Zhang Lijia: a Chinese sensation at Jaipur Literary Festival

Zhang Lijia

A raving review of the appearance of Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus, a novel, on prostitution in China, at the Jaipur Literary Festival in London, at The Citizen. "I was very fascinated by prostitutes. However, the only prostitution I have done was intellectual prostitution,” Zhang Lijia says.

The Citizen:

A Chinese author has emerged as one of the sensations of the Jaipur Literary Festival underway in London where writers and their admirers have been mingling in the open air. 

Nanjing-born Lijia Zhang, who was employed in a Chinese rocket factory in her younger years, is the author of ‘Socialism is Great’, ‘China Remembers’ and ‘Lotus’, said “Writing in English freed me because in China there is censorship and writing in English meant I did not have to go through censorship.” Zhang was appearing on a panel headlined ‘Words Are All We Have’, alongside Indian writer Anjali Joseph and Sri Lankan novelist Rohan Gunesekera. In her presentation Zhang revealed how she discovered that her grandmother had first been a prostitute and later evolving into her grandfather’s concubine in 1948. 

“I was no rocket scientist, I was just a factory worker”, Zhang said about her own life.. “But I was very fascinated by prostitutes. However the only prostitution I have done was intellectual prostitution.”

More at the Citizen.

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How prostitution came on my radar - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia tells in The Millions how she became interested in prostitution in China, after discovering her grandma was a 'working girl'. It took years to write her bestselling novel Lotus: A Novel.

Zhang Lijia:

I’ve been interested in prostitution ever since a “deathbed revelation” in 1998. As my beloved maternal grandmother lay dying, my mother, an only child, cried her eyes out. She said to me: “You have no idea how much she has suffered: the famine, the Nanjing Massacre, all these political movements, and she was a working girl in the ’30s.” 

A working girl? I had a hard time reconciling the image of a sex worker with my grandma, a devout Buddhist who chanted Amitabha all day long and who raised me. A strikingly beautiful woman, she had high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. Dimples danced on her cheeks as she talked, always softly. As a traditional woman, she insisted on wearing a Chinese-style cotton jacket with a high mandarin collar, fixed by butterfly buttons. In the morning, she plaited my hair and, in the evening, she cooked for me and the family. 

My mother explained that grandmother had become an orphan as a child and was later sold into a local brothel in Yangzhou, a small town in Eastern China. She worked for 10 years until—while on the job—she met my grandfather, a small-time grain dealer. 

I kept wondering what her life was like inside the brothel. How did she cope? I quizzed my mother about grandma’s former life, but she was unable to enlighten me; she said the brothel was a middle-class establishment set in a traditional courtyard house named Pavilion of Spring Fragrance, its front always lit up by bright red lanterns. My grandma had never liked to talk about herself. 

I keenly read books, both fiction and nonfiction, on prostitution in China. I became fascinated with the subject. In China, the oldest human profession was wiped out after the Communists took power in 1949. Prostitution, in their view, was the vice produced by evil capitalism. In the reform era, however, it has made a spectacular return due to growing wealth, relaxed social control, and a large and mobile population. Although illegal, in every city in this vast country, there’s at least one “red light district” where working girls operate from massage parlors, hair salons, or bathing centers—all of them fronts for brothels.

More in The Millions.

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The crude reality for women in the China market - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Liijia

London-based author Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus, a novel, on prostitution in China, recalls at Varsity the crude reality women have to face in China's economy, a story many outside China might not see, speaking at Cambridge PEN, about the process of writing her latest book.

Varsity:

“I want to show the crude reality of the Chinese market economy and the resilience of women struggling in the bottom of society,” Zhang adds. 

Like the characters in Lotus, Zhang has experienced what life is like in a rapidly changing China, having spent a decade working at a factory that produced intercontinental missiles. Although Zhang had dreamed of becoming a journalist and writer from a young age, she was taken out of school to work at a factory at the age of sixteen. Whilst working at the factory, Zhang taught herself English. 

