【英语生活】洪晃的时尚生活

In a sleepy village on the outskirts of Beijing, not far from Qincheng, a jail for high-ranking political prisoners, Hung Huang and her husband have built their dream home among the gnarled trunks of an old persimmon orchard.

With its high walls, spacious lawn and buildings inspired by traditional Chinese architecture, the compound is a haven of tranquillity for China’s most well-known media mogul, fashion guru and social commentator.

When I arrive at her house on a cold, clear Sunday morning she has only just returned from Paris where she was attending a dinner hosted by Jane Fonda and L’Oréal to celebrate 40 years of its “Because I’m worth it” slogan.

She ushers me in through the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that runs the length of the 50m long, high-ceilinged main building and serves me tea and cake. We are sitting on tall white plastic stools in the open-plan living space.

In her immaculate American English, punctuated by her famously sharp wit, she immediately compares the feminist pride on display at her Paris dinner with the status of women here in China.

“After Mao Zedong and the communist revolution [in 1949] women gained the right to work but not to be treated as equals; the feminist movement hasn’t happened yet in China,” she says. “Because of this, Chinese men have lived largely unchallenged and so their capacity has diminished – it’s like an animal that doesn’t have to hunt and is served everything on a silver platter; it deteriorates and gets weak. I try to be an equal opportunity employer and hire men too but it almost never works out.”

Throughout a life spent in the glare of public attention, Hung has made a career out of bold statements and bold action.

Her mother, from a wealthy family that joined the communist revolution, worked as English teacher and translator to Chairman Mao, the communist leader who ruled over the world’s most populous nation for nearly three decades and was revered as a living god.

When her mother remarried one of China’s top diplomats, Hung left with them to live in America, where she received much of her education while her stepfather and mother ran China’s mission to the UN.

After previous marriages to top Chinese film director Chen Kaige and to a senior French diplomat, she now lives with the man who designed and built the house we’re sitting in.

Yang Xiaoping is an artist and designer whose father was the official in charge of the Forbidden City, the enormous traditional palace complex in the centre of Beijing that was home to Chinese emperors for centuries.

“[Yang] started working on it 15 years ago and I joke that I had to sleep with him just to get him to finish it,” Hung says. “Now he sees it as a hobby and he’s constantly renovating, adding new buildings or expanding the garden or putting in a swimming pool.”

The 1,200 sq m compound consists of a long rectangular garden with old persimmon trees scattered throughout and long grey buildings lining two sides in a style reminiscent of an ancient Beijing courtyard house.

The main building has a huge study of about 150 sq m at one end, the elongated living room/dining room/kitchen with a vaulted, wooden-beamed ceiling in the middle where we’re sitting and bedrooms and a loft at the other end.

Priceless works of art are scattered throughout the house, as well as the accoutrements gathered from a life as a writer, publisher, critic and fashion expert. Copies of Hung’s current publishing venture – the fashion magazine iLook – lie on the desk next to bags from her newly opened fashion store, located in Beijing’s trendiest shopping district and set up mainly to support homegrown Chinese designers.

She is the publisher who brought Time Out to China and has also been the host of television shows, including the popular Bright Talk, making her a celebrity in her own right with more than 3m followers on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

Despite these accomplishments she jokes how ultra-rich friends look at her with pity that she hasn’t capitalised on her stellar political background and connections to accumulate obscene riches as many of her contemporaries have done.

“I’ve had this cocktail conversation for at least 10 years where they always ask if I’m still doing my little magazine,” Hung says. “They think I’ve squandered my political resources and can’t understand that I actually like what I do.”

But she says it is now often the children of these ultra-wealthy who are the customers in her fashion and design store, which has been open for about a year in the Sanlitun Village shopping district in downtown Beijing.

“Until now, China has been good at selling things cheaply at huge volumes but our branding hasn’t been great so my store is intended to help young Chinese designers get exposure and confidence,” she says.

Her customers are mostly women – about one-third are professionals, another third are wives and children from wealthy families while the other third are concubines or “second wives” of rich and powerful men.

What they all share in common is sophisticated taste and the fact they have shopped all over the world and are choosing her store because they want to support Chinese design.

