The Changing Discourses on Shanghai Prostitution, 1890-1949 Author(S): Gail Hershatter Source: Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol

University of Texas Press

Courtesans and Streetwalkers: The Changing Discourses on Shanghai Prostitution, 1890-1949 Author(s): Gail Hershatter Source: Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Oct., 1992), pp. 245-269 Published by: University of Texas Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3704057 . Accessed: 26/08/2011 10:53

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http://www.jstor.org Courtesansand Streetwalkers: The ChangingDiscourses on Shanghai Prostitution,1890-1949 GAIL HERSHATTER Board of Studiesin History Universityof Callifornia-Santa Cruz

PROSTITUTIONINEARLY twentieth-centurwr Shanghai was vari- ously understoodby contemporariesas a sourceof urbanizedplea- sures,a professionfull of unscrupulousand greedy schemers, a sourceof moraldanger and physicaldisease, and a markerof nationaldecay. It was also discussedas a painfuleconomic choice on the partof women and theirfamilies, and it can certainlyhe construedas a formof work ("sexwork," in currentNorth American parlance), since women seeking employmentin Shanghaiwere as likelyto findit in a brothelas in a fac- tory.The categoriesthrough which prostitution was understoodwere not fixed,and an attemptto tracethem touches on questionsof urban history)colonial and anticolonial state-making, and the intersectionof sexuality,particularly female sexuality, with an emergingnationalist discourse. Fromthe mid-nineteenthto the mid-twentiethcentury, Shanghai was a treatyport a placewhere Westerners governed part of thecity, where Westernand Japanesebusinessmen, sailors, industrialists, and adven- turersmade their homes and sometimestheir fortunes. Shanghai was also Chinatsbiggest industrial and commercialcity, a magnetfor mer- chantsfrom around the countryand for peasantsof both sexesseeking work,and the birthplaceof the ChineseCommunist party. Shanghai

Guo Xiaolin and Wang Xiangyun provided invaluableresearch assistance for this essay.An earlierversion was presentedat the conferenceon i'EngenderingChina: Women, Culture,and the State"(Harvard University and WellesleyCollege, February7-9, 1992). My thanksto all of the participantsin that conference,particularly Christina Gilmartin, EmilyHonig, LisaRofel, Ann Waltner,and MarilynYoung. The essayalso benefitedfrom criticalreadings by Judith Farquhar,Carma Hinton, and Angela Zito.

245 246 GAIL HERSHATTER embracedpopulations from variousnations, regions, and classesand harboredpolitical agitators ranging from Christian moral reformers to Marxistrevolutionaries, all presidedover by threedifferent municipal governments(in the InternationalSettlement, the FrenchConcession, and the Chinesecity). Prostitutionin Shanghaimirrored this urban variety; the hierarchyof prostitutionparalleled the city'selaborate social structure*1 Shanghai's hierarchyof prostitutionwas structured by the classbackground of the customers,the nativeplace of both customersand prostitutes, and the appearanceand age of the prostitutes.The hierarchychanged dramati- callyover the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury, as courtesanhouses and streetwalkersalike faced competition from "modern" institutions such as tourguide agencies, massage parlors, and dance halls. Any account of prostitutionin this periodmust tracka varietyof workingsituations acrossclasses and overtime. Prostitutionwas not onlya changingsite of workfor women but also a metaphor,a mediumof articulationin whichthe city's changing elites and emergingmiddle classes discussed their problems, fears, agendas, andvisions. In the latenineteenth century, prostitutes appeared in elite discourseas the embodimentof sophisticatedurbanity. By the 1940s, prostitutesserved as a markerto distinguishrespectable people, particu- larlythe respectable"petty urbanites," from a newlythreatening urban disorder.Every social class and gendergrouping used prostitution as a differentkind of referencepoint, and, depending on wherethey were sit- uated,it meantsomething different to them. Throughoutthe twentiethcentury, elite men (andoccasionally elite women)wrote a greatdeal about prostitution, but the types of attention theydevoted to it changedover time. In thefirst quarter of thetwentieth century,a literatureof pleasuredescribed high-class courtesans. Guide- books, memoirs,and gossipy newspapersknown as the "mosquito press"were all devotedto the appreciationof beautifulcourtesans and the depiction,often in titillatingdetail, of theirromantic liaisons with the city'srich and powerful.2This literaturealso containedwarnings aboutthe capacityof courtesansto engagein financialstrategizing at the expenseof the customer. Sideby side with this literature of appreciation,the local news page of the mainstreamdailies and the foreignpress carried accounts of the ac-

lThis point is developedfurther in GailHershatter, "The Hierarchy of ShanghaiProsti- tution, 1919-1949," ModernChina 15 (October 1989): 463-97. 2Theterm "mosquitopress" was used in English;the Chineseterm was Jciao bao. See E PerryLink, Jr., Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies:Popglar Fiction in EarlyTwentieth-Century ChineseCities (Berkeley,1981), pp. 118-24. Coxrtesansand Streetwalkers 247 tivitiesof lower-classstreetwalkers, who wereportrayed as victimsof kidnapping,human trafficking, and abuseby madams,as well as dis- turbersof urbanpeace and spreadersof venerealdisease. One might concludethat there was one discourseon upper-classprostitution and anotheron lower-classprostitution. But as Shanghai moved through the secondquarter of the twentiethcentury, the themesof victimization and sexualdanger gradually increased in volume,all but drowningout the discourseof pleasureby the 1940s. Whataccounts for the intensityof thiscondemnationz Beginning in the 1920s, reformersregularly decried prostitution as exploitationof womenand a nationalshame, indeed as one of the keysto China'sna- tionalweakness, since it was arguedthat a systemwhich permitted the treatmentof women as inferiorhuman beings would inevitablybe a weaknation. Chinese elites of the May4th generationthus linked mis- treatmentof womenwith nationalhumiliation, in whichstronger na- tions treatedChina, in effect,like a woman:subordinated, humiliated, withpieces of its territoryoccupied by force, rights to its use boughtand sold with impunity.These critics, who had seen and protestedagainst China'streatment at Versaillesin 1919, set themselvesin oppositionto manyelements of Chineseculture and politics, sometimes proposing an agendafor radicalpolitical transformation, at othertimes adopting the languageof the socialpurity campaigns taking place in Britainand the United States. At the sametime, the popularpress, some of whichhad always em- phasizedthe conflictualand exploitative aspects of prostitution,began as a wholeto paymore attention to theless privileged and protected sec- tors of the trade.This was partof a more generaldevelopment of a muckrakingreportage that focusedon a wide varietyof socialills, in- cludingbut not limitedto begging,public sanitation, mistreatment of domesticworkers, and prostitution.Targeted at an emergingmiddle- classurban audience, these stories addressed and attemptedto resolve anxietiesabout social and sexual disorder. During the sameperiod, the police and the courts,extending their authorityinto new realmsin urbanlife, undertookto regulateprostitution, at least at the margins whereit involvedthe sale into prostitutionof "womenof goodfamilies" or streetsoliciting, seen as a threatto publicorder. Prostitutionis alwaysabout the sale of sexualservices, but much more can be learnedfrom that transaction about sexualmeanings, aboutother social relations, about sex as a mediumthrough which people talkedabout politicalpower and culturaltransformation, about nationhoodand culturalidentity. What it meant (to participantsand observers)for a womanin Shanghaito sell sexualservices tO a man changedacross the hierarchyand over time, as understandingsof prosti- 248 GAIL HERSHATTER tutionwere shaped, contested, renegotiated, and appropriated by many participants:the prostitutes,their madams, their patrons, their lovers and husbands,their natal families, their in-laws) the police,the courts, the city government,doctors, missionaries, social reformers, students, and revolutionaries.Studying prostitution and its changesis thus a good entree,perhaps one of the best,into the thinkingand social prac- tices of manystrata of Shanghaisociety, indeed of twentieth-century Chinesesociety. Thisessay is somewhatmore modest in scope:I examineguidebooks andthe press,mostly in thefirst three decades of thiscentury, in orderto illustratechanging portrayals of prostitutionand to plumbthis material forclues about what this portrayal might have meant for prostitutes, for customers,and finally for latetwentieth-century historians. I firstdelin- eatethe changinghierarchy of prostitution,then compose several snapshots of Shanghaiprostitution as recordedin contemporarysources, bothacross genres and across time. I brieflysuggest some ways in which discourseson prostitutionchanged over the firsthalf of the twentieth century.I readthese discourses,both with and againstthe grain,for clues to the lives of this largeand diversegroup of womenwho, like most womenand indeedmost non-elitegroups of both sexes,seldom representedthemselves in the historicalrecord. The term ;'discourset' is used irl a broadsense here to meannot only the languageused to de- scribeprostitution in the sources,but also the socialinstitutions and practicesthat helpedto constitute(and were constituted by) that lan- guage,including the brothel,the court,families, and marriage. A study of languageand institutions,both of whichcome to the historiannot unmediatedbut encodedin texts of varioussorts, tells us something abouthow prostitutes,customers, regulators, and reformersperceived and experiencedtheir relationship to the worldand to eachother. The objecthere is not to excavatesome subdiscursivei'real" portrait of sex workin that city, or even to give a comprehensiveaccount of all the waysit was talkedabout and by whom. Rather,the essaysuggests a rangeof questions aboutChina, women, and visions of modernity- thatcan be addressedby listeninghard to the dissonancein the chorus of audiblesounds about prostitution.

