An American Lion

Han Han

They say that Chinese blogger and pretty boy Han Han is the most popular writer in the world, but that’s only because they have a lot of computers in China. If China only had a few thousand computers, he wouldn’t be so popular. I want to be Han Han. He’s young, he races cars, he writes nasty things about the Chinese communists, and young women fall for brokers and flim-flam men who trick the ladies into thinking Han Han wants to be their lover.

Anyone can criticize a totalitarian government; few people have the celebrity to pull it off:

IT’S not so easy being Han Han, the heartthrob race car driver and pop novelist who just happens to be China’s most widely read blogger.

Traveling incognito is all but impossible. Local officials frequently vie for his endorsement of their latest architectural boondoggles. (He politely declines.) And love-lorn young women often approach him after races with letters bearing his name. (He says the women have been duped by impostors who have assumed his identity.)

But Mr. Han’s most vexing challenge comes from a more formidable nemesis: the unseen censors who delete blog posts they deem objectionable and the publishing police who have held up the release of his new magazine, “A Chorus of Solos,” a provocative collection of essays and photographs. “The government wants China to become a great cultural nation, but our leaders are so uncultured,” he said with a shrug, offering his characteristic Cheshire-cat grin. “If things continue like this, China will only be known for tea and pandas.”

Since he began blogging in 2006, Mr. Han has been delivering increasingly caustic attacks on China’s leadership and the policies he contends are creating misery for those unlucky enough to lack a powerful government post. With more than 300 million hits to his blog, he may be the most popular living writer in the world.

I happen to be good-looking enough to be a sort of Han Han for the over 60 crowd; many women in their forties and fifties stare at me in airports and I get propositioned all the time. I haven’t had to beat them off with a stick (broom handle, actually) since my one North American concert tour in 1984 as an International pop star. It’s a good thing the financial world drew me back in; I would hate to have become Han Han as a younger man; I’d be broke and lonely, and pathetic like Hugh Grant or Bob Saget right now. I’d rather have the fame and adulation (and the blog hits) now, when I can relax and enjoy my life.