‘On the following Monday evening, I asked Wei Hai if he had taken out a certificate yet. He said he had not. I had not managed to get mine either because I had been busy, so we agreed that we would definitely get our certificates before Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, I phoned Wei Hai to tell him I had already got mine, and asked if he had managed to get his. No problem, he said. At about three o’clock he phoned and told me that my mother wanted me to go to Ma’anshan to see her. He didn’t tell me what for. I immediately thought that something had happened to her, so I asked for permission to leave early, and rushed to the bus station at four thirty. When I arrived at my mother’s an hour later, breathless with worry, she asked in surprise, “What’s happened? Wei Hai phoned to say he was coming to Ma’anshan, and asked me to stay in. What’s going on with you two?”
‘“I’m not sure,” I said, confused. Without further thought, I left my mother and rushed to the bus station to meet Wei Hai off the Nanjing bus. More than a year together had not faded the first flush of love. I could hardly bear being apart from him then; leaving him to go to work was painful, and I looked forward to coming home every day. I was infatuated, in a trance.
‘By about half past eight that evening, Wei Hai had still not arrived at the bus station. I was frantic. I asked the driver of every bus that arrived if there had been any accidents or breakdowns on the road, and if all the scheduled buses were running. Their replies were reassuring: nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Past nine, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer so I boarded a bus back to Nanjing to see if Wei Hai was at home, ill. I didn’t dare think what else might have happened to him. Thinking that Wei Hai might be on a bus to Ma’anshan while I travelled in the opposite direction on the same road, I switched on a torch I had with me, and shone it out of the bus window, straining to see the passing vehicles. I couldn’t actually see anything, but it comforted me to try. After a while, our bus was pulled over by the traffic police. The policeman who boarded the bus said that someone on the bus seemed to have been signalling with torchlight, so they wanted all the passengers to get out for an inspection. I hurried to the front and explained that I had been using the torch because I was afraid my husband had taken the wrong bus. The furious traffic policeman sent us on our way, and the other passengers all swore at me for causing a delay. I wasn’t bothered – I just apologised and continued looking out of the window.
‘We lived not far from the bus station; as I approached our flat, I saw light from the windows, and my heart lifted. But both doors were locked, which was odd: the inner door wasn’t usually locked when someone was home. A wave of terror washed over me when I saw the flat was empty. Instinct prompted me to open the wardrobe in the bedroom. I went cold all over: Wei Hai’s clothes were missing. He had gone.’
‘Wei Hai had gone? Left the house and gone?’
Zhou Ting’s lower lip was quivering. ‘Yes, he’d gone. He’d taken all his things. Just after we had decided to get married, he left.’
I felt for her deeply. ‘Did he leave a note, a letter, an explanation, anything?’
‘Not a word,’ she said, lifting her chin to prevent a tear from rolling down her cheek.
‘Oh, Zhou Ting,’ I said, lost for words.
The tear rolled down her face. ‘I collapsed. I don’t know how long I lay on the ground, shaking all over. When I heard footsteps outside, a last thread of hope made me get to my feet. Wei Hai’s cousin was at the door. He said that Wei Hai had told him to bring me the keys. With the door still closed, I told him that it was late, and it wasn’t a good time, we’d talk the next day. He had no choice but to leave.
‘I locked all the windows and doors, turned the gas tap on, sat down and started to make a tape recording. I wanted to apologise to my mother for not repaying the debt I owed her for bringing me up; I wanted to say sorry to my son for not fulfilling my natural duty to him; I didn’t have the heart or the strength to go on living. I didn’t plan to leave any words for Wei Hai, thinking that my soul would express my love and pain to him in the netherworld. My head and my body felt as if they were going to explode, and I could barely stay upright when I heard voices outside the window:
‘“Ting, open the door, your mother is waiting for you outside!”
‘“Don’t do anything stupid, you’re grown up now. What does a man matter? The world is full of good men!”