“Reading gave me escape and enlightenment, and it gave me a route to escape the tough reality [of the factory] and to broaden my horizons”, she says. 

Upon completing a Master’s degree in Creative and Life Writing in London, Zhang returned to China and her dreams took flight as she began to write. She wrote a memoir about her time at the factory, titled “Socialism is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of New China. With Lotus being Zhang’s first fictional novel, she mentions how the transition from fiction to nonfiction writing styles was “extremely challenging”. 

“The freedom to create a fictional world was both exciting and intimidating.” Freedom also takes on another meaning in the context of contemporary China when it comes to censorship. A previous book she wrote in Chinese about the Western image of Chairman Mao was censored, Zhang decided to write in English in order to “freely express” herself. 

This helped Zhang overcome another type of censorship that was not political, but rather “a writer’s own self-censorship”, as she calls it. 

“By writing in English, I gained unexpected literary freedom. By not being inhibited by my mother tongue, I can also be bold as I experiment with the language. I use different words and I structure my sentences differently, consciously and unconsciously. Of course, my experiment doesn’t always work. But I enjoy the adventure.” 

Although having studied English for thirty years, Zhang says she still faces great challenges when writing in English, “I write too slowly, and I don’t understand the subtle meanings of certain words, so in that sense, I still regard myself as being a novice.” 

Throughout her journey, Zhang draws upon many literary inspirations. She cites George Orwell’s four reasons for writing: egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose, as key drivers of her motivation to write. In particular, she remains drawn to Jane Eyre, “a plain-looking character full of spirit and longing”, Zhang comments. In more recent years, she mentions how reading her MA professor Blake Morrison’s memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father shaped the techniques she had used to complete her own memoir. 

Following the success of Lotus, Zhang is now turning her focus back towards non-fiction. She is working on a narrative non-fiction book about the children of migrant workers in China, also known as their ‘left-behind’ children. “There are currently 61 million children living in villages across the country without both or one parent,” she says. The book will focus on a rural community in Southwest China’s Guizhou province, to examine the human cost of China’s economic miracle. As preparation, “I am reading or re-reading outstanding literary non-fiction books on China, such as Wish Lantern by Alec Ash and Factory Girls by Leslie Chang.” 

As for aspiring writers, Zhang’s words of advice is to just “read and write and live your life.” “Just going ahead and writing is the best thing you can do,” she says with a smile.

More at Varsity.

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Sex, money and guanxi - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus, a novel on prostitution in today's China talks ahead of her lecture at Spittoon Book Club talk January 19 at Timesdirect.tv in Beijing. (Follow the links for more details)

Timesdirect:

It seems that in your book, prostitution is portrayed as a legitimate choice when rampant capitalism condemns a young woman to a life without any thrill or space for individual expression. 

I certainly wouldn’t use the word “legitimate.” Rather, for some of the most vulnerable women, it is one of the few or only choices they have – to sell their own bodies. For girls serving the upscale market, it is sometimes a lifestyle choice, a way to obtain quick money. For clients, yes, some visit prostitutes seeking thrill, among other reasons. 

At some point in the book Lotus, the protagonist, finds pleasure with one of her clients, one pleasure that she never felt before. The stigma of prostitution is one thing, but the stigma of women’s sexuality is also another subject that you touch upon. 

I’d like to portray women as three-dimensional human beings with sexual desires. I found it quite interesting that some women experienced sexual pleasure that they never experienced with their husbands. Some felt bad about it as they regarded their work as “dirty” and it felt wrong to get pleasure out of this disgraceful job. This is one of the reasons that Lotus turns to Buddha – to cleanse herself. 

Lotus finds a very understanding and open-minded man in the character of the photographer Bing but their relationship is still complicated. What was the meaning behind Bing’s character? 

The photographer Bing is obsessed with photographing the girls. Apart from his noble reasons, there are also selfish reasons. It is a complicated relationship because they come from such different backgrounds and have different expectations. By introducing the character Bin, a better educated urban man, I was able to discuss some broad social issues. 

