I don’t think that this problem is exclusive to China but I’ve lived all over the world, and it’s the only country where I’ve seen regular domestic violence on the streets – during the day, and not alcohol motivated.
A few days ago I was walking down to Louhu subway station, and there was a Chinese guy (about my size – and I’m not small) administering a good slap to his girlfriend for some minor misdemeanour. Hundreds of people walked past as this poor girl wept and her boyfriend carried on his beating. Not one stopped, in fact a police officer nearby turned his back deliberately so he didn’t have to do anything.
Today’s really not a joking matter – this is an all too common deal for the women of China sadly.
Did I intervene? No. This is one of those areas where an intervention almost always makes things worse. If you want a kicking then get involved, it probably won’t be him that hurts you – it will be her scratching your eyes out for criticizing her bullying abusive partner. Sadly, this wasn’t a one off occasion either – I’d estimate that I’ve seen over 100 of these scenes in the 3 years I’ve been in China.
The China Law Institute estimates that over 1/3rd of Chinese women are regularly beaten by their partners, and that far more are subject to occasional violence or emotional beatings. China Daily acknowledged this was a huge problem back in 2009.
So given that the problem is well understood and acknowledged – what’s being done about it? Well, truthfully not a heck of a lot. As the public beatings I’ve seen can attest to – nobody wants to actually stop the problem. In fact the first conviction for domestic violence in China was in 2008. That’s right – in a country where one in three women is slapped about daily – it took until late last decade for a single perpetrator to be punished.
Li Yang’s shock is down to the fact that Chinese women are so inured to domestic violence they don’t report it and they don’t protest it. When your wife’s an American – things are very different. The lady here published the photos herself on China’s microblogging site Weibo. A real act of courage.
There’s a lot of publicity on the issue from the Chinese side that pretends this only happens in the country but my eyes say different. As does this story of a well-to-do Chinese businessman who beat his American wife and then found himself running in circles to do anything but apologise when she went public. In fact Li Yang said this in a public interview; “She ruined my career and my image, which I have spent 20 years building.” What an extraordinarily unlovely chap in a world full of nasty folks.
There are annual calls for reviews to the law in order to better protect China’s women, but at the moment they remain pretty much unheeded.
I’ve been pretty careful in this post to avoid a prolonged discussion of what exactly domestic abuse is but according to the All-China Women’s Federation it includes verbal humiliation, physical assault, deprivation of freedom, confiscation of income and marital rape.
Sorry to be depressing this evening, but there’s nothing funny about this or my topic for tomorrow either. I’ll spare you the gory details until then.
You have to give those colonials credit – they do have balls. Especially the women! Brave girl! Let’s just hope more Chinese women will take her as an example.
As a lao wai it’s always the best to stay out of it. Even if you try to help the girl, she’ll interpret it as a foreigner interfering in Chinese affairs and will go after you.
Exactly right, stay out of it is the best plan sadly. In the UK, I’d have smashed his head in, and dealt with her in a screaming match if necessary but in China – I’d have had 15 Chinese decide to pound the interfering laowai to deal with too…
Excellent post. I know that this is a problem in many countries around the world especially in Latin cultures. It is tragic and so engrained in the culture that it will take years to address. I had no idea it was an issue in China. How tragic. I feel lucky to be born where I was.
agreed, but there is a big difference, In latin cultures u will not see a boyfriend beating a girlfriend in the street(it happens a lot but not in public), and if it happens people will do something about it, not just walk away, As a mexican living in china I can tell the huge difference,example; here is perceive as a “normal thing” as a “if he is beating her is because she did something wrong” … in mexico is “if he is beating her is because he is an abusive pig “
Wow, interesting! I was only in China for ten days and never picked up on that side of things. That is horrible! I spent some time in Guatemala and learned more about their issues with domestic violence and yes it is behind closed doors but common as I have heard. Thanks for bring this point out to me! I hope China changes. On another point, how do you feel as a Mexican woman living in China? That would be an interesting post!!!
A revolting statistic I came across while researching this piece is that a woman in any country is more likely to die at the hands of a partner, than of cancer during her child bearing years.
Wow, how disturbing. Have you ever read “Half the Sky”? By Nicolas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, two NYTimes writers? It is an amazing, eye opening book about women’s rights around the world. It changed my life reading it.
I haven’t read it – but I will now – if I can get hold of an e-copy at least. Thanks for the recommendation Nicole.
well…only the other foreigners and my bf(chinese) know that im from mexico… 5 mins before sending me to Taiyuan from Beijing my company told me that I should not say that im mexican because the parents would be “afraid” “disappointed” or would feel that the school wasnt good enough,as u may know chinese ppl are very racist… I look Caucasian and my accent is there but not really strong,so its hard to tell where I come from LOL … sometimes chinese people on the street ask me” where are u from?” and when I say mexico they either dont know the country or are confused by my answer… anyway my parents live in a border town (texas) so I spent a lot of time in the US is easy for me to pretend that im american, but really really annoying at the same time … (-_-)
Apparently is a matter of the role the girls take… in one hand we have these women being abused by most likely the husband and in the other hand the ones that scream,make a scene and throw vegetables at the bf/husband in the middle of the street.. im not defending chinese men at all, I know violence is a problem, my point is, it comes from both sides, I live in Taiyuan and I have seen more girls screaming and “beating” the partner than I have seen boys…
The statistics indicated that about 10% of violence in China flows the other way – woman to man as it were, but there’s much less data to suggest whether this is serious abuse or not. Thanks for commenting.
yeah I think from girls to boys is more.. how to say this… less harmless… they scream and beat but as u said is not “serious abuse” … (-_-)
You could easily be describing my neighborhood. Bad things happen everywhere.
