"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Even almost two centuries after those immortal lines were penned by John Keats, we believe in it or are taught to do so.
But what happens when the borders of truth, or should we say reality, are blurred. How far would then reality be from dream? Dreams that Sigmund Freud would have argued are wish-fulfilments and the result of repressed or frustrated desires.
That is precisely when we have close encounters of the other, rather virtual, kind. "The historic handshake", as termed by many netizens, of Mu Zi Mei and Sister Hibiscus at a commercial promotion last week was indeed the coming together of virtual celebrities. Does that mean the Chinese people, at least some of us, have cultivated a sense of humour that can only be called "wicked" or "subversive"? We'll come to that later. As for now, let's deal with the dramatis personae.
For those of you who keep only a 15-day memory inventory of celebrities with 15-minute fame, Mu Zi Mei is the young woman who, two years ago, was keeping a diary of her sexual exploits. What brought her fame, or notoriety, depending on the way you look at it, was that she kept the diary in her online blog, creating traffic jams on the information highways.
Sister Hibiscus burst onto the scene early this summer. She posted her provocative - but not really explicit - photographs and some wildly self-congratulating essays in popular online forums. And by the end of June, any mainlander who hadn't heard of her was considered "old-fashioned".
Mu Zi Mei and Sister Hibiscus both are on the list of the nation's most "bold and uninhibited women" (hao fang nu), a dubious title given by - you guessed it - China's netizens.
Before that "historic meeting", or the commercial hype with an eye for the greatest possible media exposure short of committing a terrorist act, Sister Hibiscus reportedly felt disgusted at being grouped with "such lascivious women" as Mu Zi Mei.
But the "compliment" was returned by Mu Zi Mei the pioneer, who used to be an editor with Guangzhou-based "City Pictorial". Instead, at the meeting she praised Sister Hibiscus's "explosion-inducing" body. But many read her, maybe non-existent, sarcasm when she labelled herself just a person of letters who could hardly provide as much entertainment value as the Sister.
Feminist in disguise?
Despite Mu Zi Mei making a name for herself by catering to the voyeuristic needs of the public, many believe she is of a "higher calibre" than Sister Hibiscus. For one thing, Mu Zi Mei is in control of what she says and does. Her sexual-escapade revelation went beyond that of an exhibitionist; in fact, it had a tinge of feminist bravado to it. In a sense, what she did was no different from the characters in "Sex and the City" - talking about things that most traditional cultures consider private. But it's their bodies and their behav
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