Brothel Life

In Ta-ch'ing li, a lane off of Chiu-chiang Road, residents of every class crowded together in the 1940s. Doctors, fortune-tellers, owners of opium and gambling dens, businessmen and shop employees lived in close proximity. The monied classes resided in large apartments, while their poorer neighbors lived ten to a room. Of the four hundred residences in the lane, twenty-four were brothels. Though not of the highest grade, they nevertheless boasted many of the accoutrements of fancy establishments. In the late 1940s Ta-ch'ing li was home to 101 prostitutes, many recruited by the madams from their own native places.

To open a brothel in this lane or anywhere else in Shanghai, a madam

(known as the lao-pao ) needed not only. money but also "background": marriage or a liaison with a local hoodlum, connections to the neighborhood police or to gang bosses. Local madam Ting Ts'ai-ch'un, for instance, was the lover of a police officer. Sometimes the madam's money and "background" had been acquired in a previous career as a prostitute. In other cases madams had begun their careers as brothel servants; this was the case with Big Pockmark and Small Pockmark, two madams in Ta-ch'ing li (Sun et al. 1986). Madams frequently owned as well as operated these establishments (Henderson 1871:12), though sometimes they shared ownership with a male boss. If a madam owned the establishment, she took charge of renting the house, meeting police regulations, and recruiting women (Wiley 1929: 59). After they opened their brothels, madams had to cultivate connections with the local police, usually through the payment of quasi-legal taxes like the "street-standing tax" (chan-chieh chuan ) and the "friendliness tax" (ho-ch'i chuan ). Prompt payment of these fees ensured that when the police came to inspect an establishment there would be no trouble, and if a madam became embroiled in a court case the local police would intercede. These police connections could be invoked by the madam in conflicts with the neighbors or used to bring an unruly prostitute into line (Lu 1938:14-15).

Once a woman was sold or pawned to a brothel, the madam had claims on her person that resembled those shopowners had on their apprentices or labor bosses on their contracted laborers. In the upper-class brothels, at least, the harshness of the madam/prostitute relationship was obscured by the language of kinship. Most prostitutes in Ta-ch'ing li, for instance, were addressed by terms used for adopted daughters and were taught to address the madams as "mama." The "family" consisted of a "father" (the owner or the madam's paramour), a "mother" (the madam), five or six adopted "daughters," and servants to do the housework. Larger brothels had a complete complement of cooks, bookkeepers, runners, and rickshaw pullers, but the Ta-ch'ing li establishments were more modest. The madams played cards or gambled with the neighbors, who were careful to avoid epithets like "madam" or "prostitute" when a conflict broke out because such an insult could not be easily repaired. In general, the madams treated these young women well, gave them enough to eat and wear, and made sure that they were strictly supervised by female servants. The more beautiful prostitutes-in-training were educated in chess, poetry, and music. During the day the "daughters" of the madams dressed like any other girl on the lane. Only their habit of sleeping until noon and their resplendent dress after five in the evening distinguished them from the neighbors (Sun et al. 1986; "Demi-monde" 1923:785).

Relationships in the brothels mimicked familial relationships in less. benign ways as well. Daughters in most Chinese families had little to say about the choice of their marriage partner or the timing of the match. At marriage,

they passed from the control of their natal families to that of their husbands, who had claims on their labor and their sexual and reproductive services. Similarly, prostitutes exercised no autonomy over when and to whom they would begin to sell their sexual services. A "daughter" in one of these houses was carefully groomed for her first night with a customer, which usually happened sometime after she turned fourteen. The privilege of defloration (k'ai-pao ) was expensive, and the madam would do her best to locate a wealthy businessman or industrialist whose first-night fee would repay the cost of raising the girl. The man who could afford such a fee was permitted to take the young woman to a rented room for the night; the entire defloration fee went to the madam. In top-class houses, first-night rituals were especially elaborate. The occasion was marked by a solemn ceremony that included lighting candles and bowing to images, much like a marriage rite. The patron then hosted a banquet for his friends at the brothel, a procedure known as "celebrating the flower" (tso hua-t'ou ) (Sun et al. 1986).