That they do, but I live in affluent area of China’s most modern city – it’s not cool that it’s so prevalent even here, so I wonder how bad it is where there are no laowai to witness it?
Based on what you’ve written, probably pretty bad.
This is a brave subject to take on. If ever I comment on anything like this I get told ‘oh you don’t understand our Chinese culture’, as if that explains everything.
I always take time to point out that it was “culturally correct” to burn witches at the stake in my own country during the inquisition and that was “****ing stupid” and this means I have no qualms with saying the same thing about aspects of Chinese culture that are in fact “****ing stupid”.
I’ve witnessed violence on the street too as you mention. A college age boy slapping his girlfriend right on a street with lots of guilty bystanders around. Shocking – to me at least. Like you I’ve lived in several countries and though domestic violence is everywhere it seems to be more acceptable here.
Reblogged this on Ruined for Life: Phoenix Edition and commented:
An important issue, yet under reported and poorly dealt with topic: Domestic Violence.
The patriarchal system employed in Asia is long out dated. Laws can help but only education can change the cultural norms.
It’s violence against women that really boils my blood and which makes me feel lucky to be an empowered martial arts instructor. I’m not one to pick fights, but I’d love to get one of these cowardly scumbags alone in a ring…
Kudos to the American wife for exposing her lowlife husband. Hopefully this is the catalyst needed to get more women to step forward and have their voices heard. A generations-long culture of keeping silent must be broken. I mean, I’m sure domestic violence happens everywhere, but they tend to occur in privacy behind closed doors. Doubt that guy slapping his girlfriend in public will get away with it in London — he’d be mobbed, and I’d be in the vanguard!
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Thank you for sharing your observation of this problem in China. Unfortunately, the problem of domestic violence is not exclusive to “other” cultures and is still prevalent in our developed western nations as well. (Statistics in the U.S. estimate that nearly 1 in 2 women will experience intimate partner violence at some point in her life.)
Nor is the shame that is frequently attached, the low level of reporting, the victim’s defense of the abuser, or the lack of action by observers… Violence against women is a very present problem and one that deserves our awareness and action.
Great post! It’s almost a cultural *norm* in China for some men to abuse their women in some way…. and it’s not just physical, emotional or mental abuse – I see men being disrespectful to women everywhere, particularly as the business culture in China encourages men to carouse after work at many of the massage parlors or KTVs.
Thanks for this blog post about….contemporary China…now. Despite the vaunted “economic” progress of China. Deeply saddening that the legal system and govn’t is unwilling organize programs to educate others, have legal mechanisms to lay charges, restraining order.
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Thank you for blogging about this very important topic. As of today, June 9,1012, I have not even been issued a divorce decree and my husband Li Yang continues to lecture thousands of students every day in China on “being an International Success”. I had to return to the US in the face of his continued violent threats. Still no custody or divorce ruling….
My children and I are safe, but I have not forgotten all the Chinese women and children that do not have my luxury of fleeing their abuser for another country.
Again, thank you for writing on this topic. Every word spoken and written lessens the power of silence.
Sincerely, Kim Lee
Thank you for commenting Kim, I (and I am confident that my readers would too) wish you and your children all the best. Thanks again, Nick.
Really interesting post. The only place I’ve ever seen someone physically abuse their partner in public was in Prague – this guy bottled his girlfriend in broad daylight and no one did anything about it – as if it was some run of the mill occurrence. I think there is a link between open displays of violence towards the weaker sex and people with inferiority complexes who feel the need to prove their manliness. I don’t know if you’ve read any Milan Kundera, and if not I’d recommend “Life is Elsewhere” – It describes this national characteristic that Czech men share – a kind of effeminate/poetic interior masked by a macho exterior. Maybe the public nature of domestic violence in China is something similar. China isn’t exactly a breeding ground for Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonators.
Sorry if this makes no sense. Thanks for your comment, loving the gender angle.
Thank you very much for sharing Sarah, and for your kind words.
Uhm, on second thoughts, I’d really appreciate it if you could remove that paragraph of two lines? sorry :S
Consider it done.
Wow, you guys are sure a cup of tea to let an abuser and his nutty girlfriend (obviously not one of the brightest people who’ve ever lived on this earth) tell you what vision you are going to see in front of you while you are walking down a piece of earth that happens to belong to you, as it does everybody else, because if I saw anything of what you saw, I would’ve thrown the whiney idiots who defended these obvious morons out of the way (without a care in the world) and pummeled on the guys who thought it was okay to hit a woman, and made sure that if they wanted to hit a woman for having the views that they had, they’d get 120 pounds of American female ass on their balls to see what it feels like to have a knack for wanting to hit women. I tell you, if that was me viewing this, they’d be learning about American Culture real quick and learning exactly who puts their hands on American women or other women or makes shi**y or inappropriate comments to them for their faults and incorrect behavior, and that is these women themselves (otherwise known as the owners of their bodies), NOBODY ELSE, not even an insect!
Thank you for utilizing time in order to publish “Chinas Gender Crisis: Domestic Violence Shards of China”.
Thanks a ton again ,Charley
Hi there thank you so much for this post. A very disturbing subject which you’ve handled with the utmost sensitivity.
I have a blog campaigning against abuse, particularly narcissistic abuse.
I have already had almost 10,000 hits in just a few months because the disorder is so prevalent. The blog has been viewed in 80 countries around the world but, I haven’t had a single hit from China! I had to find out why the disorder wasn’t recognised in this country and you’ve confirmed my worst fears.
Abuse is so ingrained in their mindset they are blinded to the inhumanity. I will blog about this soon, but if anyone has experience of this, please share your views. It is so sad.
Ariel
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