As Niuniu and her girlfriends Lulu, CC and Beibei enjoy a foot massage at a new spa in Beijing, Niuniu asks: 'If you could choose a time and place to live, when and where would be ideal?'
'I'll have to think about that one, Niuniu,' says Lulu. 'What about you?'
Niuniu has her answer ready. 'I'd like to live at the end of the 1960s in America. I'd listen to The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, hang out in Berkeley with authors, beat poets and political activists. There would be a lot of love, passion and sex with men from different ethnicities, and most people would be fighting against racism and sexism. It was an exciting time. Plus, I hear it was wonderful to be an Asian woman in those days.'
'Too bad for you, Niuniu,' says CC. 'By the time you went to America, it was already the 90s. And America was all about
Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Big Macs.'
'That's so true,' Niuniu says ruefully. 'It seems like a totally different world.'
Then she turns to CC: 'What about you?' 'I'd like to live in China during the Tang dynasty,' CC says. 'China was the centre of the world. The Chinese were confident. Plump women were considered beautiful. You could discuss poetry and drink wine with great poets such as Li Po. And the Tang dynasty had China's only female emperor. I'd like to have had her life.'