The Good Women Of China

by Xinran

  ‘You saved our skins!’ the director of programming stuttered, his hands trembling.

  ‘Enough talk, let’s go and eat! We can put it on the office account,’ said Old Wu, the head of administration. I was overwhelmed by the attention.

  Later, I found out what had happened. The broadcast controller told me that she had been worrying about her son’s university entrance exams, so had not paid attention to the call until the duty director telephoned her in panic. Old Wu had been listening to the programme at home as he did every day. Realising that the programme had entered a minefield, he immediately called the director of programming, who hurriedly called the station head: to be aware of the situation and fail to report it would have made for an even more grievous error. They all hurried to the studio, listening to my programme on the way. By the time they arrived in the control room, the crisis had resolved itself.

  The first time I even heard of homosexuality was at university. Because I had a good complexion, the female students nicknamed me ‘Egg’ or ‘Snowball’, and often stroked my cheeks and arms admiringly. Observing this, a male instructor teased, ‘Watch out for a homosexual assault!’

  I knew the word ‘assault’ in terms of physical aggression, but I had no idea what the instructor was talking about. He explained, ‘Homosexuality is a woman loving a woman or a man loving a man. It’s against the law.’

  ‘What? Is it against the law for mothers to love their daughters, or fathers to love their sons?’ I countered.

  The instructor shook his head. ‘Those are blood relationships, not sexual love. Oh, it’s no use talking to you. I might as well be “playing music to a buffalo”. Forget it, forget it.’

  Later, I heard about homosexuality at a reunion of some of my mother’s former colleagues. Apparently, my mother had once worked with two women who had shared a single room. When conditions improved, and the work unit allocated them a room each, they had turned the offer down. They behaved like sisters so nobody gave the matter much thought at the time. Their contemporaries were busy with courtship, marriage and children, then with grandchildren. Ground into a state of mental and physical exhaustion by the demands of their families, in their old age they remembered the two women and envied their life of ease and relaxation together. All the gossip and speculation that no one had bothered with in their youth emerged, and the group of former colleagues concluded that the two women were homosexual.

  Listening to the elderly women drawing their conclusions, I thought of how free of cares those two women were: they probably had no feelings of bitterness against men, and certainly no all-consuming worries about their children. Perhaps homosexuality was not wicked after all, I thought, perhaps it was just another path in life. I did not understand why it was against the law, but there seemed to be no one I could ask about this subject.

  Once, I was brave enough to ask the head of a gynaecology department.

  She looked at me in astonishment. ‘What made you think of asking about this?’

  ‘Why, is it bad to ask? I just want to find out what makes these women different from other women.’

  ‘Apart from differences in mindset and sexual behaviour, they are no different from ordinary women,’ the gynaecologist said, brushing lightly over the subject.

  I pressed her. ‘If a woman’s mindset and sexual behaviour are different from that of women in general, does she still count as a normal woman?’ The gynaecologist either did not know how to elaborate or was not prepared to do so.

  The third time I encountered the issue of homosexuality was when I was sent to cover a city-wide public order campaign for the radio station.

  When the organiser of the operation saw me, he exclaimed, ‘How could the radio station have sent a woman? It must be a mistake! Oh well, since you’re here you may as well stay. But I’m afraid you’ll have to do a follow-up report, not an on-the-spot one.’

  His colleagues roared with laughter, but I was none the wiser. Once the operation began, the reason for their mirth became clear: they were carrying out surprise inspections of male public toilets – which stank to high heaven – and arresting men who were engaged in homosexual behaviour.

  I had my doubts about the campaign: weren’t there enough thieves and other criminals to apprehend? And surely there wouldn’t be that many men having sex in the toilets at the same time? Unbelievably, more than a hundred men were arrested that night. When the operation was almost over, I asked one of the public order personnel dazedly, ‘Are there people responsible for maintaining order in women’s toilets too?’

  ‘How are we supposed to check on women? You’re joking, right?’ he replied, shaking his head in wonder at my naivety.

