Annie Wang - The People’s Republic of Desire

It was in Sante Fe that one of my favorite American artists, Georgia O'Keeffe, was inspired to do much of her work. O'Keeffe was an independent and well-educated woman whose artwork was original and sensual. I especially love her Sante Fe – inspired flower paintings, which resemble female sexual organs. They remind me that the female form is both beautiful and delicate and strong and resolute. O'Keeffe also had a romantic love affair with her sponsor, Alfred Stieglitz, who was the only art dealer who would show her work in his gallery. The two eventually married, even though Stieglitz was thirty-one years older than O'Keeffe. Stieglitz loved to tell people that Georgia was his muse. By visiting New Mexico I hope to feed off the same energy that inspired O'Keeffe to create some of her best work.

I remember how I sat on the second floor of the Coyote Cafe in the city center, gazing out at the sapphire sky above the plain and sipping a margarita. At ten o'clock at night, the arcades in the street were still open, and I could sme ll the enchanting scent of incense drifting up from the gallery shop. Colorfully dressed people strolled along the street. Like me, they were there on holiday. Other people were in couples, but I had come alone. I stayed at the Saint Francis Hotel, next to the Coyote Cafe, an old hotel where you had to use a real key, and not a magnetic card, to open the door.

I liked the feeling of the old hotel. The old walnut furniture, books whose pages had been turned countless times, and the creaking wooden staircase, all made me think of dead authors like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. In the States, old is precious because the country is young, the exact opposite of China, where old things are seen as roadblocks to the future.

At the time, I had just been dumped by Len, the eye doctor who is twelve years older than me. This was after I had dumped my previous boyfriend for Len. I was depressed. At night the sky above the plains reminded me of my school trip to Tibet. It was the same sapphire blue, whether in the East or the West, always lucid, distant, mesmerizing. That night, I bade farewell to my failed love and decided that I'd stop seeing a psychologist and return to China.

Before coming to the United States, I had been forewarned about racism against "yellow people," so it really surprised me when I found boys liked me in school. Actually, I was a popular girl. I had several boyfriends ranging from football players to lawyers to African immigrants.

The gentle Len was the only man whom I fell passionately in love with. My body used to tremble just thinking of him, and I felt like my life couldn't get any better. I met him after I finished my bachelor's at Missouri and moved to Berkeley for graduate school. There I was, a young foreign girl living in the States, and dating an older, handsome Chinese American man. As a third-generation Chinese American, Len was more American than most American friends I knew. He never tired of introducing me to the country. We went to baseball games and operas in San Francisco, took road trips down the Pacific Coast highway, and went camping in Oregon. He even taught me how to ski and dive. He enjoyed telling me the names of cartoon characters and music bands that I hadn't heard of, and explaining psychosocial or literary terms I had not known. He was knowledgeable and fun to be with, and at the same time he retained the humbleness of a Chinese man. As a doctor, Len is patient and caring. Knowing my love for Picasso and Matisse, he bought prints of their paintings to help me decorate my dormitory. Once when I was sick, he took a day off to take care of me.

The most romantic time we ever spent together was a two-week vacation in Yucatan, Mexico. I knew that Len didn't have much of an interest in this area, but I had always wanted to know about the Maya and Native American cultures. Len had often heard me talking about wanting to go there someday, so he had secretly planned out a whole vacation without my knowing. Being surrounded by the lush rain forest and warm gulf waters was like a dream come true for me. Even more than the beautiful natural surroundings, I loved visiting the ancient pyramids and sculptures. Seeing these incredible works of a culture that has long since vanished from the world filled me with awe as well as sadness. The best night of the trip came when Len took me to the top of one of the ancient stone pyramids as the sun was setting over the forest. It was not safe to be this deep in the jungle late at night and Len had had to hire a guide as well as a guard to make sure we made it back to our hotel safely. This was the first time I seriously considered that Len might be my true soul mate. After that trip I never would have guessed that things would end the way they did.

A year has passed since Len left me, and I have been a celibate for the whole year. I can't explain why I don't have sex anymore. I haven't tried to abstain. It seems that I used up all my sexual energy with Len. Now, I'm done.

People say that I have a baby face. With a round face and a pair of sparkling almond eyes that look slightly distant, I've achieved a naive and innocent look. Many people think of me as an inexperienced schoolgirl. Few people I know in Beijing, including my own mother, could imagine that Niuniu was quite a wild girl back in the States. Beijing isn't like the United States. All my family and friends keep me busy drinking and eating. My first priority is not to find a date but to rediscover what it means to be Chinese.

This is my new life: I race around the old city of Beijing in my red four-wheel-drive Land Cruiser, showing up at various events – art exhibitions, fashion shows, cocktail parties, masquerade balls, political conventions, press reception, and charity events. I meet people and go anywhere that is fun and newsworthy. This is the life of a journalist and a single metropolitan woman. Because the China of today is an ever-changing one, I have no shortage of stories to keep me busy. I cover everything from politics to business to social issues.

When I was first hired by the Beijing bureau of the English news agency World News, I was assigned to an apartment in the diplomatic compound. Now, I am more than ready to move out of the compound to live in a hutong, with their narrow alleyways and simple courtyards. I didn't return to China to live in a fishbowl, but to mingle with the people that make this country unique. The many hutong that dot the landscape of Beijing remind me of a different time in Chinese history – a time that I yearn for but, sadly, may soon be gone.

Living in the diplomatic compound makes me feel like a foreigner in Beijing. Whenever my Chinese friends come to visit me, they are always stopped by the guards, and I have to personally come down to let them in. If my friends drive local cars with blue license plates, they are not allowed in at all – only cars with black license plates, registered to foreigners, are allowed. As time passes, my friends stop coming by to play tennis or eat the dumplings that I cook.

"You want to move? Are you crazy? The diplomatic apartments are in downtown Beijing, next to Chang'an Avenue, a few steps away from your office." Mother disapproves of my idea on the phone. "It has the broadband you need. It's safe. You don't want to live somewhere without guards. You know many migrant workers come to Beijing to rob or kill people for a few dollars."

I talk back. "Mom, I want to live in a hutong. I grew up in Beijing. I want to be an ordinary Beijing person."

"Niuniu, I was an ordinary Beijing person, I lived in a hutong for many years. Never again in my life do I want to queue up at the public toilets to empty the shit and piss from the night pans. How will you get used to it, child? There isn't even a place to park your car!"