The story of China Girls in Singapore

From: Former Beijing journalist Jiu Dan, Wuya
EMail: bookwormz_99@yahoo.com

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Crow has a real hot story Wuya tells the tale of Helen and her encounters with Singapore men and fellow women from China

By Foong Woei Wan

HUSBAND-SNATCHERS. Gold-diggers. Scheming scavengers.

Posed Picture These are some of the unsavoury words thrown at China-born women who come to Singapore, besides the infamous label xiao long nu, which means 'dragon maidens'.

Now, there is a new word: wuya, or crows.

The last is the title of a controversial new novel on the lives of some Chinese women who flock to Singapore to 'learn English' but slide down the slippery slope of prostitution.

Penned by 33-year-old former Beijing journalist Jiu Dan, Wuya, or Crows, has drawn flak from her female compatriots for vilifying Chinese women.

Said to be partly autobiographical, it has also drawn praise from critics for depicting the misfortunes of women in a materialistic patriarchy.

The novel is about an ex-reporter named Helen arriving in Singapore with every intention of snagging a husband and staying here for good.

But her plans to wed Li Siyan, a Singaporean pyschology lecturer in his mid-30s, come to naught when she learns he is married.

Flak and praise for Jiu Dan's controversial novel. She then becomes a kept woman of Liu Dao, a 60-year-old playboy who is single, for $2,000 a month. She claims to love him as well as his money.

After falling out with him because he keeps other lovers, she resorts to selling sex at a nightclub and later in a brothel.

In the edition sold in China, Liu is described as a former Singapore Member of Parliament.

This description and another one of Helen meeting then-President Ong Teng Cheong at an art exhibition at Raffles Hotel have been edited from the Singapore edition.

That, however, did not deter readers here from snapping up all 2,000 copies of the novel at the recent World Book Fair. Two thousand more copies were released on Friday and an English translation is on the cards.

Till then, with the kind permission of publisher Lingzi Media, we have translated the following extracts from Wuya.

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FRESH from Beijing, Helen is being shown around by her flatmate Fen, who is also from China.

Fen took a black notebook from her bag, turned to a certain page and pored over it.

I saw from the corner of my eye that it was an accounting sheet, a long list:

'Went to the public toilet, 10 cents.

Bought a bun, 60 cents.

Had lunch, $4.

Transport fares, $2.50.

Total expenditure, $7.20.

Equivalent to 40 yuan.'

She had made a note of going to the toilet. I felt like laughing.

Helen, who has enrolled for an English class, meets Fen's friend, Taxi, who becomes her friend, too.

The girl wore a blue dress and a cream-coloured clip on her hair. Her skin was fair and her fingernails, painted with nail polish of different colours.

I stared at her hands for a while. She had sat down and was whispering to Fen, as if she was afraid of being overheard.

I noticed they did not raise their voices and did not want to be overheard because their Mandarin would give away their identities, that is, that they were Chinese.

Fen turned to me and said: 'She's from Hunan, in the same class as you. Afterwards, you'll go to school with her.' I nodded to the girl and Fen, as if she could cast me off finally, sighed lightly.

I ate silently and as I watched the two of them keep their voices down, I could not help but say: 'Don't those people speak Mandarin, too?'

'It's not the same,' Fen said with a sneer, 'they're Singaporeans, they know how to speak English.'

Helen is contemplating an affair with Liu Dao, the ageing playboy, but her current married lover, Li Siyan, tries to talk her out of it - and into something else.

I saw we had arrived beside a row of small hotels. The car slowed to a halt.

Irritated, I frowned. But there was a smile on his face.

I asked: 'What're you up to?'

'I don't want you to see that man.'

'Why would I want to see that man?'

'Because you've got no money and you'll see him by hook or by crook for money. I know women like you, although you'll die before admitting you're a xiao long nu, a 'dragon maiden'. What's a dragon maiden? Dragon maidens are women who keep asking men for money.

'If not money, then what? Knowledge? Culture? Love? If these are the things we want, you don't have what it takes.

He blew smoke in my face...I wanted to run away

'If you were the president, we might gain glory by being with you. But you're nothing. If we weren't after money, why would we be with you?'

'Is that so? Okay, I've come prepared today, I've got money on me - $500. Not much but not little.'

'You want me to stop seeing So-and-so for $500? You must have done your sums wrong.'

'I won't force you. If you're getting a room with me, we alight. If not, we leave.'

Coming out of the hotel, I ignored him and walked down the street quickly without turning my head. I was almost running and at the end of the street, I turned in another direction.

My tears flowed non-stop. I knew it was not because I had just been humiliated. I had been willing. I had no reason to hate him for mocking me.

I fished out the wad of cash from my pocket and counted it bill by bill.

The money looked like dried leaves under the night lamp. It was also like a butterfly, flitting from one person's hands to another's.

There were finger smudges on it but it was not dirty. It could fill the stomach, it was nutritional.

Helen's friend, Taxi, says peddling her body is better than dating a Singaporean man.

'Actually, we women are born to open restaurants. When the need arises, I can...put up a sign and be in business: become a prostitute, fair and square. But to save face, I don't put up a sign and I do it sneakily.

