To her customers, Chia Chia is one thing. But to Taipei’s voters, she and other sex workers became a symbol of women’s rights, of the little people taking on the big shots. The melodrama began in 1997, when reformist Mayor Chen Shui-bian launched a crusade against the sex industry, raiding “love hotels” and rooting out tens of thousands of illegal hookers. But when he also revoked the licenses of “public prostitutes” like Chia Chia, a decades-old institution in Taiwan, many people thought he had gone too far. The legal prostitutes had worked in government-run brothels, received weekly health checkups and enjoyed police protection. In short, they had their place of honor. “There is more of God’s creative beauty in [the prostitutes] than in almost anyone else in our society,” says sociology student Kevin Leaung, one of their defenders.
Spurred on by feminist groups, the public prostitutes staged hundreds of raucous rallies against Mayor Chen. As he battled for re-election in December, prostitutes besieged him, shouting, “Dictator.” The label stuck. So did charges that Chen was persecuting minorities, as Chia Chia and many other prostitutes are Aboriginal Taiwanese. Chen’s opponent, former Justice minister Ma Ying-jeou, promised that, if elected, he would grant the prostitutes a two-year transition period to a new life. He won and promptly ordered the return of licensed prostitution. His deputy mayor even produced a fresh price list: 15 minutes with a prostitute will now cost $36–more to meet in an air-conditioned room. As a law-and-order man, Ma concedes that he has misgivings about turning the red lights back on. “I had no choice,” he told NEWSWEEK. “I had to follow the rule of law.”
As they head back to work, Taipei’s hookers are in style. The national media are clamoring for interviews. The Chinese-language Playboy has published a spread. It is almost as if the oldest profession now carries a new mantle of nobility in Taiwan. “I’m for it,” says Wu Meng-shan, a 29-year-old flight attendant. “If a guy isn’t married or doesn’t have a girlfriend, how is he going to fulfill his needs?”
Chia Chia herself has become the star of the show. Depressed and unable to support her ailing mother, convinced that the politicians would break their promises, she swallowed more than 100 sleeping pills last month. When doctors revived her, she says, “I woke up and thought, ‘Why didn’t I die?’ " Her story generated even more support for the prostitutes. Now, as she primps for her first customers, she talks of resuming visits to her mother, whom she had avoided during her low times. “I just couldn’t go there empty-handed,” she says. Before long, Chia Chia will be going home with gifts for all. And yes, her mother knows how she earns a living.