In the end, we learn that Lotus’ happiness is not going to be dependent on her relationship with a man. 

Yes, for me, it is a novel about a young woman finding herself. 

We need more novels about sex, money, and guanxi. 

Of course!

More at Timesdirect.tv

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Why the sex industry boomed in China - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel, a book on prostitution in China, divided into the current sex industry and explains to Brave Media why it boomed. Earnings can be ten times as high compared to a factory job, she says.

Brave Media:

What kinds of women did you encounter through your research? Had most of them moved from villages into urban areas in search of work, like the protagonist in your novel, Lotus? 

They are usually migrant workers, from the countryside; something has gone wrong in their life, they are uneducated, unskillful, and of course there’s the temptation of money. In the vast majority of cases, women enter the trade of their own accord, but often driven by desperate poverty or something gone wrong: domestic violence, dumped by the husband, or falling pregnant as a single mother… 

How much more does prostitution pay in comparison to, say, a factory job? 

It’s huge. It could be ten times more. 

The sex industry has developed rapidly in China in recent years. Why is that? 

For many reasons. First, the growing wealth. We have a saying in Chinese: ‘once you have clothes to wear and your stomach is full, you start to think about sex.’ Of course in China for a long time people didn’t have enough to eat. 

And also relaxed social control: before, if you had a mistress or an extra marital affair, you probably ended up in a labour camp. China for a long time was sexually repressed. Now there’s freedom. I think some of the old attitudes towards women, which had been suppressed by Mao, have made a comeback. STDs are growing fastest among older men of above 55 or 60… They’ve probably now got some money, and felt they’ve missed out on something, and they are not switched on to how to protect themselves. They belong to the generation that believes that a decent woman shouldn’t have an interest in sex. 

Also, prostitution has become part of the business deal. For example I have a friend who is from Nanjing; he has a cushy job and his company does high end products, green energy, high tech stuff. According to regulations, such a company enjoys 15% of a tax deduction. But in order to get that, they have to invite tax bureau officials wining and dining. But these days wining and dining is not enough… Prostitution has become the lubricant of business. It’s very common. 

But the fundamental reason is the growing income gap between men and women. Many of my friends find it hard to believe, because within their circle they meet many very capable, high achieving young women. Sure. The reform brought lots of opportunities to both men and women, especially educated urban women. But overall China has shifted from a planned economy to the market economy, and women have shouldered too much of the burden in cost. 

When a company has to let off workers, women are always the first to go, and it’s so much harder for them to find jobs. Female graduates – before, they were allocated jobs. Women of child-bearing age are often refused. And sometimes when women get pregnant, they sack them. Sometimes they force them to write, ‘I promise I will not get pregnant,’ otherwise they will not get hired. UN Women did a research: women in the city earn 67.3% of what men make, and in the countryside only 56%. That has driven some of the most vulnerable women to take up prostitution.

More in Brave Media.

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China: A fast changing society - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Stability is the key word for China's political leaders, but when author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China looks back at her last thirty years for her life, she sees a unbelievable change, she tells in a wide-ranging interview in the Australian Financial Review.

The Australian Financial Review:

Zhang says today's situation is very different from 30 years ago. The initial working title for her memoir was Frog in a Well, to convey her feelings of being trapped in the factory, only able to see a patch of sky that hinted at the world beyond. At the factory, she was banned from wearing lipstick or dating and female workers had to prove they weren't pregnant by showing evidence of bleeding every month. 

Today, Zhang says people feel more comfortable with the freedoms they have. This has stopped people from speaking out about the government's tighter control of society, which Zhang finds frustrating. 

"I find it incredible so many people have swallowed the line that what we want is stability. I was even having a conversation with someone who supported me and took part in the demonstration [a group of 300 factory workers organised by Zhang to march in late May 1989 as a show of solidarity with the protesters in Tiananmen Square] and he saw that as a youthful, impulsive action and said China now needed stability." 

