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In regard to domestic violence I am pleased to say that the Chinese people are not as bad as I feared they would be. Mao Tse Tung said ‘Women hold up half the sky’ and that has become a reminder to men here that women deserve respect, however, a friend tells me that in the new capitalist China women have less power than they used to have when she was a child in the Cultural Revolution era (a horrible time in other ways). I note that bosses are almost always men. However, I have heard nothing of violence within relationships and if it were common in the cities I have lived in I believe I would have heard whispers.

There is a lot of violence in China and I have seen and heard of it in each of the cities I have lived in here. However there is a strong tradition of love of family and perhaps that reduces the incident of violence between marriage partners. Sadly, in many families children are often physically punished for failure in school. Chinese women are certainly not anything like the stereotypes in western minds. I often see girls and boys, young men and women, on the street having play punching sessions and the girls are often putting a good effort into it. I’ve seen Chinese girls chasing boys around the classroom in fairly serious ways. In contrast is is not uncommon to see a girl crouching and crying on the street with a concerned boyfriend trying to appease her. It must be complex to be a young Chinese living such contrasts.

I can’t say that Western countries have made much progress in reducing Domestic Violence. Thank God we have Women’s Shelters. We men have the physical strength but not the emotional strength. Too often men ‘lose it’ and beat their wives or use the greater economic power they often have to harm women in other ways. I was a welfare worker and counsellor over 15 years and couldn’t believe the situations I had to help in. Eventually I couldn’t carry it any more and looked for other ways to make a living. If you are a man concerned about this behaviour and you want to know more, call your local women’s support group and ask for more information. They should welcome your interest, but if they seem a little hard line and suspicious it’s just because they have seen and experienced so much that they can feel anger against men in general.

One of my intentions in blogging is to reflect on my own experiences and observations and what I said matches what I have seen in China. However, there is a lot of violence in the Chinese people, who are obsessed with Kung fu and see Tai Chi as a martial art. The beautifully choreographed movements are, in fact, a defensive movement system that can easily be transferred to an offensive mode. I sense a great air of tension in Wuhan, the city I live in, and a friend who gets out and about more than I do seems lately to be constantly coming across acts of violence as she rides her bicycle to and from work. I really should not conclude that just because none of that has been against a woman it doesn’t happen. If someone can be standing slapping an old man in public with no one trying to intervene it seems likely that the individual doing the slapping would fit the profile of a person who would be violent to women too. Chinese people are even less likely than urban Westerners to get involved.

I live in an apartment and the walls are not soundproof and the windows are usually open and people here don’t see any need to restrain their voices so I guess I would have heard something after a year and a half if physical DV was taking place in my block. I’ve heard nothing.

China is a big place and different places no doubt have different character. There are some terrible things going on. Kidnapping and selling of women happens in some provinces where a shortage of women, arising from selective abortion, makes this a profitable business. (Baby stealing and selling is also common in some parts.) I even heard that some of these women are hamstrung by their husbands to prevent them from running away – an inconceivable act of violence from my perspective. Farmers wanting an heir are the chief buyers.

I have a post here about a Chinese woman who sought her fortune in Japan and had a scary experience for several months just escaping being exploited in the sex ‘industry’.

I welcome comment, opinions, your feelings about what I have written, and from anyone who has knowledge of research figures or any other concrete information about violence towards women in China.

I watched tv with my own personal Chinese translator tonight and was excited to see that the Chinese government has taken a hard line in the slavery case (see my previous blog). Kidnappers are being held in Police custody, brickworks owners are being hunted, slaves are being rescued and their stories recorded, Government officials are being punished and others are being made to do their jobs. Freed slaves are being given free hospital treatment, helped to find work and reunited with their families. The tv seems to be freely reporting it too so we know it’s serious. Let us hope for more of this kind of news from the Middle Kingdom.

No, not me thank God but I’m reeling from the latest scandal to hit the Chinese press. Hundreds of young men and even primary school boys have been kidnapped and held to work as slaves in brickworks in two Central China provinces. They were made to work twenty hours a day and whipped to keep them working and beaten severely if they tried to leave. Can you imagine this happening to you? The news broke and local and national governments were forced to take heed when a courageous mother heard her teenaged son might have been forced to work at a brickworks. She couldn’t find her son but hassled a local tv station until they broadcast news of the problem. A task force of over a thousand police raided scores of brickworks and found over 400 slaves. They estimate at least a thousand more.