NUMBERS AND HIERARCHY Shanghaiprostitution is importantto the historianat leastin partbe- cause of the numbersof women involved.3The estimatesrun from

3Thestatistics and classificationshere areadapted from Hershatter,"The Hierarchy of ShanghaiProstitutioll,') where complete citations are available. Courtesansaxd Streetwollkers 249

4,500 licensedprostitutes in the InterrlationalSettlement in the 1920s to 100,000 licensedand unlicensedprostitutes throughout the city in the 1930s and 1940s. The highernumbers would mean that one in everynineteen women was a prostitute,more if the cohortunder con- siderationis narrowedto womenbetween the agesof fifteenand thirty. Thesefigures suggest that Shanghai, China's largest industrial city, argu- ablyhad moreprostitutes than cotton-spinners. Nevertheless,these numbers were collected by an inconsistentgroup for changingreasons from a populationthat had everyreason to lie. Counting,like classifyingand regulating,is not a neutralactivity. The creationof statistics,in Shanghaias elsewhere,was part of a state- buildingprocess, and as such it was often resistedby the people it soughtto incorporate.What was being counted, why, and by whom also changedfrequently in Shanghai.Therefore the questionof what the numberssignify cannot be answeredwithout looking at changingcon- ceptionsof whatprostitution was and where it stoodin relationto questions of publichealth and social order. That requires an examinationof the hierarchyof prostitution. At the beginningof the twentiethcentury, the prostituteswritten aboutat greatestlength were those who entertainedthe local literati.4 Famedas singersand storytellers,they were commonly addressed with the respectfulterm ncianshensg, most frequently translated into Englishas "sing-songgirl." Members of this classregarded themselves as skilled entertainersrather than providers of sexualservices; they prided them- selveson "sellingtheir voices rather than their bodies." Bythe 1920s the sing-songgirls had been absorbed into a lessexalted group, the chan,gsanclass of prostitutes.The term cholrDgsoln("long three')is derivedfrom one of the thirty-twoivory tiles used in jign,g. Traditionally,chan,gsan prostitutes charged three yn fordrinking with guestsand threemore for spendingthe nightwith them.Throughout the Republicanperiod, chanf sgn women were at thetop of thehierarchy of prostitution.Like sing-song girls, they performed classical songs and scenesfrom operas,dressed in elaboratecostumes) and specializedin hostingbanquets and gambling parties for merchants and well-placed of- ficials.It wasdifficult to makethe acquaintance of a chan,gsanwithout an introductionfrom one of herregular guests. Though a changsanmight

4Purtherdiscussion of this materialcan be found in two of my publishedarticles on prostitution.See Hershatter,"The Hierarchy of ShanghaiProstitution," pp. 468-71, and Gail Hershatter,"Prostitution and the Marketin Women in EarlyTwentieth-Century Shanghai,"in Mawia,geand InequalitCyin Chinese Society, ed. RubieS. Watsonand Patricia Buckley Ebrey (Berkeley,1991), pp. 260-62. All translationsin the present essay are my own. 250 GAIL HERSHATTER becomethe regularsexual partner of one or possiblymore men, gaining accessto hersexual services was an elaborateprocess fraught with social peril.Next in the hierarchywere theyao'er prostitutes, also named for a maiian

5WangDingjiu, Shan,ghaimenjin,g (Key to Shanghai)([Shanghai?] 1932)) s.v. "Piao" (Visiting prostitutes),pp. 27-28. 6TangYoufeng, Xin Shanghai(New Shanghai)(Shanghai, 1931), pp. 152-53. Courtesansand- Streetwalkers 251 wasto dragher into the street,because then she would become fearful of police interventionand desistin her efforts. The hierarchyof prostitutionchanged in the 1930s and 1940s,with the proliferationof modernancillary occupations such as tea hostesses, taxidancers, masseuses, and female guides. All thesewomen were nomi- nallyhired to performother than sexual services, but the incomethey earnedwas simply inadequate, urlless they slept with customers for addi- tionalmoney. As paidcompanions, entertainers, and sex workers, each of thesenew typesof prostituteappropriated some aspectof the older courtesantraditions; but theydid so in Westernizeddress, mimicking a different,newer elite from the one that shapedcourtesan practice. Theirswas a "modern"form of prostitution,with emphasison func- tional and efficientdelivery of servicesto membersof the commercial and industrialclasses. As Shanghaibecame a majoreconomic, political, and cultural center duringthe firsthalf of the twentiethcentury, the marketin prostitutes grewand changed in nature.7What had been essentially a luxurymarket in courtesansbecame a marketprimarily geared to supplyingsexual servicesfor the growingnumbers of unattached(though not necessarily unmarried)commercial and working-class men of the city.The increase in demandapparently was accompaniedby a boom in supply,fed by a burgeoningpopulation of refugeesand peasants in distresswith daugh- terswhom they could not support.It appearsthat the "popularization" of prostitutionwas accompaniedby degeneratingconditions of work for the individualprostitutes, or at least that moreand morewo1nen participatedin the less privilegedand more vulnerablesectors of the trade,including unlicensed prostitution of all typesand the "modern" formsof disguisedprostitution. Thischange in the politicaleconomy of prostitutionwas reflected in the changingdiscourses on prostitution,but those changing discourses cannot be understoodas a simple responseto growingnumbers of lower-classand disguisedprostitutes working the streetsand amuse- menthalls. They also must be read,as suggestedearlier, as a roadmap to the changingconcerns of a changingelite.8

7See Hershatter,"The Hierarchyof ShanghaiProstitution," pp. 493-94. 8Mappingthe changesin twentieth-centuryelites is a subjectfar too largefor this essay. Manyuseful approachesto the topic arepresented in JosephW. Esherickand MaryBackus Rankin,eds., ChineseLocal Elites and Patternsof Dominance(Berkeley, 1990); for comments on the fusing of merchantand gentry elites in Shanghai,see ibid., p. 20. 252 GAILHERSHATTER

SNAPSHOTS OF PROSTITUTIONIN SHANGHAI Two types of sourcesare helpfulin mappingthese concerns.Guide- booksand the so-calledmosquito press dealt primarily but not exclusively with courtesansas social companions.The mainstreampress reportedon prostitutesof all ranksrusually as victimsof oppressiveso- cial relationsor threatsto socialorder. Amongthe richestsources on Shanghaiprostitution are guidebooks writtenby elite authors,devoted either wholly or in substantialpart to descriptionsof prostitution.The guidebooks derive from a mucholder genreof reminiscencesabout prostitution but appearto havebeen pub- lishedfor a growingurban audience. They have titles such as "Precious mirrorof the Shanghainese,""A sixty-yearhistory of the Shanghai flowerworld," "Pictures of the hundredbeauties of flowerland,""A history of the charmof the gentlevillage," and, most colorfulof all, "A completelook at Shanghaiphilandering," by an authorwho took the pseudonym"Half-crazy one.tz9 Guidebooks included biographies of famous prostitutes;anecdotes about well-known customers; exhaustive glossariesof the languageof the trade;meticulous mappings of brothel organization;descriptions of the properbehavior required of customers whena prostitutemade a formalcall or helpedto hosta banquetor gam- blingparty; descriptions of fees,billing procedures, and tips; lists of fes- tivalsand the obligationsof a regularcustomer at eachseason; accounts of taboosand religiousobservances; and talesof variousscams run by prostitutesto relievecustomers of cash. The guidebookscan be readin conjunctionwith the tabloidnewspa- persof the mosquitopress, which typically devoted a pageor moreto gossipabout courtesans. One of the most famouswas Ji¢,gDao:, which was publishedevery three days, beginning in 1919, for morethan two decades.l°Jingbao overlapped with the guidebooksin contentbut devoted a greatdeal of columnspace to trackingrelationships between courtesansand the city'selite, as well as quarrelsamong courtesans and businesssuccesses or reversals.Most of the detaileddescriptions con-

9HuangRenjing, Huren baopian (Precious mirror of the Shanghainese),subtitled in En- glish What the Chinesein Shan,ghaiOught to Know(Shanghai, 1913); Wang Liaoweng, Shanghailiushinian h?waiie shi (A sixty-yearhistory of the Shanghaiflower world) (Shang- hai, 1922); ZhanKai, Rosiangyxnshi (A historyof the charmof the gentle village),3d ed. (Shanghai,1917); Banchisheng[pseud.] (Half-crazy one), Haistvan,gyeyoubeiloun (A complete look at Shanghaiphilandering)) 4yxan (1891). l°Jinzgbao(The crystal)was published in Shanghaifrom 1919 to 1940. Link calls Jingbao"the premier example of the mosquitopress for two decades"(p. 119). He givesits circulationin the 1920s as over ten thousand (p. 120). Courtesansand Streetwalkers 253

cernedcourtesan brothels, but manyalso iIlcluded substantial attention to the configurationof the hierarchyas a whole. Most guidebookswere engaged in a literatureof nostalgia.Guide- books writtenin the 1920s locatedthe golden age of prostitutiona quarterto a halfcentury earlier. In fact,several of theguidebook authors explicitlysaid in theirprefaces that they wererecording the definitive historicalaccount of a worldthat was about to disappearbecause of reform movementsto abolishprostitution. One authoreven compared himselfto the famousHan dynasty historians Ban Gu and Sima Qian.1l Andlike classical historians of the Han andlater, many of theseauthors reprintedalmost verbatim (and without citation) material from earlier guidebooks.They also resembledclassical Chinese historians in their predilectionfor comparingthe cutrrentage unfavorably to the past.Just as historiansfrequently mourned the failureof contemporaryrulers to measureup to the sagaciousrulers of yore,guidebook authors mourned the declinein entertainmentskill, refinement, and classicaltraining of upper-classprostitutes. Thisliterature of nostalgiaemerged irl a timewhen urban China, and Shanghaiin particular,was undergoingrapid and disquietingchange. As manyChina historians from Joseph Levenson on havenoted, the question"What is Chineseabout China?"emerged as a seriousand troublingone for membersof the elitein theface of theWestern assault in the nineteenthcentury.l2 Part of theiranswer was to glorifyChinese culturalpractices (now codedas relativerather than universal). And a partof that glorificationwas to meticulouslyexplicate the cultivated and refined social practicesof courtesans(as in? C;TheWest has prostitutes-we have courtesans").The productionof this literature peakedin the yearsimmediately after national civil serviceexams were abolishedin 1905-in shortzin yearswhen definition of membershipin the elite andthe understandingof China'splace in the worldwere both in flux.Seldom mentioned in thisliterature, the Westwas nonetheless a kindof unspokenstandard against which these authors produced an account of the worldthey had lost. Theaccount of brothelorganization suggests that at the top of thehierarchy,any pictureof overweeningmadam and exploited,victimized prostitutes(the dominant portrayals in bothreform-minded contemporarysources and any accounts collected after 1949) shouldbe modified significantly.Courtesan houses were of two types.In one, a largehouse wasrented by a maleor (morecommonly) a femalebrothel-keeper, who

llQi Xia and Da Ru, eds., Haishanghua yinglu (A recordin imagesof Shanghaiflow- ers), rev. ed., 3 vols. (1915; Shanghai,1917), vol. 1. l2JosephLevenson, ConfxcianChina and Its ModernFate (Berkeley,1972). 254 GAIL HERSHATTER subletindividual rooms to abouta dozencourtesans. Meals, including lucrativebanquets hosted by customers,were prepared by servantsin a commonkitchen. Particularly famous courtesans were actively recruited by the owner,who securedtheir serarices for one seasonat a time and welcomedthem with elaborateceretnonies. The ownerand the courte- sanssplit the incomefrom calls, banquets, and gambling parties, but the courtesanhad to payfor her own meals,her personalservants (as op- posedto the brothelstaff), furniture, and electricity. A courtesanwho attracteda greatdeal of businesswas sought by many brothelsand might move frequently.One whosebusiness did not go well, in contrast,might suffer the humiliationof losingher room at the end of the season.In the second)simpler type of upper-classbrothel, a singlecour- tesan,usually a famousone, rentedher own dwellingand hired her own servants,installing herself at the pinnacleof a smallhierarchy.l3 Thesedescriptions of brothelorganization were intended as a guide to the consumerand a textualspectacle for the urbanreading public. Butthey provide pieces of informationto the historianas well, suggest- ing that courtesanswere a group of active, autonomousbusiness- women,each her own chief marketingagent as well as her own chief product.They marketedprimarily social companyrather than sexual services;the lattermight be bestowedif the courtesanwished, but not in directexchange for moneyor goods.Courtesans had a keeneye to their own financialsecurity and the size of theirbusiness. Those who were most popularwith customersretained a greatdeal of bargainingpower with regardto brothelowners and mighteven become madams themselves.The courtesanworld was a mobileone: courtesansseemed to changeestablishments at will, cooperatingfirst with one madamor sis- tercourtesan and then with another, adopting new professional rlames, changingbrothels, moving up in statusfrom courtesanto courtesan/ ownerto madam,even migratingbetween cities. Oftenthe most powerfulwoman in a brothelwas not the courtesan or the ownerbut one of the olderfemale servants. Many of theseser- vantspossessed considerable financial resources. Since courtesans billed theirregular customers at the end of a season threetimes a year-in the interimthey had to fronttheir own moneyfor clothing,food, and entertainmentexpenses. The servants acted as bankers,making loans to

