your magazine. I'm a miracle in the West," Colorful Clouds says vainly.

"Our fashion magazine mainly features models," Lulu says, hoping Colorful Clouds will take the hint.

"My husband looks like a model. Maybe you can publish his picture instead of mine. The headline can be 'How to Win the Heart of Prince Charming.' " Colorful Clouds turns to Beibei. "You should find investors to make a movie out of my story. My only request is that I will play myself and be provided with a caravan with a bathroom, the same as Gong Li gets. "

"Don't you know that nowadays in order to obtain fame, you have to make morality irrelevant?" Beibei asks Colorful Clouds.

"It has never been a problem for me," Colorful Clouds says with a wave of her hand.

"Many people use cheap ways to make up sensational stories in order to shock the audience or the readers. Can you do that?" Beibei asks again.

"My specialty." Colorful Clouds answers eagerly.

"But still, too many women come to me and tell their bad-girls stories in order to get famous. Is yours any different?" Beibei is still not impressed.

"I married my former husband's grandson. Who can compete with me?" Colorful Clouds proudly announces, welcoming all challengers.

"No one, I guess," Lulu and Beibei answer together.

Colorful Clouds was born in a small village in Guangxi province. She claims to be of Zhuang nationality, although some say that she is pure-blooded southern Chinese, and the only reason she calls herself a Zhuang is because nowadays being a minority is cooler than being a Han.

In the early 1980s, she was attending classes at the Guangxi Art Institute. Once, a director from the Guangxi Film Production Company came to see his daughter, her roommate. Colorful Clouds talked the director into getting her a small part in an avant-garde film. Then, she seduced the long-haired director, her roommate's father. They ran off to Beijing.

In Beijing, she met a local photographer and told him that she was a movie star in Thailand who had come to China to study Chinese. The man believed it and fell for her. She dumped the old director, whose Guangxi accent was considered low-class in the big city. Through her new boyfriend's connections, she started to mix with the foreign diplomatic crowd. After seeing the foreigners' lifestyle, Colorful Clouds decided she wanted to go overseas. Of course, her first choice was the United States.

But how? No diplomat wanted to marry her. To them she was nothing more than an opportunistic local, and beneath their notice.

Colorful Clouds met a seventy-year-old American man named David on the street. He happened to specialize in false marriages to foreign women. He had earned $50,000 by marrying two Guangdong women. He told Colorful Clouds she had two choices. She could have a false marriage: he wouldn't touch her, but she had to pay him $30,000 cash within three years. Or she could have a real marriage, and not refuse any of his sexual demands.

To a Chinese person, 30,000 RMB, let alone $30,000, was an astronomical figure. In those days people worshipped "multi-thousand-aires," and didn't even know that millionaires existed. Colorful Clouds agreed to a real marriage with David, and thus joined the throng of people leaving China in the 1980s.

Later, Colorful Clouds tells many people about the awful experience of sharing a bed with a man who is older than your grandfather in order to obtain an American green card.

"The old man made all kinds of demands. He used waxes, Vaseline, and other toys I don't feel like getting into details about. He was a pervert!" Apparently Colorful Clouds, despite all her bragging, still had a little bit of Chinese modesty buried somewhere deep inside her. Every night she spent in bed with David was torture, but there was nothing she could do. She willingly tended to every one of his demands with a smile on her face, although on the inside she was filled with embarrassment, disgust, and shame.

But she also managed to win the sympathy of David's grandson, Brian.

David's family came from conservative Alabama. His children thought that David was a disgrace, earning money from fake marriages in China, each wife younger than the last, this latest even younger than his own grandson. They angrily cut off all contact with him.

It was only Brian, who was studying physics at Yale in New England and had seen something of the world, who sympathized with his grandfather. Brian came to visit him and his step-grandmother Colorful Clouds. Young, handsome, active, and erudite, Brian excited Colorful Clouds. After sleeping with that shriveled old man for years, the sight of such a young man struck her dumb. While Brian was showering, Colorful Clouds heard the sound of the water and went to the bathroom to look at him. The outline of Brian's young body, especially his protruding butt, made Colorful Clouds sprout lust. She gazed at Brian's fresh, blooming silhouette and thought how wonderful it would be to lie down with him every night.

While Colorful Clouds was in the midst of her daydream, Brian turned and saw her.

Colorful Clouds knew that although she was not considered a pretty woman in China, her high forehead, slightly protruding lips, and high cheekbones were quite attractive in the States. She actually believed that Brian thought she was very sexy. Seeing his step-grandmother, this Chinese woman, spying on him, Brian instinctively covered himself with a towel and blurted out, "You're sick!"

Colorful Clouds understood. He had not said, "You're so sexy."

Colorful Clouds ran to her room, crying like a crazy woman.

And truly, she was crazy – crazy to go home again. At such a young age, she had married an old American, come to America, where she was unable to study, had no friends, and every day faced that rough, shriveled, disgusting, greedy old body.