Lulu’s Diary: Calm Before the Storm
"Lulu's Diary" was a magazine column that ran from 2003-4. Lulu was one of Beijing's It Girls who commented on the movers and shakers in the city. Her identity will forever remain a mystery
Jun 2003 - Well darlings, it’s been a great month for a socialite in Peking. So many parties and openings! So much to do!
Despite everything, a few people have managed to keep things cooking. The Den’s redoubtable boss Mr Peng was spotted driving around town in a brand new Mercedes Benz, which he probably deserves after putting up with the lower life forms that show up at his club. Mr T, Beijing’s most dashing African businessman, had a birthday party, attended by a Clubless Henry Li and his Sally, Eric of Eric’s hair salon, Big K and the Chaoyang African crew, and all the usual party suspects. Treelounge continues to bring in frat boys en masse, serving up a good mix of music and alcoholic jellies.
Beijing-based filmmaker Wang Xiaoshuai has been back in Cannes for the European premier of his new feature Drifter. Drifter tells the story of a man from Southern China who has a son after he goes to America. Unable to make a living there, he returns to China without his son and waits for the day they can be reunited. I haven’t seen the film yet but it sounds pretty cheesy. Nonetheless I wish him the best of luck. Actor/ director Jiang Wen is on the Cannes jury this year, so there will be at least one person in the audience who can actually understand the dialogue in Wang’s film.
24 Hour Party People director Michael Winterbottom was in Shanghai at the height of the SARS panic finishing off his futuristic love story, Code 46, starring Tim Robbins. Although Shanghai might seem like a science fiction movie set, Code 46 is not set in China. Winterbottom has joined pulp auteur Quentin Tarantino, who shot parts of Kill Bill in Beijing, in the first wave of directors to use China as a movie-making sweatshop. Kill Bill is due for release in the US in autumn, while Code 46 will be out next year.
Back to boozing: YPHH have shown their sensitivity to the zeitgeist by organizing their first post-SARS event at a bar called the Emergency Room. Unfortunately the event is scheduled after my deadline because I am really curious if Emergency Room will have the chutzpah to continue dressing their waitresses in nurses’ outfits and dispensing their sugar in small white porcelain bowls adorned with red crosses.
That’s about it for the past month, boys and girls. The summer is sure to be a little more fun than this woeful spring. Houhai has officially turned into a hippie Disneyland by the lake. The area has attracted even more punters thanks to the persistent rumor that the air around that filthy lake, like chain-smoking Zhongnanhai cigarettes, actually prevents SARS. Despite the hotel industry doldrums, the word on the CBD street is that the China World Hotel and its little sister the Kerry are both opening high-end bar-cafes sometime this summer.