"Isn't green the most in color of the year?" Colorful Clouds answers triumphantly, indicating that she is up-to-date about the latest fashion and trends.
"I'm not sure if that would suit someone your age," suggests the hairdresser.
When Colorful Clouds hears that, she glares at the girl, "Are you saying I'm old? How dare you? Now listen here, I've just come back from America. In America, the customer is king. If I slip and fall in your store, you have to compensate me a million dollars. You understand? So, whatever I say goes, and don't talk back to me."
The hairdresser mutters to herself quietly, "Who cares where you are from."
Colorful Clouds is wearing a white gown and enjoys the head massage from the hairdresser. She starts to spout:
"I'm nearly forty f 'ing years old. If I don't have fun now, I'll run out of time. In America, I'm f 'ing bored to death as a housewife. Nobody pays attention to me. I had to come to Beijing to hang out." Colorful Clouds is already forty-two, but she always says she is "nearly forty."
"While you're hanging out here, what about your three kids?" I ask.
"Those little bastards – in America I was like their nanny. This time, my husband is so thrilled to hear that I've got a role in From Beijing to San Francisco, he says he'll give me all the support I need. We've found a Mexican nanny to look after the kids for a while, and teach them some Spanish!"
"Where have you been since you came back to China this time?" I ask.
"I went to Shenzhen and Guangzhou. In Shenzhen I'm an old fart. The people and the buildings there are no more than thirty years old. In Guangzhou, I bumped into some of my old pals, Xiang the singer and Flower doing avant-garde theater. Xiang has opened a bar, loads of gays love going there. When Xiang saw me, she said, 'Girl, I thought you'd become a living fossil.' They're f 'ing crazy down there. Bands from all over the world come and perform. All sorts of bastards hang out there. I was out till two or three in the morning every day and slept over at the houses of people I didn't even know, or at the homes of friends of friends. I haven't been wild like that for years.
"One thing made me pretty angry. I hadn't seen Flower in years; I don't know when he gave himself such a stupid girly name. As soon as he saw me, he called me Silly Cunt, saying everybody knew I slept around behind my hubby's back in the States. I slapped him, he slapped me back, others came to stop us. 'You used to be pals. You haven't seen each other for over ten years, and as soon as you see each other you start fighting – what's going on?' Then, guess what Flower said? He said he had never considered me a friend and walked away. I've got a 2,500-square-foot house in Missouri, as well as a holiday home in Key West, Florida, and kids who speak English, French, and Spanish. That bastard rents a 20-square-meter flat in a Guangzhou suburb. He is simply a sore loser!" Colorful Clouds' U.S. wealth is her answer to everyone's criticism of her. Just like so many other Chinese today, being wealthy is a justification for being rude.
"Why do people like Flower gossip about me? Isn't it just because they're jealous? We all had the same starting point, the same small-town start and no advantages. Now I have it all and they don't. How could they possibly be comfortable around me? Of course they're jealous. They think I am trashy, so what? I don't care. I am welcomed by American men."
Colorful Clouds speaks haughtily, unable to restrain her superiority complex as an American Chinese. She always dreamed of living in America, even if she is a bored housewife who spends her time dreaming of returning to China and showing off to those she left behind. Beibei deliberately coughs. She despises Colorful Clouds' vanity.
"Did you get the chance to meet younger people?" I ask Colorful Clouds, just to be polite.
"F_, aren't Beijing and Shanghai chicks all playing the games I was playing ten years ago? Sleeping with Westerners, hanging out at embassies, going out to bars, all thinking they're so 'alternative.' But it seems to me they come pretty cheap. Häagen-Dazs ice cream and T.G.I. Friday's are expensive in their eyes. Foreign men can get laid just by paying for one meal at the Hard Rock Cafe or offering ten minutes of English tutoring! In those days, I had my birthday party at the Norwegian Embassy. Imported beer was shipped in by the truckloads. The rock star Jian Jian wanted to come to my party, but even he had to queue up outside in the cold.
"I really have contempt for these local chick writers. They write about oral sex or Western boyfriends and think they're so cutting-edge, so brave, so feminist, so superior, so revolutionary, and so scandalous. From old Chinese books, we know that Chinese have been doing oral sex since ancient times. The girls think they are westernized, but they are just hillbillies. It really is a case of when there are no tigers on the mountain, the monkey is king. We, the tigers of China, have all either left the country or gone into business. They talk of women's liberation? I'm the original liberated Chinese woman! I'm the one young women should be worshipping! My next move will be raising money for making a film about my experiences. The movie will be called A Chinese Woman ' s Sexual Adventure in North America. We'd need white, black, brown, and Eurasian male actors!"
The hairdresser is coloring Colorful Clouds' hair, and the chemical smell makes us all a little dizzy. Lulu and Beibei, their heads hidden under the hair dryers, listlessly inspecting their fingernails, refusing to give Colorful Clouds the attention that she desperately wants. I'm also silent because I've heard these same words too many times.
Finally, the hairdresser mutters with contempt, "It sounds like the UN General Assembly. Will those actors be shipped in by the truckload or will a freight train be necessary?"
19 Acting Your Age
As I'm getting impatient with Colorful Clouds and her bragging, my boss Sean suggests that I tie her story into a feature about the moral decline and opportunism in China resulting from the rapid growth of the economy and the slow progress of democracy.
So I have to hang out with Colorful Clouds again.
"Rich and nice-looking, I can have a good time in China." Colorful Clouds starts our day by telling me this as I pick her up from her hotel. Knowing that she's my subject, she demands that I show her around and pay for everything. This time, she says, "Take me to the Red Moon. I've heard this place is famous for its good-looking waiters and male patrons."
This kind of place sounds not too bad to me. So I agree to drive her there and spend a few minutes sitting with her.
As soon as we sit down at the Red Moon, a tall, athletic young man gets Colorful Clouds' 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 come over to join us. As the man walks in our direction, she whispers, "Niuniu, I am who I am. Although I'm a mother of three children, this man cannot resist the temptation to meet me. Don't I look young!"
I have noticed that Colorful Clouds never wears her wedding ring in China.
"You'd better be careful." I warn her about the existence of xiao yazi, male prostitutes, before she takes off.
On the way home, I receive a phone call from Colorful Clouds, proudly saying that the man is not a little duck, but a college student who is intrigued by her elegance. She is going to take him out for dinner.
Half an hour later, I join my usual friends Lulu and Beibei at a teahouse. My phone rings again.
"Guess what? I can't believe Beijing people are still as rude as they were when I left here many years ago." It is Colorful Clouds on the line.
"What happened?"
"The waiter came and asked, 'Are you and your son ready to order?' How dare he?" She' s angry. "I do not look that old. I use Estée Lauder every day."