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Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
She's looking for him. He's looking for her. Who's looking for love?
Nobody. In Shanghai, it's survival of the hottest.
By Hannah Beech
12-9-2003
Shanghai - Babylon is packed with babies, sexy Shanghai babies. Tonight and
every night, Fifi knows she's the sexiest of them all. As the strobe lights
flicker and the bass throbs at this Shanghai nightclub, all eyes are on her.
Fifi's eyes search the crowd, too, wandering up and down men's bodies, looking
for the perfect one. But right now, Fifi is dissatisfied with what she sees.
She pouts her bubble-gum pink lips and frowns. "There's nobody here tonight,"
she says. "Nobody at all."
But give Babylon an hour, and the techno-trance music has lured some newcomers.
So Fifi hits the dance floor, her body uncoiling like a python's. Fifi dances
to be watched and when she feels a pair of approving eyes on her, she swings
her body ever so slowly, then gyrates faster and faster until she's whirling
like an oversexed dervish. When she finally tapers to a halt, she looks up and
hopes those eyes are still on her. If they are, she starts grinding her hips
again, faster and faster until she's moving quicker than the boom-boom-boom of
the electronic drums. If he's stopped looking, she sways to a stop. And pouts
those bubble-gum pink lips.
But tonight, someone is watching, and she watches back, because she likes his
clean-cut look. Fifi doesn't go for hulky men, because she feels like she might
get crushed. She doesn't like Western men, because they're a little too hairy.
What Fifi likes is slouched right in front of her, leaning against a pillar,
watching her body slide around the dance floor.
Fifi has a boyfriend, and she talks incessantly about him, how he lives in
Vancouver and how they're just perfect for each other. They've dated for nearly
eight months. She pulls out a photo-booth sticker they made in January when he
last came to visit. He's from a posh Taiwan family and sometimes Fifi thinks
they're not too happy that their college-student son is dating a high-school
graduate who likes to wear teetering stilettos and pink lipstick.
But Fifi knows she's sophisticated, not like back when she was 17 and had never
had sex before. Now, she's been with around 30 men—it's so hard to keep exact
count—and she knows a lot. She knows that men like women with long hair. She
knows the best bars to meet guys, especially the worldly, older men who teach
her about life. She knows that some don't want to use condoms, but none of her
friends has ever known anyone who has had AIDS, so that's O.K.
The most important thing Fifi has learned is how to draw in men, how to reel
them in real slow with a flick of her hair and a flash of a smile. Fifi wasn't
much good at school, but she knew she could charm the teachers, especially the
fuddy-duddy middle-aged ones, who fumbled when she smoothed her hair or
adjusted the pleats on her skirt. "Shanghai women know a lot more than Shanghai
men," she says. "We know the game, and we have to teach them the rules."
The game is at its most frenzied at Babylon. The man by the pillar smiles
hesitantly at Fifi. She grins back, pops a mint and slinks on over. They mouth
words to each other, not that they can really hear over the techno din. He says
he works for a financial company. She says she owns stocks. Pretty soon he's
got his hand on the small of her back and is drawing her closer. When he
reaches over and nuzzles her neck, she closes her eyes and leans her head back.
But only for a moment. Soon, she opens her eyes again and scans the throng of
throbbing bodies on the dance floor. Because this guy that has his arms around
her is sweet and nice, but there could always be better out there. "Rule No.
1," she says. "When you're young, you should keep your options open."
In truth, Fifi doesn't feel very young. She is, after all, already 22 years
old. In fact, Fifi's thinking of changing her English name to Cheyenne, because
a Western friend told her the name fits someone mature, mysterious and chic.
And Fifi wants to be all three. An old boyfriend gave her the name "Fifi." But
that was back when she wasn't fully formed, when she hadn't developed the
"Cheyenne-ness" of her character.
Sometimes Fifi feels like her current boyfriend thinks of her more as a Fifi
than a Cheyenne. He adores her and that's a little dangerous and a little
boring. At the beginning of the year, she met someone who made her feel like a
Cheyenne, and she was briefly distracted. They had a passionate affair and
equally passionate fights. When her boyfriend found out, he was patient. He
said he understood, because Fifi is a very sexy woman, one of the hottest
babies in Shanghai. He understood that men would hit on her constantly. But he
also said she had to choose, him or me. Fifi thought a lot about it and chose
her far-away boyfriend. She's been faithful to him ever since, which has been a
long, long time—almost a month. And he deserves it, she thinks. After all, he
buys her pretty things and calls her every couple of days to tell her how much
he loves her.
Fifi isn't counting on men for everything. She's an independent girl. Sometimes
she goes to Starbucks alone and drinks her caffe mocha without talking to a
single guy. And she's made money, too, thousands of dollars, by dabbling in the
stock market. It's the first thing she does when she wakes up at noon, even
before she checks out the latest computer game or heads to the mall to keep
track of her favorite fashions. Fifi's parents were upset when she decided not
to attend university, but when she made a pile of money by investing a little
cash they had given her, they stopped complaining. She's never taken an
economics class but she knows about the World Trade Organization, and she
thinks it's a good time to divest of TV stocks because Chinese electronics
won't be able to compete with an influx of foreign imports.
But Fifi doesn't really need the money for her dancing dates. All night long,
she hasn't paid for her Baileys on the rocks, and she knows there's always
someone out there to pick up the tab. Earlier, two drunken Western men
inexplicably wearing fake mustaches sidled up to her and bought her a drink.
Later, a skinny Chinese guy in a muscle T shirt bought her another. "If I like
someone, I'll walk up to them and talk to them," she says. "My friends are too
embarrassed to do that, but life is too short not be open to an opportunity for
love."
Fifi isn't sure that her parents love each other. "They don't know anything
about sex," she says. "They just think it's for making children, not for making
love." He works at the tax bureau, and she's a stay-at-home mom, who doesn't
seem too excited when he comes back each night. Coming of age during the
Cultural Revolution, they met at a time in China's history when personal
satisfaction was subordinate to the collective socialist cause. "That
generation didn't have a chance to find the perfect person," she says. "They
had to make do with the first person they met." But Fifi knows that you have to
shop around before you find the perfect person. "It's like searching for a
dress," she says. "You have to try a lot on before you find the one that's
right for you."
Shanghai babies are always on the lookout for something better. They research
their stock portfolio. They sweep on their mascara and pluck their eyebrows to
craft the perfect face. They play the part of sex kitten with lots of meow,
because that's what men want. But the strobe exposes the girls for what they
really are. The flashes of harsh, white light strip Fifi's face of her
makeup—and her contrivance. In that freeze-frame instant, Fifi isn't a sexy
sophisticate, just an innocent girl searching for love. In a place called
Babylon, where Shanghai babies pretend to be women.
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