SOCIETY
All for money’s sake
ZHANG LIJIA
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China’s relaxed social control and growing wealth has seen a resurgence of the ancient practice of concubinage.
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Photos: Lijia Zhang
Open secret: Ernais are a modern version of an ancient culture.
Singer Wang Chunlei is stunningly beautiful, a fact of which she is well aware. Standing on the small stage in a karaoke bar called Lucky in Shenzhen, she sings emotionally, one jewelled hand holding the mike to her mouth as the crowd showers her with applause.
Spinning around town in her Audi, Wang usually hops to two or three bars every night. Her pay — 100 yuan for half an hour’s singing — isn’t much. Like many singers at Shenzhen’s karaoke bars, Miss Wang has an open secret: she has a wealthy patron. She is an ernai, one of millions in today’s China. Ernai (literally ‘second wife’) refers to the mistress of a married man. The modern version of concubines is kept by the rich and the powerful, and indeed any man who can afford it. The lucky ones, such as Miss Wang, enjoy an enviable lifestyle with their own apartments, designer wardrobe and the luxury of leisure.
Trend comes back
The Communists, having taken over the power in 1949, stamped out the feudal tradition of keeping concubines. In the past decades, the relaxed social control and growing wealth have witnessed the spectacular resurgence of this ancient concubine culture. And Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong, is known as ernai paradise. Among the hotspots that have been dubbed ‘ernai villages’ is Huanggang Village, a residential area with modern blocks packed tightly together. Here, restaurants, mahjong centres, hair salons, beauty salons and bars dominate the street, making it the perfect ernai playground.
In a private room at Lucky, 28-year-old Miss Wang looks back her ernai path. From a worker’s family in Wuhan, a city in central China, she ventured down south 10 years ago, hoping to become a star. Before long, she met her first “master” Jin Min, a successful businessman from her hometown nearly 20 years her senior and, of course, married. “Actually I never felt he was a married man because his wife and daughter live in Wuhan. I sometimes felt he was like a caring father,” Wang says.
Ji set her up in a luxurious apartment in Silver Lake on outskirts of town, even paying for her to study singing in Beijing. “I was lucky since he was in love with me and I was very fond of him,” Wang says. Yet she embarked on a love affair with a fellow student Peng, unknown to Ji, who, like other masters, expected fidelity.
To lure her back to Shenzhen after two years’ study, he bought her an Audi. But when Ji discovered she’d kept in touch with her Beijing lover, he vanished. “I was devastated,” Wang says, carefully wiping away her tears with a handkerchief. It took her a few months to find a replacement, this time a Hong Kong property developer in his 50s. “He doesn’t treat me so well. I’ll make do with him before finding someone better.”
Major shift
Feng Ling, a Shenzhen-based journalist from Yangcheng Evening News, has written widely about the ernai phenomenon and noticed a major shift. “The ernai used to be poor and poorly-educated country girls,” Feng says. “Some of the new ernai are from comfortable backgrounds and even educated. They tend to treat ernai as a lucrative career option and have few qualms about it.” The “sponsors” treat ernai as “trophy wives” parading them in public while their real wives live in blissful ignorance. “It’s almost like: you are not successful if you don’t have an ernai,” explains Feng.
Wang’s current patron relishes the chances to introduce her as a singer to his colleagues. “He likes me to dress up glamorously and go to his business banquets,” she says proudly. Wang would be outraged when men at bars mistake her for a “hostess” who usually sells sex. But what’s the difference?
None, according to Professor Pan Suimin from People’s University. In his ground-breaking book China’s Sex Industry, Professor Pan states: “Ernai, by definition, is a prostitute because the union between her and her patron is not based on emotions but money or material benefits.”
Wang doesn’t wish to disclose the precise figure of her monthly keeping. But Andy Liu, her agent/DJ, reckons that a girl of her class reaps anything between 10,000 and 20, 000 yuan a month, excluding presents or valuable goods. According to him, about 80 per cent of men who take ernai are businessmen from Hong Kong. Typically, they rely on DJs like him or a Mama-san to find a ‘girlfriend’, for a fee. “These guys all want young and pretty things, sweet-natured if possible.”
“Why not?” says Mr. Cheung, a 55-year-old businessman. “My wife had long lost interest in our bedroom activity. If I can create some colour and excitement in life with my hard-earned money; why not?” Cheung spends the weekend in Hong Kong with his wife and children and the week days in Shenzhen with a 26-year-old girl.
Typical tale
Li Lingling’s story is typical. “No girl would like to demean herself. But the contrast of income is too big,” she says. Five years ago, when Li, then 18, left her village in western China’s Sichuan province, she got her first job selling beer at a western restaurant. She made 600 yuan the first month. Then a friend introduced her to work at a karaoke bar to accompany drinking men. When the drinks and money dulled her inhibition, she started to sleep with her clients. Her salary soared to 4000 yuan a month. “In the early days there, I cried every night. But then, I told myself, I came here to make money,” she says, swinging back her silky long hair, as if throwing away any unpleasant thoughts.
For two years, she was kept by a man in his 40s who owned a trading company in HK, who she described as ‘piggy’. “Piggy’s fat. But he paid me generously,” dimples again blossom on her cheeks. Like many ernai, she took lovers. One of them was DJ Andy Liu, with whom she had an on-and-off two years’ intense relationship. “I loved him. I think he loved me, too. But he would never marry me because he knew my background,” she lights up a cigarette. Then one day, ‘Piggy’ took a new ernai. “Maybe he found something out. Or maybe he just had enough of me,” Li shrugs her thin shoulders, sucking deep into her cigarette.
Currently, Li works as a Mama-san at a karaoke bar a few blocks away from Lucky. She doesn’t care about “fast food” any more — selling herself here and there. She is looking for a master. “There’s more security,” she says. Li may have to wait for a while before finding herself a patron. The business has slowed down in the past few months ever since the financial crisis hit the world. “People are going out less, and spend less and give us less tips.”
The whole entertainment industry suffered. Quite a few night clubs and karaoke bars have shut down. “I don’t think the ernai scene has been hit as badly as sex industry,” says DJ Liu. But he has noticed that fewer men have come to him for mistresses. On the other hand, more girls are asking him to introduce a patron to them, even those attractive girls who may earn more money working as ‘chicken’.
Women’s groups and experts have lobbied the government to revise the marriage law and to class taking an ernai as bigamy, arguing that the trend has led to the breakdown of family values and rising divorce rates. The law has yet to change, but four provinces have passed legal guidelines to make divorce easier for women if their husbands keep ernai.
Singer Wang doesn’t particularly worry about the current financial crisis. “People always need entertainment. Men always need women,” she says. And there’s no incentive for women like her to give up her high living. “Everyone makes use of his special talent. Why can’t I make use of my beauty and charm?”
Zhang Lijia’s latest book Socialism is Great! A Worker’s Memoir of the New China was released recently.
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