  The caller who asked about homosexuality on my hotline programme was the first person to give me a true understanding of the issue.

  About a week after she had called, I returned home on an adrenalin high from presenting my programme. At about two in the morning, when I was finally beginning to feel sleepy, the telephone suddenly rang.

  ‘Xinran, do you remember me?’ a woman’s voice said. ‘You must: I asked you such a difficult question on the radio the other day.’

  Angry and irritated, I wondered how the woman had got my home telephone number. Surely common sense should have stopped whoever it was at the station from giving out my private number. It was too late to do anything about it now.

  I fumed silently as the woman said, ‘Hey, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t blame your duty editor for giving me your number. I said I was a relative from Beijing and that my bag had been stolen as I got off the train – with my telephone book in it. I needed you to come and collect me. Not bad, eh?’

  ‘Not bad, not bad,’ I repeated coldly. ‘Is there something I can do for you? I remember you, you’re from Ma’anshan, right?’

  ‘Yes, I knew you wouldn’t forget me. Are you tired?’

  I was exhausted. ‘Um, a bit. What do you want?’

  She seemed to have got the hint. ‘All right, you’re tired. I won’t say anything now. I’ll ring you again tomorrow after your programme.’ With that, she hung up.

  By the following night, I had almost forgotten about the call, but after I had been home for less than an hour, the telephone rang.

  ‘Xinran, I’m a bit earlier today, right? Please don’t worry. I won’t say much. I only wanted to tell you that I’m very grateful to you for apologising to homosexuals for the prejudice they have encountered. Okay, that’s all for now, good night!’

  Again, she hung up before I could say anything. I consoled myself: she meant well and seemed considerate enough.

  The woman rang me at the same time every night for three weeks. She told me what she thought of my programme that evening, suggested books and music that I might find useful for it, or simply gave me common-sense advice on life in general. She only spoke for a couple of minutes each time, and never gave me a chance to talk. She did not tell me her name.

  One day, as I was leaving the radio station at about one in the morning, I found a neighbour waiting for me at the gate. This was very strange. He told me my nanny had asked him to come as she was scared out of her wits. A strange woman had been calling the house telling her to ‘Leave Xinran!’

  I felt very uneasy.

  At exactly the same time that night, as it had for the last three weeks, the telephone rang. Before the caller could say anything, I blurted out, ‘Was it you who phoned earlier?’

  ‘Yes, I spoke to your nanny and told her she ought to leave you,’ she said, quite calm and self-possessed.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I asked angrily.

  ‘Why not? She shouldn’t have you all to herself – you should belong to more women.’

  ‘Listen,’ I replied, ‘I’m happy to exchange ideas or talk about life in general with you. But if you interfere with my life, then I can have nothing more to do with you. I don’t interfere with other people’s lives, other people can’t interfere with mine.’

  She was
silent for a moment, then said in a pleading tone, ‘I’ll do as you say, but you can’t abandon our love.’

  The idea that this woman might be in love with me made me feel very anxious. I didn’t answer the telephone for several days and I thought to myself that, like obsessed fans of pop stars, her infatuation would probably come to an end; there was no need to worry.

  One afternoon, the station head summoned me to his office and said, ‘A female presenter from Radio Ma’anshan named Taohong has attempted suicide. Her father sent me her suicide note. It says that she loves you very deeply, but that you have rejected her.’

  I was speechless. This woman named Taohong had to be my mystery caller. I had no idea that she, too, was a radio presenter – and I had certainly not thought that ignoring her calls would lead to this.

  The station head suggested that I lie low for a bit. Apparently, the first thing Taohong had said when she regained consciousness was, ‘I must see Xinran!’

  A few days later, while I was in a meeting with the planning department, a presenter came in to tell me that I had a visitor. When he escorted me to the reception room, I found a young woman dressed in stylish men’s clothes. Her hair was close-cropped, so from behind it would have been impossible to tell that she was a woman. Before the presenter who had fetched me could introduce us, she came up and clutched my arms with both hands, saying emotionally, ‘Don’t say anything, let me take it all in. I knew immediately that you were my Xinran!’