‘“Don’t light a match whatever you do!”
‘“Quick . . . this window is big enough . . . smash it . . . hurry . . .”
‘I don’t know what happened after that. The next thing I was aware of was my mother holding my hand and crying. When she saw me open my eyes, she sobbed so hard she couldn’t speak. Later, she told me that I had been unconscious for more than two days.
‘Only I knew that I had not really come round: my heart remained unconscious. I was in hospital for eighteen days. When I left, I weighed less than six stone.’
‘How long was it before you could leave this pain behind you?’ I realised immediately how foolish my question sounded: it was impossible for Zhou Ting to forget her pain.
She wiped her eyes. ‘For the best part of two years I slept badly. I developed a strange illness: the sight of a man, any man, sickened me. If a man bumped into me on the bus, I scrubbed at myself with soap as soon as I got home. This went on for nearly three years. I couldn’t bear to stay on in my old work unit after Wei Hai had left, so I resigned. It was very difficult to leave a job then, but I had no demands and nothing to fear. I took up a job offer from a sales company. With my knowledge and a certain knack for business, I soon became a successful and popular sales agent in the food industry. I was headhunted by several big companies, and was able to accumulate experience in different places.
‘Money was not a problem for me by then. I even started to become extravagant. But I still hadn’t got over Wei Hai.’ She stared at the ceiling for a long time, as if searching for something.
Eventually, she turned back to look at me. ‘Because of my success in business, the press started to notice me again. They called me the “Sales Empress”. My business activities were reported on, and journalists found all sorts of reasons to interview me. But now I knew how to protect myself and fend them off when necessary. So my personal life was never once mentioned in the articles.
‘I got to know the director of a big Shanghai trading company, who pursued me for two reasons. First, his company needed me to help open up the market for them. Second, he had never married because he was impotent. Hearing about my hatred of men touching me, he thought that we might make a good match. He was quite persistent and offered me one-seventh of his portfolio of shares as an engagement present. I was happy with this arrangement: I no longer had to work for other people, and I had a boyfriend but did not have to put up with being pawed. A Shanghai business newspaper fought to publish an exclusive, which was headlined “Sales Empress to marry Shanghai Tycoon. Shake-up in Market expected.” The news was quickly reprinted in many other papers.
‘Is the marriage taking place soon?’ I asked, genuinely hoping that Zhou Ting would find a place where she belonged.
‘No, it was called off,’ she said blandly, touching her ring finger.
‘Why? Did the media get in the way again?’ I feared that, once again, journalists might have made Zhou Ting’s life difficult.
‘No, not this time. It was because Wei Hai reappeared.’
‘Wei Hai came looking for you?’ I felt sick.
‘No, he turned up at one of my training sessions for local sales personnel. My heart had been barren for so long; as soon as I set eyes on him, all my feelings flooded back,’ she said, shaking her head.
I could not keep the incredulity out of my voice as I asked, ‘Do you still love him?’
Zhou Ting ignored my tone. ‘Yes. When I saw him, I instantly knew that I still loved him as deeply as before.’
‘What about him? Does he still love you? As much . . . ?’
‘I don’t know, an
d I don’t want to ask. I’m afraid of opening old wounds. Wei Hai seems very weak now. He has lost the spirit that he had when he held my hand and asked me to live with him all those years ago, but there’s still a certain something that I yearn for in his eyes,’ she said contentedly.
Unable to hide my disapproval, I exclaimed, ‘You took him back?’ I had met too many women who always excused the men in their lives for the pain they had caused them.
‘That’s right. I returned the shares to the Shanghai businessman, broke off my engagement and rented another flat with Wei Hai. We are still together.’
I noted the brevity of Zhou Ting’s description. Concerned, I pressed her, ‘Are you happy?’
‘I don’t know. Neither of us has brought up the subject of how he left me. There are things between us that I think we will never be able to touch.’
‘Do you think that if you were still poor, he would have come back to you?’ I probed.
