MCLC: China's new 'it' girl: grandpa

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Sean Macdonald <smacdon2005 at gmail.com>
Subject:China's new 'it' girl: grandpa
**********************************************************

Source: Wall Street Journal (1/9/13):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324677204578185590820349184.h
tml

A Retailer Discovers China's New 'It' Girl: Grandpa
Retired Farmer Becomes Fashion Sensation; He's 5-8, Thin and Looks Great
in Crimson
By LAURIE BURKITT And JOSH CHIN

BEIJING—While other 72-year-old Chinese men spend their days practicing
tai chi and playing mah-jongg, Liu Qianping is enjoying a twilight career
modeling clothes. Women's clothes.

At a fall fashion shoot, the 5-foot-8 former rice farmer from central
Hunan vamped for the camera in lacy green tights and white fur-lined pink
dresses. Online and on TV, he has become a meme, with his image circulated
by millions on Chinese social media sites and talk shows.

He owes his star turn to his granddaughter, Lu Ting, a clothier who
struggled for months to find a model who could boost her online store
without breaking the bank. "He's just so slender," Ms. Lu says of her
110-pound grandfather. She notes that he looks great in crimson dresses
and credits him for more than quadrupling her sales in recent weeks.

Mr. Liu's ascent in the modeling realm speaks volumes about shifting
cultural mores in a fast-aging society. The waif of a man, who goes about
in a three-piece suit and a bow-tie when he isn't clad in pink satin, is
among a cadre of Chinese seniors who are all too familiar with cultural
upheaval. Their lives have been marked by unimaginable change—from
surviving famine to the advent of fast food. Along the way, many have
adopted a devil-may-care approach that flies in the face of stereotypes
about conservative Asian elders.

Already, the country's elderly exhibitionists have become something of an
entertainment phenomenon, even spawning a new genre on Chinese video sites
called laolaiqiao. That translates, loosely from the Mandarin, as "old
people doing young things that even young people wouldn't do."

In May 2011, Bai Shuying, then 65 years old, shot to the top of the
laolaiqiao charts when she turned out an uncanny impersonation of Michael
Jackson, pelvic thrusts and all, on the popular reality show "China's Got
Talent."

"I saw him on TV and I knew our fates were connected," says Ms. Bai of Mr.
Jackson.

Four months later, a choir of elderly amateurs went viral with an adorably
choreographed rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" as part of a national
mid-Autumn festival broadcast.

Henan Satellite Television hosts a weekly talent show featuring vibrant
seniors. One of them is 74-year-old Zheng Xueming, who can juggle a tennis
ball on his knees for hours. The show's producer says it was tough at
first to find gifted geriatric types. But after several episodes aired,
applications began pouring in. More than 700 seniors, he says, have tossed
their names in the hat to appear on "Golden Dream Stage."

Mr. Liu was a natural fit for the job, says his granddaughter. After 40
years of wading through rice fields, Mr. Liu is more than happy to help
his family bring in a little extra cash—even if it means slipping into a
pearl-decorated jumper or sporting a blonde wig. And he isn't in the least
worried what people might say.

"This one time she got a big shipment of clothes. I took a few pieces out,
thought they were nice looking and threw them on," he says. "I looked
good," he adds.

After rocketing to fame on the Internet in November, Mr. Liu has also
started doing the television rounds, receiving a roaring ovation from the
studio audience during a recent taping of Henan Satellite TVs "Know Your
Roots" in Beijing when he strutted out on stage doing his own version of
Korean rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style" dance.

Mr. Liu, who is also a fan of online videogames, relishes his
experimentations. "In the past, we didn't have these things, the country
wasn't developed," he says, describing his years as a farmer in the 1950s
and '60s as full of bitterness and hunger. "There's no comparison with the
way things are now. Life now is so rich."

So what is behind this proliferation of outgoing elderly people? According
to Peng Xizhe, a scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai who studies
issues around aging, it is an outgrowth of the cultural diversification
unleashed in China after the country first broke the seal on its once
walled-off society in the late 1970s.

Chinese people in their 60s and 70s are like baby boomers in the U.S.,
says Mr. Peng, drawing parallels between the post-Mao enrichment of
Chinese society and the American postwar economic boom. "Like with the
baby boomers, the cultural ideas of older people in China now are very
different from their parents," he says.

China's Internet users have mostly embraced Mr. Liu, with a few comparing
him to the outré German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. His
cross-dressing has nevertheless stirred debate. In a country that reveres
its elders, some talk-show commentators view Mr. Liu's gig as an assault
on tradition. Other online critics have accused Ms. Lu of exploiting her
grandfather for financial gain.

Nonsense, responds Mr. Liu. "My granddaughter respects me. She only has me
wear clothes I think look good," he says.

He does have his limits. He refuses to have his neck exposed in pictures
and insists that he alone does all the styling. "I have to pick out the
combinations," he says insistently. "I have the best sense of what blouse
should be paired with what skirt."

Few of Mr. Liu's fellow Mao-era baby boomers appear stunned by his
alacrity. In fact, most seem more taken by his physique.

"It has to be Photoshopped, right? His legs are so thin," marveled Ms.
Yang, a 62-year-old Beijing resident who preferred to be identified only
by her surname.

Yang Kunfu, an 80-year-old former soldier from China's southwestern
Sichuan province noted that Mr. Liu photographed better in some outfits
than others. "Oh, he looks much fatter in that dress," Mr. Yang said,
pointing to a thigh-grazing orange cape.

To be sure, cross-dressing isn't entirely bizarre in Chinese culture.
Until the 1940s, female roles in Beijing opera were played by men.

All the attention seems to be taking a toll on Mr. Liu, who now limits
media photo shoots to one or two outfits, down from six or seven when
newspapers and TV stations first came calling. Still, he says he is happy
his name is getting out there.

Ms. Lu said that she also believes her grandfather has the talent—at least
more so than her father. When asked if her dad might become China's next
model sensation, Ms. Lu said: "Oh, he could never model; he has a beer
belly."

Write to Laurie Burkitt at laurie.burkitt at wsj.com and Josh Chin at
josh.chin at wsj.com

A version of this article appeared January 9, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S.
edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Retailer
Discovers China's New 'It' Girl: Grandpa.