l3Fordescriptions of brothelorganization, see Huang Renjing,pp. 128-30;Jin,gbao, November 27, 1919, p. 3; Ping Jinya, "Jiu Shanghaidechangji" (Prostitution in old Shanghai),in Jiu Shan,ghaideyanducholn,g (Opium, gambling, and prostitution in old Shanghai), ed. Shanghai shi wenshi guan (Shanghai, 1988), p. 160; Sun Yusheng [Haishang juewusheng, pseud.], Jingdeshenghuto (The life of prostitutes) (Shanghai, 1939), pp. 18-33; Wang Liaoweng,pp. 13-14. Courtesansgnd Streetwalkers 255 courtesans,who oftenfell deeplyinto debt.l4Some guidebooks indicate thatbecoming a banker/servantmay have been part of the careerpath of agingcourtesans who could no longerattract customers.l5 The guidebooksand mosquitopress offer catalogs of the pleasure, bothexplicit and implied, to be foundin thecourtesan houses. Most ob- viouswere the pleasuresof thegaze and the ear:looking at andlistening to beautiful,cultivated women, showcased in exquisitelyappointed set- tings,who couldsing, composepoetry, and converse with wit. Orlefa- mousprostitute, whose professional name was Lin Daiyu -takenfrom the nameof the heroineof the classicalChinese novel Dream of theRsd Clsamber wasdescribed in an 1892 guidebookas "justlike a begonia afterthe freshrain . . . she reallyis verydelicate and attractive.''l6De- scriptionsof individualcourtesans stressed their refinement and cultivation. A typicalpassage from Jinybgo read, "When guests leave, she burns a stickof incense,makes a cupof Longjingtea, and does watercolors.''l7 The tabloiddescribed another woman thus: "She reads a lot andwrites well, andknows foreign languages and Shakespeare.''l8 Here the image of courtesanlooked both ways to the literatureof nostalgiaand to the West.The courtesan was not onlydefined with reference to DreoDmofthe RedChagber but alsodrew part of the repertoireof self-presentation- clothing, bodily stance, hobbies, markersof cultivation-from the West.Urgent conversations among Chinese elites about self-definition wererefracted in this worldas well. Forthe cultivatedliterati who patronizedthese houses, the pleasures of looking and listeningwere intimatelyrelated to the pleasuresof skilleddescription and reparteeamong themselves. Many of the early guidebooksfeatured elegant poems written by customersin appreciation of courtesans.l9Perhaps the mostintricate ritual of describingand judgingwas a seriesof electionssponsored by the mosquitopress, held

l4Chunmingshuju, ed., Shgnghaibeimuyiqian zbong (One thousandscandalous stories of Shanghai)(Shanghai, 1937), C'Changsan,"pp. 2-3; Sun Yusheng,p. 27; Wu Hanchi, ed., Quoun,guo,gefieqiekou da cidian(National dictionary of secretlanguage from all walksof life) (Shanghai,1924), p. 6. l5Someof the most noted courtesans,however, remained active into their fortiesand beyond. See the comments on Lin Daiyu below. l6Huayuxiaozhu zhuren [pseud.] (Master of the flowerrain villa), Haishan,g qinglog tuyi (Recordsand drawingsof Shanghaihouses of prostitution) (1892), juan 1, p. 1. 7Jin:bao,August 15, 1919, p. 3. Jinzgbao,August 27, 1919. l9Forexamples of this kind of poetry,see Chi Zhizheng,"Huyou men,gyin,g" (Dream im- ages of Shanghaitravels), ed. Hu Zhusheng(March 1893, WenzhouMuseum, photocopy of edited manuscript),pp. 4-8; Li chuang wo dusheng, ed. (Student who lies on the goosefoot bed), Huitg Sbanghaizaii (MiscellaneousShanghai notes, illustrated)(Shang- hai, 1905), juan 6, p. 7, andj?an 7, p. 7. 256 GAIL HERSHATTER

irregularlyfromthe 1880sto 1920. Localliteratiwere invitedto vote to enterthe namesof theirfavorite courtesans on the "flowerroll," a list parallelingthat of the successfulcandidates on the imperialcivil service examinations.The womanwho receivedthe most votes, like the man whoseexam received the highestgrade, was called the zh?an,gygan, and othertitles were awarded as well. Afterthe fall of the dynastyin 1911, the nomenclaturewas modernized)and leading courtesanswere awardedtitles such as president,prime minister, and general instead. In the testimonialsthat accompaniedtheir votes, patrons marshaled their powersof eloquenceto extol the virtuesof theirchosen favorite, in the processexhibiting their authorial skill to theirfellow literati.Courte- sans,on the otherhand, were willing to participatein the electionsbe- causethey broughtmore business to theirhouses.20 Partof the pleasurein frequentingbrothels had to do withbusiness. In the receptionrooms and privatedining and gamblingspaces of the cluan,gsanhouses, businessmen met to cultivatethe relationshipsleading to lucrativedeals; politicians made allianceswith other politicians. Thesegatherings might be private,but they werein no sensefurtive. Courtesanswere considered a featureof theurban entertainment scene, evenarguably a sourceof civicpride. The fact that so muchof the local commercialand politicalscene was conductedin the brothelsuggests thatit shouldbe regardedas a typeof semipublicspace in Shanghai,one centralto the socialhabits of the city'selite over the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury. It alsosuggests that the brothelwas much more than a venuefor socialand sexualencounters with courtesans. Curiously)in the guidebooksthe sexualact itselfcommanded none of the poeticlanguage characteristic of novels.It wasreferred to simply as luoxiangholo) "staying with an intimate,"or zbengeciaoDurz, "a true meltingof the soul.''21A regularsexual relationship with a courtesan waspresented as a desirablegoal, but the contoursof desireitself were not partof the guidebookdiscourse The mosquitopress, in reportingthe successiveliaisons made by

20On the elections, see Chan Qingshi [pseud.] (Attendant who repents emotion), Haishangshxnfan,gpx(An albumof Shanghailadies), Shenbao guan, 4 jgan (1884); Ping Jinya,pp. 166-67; Chen Rongguang [Chen Boxi], Lao Shan,ghgi(Old Shanghaihand) (Shanghai,1924), pp. 90-95; Huayuxiaozhu zhuren,jn 1, p. 2; Qi Xiaand Da Ru, eds., vols. 1 and 2; Yu Muxia,Shanghai tinshao (Shanghai tidbits) (Shanghai,1935),ji, pp. 37- 38; Zhou Shoujuan,Loo Shan,ghai sanshi nianyianwen 1 (A recordof things seen by an old Shanghaihand in the last thirtyyears), 2 vols. (Shanghai,1928), 2: 2-4, 38-51; Xu Ke, Qingbaileichao, vol. 38 (Qing unofficialreference book) (ShanghaiX1928), pp. 1-4. 2lSee,for example,Qi Xiaand Da ltu, eds., vols. 1 and 2; Sun Yusheng,pp. 44-47, 94, 105-9; Wang Zhongxian, Shan,ghgiS?yu txshxo (An illustrateddictionary of Shanghai slang) (Shanghai,1935; rpt. Hong Kong [c. 1970s]), p. 12; Yu Muxia,ji, pp. 43, 45. Courtesaxsand Streetwglkers 257 courtesans,indicated the degreeof controlcourtesans had over sexual andromantic relationships Lovers might - or mightnot-overlap with clienteleor even with husbands.Courtesans were known for theirro- manticalliances with male opera singers. Lin Daizru3 the famouscourte- san namedafter the heroineof D m af theRed Ghberi in her late fortiesbegan a liaisotlwith an operasinger who was not yet twenty, laughinglytelling friends,'sI take it as a drug for my health.?'22The newspaperswere full of storiesof courtesanseloping with gilded yquths, often overthe objectionsof the mans family?

