Yu Hua - Brothers

Tao Qing was ecstatic about this proposal, immediately pronouncing it a major turning point in Liu Town's development and saying that if it was done well, it could increase the GDP of the entire county by 300 to 500 percent. He told Baldy Li, "Don't you worry. You are welcome to use two, three, or as many streets and alleys as you might need. Even if all of the beautiful virgins in the country end up here, we will still be able to accommodate them."

News of the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition quickly spread throughout the country, and the reporters who had previously retreated like the tide now rushed back in. Baldy Li once again became the choice bone for the entire nation. His smiling face could once again be found in newspapers and on every television channel. PR Liu's boat also rose along with the tide, but he didn't forget to whom he owed his success. He knew if it hadn't been for Baldy Li's trust, he wouldn't be where he was now. Therefore, during the press conference for the competition, PR Liu took care to pepper his answers with "Boss Li."

One reporter asked, "Why is it necessary to host this National Virgin Beauty Competition?"

PR Liu replied evenly, "The competition will help promote traditional Chinese culture, increase the self-respect and ultimately the self-confidence of todays women, and at the same time support higher standards of health and hygiene. It is for these reasons that Boss Li has decided to organize this Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition—"

The reporter interrupted him to ask, "What do you mean by ‘higher standards of health and hygiene'?"

PR Liu answered, "The hymen plays a crucial role in preventing the invasion of foreign microbes, protecting the internal reproductive system, and preserving the body's reproductive ability. This is what Boss Li means by ‘higher standards of health and hygiene.'"

Another reporter asked, "What will be the entry requirements for prospective contestants?"

PR Liu responded as if reciting a tongue twister: "They must be beautiful and elegant, healthy and graceful, sociable and mature, accomplished and modest, respectful of elders and loving of the young, pure and chaste, and with no prior sexual experience."

The reporter then asked, "Will those women who may have torn their hymens while doing sports be permitted to compete? And how about those whose hymens have been breached as a result of sexual violence? Will they be allowed to participate?"

PR Liu answered, "Our Boss Li has the greatest respect for the two categories of women you mention and has given a great deal of thought to the question you have raised, losing appetite and sleep over the matter. In the end, however, he has decided to sacrifice those women to help preserve the integrity and authority of the competition as a whole. He explicitly asked, however, that I use this news conference to pay tribute to those women and exhort all Chinese men to lavish them with love and attention."

A female reporter asked, "Isn't this so-called Virgin Beauty Competition you are hosting actually an expression of feudal misogyny, which is to say a form of sexual discrimination?"

PR Liu shook his head and replied, "We are all our mothers’ children, and we all love and respect our mothers. Our mothers are women, and therefore we love and respect women."

A final reporter asked, "Will the winner of the competition become your Boss Li's wife?"

PR Liu replied with a laugh, "Boss Li is hosting a beauty pageant, not a bridal pageant. Of course, you can't rule out the possibility that he might fall in love with one of the virgin beauties, but that would depend on whether or not she loved him. Love is inherently unpredictable."

When the news conference was televised, everyone in Liu watched it. PR Liu appeared with slick hair and smooth face, wearing a suit and leather shoes, and answered questions flawlessly. Baldy Li also watched the broadcast on television and was very satisfied with PR Liu's performance, remarking, "That old bastard is without question a genius."

Following the news conference, the Inaugural National Virgin Beauty Competition had its grand launch. The competition was divided into a preliminary round, semifinals, and a championship. The virgin beauties participating in the preliminary and semifinal rounds had to pay for their own room and board, and only the hundred finalists would have their food and board provided by the competition organizing committee. Out of those hundred finalists, a first-, second-, and third-place winner would be chosen, and their prizes would be one million, five hundred thousand, and two hundred thousand yuan, respectively. The organizing committee would then help launch the winners’ Hollywood careers and groom them for international stardom.

A blizzard of application letters started arriving — the mail truck deposited a large sack of them at the front desk of Baldy Li's company headquarters every day. With virgins from all over the country applying, the homegrown virgins of Liu Town and the rest of the county didn't want to seem like slackers in comparison, so they all registered as well, declaring that local assets should be kept within the community. The top three prizes should definitely be kept in-house, they declared, and shouldn't be filched away by an outsider.

Of all those who registered, be they homegrown or from afar, most were actually no longer virgins. In fact, some were married, some had already been divorced, others were cohabiting with lovers, and there were even some who had lost count of how many men they had been with. Each of these women, however, had had their hymens reconstructed.

As usual, the townspeople of Liu were like frogs at the bottom of a well, with no perspective on the outside world. It was not until an itinerant charlatan by the name of Wandering Zhou arrived that they realized their competition, in placing such a high value on virgins, had spurred a rage for hymen-reconstruction surgery throughout China. Wandering Zhou told them that a Beijing economist had labeled this the age of the hymen economy. All across the country every medical facility from big-city hospitals to small rural clinics had started offering hymen recons. Wandering Zhou told the people of Liu that hymen-recon surgery had become Chinas most profitable industry and that, from an economists perspective, "the entire hymen economy had its origins in Liu Town." Wandering Zhou concluded, "And that is why I have come."

Eventually the people of Liu came to appreciate the significance of the hymen economy. The county hospital, together with the rural clinics below it, was, of course, the first to benefit from the trend. Its hymen-recon ads could be found on bridge columns, electrical poles, roadside walls, even bathroom stalls. Everywhere you looked, you'd see an ad. You'd wake up in the morning to find one stuck to your front door; while you were eating lunch, more would be slipped under your door. When you went to the market to buy a pair of shoes, the salesman would hand you an advertisement, and the ticket seller would give you one when you went to buy a movie ticket. When you entered a restaurant and perused the menu, you would find an ad stuck inside it, and after ordering braised pig's feet, you would find that in the blink of an eye the dish had become hymen-recon — another flyer having been slipped onto your table and covering up your food.

Now that everyone in Liu — men and women, old and young — knew what hymen-recon surgery was, they said, "It is as simple as having double eyelid surgery."

Children would recite, "The operation lasts thirty minutes and requires only local anesthesia. Afterward there is no need to rest, and it won't affect your work or daily activities or even your menstrual cycle."

Pedicab drivers wore sandwich boards with ads from the county hospitals with a hole in the middle through which the driver could stick his head, as if it were a raincoat. On their chests and backs these drivers wore the following message, written in big yellow letters on a red background: