Lulu’s Diary: Frat Rats, Fullbrighters, and Fetishists

"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

Aug 2003 - I saw a lot of boys last month. I’m not complaining.

Several good-looking young foreigners produced, directed, and performed in a play called Suburban Motel at the CD Café for two nights running in late June. The good-looking young foreigners played several degenerate characters enduring moments of defeat in a seedy motel room, victims of dead-end jobs, booze, and the butt end of the Canadian economy. Only trouble was, the good-looking young foreigners were a little too young and a little too good-looking: I just couldn’t take them seriously as thirty-something deadbeats. Boy Rich Akers’ stomach was way too flat, and Cricri Bellrose’s legs were way too shapely. They are called New Seed Productions and despite the fact that they weren’t sufficiently degenerate for my tastes, I hope they produce another play soon. It was refreshing entertainment.

Which reminds me that I must respond to the reader who commented on my column in last month’s [issue]. As Well-Adjusted Queen of Beijing Nightlife writes, a frat boy is a “twentysomething American jock-type” whereas I have been using the term to mean “a well-built twentysomething man buying beers at the bar, salivating at the waitress behind it… or at me.” Forgive me, my English is not good.

I asked a real American woman, elegant Fullbright scholar Alison Friedman, if there were any frat boys at the fetish party. We surveyed the thronging crowd. She pointed out half a dozen. Furthermore, she taught me a new word: frat rat. A frat rat is a woman who tags along with frat boys. There were several candidates.

Now that the frat boy issue is cleared up, I promise not to mention them in connection with last month’s block party on Sanlitun South Road. There were four parties in four different apartments in the same old-style Beijing compound, with guests mingling freely from one to another. The characters behind the event were the magnificently-plumed writer and musician Kaiser Kuo, international man of mystery Lu Ming, a.k.a. the Gatsby of Beijing, advertising power babe Felicia Schwartz who is also a mean tango dancer, and Ogilvy PR princess Wu Hwa.

Unfortunately there were also a few old ladies next door trying to sleep, and they got annoyed. So the action ended courtesy of the police who switched off the electricity. I got in a cab to go home. Past Sanlitun: Taxis, traffic jams, revelers, short skirts. Onto the Third Ring Road: Construction! Trucks! Digging! Economic development! Past the Treelounge, spilling crowds of taxi-seekers despite the road works. Then Ghost Street, pungent with lamb kebabs and spicy prawns. Beijing is back!

The final proof was to be found at the Sichuan bistro Transit on a cool July Saturday night. Transit’s little tables and quiet atmosphere were banished for an evening of louder-than-lounge songs from the band PK14. Being a musical bimbo, I would describe PK14’s music as art punk, and their drummer as studly. The gig attracted a crowd of Beijing nightlife veterans, including Wang Fei’s drummer Xiao Song and Jin Xing, the formerly male former PLA dancer who is now very much a woman and also Shanghai’s most celebrated dancer.

And now that recent health issues have made eating and drinking outdoors seem a patriotic act, you can bet that the summer is only going to get better. Watch this space.