Whore of IN the Orient

Paris of IN the East - By Morgan, Mar 10, 08

In a taxi to the new Hyatt on the Bund for the Paris Hilton press conference I was wracked with an almost ineffable feeling of joy. After all, how often is it that you get to spend a morning in the presence of a walking, talking, living and breathing fictional character? I was anticipating that it would be something like meeting Foghorn Leghorn, Captain Kirk or the Easter Bunny, but better. Much, much better.

Including myself, there were about 50 of us faux-journalists set up to get THE SHOT and THE SCOOP in a sober conference room in the new Bund Hyatt, and from the get-go there was much professional jostling and jockeying for prime positions to capture the words and image of her highness the heiress. Does she like China? What does she think about Chinese fashions? What would she have to say about Shanghai? Would she like to have dinner with me tonight at Jean Georges? Dutch?

SmartShanghai had already been contacted late last week by a ranking officer in Paris's junta on what we could do to "generate some buzz" on her first foray to China and the MTV Style Awards Gala. Of course, we were immediately on board and quite excited, hoping to buzz the shit out of this town - to the very core of its being even. We list and "report" on events at SmSh and how often is it that a person's very existence is an event unto itself?

Anyways, after much miscommunication regarding articles/interviews (she was originally slated to do the "My Weekender" which, in my opinion, would have been delightful), the aforementioned ranking official sent us her itinerary to disseminate to the masses in the effort to generate mighty, thrashing, ravenous throngs wherever the world's foremost glamourpuss happened to visit. And so... we can tell you what she's been up to, we can tell you what her plans are for the rest of her stay (until Saturday), and even better, we can tell you where she's going to be this afternoon and TONIGHT. And no, regrettably, it's not C's.

Yesterday, Paris led a quiet revolution with her entourage to the Yu Gardens, for some shopping and a traditional tea ceremony at Xiao Long Bao (YAWN). This, of course, is de rigeur for visiting celebs and foreign dignitaries, including the man whose title she usurped to become the premier American Sex God: the swarthy Bill Clinton. During her press conference -- which was a photographic slide-show of her in her gigantic sunglasses posing at these places -- she described the experience with a wistful, waxy eloquence: "It was awesome." The "awesome" of her utterance was delivered in a sort of detached drawl, and she hung on to the last syllable of the word, letting the timbre of her voice drop a register - spoken as if she was rubbing a piece of noteworthy fabric between her thumb and forefinger. She also tossed around the adjectives, "beautiful" and "unique," declaring that "that she'd never seen anything like it" and "never seen anything like Shanghai" in general. She noted that "Shanghai looked like the future," which, incidentally, was exactly what that other famous American novelist Gore Vidal said when he was in town. She then reportedly had dinner at M on the Bund or the Whampoa Club. Or something like that.

Anyways, today after the press conference - which in the end was awkward, long and redundant (Paris was twice required to utter the phrase, "Shanghai is European yet old yet modern" and thrice required to restate her love of Chinese fashion) - she is scheduled to vamp on the Bund from 4pm to 5pm. Shutterbugs you still have time to get down there, forget all sense of decency and propriety, and take millions of photographs of her. I did this morning. It was invigorating. But tonight ... for her night out on the town ... after finally setting aside all the tourist and PR bullshit, and getting down to some serious Shanghai nightlife ... Paris Hilton will be at ... drum roll ... not Windows Too.

MTV Style Gala

The MTV Style Gala will take place this Friday at 7:30pm at the Shanghai Grand Stage. Reportedly the Gala will be "hosted by MTV (Asia) VJs and renowned presenters of SMG and CCTV 6. The show will be taped before a live audience of over 10,000 fans and be broadcast to over 1 billion people through MTV China's 24-hr Channel, SMG's OTV and CCTV 6 in December

2007."

Tomorrow night, though, she'll be at the MTV Style Awards Gala, which is promising to be a veritable 'who's who' of Asian popstardom ... well ... its more like a veritable, 'Who-the-fuck-is-that?' of Asian popstardom, from the likes of someone named Anthony Wong to another guy named Sammi Cheng. Paris herself at her press conference ponied up to the fact that she didn't recognize a name on the list: "I haven't met them yet. [Pointing at a name on the list] Is he cool?" No, Paris. I don't know who that guy is either but my first instinct would be to respond, No he is definitely Not Cool. But for those of you who do like Hong Kong pop stars and were well aware of the fact that they were indeed competing for the accolades, "Most Stylish Singer," "Most Stylish Actor/Actress," "Most Stylish Song" and "Most Stylish Movie," the marquee for the ceremony is as follows: Liu Ye, Shin, S.H.E., Anthony Wong, Sammi Cheng, and Vicki Zhao. Hot damn.

But back to this press conference and back to Paris, who in a remarkable show of candor and honesty did field a daring question, levied by the South China Morning Worker's People's Daily Government Post: "Paris Hilton, what do you think of Chinese men?"

Paris: "Um ... They're polite and sweet. I haven't really met any actually. But tonight I'm going to be at Attica."

So there you have it gentle reader/Paris Hilton fanatic. She'll be at Attica. ATTICA! ATTICA! Oh ATTICA! And not having a nice, quiet dutch dinner with me at Jean Georges.

Note: The title of this article is in no way intended as a slight to the lovely Paris Hilton and was merely too delicious a turn of phrase for the author to resist. As the article itself proves somewhat, we're all whores in our own special way. The author would also like express his thanks to Miss Hilton for the perfume he got at the Press Conference. It smells divine.

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