Lady from the lake

NOT LONG AGO, a man jumped out at Yang Erche Namu and begged to be allowed to buy her dinner.

'No,' said Namu.

'OK, at least a cup of tea, then,' the man asked.

'Why?'

It turned out that the man was overcome with gratitude because of Namu's latest book - her 13th - To Be Beautiful is Not to Live a Beautiful Life, which was published in Chinese at the end of last year.

'He wanted to thank me because I saved him a pot of money,' says the 41-year-old author, who hails from China's minority Mosu people in Yunnan province. 'He gave the book to his wife, who stopped demanding plastic surgery.'

The book is a meandering meditation on what it means to be female and to grow older and the futility of women obsessing about physical beauty to the detriment of developing their minds, exploring their sexuality and simply being happy and fulfilled. It may not be a fresh theme, but in newly consumerist China, it struck a nerve. Seventy thousand copies have already sold.

In movies and on TV, 'everybody is having plastic surgery', Namu says. 'I want to say it's enough to be kind, generous.'

Her experience is that of being heartbroken and homeless, and her obsession is to build a home-cum-museum-cum-artists' residence back in the mountains of her girlhood, beside the picturesque Lake Lugu - 'to fix my bleeding heart,' she says. There's a saying in China now, apparently thanks to Namu, which goes shi lian, jiu qu gai fangzi: if you lose a love, build a house.

'With a man, the longer you stay, the more his value goes down,' she says. 'With a home, the longer you stay, the more the value goes up.' Besides, it takes a woman's mind off heartbreak to think about money, style, paint and curtains and to be preoccupied with rebuilding her world. After an ugly breakup of a seven-year relationship, Namu spent 20 days furiously writing a book about the seven-year itch.

Namu ran away from home at the age 13, eventually winding up at the Shanghai Music Conservatory studying singing. She secured a Beijing residence card, then moved to the US in 1990 and took up citizenship.

She has sheeted black hair and a devil-may-care charisma. 'People think I'm crazy, a daydreamer, but the way to [prove yourself] is a long way,' she says. 'You'll be mistreated, misunderstood, pulled down. I have been four years in the mountains. No stars, no moon, no romantic music.' The house she's building 'is a big hole - it's a big boy with a big stomach'.

Her 2002 autobiography, Leaving Mother Lake, a Childhood at the Edge of the World, was written with the help of scholar Christine Mathieu and sold 350,000 copies, fuelled partly by Han China's prurient interest in a minority culture where women sleep with any man of their choosing and marriage can often be a one-night matter. Tourism to the region boomed. Chinese men went in droves to look for free sex.

'It's not easy to be a minority,' Namu says. 'You have to fight Chinese culture and fight western culture.'

Caught as she is between America, China, big-city living and a minority ethnicity, she clings to her vision of a museum that will heal her soul and her town.

'I want artists to come to Lake Lugu. Artists have good energy, I don't want only cheap tourists in my town. I want wisdom, through the energy of the artists.'

There were no roads, water or electricity near Lake Lugu. Building in such remote surroundings has been a struggle. 'Sometimes I waited three days for one nail. I was smoking three packs a day. I was shouting and screaming and unwashed. I was a mad cow. The men don't look at me. Zhei yang de nu ren, shei yao [who wants such a woman].'

The locals don't understand the pressures of modern life - that holding an American passport means Namu has only three months in China at a time. To fund the construction, she works as, among other things, a judge on television fashion shows.

The building requires constant attention. 'I fix the window, then the roof has problems. I fix the roof, the water has problems. I'm building it so it's comfortable for westerners.

'It's a physically difficult life, but I'm emotionally happy,' she says. Women in sophisticated Beijing and Shanghai look up to her. They copy her style, her clothes. Namu says she admires Jennifer Lopez, who she says represents power in Hollywood for Hispanic minorities.

Namu says she's misunderstood by many of her own people - they see her as strong and lacking for nothing - but is loved by the older ones.

'I'm still the princess from the lake,' she says. 'Since I'm a princess, I need to build a palace. But since there is no man to build it, I must build it myself.'

Yang Namu, today, 3pm, Theatre, Fringe Club, 2 Lower Albert Rd, Central, HK$80