File Under: Useless Minutiae; Nudity

So yesterday, after class, I high-tailed it to a bar on College to watch the UEFA Championship Match. AC Milan beat Liverpool 2-1 in Athens. Exciting game; both goals scored by the same overexcited, Roberto Benigni-esque player. I left the bar, in the immediate post-game crush, and headed south along McCaul. Ears rendered dead to the world by Joe Strummer and Steve Jobs, I was walking obliviously down McCaul, past the dusty pit that the AGO has become, now fronting the even dustier pit that the TTC has made of Dundas West. I crossed Dundas, and was walking past the OCAD dalmation, when I looked up, and to my surprise, saw Canada’s sweetheart Sandra Oh walking by me, with some guy dressed—as I was—in a green t-shirt and khakis.

So I momentarily succumbed to that unique brand of celebrity fever that Toronto brings on so seemingly randomly, owing to the Film Festival, Hollywood North, and that persistent feeling that despite the fact that Toronto’s the biggest city in the country, it’s not “up there” with New York and L.A. I texted a few friends, who almost immediately texted back a snide comment about some nonsense involving me and a celebrity crush.

A few hours later, after grocery shopping in K-Town, Siqi and I were sitting on the curb at the corner of Markham and Bloor as I called a friend about an apartment, when he suddenly looked over my shoulder, down the sidewalk, and says, “I think that’s Sook-Yin Lee.” I looked also, and sure enough, the Shortbus star and former VJ was walking up the street towards us.
We sat on the curb for just a few minutes more, talking about my prospective apartment, worrying about our toes getting run over by an overzealous Annex driver, and trying to avoid looking over at the patio, where the aforementioned actress was now sitting.

Walking home with by groceries, though, it began to dawn on me just how peculiar these two specific encounters were, considering that they occurred literally less than three hours apart. Encountering two Asian Canadian celebrities in Toronto isn’t the peculiar part. Rather, the peculiar part was encountering two people whose names and basic biographies I know, and, ever odder, who I’ve seen naked on more than one occasion (I’m not a perv, go rent Dancing at the Blue Iguana, Shortbus and Sideways). All I would have needed was to be standing behind Bai Ling at Starbucks to complete the trifecta.
Speaking of Siqi and Bai Ling, the latter is starring in the film adaptation of the former’s favorite example of borderline pornography masquerading as art, Shanghai Baby. The trailer’s posted on YouTube, but I wouldn’t watch it in public, considering the gratuitous nudity it involves (yes, the trailer). Shanghai Baby is but one of what seems to be almost a sub-genre of Chinese literature these days, the confessional novel about ennui-laden, gratuitously sex and drugs-fueled life in modern Beijing or Shanghai. If you’re looking to read about Chinese girls who do nothing but fuck their way through the New China, while experimenting with a pharmacy of narcotics, and want to seem like you’re on the cutting edge of a literary trend, read Shanghai Baby. And if Shanghai Baby isn’t enough for you, try Candy, Beijing Doll, or (my personal favorite title) The People’s Republic of Desire.

Shanghai Baby is by Zhou Wei Hui, Candy is by Mian Mian, Beijing Doll is by Chun Sue, and People’s Republic of Desire is by Annie Wang, and from the Amazon description, sounds like Sex and the City: Beijing.