“These are people who already have 150 Louis Vuitton bags and 50 Gucci bags and they want something a bit different,” Hung says.

While she acknowledges that some luxury brands are starting to become over-exposed and commoditised in China (Louis Vuitton now has 33 stores open across the country), she argues that western brands have been the key to educating high-end consumers and creating a domestic design and fashion industry.

“Without support from Hermès and Chanel and their advertising I would have been out of this industry a long time ago,” Hung says. “It is a misconception that Chinese design is hurt by foreign brands – it is the opposite.”

With the sun streaming in through the glass walls we move to the soft leather couches next to the unlit fireplace and Hung rattles off the names of some of her favourite Chinese designers. Uma Wang creates baggy clothes that give the impression of “sexiness by accident” while He Yan is exquisite at tailoring and commercially very savvy, according to Hung.

Two successful domestic fashion brands she admires are Zuczug, which already has about 60 retail stores across China, and Exception de Mind, which is also growing quickly. Both brands are environmentally conscious and own organic farms to produce cotton, and both promote an understated natural lifestyle with overtones of a classical Zen value system.

“The trend in China is moving away from ostentatious bling bling design; the next generation of Chinese fashion buyers wants something less western, more Oriental, more Zen,” she says.

Looking around Hung’s house and tranquil garden it is obvious that despite her American education and her celebrity lifestyle that is something she wants for herself as well.

Jamil Anderlini is the FT’s Beijing bureau chief

北京郊外距离秦城监狱（专门关押高级政治犯的监狱）不远处一个僻静的小村庄，在一座年代久远柿子园的粗糙枝丫中，洪晃(Hung Huang)与她丈夫在此构筑了自己的梦幻家园。

高墙、宽阔的草坪以及错落有致的房子，这些都是受中国传统建筑风格影响所致，这里就是中国最著名的传媒大腕、时尚教母以及社会评论家洪晃修身养性的秘境所在。

当我在寒冷、晴朗的星期天早上赶到她家时，她刚从巴黎回来，她去那儿参加一场由简?方达(Jane Fonda)以及欧莱雅(L’Oréal)主持的晚宴，以庆祝该品牌“我，值得拥有”(Because I'm worth it)宣传口号提出40周年。

洪晃领着我经过长达50米、整个一面墙的玻璃幕墙进到高屋顶的主屋，她给我准备了茶和蛋糕，于是我俩就坐在开放式起居间的白色塑料高凳上开始了访谈。

洪晃说着一口纯正的美式英语（我不时被她出了名的敏锐所打断），开门见山就把在巴黎晚宴上亲眼所见时尚女性溢于言表的自豪与中国当前女性的地位作了比较。

“毛泽东(Mao Zedong)与共产党在1949年取得革命胜利后，中国女性获得了工作的权利，但并未得到平等对待；中国的女权运动至始至终未曾有过，”她说。“因此，中国男人基本上未受到过挑战，因此他们的能力日见低下——这就好比无需自身觅食的动物，它们都是衣来伸手、饭来张口；结果就日愈退化，生存能力每况愈下。我努力做到平等对待每一位员工，也会雇用男员工，但结果几乎总是事与愿违。”

一生生活在万众瞩目之下的洪晃以口无遮拦与做事敢做敢为而为世人熟知。

她的母亲出生于大户人家（参加过共产党革命），曾任共产党领袖毛泽东的英文老师与翻译。毛泽东统治了这个地球上人口最多的国家近三十年，曾被中国人视若神明。

当她母亲再嫁给中国顶级外交官乔冠华后，洪晃离开他们去美国生活，并在美国上学，此时她的继父与母亲担任中国驻联合国大使。

在与中国著名电影导演陈凯歌(Chen Kaige)以及法国某高级外交官的婚姻破裂后，她与现在的丈夫杨晓平(Yang Xiaoping)生活在一起，我们谈话时就坐的房子就是由他亲自设计并建造。

