WHITE BABE IN BEIJING
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| "So I asked him sweetly and softly to take his clothes off." |
A: Absolutely not. People in China, for the most part, are lovely--comically curious, overly eager to talk and practice their English and find out about other countries. I have never sensed any widespread anti-American attitude. I think that all cultures deeply believe their own to be superior to all others--and certainly China and the US are not exceptions to this generalization--but I believe the Chinese are earnest and sincere in their desire to be warm and to impress guests. The thing is, I don't particularly want to be a guest, since I live there. I want to put my feet on the coffee table and eat what I want at fancy banquets, but I am constantly being hosted, taken care of and paid attention to.
Q: So now that you've conquered China, are you planning to pursue an acting career in the States when you return home?
A: Yes! At the moment, that seems exactly appealing. I'm also beginning to work on a screenplay very loosely based on my experiences in Foreign Babes.
Q: What sort of acting experience did you have before Foreign Babes?
A: At Columbia I did lots of student-directed shows. I love stage theater. I was in a theater troupe when I was in high school called the Fine Arts Repertory Company, which was part of an alternative high school in Ann Arbor. I went to two high schools at the same time and I would often put in 17-hour school days, give or take some rehearsal time.
Q: Two high schools at once?
A: Yeah. Huron was academically competitive, a typical football and prom-esque high school. I took 'fast-track' classes like Latin and dated an older boy who swam. The other school, Community, was the so-called alternative high school where I did lots of theater. My friends at Huron thought Community represented some dark, artsy side, and the Community crowd laughed at the 'cheerleader' in me. They gave me a lot of shit for wearing my boyfriend's Huron jacket (laughing). It wasn't easy in many regards, but I have always liked having more than one life at a time. My time always seemed dramatically limited, but eliminating activities was never a possibility.
Q: Why did you decide to take a PR job in Beijing? Although you're very accomplished in Asian studies, and you're fluent in Mandarin, PR seems like an odd choice for someone with an artistic drive.
A: It is an odd choice, in many regards, but I wanted to get a
little distance from the States, get some international experience
and perspective and study the language. I love linguistics. I studied
Latin for four years, which helped me to understand English and grammar
in general. But Chinese has no relation to romance languages at all, which
is so mysterious and fun! The characters can either inspire you or drive
you to madness, and the language itself is a festival of terrible mistake,
potential and three thousand years of history. It's like a key. My dad,
who is a professor of Asian studies, has often said that cultures are
contained in their languages, and Chinese love their language.
I can't imagine being able to communicate at all with them through
translation.
Q: Your father has obviously been a strong and positive influence in your life.
A: You know that song, 'I Want to Take You on a Slow Boat to China'? My dad has been humming that for 35 years. My family took insane China trips in the summers when I was a kid. My dad was always in the midst of some brilliant and compulsive project. In some respects, we were furious. I wanted to go to camp with my friends, not China with my brothers, Jake and Aaron. Eventually, we loved it, I guess. Some of our trips were VIP-esque. We were entertained and treated to really elegant Chinese banquets where we were served things like turtle feet and sea slugs, which kind of horrified me and my brothers. My dad used to grin at us from across the table and say, 'Hands across the sea, guys!' It's considered unthinkable to refuse food in these situations, so we got creative. We slipped sea slugs in the tops of soda cans, scraped yak fat off of our plates onto our napkins and then into our backpacks, pockets, whatever was closest. Later on, we'd get together and compare our treasures. We took insane rides through internal China, spent a summer in Taiwan, took boats rides down the Yangtze River. My mom and dad have easy, fantastic senses of humor, and they are down-to-earth and love China travel. They made it fun for us, and they made it interesting and inspiring. Traveling through China with my family was an experience of a lifetime, and regardless of whatever happens in the future, it will color my life forever.
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