Telling Stories, Saving Families
89
hire private investigators to find evidence of their spouses’ extramarital affairs.
So, a law firm in Hangzhou City, east China’s Zhejaing Province, “saw a peak
business season’’ several days before Valentine’s Day, originally “a sweet time
for lovers’’ (“Valentine’s Day’’ 1).
There are still some families that cease to exist except in name though
no divorce is filed. The victims, usually women, try to save the marriages just
for the sake of their children. They may somewhat believe the old Chinese
saying, “If a woman marries a chicken, she should follow the chicken; if a
woman marries a dog, she should follow the dog (jia Ji sui ji, Jia gou sui gou)'"
For example, a 56-year-old physician. Dr. Wang, started to go for dance lessons
while leaving his wife of 30 years at home. There he met his lover, a 44-year-old
teacher with a husband and a college-age son. The doctor hid the affair for six
months, acknowledged it when his wife confronted him, but still devotes his free
time and his money to his mistress. Mrs. Wang continues to share a bed with
this chicken/dog, but they don’t have any husband-and-wife relations (Pappas
36).
The second side-effect of China’s economic development and reform is
the increasing cases of “supporting a mistress.” According to sources from the
All-China Women’s Federation and local women’s organizations in Shanghai
and Guangdong Province, the problem of men living with and supporting
mistresses has been aggravated in recent years. They “provide housing, cars and
money as living expenses to their non-spouse partners, who live with the men in
the guise of secretaries or housekeepers,” and some men “even live with their
spouse and mistresses under one roof’ (Liu 13). This phenomenon has
un dermined the monogamous system, severely comipted social morals, caused
complicated social problems, and even triggered criminal offenses. For example,
a 58-year-old professor in Beijing was arrested for producing and selling a
controlled narcotic. He confessed that he did so because he needed money to
support a mistress (Liu 12-13). Not only does this phenomenon pollute society
and destroy families, it also corrupts the government. Most corrupted
government officials would take mistresses, known as bao er nai, or “carrying a
second wife.” In order to have enough money to support their mistresses, they
are willing to accept huge bribes from bribers. The problem of mistress-linked
corruption had become so serious that in February 2004 the Chinese Communist
Party’s Central Committee issued a directory to ban its members from adultery
and involvement with prostitution and pornography. As a part of China’s anti
corruption campaign, this party document offered “the clearest restrictions on
members’ behavior ever issued by the CCP” (“Communists” 1). The problem of
“supporting a mistress” has become a wake-up call for the society and the
government as well.
The third side-effect of China’s economic development and reform is
the decline of moral standards in the society. The late Chinese leader Deng
Xiaoping, the chief engineer of China’s reform, asked the country to “look