By Zhao Hejuan, the Founder of TMTPost

For a long time I have not been moved so deeply. Today I am by a seemingly ordinary but remarkable girl.

The girl, nicknamed “Little Zhou”, initiated a serious discussion with her mom Ji Jianghong about a highly controversial news report that had been retracted by China’s most respected business media organization Caixin Media along with an apology. Ji is a former colleague of mine at Caixin Media. However, Little Zhou’s conversation with her mom left her disappointed and even angry.

Prominent businessman and lawyer Bao Yuming, who allegedly began sexually assaulting a girl, under the pseudonym of Li Xingxing, when she was just 14, and continued to do so for years, defended his sex with Li as consensual. Caixin reported his side of the story only by accident. Bao has resigned from the position of independent non-executive director at Chinese telecoms equipment maker ZTE, while he is under investigation now. The case has triggered nation-wide uproars on the Internet.

The mom-daughter conversation is the epitome of the heated widespread online debate over the legal case. There are mainly two typical and competing mindsets: one is outrage and determination to root out unjustness (as shown by the daughter); the other is indifference and submission to the status quo (as shown by the mom). The daughter was so outraged by her mom’s attitude that she wrote an article to “ denounce” her mom. The daughter even took pains to register an account on China’s social media WeChat to make her voice heard by her fellow netizens.

After reading the article, I told my former colleague that her daughter’s logical reasoning capabilities surpassed hers. Jiang was not offended but this article sent me into pondering for a long time.

I recommend their conversation not because I want to delve into the details of the legal case but just reflect on a relationship, high above the parent-child ties, but a relationship that exists in every corner of our society and constitutes the fabric of our society.

The alleged rape case is the convergence of various social roles and complex relationships. It not only relates to the administration of social justice but also to the formation of a younger generation’s values. What should we choose? To be angry, or turn a blind eye to the status quo?

With their permission, I share this article as follows.

My Conversation With My Mom

My mom is a former reporter of Caixin Media. I shared the news story published by Caixin with her and expected to hear some furious comments.

Mom: “I noticed this article. I scanned it in the morning. I saw it as another anecdote in the social news category. Some are real and some are made up. Just like the Zhiyin magazine (a Chinese equivalent of the People magazine in the United States).”

Me: “Did you read the article published in the Nanfengchuang magazine?”

Mom: “Yea. I had seen the one in Nanfangchuang earlier than the Caixin one.”

Me: “Can you accept your daughter being written into such a story in Zhiyin? That is disgusting.”

Mom: “It depends what story. There are positive narratives in Zhiyin. Of course, modern women prefer to appear on the pages of Fashion Bazaar. Are you saying Li Xingxing’s mother is disgusting, or Li or Bao?”

Me: “I did not mean that. I meant Caixin lacked (journalistic) ethics. "

Mom: “Nanfengchuang magazine (which first reported the case with sex-related details) was way more disgusting than Caixin in terms of ethics.”

Me: “I did not mean sex-related content is disgusting. (Bao) cannot be convicted now just because the girl was already 14 years old when the first sexual assault happened.”

Compared with social issues in the article, Mom cared more about news reporting itself.

Mom: “I saw similar reports in the past. Sometimes senior executives who returned to China from abroad are incapable of dealing with a relationship with women. When it comes to this case, what was the truth? We don’t know. The reporters may have fabricated many things in their reporting.”

Me: “Incapable? What is the causal relationship between the incapability of a male adult and a young girl? He went to young girls just because he was incapable?”

Mom: “By incapable, I meant they did not know how to date a woman. Then they would behave like a mentally retarded. For example, they chose to live with a 14-year-old girl.”

Mom has always hoped that I would be more socially tolerant.

Me: “Are you insane? ?? Not knowing how to deal with a woman? So a young girl needs to be responsible for this? Was it true that she was raped? Was it also true she sought help from the police? What truth do you still need to see?”

Mom: “We need to know the background for the case. If we cannot see the full picture, we are not in a position to judge.”

Me: “So you think the young girl was in love with this man?”

Mom “I think they are both abnormal to some extent.”

In the eyes of my mom, this case is far from our life. In her vision for my life, such an absurd thing as the relationship between Bao and Li would not even possibly exist.

Me: “What are you still looking for? We need to protect the victim. You cannot be so aloof. The girl was so little that she could be mentally and physically controlled by a tall and strong man like Bao instantly. Do they speak in the same volume?”

Bao commanded a complete control over Li’s life. Her mother was away and her classmates and teachers were also absent. In the mind of Li, the pain brought by Bao’s existence in her life was also perhaps the only salvation. Her brain may have conjured the mirage of love in order to protect her from the conflicting feelings of pain and salvation.  

Mom: “Her mother would not have sent her to Bao if she had not sought (and received) something.”

Me: “Seeking something? So she traded her daughter for it? What could this man give the woman?”

Mom: “So you need to see both sides of the case. Did this man break the law? What were the motives of the mother and her daughter?”

Mom was trying to help me understand economic interests involved in the case.

Me: “Seeking what? Why are you thinking like a misogynist? Are you imaging something? Do you have evidence?”

Mom: “This mother simply thought she could give her daughter a better life by entrusting her with a better-off man. The articles did not provide the narrative from her mother’s perspective. Too many stones were not turned. It is hard for us to judge.”

Mom: “Actually a rape case has nothing to do with age. It is the same crime regardless of raping a young girl or a woman in her 50s. It should be up to the judicial system to administer justice. ”

In the view of my mom, it was not a tragedy of a little girl, but an unequal swap of a body for economic benefits. Mom may have seen or experienced many similar swaps. She told me to close my eyes and continue my own life.