22Jingbao,March 3,1919. 23See,for example,Shibao, July 10, 1929, p. 7. 24StephenH. L. Cheng,"Ftowers of ShanBhaiand the Late-Ch'ingCourtesan Novel" (Ph.D.diss., Harvard University, December 1979), p. 252. 258 GAIL HERSHATTER by the courtesans.Someone who failedto meetthe requirementsby not spendingenough money, by spendingtoo muchmoney, by dressingin- appropriately,by assumingirltimacy too quickly-generally,by saying or doingthe wrongthing wouldbe ridiculedas a countrybumpkin.25 If thecourtesan embodied urban sophistication, then, the new customer wentto the brothelnot onlyin searchof the pleasuresdescribed earlier, but alsoto createand exhibit his own urbanity.In the rapidlychanging Shanghaienvironment, positioning oneself favorably in the urbanhier- archyand beingvalidated by both courtesansand other customers was not merelya matterof entertainment. Theguidebooks were a repositoryfor a vastarld varied cautionary literature,in whichthe dangersenumerated ranged from the annoyingto the deadly.Accompanying the loving and admiring descriptions of individualprostitutes were warnings that prostitutes had one purposeonly: to relievecustomers of theirmoney. To this end,with andwithout the collusionof the brothel-keeper,they would engage in variouspractices. A womanmight repeatedlyclaim to be a virginin orderto collect a deflorationfee multipletimes. Prostitutes of all ranks,customers were warned,were experts at whatwas called"the ax chop"(kan fgto), re- questingclothing or jewelryfrom a closecustomer.26 They were said to be as skillfulin matchingtheir requests to the customer'sresources as a doctorin writinga prescriptionof exactlythe appropriatestrength. The prescriptionwas "flavored"with rice soup (a slangterm for flattery), tears,vinegar (slang for jealousy),and sweetsugar syrup.27 One of the laterguidebooks carries an illustrationof a womanreclining under a quiltwhile a mustachioedman sits next to heron thebed. She is ticking off on her fingersitems depictedin a cartoon-likeballoon above her head:a fine house, a car,and a diamondring.28 Thehospitable and affectionate demeanor of suchwomen, the guidebookssaid, was only a coverfor theircalculating and deceptive nature, whichwas reflectedin the termsby whichthey classified guests behind theirbacks. A "beancurd"guest, for instance,was one who would do

25Forexamples of this kind of writing, see Sun Yusheng,p. 8; Jingbao,November 30, 1919, p. 3. 26WuHanchi, ed., pp. 9, 13; Wang Houzhe, Shanghaibaoyian (Precious mirror of Shanghai) (Shanghai, 1925); Ping Jinya, p. 160; Shuliu shanfang[pseud.], "Shanghai qinglou zhi jinxi guana'(A look at Shanghaibrothels present and past),Jingbao, March 18, 1919, p. 3. 27Someauthors (for example,Wang Zhongxian, p. 42) use the termmitan,g (rice soup). This is a homophonefor the more frequentlyused mitag,gr,soup of deceptionor enchant- ment potion, found in Sun Yusheng,pp. 120, 130; Wang Houzhe; WangDingjiu, p. 16; Yu Muxia,shang, p. 16. 28wang Zhongxian,p. 42- Courtesansand Streetwalkers 259 the woman'sbidding. A "walnut"guest needed one hardknock before he wouldsupply a womanwith goods. A "soap"guest or a "stone"guest neededtime and energybut would eventuallyyield something.The worstwere "flea" and <'fly" guests, who buzzedaround the brothelsbut vanishedas soon as one "swatted"them for contributions.29 In effortsto increaseher take, the guidebookssaid, a womanmight practicethe C'stratagemof [purposely] injuring one's body') (kro?ji), in whichshe pretendedto be at oddswith hermadam. She might present theirconflict as a verbaldisagreement or mightgo furtherand suggest thatthe madamwas physically mistreating her. She would then beg the customerto buyher out andtake her as a concubine.30In fact,the whole procedureof buyinga beautifulcourtesan as a concubine,which one mightexpect to findin the litanyof pleasures,seems to fallalmost com- pletelyinto the "danger"category. The guidebooks and mosquito news- papersreport that many courtesans aspired to marriagewith a powerful man or, more accurately,to concubinage.Principal wives usually were acquiredfor a man by his familyon the basisof matchedback- groundsand with the aim of enhancingfamily assets and status)and a courtesancould not contributemuch on any of thesecounts. Concu- bines,in contrast)usually were picked by the men themselveswith an eye to sex, romanticattraction, and good conversation)as well as the productionof maleheirs. But, surprisingly,a woman who madesuch a matchdid not settledown into a relativelysecure life butoften stayed in a relationshipjust long enoughso the suitor-cum-husbandcould clear herdebts, pay her a "bodyprice," and equipher with jewels and other valuables.The process of marryingunder these circumstances was called "takinga bath,"and storieswere told of courtesans,including Lin Daiyu,who bathedmany times in the courseof theirlong careers.3l Manyof thewomen, impatient with the confinement and the emotional discomfortof being concubines,left their husbandsand used their newlyacquired resources to open theirown establishments.When they chosesexual partners for love, ratherthan for materialadvantage, they weresaid to preferactors or theirown driversto well-heeledliterati and merchants."They please customers for money,"declared a 1917 guidebook, "butwhat they reallylike areactors."32 All of thesestratagems, of course,can be readnot as dangersbut as