Zhang tells me she left China in 1990 to live in Britain but returned to Beijing three years later and began working for the ABC's then China correspondent Ali Moore as a fixer. She resigned from the ABC to become a journalist in her own right and her writing has appeared in the South China Morning Post, Far Eastern Economic Review, Japan Times, The Guardian, Newsweek and The New York Times...

Then: doing research on prostitution has not been easy.

"Prostitution is still a very sensitive topic," she says, with a distinct British accent, honed by years of listening to the BBC. Zhang also lived in Britain during her marriage to British reporter Calum MacLeod, which ended 12 years ago. The couple have two daughters. "Even academics have trouble to do research. They cannot get funding," she says "In China prostitutes are stigmatised. People think they are dirty and cheap. A few years ago there was a big crackdown [on the sex industry] in Dongguan. Prostitutes were paraded in the street." 

Zhang says a film director showed some interest in the novel but he was told by the authorities "prostitution doesn't exist in China".

More in the Australian Financial Review. 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.

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Buddhism and freedom in prostitution - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China discusses Buddhism, freedom and fun as part of the background for her book with Radii China. “Without the inhibition of writing in my mother tongue, I can take an adventure in my adopted language” .

RadiiChina:

Like the lead character Lotus, my grandma was a Buddhist prostitute. I found it fascinating that [a] high percentage [of] working girls have faiths of some sort. I believe religion plays a role of ritualized cleansing, something to make themselves feel cleaner and better. It is driven by survival. Religion plays a different role in Bing’s life. He starts to take an interest in religion as he is going through his first existential crisis. In other words, he is looking for the meaning of life. [They have] different levels of needs. 

How does the concept of freedom influence your writing, especially in contemporary China? 

Art/literature and freedom are synonymous. I think one of the many reasons that the Chinese literary scene is not as vibrant as it should be is due to censorship, as well as writers’ self-censorship. I suffered from this censorship. Some twenty years ago, upon the invitation of a Chinese publisher, I wrote a book about the Western image of Chairman Mao while I was living in the UK. But the book failed to pass censorship. So I made the decision to write in English, so that I can freely express myself. By writing in English, I also gained unexpected literary freedom: without the inhibition of writing in my mother tongue, I can take an adventure in my adopted language. Besides, writing is the space where a writer can feel most free. 

In your book, you show that a lot of these women actually chose to go into the profession where I think a lot of us think sex workers are “raped, dumped by husbands, or tricked by human traffickers.” The other available professions to these migrant workers, like working in a factory or a restaurant, are grueling and low-paid. Why did you decide to show that a lot of these women actually chose to get into sex work as opposed to the traditional narrative that it’s more forced on vulnerable women? 

My extensive research shows that the vast majority of sex workers enter the trade on their free will, but are often obliged by some unfortunate circumstances: having been abandoned by their husbands, having lost their jobs; having some family members seriously ill; or falling for the wrong men. Yes, there’s the temptation of money. Generally, to turn tricks is one of the few or only option they have. I hope the stories I described reflected the reality. By the way, for upper-class prostitutes, it is often a question of lifestyle choice. 

More in RadiiChina.

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.

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Women in China's market economy - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia at the BBC

The Times Literary Supplement reports on an evening with author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China recently in London. One of the subjects: how did Chinese women fare under the market economy, introduce by Deng Xiaoping. About the government as a big boys' club.

TLS:

Zhang commented that since the Cultural Revolution, changes may have enabled corporate growth, but haven’t done much for social welfare or social equality: “Deng Xiaoping’s reforms afforded some opportunities for educated, urban women. But the market economy has undermined gender equality. The government retreated from its role and let the market take over, but the market doesn’t always treat women kindly. Women are bearing the brunt of the shift from the planned economy to the free-market economy: women have to attain higher grades to be admitted to universities, women are the ones who are laid off first, women over forty-five are sacked from companies, companies can stipulate that they want only young and pretty women”. 

