CC's current boyfriend is a poor Welshman named Nick. After CC graduated from Oxford, she took Nick back to Asia with her. He doesn't have a full -time job. He helps a couple of Chinese Internet sites as a part-time English editor, but his salary remains a fraction of CC's. Nick works for only two or three hours each day, so he has a lot of free time, which he spends learning Chinese from Chinese people in bars, Starbucks, parties, and sometimes at his home.

Now CC's biggest headache is that Nick, her ever-faithful boyfriend from England, has discovered that in China his average Welshman looks are surprisingly well received by Asian girls. Nick often spends time with Chinese girls, in the name of studying Chinese culture. Once he even went swimming with three Chinese girls, and CC was furious at the photo of Nick hugging three hot young chicks in bikinis. Knowing that I had a failed relationship that prompted me to return to China, CC comforts me, "It's wonderful that you don't have a boyfriend right now. You don't have to worry that local girls will steal him from you. You have a fresh start." CC worries that Nick will turn into another Frank.

Who is Frank? A real character. We will get to him later.

XINGUI: The new aristocrats, or nouveaux riches. During the Cultural Revolution, educated people were purged by the government and everyone was equal (equally poor that is). The new market economy has made it possible for people to have money and a strong education. This group of people constitute the "new aristocrats."

NIUJIN: An Ox and a ford – Oxford.

CHA CANTING: Popular Cantonese fast-food restaurant that offers quick meals and milk tea

My favorite necklace is Native American. It is a piece of turquoise on an ox-tendon string, which I bought in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Sante Fe is one of my favorite American cities, a melting pot of Indian, Hispanic, Mexican, and Anglo cultures, with the distinctive little red-earth adobes set off against the cacti on the plains. It has such a raw and primitive feel. And it's a prosperous art community that attracts artists from many different cultures.

It was in Sante Fe that one of my favorite American artists, Georgia O'Keeffe, was inspired to do much of her work. O'Keeffe was an independent and well-educated woman whose artwork was original and sensual. I especially love her Sante Fe – inspired flower paintings, which resemble female sexual organs. They remind me that the female form is both beautiful and delicate and strong and resolute. O'Keeffe also had a romantic love affair with her sponsor, Alfred Stieglitz, who was the only art dealer who would show her work in his gallery. The two eventually married, even though Stieglitz was thirty-one years older than O'Keeffe. Stieglitz loved to tell people that Georgia was his muse. By visiting New Mexico I hope to feed off the same energy that inspired O'Keeffe to create some of her best work.

I remember how I sat on the second floor of the Coyote Cafe in the city center, gazing out at the sapphire sky above the plain and sipping a margarita. At ten o'clock at night, the arcades in the street were still open, and I could sme ll the enchanting scent of incense drifting up from the gallery shop. Colorfully dressed people strolled along the street. Like me, they were there on holiday. Other people were in couples, but I had come alone. I stayed at the Saint Francis Hotel, next to the Coyote Cafe, an old hotel where you had to use a real key, and not a magnetic card, to open the door.

I liked the feeling of the old hotel. The old walnut furniture, books whose pages had been turned countless times, and the creaking wooden staircase, all made me think of dead authors like Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. In the States, old is precious because the country is young, the exact opposite of China, where old things are seen as roadblocks to the future.

At the time, I had just been dumped by Len, the eye doctor who is twelve years older than me. This was after I had dumped my previous boyfriend for Len. I was depressed. At night the sky above the plains reminded me of my school trip to Tibet. It was the same sapphire blue, whether in the East or the West, always lucid, distant, mesmerizing. That night, I bade farewell to my failed love and decided that I'd stop seeing a psychologist and return to China.

Before coming to the United States, I had been forewarned about racism against "yellow people," so it really surprised me when I found boys liked me in school. Actually, I was a popular girl. I had several boyfriends ranging from football players to lawyers to African immigrants.

The gentle Len was the only man whom I fell passionately in love with. My body used to tremble just thinking of him, and I felt like my life couldn't get any better. I met him after I finished my bachelor's at Missouri and moved to Berkeley for graduate school. There I was, a young foreign girl living in the States, and dating an older, handsome Chinese American man. As a third-generation Chinese American, Len was more American than most American friends I knew. He never tired of introducing me to the country. We went to baseball games and operas in San Francisco, took road trips down the Pacific Coast highway, and went camping in Oregon. He even taught me how to ski and dive. He enjoyed telling me the names of cartoon characters and music bands that I hadn't heard of, and explaining psychosocial or literary terms I had not known. He was knowledgeable and fun to be with, and at the same time he retained the humbleness of a Chinese man. As a doctor, Len is patient and caring. Knowing my love for Picasso and Matisse, he bought prints of their paintings to help me decorate my dormitory. Once when I was sick, he took a day off to take care of me.

The most romantic time we ever spent together was a two-week vacation in Yucatan, Mexico. I knew that Len didn't have much of an interest in this area, but I had always wanted to know about the Maya and Native American cultures. Len had often heard me talking about wanting to go there someday, so he had secretly planned out a whole vacation without my knowing. Being surrounded by the lush rain forest and warm gulf waters was like a dream come true for me. Even more than the beautiful natural surroundings, I loved visiting the ancient pyramids and sculptures. Seeing these incredible works of a culture that has long since vanished from the world filled me with awe as well as sadness. The best night of the trip came when Len took me to the top of one of the ancient stone pyramids as the sun was setting over the forest. It was not safe to be this deep in the jungle late at night and Len had had to hire a guide as well as a guard to make sure we made it back to our hotel safely. This was the first time I seriously considered that Len might be my true soul mate. After that trip I never would have guessed that things would end the way they did.

A year has passed since Len left me, and I have been a celibate for the whole year. I can't explain why I don't have sex anymore. I haven't tried to abstain. It seems that I used up all my sexual energy with Len. Now, I'm done.

People say that I have a baby face. With a round face and a pair of sparkling almond eyes that look slightly distant, I've achieved a naive and innocent look. Many people think of me as an inexperienced schoolgirl. Few people I know in Beijing, including my own mother, could imagine that Niuniu was quite a wild girl back in the States. Beijing isn't like the United States. All my family and friends keep me busy drinking and eating. My first priority is not to find a date but to rediscover what it means to be Chinese.