杨晓平是艺术家与设计师，他的父亲曾掌管过故宫博物院(Forbidden City)，这座位于北京市中心、规模宏大的皇家宫殿群曾是明清两朝皇帝的住所。

“杨晓平15年前就开始设计这座房子了，我跟他开玩笑说，为了让他彻底完工，只能与他同床共枕了。”洪晃说。“如今他把这看作是个人爱好，不断地在翻新及加盖房子，扩建花园以及泳池。”

这座面积1200平米的院落有一座长方形花园，里面散种着许多老柿子树，长长的两排灰色房子分布两边，不由得让人想起老北京的四合院。

主屋的一头是一座面积达150平米的书房，另一头则是卧室与阁楼，客厅、餐厅与厨房呈一字排开，中间是拱型的木梁房顶，我俩就坐在其下进行谈话。

价值连城的艺术品还有她以前当作家、出版商、评论家与时尚专家时的各种服饰散放于房子的各个地方。洪晃当前经营的杂志——时尚杂志《ILook世界都市》——紧挨着各种包放于桌上，这是她新开在北京最潮商业区时尚店的货品，开店所得收入主要用于支持中国本土的设计师。

她是把《Time Out》成功引入中国的出版商，还担任过电视节目主持人，包括主持旅游卫视知名度颇高的《亮话》(Bright Talk)节目，她靠自身的实力打拼成为名人，其微博（Weibo，类似于Twitter）粉丝超过300万。

虽说功成名就，但她开玩笑说自己那些大款朋友是如何带着惋惜之情看着她，说她没有与其他有背景的同龄人一样，好好利用自己深厚的政治背景与人脉资源去大肆敛取不义之财。

“这样的调侃少说也有10年时间了。期间，他们总是问我是否还在经营那家可怜的杂志，”洪晃说。“他们认为我白白浪费了这么好的政治资源，不理解实际上我对自己所从事的行当是乐在其中。”

但她说，如今这些富二代子女倒是经常光顾她的时装门店。这家开在北京市区三里屯商业区(Sanlitun Village shopping district)的门店开张已快一年。

“以前，中国在行的是大量销售廉价产品，但中国品牌的名气一直不响，我开店的目的旨在帮助中国的年轻设计师增加知名度与增强自信心，”她说。

她的顾客多数是女性——约有三分之一是专业人士，另外三分之一是大款的家属及子女，还有三分之一则是大款与高官的情妇（即所谓“二奶”）。

这些人的共同点是品味高雅，经常去全球各地抢购，光顾自己门店的原因就是想支持中国本土的设计师。

“这都是些拥有150个LV包与50个古姿包的主，就想买点与众不同的东西，”洪晃说。

虽说她承认这些奢侈品牌在中国已经变得人人皆知，日见平常（路易维登(Louis Vuitton)在中国开设了33家门店），但也说西方品牌在培养中国高端客户以及培育国内设计与时装业方面起到了至关重要的作用。

“没有爱马仕(Hermès)、香奈儿(Chanel)以及它们的广告帮助，我很久以前就离开这个行当了，”洪晃说。“说中国本土的设计受到洋品牌的侵害是一种误解——实际情况恰恰相反。”

这时，太阳透过玻璃幕墙照进屋，于是我们“移师”于紧靠壁炉（未点火）的软皮沙发。洪晃随口就能说出一大堆中国知名设计师的名字，在她看来，王汁(Uma Wang)设计的松垂式服装给人以“率意的性感”，而何艳(He Yan)设计的成衣则是制作精良，本人也颇具商业头脑。

洪晃青睐的两大国内时装品牌是素然(Zuczug)与Exception de Mind，前者在全国各地已经开设了约60家零售门店，后者也是迅猛扩张。这两个品牌极具环保意识，自己拥有种植棉花的有机农场，都很推崇低调的自然生活方式，其间透着中国传统的禅宗价值理念。

“中国的设计正逐渐摆脱那种俗气的珠光宝气风格；下一代中国时尚买家会倾向于西式风格淡一些、更具东方风情与禅宗意味的品牌，”她说。

环顾洪晃的住所及花园，很显然，虽说她受的是美式教育，过的是名人的生活方式，但她更希望能活出拥有自己风格的生活方式。

注：吉密欧是《金融时报》北京分社社长。

译者/常和