DESERT TOWN

In an attempt to understand what I’ve been going through, my beloveds back home have been reading Peter Hessler’s River Town. And, as an introduction to the life I’m living in China, I couldn’t think of a better opener. From what I’ve been able to stomach (and I’ll get into why I can’t stomach a lot of the book in a moment), our lives are quite similar; with the minor exception that he taught college students and therefore his students actively wanted his classes. As a kindergarten, primary and middle school teacher to the wealthy and spoiled, my students have very little sense of “earning” anything. They have not yet truly failed at anything that wholly damages their lives and so they are not yet aware of the skin-of-their-teeth by which they are living. College students have vividly glimpsed the failure of their more lazy fellow classmates and so they are much more keenly aware of just how close they all came to complete failure. The students I deal with neither have the fear of god nor the foresight that major milestones of academia force upon you. Hell, my predecessor (with whom I am now growing a friendship because of his Hessler-like mystification of the social aspects of Chinese personal relationships) used to stand upon the podium for all the teachers to teach from, holler “SHIT!” to get the attention of the students and then try to teach them for a few minutes to no avail. He is now happy in his college position and calls most of his work a “dream.”

Now, the reason I find it difficult to read River Town is through no fault of Mr. Hessler’s. He is bright and observant and insightful. His writing style is sensitive and beautiful. However, he is male and as a woman staunchly against all things feminist-ic (I believe in equal rights for all PEOPLE; to engage in even acknowledging genders in terms of policy, I believe, is acknowledging chauvinism and thereby defeating the cause set out by “feminism”), I suddenly find how vastly different his experience of China is/was. Frankly, it makes me ill to have to accept that my socially perceived genitals make such a stunning difference, but it really does and I have to deal with the issues that brings up for me because that’s my own shit. To Mr. Hessler’s great credit and as the recipient of my incalculable respect, he fully acknowledges the great mystery he finds Chinese women to be. In other words, he plants himself firmly on the other side of the divide of the gender wall I have inexplicably found myself trapped behind. Things as basic as eating out alone, which he writes of doing often to socialize with the locals, I cannot do. The only women alone who are my age are hookers and I am treated as such if I venture out around Xi’An’s less touristy spots without escort.

In the West, at least in my social circles, a woman like myself (sexually mature, mentally capable and fully educated) is able to fight her own battles. In fact, most men I know would not dare fight my battles for me. To be totally honest, most men I know (and I know a lot of strong, powerful men) would not dare fight me, much less fight my battles for me. Generally the response to my, “Excuse me?” is met with a hush and most men back away or backpedal immediately. Often men who’ve done battle with me will simply laugh at the attempts of another man to fight me. Hell, my own mother knows better than to argue with me once my mind is made up. My “No” means “No,” is respected as such and my protests are never interpreted as false modesty or fishing for compliments. I am taken at face value. I am given the same respect (relatively speaking) as a man. And, contrary to most self-declared “feminists” back home, I have never needed to be an angry bitch to do so. I simply display the self-respect I have and I am treated as an (relative) equal.

However, that is not the case in China. The married men who all have made the decision that the “dirty Western whore” will be “my girlfriend” literally refuse to hear, “No” when it comes out of my mouth. I have, so many times, literally wondered if I’m actually speaking. I have come to the understanding that I am, in fact, speaking however the men have already decided the conversation and there is nothing I can do to sway them from the script their ego has already written. Had I been raised in the environment that fosters this truly offensive behavior, I would probably have killed myself long ago. Simply put, I am not a strong enough human being to survive having my future dictated to me like that, especially my sexual future and in a society where there is an even more fucked up relationship with sex than the US.

Hessler’s quote of China’s suicide rate being higher amongst women than men does not surprise me in the slightest. The women are sold these bullshit fantasies about what their married life will be like, are, essentially, sold from their parents to their husbands and in a single day they move from the romance of a man whose “only wish is to wash [her] feet” to in-and-out sex, finalized by the idea that they must be proud of their husbands’ desire to take a fat Western whore for a mistress because she has blonde hair. Their dreams must be crushed, their worlds- so trivial to begin with- must be shattered in profound ways and then they must smile, thanking their husbands for all he gives them. The only thing of value an average Chinese wife receives is cash and if her husband isn’t bringing that in, well, there’s literally nothing left.

Women in China, on the whole, aren’t supposed to like sex (“Men are sexual animals. Women are not. Women do not like sex.”) and it has been my experience from talking with my Chinese girlfriends that they don’t. The notion of a lover’s tongue on their skin truly repulses all my Chinese girlfriends. I can see absolutely no reason why they would enjoy any aspect of sexuality as there is absolutely no interest in understanding a woman much less her sexuality. One of the few women trying to make strides in the understanding of female sexuality, female desire and female satisfaction was met with the resounding male-intellectual response of “Thanks for sharing way too much about your own sexuality.” Women simply aren’t heard so why should they be even remotely satisfied? Women simply aren’t heard so why should they have any will to live? Women simply aren’t acknowledged as anything more than a consumer and a dumpster for the occasional lust of a man. They are the sin eaters of men and they are the whipping boy for the faults of the family. Women do not exist as people. Women are receptacles who bear the fiscal responsibility of helping to support a household with no real public voice. Ultimately, they forcibly, surgically sterilize the wife who has too many children, not the husband and no one finds this inequitable.

