Below is Part Three 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 does your novel
convey about greater Chinese society, or about societies in general?
Every society has prostitution. There is a saying in China: once
you have food and clothing you start thinking about sex.
Society has become hedonistic after Mao’s regime of sexual purity and
sexual repression. China has become materialistic, restless. Other reasons for
the growing sex industry include growing wealth, relaxed social control and the
resulting growth in individual personal freedom. Plus of course, China’s
population is increasingly mobile. Young migrant workers often can’t bring
their wives with them or establish a relationship.
Prostitutes are real people, and I wanted to expose that. They are not always
sexually appealing, but they know all the tricks of how to flirt and
attract men. The oldest sex worker I met was a woman in her middle 60s. Another middle-aged
sex worker had a grown-up daughter
who was married. Some women really get stuck in the trade and cannot get out. Like any job,
there are drawbacks. But their lives are not totally bleak either.
When she becomes a
prostitute, Lotus has no idea about sexual health. Her clients pay more for sex
without a condom, and one man even washes out an expensive “Golden Gun – Never
Flops” condom for later use. What
are the pervasive attitudes and challenges to sex education?
The legislation states sexual education should be taught in
schools, but it is not compulsory and it is not enforced. It is not on the
government’s list of priorities. There aren’t calls from the public for sexual
education but there are non-governmental organisations providing information on
a wide range of things, from HIV/Aids clinics to promoting openness about
sexuality.
Many prostitutes are not educated about sexual health. Their
bosses often tell them that it is ok not to use a condom, because they get more
money that way. They will say, “it looks clean” and agree to sex without a
condom. Many men will refuse to wear a condom.
One NGO promoting sexual health suggested prostitutes start
using femidoms, because then the women themselves could have control of the contraception
and they don't have to rely on the clients wearing a condom. But the
prostitutes said they cannot use femidoms, because they are too big – in a
raid, they will often swallow the condoms they have on their person, because
condoms (used or unused) will be used as hard evidence by the police. But
femidoms were too big to swallow so they would not carry them or use them.
The detail about Family Treasure washing out the condom for
later use is true. I heard lots of stories like that. That brand, ‘Golden Gun –
Never Flops’, is a real brand of condoms, you know!
Migrants tend to live
on the outskirts of cities where they can find cheap temporary housing. They
seem to occupy a liminal space between urban and rural life, where they find it
hard to integrate. Lotus’s status as a migrant seems to compound her existing
problems. How do migration issues compound women’s problems in China?
The Hukou system prevents migrant workers getting really
good jobs. The Hukou is effectively China’s apartheid system. It is partly because of the
Hukou that migrant workers and urban residents live such separate lives. In the novel, Lotus tries to become a salesperson, she even buys the
clothing for it. But she cannot because she doesn't have the correct residence
papers.
How does the legal
position of sex workers reflect patterns of class-based oppression in China?
Most women come to prostitution through personal choice.
There is very little trafficking, there are very few women who are sold into
prostitution, there are not many pimps. However, there are some cases where the
pimp is the woman’s husband or brother.
Prostitution is illegal. The government does not really know
how to tackle the problem so the police do big raids and crackdowns. The police
arrest as many women as they can. The police will use any evidence they can to
prove the women are prostitutes. Condoms – used or unused – are considered hard
evidence.
Crackdowns are a big problem. The police will beat up the
women and force them to confess. If the woman goes unconscious, they will force
her to drink water mixed with wasabi so they wake up. A woman I know was
sprayed with a high-pressure hose with cold water, and then they put the air
conditioning on. When she vomited, they made her eat her own vomit.
If they can prove that a woman is a prostitute, they will
repatriate her, take her back home. Repatriation means that the woman will be
sent back to her hometown in shame, and her family will have to pay the fine.
That means everyone will find out the truth. They will do anything to avoid
this. I know a woman who slept with the policeman but still had to pay the fine
before they would let her go. They would rather borrow money to pay the fines,
lose all their savings and go bankrupt, than be sent home in shame.
Note: Hukou is a national identification system which determines
where citizens are allowed to live, and is used to control the movement of
people between urban and rural areas. Access to schooling, healthcare,
employment, and owning property all depend on where the individual’s Hukou is
registered.
*
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
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