Chinese Literature And Other Colorful Topics

Today we were talking about Chinese literature in class, and we started a chapter about a book called 'The Dream of the Red Chamber". Our teacher, Lin laoshi (laoshi means teacher), told us it was one of four classic Chinese books, and asked us to name the other three. I quickly checked my notes from the last class

"Three kingdoms," I blurted out.
"Journey to the West," a Korean girl said.
"Water Margin," said someone else.
"What about Jin Ping Mei?" asked Norie, the Japanese girl.

Our teacher replied: "Jin Ping Mei is not considered one of the original classics, because people considered it to be..." and then she said something I didn't understand. It sounded something like 'color,' which piqued my curiosity, because the word color in Chinese sometimes has connotations of sex. I asked Lin laoshi to repeat just to make sure, as since there are so many homonyms in Chinese sometimes it is easy to get the completely wrong word.

"It is a what color book?" I asked
"It is a yellow-color book," she replied.

I quickly checked in my dictionary, and, indeed, when something is 'yellow color,' it means it's pornographic or has some mention of sex.

"I think 'Dream of the Red Chamber' sounds pornographic," I said.

Lin laoshi looked back at me. "Why, because of the red-light districts of your country?" She replied.

"Yes, well. Originally, the word comes from Holland," I said, suddenly feeling defensive.

"I know, but now the word can be used for areas in all of Europe. In China, we actually say 'green-light districts' for that part of town." (all this talk about colors reminded me of when I was in Japan, my friends and I discovered that what we called 'blue movies' were called 'pink films' over there. It's funny, colors really do have a connection to sex in one or another language.)

About brothels, there are quite a few here in Taipei. It seems to be tacitly accepted, as there is scarcely a street without a 'massage parlour' or a 'karaoke bar' (distinguishable from actual karaoke bars by the use of the words Ka-la-OK instead of KTV)*. I read in my Lonely Planet that if a shop has a barber's pole outside and tinted windows, chances are it's a brothel. But I haven't actually found this to be the case as many times I see dodgy-looking shops with tinted windows and barber poles, only to find an old woman getting her hair permed on the inside. Not that I was actually looking for a brothel, or anything. I did see a garish looking barber shop outside the train station in Zhongli which had the words 'barber shop' in neon lights, and was probably not a barber shop).

I read an article about it in the newspaper Taipei Times and it seems prostitution is illegal here, but (as I had guessed) tacitly accepted. Many sex workers come from other countries (mainland China or South-east Asia) or from disadvantaged families. There are the typical brothels I mentioned above, and special places which cater to niche markets like Linsen bei-lu, a street which has many 'hostess bars' catering to Japanese business men on trips here.**

Back to class, our teacher went on to explain that Jin Ping Mei talks about some of the same things as in Dream of the Red Chamber, but more explicitly, and so was banned during the Ming dynasty. Then she talked more at length about it, though I'm not sure what she said. She tells us a lot, Lin laoshi, and I don't always know what she is talking about, though it's usually interesting, and does make for good listening practice.

* update August 17, 2010: I've actually found that ka-la-OK bars are not necessarily brothels. I discovered this after my friend invited me to one of the aforementioned places and found that it was just a bunch of old people sitting around singing songs in Taiwanese. There were some hostesses in the bar but nothing strange going on. After interviewing some ex-pats here who are more in the know than I, it seems there is a huge grey area between hostessing and straight prostitution.
**Just found an article about it here. It seems it's legal after all.