Sister Feng or Trump, we love the crazy

By Rong Xiaoqing Source:Global Times Published: 2015-7-30 23:58:02

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

About four years ago, I wrote a column in this newspaper that compared Donald Trump, the American business mogul, with Luo Yufeng, aka "big sister" Feng, a self-made Chinese Internet celebrity.

At that time, Trump was flirting with the idea of running to become president of the US against Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

And Feng, a rural Chinese girl with very ordinary looks but very high demands for the quality of a future husband (including being handsome and a graduate of a top university), had just moved to New York from Shanghai. This seemed to have put her at least one step closer to her publicly announced promise of becoming Obama's lover.

I discussed the two together in the article not only because they both targeted the president, but also because they had very similar massive egos, and because they were the subject of similar laughter and mockery.

Also, though, I noted that both managed their images and egos carefully, and that seemed to have allowed them to get what they wanted. For Trump in those days that meant a valuable inflation of his brand name, and for Feng a better life in New York even if she didn't get to bed the president. I concluded that maybe it was the rest of us who were the real fools.

The two went quiet for a while after that, certainly by their own standards. Trump didn't run in 2012 and Feng worked in a nail salon to make ends meet just like any other new immigrant. Little did I expect they'd come back into the spotlight again at the same moment. It felt like we had gone back in time.

Trump, who is now officially running for president in 2016 and leading other Republican candidates in the polls, is still the same Trump, with the same bird-nest hair style and the same foot-in-mouth speaking style. He called undocumented immigrants from Mexico killers and rapists, and questioned whether Arizona Senator John McCain, a POW in the Vietnam War, was really a war hero because he was captured.

Feng recently became a columnist for ifeng.com, an online news site in China. She writes about her life in New York, and is still the same Feng. In her column, she shares how she shops in Chinatown, lives in cheap apartments and dates a slew of highly qualified men who offer her much more in libido than they do in commitment.

But there is something different about them.

Both Trump and Feng get much more support now - albeit from a minority of people. His words on immigrants and McCain would kill many a political career, but for Trump they seem to have created new fans. A new CNN/ORC poll released on Sunday found Trump had 18 percent support among Republicans, three percentage points higher than former Florida governor Jeb Bush who ranked second, and well above the other 14 candidates in the field.

And judging by the online comments Feng's columns have attracted, many people like her candid and unpretentious way of writing. Some called her pieces a clear stream flowing on the muddy earth.

On July 22, ifeng.com asked readers to choose between the writing of Feng about New York and that of Tian Pujun, a second-tier actress, columnist and girlfriend of a Chinese real estate guru.

Tian, who lived in New York for a few years, wrote about food in high-end restaurants, an apartment close to the Hudson River and her boyfriend, Wang Shi, who is a known name in China.

By July 27, among close to 10,000 participants, Feng got more than 87 percent of the votes. The poll closes on August 21.

How come the same people doing very similar stunts got such different reactions from the world? One possibility is that the world has changed. In the past few years, the public, be it in the US, or in China, has made it clear that they are fed up with the calculated perfection that public figures have been dumping on them.

In the US, resentment against the impeccably behaved actress Ann Hathaway and criticism of Hillary Clinton's elitism are unmistakable signs.

In China, many people now scorn chicken-soup articles that promote good behavior and promise great returns. Instead, articles that tell it as it is - grim reality and all - and are filled with coarse vocabulary have become popular online.

People seem to have been taking any opportunity to slap down suffocating political correctness and replace it with straight talking. Even if that straight talking is crazy.

The author is a New York-based journalist. rong_xiaoqing@hotmail.com

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