Little is known about how young women were prepared for their first sexual encounter. In some respects they appear to have been as sequestered, and as ignorant, as their counterparts who were married to upper-class men. Madams in the higher-grade brothels took care that their virgin "daughters" did not go out unchaperoned; they worried about the girls, recalled a resident of one brothel district, "just like parents worried about their children." They did not want to risk a casual sexual encounter with a local hoodlum, or a love affair, and the consequent loss of the lucrative first-night fee.

Even after a prostitute had spent her first night with a man, the madam continued to exercise a great deal of control over the sale of her services (what kind, when, how often, to whom, and for how much money). As mentioned earlier, providing sexual services was a minor part of an upper-class prostitute's duties. She spent much of her time attending parties given by powerful men, where she engaged in light conversation, drinking, and music making (Wei 1930:13). In the 1920s she was paid one yuan for each call, even if it was only several minutes in duration, and might make dozens of such stops in the course of a working evening, either alone or accompanied by a servant (Lemière 1923:131; Wiley 1929:72). Sometimes wealthy customers would request that a prostitute accompany them to a dramatic performance or other place of entertainment (Henderson 1871:14; T'u 1948:hsia , 76). The woman's brothel charged a set fee for all such services.

An upper-class prostitute thus moved around more than the sheltered daughters of respectable urban families. As one contemporary observer put it, "She can visit the races, the theatre, make journeys unaccompanied by a male member of the family, and engage in many other activities denied to her sisters within the home" (Wiley 1929:74). It is not clear, however, that an upper-class prostitute was able to control where she went, when, or with

whom; much of her social schedule was probably arranged by the madam. The ability to move around did not necessarily mean freedom of movement.

But there were exceptions to the ironclad control of the madams. Very famous or very beautiful prostitutes had some control over their own sexual services. And money was not the only variable; as one guidebook lamented, "Many are those who spend ten thousand pieces of gold, and never get to touch her" (T'u 1948:hsia , 76). A 1932 guide to Shanghai, in a section entitled "Key to Whoring" ("P'iao ti men-ching"), elaborated on this theme. It explained that some patrons could not "get into the water" even after hosting several expensive banquets, while others "tasted the flavor" without hosting even one. The key, explained the author, lay in the behavior of the patron. He should be careful to exhibit not only wealth but also good taste in dress and choice of male companions. If he was "foolish when appropriate and serious when appropriate," then even the most popular prostitute would eventually become a "prisoner of war at [his] feet" (Wang Ting-chiu 1932:"P'iao," 6). Accounts of this kind never mentioned the madam as arbiter of such encounters; the woman was portrayed as having a degree of autonomy in her choice of customers.

Although upper-class prostitutes often commanded high fees, they had little or no direct control over the income they earned. Direct fees for a woman's services were usually paid to the brothel staff, not to the prostitute. The more elegant brothels "had their shroffs and they sent their customers chits at the end of the month, like any other business establishment" (Hauser 1940:268). A house made money not only on its women but also on its banquet facilities and domino games; the madams, rather than the prostitutes, received this income (Wiley 1929:60). When a high-class prostitute went out on a social call, accompanied by her attendants, she was expected to divide the money she received with servants, musicians, and the brothel owner (Lemière 1923:131).

Three-quarters of the five hundred prostitutes questioned in 1948 said their income was average or above (chung-teng yi-shang ), though their comparison group was not specified; the investigators commented that since the currency devaluation prostitutes were much better off than salaried urban workers. But the survey added that "after exploitation by the brothel owners and middlemen, and after waste and consumption, their life is by no means well-to-do" (Yü 1948:13). One of the few ways that an upper-class prostitute could amass wealth of her own was if a customer gave her money or presents in addition to paying the madam's fee. This private wealth was known as ssu-fang ch'ien , the same term used for a married woman's private savings (Sun et al. 1986; R. Watson 1984:4-9). But a woman did not always have clear title to these presents. In a 1929 case, for instance, a popular prostitute received some valuable jewelry from an admirer. Later she fell ill and pawned

the jewelry to pay her medical bills. When one of the Shanghai tabloids published this information, her erstwhile patron was furious and demanded that she return the jewelry. Unable to comply, she tried to kill herself by jumping from a ferry sampan into the river (SP May 20, 1929:7).

