Lijia Zhang's Blog, page 30

interviewing media mogul Huang Hung

On Sunday, I hosted a Nuvoices podcast, with Huang Hung as my guest. Coming from a prominent family, her grandfather Zhang Shizhao was a renowned scholar who offered financial support to Chairman Mao at one point; her mother was a highly accomplished diplomat, who interpreted for Nixon when he visited China in 1972. She also taught Chairman Mao English. Huang’s step-father was China’s former foreign minister Qiao Guanhua and her first husband was famous film director Cheng Kaige. But I believe Hung achieved success largely due to her own effort. She is a media mogul, writer, blogger (with some 17 million followers), publisher, TV talk show host, and a leader in China’s fashion and design industry. She was selected by the Time magazine as one the world’s 100 most influential people in 2011 and she has been referred to as China’s Oprah Winfrey.

And I think she’s the funniest person in China.

It was an easy interview as Hung got strong views on everything. The podcast should come out on the 6th of August. Watch out!

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Be a guest on BBC

My last weekend in Beijing before heading home was a busy one, partly I wanted to keep myself busy so that I wouldn’t drown in the sadness in the wake of my mother’s passing. On Saturday, I was a guest on BBC World Service’s Weekend, a news and current affair radio program. They always have two guests, commenting on the happenings in the past week. Unusually this issue was brought to the listeners from two locations, one usual one at the Broadcasting House in London and the other in Beijing. I was the guest at BBC’s office in Beijing with experienced presenter Celia Hatton, who worked for years in China. It was fun. Here’s the link.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172wyj72ft6hkr

Bitter Wheat

I had high expectation of David Mamet’s new play Bitter Wheat, starred by John Malkovich, one of my favourite actors. It is inspired by the movie mogul Weinstein’s fall from grace for his sexual misconducts.

It’s fair enough to tell the story from the male perspective but this play verges on apologist.

The greater problem is the characterization of the protagonist Barney Fein. He is just an evil, narcissistic, foul-mouthed and fat sex-addict who lures woman to his cave whenever he gets an opportunity. He keeps forgetting his mother’s death; he calls his wife a ‘cunt’ and he employs a writer to write a play without paying him and he assaults a Eurasian star Yuang Kim Li, which leads to his downfall. Vicious through and through. We learn no hint how he becomes his way. Well, power corrupts. But without complexity, the character is simply not believable.

Malkovich is padded on the middle to make him look fatter. But as a character, he is far too thin.

There are some witty parts that won laughter from the audience. But Bitter Wheat left a bit of bitter taste in my mouth. Luckily I washed it away with a fabulous Malay dinner in Soho after the show.

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Parting shot

The British ambassador in Washington Sir Kim Darroch had to resign; and our ambassador to Cambodia Tina Redshaw, an old friend, is thriving.

The buzz word ambassador reminded me of a book my friend Alfy gave to me entitled Parting Shots.

Up till 2006, a British ambassador quitting his post abroad would write a valedictory despach circulated widely across government, from other far-flung members of the service to the Prime Minister himself. This was the parting shot, the opportunity to offer a personal view of the country he was leaving: the alcoholic intake of its population, the corruption of its ministers, the state of the capital’s drains, or the impossibility of getting embassy staff to clean British guests’ shoes – whatever he or she wanted to get off their chest.

Parting Shot is the collection of such dispatches. I laughed so much because the notes are ‘often funny, frequently astute and almost always gloriously non-politically correct.’

Here are some examples.

‘There is, I fear, no question but that the average Nicaraguan is one of the most dishonest, unreliarable, violent and alcoholic of the Latin Americans’.

Roger Pinsent, Mangua, 1967

‘The average modern Austrian only thinks about his Schnitzel.’

Sir Anthony Rumbold, 1970

‘They (the Nigerians) are generally cheerful and friendly in spite of their maddening habit of always choosing the course of action which will do the maximum damage to their own interests….But at least they usually make their blunders with an engaging air.’

Sir David Hunt, Nigeria, 1969

‘Seriousness, thoroughness, humourlessness, perfectionism and pedantry’

Sir Julian Bullard, Germany, 1988

Sir Kim’s description of Trump Administration as ‘inept’ is nothing, compared to those comments. He did nothing wrong and certainly shouldn’t have resigned.

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Sir John Major

Sir John Major, the former PM, was in the news again. On BBC radio 4’s Today programme this morning, he announced that if Boris Johnson is to become Prime Minister, he would be prepared to take legal action to prevent the government proroguing Parliament.

Well done, Sir John.

When I first arrived in UK in 1990, Sir John was serving as PM. He struck one as such a grey character.

He is not grey at all. A couple of years ago, I gave a speech to Credit Swiss annual conference, to which Sir John was a guest of honour. I had the pleasure to meet and chat with him. I was impressed by how warm and charming he is. And he is more outspoken than ever before!

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gender pay gap

I am happy to see that the gender pay gap within the BBC is narrowing, thanks to the fight by courageous people such as my old friend Carrie Gracie. Way to go!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48826586

my literary essay on the stories behind my prostitution novel, published in the literary magazine in US ‘The Millions’

https://themillions.com/2019/06/the-sex-worker-next-door.html

being quoted in a piece about Chinese authorities crackdown on foreign names

https://www.apnews.com/2f53502660b444f48180e7831aa16650

an interview with the artistic director of Beijing music festival

http://nuvoices.libsyn.com/the-musical-life-and-career-of-director-shuang-zou

See Jaipur literature festival

I felt thrilled and honoured when I shared a stage yesterday with famed British/Sri Lankan writer Romesh Guneseker, who was my guest tutor when I worked on my MA on Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London back in 2004. Thank you Romesh for all your support and advice. The other panellist is the award-winning writer Anjali Joseph, and the session was brilliantly moderated by the Times Literary Supplement editor Catharine Morris. My other session was on the relationship between China and India, which I would say went very well, although I personally think it was a bit of squeeze to place four panellists onto one hour session, discussing such a big topic.