Illustration: Liu Rui

By Rong Xiaoqing

The lives of Donald Trump and Luo Yufeng, aka Sister Feng, are unlikely to have overlapped.

The 64-year-old American real estate guru was born to a millionaire father, studied in an Ivy League university and is now a billionaire himself. The 23-year-old Chinese Internet sensation was born to a rural family, educated in an average two-year college and is still struggling to make ends meet.  

Yet, they share so many similarities. Trump is known for putting his name boldly everywhere, from the buildings he owns to the vitamins, vodka and ties he sells, and for producing and hosting the reality show "The Apprentice" in which he acts like God in front of the aspirational who want to work for the Trump Group.

Sister Feng first became famous for distributing fliers on the streets of Shanghai through which she sought a husband with very strict criteria. Her future husband had to be a graduate from a top university, be handsome, a certain height, and be from the more developed coastal area of China. And that was quickly followed by the nearly manic remarks she made about herself when she was interviewed by reporters, such as "Einstein is not as smart as I am," and "There is no man smarter than me so they have to make up with their height and looks."

They both have bigger egos than most people do. They both have been mocked for their looks, Trump's for his hair and Luo for her unappealing face and short stature. And if the two bump into each other one day, President Obama would be really worried because they both have him as a target. Trump may be interested in replacing him as the US president and Sister Feng has boasted that she'd soon become the president's lover.

There was once 7,000 miles between them but now there is little distance as Sister Feng has arrived in New York where Trump resides, holding a tourist visa and trying to apply for a green card.

The two may not know each other personally, but they can make the connection through the media. 

In recent weeks, amid talk that Trump is considering running for US president next year, the media has been grabbing onto his every word. Trump has described himself as "Obama's worst nightmare." Meanwhile, more than one major mainstream publication in New York is trying to locate Sister Feng for an interview.

Of course, no media organization likes to be seen as a cheerleader for crazy egotists. They couldn't make it clearer. The New York media vie to publishing op-ed pieces that denounce Trump as an attention hungry maniac.

The Chinese media, when covering Sister Feng, also ridicule her and make sure readers understand it isn't serious news.

And there is no question that the public is smart enough to tell these people are not heroes. Sister Feng is called a "shameless psycho" by the netizens in China and Trump is called a "clown." 

Nevertheless, it is obvious that people like Trump and Sister Feng make journalists and their readers excited. It reminds me of a game at the Coney Island beach resort in New York called "Shoot the freak" that was recently closed down. A man wearing protective gear, supposedly the freak, is trapped in a pen so players can shoot him with paint balls.

Most of us like to hold the paint gun. We enjoy shooting at whoever is not following the rules with the bullets of our own judgments, and this makes us feel vindicated and powerful. By acting as freaks, Trump and Sister Feng are the perfect moving targets the rest of us don't like to miss. 

But most likely they have predicted this. We all know how Trump survived several bankruptcies and recovered through bold PR stunts. And when I read Sister Feng's blog, I found she is actually quite a clever and talented poet. One of her early entries had a headline "The real sadness is not to live as a target of curses but to live in anonymous silence."

This perhaps revealed the motivation of her almost random craziness. And the world seems to be working in the way she expected. 

After all, Feng is often paid thousands of yuan for a TV appearance now.  

In an era when fame is no longer a bonus for real achievements but an goal by itself, it's not a surprise some people become professionally famous. They use all sorts of formulas, and being extremely ridiculous is one. And the more people laugh at them, the bigger winners they are.  And us, the self-appointed snipers in this game, may actually be the real games. We might have been hunted by the freaks we aim at from the beginning without even knowing it.

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