Of parallel journeys and coalescing cultures

By Chitralekha Basu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-04 10:54

Rachel DeWoskin's life has been a psychedelic romp compared to that of her protagonist, Aysha Silvermintz. But both Aysha, who appears in DeWoskin's debut novel Repeat After Me, and her creator start out as 22-year-old English language teachers to foreign students in New York.

Aysha, whose journey across continents (from New York to Beijing) and time (from 1989 to 2003) is the subject of DeWoskin's novel, can hardly match the extraordinary life of her gorgeous creator, who at 37 is long accustomed to being under public gaze.

DeWoskin came to Beijing in 1994 to be a public relations consultant, but went on to star in the hit TV series Foreign Babes in Beijing, playing the glamorous, bad American girl Jiexi, running after Chinese men. Her popularity soared, so much so that she would be recognized even in downtown New York, long after the serial went off air.

She turned her Chinese sojourn into a book named after the serial, picked up soon after by Paramount Pictures for a screen adaptation. In between, she finished a graduate course in poetry at Boston University, married playwright Zayd Dohrn and had two children.

Aysha, her protagonist, "is based only in very small parts on me". She is romantic, sensitive, and fragile.

The arrival of Da Ge, a deeply-troubled Chinese young man in Aysha's English class, changes her life forever. He is crass, stubborn, angry, possessive, reclusive, demanding and a bully but seems to have a disarmingly intuitive understanding of cultural nuances.

Aysha is irresistibly drawn toward Da Ge whose only interest in marrying her is to secure an American passport. They marry, make love - Aysha, aching with desire and Da Ge, not all there. And then, just about the time Aysha thinks of revealing her pregnancy, Da Ge is dead.

Previous 1 2 Next Page