No doubt Catfish and many of our other black friends here descend from ancestors who suffered in the same way. In Britain we had the press gangs who would roam towns and villages grabbing people and forcing them to serve in the navy. In Australia we had the blackbirders who stole people from South Sea islands and brought them to Queensland where they had to toil in the Sugar cane fields.

I read later that it would be difficult to get justice for many victims and prosecute any of the **#@!!s except those who enslaved children because there are laws now against taking women and children as slaves but not men. That’s a pretty pathetic statement by whoever said it because there are plenty of laws in China as in any other country that can be used. They put a big effort into the coalmine tragedies in the last couple of years and a lot of managers, owners and officials sat in court so they can find ways to do this too.

If it happened to you, wouldn’t you want that? I bloody well would!

There was a woman in China who was from a low income family but who longed to be rich, as most Chinese people do. Let us give her the name Ou. Ou had qualified for a career but it was hard, exhausting work where she was always on call and sometimes had to work for over twenty-four hours without a break. She heard stories of how some women had gone to Japan and returned with enough money to establish themselves. For a while a man seemed to offer an escape from the grind of her daily life but he proved false. Another romance failed. She was always helping people, believing in the guanxi (pronounced ‘gwan shee’) principle of mutual favours and being a helper by nature. Desperate for a better life she decided to try Japan. She knew the terrible stories of Chinese women lured into prostitution in Japan and carefully sought an agency she could trust. She had no money to pay the agency fees and fares so asked all her friends to return their favours to her. Some gave her what they could but others let her down and Ou had to turn to a family member for the rest. Most of the money was to be paid back from her wages as soon as possible.

This woman is not stupid and reads people fairly well but despite her care she arrived in Japan and was taken to a grope and sing joint with little private rooms out the back where the expectations on ‘waitresses’ were well outside her moral boundaries. Her passport and papers were retained by the ‘agency’ and she believed the papers were not legitimate so she could not leave. She was devastated and made a desperate phone call to a foreign friend who had promised to help if she got into trouble. A strong minded person, she calmed herself and told the manager she would only do waitress duties. She also let it be known that she had a Western boyfriend.

The Western friend was really worried. What could he do? Should he travel to an unfamiliar country and walk into a bawdy house and tell them he was taking one of their women home with him? He turned to the internet looking for help and advice. He tracked down a women’s shelter in Tokyo that specialized in rescuing the desperate women that are recruited from other countries into the Japanese sex industry. An e-mail brought a response from a Christian organization that supported the shelter. The woman that answered was from an American church and was very concerned to hear his story and soon he was informed that some foreign women lured into the sex industry end up dead, with body parts hidden in the countryside. They told him firmly that Ou was in danger for her refusal. He began to call her every couple of weeks, hoping he could find a way to get her home but also unwittingly strengthening her claim that she had a Western boyfriend and perhaps keeping her safe. Ou is very strong minded and decided to stick it out as she could never repay people if she returned to China with nothing. Soon the Church worker had found a contact in the right city and a rescue team was ready to go in to retrieve Ou the moment any girl in the establishment received any physical ill-treatment. She would be taken to the shelter and assisted in every way necessary for her safety.

She remained at the Japanese entertainment place for the agreed upon time and though hating every minute she put on a happy face. Every excursion was supervised so no meeting could be arranged with those who were ready to come to her aid. Her will triumphed and she never allowed any customers to do what they expected from the other waitresses. The manager paid her the minimum wage and she returned home with much less than she had dreamed of.

When she got home her relative came immediately and took every cent she had earned and I have not heard if she has ever managed to repay the full amount. She went into depression for a long time and could not even bear to look for work, feeling she had no future.

Many of us criticise churches. It’s the fashion these days, but they have always been there to help when things like this happen. Police and governments don’t seem to have the power to stop or even combat the corruption in their midst that assists the International Trade in Women (horrific title) to continue. It is almost certain that corrupt officials in China and Japan would have been part of the organisation that organized Ou’s deception. An American church helped a Chinese woman in Japan when there was no one else and an American and some Japanese Christians were willing to risk possible retribution to go in and get a stranger out of a bad situation. No red tape or international diplomacy required. These are wonderful human beings.