Perfection in Motion: How I Fell in Love with China’s Super Girl

Grace and Genius

On the day that we had a lunch to talk about her life and career, we could not have been more mismatched. Here was I – a writer who had spent most of the last 6 months learning everything he could about her background. Everything I read and learned on the road to discovery had made me want to know more. I had spent countless hours on websites, listening to music, watching videos, having lyrics translated, even more hours interviewing fans. I could have written a book with all of the research I had conducted.

That day I was a nervous wreck and had spent hours trying to figure out what to wear, what to say, what to ask, and which bottle of wine I should bring to the place we were having lunch. You could have powered the entire city of Beijing for a month with all the nervous energy I was feeling at that moment.

And then next to the writer on the verge of a coronary there was Bibi.

She was her usual casual girl-next-door on this day. When she walked into the room and said, “Oh, hi Reuben,” I did what any man does when the most beautiful girl in the world says his name: I froze. My heart stopped beating, I almost dropped the bottle of Spanish red I had just opened for us and all I could manage to say was, “Hi Princess, thank you for coming.”

Luckily enough for me, she is quiet and calm in a way that envelops the room and puts you at ease – filling everyone around her with a feeling of serenity. Suggesting some next steps to her career beyond that of a recording artist and perhaps as the newest Hollywood phenomenon — “Do you want to be the next Bond girl?” I asked, which elicited a laugh.

She is never someone who would stand in the middle of the room and ostentatiously proclaim, “I am going to be the next great (fill in the blank).”

As always, she was the picture of grace and humility. Not a single word, inflection in her voice or tilt of the head while she is speaking ever even suggests that she feels the need to remind you that she is a million-selling recording artist who is now a household name in China. And this is another on the list of reasons why anyone who knows her cannot help but have the most sincere love and respect for her.