29WangLiaoweng) p. 135 30SunYusheng, pp. 68-69; Wang Houzhe. 31Onher career and the frequentablutions of Lin Daiyuand some of her fellow courtesans, see Jix,gbao,September 21, 1919, p. 3; Wang Liaoweng, pp. 50-56; and Zhou Shoujuan,1:1 72-77. 32QiXia and Da Ru, eds., vol. 1. For a list of forty-sevenliaisons betweenprostitutes and actors, see Chen Rongguang[Chen Boxi], pp. 123-28. 260 GAIL HERSHATTER possiblepoints of negotiationor resistanceon the partof the prostitutes, who tried to maximizeboth theirincome and theirautonomy vis-a-visboth madams and customers. "Ax-chop" income, for instance, wentinto the pocketof the courtesan,not the owner.When a courtesan becamea concubine,the madamcustomarily was paid a fee, but so was the womanherself; she mightuse a marriageas an interimmeasure to terminatean unsatisfactoryrelationship with the madamand to accu- mulatefinancial resources. More broadly,the historianhears another message,although it is perhapsnot exactlywhat the authors intended- life in the demimonde,for a womanwith an establishedclientele and acutebusiness skills, allowed more spacethan marriagefor her to ar- rangeher own timeand control her own income.Women in theprofies- sion of prostitutionrecognized this, valuedit, and actedaccordingly. A finaldanger found in the guidebookswas that of renerealdisease. Usuallythe warningabout venereal disease was coded for class;very little diseasewas said to be found in courtesanhouses, and guidebooks thatdealt exclusively with high-class establishments sometimes did not mention it at all. But most guidebooksdevoted space to a detailed discussionof the lower reachesof the hierarchyas well. Below the courtesanrank, these guidebooks admonished) venereal disease became distressinglycommon. 'sHer body today is wantedby Zhang, tomorrow is playedwith by Li, andthis goes on everyday) without a nightoff, so it is impossibleto avoiddisease," wrote a 1939 author.'CIf you wantto visit prostitutes[pigo], chan,gsan are somewhatmore reliable.'t33If a guidebookcustomer insisted on frequentinghouses below the courtesanrank, he wasadvised to takea numberof precautions:when paying a call on a prostitute,squeeze her hand and discreetly check whether it is inflamed;in bed,first inspect her elbow joint for lumps,and, if you find one, "pullup shortat the overhangingcliff." In one of the mostexplicit passagesto be found in the guidebooks,a 1932 workadvises, "When the frontlines where the two armiesconnect are tense," you can press downon the stomachand lower regions of youropponent. If she calls out in pain,she has venereal disease, and you must"immediately throw downyour spear, don't begrudgethe fundsfor the paymentof soldiers or continueto pressforward with the attack."34Insofar as warningsof venerealdisease remained tied to the classof the prostitute,they collld be readas indicationsthat an elite manshould seek out onlycl1angsan houses,rather than as a generalizedcomment on the dangersof frequentingbrothels or the wagesof sin. Prostitutesof lowerthan courtesan rank typically were portrayed as

33Sun Yusheng) p. 159. 34wang Dingjiu, p 25 Courtesansand Streetwalkers 261 victims rathertharl perpetrators in these accounts-forced by their madamsto haverepeated sexual relations until and evenafter they becameinfected.35 This was perhaps the singlenote of victimizationcon- sistentlyheard in theseguidebooks. Little was said in the guidebooks about women being sold outrightinto prostitutionor enteringinto contractsagainst their will. For an eliteaudience, precise mechanisms of entry into the professionwere not of interest.Not only inside the brothel,but also in mattersof nationalsignificance, the womenwere portrayedas agents,not as victims.During the May4th movementof 1919, for instance,students and other urban dwellers all overthe coun- try protestedthe negotiationsat Versaillesthat cededGerman rights overChinese territory to Japan,rather tharl returning control to China. Echoesheard in thedemimonde included courtesans closing down their establishmentsfor a dayto protestthe "nationalshame," leafleting in supportof a citywidestrike, setting up a refreshmentstand for protest- ing students,and joining the boycott of Japanesegoods.36 In short, courtesanswere written into the civicand national drama as legitimate actors,not victims.The overwhelming picture that emerges from a reading of the guidebooksand the mosquitopress is a worldof womenwith a greatdeal of roomto choosetheir own companionsand arrange their own workingconditions, though obviously within manyconstraints, living li^resof occasionalpenury but not seriousmaterial deprivation. Sucha womanmight break the heartof a son of the Shanghaielite, but herexistence would not causehim anyserious moral, political, or legal problems.Courtesans were not objectsof pity. A surveyof Shanghai'searliest and most respectedChinese newspa- per,the Sbenbao,yields a verydifferent picture, however. Instead of cultivated,autonomous, upwardly mobile, romantically active courtesans, in the pagesof the ShenbaDoin 1919 appeareda groupof poor, op- pressed,exploited, often battered prostitutes. They were not courtesans but usuallywere of the pheasantclass-streetwalkers. They were often barelyout of childhood, although occasionallythey were married women.Stories stressed their rural origins and the factthat they were either kidnappedand sold into prestitutionor pawnedby destitutepar- ents. (No embodimentsof urbanity,they.)37 In eithercase, the reports emphasizedthat the womendid not wish to be prostitutes,and from

35See, for exampleo Sun Yusheng,pp 170-71. 36Shenbao)May 10, 1919, p. 1 1 ;Jin,gbao,June 3, 1919,p. 3, andJune 12, 1919,p. 3. 37Thistype of storyabout prostitutes is analyzedmore fully in GailHershatter, ('Sex Workand Social Order: Prostitutes, Their Families, and the State in Twentieth-Century Shanghai,"paper presented at the Conferenceon FamilyProcess and Political Process in ModernChinese History, Institute of ModernHistory, Academia Sinica, Taipei, January 3-5, 1992. 262 GAIL HERSHATTER whatwas said about the circumstancesof theirdaily lives, it is not diffi- cult tO imaginewhy. Theywere most often seen in one of two situa- tions: fleeingfrom a cruel madamand being sent by the municipal authoritiestO a relieforganization; or beinghauled in by the policefor aggressivelysoliciting customers, fined five or ten y?san, and released, presumablyto ply theirtrade again. Coverage of theiractivities lacked the lovingdetail lavished on courtesans.A typicalarticle read in its en- tirety:"Pheasant Dai Ayuan, from Changzhou, was arrested on Nanjing Road by Patrolmannumber 318 from the Laozhapolice stationand finedfive yuan. "38 Occasionally,in corroborationof the guidebookac- counts, an articlementioned that a streetwalkerhad venerealdisease and had been cruellytreated by her madam.39 Obviously,one wayto reconcilethese two verydifferent snapshots is to point out thatthe mosquitopress and the guidebookswere describing womenat the top of the hierarchyof prostitution,and the Shenbolo and other similarnewspapers were describing women at the bottom Bothtypes of womensold sexual services: but there the similarity ended. Streetwalkers,unlike courtesans, worked in miserableand dirty circumstances,under duress, for cash,in the processposing both a dangerto social order(dealt with by the police) and a dangerto publichealth (hintedat in the accountsof venerealdisease). So if we takethese wildly differingaccounts at facevalue, we haveto questionwhether the single categoryof prostituteassumes a similaritywhere one shouldnot be assumed whetherin factwe shouldstop talkingabout prostitution as a unitaryoccupation and instead use subcategoriessuch as courtesanor streetwalker. But there is another,even trickier,question to ask about these sources:Do the differenti'facts" they report reflect a differencein preoc- cupationson the partof the writers,the readers,and the newspaperedi- tors?Among the literateShanghai population who wrote and read these newspapers,was one segmentconcerned mostly with the pleasures to be foundin frequentingcourtesans, while another segment focused on the socialand medical dangers that prostitution posed to womenand to so- cietyas a whole?Or was there one groupwriting and reading both kinds of accounts,who thoughtcourtesans were a sourceof pleasureand streetwalkersa source of dangerz Furtherresearch on Shanghaisociety and the placeof prostitutionin it may permita furthermapping of authorsand readers.Ultimately, however,it is probablywise to abandonattempts at reconcilingdis- coursesand to look insteadat theirdifferences. Prostitution was an es-