As one moved down the hierarchy of prostitution, women apparently had even less control over the sale of their sexual services. in the "one-two" houses, customers were accepted readily whether they were regulars or strangers (T'u 1948:hsia , 77). Prostitutes in the salt-pork shops and even lower-grade establishments received customers in cubicles called "pigeon sheds" (ko-tzu p'eng ), each one just big enough for a bed. The women spent a certain amount of time with each customer, depending on the size of the fee, then went on to the next one (Sun et al. 1986; Zhang and Sang 1987:32). The pheasants, too, remained under surveillance by brothel servants, even when soliciting on the streets. Neither their freedom from the physical confines of the brothel nor the fact that as a group they were somewhat older than upper-class prostitutes guaranteed them greater control over their working lives. In addition, women who had been sold outright to a brothel apparently had less freedom to refuse customers than "free prostitutes" (Zhang and Sang 1987:33).

In the 1948 survey of five hundred prostitutes, most women were found to have had ten to thirty sexual encounters per month, with some women reporting as many as sixty (Yü 1948:13). But even the high figure may not accurately reflect the experience of lower-class prostitutes. Madams reportedly forced these women to have sexual relations with anywhere from four to twenty men a night, while saltwater sisters sometimes serviced twenty to thirty customers a night (Lo Ch'iung 1935:36; Zhang and Sang 1987:32; T'ang 1931:153). Such accounts are indirectly supported by the complaint of reformers that lower-class prostitutes were the chief cause of venereal disease because they spread it more widely and quickly than others (Yü 1948:13; "Demi-monde" 1923:786).

In some brothels women were expected to continue work even if they were menstruating or in the second trimester of pregnancy; such practices are said to have led to disorders ranging from menorrhagia to frequent miscarriage. After a miscarriage, a prostitute was put back to work as quickly as possible (Zhang and Sang 1987:32; Lo Ch'iung 1935:36). To prevent pregnancy, madams gave their prostitutes live tadpoles to eat on the theory that the "cold element" in tadpoles would counteract the "heat" of pregnancy. The same remedy was applied as an abortifacient (Sun et al. 1986).^[10] Venereal disease undoubtedly brought on infertility, stillbirth, and miscarriage. A 1948 survey found a very low rate of pregnancy among a sample of five hundred prostitutes (Yü 1948:13).

The actual incidence of venereal disease among prostitutes is impossible to determine. A 1931 guidebook, its author intent on advertising the

pleasures of Shanghai's entertainment quarters, estimated that only 1 or 2 percent of all prostitutes were infected (T'ang 1931:154). But soon after the Japanese occupation, an investigative committee organized by women reformers under the auspices of the city government found that all of the pheasants rounded up in one relief effort (a total of thirty) had syphilis, and many suffered from gonorrhea as well (Ch'en Lu-wei 1938:21-22). A 1948 government report commented that most women contracted venereal disease within a year or two of beginning work as prostitutes. Of 1,420 working prostitutes examined by the municipal health authorities in 1946, 66 percent had venereal disease; the percentage was 62 percent for 3,550 women examined the following year. Most of these were cases of tertiary syphilis; the report noted that the numbers would have been still higher if a more reliable test for gonorrhea were included (Yü 1948:11, 13). Women who were examined and treated in government clinics represented only a tiny percentage of all prostitutes, most of whom had no contact with the medical system. Many who contracted syphilis were treated in the brothels with crude home remedies.

