Written By: Julie.
Content Warning: Violence/Assault.
When I was 5 or 6 years old, I spent the summer with my grandparents. They lived in a small village in southeastern China.
I was not very welcome in my grandparents’ house, though, because I was a girl. My family wanted a boy, especially my grandparents. My mother often told me that almost everyone was sad when I was born because I was a girl.
As my grandma took care of me that summer, she started to get annoyed that my hair was getting longer. She didn’t want to spend too much time combing my hair; this was apparently a burden to her.
One night, after my grandma complained yet again about my growing hair, my grandpa decided to take me to the only hair salon in the village. We walked to the salon in the dark, as there were no street lights. The only illumination was the faint light coming from houses lining the quiet streets.
After a short walk, we reached the main street. There was a commotion up ahead in the dark. A group of people was gathered outside in front of a brightly lit house. We could hear women screaming, but could not yet see what was happening. The screaming really scared me, so I grabbed and held on tightly to my grandpa’s sleeve.
As we approached the disturbance, we slowly realized what was happening. The scene that came into view shocked me and stuck with me for the rest of my life.
Two women were lying on the ground, curled up, covering their heads with their arms in a futile attempt for protection. Several men were viciously attacking the women. They kicked them in the head and stomach, they beat them with heavy sticks, they punched them with hard fists, relentlessly, and without mercy. The two women were screaming and crying, defenseless, writhing on the ground.
My grandpa and I stopped walking and quietly watched the brutal assault from the other side of the street.
From the open door of the lit-up house, an old lady emerged, cursing, carrying scissors. She handed the scissors to one of the men, who then proceeded to roughly cut off the women’s hair while the other men continued to beat them.
I was absolutely horrified by the violence, the terrified screams of the two women, the frantic aggression of the men, the suffering of the women.
I was holding my breath, desperately waiting for somebody to come and help the two poor women, to make it stop. But nobody came. There were no neighbors coming from their house to help. There was no police coming to help. My grandpa did nothing to help. We just stood there and watched quietly.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, my grandpa pulled me away from the gruesome scene, and we continued walking towards the hair salon.
I asked grandpa what happened, trying to comprehend what I just saw. He said dismissively, “Nothing. Nothing. Just two wives they just bought, and now they want to run away.”
“Why did they cut those women’s hair?”
“So they will be ugly, and too ashamed to run away again!”
Grandpa did not seem to understand why I was so upset and scared. He was a man, and his attitude made it clear that he agreed with everything that just happened.
We eventually arrived at the hair salon, and I had my haircut. I don’t remember the haircut. What I do remember vividly from that night was the scene of violence: the dark street, the bright house, and men beating two women and cutting off their hair.
Later that night, I overheard my grandpa as he talked about it with my grandma. My grandma did not seem very bothered by it either; it was just a piece of gossip to her. I learned then that even my grandma, a woman, didn’t understand my feelings either. According to both of them, nothing I saw was wrong.
If you are a woman, a wife, it is legal for people to sell you, beat you, humiliate you, to lock you inside the house, to make you a prisoner. Nobody ever told me it was wrong.
That experience planted the seed of nervousness of being a woman in my heart. I have been suffering, struggling from that fear, and fighting against it.
Today, decades later, I am still scared to go to the hair salon. I am always nervous to get a haircut. I am still haunted by what I saw that night when I was very little.
I am living in the United States now. I graduated from college and traveled to several countries. It seems like I am an equal woman living in a modern world. But I know I’m not. I always know that I am no different from those women who were beaten, who were sold, who were raped, and who were killed. I am a Chinese woman. What happened to them could have been my fate.
I am just luckier that I wasn’t sold or killed. I am just luckier to get an education and have had the chance to explore the world. I am not better than those women. I am just luckier than them.
While this story happened in the early 90s, the same thing is still happening in 2020 in China. Countless women are still suffering from injustice in the world. Even though I have been struggling with the fear of being a woman and the idea that a woman is just the property of her parents, her husband, and society, I have made a decision that I will live my life to the fullest.
Because I am not living it only for myself. The two women who were beaten in front of me always remind me that I am living for all of those women who should have a chance, but didn’t. And most importantly, to always fight for women who don’t have the chance to live like we do.