people's republic of desire
Colourful Cloud has featured a few times in this column. Let's refresh your memory: she's a Chinese woman who grew up in a poor village in Guangxi. She went to Beijing to seek fame and fortune. In the embassy district, she met a 76-year-old American on the street. By marrying this man, who was older than her grandfather, she became an American citizen. Later, she dumped her husband and married his grandson and has lived in St Louis, Missouri since.
Satisfying the appetites of women like Colourful Cloud is not easy. As a 44-year-old, she is bored with her housewife life in the Midwest. From articles on the internet, she reads how colourful Chinese life has become. She decides that before her menopause sets in, she has to have some fun. 'Rich and nice-looking, I can have a ball in China,' she thinks to herself.
When she returns to Beijing she calls Niuniu. 'Let's go to a chic place you young people go to.'
Being a journalist in Beijing, Niuniu knows the pulse of the city. She takes Colourful Cloud to a bar called CT, a place famous for its good-looking waiters and male patrons. Very soon, a tall athletic young man gets Colourful Cloud' attention. She winks at the man. The man smiles back. She feels flattered. So she becomes bolder. She wiggles her finger to invite the man to join her and Niuniu. As he walks towards them, she says: 'Niuniu, I am who I am. Although I'm a mother of three children, this man cannot resist me.''
'You'd better be careful,' Niuniu warns her.
On the way home, Niuniu receives a phone call from Colourful Cloud, proudly saying that the man is a college student who is intrigued by her elegance. She is going to take him out for dinner. Half an hour later, Niuniu joins her usual friends, Lulu and Beibei, at a teahouse. Her phone rings again.
'I can't believe Beijing people are still so rude after all this time.'' It is Colourful Cloud on the other end again.
'What happened?' asks Niuniu. 'The waiter asked, 'Are you and your son ready to order?' How dare he?' She's angry. 'I don't look that old. I use Estee Lauder every day,' Colourful Cloud complains.
Niuniu doesn't know what to say. She is not a fan of the woman but doesn't want to hurt her. So she teases Colourful Cloud: 'Perhaps the waiter is jealous of your friend?'
'Perhaps!' says Colourful Cloud cheerfully.
After Niuniu hangs up, her friends Beibei and Lulu ask her who called.'The woman who thinks she's a double for Gong Li, but instead is double the size of Gong Li?' Beibei asks. 'The peasant woman who thinks she can become a member of the aristocracy by marrying her American grandson?' asks Lulu.
Neither have fond memories of Colourful Cloud.
Niuniu doesn't know what to say. She doesn't want to be friends with Colourful Cloud, but she can't get rid of her. Niuniu doesn't want to be offensive to someone who is a full-time gossip, because of possible reprisals. So she's reluctantly respectful.
Around midnight, Niuniu is awakened by Colourful Cloud' phone call. 'Niuniu, help me! I've been robbed.' 'Where are you?'
'I'm in a hotel room. I took the young man here after dinner. We were going to do it, so I said I'd take a shower first. But when I walked out of the shower, he was gone. My purse and money were gone. Please come and get me.'
Niuniu sighs and thinks to herself, 'That's my payback for making friends with people like Colourful Cloud. I have to clean up the mess she creates.'
'Bring some clothes with you. He even stole my clothes,' says Colourful Cloud.
'He probably thinks they'd fit his mother well,' Niuniu says to herself as she heads out the door cursing the woman, her refusal to see things the way they are, and her over-inflated ego.
She may be a grown woman who thinks she knows it all but Colourful Cloud still has a lot of learning and growing up to do.
