Gwen from Tempe: shaking up Shanghai

I'd like to use this moment to give kudos to Gwen from Tempe, the new LGBeat columnist at City Weekend Shanghai, for bringing something sincerely lacking from virtually the entire English language press here: edgy prose with a bite, i.e., keeping the shit interesting. Take this week's column on Year of the Ox. The cross-dressing author's angle on the New Year: cost-saving tips, from changing clothes with sexual partners to cohabitating and becoming a lesbian. So the summary doesn't do it justice. Check out the article. It's funny stuff.

My personal favorite Gwen write-up was (her?) Nov. 20, 2008 column on the nouveau riche. Gwen makes every line in the article count and it's sassy as hell. Will tease you with a pull-quote:

Case in point, last month I trotted off to Zhejiang Province for a spot of polo, dressed to the nines and anticipating a great day of drinks and divots. It was a gray, rainy day, so a couple of girls and I sought shelter by crashing the Cartier tent, and it's just as well that we did because the guests were bored to death. They had long given up pretending to understand polo when we arrived like a phalanx of legs, pinks and frilly hats. Finally there were fillies worth following. The burly skinhead security guard was having none of it though, as he pointed to the back door and said, “Get out, freak.” Well, I never I might come in rear doors, but I certainly do not exit from them. So I straddled the white picket fence and sashayed across the paddock spraining my ankle in a divot en route. Shame on Cartier!

Full column here.