A version of this feature appears in the October 2020 issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition.
LOS ANGELES—Long before President Trump was working to curtail imports from China, a tiny and presumably cute as a button Lulu Chu was adopted by a family in Oklahoma and made the long trip from the old country.
That was 18 years ago and since Lulu is only 19, we can assume she doesn’t recall China at all, nor the trip to the New World. Life with her adoptive family was rough and she moved out a week after turning 18. That’s when our little Lulu—she’s 4-foot-10 and 95 pounds—got out of the “zoo.”
“My parents and I never got along—we had very different morals and outlooks on life and my mother and I were both very stubborn and outspoken,” Lulu says. “Oftentimes fights would get physical and due to my ‘lack of self-discipline’ my parents were overly controlling, to the point where I wasn’t allowed to use my phone except for family stuff, and I couldn’t leave the house except for school. I grew up feeling caged and desperate and miserable; more like a tiger in a zoo than a kid.”
Lulu is out of the house, but not out of Oklahoma. There were no porn stars among her peers back home and, not surprisingly, news of her career in the adult business wasn’t a big hit with everyone. Her mom cried when she heard the news, though she’s since come around to some level of acceptance. Her father, whom she says is “very catholic and sex shy,” isn’t quite there yet. Friends’ reactions have been mixed, some being supportive and others much less so.
“People will always judge me,” she says, “especially in Oklahoma.”
Her first inroads to the adult industry can be traced to some sugar-babying she did. It was only a few months, but she says everyone she met with was generally nice and trustworthy and she never had any genuinely bad experiences.
Then she got into camming, which she did for a few months before making the leap to porn. She loved camming, saying it felt “really natural,” especially when she had time to just chat with fans about random things. She did mostly solo and girl/girl shows, though her boyfriend jumped in whenever a cock was required. She was lucky to have a very open-minded roommate, as things sometimes spilled out of the bedroom.
“My roommate and I are both really open, don’t-give-a-shit kind of people, so sometimes I would do my cam shows in the living room of our apartment while she watched TV and she would just get to see my boyfriend fuck me,” she says. “She also had the tendency to just open my bedroom door, so my boyfriend and I would frequently have to pause in the middle of sex to talk to her for a bit.”
While there has been a lot of talk recently about cultural representation in the industry, it's well known that Asian performers have long been fetishized. Few Asian men have worked in the industry and the women are often called on for roles that play up their heritage or perceived heritage. Lulu says it’s by no means limited to porn sets—it’s a regular occurrence in daily life, too.
“I feel fetishized every day, whether I’m working or not, and it is really annoying to deal with because I’m obviously more than my race,” she says. “However, I can’t deny that being Asian—and the lack of Asian people in the industry—has really helped my career and provided an easy niche for me to grow in. I feel like I’m at the point where I’m not happy about the fetishization, but I let it slide because it works for me.”
She has also recognized that there are few women running sets and she has directing movie on her list of goals. Before that she has a short, not atypical wish list: first showcase, Penthouse Pet, an AVN Awards nomination, shooting for Bellesa, and doing her first anal and DP.
“I’d really like to become a director eventually,” says Lulu, who is represented by East Coast Talents. “There are not enough female directors, in my opinion, and I’d love to be able to create a safe and fun set for the talent.”
Interestingly, if unsurprisingly, Lulu is interested in role-play, and the young lady whose mother claims has a “lack of self-discipline” is very interested in being disciplined in her sex life.
“I love role-play, I love being able to act and be someone else,” she says. “I’ve always loved being a brat, and I got to play that out when I shot for Deeper—it was so much fun! I really want to do a light BDSM teacher/student scene at some point. I think the idea of being ‘disciplined’ in that scenario is really sexy.”
A couple of her favorite shoots so far were for FTV Girls, likely because she got to play so many roles. She danced, went to a nude beach, went flashing at the mall and hit the grocery store, where she bought a cucumber that would soon become a co-star.
At some point she would like to get back to her roots—China, not Oklahoma—to see if she could see the faces and places that got her through her earliest days.
“I’ve never been back to China, but it’s a lifelong goal of mine to fly back sometime and look for my orphanage and foster mother,” she says. “I do feel removed from it, but to the degree that I want to reconnect, not just accept my disconnect.”
Photography by Lia of FTVGirls.com
