Annie Wang - The People’s Republic of Desire

I get together with my high school friends Yan Yan and Han in Beijing. Years ago, when I left China for the United States, Yan Yan went to Japan and Han to Hong Kong. This is our first reunion.

Yan Yan has changed so much that I can hardly believe she is the same woman I went to school with. While Han and I sit cross-legged and laugh loudly, Yan Yan sits upright, speaks in a soft voice, and constantly uses her hand to remove the lipstick print left on her teacup. She even covers her mouth with her hand as she smiles.

Every three minutes, she bows to Han and me.

"Yan Yan, I can't believe you've become so feminine. I remember when we used to climb up walls barefooted!" I say accusingly.

Yan Yan replies almost timidly: "You don't know what it feels like to be a woman in Japan."

I say with interest: "Tell us!"

Yan Yan explains: "Japanese people pay much attention to subtle detail. As a woman, to get things done, you have to look pretty and behave properly. If you cross your legs in a business meeting, you lose the deal. It's as simple as that."

Han exclaims: "Sounds like being a woman is more difficult in Japan than in China."

"Sometimes I feel that being a woman in Japan is like putting on a show," says Yan Yan. "As long as you're a good actress, you get your rewards. Especially if you're a good actress with long legs and speak some English, you'd find yourself very popular."

Yan Yan is a success story among the Chinese students in Japan. She has a Ph.D. in art, has held art exhibitions all over Japan, and published a few art books. As a constant guest of Japanese legislators and corporate chief executives, she has become a member of the country's upper class.

I ask Han, "What about you? What's it like to be a woman in Hong Kong?" Han is a success story among mainland women in Hong Kong. She is a director of an American company's Hong Kong headquarters, earning a seven-digit salary.

She has two secretaries and an office at the top of the Lippo Centre, overlooking the Victoria Harbor. "Your language ability is important in doing business in Hong Kong," says Han. She has mastered English, Cantonese, and Shanghainese.

"I can speak Cantonese like a native. So I can hide my origin as a mainlander and pretend to be a native. By doing that, ironically, I've gained more respect from Hong Kong people."

"That's it?" I ask.

"Another secret is to watch your weight all the time," says Han with a smile. "The thinner you are, the more beautiful you're thought to be."

Yan Yan asks me, "What about being a woman in the United States?"

I laugh. "It's easier than being a Beijing girl. First, don't worry about your weight. Asian girls are normally petite there. Second, you can laugh aloud without covering your mouth, and nobody would think of you as rude. Third, there is no need to pretend to be a native. Speaking English with a foreign accent is often considered cute."

Yan Yan says, "It seems you had it easy being a woman in America."

"Yes, I felt free and at ease," I say. "I guess that's why I don't have friends from the Senate or an office that overlooks the bay. Everything has a price."

My colleague Sean, after learning Chinese for four years in London, has come to China as a foreign correspondent. Coming from a working-class neighborhood in Liverpool, Sean calls himself a socialist. He claims that the reason he wants to be a reporter is to speak for the poor. He comes to China because he believes there are more voices from the poor here than in England.

But he is disappointed at the Chinese journalists. He complains to me, "They are capitalists now, always writing about millionaires and celebrities. It's so boring. If China 's journalists don't speak for the people, then I will have to speak for them. Look, whenever they talk about disabled people, they always say disabled people should support themselves. Where is the so cial security system? If parents give birth to a disabled child, does it serve them right? Doesn't society have any responsibility at all? And what about the peasants – the revolution is over fifty years old, but they still don't have medical insurance or pensions, and the local governments still force them to pay all sorts of exorbitant taxes like population taxes, family planning taxes, road construction taxes, textbook taxes, as well as pig taxes. The peasants in the countryside can't earn any money, so they flood into the cities! But look at how the cities treat them – even worse than Americans treat Mexican immigrants!" He is showing me an article of a Henan immigrant worker who was gang-raped in Shenzhen.

The poor woman didn't bring the proper identification card with her so the police put her in the correction center. But for some reason, she was placed in the men's cell and was raped repeatedly by the inmates and guards. After she got out, her parents didn't support her for telling the story to the media because they thought it was scandalous and also they were afraid of retaliation. At first, she listened to them. But her husband insisted that they needed to fight back. With him on her side, she told the local newspaper about the horrifying experience she suffered at the correction center. Soon, it caught the attention of the national media.

"I've been writing an article on this case, but nobody wants to talk to me. I'm sick to death of it. Whenever I go anywhere to report on something, as soon as people hear I am a foreign journalist, they are afraid. The husband of the victim originally agreed to an interview, but then he changed his mind. His lawyer also changed his story. They don't trust me. Why?"

"You are…"

"I'm a foreigner? So I can't be trusted? But doesn't everyone welcome international friends now? Especially foreign businessmen. Is it only their money that's welcome? Is that right? Chinese people are great to me. But why won't they let me interview them?"

"There is a saying: Don't air your dirty linen in public."

"It seems to me that these Chinese people still remember when they were bullied by the English. Niuniu, let's work on a piece about China 's underclass together! At least, the Chinese will speak their minds to you."

Sean's words remind me of Mimi, my lawyer friend who always represents the Chinese underclass. Since I interviewed her for my article on returning Chinese, we have become close friends. Unlike Lulu and Beibei, Mimi doesn't talk about men; instead, she loves talking about books, art, and social issues with me. She takes me to a deaf school, to a migrant workers' dwelling in the south of the city, and to a center for abused women, and helps me gather materials.

In the course of my startling research, I learn about the miserable world that some women still live in today. It is a world of dog-eat-dog poverty, despair, sixteen-hour workdays, struggle, tears, never seeing the light of day, unfairness, prostitution, rape, discrimination, abduction, and slavery. Making these hardships even more unbearable for me to observe, let alone write about, is that in the midst of all the suffering there are women with firm, indomitable, and loving hearts.

The most unforgettable conversation was with a pedicurist from Yangzhou called Huanzi. Huanzi spends twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in a bathhouse – she works, eats, and sleeps there. She earns 1,500 yuan per month and has no medical insurance. She says to me that if she becomes ill, then she would rather die than be a burden to her family. Medical bills are too expensive.

I am unable to keep my usual detachment from my interviewees. Beyond seeing their suffering and writing about their suffering, I have to do something more for these people.