Most of you know Zhang Ziyi from Memoirs of a Geisha: Sayuri competes with Hatsumomo under the wise tutelage of Mameha and wins the heart of the Chairman. Check out ZZ with her new man at a basketball game the other day – very little, if any, makeup and absolutely beautiful. Better stripped down in fact than dressed up. Dressed up she often gets jammed into the Asian corner…you know what I mean? Bright lips, generically doll-like, living up to every Mail Order Massage Fantasy perpetuated by skanks like Bai Ling…which is why I love Lucy Liu. Lucy Liu doesn’t fall into those extremes. If you’re Asian or if you know any of us, you’re likely down with what I mean. We all have our own Fetish Perv story: dude comes over, not out of mere attraction but attraction tinged with “type” – he wants his very own “ChinaGirl”. Had this discussion recently with a lovely woman in Toronto, at the top of her game professionally, far from a Hello Kitty, about her encounter with such a specimen who approached her while she was seated at a park bench for lunch. The first line always, inevitably, goes something like this: Hey – are you from Hong Kong/Korea/Japan (interchangeable)? I was there for business/holiday/birthday last year – totally love it. Trust me, we can smell these f&ckers a mile away. And before you protest, if you’re not Asian, don’t bother. Would a guy ever approach a white girl with a pick-up line about whether or not she was from England??? Please. Needless to say – she told him to beat it. But wouldn’t you know, a week later, same park bench, same lunch hour, he comes up again…forgetting that he had tried his sh-t on her already, and played the SAME CARD. Frickin’ loser. And you know what? Sometimes it actually IS genuine. But I’m telling you, it happens more often than you think. A LOT more. Not that I’m saying it’s the same situation with ZZ and her boyfriend…not at all, though Chinese people are usually hard on their stars. Especially clucking hens like my mother and her crew. For the record though, I personally think ZZ looks deliriously happy with her billionaire. And he looks deliriously happy to be with her, but here’s the smut from the motherland about this relationship – never doubt the gossiping abilities of a group of Hong Kong housewives with nothing better to do but play mahjong. Incidentally, I’m writing this because she made me – explanation below: ZZ’s man is a super super super billionaire, can’t be bothered to learn his name - he looks like the rest of them anyway: Andre Balasz, Arpad Busson…is it weird they all resemble each other? All you need to know is that he’s filthy rich. So rich that no one really knows what he does. THAT kind of rich. I mean sure, he owns few shares here and there but there are no specifics and when that’s the case, it’s usually insane frickin’ obscene wealth, not unlike the Chairman in Memoirs. Now the Chinese entertainment industry is pretty dirty – maybe even dirtier than Hollywood. Popular belief is that if you want to “make” it, you either have to play nice with the executives in their private offices or you have to kowtow to the triad leaders who own much of the production companies that can lift off a career. Obviously, in this environment, most people cynically believe that any starlet who can ascend to the top has spent her fair share of time on her knees. Once she pays her dues however, success can be sudden and after that, it’s about workin’ it as much as she can so that she can finally pay off her debt and be freed from an almost slave-like commitment to the Underground. Seriously – it’s f&cked up. Which is why over in China, many are presuming – perhaps unfairly – that ZZ is now a kept woman. Her way of exiting the ruthless world of the Chinese entertainment industry, courtesy a generous backer. Obviously they’re probably also pissed that she’s dating outside of her culture. Hypocrites everywhere, you see…although my mother, when I challenged her on it, decided to tell me that “You Low Lutting” - translation: you know nothing. So then I asked her to explain to me why her entire story just happened to mirror the plotline of Memoirs of a Geisha and that’s when she put my father on the phone, making him stumble and bumble for 10 minutes before finally finding the correct English expression: Life Imitates Art. At which point my mother jumps back on and finally gets to the point of her story: Would I please call Mrs Wong and tell her not to let her daughter, who idolises Zhang Ziyi, compete in the Miss Hong Kong pageant to become an actress because all Chinese directors are rapists, except Ang Lee because he works with white gays? So there you go. Smut from the Pacific Rim, better than the National Enquirer. Source