Geeling Ching had a brief fling with David Bowie after shooting his ‘China Girl’ music videoTall and willowy, a woman in green satin shorts and polka-dot top approaches a table, which is facing Auckland’s marina. (SCMP)
At 63, Geeling Ching could be 20 years younger. The affable New Zealander has a certain something – a certain something that once caught the attention of David Bowie.
The British musician picked her to be the star of the music video for his 1983 hit “China Girl”, which was filmed in Sydney, Australia. They went on to have a relationship, with her joining him in Europe on his Serious Moonlight tour the same year.
Ching has agreed to talk about Bowie and that video.
I had to be completely naked in the video, set at Sydney’s Whale Beach. You just don’t think about it, but I was terribly nervous. He’d been my childhood idol forever.
Geeling Ching on filming the music video for David Bowie’s ‘China Girl’.
“I was living in Sydney and modelling. My agent phoned me and asked, ‘Do you want to audition for a David Bowie video?’ There were about a dozen beautiful, really petite Chinese women there and I remember thinking, ‘There’s no way I’m going to get this because I’m quite big, built like a European’.”
When the then 23-year-old auditioned, “Bowie played his song and we chatted for a while.” She was then asked to remove her make-up.
“I walked back in and they said, ‘OK, you’ve got the job.’ They shot the film over a week. At the same time, Bowie filmed his hit ‘Let’s Dance’, in the [New South Wales] outback town of Carinda.
Off screen the relationship blossomed and after the shoot had finished, she received a phone call from Bowie.
“He said, ‘I’m going to be in Paris next week, do you want to come?’ I went, ‘Yes, yes, yes – that would be good.’ So I flew to Paris to meet him. I went on tour with him. I was a groupie, literally. It was very strange.”
Ching stayed with Bowie for nearly a month, living a celebrity lifestyle, in what she describes as a fairy tale-like passionate affair.
Did she fall in love? “I think, yes … but no. It was completely infatuation but also it’s always in the back of your mind, ‘This is David Bowie, get a grip.’
“It was almost dreamlike. I knew that there wasn’t going to be any sort of long-term, forever relationship.
“The reason he was in Australia was to make ‘Let’s Dance’ with the Aboriginal kids and make that political statement about slavery and personal standing. Both of the videos were quite political. Me running round in a Mao suit being shot by him and he’s in a top hat and tails.
“You never get past the fact that he’s David Bowie … there were crowds of people following him around. It was a fleeting moment, I just went with it.”
When she was contacted for modelling work in Britain, she told Bowie: “I’m going to London now, so thanks … and bye. And that was it.”
Finding herself lonely in the British capital, she returned to Sydney and the boyfriend she’d left for Bowie.
When Bowie died in 2016, it was a shock, because the 69-year-old had kept his cancer diagnosis private.
Ching had no prior knowledge he was ill.
“A friend sent me a text and I went, ‘Oh f***,’” says Ching. “It was terrible. I wasn’t crying or upset but it was, ‘Wow, the end of an era.’”
Reminiscing, she says: “Sometimes you just think, ‘Gosh. Was that a big dream?’ It’s pretty unique.”
