In her weight obsession, E says all Chinese women are bulimics, that’s why they all take chopsticks to the bathroom after every meal. E’s mother and sister—both born in China—are pukers too. It’s all in the fam. A waif frame is part and parcel of being a Chinese female. Not only that, but due to the heavy air pollution obscuring the sunshine, the Chinese girls have flawless white complexions. On a green air-quality-index day, however, when the sun peeks through the smog, you won’t catch a Chinese woman without a parasol. There is mastery in the art of bicycling one-handed with an umbrella in the other. But what really drives a Chengdu female crazy and makes her most insecure is a short stature. You read the lonely-hearts classifieds and it often goes something like this: “Tall Chinese male, 5'3", seeks Chinese girl, 5'4"–5'9". GIRLS WITH SHOELIFTS OR COWBOY BOOTS NEED NOT APPLY!”

When her parents can afford it, a short Chinese teenager will have an orthopedic surgeon break her shin bones and then install ratchet devices on either end of the broken bones. The patient will then pretty much lie in bed for two years eking out a millimeter or two of bone length each week with an Allen wrench. Remember that China is the country that put foot binding on the map. So you can acquire six centimeters of shinbone growth by this method and, with luck, meet your Chinese Prince Charming. You might even bag a European guy and effect a permanent escape from this grimy hellhole. Always industrious, the Chinese girl will spend her long convalescence mastering English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Euclidean geometry, physics, chemistry, Kantian philosophy, or something roughly approximate. She will acquire violin and trombone expertise, and when the whole show is over she will have a typing speed of seven hundred words a minute.

At the university level they all want to learn English. The girls will take you out to dinner or to some awful karaoke bar. They flatter you and blow smoke up your ass just so they can practice their English. We call them English sluts. On the other hand I can earn a hundred yuan of under-the-table income to teach a one-hour class in English. Really simple stuff. “Put your right foot in, you put your right foot out; you do the Hokey Pokey and you shake it all about. Shake ’em up, baby!” My Chinese friends, intellectuals for the most part, beg me to order them copies of Reader’s Digest, that very paragon of literary excellence and sophistication. Like watching American films and Bonanza reruns, Reader’s Digest helps students cement the basics of English.