  ‘Your Xinran?’ the presenter asked.

  ‘Yes, my Xinran! I’m Taohong, your Taohong!’

  My colleague slipped away. He knew of Taohong’s story, so I guessed he had gone to fetch help.

  Taohong’s eyes were fixed on me as she continued speaking, ‘You’re even lovelier than I imagined, so feminine, so soft. I’m meeting you at last! Come, come, sit down. Let me take a good look at you. It’s been more than half a year . . . I didn’t come once in all that time. I wanted to get to know and understand you through your programme, and through the image of you in my heart.

  ‘What you say is true, women are the creative force in the universe. They give the world beauty, feeling and sensitivity. They are pure and clean. Women are the best of all creatures . . .’

  My colleague had returned with three or four other presenters, and they all sat down not far from us, chatting as they kept an eye on me.

  ‘Look what I’ve brought you. These books are full of drawings of women. See how beautiful their bodies are. Look at this picture, that expression, see how alluring that mouth is. I brought them especially for you; you can keep them and look at them in your own time. I’ve also brought you this . . . to bring you sexual pleasure. And this too. When I rub your body with it, you’ll feel as if you are approaching paradise!’

  My colleagues were sneaking glances over at the objects that Taohong was laying out in front of me. I felt sick with embarrassment. I had always maintained that sex without emotion was bestial; I had not even known that contraptions existed to arouse sexual sensations in this mechanical way.

  Taohong was still in full flow: ‘With the help of modern tools, we can achieve things our ancestors wished for but couldn’t have. Unlike them, we can take our feelings as far as we want to . . .’

  I tried to distract her by pointing to a pile of papers she was holding, which looked like publicity material of some sort. ‘Taohong, what’s this? You haven’t said anything about this.’

  ‘Oh, I knew you would ask about these. These are the guiding principles of the Chinese Homosexual Association. Have you heard of it? We planned a conference a year and a half ago. The hotels, the agenda and everything were ready, but the government cracked down on it. It didn’t really matter though. We had already achieved almost everything we wanted to: during several dinners before the conference, we had defined our principles, passed resolutions and discussed our physical needs, and how to get more out of sex . . .’

  I remembered the conference Taohong was talking about. I had almost gone to Beijing to report on it. The day before I was due to set off, someone in the Nanjing Public Security Bureau called to tell me that they were sending staff to assist the Beijing police in putting a stop to the conference. They were going to search and close down a big hotel, and arrest several key members of the Homosexual Association. I immediately called several psychologists and doctors whom I knew had been invited to the conference to warn them not to go; I was afraid that things would end in bloodshed.

  Fortunately, as Taohong now told me, the break-up of the conference did not lead to violence. In order to prevent the situation from turning nasty, the police had deliberately leaked information about the operation, so the Homosexual Association had aborted the conference. Both sides had accomplished the greater part of their aims: the government had the situation under control, and the association had still managed to meet while planning the conference. The Chinese were getting more sophisticated in their political manoeuvring.

  A wave of nausea washed over me when I read the eye-catching title of one of the leaflets Taohong was clutching: ‘Oral Sex Techniques, Part Four: Use of the Upper Jaw’. I found such bald discussions on sex very difficult to accept. Taohong noticed the look of revulsion on my face, and said in a patient tone, ‘Don’t feel you have to look now. Try it later and you’ll discover the pleasures of sex.’

  My colleagues sniggered quietly.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I said, desperate to escape my colleagues’ tittering.

  ‘Really? Of course, we should have gone for a stroll in the streets earlier. We’ll make a good couple.’

  We left the broadcasting station and Taohong asked where we were going. I told her not to ask – she’d know when we arrived. She grew even more animated, saying that this was just the kind of adventure she liked, full of mystery; she adored me all the more for it.