38Shenbao,November 12, 1919, p. 11. 39See,for example,Shenbao, May 7, 1919, p. 11. Coxrtesansand Streetwalkers 263 traordinarilyflexible signifier for manydifferent kinds of Chineseen- gaged in many differentconversations. The result was a clusterof discourses whatmight be describedas a dissonantchorus that raises questionsboth about the contemporarymeaning of the categoryof prostitutionand about the concernsof the patronsand the widerurban population.Above all, the sourcescompel skepticism about the notion thatwe can retrievefrom history a singleset of descriptiveor explana- tory factsabout prostitutes. In the 1920s and 1930s, the guidebooks,mosquito press, and news- papersof recordmaintained their coverage of prostitution,but with markedchanges. Some voices grew louder, others muted. Although the courtesandid not completelyvanish, appearing in the literatureof nostalgiaand in classificatorylists through the 1940s,she was no longerthe emblematicfigure of the sex trade.She was replacedby the disease- carrying,publicly visible, disorderly pheasant. Discussions of prostitution becamemedicalized, and its treatmentincreasingly was coded as a publichealth problem. This theme can be seenin documentswritten by foreignersin Shanghaias earlyas the 1870s andwas common in West- ernsources by 1920, as partof a generalcolonial concern with the "cul- turalhygiene" of governedpeoples.40 But by the 1930sand early 1940s it appearsfrequently in Chinesesources typicallywith reference not to courtesans,but to pheasantsand other lower-class prostitutes. By1941, in fact,the Shenboloran a seriesof articlesthat described the hierarchyof prostitution,refiguring it as a hierarchyof venerealdisease. The articles statedthat, according to localexperts, at leasthalf of theShanghai popu- lationwas infected with socialdiseases; that 90 percentof venerealdis- easewas firstspread by prostitutes;that 90 percentof the lowest-class Chineseprostitutes and 80 percentof the foreignprostitutes had venerealdisease. The new forms of disguisedprostitution were said to be no safer:80 percentof the guidesin tourguide agencies were said to be infected,while masseuses were not onlydiseased, but also clothed in filthy urliforms.Only in a handfulof high-classbrothels were the Chineseand foreignprostitutes said to "understandhygiene" or to stopwork if they becameinfected.41 Parallelto the medicalizationof prostitutionwas the emergenceof a legaldiscourse, which did not deemprostitution illegal but regulatedit in a waythat offeredprotection to "womenof good families"and focusedon validityof contracts,partly as anindicator of who suchwomen

40Fora fullerdiscussion of these Westernsources, see GailHershatter, "Regulating Sex in Shanghai:The Reformof Prostitutionin 1920 and 1951," in FredericWakeman and Wen-hsinYeh, eds., ShanghaiSojoxrners (Berkeley, 1992). 4lShenbao,October 31-November 3, 1941. 264 GAIL HERSHATTER

were.A womanof good family,legally speakingo was ol1e whose family did not intendto sell her,who foundherself in a brothelwithout a con- tractthat legalized her presence there. Frequently cases were reported in the pressof a womanor membersof hernatal or maritalfamily goixlg to courtto assertthat she hadbeen sold into prostitutionagainst her will. Onlya womanwho couldprove that she had been forced into prostitution couldhope to get legalhelp in fleeingthe brothelsystem.42 Prosti- tutes of any rankcould and did sue to be releasedfrom an illegal contractor to altertheir status. By the late 1920s, prostitution,both high-classand low-class, was a litigablesphere, no longera matteronly of pleasureor money but of contestablecontractual obligations and legalregulation. Beyond indicating the emergenceof a legaldiscourse, theseaccounts also treatrelationships between prostitutes, on the one hand,and madams or traffickers,on the other,as pointsof conflict,re- gardlessof whetherthe sexworker was a courtesanor a pheasant.Prosti- tutesalmost invariably were portrayed as victiinsin theserelationships. Moregerlerally, prostitutes increasingly appeared in writtensources as victimsof a varietyof oppressors:the labormarket, a societythat deval- ued daughters,the madam,inconstant patrons and lovers,and occa- sionallythe state. The thirdtheme of increasingprominence, sounded by reformers andby government agencies, was the need for regulation of thesex trade as a whole,usually without regard to rankin the hierarchy.Because of theirthreat to publichealth and order andalso, no doubt,because of their increasingnumbers and potential for generatingrevenue- prostitutesin the Republicanperiod attracted the intensifiedinterest of a statethat was itself growing increasiRngly intrusive and tutelary.43 The state-in thiscase, the multiplemunicipal governments of Shanghai- begansystematically to regulate,tax, or attemptto eliminateprostitu- tion. As early as 1920, the InternationalSettlement government, pressuredby foreignmissionaries to abolishC'commercialized vice,'t li- censedall brothelsand then progressively withdrew the licenses;the result of thisforeign-run campaign was, as predictedby its opponents,an upsurgein unlicensedprostitution.44 Duringthe 1910s and 1920s, the idea that prostitutionwas a na- tionaldisgrace and a contributoryfactor in China'snational weakness gainedcurrency among Chineseelites, includingChinese Christians

42See,for instance,Shenbaon May 11 and 13, 1920, p. 11; Shibao,April 8 and 12, July 15, and November 16, 1929, p. 7. 43Thephrase is DavidStrand's. See DavidStrand, Rickshaw Beiying: Cit;:y People and Pol- itics in the 1920s (Berkeley51989), p. 66. 44Hershatter,"Regulating Sex in Shanghai,')pp. 153-98. Courtesansand Streetwalkers 265 andtheir secular May 4th counterparts.In a Chinese-languageguide to Shanghai,which bore the didacticEnglish subtitle Whgt the Chinese in ShgnghaiOgght to IRnow,Chinese ChristianHuang Renjingcom- mented:"Famous persons from all over the c-ountrygo to brothels. Theyare the leadersof our people.When leaders are like this, one can imaginethe situationamong industrialists and businessmen.... The developmentof the Westis dueto theskill of the craftsmenand the dili- genceof the merchants.They are not likethe degeneratesof our coun- try,who makeuse of brothelsto reachtheir goal. I hopethat our people will learnfrom the Westerners,not go to brothels,and forbid prostitution. It is possibleto catchup withthe Westerners.The reason they de- velopedfrom barbarism to civilizationat thisspeed is thatmost of them do not go to brothels.They have virtue; we Chineseshould learn from them.3)45Chinese elites linked prostitution to China'spolitical vulnera- bility in the internationalarena. C'The amount of money wastedin Shanghaion prostitutionin half a year,"observed one ChineseChris- tian acerbicallyoC;is enough to redeemthe railroadswhich have been mortgagedto the Japanese.'46 The most rapidand dramatictransformation of the discourseon prostitutionoccurred after the Communists took control of Shanghaiin 1949. In the l950s, the newCommunist leadership saw the elimination of prostitutionas a potent symbolof Chinatsemergence as a strong, healthynation. A descriptionof theirsuccessful campaign to eliminate prostitutioI1in the 1950s is beyondthe scopeof this essaynbut even a cursoryexamination makes clear its implicationsfor the discourseon prostitution.47 Thelanguage the Communistsused to describethe elim- inationof prostitution was thatof reeducation,of redemptionfrom im- perialismtof creationof a new woman,frce from her past shameful historyas Chinawas free from her national shame Likeearlier reformers,functionaries of the Communistgovernment regarded prostitution as a social illness. Unlike earli-erreformers, though, they had much greatercontrol of statepower and an expansivedefinition of the scope of activityfor thatpower. They appropriated some aspects of olderdis- courseson prostitution- thepublic health threat posed by venereal disease, for instance-and literallydrowned out the rest, using public mediato discreditdiscourses of pleasureand entertainment; closing the brothels-and forcibly altering the social environmentin which they flourished;creatirlg a Women'sLabor Training Institute to house(that is, confine),medically treat, reeducate, and find jobs for ex-prostitutes;

45Huang Renjing (n. 9 above)) pp. 134-35. 46ChigeseRtcorder, August 1920 pp. 579-80. 47This campaign is discussed in Hershatter, "Regulating Sex in Shanghai." 266 GAIL HERSHATTER

even actingas a matchmakingbureau to findrespectable mates for ex- prostitutes,thus sCrenaturalizing) them into the familialorder. In other words)this government moved energetically into alterationof the labor market,the law, the police, the press, the brothel, and even marriage and the family,in a way that rapidlyand forciblyaltered the discourseon

. . prostltutlon. The transformationof the discourseon prostitutionover the period from1919 to 1949 wasuneven and incomplete. In 1919 one couldfind storiesof victimizationand venereal disease in the press.And in 1929, evenin 1939, one could still findstories of attractive,entrepreneurial, successful,socially and geographicallymobile prostitutes.These accounts,however, shared space with a growingbody of literaturefocused ...... On 1t1gaT10n,V10 ence, vlctzmlzatton,mec lca ,lzatzon, anc w taxatzon.

