Hung Huang and her mother Zhang Hanzhi, who was once Mao's English teacher

Chen Kaige was enraged, and has started proceedings to sue the author of the spoof, earning the famous director even more ridicule. (There are links to the spoof and commentary at the bottom of this post.)

Now his ex-wife, Hung Huang (or Hong Huang) has stepped into the fray, on her new blog on Sina.com.

Your correspondent used to work for her at her media company CIMG. After I left the company I was roundly cursed by her, for various reasons, in a book she wrote. She was nice enough not to name me, although it was clear to anyone who knew me that I was the target. Some of the curses were justified, some not, but like many other people, I have learned that Hung is not someone you want angry at you if you cannot deal with highly barbed but very funny mockery. (I can deal.)

This is a rough translation of what she had to say about Chen Kaige and the Steamed Bun debacle:

Because of this business with my ex-husband and a steamed bun, for a week now all my friends have been making fun of me, teasing and mocking me and criticizing my judgement and taste in men. Yesterday evening was the climax: a table of eight people, originally all quite restrained, exploded with mockery. This morning I looked at some blogs and found many comments about me. It seems women should be very careful about selecting a husband. Well in this life it's already too late for me, I'll pay more attention to it in the next life.

This affair makes me feel that I have been treated very unjustly: Why do people have to connect me to a person I haven't seen in more than ten years, to whom I haven't said a word. We haven't even bumped into each other. This is really unfair. The police often say to comrades who have committed offences: if you correct the mistake everything will be OK. Even if you have a previous conviction, people shouldn't continue to talk about it all the time, that completely lacks a spirit of generosity.

I always try to be or pretend to be a decent person, with a magnanimous attitude, with some reluctance to speak [and judge others]. But this affair is just too hilarious, I am nearly going crazy not speaking about it. And also, no matter how hard I try, nobody is ever going to mistake me for a lady, so I might as well just say a few words about this.

We Chinese have a saying: you can navigate a boat in the stomach of a prime minister [i.e. a great leader should be able to deal with all kinds of problems and annoyances]. If a steamed bun can't even go in his stomach, then it's obvious that he has become a chicken with a small stomach [i.e. very narrow-minded].

Moreover, making a steamed bun is obviously not a good decision, for coarse food grain is turned into high quality flour. If it was me, I would see what stale food I had at home and immediately take it out and get a talented person to turn it into wheat-flour and rice, which might bring both fame and fortune.

Self-mockery is a weapon of all intelligent people. Especially when they meet difficulties, self-mockery can instruct, and help them out of a predicament. Being ridiculed by other people is a painful thing, but people like Lu Xun who are merciless with bad people even when they are down are rare, most people will fogive a wrongdoer a way out and laugh the problem away.

This post is the end of a vow of silence. So now our LE magazine editors have no mercy on me, not about this: they have already urged me to write a 'Steamed Bun Q&A' for the March issue of the magazine. I ask everyone to read the March issue of the magazine. If you feel that we are coarse grain, you are welcome to trample us into a steamed buns.

Lastly, I must apologize to the parties concerned, but if I restrained myself from talking I think I'd get cancer from the effort.