Zhang’s research showed that prostitutes are not just vulnerable to violent men, but also to police harassment and abuse. Although prostitution is considered a social evil,  Zhang added, “it’s placed under administrative law, not criminal law, so it’s dealt with through fines and sanctions. The police interpret the laws themselves. They beat up the women and extract ‘confessions’, put them in detention with no legal representation. They have leeway for corruption, abuse and a violation of the women’s rights”. Meanwhile, she argued, measures to curb prostitution “don’t tackle fundamental social problems. The root of the problem is the growing gender gap and a thin social safety net”. 

Will gender equality improve in this fascinating and rapidly transforming country? When it comes to change driven from the top down, Lijia Zhang isn’t hopeful: “Female political participation is low – women make up less than a quarter of the National People’s Congress and well under a fifth of the Standing Committee. And the top level of government is just one big boys’ club”.

More in the TLS.

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.

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Prostitution: A mirror of society - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Prostitution is a mirror of society, tells Beijing-based author Zhang Lijia at the BBC. Her book Lotus: A Novel shows some of China's most urgent problems related to prostitution: migration, the gap between men and women and moral decline.

While entering the sex trade on their free will, most women did so for economic reasons, she tells. They gain economic independence, but often against a price. Much of their income is used to support their families back home, who often have no idea about the source. Why prostitution in China should be decriminalized.

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.

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You can see the full clip here.
Zhang Lijia at the BBC

Lotus: a mirror of China's society - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Sarah Mellors reviews for the LA Review of Books Zhang Lijia's Lotus: A Novel. The novel is a telling story of how China's society works, she says, and both main characters Lotus and Bing illustrate many issues: rural-urban divide, economic development without political liberalization, the post-Mao moral vacuum and money worshiping, and the tension between so-called traditional Chinese values and modern concerns.

LA Review of Books:

Within the hierarchy of Chinese prostitutes, Lotus is close to the bottom, working in a massage parlor that also offers erotic services. For most sex workers, the best they can hope for is a permanent position as an ernai (literally, second tit), a mistress whose housing and daily expenses are covered long term by a wealthy male patron. Though ernai rarely become wives, they can enjoy otherwise unattainable degrees of financial security and live in luxury. 

Yet, when multiple businessmen demand that Lotus become their ernai, she declines their offers. Instead, she falls for Bing, a photographer educated at Tsinghua University (one of China’s top schools) who is 16 years her senior, and who left his job in business to pursue a passion project of documenting the lives of Shenzhen’s sex workers. Through interactions among Lotus, Bing, and other characters, the book chronicles the changes in China since the period of reform and opening up that Deng Xiaoping initiated in 1978. 

Zhang’s lens zooms in and out, balancing Lotus and Bing’s personal lives with critiques of the sociopolitical climate as a whole. Lotus and Bing’s continual search for meaning and a sense of self beyond the quest for money mirrors the crisis of an entire generation of Chinese. Bing, highly educated and significantly older than Lotus, is representative of the generation of idealistic intellectuals who peacefully protested against government authoritarianism in 1989. Lotus, a generation younger, encounters a similar existential crisis but from the perspective of a poor migrant worker seeking to reconcile the hedonism of the city with her conservative rural upbringing and Buddhist faith. 

As in the LGBTQ novel Beijing Comrades, which I reviewed for this publication a year ago, readers of Lotus will encounter a vast array of topics related to modern China, including the growing rural-urban divide, economic development without political liberalization, the post-Mao moral vacuum and money worshiping, and the tension between so-called traditional Chinese values and modern concerns. These themes are effortlessly integrated into Lotus’s coming-of-age story. Against this backdrop, Zhang emphasizes the fortitude of her protagonist as much as Lotus’s vulnerability and suffering. The book highlights the ways in which sex work can lead to upward mobility for young women as well as abuse and social stigma. Well researched and deftly written, Lotus is at times cutting and raw, at other points delicate and poetic.

More in the LA Review of Books.

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When your stomach is full, you start thinking about sex - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China discusses at TimeOut Shanghai her book, the growth of prostitution and how it relates to women's lives. "When your stomach is full, you start thinking about sex."