I did not respond further.

Following My Angry Outbursts

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My reasoning was a bit convoluted during my conversation with Mom due to my anger. I saw many netizens showing their empathy with Li. I had thought my mom, as a woman, would have had the same opinion as mine. However, my mom highlighted the lack of evidence in the case. She thought neither Nanfengchuang nor Caixin provided enough information for readers to judge. But my feeling is that the emphasis needs to be on providing protection to Li given her disadvantaged status.

The focal point of my conflict with Mom is whether “the victim sought something from the abuser.” Last year or the year before last year, a professor of Beijing Film Academy threatened to fail her female student’s graduate thesis if she refused to have sex with him. I was enraged and expected my mom to show some empathy like today.

Me: “How would you respond if I were in such a situation?”

Mom: “You can give up the degree if you don’t care about it.”

Me: “What if I do care?”

Mom: “Then you need to endure it because you are seeking something.”

I know that my mom was as flamboyant I am now. She was so outspoken that she was frowned upon by her professors. Her excellent thesis was rated as “Good” by her professor, which negatively affected her job-hunting prospects. I assumed that she had been angry. Because she was not good at enduring, she suffered repeatedly. But after all, should your graduate thesis have been graded as “Good”, Mom?  

In my view, as long as what they sought was justified, they should have received what they sought without paying any price. The female student at Beijing Film Academy should have graduated without having to have sex with her professor. Bo, as an alleged foster father of Li, should have looked after Li without taking advantage of her. A woman’s body is not a currency. Economic interests were entangled in the case but they should not be used as a reason to whitewash the rape. Neither Li nor her mother had known that Bo, with an outstanding educational background and a high salary, was a pervert. In order to get his foster father’s care, should Li be forced to surrender her body to him?

Mom has always told me that this world is unfair. But I think we need to not only admit its unjustness but challenge it and change it. Should we simply endure in the face of the unfairness?

Mom believes Li and the female graduate student are far away from my world. But all they wanted was just an ordinary life. In an unfair world, I could get into the same trouble by a twist of the fate. Just because the sex description in the news reports made us nauseate, should we regard such news as “cliché “ social news and allow them to elude from us?

Mom, do not close your eyes. If the news makes you feel disgusted, that is because the fact is disgusting. As a woman, what Li went through in this world could also be my ordeal some day. My good life to date is just a coincidence in this terrible world. Don’t close your eyes and allow the pain to flow from your eyes into your whole body. Open your mouth and get angry, Mom.

After publishing the article on their conversation, Zhou’s wrath still did not subdue. Her fingers were trembling when typing the following words. She also wrote a few paragraphs to record her emotions.

In response to Mom’s disregard for Li’s experience, I decided to bring the quarrel to another level: I registered an account on social media to decry my mom. I could not help but crying when typing these words.

I read the article again and again with my anger smoldering. The memories of mom covering my eyes throughout my childhood played in front of me, again and again.

When an intimate act appeared on the screen in a cinema, my mom would shield my eyes with her bands.

“Why cannot I see?” I often asked as a kid.

“It’s unfit for kids,” Mom said.

When I was outraged by the news report, Mom’s hands again sheltered me from it again.

Why? I cannot figure it out. Mom dodged discussing the case with me and she wished that I would not discuss it at all.

The scene in the cinema is familiar to many Chinese girls and mothers as the vast majority of us have experienced it. Chinese adolescents lack proper sex education in the sunshine. Often it is too late when they know it.

A daughter raised a question to her mom but the question was directed to our ambiguous society as a whole. Should we trade off if we seek something? What do we really seek? How different are we as women from Li? How should we view the unjust things? How should we regard the things and people that seem far from us? How should we deal with the sudden strangeness that emerges among beloved ones?

Eventually Jiang realized that her attitude mattered most. She needed to put aside what she was doing and listen attentively to her daughter and give her a most sincere response.  

The mother and daughter reconciled after the daughter convinced and moved her mom. Jiang showed me their conversation in text to me.

“I thought Mom would surely get angry if I wrote such an article. But Mom should also be able to accept it since Mom is a grown-up.”

“Anger is the fear in disguise. If the victim were my daughter, I would risk my life to rescue her. And what happened to Li could possibly happen to my daughter. The issue is not unrelated to us. Mom must say sorry to you.”

“Never mind, Mom. I think you are great.”

Through the fierce debate, the daughter grew and so did the mom. Caixin also grew with the apology. Should the loophole shown in Bao’s case also be stopped? Kindness at the very heart of the society is the value that pushes our society forward.

Ji asked me: “Do you still remember her? You met her when she was 10 years old. She raised her hand to ask a question in an event.” My thoughts shuttled back and forth in her daughter’s article. Tears welled in my eyes. No one has moved me so profoundly in a long time.

Suddenly I started to re-examine the value of my profession and what message we should deliver. Regardless of my past job as a journalist or current job as an entrepreneur or various other professions we engage in, we experience a wide variety of social roles and relationships. We often assume that it is our knowledge and expertise that defeat ignorance.

However, the real power to defeat ignorance is the kindness we give others from the bottom of our hearts. That is the bottom line of all professions. Being kind is the very capability that ignorant people would never be able to acquire. I came to understand that why Socrates saw “kindness” as his primary topic of research and the highest goal of his life.

Finally I told my former co-worker: “I am proud of your daughter.”