She Whose Name Cannot Be Mentioned...

A highly amusing page on the Times website this morning. On Thursday one Charles Bremner ran a piece about a 41-year-old Chinese singer called Namu, who has appealed to French President Sarkozy to marry her, on the occasion of his recent visit to China. Among the comments received on the piece was one suggesting that she was only doing this to obtain a visa, a practice not unknown among Chinese women. The piece's author then pointed out that she had no need of this; she was already an American citizen, thanks to an earlier marriage. The commentator replied:

"As for Namu, she has apparently gone the typical route, i.e. get your permanent US visa by marrying an American, play the game for the requisite period time, then move on to bigger and better things. Namu should certainly get a prize for grandest ambition by a female Chinese 'gold digger.' Don't EVER say these folks don't think BIG."

Now a little light-bulb switched on in my mind. Didn't I once hear of an even more worthy recipient of the prize, who had thought even BIGGER; someone else who had married an American, dumped him when the citizenship came through, and married someone a great deal richer than President Sarkozy? But they'd hardly publish that particular name on the website of a Murdoch paper.

I was, of course, behind the game. From all sides vats of opprobrium were poured from a great height on the would-be Madame la Présidente. She was described by different commentators as a prostitute, a disgrace to Asia, and a disgrace to self-respecting prostitutes. I found it odd that publicity stunt by a previously unknown Chinese lady would come in for quite such heavy criticism, until I realised that she is standing proxy for a certain other person. Delightful. I keep checking to see whether anyone at News Corp. has twigged and taken the page down, but it hasn't happened yet.

At this point in my blogging the Iron Buddha got out of bed. Thinking it might amuse her, I told her the story. Not my brightest idea. An unquenchable tempest of vilification ensued, aimed not at me but at this woman Namu. I should have remembered that all 650 million Chinese women hate each other with passion, and that it is never safe to mention the name of one to another, but it wasn't just that. Poor old Namu finds herself standing proxy for two hate figures at once. The lady looks rather similar to, comes from the same part of China as, is in the same media/ entertainment biz as, and is in all probability a friend of, a certain execrated ex of mine, any reminder of the existence of whom can cause the ambient temperature chez nous to drop by an instantaneous twenty degrees.

So do give yourselves a laugh and look on the Times website (here) before someone catches on or, better still, Rupert finds out. Meanwhile I shall continue to secure domestic harmony by elaborating, somewhat disingenuously, on how clock-stoppingly hideous Madame Namu is.