The People’s Republic of Desire

27 The New Leftist

I have a male admirer in Beijing: Professor Yuan. He is the Chicago-educated hunk who is considered a flag in the camp of the new leftists.

We met at a reading at the New China Bookstore. He moved very fast – he sent me a letter the day after we met. "Good upbringing, good education, good-looking, smart and intriguing: I met my Venus today. I felt like Goethe's young Werther. My sorrow came after she disappeared."

For the next two weeks, he faxed me love letters every day, citing Plato, Hegel, and Shakespeare. I think it is nerdy, but cute. My mother Mei encourages me to see him, "People say that Yuan is a political star. Who knows? He might become China 's president someday."

I agree to have dinner with him. It's not because I am interested in being China 's First Lady. I just want to move on from my past with Len. It's been a year since I came back to China. Sometimes, I feel lonely when I see boys and girls walking in pairs in the streets. It's time to have a date now.

Neither Professor Yuan nor I expected that our date would turn into a heated debate between a liberal and a new leftist.

In the Chinese ideological world at the moment, the liberals and the new leftists are engaged in a vigorous battle of name-calling. Basically, the liberals are pro-U.S. and the new leftists are anti-U.S. The new leftists call the liberals "imperialist lackeys" and hanjian, or Chinese traitors, while the liberals denounce the new leftists as a bunch of xenophobic nuts and opportunists.

As Professor Yuan and I drink dragon-well tea at Kongyiji, a restaurant named after a character in a story by one of China's best-known authors, Lu Xun, Professor Yuan asks me, "Are you interested in politics?"

"Yes." I smile.

"Great. I love girls who are into politics and soccer!" Professor Yuan's eyes glitter with passion. In the next hour, he indulges in jargon, dropping words and phrases like new orientalism, multipolarity, postcolonialism, globalization, and the clash of civilizations.

I keep nodding, thinking, he's hot-looking. I'll go along with this political stuff for a while, then try to change the subject with a more romantic gambit.

Yuan babbles on eagerly. "Some people call me a new leftist. I don't like it, because Chinese new leftists are all following behind the asses of some loser Western leftist intellectuals. The so-called left and right are also Western concepts. If people have to define me, they should call me a member of the Middle Kingdom school." Professor Yuan likes to talk about himself.

"Oh, yeah?" Perhaps I'm outdated. Maybe in Beijing, talking about politics is nowadays more sexy than talking about anything else. After all, politics means power, the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Professor Yuan continues as if he was preaching to his students, "Western culture is aggressive, always searching to expand. The problem with Christianity is that they think their god is the only god. Colonial expansion was undertaken in the name of getting others to discard their own faith and follow the Christian faith and system."

"What about Christianity's respect for human rights, individualism, and liberty?" I ask, thinking to myself, well, although he sounds a bit ridiculous, like the Gang of Four, at least the Versace suit he wears is cool.

"Christianity has the respect you talk about for people who act in accordance with their will. But for outsiders, it doesn't. Think about how these Christians treated the American Indians, African slaves, and the indigenous people in their colonies!"

I think, Nowadays, the legendary revolutionary Che Guevara is well liked in China. Is Professor Yuan trying to tell me that he is a reincarnation of Che who also cares for the oppressed? Otherwise, why does he indulge in political cliches?

"Are other cultures perfect? Chinese or Islamic cultures are not always humanist!" I respond.

"Islam is too complicated – I'm not an expert on that. China 's uncontrolled pursuit of money today is all the result of our blind worship of the West," says Professor Yuan. Apparently China is not responsible for any of its own problems, at least not in the professor's eyes.

"What about the Cultural Revolution?" I didn't expect the Versace-clad professor to be so radical. I decide not to run my toe up his leg.

Professor Yuan replies with his long-prepared answer. "It was the result of pursuing Western Marxism and Stalinism. If China followed its own path of Confucianism and Taoism, the Chinese would never have needed to go through so much pain."

"Do you think China was peaceful in ancient times? Weren't most emperors cruel and tyrannical? The legalists, over two thousand years ago, were already totalitarians!" I also want to mention foot binding, eunuchs, emie jiuzu – extermination of an entire family, shougua – the practice of forcing women to remain unmarried after their husband's death, wenzi yu – execution of dissident authors, but I think better of it. No sadomasochism before dinner.

"I don't deny there is cruelty in Chinese history, but which country's history is free of blemish? Look at the United States, which flaunts itself as being the world's most civilized and most humanitarian nation, yet in the 1950s racial segregation was still legal. What I'm talking about is China 's collective culture, not the culture of its rulers. The Chinese mass culture is tolerant and peaceful."

"But the pitched battles fought by Chinese peasants and clashes between local clans weren't peaceful!" I wonder if Professor Yuan would get off his soapbox and begin to think about a clash between the sheets. Can a lover of the West and a hater of the West be passionate together in one bed?

Professor Yuan disagrees. " Europe had bloody fights too. Looking only at China 's dark side is the liberal point of view. Liberals think that the moon is bigger in the West than in the East. When you think of ancient China, the grand Qin and Han dynasties, the golden age of the Tang and Song dynas-ties – the Chinese had dignity and pride! But now we're chasing after everybody else. Before, it was Big Brother the Soviet Union. Now it's the United States. China is always following everybody else's ass."

"If you dislike the West so much, why did you stay in the States for eight years? Why didn't you leave and come home earlier?" I don't finish the rest of it: Why are you wearing a Versace suit, Ecco shoes, a Cartier watch, and driving a Volvo? I don't want Professor Yuan to lose face, even if he does have ass on his mind.

"It was all to complete my Ph.D. and get my green card. Don't the Chinese place great importance on returning home in glory? If I didn't go to Silicon Valley and come home a dot-com millionaire, at least I could return home wearing my doctorate cap."

I can't stand Professor Yuan's hypocrisy any longer and snap back at him, "You take advantage of the West by taking their scholarship and their green card, but on the other hand, you curse the West as colonialist and imperialist. You're pathetic."

"Niuniu, I think you've become a Western thinker. Westernization of a Chinese woman often leads to the corruption of the woman. Chinese men still prefer traditional women."

I light a cigarette of Yuan's, pretending to be a smoker. "I'm already corrupt."

Professor Yuan tries a new tack: "I don't spend all my time talking about this stuff. I also love soccer. How do you think the World Cup will play out?"

"I wish my idol Ricky Martin would sing again there someday!" I say.

"Ricky Martin? A Latino bro? At least not an imperialist!"

"I wish my hero David Beckham would recover soon," I say.

"That English devil is my hero, too." Professor Yuan surrenders.

HANJIAN: Chinese traitors, a historical pejorative term.

EMIE JIUZU: The ancient practice of exterminating an entire family through the ninth extended relatives as punishment for wrongdoings.

SHOUGUA: The practice of forcing widows to remain single till death to keep their purity. Obviously this is not a custom that is particurly popular in today's modern China.

WENZI YU: The execution of dissident authors.