Annie Wang - The People’s Republic of Desire

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Those who know little to nothing about Chinese culture will receive an eye-opening experience of how China was and how China is now through Annie Wang’s novel The People’s Republic of Desire.
Wang takes readers on a journey with four cosmopolitan women learning to live life in the new China. Niuniu, the book’s narrator, is a Chinese American woman, who spent seven years living in the States obtaining her degree in journalism. In the book, Niuniu is now considered a “returnee” when she goes back to China to get over a broken heart. What she meets upon return to her homeland is not the traditional Confucian values she left, but a new modern China where Western culture seems to have taken over – to an extreme.
Niuniu, the narrator of the book, is called a “Jia Yangguiz” which means a “fake foreign devil” because of her Westernized values. Her friend Beibei is the owner of her own entertainment company and is married to a man who cheats, so Beibei deals with his infidelity by finding her own young lovers. Lulu is a fashion magazine editor who has been having a long-term affair with a married man, and thinks nothing of having several abortions to show her devotion to him. CC, also a returnee, struggles with her identity between Chinese and English.
In The People’s Republic of Desire the days of the 1989 idealism and the Tiananamen Sqaure protests seem forgotten to this new world when making a fast yuan, looking younger, more beautiful, and acting important seems to be of the most concern to this generation.
Wang uses these four woman to make humorous and sometimes sarcastic observations of the new China and accurately describes how Western culture has not only infiltrated China, but is taken to the extreme by those who have experienced a world outside the Confucian values. What was once a China consumed with political passions, nepotism, unspoken occurrences, and taboos is now a world filled with all those things once discouraged – sex, divorce, pornography, and desire for material goods. It’s taken the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” to an all-time high.
Wang offers a glimpse of modern day Beijing and what it would take for any woman – returnee or otherwise – to move forward and conquer dilemmas in the fast-moving Chinese culture. The characters joke that “nowadays, the world is for bad girls” and all the values of their youth have been lost to this new modern generation of faking their identity, origin, and accent. It seems that such a cultural shock would be displeasing to those who knew the old China, but instead these young women seem to be enjoying the newfound liberties.
If you’re looking for a quick read with a plot, you won’t find it in The People’s Republic of Desire. Each of the 101 chapters read like individual short stories, separate stories about friends, family, and other individuals who Niuniu is acquainted with or meets and through which Wang weaves a humorous and often sarcastic trip into Beijing, China.
The book is filled with topics of family, friends, Internet dating, infidelity, rich, poor, and many of the same ideals most cultures worry themselves about. Many of the chapters end with popular phrases that give the reader an insight into Chinese culture and language. Wang does seem to use Niuniu’s journalistic background to intertwine the other characters and come to a somewhat significant conclusion.
As the press release states, “Wang paints an arresting portrait of a generation suffocating in desire. For love. For success. For security. For self actualization. And for the most elusive aspiration of all: happiness.”
With The People’s Republic of Desire, Wang does just that. She speaks not only of the new culture but also of the old ways and how China used to be. She may have educated readers about the new China with her knowledge of the Western and Chinese culture, but also Wang hits the nail on the head when it comes to showing most people’s needs. After all, aren’t most human beings striving for many of these same elusive dreams?
Joanne D. Kiggins
***
From Publishers Weekly
As Wang reveals in intimate detail, today's affluent Beijing women – educated, ambitious, coddled only children enamored of all things Western – are a generation unto themselves. The hyperobservant narrator of this fascinating novel (after Lili: A Novel of Tiananmen) is 20-something Niuniu, a journalist who was born in the United States but grew up in China and returned to America for college and graduate school. Now she's back in Beijing nursing a broken heart and discovering "what it means to be Chinese" in a money- and status-obsessed city altered by economic and sexual liberalization. Supporting Niuniu – and downing a few drinks with her – are her best buddies: entrepreneurial entertainment agent Beibei, sexy fashion mag editor Lulu and Oxford-educated CC. Sounds like the cast of Sex in the Forbidden City, but the thick cultural descriptions distinguish the novel from commercial women's fiction. A nonnative English speaker, Wang observes gender politics among the nouveau riche in careful, reportorial prose. Though Niuniu's romantic backstory forms a tenuous thread between the chapters, and the novel – based on Wang's newspaper column of the same title – doesn't finally hold together, this is a trenchant, readable account of a society in flux.

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"Yes."

"Then what was it that made you abandon everything in America and return to live in China?"

"I like tension; it makes me feel like I'm alive. In the beginning I had the courage to leave home alone with only one thousand dollars and go to a strange country. Now why shouldn't I have the courage to abandon my car, my house, and other material objects and return to China? China 's changes, energy, and dynamism, I think, are just like the United States in the 1960s. I have to join this wave."

"Do you feel nostalgic for the 1960s as well?"

"Do you?"

I nod vigorously.

Mimi laughs. "It seems like we are both people who thrive on chaos. Birds of a feather flock together."

"Precisely because we thrive on chaos, we want to be in the United States one moment and China the next. We leap back and forth," I say.

It is not like a regular interview, but I have found a soul-mate. It seems that there is so much we share in common.

It takes only a few hours of talking with Mimi for me to realize more about what I want out of my life and my future as compared to all the time I have spent with my other girlfriends. Spending time with her makes the countless hours we have spent trying to decide where to go out on the weekend or talking about men seem meaningless. Mimi has the power to calm you down and make you feel focused. I would like to lead such a life: a caring husband, a stable family, a child, a rewarding job that actually helps make people's lives easier. I see in Mimi what my own life could be like someday if I am lucky.