TimeOut Shanghai:

Is the character Lotus typical of these women’s experiences? 

'She’s not based on one person, but many of the small details are real. Of course, a prostitute’s life is not a fun life, but they are still three-dimensional women. Their lives are not complete misery either. There is a very famous book by Lao She called Yue Yar – the character Yue Yar is a prostitute – and oh my God, her life was totally, utterly miserable the whole time. The character was just not believable. 

'I spent lots of time listening to very funny anecdotes – these girls could be so much fun, and they really support each other and form strong relationships. Some of them had experienced sexual pleasure they had never had with their husbands, they received compliments and flattery they might not get elsewhere, sometimes even gifts and flowers. One woman said to me, "Flowers! Why didn’t he just give me more money!?". One even told me that a client wanted her to dress up like she was from The Red Detachment of Women, the ballet from the 1960s [laughs]. 

'I think these women were able to enjoy the power brought by money. I saw some who improved their position in the family, or with their husbands, because they were bringing in their own money. They often became more assertive. And their life is not all miserable.' 

Do you think prostitution is growing in China? 

'Definitely yes. China has been repressed for quite a long time, but there is now growing wealth, a relaxing of control, and a sexual revolution. STDs are growing fastest among older men – they often feel they’ve missed out on something and want to go to prostitutes who they believe are experienced and skilful. Their wives are in their 50s or 60s, and were brought up to believe that women shouldn’t be interested in sex, so tend to be quite conservative. The men don’t have knowledge about protecting themselves either. 

'It’s also a cultural thing – after all, my grandfather took my grandmother as a concubine. It’s an old way for men to show their wealth and prestige, and this old mentality is coming back with the ernai [mistresses] among rich men. We have a saying in China: When your stomach is full, you start thinking about sex.'

More at TimeOut Shanghai.

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The little people, and their religious believes - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Journalist Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China hides nice jewels in different corners. Sex workers often held very strong religious believes, she tells Karen Ma in AsianCha."I believe it is their way of cleansing themselves, but also because they feel the deities won't judge them."

AsianCha:

KM: In the novel, I found Lotus' strong belief in Buddhism fascinating. In your research, did you find many working girls were very religious?

LZ: Yes, many sex workers are very religious. One woman I interviewed told me about a dream, which I borrowed for the novel. She dreamt that she died—in fact, at one point she was obsessed with the idea of death, and often thought she was going to die. So she wrote down her bank details for her mother, in case she died and no one knew where to find the money she had in various banks. In this dream, she was dead. Her whole family—parents, sisters and daughter—came to say goodbye in front of her tomb. They laid down a bunch of white flowers. From death, she watched them, as if in a film. On closer examination, she saw the flowers were made of toilet paper.

It seems to me a high percentage of working girls have some kind of religious belief, either Buddhism or Christianity. I believe it is their way of cleansing themselves, but also because they feel the deities won't judge them. 

KM: Would you say your strong interest in writing about characters/people on the fringe has something to do with your own background?

LZ: Yes, absolutely. Because of my poor family, I've always taken an interest in the "little people"—xiao ren wu, those who struggle at the bottom of society. Artists tend to be attracted to those living on the fringe. Also I believe how these people are treated is the true measure of a society.

More in AsianCha.

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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.

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Life of a prostitute - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel got already much praise from reviewers. For the South China Morning Post she describes the life of Yong Gan, the main female character in her book, and how she ended, like 10 million other women, in prostitution in China.

Zhang Lijia:

Yong Gan went to the factory all the same, and life there turned out much as the woman had predicted. She quit the production line after just three months and headed to Tianjin to join the massage parlour, a middle-range establishment on the outskirts of the city. 

After a brief training period, she started working as a masseuse, usually for male clients. For a one-hour session, she would be paid 60 yuan (HK$68). Her colleagues, however, were making a lot more. Going slightly beyond her brief, so to say, would yield more than twice as much; offering full-fledged sexual services would earn 600 yuan – her monthly salary at the factory. 