The longer I am in China, the more I understand precisely why Chinese women will do anything to be with a Western man and why Western men love nothing more than the hospitality of the Chinese; the Chinese all want to BE Western MEN. They will stop at absolutely nothing to seduce that. Even the predatory Western men who come here to leech off the desperation of young Chinese women are a better fate than the standard issue Chinese male. I have said it before and I will say it again; if I was Chinese, my ass would be one of the numerous scantily clad women in Starbucks cruising for her “Pretty Woman” ending.

The Chinese women, by and large, seem unstable and irrational precisely because they are. The one thing they are not, however, is stupid. They understand how irretrievably fucked they are no matter what they do. They cannot make the right choice, no matter what they choose. Yeah, that would send even the strongest women off the deep end. They are the whores responsible for their husbands’ infidelity. A man is never has infidelity issues; his wife is frigid. And it is only love if, when he comes crawling back, she takes him back. Otherwise, she is just a heartless, cold bitch. A woman is never stolen; men are stolen while women are grossly immoral. A husband never has too many children; a wife does. It’s HER sexual organs that are at fault if there’s a population problem and therefore HER sexual organs that are removed if there is an issue. God forbid there be a discussion of a vasectomy. And women aren’t given the tools to even question this. They simply understand they are supposed to bear the bullshit without being given a voice to articulate their great frustration or even a voice to start to mend the fences. I understand now why, despite their great checkmate position socially speaking with the higher numbers of men and lack of desire for Chinese men, the Chinese women make no move to better themselves within the game they were born into; they have been systematically beaten into submission and shamed into believing substandard lives are the only “dignified” way to live their lives. I too would say, “Fuck it, someone else can sort out this mess.”

So better educated Chinese women, left with no way to live a satisfactory life, choose to leave the game entirely; they refuse to marry or they marry foreigners. Less well educated sisters choose to deal with the unmanageable burden the only way they know how; by turning it in on themselves and taking their own life.

Frankly, it sucks being a woman in the People’s Republic. Lip service is given in universities to feminism but the blunt fact is that there is no way this country can placidly deal with the quagmire they have built by systematically stripping women of all power and turned her position into second class citizen. And, without gender equity, men are stripped of the great benefits fully realized women offer. The fact is that there is such potential for so much more pleasure and enjoyment by both genders from life in general. However the fear that hobbles the men and turns them into cowering, quivering naughty little school boys with their porn star delusions about fully realized female sexuality around me will continue to ravage the female population for as long as there isn’t a gender revolution. To live in a world where all women who have had a boyfriend feel that love is little more than a waking nightmare is a world where love and satisfaction as I know them, and I think most reasonable adults, cannot exist.

As for Hessler’s discussion of not knowing any female Chinese women the answer to that is very simple: he would destroy them. Actually, my gut response to his commentary on the “mystery” of young Chinese women was, “Well, DUH.” For a woman to socialize with a foreign man in China means that she is forever ruined for men. In China, the sexes cannot be friends. It is believed that there is only one reason men and women are ever together. That rule, to some extent, has been bent for me as I am a very different, exotic case as I have the power of the West but I also have the incapacity that comes with my genitals. Clearly I am lesser than my male counterparts (intrinsically speaking) but I am still Western. Consequently, I am of the gender that is possible to break and conquer but I bring with me the advantages of being a Western male (because once you have broken me, you get an American passport). I am not inherently threatening to any Chinese male I see fit to be friends with. So, my very peripheral male friendships are tolerated as it is impossible to further stain me.

It is understood that I, without country and singularly individual, am a whore and infinitely beneath Chinese women as I have been ruined by having had an American boyfriend. You can’t ruin the reputation of a whore. (The gender divide in this country for me, is most clearly articulated by the perception of me by men and women. My girlfriends all call me a “good girl” while the vast majority of men call me a “dirty whore” when no one is watching in an attempt to unleash the succubus within. Z, a man from the area Hessler was in, never trusted me with men and in fact would often fight with me about giving my number to men I never even was aware of being around. His jealousy ran so deep that the source of him ostracizing me was more often than not his belief that I had some fictitious romance with some dude I didn’t even notice.) While the women respect me and my “virtue” (as women understand that most women have had at least one lover before they get married) the men are willing to forgive my spoiled perspective because it is through me that they themselves might be able to gain the same spoiled life. Anyone who manages to break this whore will become the recipient of the golden ticket; the ability to work, not just outside of China as comes with most foreigners but in AMERICA. Make no mistake about it; Chinese men worship the golden idol that is America, despite what Americans think about China.

