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.

Are you looking for more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.

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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.

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 looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Sex workers in China: between market economy and filial piety - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Twelve year it took author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel to write her book on prostitution in China. She sits down with Josh Chin of the Wall Street Journal to discuss how women are caught between the country's market economy en filial piety.

The Wall Street Journal:

The book took 12 years to complete, which suggests you’ve been thinking about this topic for a while. How has it affected your view of sex in China?

I think the market economy has undermined gender equality because women have shouldered most of the burden as China made the transition from the planned economy. In factories, women are the first to go. In the factory I worked for, all women above 45 years of age were laid off. One year I saw a woman I’d worked with selling newspapers in the street. Without government intervention, women have fewer choices.

In the novel, Lotus talks a lot about helping her brother go to college and dreams about one day returning to her village as the triumphant filial daughter. Is it common that women in China turn to sex work to help relatives?

Almost all the women I know provide financial help to their families. Of course, there’s the filial piety thing. But it also makes them feel less guilty, and gives them more power within the family. One woman told me her brother ended up in jail for some reason, so she worked as a prostitute to finance his wife and children. When the brother got out, he wanted to take his daughter out of school, but the woman said, ‘No, I pay for her. She stays in school.’ So, for some there’s empowerment.

A lot of people might assume sex workers are cynical about relationships, and yet there’s a love story at the heart of your novel. Is that a literary device, or does it have a basis in reality?

What’s interesting is that a lot of the women kept boyfriends. Of course, we all long for love, but they were more passionate about it, because they were dealing in this fake intimacy every day and were really longing for genuine affection.

More in the Wall Street Journal.

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 looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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.

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 looking for more experts at cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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.

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 looking for more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list