The People’s Republic of Desire

20 Let's Rock

A typical Saturday late morning. I'm hanging out at Lulu's apartment. We have just finished working out to Cindy Crawford's aerobics video and had taken a sauna in the new clubhouse. Lulu is teaching me how to baotang, make soup, Cantonese-style. Soup is the gem of Cantonese cuisine. Cantonese people believe that soup functions as a tonic and can do amazing things for the human body.

"My father is from Canton," says Lulu. "He told me that to be a good wife in Canton, a woman has to learn to baotang. Cantonese put everything into their soup. They believe snake soup can reduce one's fever and turtle soup acts as an aphrodisiac for men."

Baotang takes time, often over three hours. The woman who makes it has to be patient. Lulu is very patient as she makes soup. Her dream is to be a good wife for a man she loves, but such a simple dream is hard to fulfill. She keeps bumping into married men and liars.

As we are making soup, Beibei arrives, bringing a big stack of music videos and live-concert DVDs. "Girls, I need you to cehua how to position our company's newest band, the Young Revolutionaries."

Cehua is one of those fashionable new Chinese words that can be used as a noun or a verb. When used as a verb, it means to plan, to promote, to publicize, to create a certain image. When used as a noun, it means people who work in such fields. A cehua can be an advertising campaign director, a movie producer, a publicist, or a marketing director. Cehua and entertainers' agents are two of the new white-collar jobs created by the market economy.

Beibei uses Lulu and me as her clients' cehua from time to time.

"Let's follow our usual custom. Makeover first, and then cehua," Lulu says as she goes to the bathroom to get the materials.

All three of us make a face pack. I choose a seaweed pack. Beibei selects black mud. Lulu uses milk and almond. Our faces are each a different color, like three witches sitting together. We eat fresh peaches and lounge on the sofa watching music videos, both classic and contemporary groups.

The Beatles' classic Yellow Submarine, with "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Nirvana's Nevermind.

Westlife's Flying Without Wings.

Backstreet Boys' Tell Me the Meaning of Being Lonely.

'N Sync's Bye Bye Bye.

Watching Sting's solitary pride in Desert Rose, I again think of Len. In the music video, he is sitting alone regally in the backseat of a Jaguar S – type, chauffeured over the desert sands at full speed, the wind riffling through his hair. I always wondered where he was going and who he was going to meet. The mystery and sexiness that Sting gave off in that video gave me the same feeling I always got when I was with Len. Once we were riding along the highway in Len's Jaguar, when he suddenly stopped the car by the road and started to kiss me. At that moment I felt like the woman who was missing from the video, the one who should have been there from the beginning. "This is how that video was supposed to go," I thought to myself.

For a long time, whenever I saw a Jaguar, I thought of Len – this Len, who sometimes did crazy spontaneous things. After he had made love to me so many times, suddenly one day he said, "Don't fall in love with me. If you love me, I will hate you. I can never forgive women who love me." This announcement came out of nowhere and took me completely by surprise. What was so bad about being loved, and why was Len so afraid of it in the first place? I wondered what had happened in Len's past to make him so unwilling to let someone love him.

Now I am with my girlfriends. I'm happy, I'm confident, and I'm having fun. I tell myself, you don't need his twisted passion and pain anymore.

After watching Eminem's My Name Is, Beibei says, "I think we've found our inspiration. With a bit of brainstorming, I've come up with an idea for the Young Revolutionaries."

"How do you plan to position them?" I ask.

"Rebel meets Slacker meets 'To Revolt Is Good,' " Beibei smugly replies.

"Not bad. Revolt you definitely want. These days, everyone is cynical; you can't not be a rebel," Lulu agrees.

"I think they should have a little of the Backstreet Boys' youthful vigor, don't go too overboard with the bad boys style. After all, this generation still needs icons," I say.

"Why does this generation need icons? I don't agree. These days, nobody gives a damn about anything or anybody. We need iconoclasts, not icons," Lulu retorts, appearing to be very deep.

"True. Nobody believes in anything anymore. Everyone can see through those shallow, fake posers!" Beibei nods.