Prostitution is illegal in China but is rampant in venues such as massage parlours, nightclubs, hair salons and karaoke bars. Some researchers believe there may be more than 10 million prostitutes in the country. The government has brought in more than a dozen laws to check prostitution in the past couple of decades, in the course of which it has shifted its emphasis from eradicating prostitution to containing it. As a result, shady parlours manage to operate without hindrance for the most part, even though raids are reported from time to time – last month in Beijing, three exclusive “nightclubs” were busted. 

Yong Gan’s slide down the slippery path to prostitution was as rapid as it was painful. At every step, she rationalised it was all for her daughter. The hours were long, starting at noon and dragging into the small hours. In between, she would usually fit in a couple of “small jobs” and a couple of “big jobs”. 

She would have to pretend to be cheerful in front of the clients, no matter how exhausted she was. Yet the worst part was the constant anxiety. When a client turned up, the girls would gather in the reception area, striking alluring poses and smiling invitingly. “If I failed to be picked, I would be disappointed and anxious. If I got picked, I felt anxious, worrying he might be difficult to please, or even violent.”

More in the South China Morning Post.

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.

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The people behind my novel Lotus - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

After the first raving reviews of Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China, interviewers dive into her research and how her novel relates to real people. At ChinaReadings Mike Cormack takes a look at (among others) the photographer Zhao Tienlin.

ChinaReadings:

Can you tell us the story of how you researched the novel? 

I interviewed many sex workers in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Beihai, Beijing and Tianjin. When you don’t know them well, they don’t always tell you the whole story. I tried to make friends with them, but it was hard to maintain a friendship with them, as their lives were often transient as they moved from one city to another, from one parlour to another, they changed their mobile or they simply vanished. What really helped me to gain insight was my experience of working for a NGO for female sex workers in a northern city in China. Lotus is a purely work of fiction (not another memoir based on personal experience) but many details, Lotus’s first handjob, for example, are real, and learned from the girls I befriended. 

The character Binbing is based on the real photographer Zhao Tielin, who photographed sex workers in Hainan. Did you meet Zhao in person? 

Yes, I indeed met him, quite a few times. But I never really had in-depth conversations with him, which would have allow me to find out the deeper reasons why he would live among the working girls and photographed them obsessively, beyond the grand reason of giving a voice to people with no voice. I was hoping to do so after I got to know him better. But he fell ill and passed away. I did read all of his books. The photographer character Hu Binbing in Lotus is inspired by Zhao. What’s Hu’s motivation? I hinted – perhaps too subtly – that photographing prostitutes serves Hu as a tool to achieve success, to prove to his ex-wife that she’s wrong about him, as well as to feed his own sexual fantasies.

More at ChinaReadings.

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.

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Why and how should prostitution be decriminalized - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

In China most women enter the prostitution on their own free will. The government is criminalizing them, forcing them into a submissive position. What can be done? Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution researched the sex trade in China, and possible solutions and discusses government approaches.

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.

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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.

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Prostitution: a career move in an unequal society - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of the much-acclaimed book Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China discusses with Eric Fish on the weblog of the Asia Society how Chinese women end up in this trade. While triggered off by inequality, it is a way to improve their lives, she says.

The Asia Society:

How had the women you met usually ended up getting into sex work? 

Quite a few women I interviewed worked very hard on production lines in factories for very little money. Then they talked among their friends and found out about jobs in massage parlors. In the beginning, the line is often blurred — some places offer legitimate massages and also sexual services, so women will start off doing normal massages and gradually start adding on sexual services when they see how much more money they can make. 

Most women are migrant workers from rural areas, some are laid off workers from small towns, especially in Dongbei (China’s struggling northeastern region that’s now often referred to as a rust belt). There are also quite a few older women who are divorced or left abusive husbands and cannot otherwise support themselves. When they leave the countryside for the city, very few plan to get into sex work. It’s a hard decision in most cases. Sometimes it’s because of tragic personal circumstances. 

