Foreign Babes in Beijing

Foreign Babes in Beijing

Foreign Babes in Beijing by Rachel DeWoskinIt seems that every year throws up at least one good China memoir by a foreigner. A couple of years ago Peter Hessler gave us his lyrical account of his time as an English teacher -- River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. Last year we had Tim Clissold's riveting account of his travails in China's business bear pit with Mr. China. Claiming this year's crown for best memoir is RACHEL DEWOSKIN's FOREIGN BABES IN BEIJING. Being the best memoir of China published in a given year is not a foregone conclusion -- there are several each year though most are trivial, repetitious and serve little point (anyone who had to read Ethan Guttman's memoir Losing the New China last year will understand just how painfully bad China memoirs can be).DeWoskin's book deserves to be read as a real contribution to our understanding of what exactly is happening in China now. She needn't worry about lack of readers: 1) it has the word `babes' in the title and 2) it has a stunning pair of fishnetted legs on the cover (legs, the author is quick to point out, that not her own). DeWoskin experienced something unique in China, a point in time before China's big cities became relatively easy places to live; a time when learning the language was important and essential for any meaningful communication and; a time when cross cultural faux pas occurred on an hourly basis as East and West reencountered each other after a 45 year break. DeWoskin experienced all of that and then moved it to a level few, if any, can have experienced by becoming a soap opera star in the hit TV series Yang Niu Zai Beijng (Foreign Babes in Beijing). To understand the relevance of that show to a generation of Chinese viewers you have to have been in Beijing at the time (or read DeWoskin's book). The show was unparalleled in that one character Jiexi (played by DeWoskin), an American in Beijing, chased after, seduced and fell in love with a married Chinese man. The cross-cultural cock-ups in the show were constant and amazing and DeWoskin details some of the wildest moments in the book with wit and insight.However, the meat of the book is her series of case studies of friends she made during her Beijing years: Anna, her Chinese colleague who pursues a disastrous love affair with a foreigner; Kate, her American friend who, while as brazen and upfront as an American is expected to be in China, deeply loved the country and two male friends Zhou Jun and Zhou Wen. In a sense her `Model Babes' portraits and her stories of the on-set progress of Foreign Babes in Beijing are two separate stories but DeWoskin manages to interweave them well. Ultimately both strands of the narrative are about the same thing -- foreign meets Chinese, a clash ensues, an understanding is reached and a sort of harmony, or at least a standoff, between the two is achieved -- which is pretty much what passes for Marxist dialect with Chinese characteristics these days.