X-Tina Takes Shanghai

Recently, the Shanghai Government took the bold move of looking past Christina Aguilera's DIRRRRTY lyrics, and allowed her to bring her 'Back to Basics' tour to Shanghai. There was some concern, as it was less than a year ago a Jay-Z concert scheduled for Shanghai was cancelled once the government figured out what his lyrics actually meant. While not huge fans of the former mouseketeer, a musical performance where we can understand the language is a real treat, so we loaded up our IPods with her newest CD (provided exclusively by our local pirated DVD shop) and bought tickets.

The show did not disappoint. No lip-synching and plenty of cool costume changes, circus performers, elaborate sets, and fantastic dancers. The latter had such an effect on Zach, he's now contemplating how he can parlay his banking career into back-up dancer.....watch out K-Fed...

For all you US Weekly readers out there, we focused heavily on the 'is she or isn't she' expecting question. The post-show consensus was there was no true 'baby bump', just a very unfortunate pair of pants combined with a tight belt that would bunch a bit on even the tiniest of people.

The fans were in rare form, particularly during the ballads, as the Chinese seem to prefer love songs (particularly when they're Karaoke-ing or singing a capella in the streets). A neighboring seat mate seemed to be half asleep during parts of the concert, but at random intervals would perk up and scream 'I Love You Christina' at the top of his lungs. Glow sticks and lit-up devils ears (?) were out in full force, and one lucky fan managed to get her Hello Kitty doll picked up by the star.

THE “SH-OLLYWOOD” REPORTER

The stars shined brightly last Saturday at the red carpet opening ceremony of the 10th annual Shanghai International Film Festival at Shanghai’s Grand Theatre. Tiffany, Zach and their friend Meredith, aka THE THREE, were on hand to enjoy the legions of screaming fans massed along the street and the continuous rapid-fire camera flashes of the paparazzi, from inside the velvet rope. Thanks to insider connections and clout, none of which came from Zach, THE THREE were able to score highly-prized tickets to the opening ceremony and the celebrity-packed after-party on the Bund.

The opening ceremony was a chance to see some of Asia’s film stars walk the red carpet in all their glitz and glamour. While completely unknown to THE THREE, it was apparent by the increase in “screech factor” and intensity in flashbulbs who the more popular stars were. The runway procession did include two American stars, film star Sharon Stone and Michelle Rodriguez, star of the film “Girlfight” and TV show “Lost”. Interestingly, the evening’s Master of Ceremonies gave a brief description of each star as they walked the carpet, and gave an English translation for the two Americans. Sharon Stone’s introduction included something along the lines of “famous American sex symbol” and “naked film star”.

Inside the theater, the opening ceremony featured a few dance numbers, an award given to Maggie Cheung (from Jet Li’s “Hero” and Jackie Chan’s “Supercop”), the only Asian actor recognized by Zach, some very nice speeches in Chinese that only Meredith could understand, and a performance of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” by a Chinese opera singer, sung at a volume that led to Tiffany plugging her ears.

The highlight of the night was the even more exclusive after-party, the entrance to which was heavily guarded and covered with flash happy photographers shooting everybody that entered on the off-chance he or she was a celebrity, socialite or somehow famous. Though none of the above, THE THREE basked in the artificial glow of celebrity nonetheless.

Inside the party the atmosphere was as rare and stratified as China had to offer. The peak of the affair came when Tiffany was approached by a Chinese girl, aka THE FAN, who proceeded to gush compliments to Tiffany in an excited stream of Mandarin Chinese. While flattered by her apparent admiration, Tiffany unfortunately couldn’t understand why. When the language barrier became apparent, THE FAN switched to English and confessed to Tiffany that she loved her show. Tiffany, feeling glamorous from all the champagne and flashbulbs, ingeniously responded ‘You must be mistaken, I’m not an actress, I’m in marketing’. THE FAN was embarrassed when she realized that she had fallen victim to the common stereotype known as “They all look alike,” but Tiffany was unfazed and they proceeded to talk amiably with THE FAN about the actual TV star (a well-known Caucasian woman who spoke fluent Chinese) and her show.

Although THE THREE never saw Sharon Stone at the after party, and thus Zach never got to use his suave opening line of, "I loved you in ‘Bobby’!" (which he never saw), it was a memorable evening nonetheless, with memories of beautiful yet unknown celebrities, high fashion, legions of high-pitched shrieking fans, the attendant paparazzi, and a brief encounter with fame to carry with them for many days to come.

Capitalizing Communism

Growing up a kid in the 80's, the word 'communism' had extremely negative connotations. I wasn't quite sure why communists were bad, but they looked scary in Rocky movies, and Ronald Reagan sure didn't like them. I was convinced the reason red m&m's were no longer in production had more to do with their political party affiliation than an FDA food dye ban.

Flash forward twenty years. Both the Wall and communism fell in Eastern Europe, and the much feared 'Reds' have conveniently been replaced by Al Qaeida. But still, when I moved to China, I found it interesting to pull back the curtain and see how a real live communist country worked. Would everyone really wear gray mao suits and refer to each other as comrades? Would people laugh at silly tales of home ownership and mortgages? Would I be ridiculed coming from such a consumerist, capitalist culture and be routinely mocked because I had an MBA?

Well, I have to say, the political party has not lived up to the hype, at least in Shanghai. From what I've seen over the past 18 months, there's a whole lot of capitalism flying around everything from the real estate market to the stock market. Case in point, the 'Millionaire's Fair' that we recently attended. The event was held at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, a popular venue for communist party meetings. The weekend event was touted as offering a 'cornucopia of all the most beautiful and luxurious things the world has to offer....for the lover of the luxurious life'. We accepted free tickets from a client in order to attend and test the theory that if we were in a true communist country, the event would be empty. After all, there's no way the 1.3B Chinese citizens, allegedly living equal could declare 100% of the population 'millionaire status', considering the average Shanghainese salary is less than $500/mo.

Much to our surprise, there was a huge crowd clamouring at the gate to pay the $80 entrance fee.....

The opening night event, dubbed 'Nuit Blanche', was filled with 'living art' and an appearance by Super Girl, the Chinese Equivalent of American Idol.

And what do Millionaires in China crave? Hotdogs?!?!?

Like many of our China experiences, this night was strange and not quite what we expected, but, as usual, provided much entertainment. Who would have thought, not more than 50 years after such communistic initiatives as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, a Millionaire's Fair would take place in China? I find it hard not to believe that Mao's not turning over in his temperature controlled mausoleum up in Beijing.