How to re-define fame

If you think the West has bizarre ideas about what defines celebrity, try visiting China

By Jeremy Atiyah

Published: 06 November 2000

I'm just back from China and am having to get used to the fact that people are no longer jostling to get better views of me as I step down from my bicycle rickshaw.

What a depressing transition. Last week, people were offering me congratulatory glasses of Chinese vodka every time I opened my mouth to speak. Since my return home - on the other hand - nobody has paid me the slightest bit of attention.

Nobody has asked me how much I earn, for example, or if I am married, or why I am balding, or how old I am, or whether it is true that the English masses drive their own cars. Now I know how bad Princess Diana would have felt had she ever found herself ignored by the paparazzi.
Celebrity status in China is great. It's also quite easy to acquire, if you have a big enough nose. Some of the most famous men in the world are obscure English teachers who have managed to get themselves on to Chinese television a few times.

What happens to you if you are a Chinese-speaking foreigner in China is that you instantly become a spokesperson acting on behalf of the entire Western world. You become the special envoy of the European and American intelligentsia (or proletariat, or peasantry, depending on how recently you have shaved).

For most Chinese, after all, it is a God-given truth that Chinese speak Chinese, and foreigners foreign - just as Chinese eat rice, drink tea and use chopsticks, while foreigners eat chips, drink coffee and use knives and forks. Any daring attempt on the part of a man with pale eyes and a giant nose to break these laws of heaven is enough to stop a billion people right there in their tracks. Your casual remarks during long bus journeys through Sichuan province will be capable of altering the future course of history. I have found that it helps to be polite.

Of course, fame in China has its low points, as it no doubt does in Hollywood as well. There are days when you would rather not have people staring at you too closely. The responsibility of representing the combined peoples of Europe and America is less attractive, for example, when you have just got off the Peking-Canton Express along with a population equivalent to that of several small African countries.

I'm also none too keen on being woken from my sleep just because somebody wants to ask me if I would mind posing for a photograph with his daughter who is due to be married later in the day. And be careful with that nose of yours which is going to generate such intense interest: whatever you do, don't pick it, and don't blow it loudly in public places.

But make no mistake. Stardom in China has its uses. With a nose as big as yours, you will be allowed to use first-class waiting rooms at stations even if you are travelling on a second-class ticket. You'll always get to the fronts of queues more easily.

Best of all, though, is this: that the nicest, cleverest people in China will be queueing up to pay you attention. Just sit back and wait for them. Subjects for discussion will range from your attitude to China, right through to your feelings about your children and the level of your income.

And don't worry. You will also be congratulated, as often as you like, on your ability to speak Chinese (and to use chopsticks).