Almost all of the women I knew sent money back to their families — it is out filial duty. One woman I met told me her brother was sent to prison so she supported her sister-in-law and her children for years. I think many of the women need something like that to feel good about themselves and the work they’re doing, so they send a lot of money home. I'm sure they struggle to come to terms with the work, especially since most rural Chinese women grew up with a very conservative upbringing. 

I spoke with one woman who said in the beginning that she always used the phrase chi kui (to get the short end of the bargain) when talking about getting paid for sleeping with men. But then an older more experienced women told her, “Don't think like that, we're making use of them.” So she came to terms with it and now tells other women the same thing. 

What role do you think gender inequality plays in fueling China’s sex trade? 

In my book, Lotus has to stop her schooling because the family thinks they'll just end up marrying her off. Since she’s a girl, there's no point in wasting money on her education. Save the resources for the boy — that’s a common attitude in rural China, especially in the poorest areas. So rural women are generally much worse off than boys in terms of education. The political system, of course, is another problem. Because of the hukou residency system, rural residents still cannot apply for certain jobs. Economic reforms brought a lot of opportunities, but uneducated rural women really missed out. 

Ultimately, that’s part of why prostitution is such a big industry in China. With growing wealth and gender income inequality, I think concubine culture plays big a role. Men used to keep concubines and mistresses as a way to show prestige, and they still do the same. The growing wealth gap between urban men and rural women really magnifies this.

More at the Asia Society.

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.

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An uplifting book on a sad subject: review of Lotus by Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Commentator Dan Southerland of Radio Free Asia is clearly touched by the moving book Lotus: A Novel by journalist Zhang Lijia on the life of prostitutes in China. "An uplifting book on a sad subject," he says about the book.

Radio Free Asia:

A second book, titled simply Lotus, is a novel that provides deep insights into the lives of the migrant Chinese workers whose cheap labor has created China’s economic miracle. 

Among those workers, thousands of women who feel crushed by assembly-line factory work in the big cities have turned to prostitution.  A character named Lotus is one of them. 

Author Lijia Zhang creates a sympathetic portrait of this young prostitute, at the same time shedding light on the plight of China’s migrant workers. 

As journalist and writer Ian Johnson says in a review, Zhang's book opens a window into “a land of underground sex trade, corrupt police, desperate migrants, and flawed characters trying to make the right decisions.”... 

Her sympathetic portrayal of the life of a prostitute named Lotus working at a massage parlor in the economically booming city of Shenzhen also turns out to be a love story and a testament to one woman’s strength. 

Lotus’s story begins as a typical one for many migrant workers, the unsung heroes of China’s economic rise. 

Her massage parlor in Shenzhen lies hundreds of miles to the southeast of her rural village in Sichuan Province, and she can rarely afford to make a trip home. 

Her main aim in life is to send money home to assist her family and ultimately to help her brother Shadan realize his dream of entering a university.  He would be the first in his poor village to achieve this goal. 

Her family has been told that Lotus is working in a Sichuan restaurant in Shenzhen and not as prostitute. 

Like so many migrant workers, she had arrived in Shenzhen to work in a factory outside the city. Her cousin, nicknamed “Little Red,” had talked her into taking the job. But after her cousin died in a fire at the factory, she decided to find work in the city. 

When her lack of a high school diploma disqualified her from the best jobs, she turned to prostitution, first as a street walker and later in a massage parlor, often fronts for prostitution. 

While officially illegal, prostitution has become an industry in China that would appear to be hard to eliminate, though police do launch periodic campaigns against it.  One of the most dramatic scenes in the novel describes a raid on her massage parlor in which some of Lotus’s friends are beaten. 

The camaraderie among the girls while under detention, their jokes about their plight, and the offer of one to share what little money she has to pay off the police becomes one of the most touching moments in the book. 

It’s hard to imagine that a book on this sad subject could be uplifting, but this one is.

More at Radio Free Asia.

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

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