WHITE BABE IN BEIJING
PAGE 2 OF 4
| "Chinese dramas like Foreign Babes and Beijinger in New York usually depict American women as wealthy and aggressive and promiscuous, like Jessie." |
"It's a fantastic and sexy word," she says. "It means 'the third,' almost like 'third wheel' except it's sinister. The minute I say it, people on the street laugh. They whisper it when I walk by, to see if I can hear and understand it."
An acting career in America and a screenplay based on her Foreign Babes experience may be waiting when she returns home next December. There's vague talk in Beijing of a Foreign Babes sequel, a separate project.
After months of corresponding by fax, we finally spoke on the phone when she visited her Ann Arbor home. She is as lively and interesting as her faxes, but for some reason her voice took us by surprise. She sounded like any good-natured Michigan girl on vacation, thrilled at the prospect of being home again and anxious to get back into a comfortable family routine.
"I hope the pilot doesn't even stop and just taxis straight to the supermarket," she said just before taking off from Beijing. "There's something so totally American about bright and clean aisles, all the different types of fat-free food."
Q: Let's start with an obvious question: How do you deal with such widespread and unexpected fame?
A: I'm overwhelmed. Sometimes I love it, enthralled by the exhibitionist girl, smiling all over the streets of Beijing and signing the practiced-'til-perfect characters of my Chinese name with the easy 'Rachel' underneath, laughing as I overhear people whispering 'Yeah! It's the third! Mistress! Foreign Babe!' It's like intense flirting with every stranger who passes. It's limitless fun and mystery. Sometimes I'm suffocated and claustrophobic and I hate it. Sometimes I wear hats and sunglasses, tuck my chin, feel like a walking cliché and I still can't hide from it. The population problem is something you can't understand until you've been there--too many people and not enough room, which seems like the simplest thing in the world to imagine, but it isn't. I'm mobbed sometimes in crowded shopping areas, and feel elevator breathless. I imagine how teenage heartthrobs must feel in shopping malls, and I think I'd die. But I have never been mean. I try to keep in mind that for each person who runs into me, it's a new thing. I never lash out, but there are times when I sneak, dart or hide out.
Q: It must seem very strange, to say the least, being mobbed by crowds half a world from home, seeing your face in Chinese magazines alongside American superstars.
A: Seeing my face in magazines was weird for a while. I have
image moments when I can't believe how bizarre and ugly the pictures
look. Most of them make me look like a little kid, I think, and I am more
or less disassociated from them. I think of them as some other Rachel.
That's fun in that it makes me feel like the present me is still secret and
safe. They're just pictures.
Q: Foreign Babes had a first-run audience of about 600 million viewers--and it's still being shown in many provinces.
A: TV penetration here is at over 95% or so. As soon as the initial run ended, they started repeating the episodes three times a day, which I find incomprehensible.
Q: Jessie sounds like a wild caricature, an over-the-top kind of temptress.
A: I have laughed so many times in the face of Chinese journalists' favorite question: 'So, this Jessie--she's a typical American girl, yeah?' My joking and consistent response has been 'Yes. Most of us are temptresses, homewreckers and China scholars.' In terms of how they view Americans, Chinese TV audiences have been greatly influenced by re-runs of Dallas and Dynasty. Chinese dramas like Foreign Babes and Beijinger in New York usually depict American women as wealthy and aggressive and promiscuous, like Jessie.
Q: What do you think Jessie represents in terms of culture and politics?
A: I think it's a gender spin on traditional imperialism and I think it's modern. Think of Conrad-type imperialism--Heart of Darkness style--it's all about penetration, the whole kick-another-country's-ass tactic. But modern China isn't like that. There are American products being served up to the Chinese on silver platters--we are offering goods and seducing China in a more subtle, feminine way--and China is sold on it. There's a theme in Foreign Babes about the day-to-day life of 'The Western Influence' on China's traditional values and culture-- in fairness it's not all negative. But it's there, and that's what Jessie's flesh embodies. PAGE 3
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