 |
| Lijia Zhang |
Below is Part Two of zhendegender ‘s interview with Lijia
Zhang about her first novel Lotus which centres on a young
migrant woman eager to escape her life as a prostitute in China.
What is the worst
thing about the state of women’s rights in China today?
There are a lot of problems for women in China. Women still
have much less power than men, and lower social standing but the wage gap is
probably the worst thing. The latest official statistics suggest that the
income for urban women is 67.3% of men’s income while women in the countryside
make only 56% of what men make. But many women are empowered by being able to
earn money. There was one sex worker I met who bought a flat for herself and
her mother to live in, in a city near her village. I think moving to the city
is the best possible outcome that villagers hope for.
Lotus questions how
to equate sexual pleasure with social norms, because she’s been told good women
shouldn’t enjoy sex yet she tries hard to please clients. How are attitudes
towards women’s sexuality changing?
I met a woman who was very empowered by earning money, and
by her relative liberation since becoming a sex worker. People don’t get into the trade for sexual
pleasure, but some women do find sexual pleasure with clients, which they hadn’t
experienced with their husbands.
China is going through a sexual revolution. Studies show
that a much higher number of people are having sex before marriage than
previously. In sociologist Li Yinhe’s 1989 study, 85% of people claimed they
had no sexual experience before marriage. Among the 15% who did have sexual
experience, some of them were already engaged, which means by Chinese standards
that they are already a couple. (According to The Report on the Health of
Chinese People's Sex Life, jointly released by Media Survey Lab and Insight
China magazine, 71.4% of people were sexually active before marriage in 2012.)
There are more prostitutes, more pornography, more young
people having sex before marriage, a higher rate of divorce, and now people
have many different sexual partners. If her husband cannot satisfy her, a woman
can divorce him. These women will not stand for second best, because they don’t
have to any more.
Another woman I met felt very
conflicted about one client. An older colleague told her to think this way,
just imagine: “The clients
give us sexual pleasure and money, we use them for a service – not them using
us.” She called clients dogs. She joked that a perfect job would be something
that would give her both sexual pleasure and money. But she also craves
respect.
Having a mistress is a very common way for a man to show his
money and status. This started with the Emperor and noblemen, who would have
many concubines. Maoist reforms in the 50s changed that, even though Mao
himself was doing all sorts of things with young women behind closed doors,
disobeying his own rules. For some time prostitution was very uncommon in China
but the rates are high again. Now, men have mistresses to prove they have a lot
of money and a high status. Ernais are just glorified prostitutes. The
relationship between a man and his Ernai is primarily about money and economic
status, not love.
Lotus accompanies her
friend Mimi to an abortion clinic. It’s quite an emotive scene, but abortions
are very common in China with about 16 million abortions are performed annually.
Is abortion viewed as a social or political problem in China?
Abortion is quite a normal thing in China. I’ve had an
abortion, my sister has had several abortions, and my mother had abortions.
There is no social stigma because Chinese women don’t
carry the same emotional or religious baggage about abortion as people in the
west. It is not considered a
danger to society. It is just a common form of birth control, and people
rely on access to abortion. Women don't get counseling after abortions like in
the UK. Most people don’t think a foetus is a human being, so it is not a
problem.
It is very easy to get an abortion, but it is not always
safe. There are many hospitals and clinics that women can go to. There are
adverts in the back seats of cabs: “quick and easy treatment at such and such a
clinic.” Some women go to get very cheap backstreet abortions, and it can be
very dangerous. They go to places without proper licenses and get a razor
treatment or something like that and it is very harmful.
Most women don’t know about other types of contraception.
The information is not really available. So they just use abortions as
contraception. I think this is changing, if slowly, and more women are learning
about other ways to prevent pregnancy.
Did you hear stories
about women fighting back against patriarchy while you were researching the
novel?
I know a woman who was with a client who wanted a blow job.
He had not given her enough money, so she said no. He told her “stop pretending
you are a noblewoman, you are a common prostitute,” but she still refused to
take less money. He said, “fuck your mother”, and she replied, “leave my mother
out of it.” Again, he said “fuck your mother”, so she picked up a heavy glass
ashtray and she hit him in the face with it. She lost her job for that, and she
lost a few thousand kuai on the deposit she had paid the massage parlour she
worked at as a guarantee she would not run away. But a friend helped her get a
job at a higher-class establishment instead.
I know another woman who ultimately wanted to get out of the
trade. She made a deal with herself that she would get out if she could earn
10,000 kuai. So she earned 10,000 and she said, 20,000 and I will leave. When
she reached 20,000 she said to herself, “now I have to save up to buy a home.”
When she had bought her home she still did not give up the trade. Then she
learned about the dangers of unprotected sex: she got very worried that she had
contracted HIV because she had had unprotected sex. She realised she could have
died by now. So she went for a test. Back then the results would be really
slow, she had to wait several weeks. While she was waiting for the results, she
made a deal with herself. She decided if she got through this without HIV, she
would really quit the trade. Her results came back clean, so she quit.
Part 3 of this interview will be posted on Wednesday 24th May
The interviewer is from Norwich, UK and is
currently based in Beijing, China, where she teaches English Literature at a
state university, and writes about gender and culture in contemporary Asia. Her
writing has featured in various media outlets in China and the UK. Read more at www.zhendegender.com
Lijia Zhang is one of the few
mainland Chinese writers to write in English. Her first book was the memoir: Socialism is
Great! A Worker’s Memoir of the New China
No comments:
Post a Comment