The Sounds of Ridicule

In a photo gallery at tianya.cn, a nude holds a sign that reads:

LET THE SOUNDS OF RIDICULE BE SHRILLER!!!
Hoping that for each line of ridicule, scoffers could donate at least one yuan for Weiwei, the three-year-old Chaozhou girl with leukemia.

– Translated by Josh Herr

But it’s not just a woman exploiting her exhibitionist streak in a proper society. It’s a drag queen with a grudge and a book to promote. The anatomically male Zou Kaiyun is holding the sign asking for donations for a sick girl — a genuine plea — but she’s also stirring up all the unpleasant reaction she can, apparently her trademark. So who is she? A protégé and nearly-nude model employed by Mr. Bi’te, a man who has gained fame over the years for his own publicity stunts. A related article at tianya.cn says of an earlier incident:

On the afternoon of July 8, 2008, a half-naked, fashionable “lady” was on the street in Shenzhen, asking Beijing University professor Xu Dianqing for a “personal apology.” She was later confirmed to be a “fake nude woman,” the same one behind the “Tang Wei naked body double affair”* — popular Internet “drag queen” Zou Kaiyun. Behind the scenes is Mr. Bi’te, labeled by the media as the “Show King.” She is reportedly doing “straightforward performance art.”  This “fake nude woman” performance art actually aims both to show Shenzhen’s high rent prices and to bring shame on Beijing University’s Professor Xu Dianqing’s scorn and taunts — it is reported that the original intention was even more severe: to allow the “fake nude woman” to pass around an offering hat for Professor Xu, and then allow people to throw raw eggs, tomatoes, and garbage at his person.

While the “personal apology” was very popular in the media, “lady” Zou Kaiyun also suffered countless insults.  But Zou Kaiyun was not deterred by the abuse. Instead of becoming worse off, she came up with a completely nude comeback — she ran up to a mountaintop, hoisting the writing “Let the curses come even more fiercely!” on a billboard, deliberately asking for “condemnation and abuse.” But the explanation for this “condemnation and abuse” is: “Hoping the slanderers can, for every slanderous sentence, give at least one Yuan to a three year old girl with leukemia from Chaozhou named Weiwei” (You can search for this phrase “leukemia girl Weiwei” in order to understand).**  At the same time, she also publicized the phone number of Weiwei’s mother, Ms. Huang Haixuan.  But, while Zou was “courting condemnation and abuse,” Zou was also taking the leading role in Show King Bi’te’s picture book, “Show Royally,” to do “G-string”*** — inevitably, one suspects it was for the sake of publicizing Bi’te’s book.

– Translated by Jason Weinberg

Chinese Netizens offered plenty of comments — a case study in Internet slang — but they focused on a single topic:

怎么感觉像个男的啊? 胸那么平
Why do i think it looks like a man? Chest that flat

这是个男人。。。呢。。。
This is a man… ???…

真是－马平川啊 平平平
Really a vast, flat plain.**** FLAT FLAT FLAT

真的好象是男的哎~~~很难相信这是个女人，都没有胸哎~~~
Really seems to be a man!~~~ Very difficult to believe this is a woman, totally doesn’t have a chest omg~~~

好像是个太监
seems to be a eunuch

靠,男人还整这,恶心
Fuck, men do this, nauseating

靠，楼上的不厚道~
Fuck, upstairs is not perfect~

有见阴阳人？。。。。。。让JB来得更猛烈些吧。。。。。。
Has anybody met a hermaphrodite?…… Lets the penis***** become even more fierce……

我草 人妖 真他妈操蛋 我日~~~
Fuck me hermaphrodite really his mom fucks eggs fuck me~~~

汗,日本人
omg, Japanese. ❑

– Translated by Jason Weinberg

EDITOR’S NOTES:
* Zou Kaiyun started an Internet rumor that she posed as a body double in Ang Lee’s movie “Lust, Caution.”

** This is a parenthetical note from the original Chinese. Search refers to an Internet search.

*** i.e., To pose for a section of the book called “G-string.” The Chinese zhē xiū bù (遮羞布) is literally “keep out shame cloth,” or “shame-covering cloth.”

**** Yī mǎ píng chuān (一马平川) is an idiom made up of the words “one horse flat plain.” A Chinese idiom dictionary at baidu.com explains:
地势平坦的地方。能够纵马疾驰的一片广阔平地。指广阔的平原。
Typographically flat region. Capable of galloping a horse across a vast, flat area. Indicates a vast, flat area.

***** JB is Internet slang for jī bā (鸡巴), meaning cock or rooster.

ADDITIONAL READING:
Zou Kaiyun’s Myspace page (Chinese)
An Interview with Zou Kaiyun (Chinese)
Zou Kaiyun’s apology for the “body double affair” (Chinese)