Lulu had her driver's license for five years before buying her first car. It's a Chinese-made sports utility vehicle costing only 100,000 yuan – about $12,000. Still, it's a big deal for her. She owns something worth six digits, feels luckier than pedestrians and cyclists who must give right-of-way to cars, and also has an edge over the owners of the minicar Autuo, who are often bullied by bigger cars on the road. Some even have bumper stickers declaring, "My name is Au-tuo. My brother is Au-di. So don't mess with me!"
With an SUV, Lulu will never need to worry about being cut off. She feels majestic on the road. She sends her family a picture of her new car, telling them she's no longer a have-not in the automotive world. But they are not impressed. First, her SUV is Chinese-made rather than imported, so there's no prestige attached. Second, her family in the rural south thinks SUVs aren't really cars. Her brother writes: "SUVs are like pickup trucks – they are meant to carry goods, not human beings. Why didn't you get a real car, like a sedan?"
Lulu quickly responds, feeling obligated to educate her family on fashion in the city. She tells them that driving an SUV is chic among the middle class in the United States and in Beijing; it's even cooler than driving a standard Honda Accord.
"Americans pay more money for insurance and luxury taxes if they buy an SUV," she writes. "Pickups don't represent blue-collar workers. From business magazines like Fortune and Forbes, I've learned that when Silicon Valley was in its heyday, many CEOs drove their beat-up pickups to work proudly." A few days later, she gets a reply from her brother, writing on behalf of her mother. "Lulu, we are proud you have a car now, even if it is just a Chinese-made one. We hope that when you marry, you will be driven in a nice, big Lincoln town car, or a Cadillac, or your brother's dream car, a nice, blue Buick."
To many Chinese, an American car is prestigious. The Chinese share the American notion of "bigger is better."
From the tone of their letter, Lulu senses that her family isn't enthusiastic about her car. She complains to me: "Why am I always not good enough in their eyes? First, they complained that I don't make enough money. Now I finally get my own car and they think a Chinese car isn't good enough."
To cheer her up, I go on a ride with her in her new SUV. On the road, a Toyota 4Runner swerves dangerously, cutting us off. Lulu has to brake hard. She honks the horn at the Toyota and the driver gives us the one-finger salute.
Now she's furious.
Generally, Lulu is sweet and ladylike, but behind the wheel, she becomes an aggressive, bad-tempered bitch. She follows the Toyota to a gas station and hops out of the car ready to swear at the driver. When he gets out of his Toyota and fixes his eyes on her, her anger instantly fades. The man is a Chinese version of Brad Pitt.
"You getting gas too?" he says. His tone is friendly, as if the cut-off and gesture had never happened.
"Well, yes, I guess," says Lulu. I remain sitting in the passenger's seat, watching them.
"You like SUVs too?" the man asks.
"Yes, but yours is better," Lulu replies with a brush of her hair.
"Actually, mine is also Chinese-made, exactly like yours," he says.
"Really?" asks Lulu.
"I just changed the hood ornament and all the signs, and have replaced them with Toyota ones," he explains. "Now it looks exactly like a Toyota 4Runner. The switch cost me less than a thousand yuan. Guess how much a real Japanese import costs? Three times as much as our Chinese-made cars."
"What a bargain you got," Lulu says.
"Well, a Toyota is not my dream car," the man says. "My dream car is the new Cherokee SUV V6."
Lulu closes her eyes. I guess she is drifting into a daydream: the wind is in her hair as she drives off with him. But when she comes to and says, "I guess you love American cars too," he is already pulling out of the station.
And with a wave, he's gone.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Lulu scolds me.
"I thought you didn't like fake men," I murmur.
69 Cross-Cultural Romance
People don't seem to get tired of talking about women like Jackie Kennedy or Princess Diana. There is something powerful about being the woman who is able to tie down a powerful, wealthy man for herself.
Being in the right place at the right time and using beauty as a lure certainly enhances one's chance of landing a prominent man.
Little Fang befriended CC, Lulu, Beibei, and me while she tutored CC's English boyfriend, Nick, in Chinese.
She admired Lulu's beauty and glamour, CC's Western education, and Beibei's well-connected family. She once said that compared to them, she felt plain and unremarkable. "I grew up in a humble family and graduated from an unknown college. But you guys have everything." She tried hard to adopt Lulu's fashion style, and she mimicked CC's accent and Beibei's "in" expressions.
But after she stole Nick, who held a degree from Oxford, Little Fang was no longer modest. She appeared on television talk shows to discuss interracial dating or promote her book How to Date an Englishman.
She became a role model for many young Chinese women who dreamed of a cross-cultural romance.
Then, Little Fang disappeared from view for a while.
So when she resurfaced, we were all excited.
CC knocks on my door, rushes in, and before even taking off her coat flashes the invitation from Little Fang.
"Did you get one?" CC asks with her eyes wide open.
I immediately check a stack of unopened mail on my desk and find an invitation. As I open the envelope, a picture falls to the floor.
In the picture, Little Fang, wearing a beautiful bridal gown, stands in front of a majestic, ivy-covered Welsh castle. Beside her stands the groom, a tuxedo-clad Westerner – but it isn't Nick.
I glance at CC. It's clear she is upset. I read the invitation quickly. It says Little Fang and Sir William York have just held a church wedding in Wales. Now the newlywed couple is going to have a Chinese wedding at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai and the groom will pay for the invited guests' hotel accommodations and plane tickets.
"I guess Nick is too poor for this woman," CC says.
"Are you going?" I ask.
"Absolutely not! She just wants to show off," CC cries, remembering her betrayal.
As they are talking, Lulu calls. "Have you received an invitation for Little Fang's wedding?" Lulu asks me.
"Yes," I reply.
"Heavenly Grandpa!" Lulu exclaims. "The expenses of every guest will be paid for. The man must be stinking rich. Did you see that he has a title? Sir William York. He's old money!"
"I wonder how she met him," I muse.
"I got all the details from Nick," Lulu says.
"You met Nick?" CC grabs the phone from me and screams into the receiver.
"Yes. His heart is broken," Lulu tells her.
"He broke my heart first," CC shouts into the phone.
"In any event, come over to our place," I say to Lulu and hang up the phone.
Soon, Lulu joins CC and me at my house. Lulu relates what Nick had told her. "When Nick proposed to Little Fang and asked her to go back to England with him, Little Fang said no. She did n't want to leave for England through marriage. She said she had been influenced by the classic book Jane Eyre. Like Jane Eyre, she wouldn't marry Nick until she felt she was his equal."
"How was she supposed to become his equal?" I ask.
"She wanted to study at Oxford," Lulu says.
"With her low command of English?" CC screams.
"Nick might have helped her polish her essays," I say with a shrug. "You never know. I remember when I was in the States, I helped a Chinese friend write an English essay about herself. She managed to get into Stanford."
"So Little Fang was granted admission into Oxford?" CC asks, looking stunned.