From The Southern Weekend (in Chinese), via Press Interpreter, translated by Ramsi Woodcock:
On New Year’s eve 2006, 23 year old Xu Ping, a female village school teacher, looked around the table full of family members.
Xu Enhuai looked at the unusually mature face of his daughter and said something of deep significance to his three sons: “In the future, when life is good, you absolutely should not forget your older sister.”
These words brought back the past four years’ of bitter memories for Xu Ping. During spring festival 2002, when she became an adult, she went out secretly to sell herself in order to pay off the family debts and her brothers’ tuition. From that time on, she taught school in the village from Monday to Friday and travelled to the city Saturday and Sunday to sell herself. It was not until two years later when the pressure of remorse, illness and injury were on the verge of destroying her that she ended her career as a prostitute.
At the end of 2005, Xu Ping contacted this reporter by email as well as began posting her story on internet forums like Tianya, 263.net, and Bihaiyinsha. She described the difficult road her heart had taken in its struggle between love of family and feelings of guilt.
These posts were closely followed by the public. Was she an angel or a degenerate devil? How can human beings behave so contradictorily? This reporter has opened an investigation of these questions.
