The depth and breadth of Zhang Lijia's Lotus - review

Zhang Lijia

The Asian Review of Books puts author and journalist Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel in perspective in their review by Glyn Ford of the widely acclaimed work. "In the end the women are stronger than the men," Ford concludes.

The Asian Review of Books:

Zhang Lijia has moved from fact to fiction. After her 2008 "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New Chinamapping her late blooming from monolingual willful factory worker to bilingual provocateur, we have in Lotus a first novel detailing the life and loves, trials and tribulations of a group of young migrant women sucked into South China’s sex industry. 

The distance traveled between the two books is less than might appear. “Socialism is Great!” —the exclamation mark is crucial—was an autobiographical account of the author’s “coming of age” yet Lotus retains strong biographical threads. A deathbed admission revealed a grandmother sold to a brothel as a young prostitute in the 1930s served as the germ for the novel. 

Zhang’s foundation was the academic work of two US feminists on the new China sex trade, built on by meeting Lanlan, a former prostitute and then NGO worker. Zhang volunteered herself for the same NGO, Tianjin Xingai House, distributing condoms to working girls in the City’s massage parlors and hair saloons. Lanolin is part of Lotus. But the whole novel is peopled with spirits from the author’s past. Hu Binbing, the failed and divorced businessman of the book, who has turned to photojournalism, is the alter ego of the late Zhao Tielin, a photographer who embedded himself amongst the prostitutes of the Hainan slums. The transformation of autodidact village boy to urban intellectual recapitulates the metamorphosis of Zhang’s rocket factory mentor almost two generations earlier. These characters provide a depth to the novel. 

For breadth, there is the gamut of China’s social concerns, internal immigration and corruption, materialism and the collapse of community. Lotus—and her friend Little Red—are enticed away from the their rural fastness by Hua, one of the first village girls to flea country for Shenzhen’s urban maw. The two young girls succumb to a seductive vision far from the realities of the mind-numbing robotic work they find in Workshop’s 7 and 6 of their shoe factory. Little Red’s dream is extinguished after she and her fellow workers in Workshop 6 are burnt to death behind its padlocked doors. Company cash arrests justice.

More in the Asian Review of Books.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

  Are you interested in more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check this list.

Exploring China´s flower girls - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

The leading Chinese magazine Caixin interviews author Zhang Lijia about her book Lotus: A Novel about prostitution in China. "Prostitutes are real people, and I wanted to expose that. Like any job, there are drawbacks. But their lives are not totally bleak either."

Caixin:

Zhang: Every society has prostitution. There is a saying in China: “Bao nuan si yinyu wenbao er si yinyu” — which means once you have food and clothing, you start thinking about sex. I have always been curious about the women who fill this social need. 

Chinese 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. Imagine a young migrant laborer on a construction site who works long hours and barely leaves the site, where he probably lives too. How could a man like this possibly provide a home for his family in the city, or maintain a relationship outside the workplace? 

I met many women like the characters in the novel. I met women like Xia. They are old but still in the trade. They are not always sexually appealing, but they know all the tricks of how to flirt and attract men. So everyone finds clients in some way. The oldest sex worker I met was a woman in her mid-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. The women have to stick together, but there is jealousy there too. They will comment on appearances: “She is so flat-chested, how does she get clients?” 

Prostitutes are real people, and I wanted to expose that. 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 condom for later use. What are the pervasive attitudes toward sex education, and what is being done to challenge them? 

Legislation says sex education should be part of the curriculum 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 organizations 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” (referring to the man’s penis) and make them agree to sex without a condom. Many men will refuse to wear a condom. 

One NGO promoting sexual health suggested prostitutes start using “femidoms” (female condoms) because then the women themselves could have control of the contraception and they don't have to rely on their 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 police. But femidoms were too big to swallow so they would not carry them or use them. 

The details about Family Treasure (a character in the book) washing out the condom for later use are true. I heard lots of stories like that. That brand “Golden Gun — Never Flops” is a real brand of condoms, you know!

More in Caixin 

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more stories about Zhang Lijia? Check out this list.

Preparing two books on China prostitution - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Celebrity author Zhang Lijia is preparing two books on prostitution in China, one fiction, the other non-fiction. An arduous task, she explains in WildChina.com. Wild China:

Lijia has been concentrating her efforts on two books concerning prostitution in China. While she is only a couple months from putting the finishing touches on a work of fiction, she has yet to really dig in to her second book.  This second book, a work of non-fiction, brings to light many realities of prostitution in China–an issue that has received relatively little attention.  And as she notes, “the history of prostitution in contemporary China is a barometer of the country’s changes throughout the modern era.” For her book Lijia has interviewed multiple sex workers, but says that building relationships with them has been difficult. One day a girl will be available to talk, the next she will refuse. Sometimes girls disappear completely.

It has not all been bad news though. Some of the women Lijia has spoken with were able to escape their brothels and dedicate their time to educating other prostitutes about the dangers of sexually transmitted infections. Lijia always hopes her writing can lead to more such stories.

Lijia says that when she thinks about her writing, she sees it as pushing her towards her greater goal. As someone who grew up in China she has access and insight into local society, but also has the education that allows her to share the realities of Chinese life with the rest of the world.  “My self-appointed mission in life is being the bridge, being the cultural bridge.” Lijia’s life goal is to increase global understanding. If that isn’t why we travel, what is?

More in Wild China.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

On Thursday November 8 the China Weekly Hangout (10pm Beijing Time, 3pm CET, 10am EST) will focus on the future of nuclear power in China, what are the risks after Fukushima, and might a succesful NIMBY protest be possible? Here you can register at our events page. Or see the announcement here.

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Mapping out a city: the sex workers - Tricia Wang

Tricia Wang

Sociologist Tricia Wang describes on her weblog how she sets up her field work in China. Through good contacts with taxi drivers she explores the basic features of a city: who is paying where and what for sex?

Tricia Wang:

One of the ways I map the city is to quickly figure out where people go to pay for sex and have sex.  In China, the sex worker industry encompasses all economic levels. It's a bit complex to figure out which hotels and karoke bars are for high-end clients to which ones are for every day citizens. 

There are several levels where people pay for sex in most first to second tier Chinese cities:

1. super high end brothel (10,000RMB and up)
2. the mayor's brothel ( based off of conversations I estimate it to be around several thousand RMB)
3. the policeman's brothel ( based off of conversations I estimate it  to be around 200-1000RMB)
4. the business person's (200-1000RMB)
5. the citizen's brothels (5-100RMB)
6. street walkers who charge aound 20-50RMB - client pays for hotel

When the police do sweeps and arrest sex workers, only those who work in what I call the "citizen's brothels" get arrested. Street walkers can be easily arrested anytime and they are the most vulnerable because most of the time they don't work with the protection of an overseer. 

All the other brothels pay off the police or some other department to protect themselves. The police only go to the police-protected brothels and of course the mayor's brothel is only accessible to higher up government officials. The super high end brothels are accessible for anyone who has money. Here are some fieldnotes from one of my earlier attempts to map out sex in Wuhan last year around October.

More in Tricia Wang's weblog.

Tricia Wang is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

More about Tricia Wang, exploring China's underbelly in Storify.

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