operation girlfriend

Operation Girlfriend

Whenever I find myself overseas, separated from the 30 odd aunts,

uncles, and cousins, not to mention parents, sisters and close

friends, Thanksgiving is always the worst of the worst when it comes

to homesickness. And although this week was suspiciously absent of

gigantic Snoopy balloons, Turkey and 'the brood', it did see me add

one person to my life in a rather significant way.

Yes, dear friends, relatives, and people looking for porn in

completely the wrong place, my heady days of singledom are far far far

behind me, which is to say say I have hung up the proverbial smoking

jacket of the swinger and donned the sensible cardigan of the attached

male.

The dirt: her name is Ding Ding, we met at my art school, she's two

years my junior, we started seeing each other less than a month ago,

and have been officially going steady for less than a week now. And

yes, she's a much much better artist than me.

As one of half of a newly minted couple, I am doing my best to uphold

the time honored tradition of mentioning my girlfriend to absolutely

everyone, especially when it means I sound completely ridiculous. For

example, riding in a taxi the other night I told the driver I was

especially happy because I had just asked a girl that I liked very

much to be my girlfriend, and hey, what do you know, she said yes! And

the taxi driver laughed in that way Chinese people do when they are

extremely uncomfortable and said, "Haha! You Americans are more open

than us Chinese!"

In fact, the Chinese are so uncomfortable about sex that I have yet to

see a single Chinese underwear model or otherwise half-clothed Chinese

male or female on a billboard and yet scantily clad whiteys abound.

One gets the idea that the entire country is under the impression that

kissing causes pregnancy and that babies come from cabbage patches.

On the other hand, couples can be seen holding hands all over campus,

canoodling on park benches and otherwise engaging in hanky-panky. And

condoms can be found in the supermarket next to the chewing gum and

Snickers bars, which can only mean one thing: Chinese college students

really like making lubricated balloon animals.

In other news, Helene and I auditioned for a Chinese production of A

Doll's House. We were eating lunch at a cafe that recently opened just

off of campus with another classmate and our very friendly waiter

eagerly pointed out the casting call poster. She mentioned that the

director had stopped by earlier and that he said he was especially

looking for foreigners with good spoken-Chinese. I wrote down the

contact info and Helene arranged a meeting with 'Pink' (he later told

us he choose this name because 'Pink Floyd' was his favorite band) the

very next day at Heida.

Sipping milk tea in a little coffee shop and talking about beat

generation writers (like Jack Kerouac) and post-modernists (like

Samuel Beckett) while French chanson music played softly in the

background I almost forgot what country I was in. Of course, we were

speaking Chinese, but that was a minor point given the subject matter.

We also talked a little about Ang Lee's most recent film, Lust,

Caution, which I saw at the movie house last weekend, complete with,

or 'with-out' I suppose, of 12 minutes of cuts for explicit content.

Pink and I thought it was well done, but as true artistes are wont to

do when discussing Chinese cinema, the conversation soon turned to

Wong Kar Wai and his woefully under appreciated masterpieces. I

mentioned what a friend of mine once told me, that he "doesn't make

films for Chinese people, he makes films for foreigners."

Which begs the questions, why even make films in China if your

audience is a thousand miles away and speaks a completely different

language? Apparently that's what the man in sunglasses himself was

thinking, because his most recent film, My Blueberry Nights, was

filmed in Hollywood and features big name celebs like Nora Jones and

the supremely charming Jude Law. It won't be in theaters in the States

until early next year, but until then I very much recommend checking

out his other films, especially Chungking Express and Fallen Angels.

Neither film is as polished as his later works, such as In the Mood

for Love or 2046, but they both have the same rough vitality of a

really great band on their first album--they may not hit all the right

notes, but there's something there that more often than not gets

edited out of later studio releases.

And while I don't think I'll have time to participate in the play,

what with the whole girlfriend thing (did I mention I have a

girlfriend?), I'm definitely looking forward to more conversations

like that one!