TOWARDA CONCLUSION The dissonantchorus of voiceson prostitutiorlappeared to growmore unifiedover time, with emphasison the dangersrather than the pleasuresof prostitution.The historianhas to askWhy? The perpetual reconfigurationof the discourseson Shanghaiprostitution certainly re- flectedthe changingoccupational structure of Shanghai,where commercialand industrialsectors grew in tandemwith a deepeningrural crisis,encouraging the migration,both voluntary and coerced, of peas- antwomen and girls. These interlocked phenomena led to a swellingof the lower ranksof prostitution,changing the sexualservice structure suchthat it was regardedas moredisruptive of socialorder, more dan- gerousto socialand physicalihealth. Yet a researchstrategy that treatsdiscursive construction as the un- problematicreflection of prediscursivesocial change misses something. One mustalso look at thosewho wroteabout prostitution, considering the changingself-definition of urbanelites, the effectof the May4th movementand the growingrevolutionary movement, the development of reformistconversations on the positionof women in generaland prostitutesin particular,and the effect of languageand categories drawn fromWestern missionary sources as well as fromChinese radical politics.The discourseon prostitutionshould also be counterpoisedto the paralleland intersectingstruggles over the meaningsof marriageand family,barely alluded to in thisessay. It is interesting,for instance,that courtesanswere initially regarded as socialas well as sexualcompanions andwere portrayed as offering a rangeof companionshipand choice not to be found in arrangedmarriages. In the social ferment that followed the May4th movement, however, intellectuals began to articulate,if Courtesgnsand Streetwalkers 267

not to practice,a notionof marriageas a companionatepartnership be- tweenequals. If marriagewas companionateand desiredas such,then courtesanswere no longer importantas educatedwomen with great skills,as a meansto relievethe tediumof an arrangedmarriage, or as entertainers.All thatwas left for the world of theprostitute was sex. Simul- taneously,prostitution was redefinedas an exploitativetransaction wherethe mainconnection an oppressiveone, at that wasbetween the prostituteand her madam, not the prostituteand her customer. Be- causeof theseconnections, prostitution must be lookedat in dialogue Wlt. 1 marrlage.. Similarly,reformers and state authorities repeatedly counterpoised prostitutes to women-in-families.The nationalist regime and its twentieth-centurymursicipal governments sought to extendtheir do- mainof regulationinto the family,echoing both theirConfucian an- tecedents and the modernizingregimes of Europe. In their view, encoded in regulationson traffickingand prostitution,women-in- familieswere indicativeof a well-orderedsociety. The sunderingof familynetworks through trafficking and sexwork bespoke a largercri- sis in social order, a crisis that would entail the renaturalizingof women into the familialorder as part of its resolution.This belief about the properplace of women was not challengedin 1949; the prostitutionreform campaign of 1951 conductedby the government of the People'sRepublic of China(PRC) shows that administrators from that periodshared the sameassumptions about the need to re- store women to the family and thus order society.48Encoded and enforcedas governmentpolicy, these "merely"discursive construc- tions of prostitutionhacS a profoundimpact on the daily lives of prostitutes. The argumenthere is that materialand ideologicalchanges cannot and should not be examinedseparately and that neithercan be regardedas "determinativein the last instance' of the conditionsof prostitutes'lives. Changes in migrationpatterns and economic oppor- tunitiesmight have increased the numberof prostitutesand the alarm overthem. But charlgesin elite notions aboutthe link betweenwom- en's statusand national strength helped to shapethe languagein which increasedprostitution acquired meaning, even giving it the modern termfor prostitute,jinu (prostitutefemale), which replaced the earlier min,gfi (famousprostitute). And the elite helpedto shapethe institutions thatemerged to reformor regulateprostitution all of which,in turn, became part of the materialconditions of prostitutes'lives. Changesin the legal and reformdiscourses on prostitutionmay also

48Seeibid. 268 GAIL HERSHATTER haveled (thoughevidence on this is mixed)to a declineof the upper- class brothelas an institution. Finally,one encountersmajor limitations in usingthe discoursesof pleasure,reform, and regulationas a blueprintfor reconstructingthe lived lives of thesewomen. Virtually all of the sourcesthat survivefor the historianto studywere written by men for a maleaudience. They were male representationsof a particularlyfemale experience.The voicesof the patron,the reformer,the lawyer,and eventually the doctor arefar more audiblethan the voicesof the prostitutes. A "differentvoice" among this malechorus was provided by some of the women who wrote for women's magazines,particularly in the 1930s some of the main reformistvoices of that era. But their representationsof prostitutionwere bounded, if not by genderdiffer- ences,then most assuredlyby class. Their writings were rich in the rhet- oric of social purityand pity for fallen sisters.49In fact, their voices testifyto extremedegrees of victimization,testimony later expanded upon and given officialapproval by the PRC-eramunicipal government. So if the male voices providea gender-boundeddiscourse of pleasure(male) and danger (to males),the femalereformist voices provide a class-boundeddiscourse of victitnization(of lower-classwomen by men) and redemption(of prostitutesby theirupper-class sisters). Continuallyobscured in all of this are the voices of the prostitutes themselves-voices which,while surelynot unified,given the variety of arrangementsunder which women sold sexualservices, certainly would sound differentfrom what we are able to hearat a safelyhis- toricaldistance today. Of course,the muchsought voices of theprostitutes themselves, if we could hearthem, would not be unmediated;their daily lives, struggles, and self-perceptionwere constructed in partby the othervoices and institutions.Their experience was bounded by legal,medical, moral, and politicaldiscourses that must haveaflSected how they saw themselves, whatalliances they sought inside and outside the brothel,and what their optionswere. And yet Shanghaiprostitutes did not existunder a single, omnistructuringdominant discourse, either. The various discourses on prostitutionwere themselves in competitionand in flux.Between and withinthem, prostitutesappear to haveengaged in everydaypractices that resistedthe dominantdiscourses and improvedtheir own living; and vvorkingconditions using concubinageand the courts,for instance,in waysthat belied their portrayal as victimsor as threatsto the regulatedsocial order. By reading and listening against the grain, we can

49See,for example,Ghen Luwei7"Shourong jinude jingguo" (The processof taki.ngin prostitutes), Shanzghaifxnu 1 (Aprit 1938): 11-22. Courtesansand Streetwalkers 269 beginto understandthe voicesand actionsof prostitutesin relationto thosewho were more visible and audible. In the process,perhaps we can learnwhere the voicesof prostitutesformed a chorus,where a counter- point, wherean importantdissonant note, in the changingdiscourses on prostitution.At the sametime, we cantrace the discursiveuses that othersmade of the prostitute.These are most apparentin arguments about the shiftingmeanings of urbanity,respectability, government, evennationhood, as elitesand less exalted city dwellers sought to define for themselveswhat it meantto be an urbanChinese in the twentieth century.