Her reply was quite definite. ‘No, he wouldn’t.’
I was bewildered. ‘Well, if he were to start a business of his own one day or become financially independent, do you think he would leave you?’
‘Yes, if he had his own career, or if he met another successful woman, he would definitely go.’
I was even more perplexed. ‘What about you then?’
‘Why do I stay with him, you mean?’ she asked defiantly, her eyes filled with tears. I nodded.
‘Because of that first declaration he made me, and the happiness I have had with him; those are my happiest memories.’
To me, Zhou Ting sounded like any other besotted woman who stayed with a man unworthy of her. I hinted at my disapproval again, asking, ‘Are you nurturing your feelings for Wei Hai now with memories?’
‘Yes, you could say that. Women really are that pathetic.’
‘Does Wei Hai know you think all this?’
‘He is over forty. Time ought to have taught him.’ Zhou Ting’s weary reply made my question seem naive. ‘Emotionally, men can never be like women; they will never be able to understand us. Men are like mountains; they only know the ground beneath their feet, and the trees on their slopes. But women are like water.’
I remembered hearing the same analogy from Jingyi, the woman who had waited forty-five years for her lover. ‘Why are women like water?’ I asked.
‘Everybody says women are like water. I think it’s because water is the source of life, and it adapts itself to its environment. Like women, water also gives of itself wherever it goes to nurture life,’ Zhou Ting said in a considered tone. ‘If Wei Hai gets the chance, he won’t stay on in a home where he doesn’t have much power, just for my sake.’
‘Yes, if a man has no occupation, or lives off a woman, the reversal of roles is a recipe for disaster.’
Zhou Ting was silent for a few moments. ‘Did you see the headline “Tough Businesswoman rejects Strategic Marriage to renew Old Flame” or something like that? God knows what people must have thought of me after that piece of news had been worked over a few times. The media has made me into a monstrous figure of a woman: attempted murder, adultery, I’m made out to have done the lot. This has isolated me from other women, and my friends and family keep their distance too. But notoriety has brought me some unexpected benefits.’ Zhou Ting laughed bitterly.
‘Are you saying your business benefited from it?’
‘That’s right. All the gossip about me makes people open to my sales pitch because they are curious about me.’ She spread her hands out, displaying the rings that adorned them.
‘So your personal life has contributed to your professional achievements,’ I mused, unhappy at the thought that this was how women became successful.
‘You could say that. But people do not realise the price I have had to pay.’
I nodded. ‘Some say that women always have to sacrifice emotion to success.’
‘In China, that is almost always the case,’ Zhou Ting said, choosing her words carefully.
‘If a woman asked you for the secret of your success, how would you reply?’ I asked.
‘First, put away the tender emotions of a woman and let the media gasp in amazement about how different you are. Second, cut your heart out and create a good news story. Then use your scars as a business opportunity: exhibit them to the public; tell them your pain. As people exclaim over the wounds you must have suffered, lay out your products on their counters and take away the money.’
‘Oh, Zhou Ting! It can’t really be that way?’
‘Yes, it is. From my understanding of it, it is,’ she said earnestly.
‘Then how do you cope with life?’ I asked, marvelling once again at the courage of women.
‘Do you have a callus on your hand? Or scars on your body? Touch them – do you feel anything?’ Zhou Ting spoke gently, but her words made me despair.
She got up to go. ‘I’m afraid it is six o’clock and I have to go to several big stores to check their stock levels. Thank you for this meeting.’
‘Thank you. I hope the calluses on your heart will be softened by love,’ I said.
Zhou Ting had completely regained her composure. She replied in a hard voice, ‘Thank you, but it’s much better to be numb than to be in pain.’
As I left the hotel, the sun was setting. I thought of how fresh it had been at dawn and how weary it must be after its day’s work. The sun is giving; women love – their experience is the same. Many people believe that successful Chinese women are only interested in money. Few realise how much pain they have suffered to get to where they are today.
