People's Republic of Desire

(photo by Jerome De Perlinghi )

OK, Annie Wang's 2006 breezy little novel is a piece of trash, but that's why it's so much fun, isn't it ?

How low can the Chinese go -- or as Annie wrote in the introduction "I want to be free falling, free falling with a China that is no longer homey"

And as she continued:

"I am casting off my burdens... no longer will I play the role of a Confucian intellectual"

But... she never really was a Confucian intellectual .. was she ? It was just a role -- a facade -- and that's what her stories are about: facades and how to keep them -- and it should probably be required reading for Americans who want to do business in China.


And yet --- and yet she did hold me -- prisoner to the page all the way to the bitter end -- waiting, I suppose, for the "oral sex" that was promised on the jacket (but which she never delivered.) -- or for some profound revelation or change (never got that either -- just a wee bit of fashionable do-gooder fund raising for poor people - and very choppy, improbable resolution to her own broken heart in the final chapter)

And it is true -- that whenever I felt tired of a certain riff (like I've had enough successful, pretty women for a while) -- she'd offer up something else to hold my attention.

Her narrative seems to be suspended between the pornographic ( it never comes close) and the self-righteous (doesn't go very far that direction either)

Her sex-in-the-city girls like thrills --- but they don't really seem to like sex -- and those few who pursue it without remorse are scolded for it.

Were the situations and characters real ? As the amateur historian -- this is the question that most concerns me - and I think the answer is no -- they're as real as the episodes in "Journey to the West" - except that the pretty people become monsters of selfishness instead of blood drinking demons.

But the gonzo attitude -- yes, I bet that's real -- and what an incredible thing to happen after a few generations of puritanical socialism.

And the incredible turnover in generational attitudes -- is it every 10 years now ? -- I bet that's real too. The Chinese 20-somethings of today can be very scary -- because they've got nothing but infantile desire. No Confucius -- no Buddha -- not even Chairman Mao -- they've got nothing to live for but immediate gratification.

Or so it seems (from stories I've heard beyond the pages of this book)

But China is a very big place -- lots of room for local variation -- and I'm sure there's plenty of smart, talented young people who are aiming for something other than a life of "the rich and famous" -- but that might be beyond the scope of a popular journalist.

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Here's the passage that I think I'll remember most:

(from the lips of Chinese American Mimi - the character whom the narrator seems to respect the most)

"There is an ancient Chinese saying, "I can't tell the true shape of Lu Mountain, because I myself am in Lu Mountain" The truth is incomprehensible to one too deeply involved to be objective. So you have to be able to leave to observe"

"Then what does the United States mean to you ?"

"It is the crystallization of order, the rule of law, rules, credibility, reason, and justice. It is a kind of ideal created by humankind. This piece of land gives people hope, gives people space, lets people discover their own potential. To me the most fascinating thing about it gives people a path of struggle. This path of struggle is far more stimulating and enriching than the path of enjoyment"

(America doesn't especially appear this way to me -- but then I've never lived anywhere except on Lu Mountain)