  I took her to the Cock-Crow Temple, an old Nanjing temple whose bells could be heard from a great distance. When I felt troubled or in low spirits, I sometimes came to sit in the temple’s Pagoda of the Healing Buddha. Listening to the bells as I gazed at blue sky and white clouds lifted my gloom and gave me new resolve, confidence and contentment. I thought Taohong’s spirit might be touched too by the sound of the bells. At the temple gate, Taohong paused and asked anxiously, ‘If I walk through it, will it purify me? Will it remove certain qualities?’

  ‘Anything it removes is bound to be meaningless. Emotion and meaning can’t be swept away by purification. That’s what I think,’ I said.

  The instant Taohong stepped through the gate, the temple bells sounded. She mused, ‘My heart was touched for a moment. Why?’

  I did not know how to reply to her question.

  Standing in the Pagoda of the Healing Buddha, neither of us spoke for a long time. When the bells sounded again, I asked Taohong two questions: When had she started to love women? And who had been her first lover?

  Taohong’s story flooded out:

  Taohong’s father had been very ashamed of not having a son. After giving birth to her, her mother had developed cancer of the womb and could not have any more children; she later died of the cancer. Her father was distraught that his family line had been ‘cut off’, but there was nothing he could do. He therefore regarded Taohong as a son and had brought her up as a boy in every respect, from her clothes and her hairstyle to the games she played. Taohong had never gone to public toilets, because she couldn’t decide whether to go to the men’s or the women’s toilet. She was proud of her masculine behaviour and had no love for women at all at the time.

  The year Taohong turned fourteen, however, the events of one summer night changed her and her view of men and women completely. It was the summer before she was to enter senior school. She had been told that senior school was the most terrible time: the course of her life would be determined by it, achievement there would lead to future success. She was determined to enjoy the summer to the full before buckling down to study hard for three years, and sh
e spent many evenings out with her friends.

  That particular night, it was about eleven o’clock by the time she set off for home. She didn’t have far to go, and it wasn’t an isolated route. Just a few paces from home, a gang of four men leaped out of the shadows and grabbed her.

  They took her, blindfolded and gagged, to what seemed to be a tool shed on a building site. Her blindfold was removed, but she remained gagged. There were three more men in the room, making the gang seven altogether. They told Taohong that they wanted to see what she really was, a man or a woman, and began removing her clothes. They were momentarily struck dumb by the sight of her young woman’s body but then their faces flushed red, and all seven of them threw themselves on her. Taohong lost consciousness.

  When she came round, she found herself lying naked and bloody on a workbench. The men lay snoring on the ground; some of them still had their trousers around their ankles. Taohong sat in a blind panic for some time before she finally shifted herself awkwardly off the bench. Trembling and swaying, she slowly gathered her clothes from the floor. As she was moving about, she trod on one of the men’s hands; his cry of pain woke the other men. They watched, paralysed by guilt, as Taohong picked her clothing up and put it on, piece by piece.

  Taohong did not say a word in the thirty minutes it took her to dress with difficulty.

  From then on, she hated all men, even her father. To her, they were all filthy, lustful, bestial and brutal. She had only had two periods at the time.

  She continued dressing as a boy, for no reason that she could explain, and never told anyone what had happened. The gang rape had made it quite clear to Taohong that she was a woman. She started to wonder what women were like. She did not believe that she had feminine beauty, but she wanted to see it.

  Her first attempt to do so was with the prettiest girl in class in the first year of senior school. She told her classmate that she was afraid to be alone while her father was away on business, and asked if she would stay the night with her.

  Before they went to bed, Taohong told her classmate that she slept naked. The girl was a little uneasy about doing the same, but Taohong said she would give her a massage, so she agreed to undress. Taohong was astonished by the soft smoothness and pliability of the girl’s body, especially her breasts and hips. The slightest contact with it sent the blood rushing to Taohong’s head, and thrills all over her. Just as Taohong was rubbing the girl until she gasped for breath, Taohong’s father came in.