"Don't you think that, precisely because there's nothing to believe in, people need idols even more?" I retort.

"What do you mean?" Beibei asks.

I consider my own observations on the current status of religion in China, "Everyone rebels back and forth until they've got no faith. When they've got no faith, they've got no spirit. Without spirit, everybody feels lonely and confused. When people are lonely and confused, they desperately look for something to believe in. Sometimes they turn to cults, money, the opposite sex, or a band. In a faithless time, it's easier for a band to have a cult following and become an icon."

"You're quite right that everybody revolts back and forth until they've got no faith. Nowadays, we don't lack people to encourage others to revolt. What we need is to build something new and to bring hope." Beibei sees my point.

"That's why I said the Young Revolutionaries can't just be all beating, smashing and looting, and insisting that to rebel is good. The aim of revolution is to build a fairer world. Let's take the Beatles as an example. They were antiwar and antitradition, but they wanted peace and love. Bob Dylan talked about human rights. Even today, P. Diddy ran the New York marathon to raise money for inner-city schools. Your Young Revolutionaries have got to have something," I declare.

"It would be great if they could have both ideals and edge," Lulu concurs.

"They should not be as heavy as those old fogies Black Panther and Tang Dynasty. Nowadays you don't see any angry young idealistic proletarians anymore. In a market economy, people want lighthearted entertainment." Beibei is clearly annoyed.

"What style of music do they plan to play?" I ask.

Beibei answers, "Pop, rap, hip-hop, rock, reggae, a bit of everything. A hodge-podge. I don't want us to be pure rock 'n' rollers, because the majority of the Chinese audience doesn't understand rock."

"Why don't you add a bit of revolutionary opera? It's got a Chinese flavor, as well as satirical overtones," I suggest.

"Yeah! Great idea! Why didn't I think of that? Niuniu, I think I really should hire you to do strategy for us full-time. People who come back from overseas really are different! Gosh, I can't afford you. The British pay you much more. Isn't it sad that the most talented people all work for Westerners!"

"Don't be so nationalistic. I think you should just make the Young Revolutionaries internationalists. Isn't everybody talking about globalization? Their ideal world should simply be a fusion world. Get someone to write that kind of song for them," I recommend.

"Right, that suits the Young Revolutionaries' positioning."

"But isn't their communist flavor a little too strong? In the future when they try to make it overseas, this might be a problem." Lulu holds different political views.

"We'll worry about that later. For the Young Revolutionaries to make it here in China first would be a good start. These days stars are on a merry-go-round. Almost every star's fame is ephemeral," Beibei educates us.

"What's their styling like?" Lulu, who mixes in fashion circles, asks.

"Dyed hair, pierced ears, baggy pants, Japanese samurai tattoos on their arms, and backwards baseball caps – typical Generation X – and Y – style."

I throw my comments out first. "It sounds too familiar – like a Chinese smorgasbord of every foreign band and style. Gives people the feeling that Chinese people can't do anything else but pirate. I think that to copy others is an expression of lack of self-confidence. They should be unique."

"Yes, I agree," Lulu cuts in. "Dressing up like that won't make you look fashionable. On the contrary, you're just following the herd. I think that to highlight the Young Revolutionaries, you should let them wear military hats and belts like the Red Guards. In this way, they have their own revolutionary character."

I add, "Like designer Vivienne Tam using the Chinese flag and Mao's portrait in her clothes designs – what does she call it? China chic?"

Beibei says, "Yeah, that old Cultural Revolution stuff is really popular these days. It's China 's own retro chic!"

No one seems to notice or care that there is nothing unique or rebellious at all about having a marketing agency create an image for the band. Just because Beibei's company has deemed the Young Revolutionaries "unique" and "rebellious" does not actually make it so. However, that is the nature of the industry under the new market economy. To survive, you must please the crowds, even if that means selling out.

BAOTANG: To make soup.

CEHUA: To plan, promote, position, and publicize. One of those flashy new words that has entered the Chinese vocabulary along with the opening up of the market economy.