An examination of violence in the brothels makes clear the lack of control that prostitutes had over their working lives. Accounts of violence used by madams and brothel servants against prostitutes filled the Shanghai press during the Republican period. These reports usually concerned practices in lower-class brothels, where the madams beat their prostitutes for failing to bring customers home, for refusing to receive customers, for infractions of brothel rules, for stealing or being careless enough to let customers steal from them ("Demi-monde" 1923:786-87; SP April 8; May 29; June 10; July 6, 18; November 16, 1929:7; January 28, 1928:7). Some madams were sadistic as well as brutal; one put a cat inside the pants leg of a new prostitute who did not want to sleep with customers and whipped the cat until it lacerated the woman's leg (Ch'en Lu-wei 1938:22). When prostitutes fled to escape such abuse, they found scant refuge on the streets of Shanghai. The lucky ones were picked up by the police and remanded by the courts to the Door of Hope or another relief organization, with the ultimate expectation that they would find a spouse (sung-t'ang tse-p'ei ) (SP February 23; July 6, July 15, 1929:7). The others got no help from local patrolmen, who were often receiving regular payoffs from the madam. If a prostitute complained directly to police headquarters, the brothel owner might be fined a few dollars. But with no other way to make a living, a woman usually had to return to work as a prostitute (Ch'en Lu-wei 1938:22).

Very little is known about how the prostitutes regarded their work or themselves. Undoubtedly their outlook varied depending on whether the madam was cruel or kind, whether or not they had to entertain many guests, whether or not they became ill or pregnant. Certainly beautiful prostitutes in prestigious houses led a comfortable life compared with what they might

have expected in their families of origin. They ate well, dressed beautifully, and enjoyed the glamour surrounding their occupation. "Since seduction is her trade," commented a 1929 observer, "her dress sets her off from other women. Her rich apparel of brilliant silk makes her much better dressed than any class of women save the very rich. On the streets she is the object of attention for those who wish to see the new styles in feminine dress" (Wiley 1929:74). A 1920 newspaper article reported that upper-class prostitutes often wore jewels worth five or six thousand dollars (NCH June 26, 1920, cited in Wiley 1929:74). Of the five hundred prostitutes of all grades surveyed in 1948, 56 percent declared themselves satisfied with their occupation, mainly because it provided them with a relatively secure livelihood in a period of economic uncertainty. Less than a quarter were unhappy with their current circumstances (Yü 1948:12).

Nevertheless, social workers reported a variety of less sanguine attitudes on the part of prostitutes. Some, they found, articulated feelings of depression, inferiority, and suspicion (ibid., 12-13). Relief workers who interviewed such women reported that they were "as though anesthetized . . . numbed to the conditions of their existence." Unfortunately for the reformers, such emotional numbness did not translate into docility or willingness to reform. Given literacy training, the women in one program tore up their books and asked, "Why should we 'chew yellow beansprouts' here when in our 'own homes' servants will address us as 'Miss'?" In despair the social workers responsible for this program commented that "prostitutes are not ordinary women; they have deeply rooted vulgar practices, know no shame in their behavior, assume airs of importance, are lazy and full of ailments, like to sleep and cry, and are especially good at trickery" (Ch'en Lu-wei 1938:21-22). A former prostitute interviewed in the 1980s recalled the strategies women used to justify their existence to themselves:

You've got to have some idea in your head to keep you going. Otherwise you just couldn't take it, going with all those men. At first I just felt it was my fate and nothing could be done about it. Later I believed some of the things the other girls said. The craziest idea was it wasn't men having fun with us, but us having fun with them and they still had to pay good money. (Zhang and Sang 1987:33)

For these women, as for the prostitutes rounded up by the municipal government in the 1950s campaign to eradicate prostitution, it was no longer possible to imagine life outside the brothel system. Women dragged from the brothels in police raids during the 1950s often clung to their madams, weeping piteously and shouting, "Don't take me away from my 'mama'" (Ts'ao 1986). Though the madams might be oppressive and the effects of venereal disease debilitating, the fictive kinship networks of the brothels represented the only stable family many of these women knew, and they were loathe to leave it for an uncertain future.