86 The Spicy Girl

The Korean movie My Barbaric Girlfriend is a hit not only on the mainland but in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well. Young Chinese women identify with the hot-tempered, sometimes rude, yet beautiful female lead in the movie. It seems that the Confucian patriarchal Chinese society has finally come to embrace strong women. Especially among the one-child generation on the mainland, one would have difficulty finding submissive, stereotypical Asian girls nowadays.

Describing herself as the "spicy girl" from Hunan Province, Dolly considers herself a representative of the new generation. Her idol is the barbaric girlfriend who slammed her boyfriend in the face in the movie. She has watched the movie at least five times. Dolly is short-tempered and doesn't want to change in any way for any of her men. She doesn't cook. She prefers that the men cook. She likes to wear miniskirts and doesn't mind talking about orgasms in public with her friends. She even dates her English teacher, Terry, who comes from Texas.

In three months, she convinces shy, meek Terry to quit his job in China, marry her, and take her back to Texas.

Everyone thinks that the free-wheeling American lifestyle will suit Dolly. But one month after she leaves, she calls her friends from a detention center in Austin, Texas.

"I might be thrown in prison. I don't know anybody here to help me," she tells her friends in China.

"What about your husband, Terry? He can help you!" Her friends in China are all surprised that she will ask for help in China when she has an American husband on her side.

"He's the one who is suing me!" The usually tough Dolly now sounds more scared and shocked than anything else.

Hearing her situation, her friends come to me to ask for help. After all, I have been in the States and, at a minimum, can offer some advice. I call Dolly right away.

Over the phone line, Dolly pours out her story, "I tried to send a check of five thousand dollars to my folks in China, but my husband said that he didn't have a job at the moment, and didn't think it was a good idea for me to send so much money. I said, 'I'm your wife, not your appendage. I can make my own decision.'

"He argued that I didn't have a job either and the money was all his. I got angry and said to him, 'We're husband and wife now. There should not be your money or my money.'

"He argued back and I got enraged, so I threw the coffee mug I had in my hand at him. His nose was broken. Can you believe what he did next? He called the police! I didn't expect the police to take the matter so seriously. They arrested me! I was in the detention center for four days. America is a free country – why would the police interfere with my domestic dispute? Also, how could my husband be so cruel to me and call the police?" Dolly's words spill out through the phone.

"You hurt him. You threatened his life," I explain.

Dolly retorts, "But it is common to have verbal, and sometimes physical, fights between husbands and wives in China. My parents often beat each other when I was growing up. I know other kids at school whose parents fought too. How can Terry love me but leave me in the detention center and now threaten to sue me?"

"If you love him, why did you hurt him?" I don't have sympathy for Dolly after hearing the story.

Dolly argues, "But in Chinese, we have the saying, Dashiqin, mashiai. Beating is a way of showing love."

"Would you like it if your husband showed his love by beating you every day? You need to change your temperament. Apologize to your husband and make him drop the case."

"He has always liked my wild and spicy side. Men love barbaric girlfriends. If I change, I won't be attractive anymore."

"Do you think you are attractive in a prisoner's uniform?" I ask. I hang up the phone, knowing Dolly's marriage has gone bad, like a pot of soup that has been overspiced.

POPULAR PHRASES

DASHIQIN, MASHIAI: "Beating is a way of showing love."

87 Doing Business with China

China has recently been accepted as a member of the World Trade Organization. International companies are keeping their fingers crossed that China will loosen up on ideology and open their media and publishing markets to Western companies. This willingness works both ways. Many Chinese writers and journalists hope to work for a more free-minded globally focused magazine or a publishing house someday.

I'm one of them. Although I like my job at World News, I'd like to write for Chinese readers. It's more rewarding if my friends can see my byline on a regular basis than having my articles published in countries where nobody recognizes my name. Even Sean once said to me, "Niuniu, you're such a good reporter. Sometimes I think you could contribute more if you were the editor-in-chief of a magazine in China and could write your own column there. I see this happening someday. Also, China lacks the talent that you have, with your education, experience, connections, and independent mind."

I'm not sure why my own boss would say something like this to me. But Sean is sincere. Some part of me is willing to jump into local international magazines and publishing houses. Knowing this, CC introduces Lulu and me to Robert Payne, editor-in-chief of a New York – based women's magazine, who is in town on a business trip.

Lulu and I meet Mr. Payne in the Beijing Hotel's lobby. Both of us are excited to hear Mr. Payne's newest information and the details of his China trip.

But Mr. Payne doesn't look very eager at all. "This trip is disappointing," he begins with a sigh. "I've talked to some potential Chinese partners. I thought they'd be thrilled to meet a foreign investor with a strong background and interest. But they were not. At one Chinese magazine, their boss didn't show up. Only her assistant came to show me around. I guess my company should have done some prep work to promote our brand awareness before I came to Beijing."

"May I have your business card?" I ask.

After getting Mr. Payne's business card, I say, "I've noticed that you don't have a Chinese translation on the back of your card. On the English side of the business card, you are listed as Editor. In China, even those who understand some English don't know that the editor of a magazine is really the editor-in-chief. So they probably thought you were just an ordinary editor – one of the staff. In China, rank is key. People get different treatment according to their status."

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