15
The Women of Shouting Hill
In 1995, there was a survey in China which found that, in the more prosperous areas of the country, the four professions that had the shortest life expectancy were chemical-factory workers, long-distance lorry drivers, policemen and journalists. Factory workers and lorry drivers suffered from the lack of proper safety regulations. The lot of Chinese policemen was one of the hardest in the world: under an imperfect judicial system and in a society where political power was all, criminals with influential connections often swaggered off scot-free, and some subsequently took revenge on the police officers involved. The police struggled between what they knew to be right and their orders; the frustration, uncertainty and self-reproach led them to early death. But why did journalists, who in some ways lived such a privileged life, share the same fate?
Journalists in China had witnessed many shocking and upsetting events. However, in a society where the principles of the Party governed the news, it was very difficult for them to report the true face of what they had seen. Often they were forced to say and write things that they disagreed with.
When I interviewed women who were living in emotionless political marriages, when I saw women struggling amid poverty and hardship who could not even get a bowl of soup or an egg to eat after giving birth, or when I heard women on my telephone answering machines who did not dare speak to anyone about how their husbands beat them, I was frequently unable to help them because of broadcasting regulations. I could only weep for them in private.
When China started to open up, it was like a starving child devouring everything within reach indiscriminately. Afterwards, while the world saw a flushed, happy China in new clothes, no longer crying out with hunger, the journalistic community saw a body racked by the pain of indigestion. But it was a body whose brain they could not use, for China’s brain had not yet grown the cells to absorb truth and freedom. The conflict between what they knew and what they were permitted to say created an environment in which their mental and physical health suffered.
It was just such a conflict that made me give up my journalistic career.
In the autumn of 1996, on his return from the Party Conference, Old Chen told me that several poverty-alleviation groups were being sent to north-west China, south-west China and other poor, economically backward areas. There was a shortage of qualified government personnel to undertake such rese
arch trips so the government often made use of skilled journalists to gather information. Old Chen said he planned to join a group going to the old military base area in Yan’an to see what the life of ordinary people there was now like. According to Old Chen, this was a corner forgotten by the Revolution.
I saw an excellent opportunity for me to extend my knowledge of Chinese women’s lives and immediately asked to join one of the groups. I was allocated to the ‘north-western’ group, but we were actually travelling to the area west of Xi’an in central China. When most Chinese people speak of the ‘north-west’, they are actually referring to central China since the western deserts of the country do not figure in their mental map.
While packing for the trip, I decided not to include many of the useful items I usually carried on reporting trips. There were two reasons for this. First, there would be a long mountain trek during which we would have to carry our own luggage. I did not want to burden my male fellow journalists with any of my load when they too would be exhausted. The second reason was more important: the loess plateau we were visiting was said to be a very poor place and I thought I would feel awkward with all my handy conveniences in front of the people there. They had never seen anything of the outside world, and perhaps had never had the luxury of being warm and well fed.
We travelled first to Xi’an, where the group split into three. There were four other people in my group – two male journalists, a doctor and a guide from the local government. We set off for our final destination with great zeal; although I do not think ours was the hardest route, the area we saw was probably the most poverty-stricken. There are countless degrees of wealth and poverty, which are manifested in many different ways. During our journey, the scene before us grew simpler and simpler: the tall buildings, hubbub of human voices and bright colours of the city were gradually replaced by low brick houses or mud huts, clouds of dust and peasants wearing uniform greyish clothes. Further into the journey, people and traces of human activity grew scarce. The unbroken yellow earth plateau was scoured by swirling dust storms, through which we could only squint with great difficulty. The motto of our mission had been: ‘Helping the poorest people in the poorest places.’ The extreme implied by the comparative suffix ‘-est’ is hard to define. Every time one encounters an extreme situation, one is never sure whether it is the most extreme. However, to this day, I have never witnessed poverty to compare with what I saw on that trip.