Chinese women don’t have my trump card. A Western man must, in a very real sense, marry (and never divorce) any Chinese woman he wants to be friends with because the mere friendship means she will never be available to Chinese men. By mere proximity, the world the Westerner can offer her is something that would so beyond-spoil her that no Chinese man could possibly live up to the standard the White man set. Consequently, no Chinese man ever would even attempt to try to take possession of a ruined-by-foreigner Chinese woman. Chinese women are nothing if not very bright, socially. They would not risk their entire livelihood on an impossible dream. I suspect the attentions Hessler got from his Miss Ou was because she had already ruined herself (socially and consequently psychologically) on an affair gone awry (ending probably about the time she was 30 as all the women here tend to cling to the age their first love ended; it’s the time they view as “youth”) and so had nothing to lose by further ruining her whore reputation.

Like I said, the Chinese notions of sexual relations are staggeringly brutal, fiscally speaking and staggeringly naïve, romantically speaking.

And Hessler is right, money is an issue most clearly identified with men. It is the equivalent of penis size. The more money a man makes, the better quality woman he can afford. Make no mistake about it; women here are to be purchased. There is a reason narcissism is a virtue, eating disorders are the order of the day and plastic surgery is rampant; the women are selling themselves. The only question about the sale is how long the purchase is for. The more beautiful and complex the woman, the longer the sale. Frankly, only the Bill Gates of China can even attempt to consider a “real” relationship with me because only the Bill Gates of China can afford to pull me out of my economic stratosphere and into a world where, if I were to leave him, I could not possibly afford to maintain said stratosphere on my English Teacher’s salary. (Frankly, there are other jobs I could do that might match most of those men fiscally speaking but it is not understood that a woman can change her position professionally speaking because a wife’s position, essentially, is not in the work force unless her husband insists upon making himself richer.) In other words, I am to be taken from my father’s house with my meager, silly profession and yanked into a world of riches beyond imagination (good luck with that by the way: I’m a rich, white girl from Westchester County, New York replete with private schooling, China’s never seen spoils the likes of which I raised in) and to be dunked so in over my head that I cannot possibly think of leaving the man because the machine behind our marriage is more than I could ever combat alone (and I would combat it alone because my parents, my society, even my employer would be fiercely against a divorce).

Hessler makes the point that the personal understanding of self is utterly dependent on the public interpretation of the individual here and I totally agree. Without the public feedback of “self” a person is without identity in China. I felt it when I returned to the US and- instead of receiving the daily onslaught of feedback that women get about their physical appearance- I received deafening silence. I found myself wondering why no one was telling me what they thought of how I looked. I was actually anxious; I felt like I had vanished. I remember having the very conscious thought, “No one’s telling you because it doesn’t matter, dork. You’re home.” As pervasive as the public declarations of men are, and Hessler noticed it being overwhelming for men, I assure you it is infinitely more for women. It is so strong that I, a girl who never gave a shit about public opinion of her personal appearance before, was actually mildly unnerved by returning to a place where I wasn’t given constant (multiple times hourly) feedback. Consequently, women are in even less of a position to buck the status quo than men are, and history has proven how unstable men become in light of a fraction of such pervasive public perception.

To be completely honest, such a ferocious gender divide makes a relationship with a Western male wholly unappealing at the moment. I can’t imagine living in this world that is so inherently different with no real understanding on his part of why I never want to be around his Chinese friends or why I need him to repeat what I’m saying when Chinese men speak to me. The Chinese couldn’t be more docile or hospitable to Western men. By default, my Western boyfriend would never see the bullshit I have to put up with and I wouldn’t want a boyfriend who is inherently drawn to fighting my battles for me. J briefly glimpsed the world I live in when he overheard my conversation about desperately not wanting to perform but most Western males wouldn’t think to speak up about the autonomy of my desire. Frankly, Western men will never see my China, much less experience and understand it. Hessler briefly mentions how a student talks about “being fat” and how he thinks it might make her more attractive in passing without fully realizing the societal implications of a woman being perceived as fat here. I would have a hard time managing a balanced relationship as I understand it with such pervasive societal inequity because it’s not fair for me to always play the victim at home but this society is constructed to turn me into such.

So, my hat’s off to Hessler. I only wish there were more female voices to add to such a discussion as I think China’s next revolution will be a sexual one and the current experience of women is so underrepresented that what I am witnessing daily (and I am in no way trained to properly observe such anthropological notions) will be lost as an unwritten chapter in history because it can’t last much longer. It also cannot be penetrated (by virtue of the chauvinism ingrained currently in PRC) by anyone but other single females of marrying age. No other group is seen as so emotionally crippled and so no other group is given such unguarded access to the full spectrum of Chinese life.