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Tormented Deng protected precious chastity at all costs

By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-04 10:30

Of all the monikers heaped on Deng Yujiao, "lie nu" is the most popular.

My Chinese-English dictionary defines lie nu as "a women who dies in the defense of her chastity". Deng is not dead. But without unanimous and overwhelming public support, she could have been.

After stabbing one official to death and injuring another, she was originally to be charged with"voluntary manslaughter".

I admit Deng fits perfectly into the classic mode of lie nu. She worked in a so-called massage parlor, often a euphemism for a seedy hangout for sex services, yet she resisted unwanted advances - to the point where she stabbed those who came on to her.

In many a classic tale, young women in ancient China would cut their wrists if they could not stop this kind of harassment from usually the rich and powerful. This often leads to the boyfriend or husband of the innocent woman pleading for justice and possibly resorting to banditry, as in the famed novel Outlaws of the Marsh.

Online, the term "lie nu of Badong" is a battle cry for action - to use the power of the Internet to galvanize and pressure authorities so local officials will think twice before confusing who is the victim and who is the aggressor. Good, except the title lie nu is not ennobling but feudal in connotation.

Let us look at a few senarios: What if Deng Yujiao was indeed one of those masseuses that offer the special service but was off duty when she was threatened with rape? What if she was giving him a massage but refused for whatever reason? Rest assured, public support would have evaporated as soon as her profession was known. Some would call her a slut and sympathized with those who tormented her.

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But it should not have made a difference. For many, she was defending her chastity. Had she been a woman of ill repute, there would be no chastity to speak of. But for me, she was defending her integrity and self-respect, and chastity is only part of it, albeit a crucial part.

It would not have mattered what profession she had, whether she was young and innocent, what her family background was, or whether the man coming on to her was rich or powerful. If she clearly expressed her wish not to be disturbed, let alone humiliated and attacked, people should respect her wish.

If the officials who were flaunting a wad of cash felt they should get what they paid for, they should have taken the matter to her employer.

Recently, I was in a restaurant in a provincial city and I witnessed an incident. A waitress removed a jar of toothpicks from one table to another without first asking whether those at the first table would need it.

Tempers flared, they called her names and threatened to overturn the table. She apologized profusely and, in the end, one guest spoke up for her, saying it was nothing serious.

The customer is god, and rich and powerful customers are bigger than god. Some of them have a yen to torture those who serve them.

Because they are armed with dominating positions and fat expense accounts, they have the feeling they can treat others as slaves.

We have read about factory employers who strip-search young female workers, nominally for proof of theft, but more for the voyeuristic pleasure of control.

China's angry youth may say I am making light of a potential rapist by turning him into a swaggering customer with a bad temper. I don't have an iota of sympathy for Deng Guida, the official who got his comeuppance for his misbehavior. What I am saying is Deng Guida could be an extreme case, but there are far more people who share his logic than we'd like to admit.

It was his total lack of respect for another human being that is at the root of this tragedy.

Deng Yujiao could kill only one bad apple - and by doing so she could have broken the law, which is sad. But if someone could tell all the potential Deng Guidas their behavior is against rules of a civilized society - and the power that serves as an aphrodisiac for this behavior is countered with checks and balances - there would be less need for lie nu, the modern avatar of suffering for chastity.