'But then many people want to have free meals and not pay. I might as well put up a sign. Then how much I get is how much I deserve. What do you say?'

Seeing that I did not reply, she said: 'I really want to go to a nightclub now and make money bit by bit with my own body. It is more pragmatic.'

I remembered what Mrs Mai (Helen's landlady) said and told her: 'Immigration will catch you.'

'There are some who don't get caught.'

She turned again to give me a fixed look: 'Do you want to go?'

'Me?' I shivered. I said I would not.

She twitched her mouth strangely and gave me a sneer of disbelief. But her look disappeared in an instant and a serious, sad expression resumed.

I glanced at the starlight and my hand touched the stiff wad of cash in my pocket unwittingly.

But still I told Taxi: 'Mainly I feel embarrassed about asking men for money.'

'You're so pure.'

I felt a bit uneasy and embarrassed by what I had just said.

Helen goes to work at the Smill nightclub for the first time and meets a TV reporter who had once interviewed her.

'Why look at me as if we haven't met?'

Shocked, I stared at his face again and the air seemed to have solidified.

He drew a cigarette from a pack, lit it and chewed it in his mouth but his eyes were glancing sideways.

I felt I had never met him before. So I said: 'Sir, maybe you've got the wrong person.'

He laughed and lay on the sofa beside me, holding my shoulders.

Now I recognised him from his laugh and looked at that bearded face again. It was the television reporter who interviewed me at Mrs Mai's not long ago.

I became nervous and began to feel afraid.

'Maybe I really got the wrong person. But why is your face so pale? You're trembling.'

'I'm sick.'

'Sick and you're still here? How long have you been in this profession? Were you a prostitute when you stayed with Mrs Mai? Remember how you answered my questions?'

'You've got the wrong person, I don't know what you're talking about,' I struggled to say.

He blew smoke in my face and suddenly, I wanted to stand up and run away. But his hand was on my shoulder. There was not an ounce of strength in my body. I was almost limp.

He stubbed out his cigarette...

(This part of the book goes on to describe graphically his harassment and humiliation of Helen.)

'I asked what was your attitude towards life. Your reply was a mysterious smile, like Mona Lisa's. I really thought you were a cultured, civilised, intellectual woman. Now give me a Mona Lisa smile again. Quick.'

He leaned on my body and became angry when he saw that I was expressionless.

'Smile, smile, why can't you? Didn't you say we would see who had the last laugh? No wonder you came to Smill nightclub.'

'Pay me,' I said.

He fished out three $100 bills from the white trousers he had tossed aside.

Lifting his head to look at me, he said: 'Recognise me? This is Singapore currency, worth more than your money.'

Helen speaks to a fellow nightclub hostess, Xiaolan.

I asked: 'What did you do in China?'

'Me?' she laughed. 'I was a sprinter, I ran the 100-metre dash.'

'Did you run fast?'

'I took only 13 seconds to run 100 metres, as fast as a gazelle. Right now, there is a certificate for being the nation's first-rate athlete in my suitcase.'

'Why did you stop running afterwards?'

'Retired. Deployed to an environment protection bureau. It was an extremely small town. Its name did not appear on maps. I spent my days in the office drinking tea or reading newspapers. It was too boring, too oppressive, too impoverished. I got just 500 yuan every month. And then it became less than 500 yuan. And then I got laid off.'

'But you run so fast, why don't you apply for a work permit here? You're a talent.'

'Does this country need me? If I'm a talent, it's only when I'm sleeping beside a man. You? Do they feel you're a talent, too?'

'What about Xiaoying?'

'She's a talent. Knows computers. She has PR.'

'Has PR here, but still does this?'

'Money.'

I was stupefied.

'PR or citizenship here, does that make you a Singaporean? We are different from them, from our little noses up here to our little unmentionables down there. Only money is the same. Same length, same width. It's like a man's solid chest giving us peace of mind and warmth.'

I laughed again. But my laugh sounded like a groan.

Author Jiu Dan's open letter to Singaporean women at the end of her book.

Singaporean women, do not blame these girls from China for competing with you for husbands.

They are competing with you for husbands not only because China is poor and Singapore, rich.

Not only because yours is a country governed strictly and impartially or because every inch of your land is clean.

Not only because there is an atmosphere of free trade in your country, where the girls from China can buy the handbags, clothes and leather shoes they were unable to buy.

And not only because the men in your country speak Chinese and English, too.

This is not the case. They go to Singapore, blindly sometimes. They feel there is light there, so they rush there like a moth darting into a flame.

If you want to blame a woman for competing with you for a husband when you are totally unprepared, if you want to blame her, go blame a moth that darts into a flame.

Because, truly, moths never consider their own strength. They are weak, they are insignificant. Chinese women are insignificant compared to you.

Because they do not have what is required to share their lives with your husbands; the children you brought up together and the careers you built together. So, you should be more self-confident.

These girls from abroad really cannot shake anything of yours.

So go on playing mahjong. So go on wearing makeup. So go on putting on an act. So go on putting aside private savings.

Because Chinese girls are never going to be your equals.

Burmese

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