【华盛顿邮报 20150210】中国的女侦探社

满仓

【中文标题】中国的女侦探社为遭遇不公的妻子们而战
【原文标题】In China, a women’s detective agency battles for wronged wives
【登载媒体】华盛顿邮报
【原文作者】Simon Denyer
【原文链接】http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-china-a-womens-detective-agency-battles-for-wronged-wives/2015/02/10/00cbb4b2-abe5-11e4-8876-460b1144cbc1_story.html?hpid=z1



2008年，“打二奶游击队”的张玉芬在做私家侦探，为人妻们收集丈夫行为不端的证据，以获得更有利的离婚协议。

张玉芬的丈夫终于承认有了外遇，并决定离开她与情妇继续生活。他带走了所有的财产，包括他们共有银行账户上的钱，张觉得天塌下来了。但是在一个星期的食不下咽、夜不成寐之后，她的痛苦和愤怒转变成一个决定：她要找出丈夫的情妇究竟是谁；他们在哪里生活；究竟是什么让他抛弃结发16年的妻子——并因此迫使他给自己和儿子提供必要的经济支持。

只有一个方法，就是老式的私家侦探，而担任侦查工作的只能是她本人。

在追查丈夫和情妇，以及漫长的法院官司过程中，张的选择最终让她成立了中国唯一一家女性侦探社，专门追查不道德的女人。共产党政权中的腐败问题催生出越来越多的二奶、小三和情妇现象。党内官员通常都有一个或多个情妇，他们用腐败得来的赃款购置奢侈的礼物，给她们租下豪华公寓。中国人民大学在2012年的一份调查报告中提到，因腐败问题遭到调查的官员中，95％都曾经偷情。


独自一人在北京郊外公寓中做侦查工作的张玉芬，说她的工作经常会与腐败的共产党官员发生冲突。

她们的妻子往往被丢在一边，无人关注。离婚给女人造成的困境远远大于男人，离婚法和法院通常会让丈夫受益。张的侦探社就在试图纠正这种不平衡。她说：“妻子们没有任何保护，大部分情况下，她们离婚后身无分文、居无定所、生活没有保证。”

在自身经历的启发下，张从1997年开始逐渐接手其它人的案件。她的工作慢慢传开，她记得曾经有一位老太太找到她，说她的女儿因为丈夫有外遇而喝农药试图自杀。“我问她为什么不去法院告他，她说她们没有证据。”于是，为了收集证据，张和9位朋友在2003年成立了火凤凰商务信息服务有限公司。但是她说由于只收取基本的费用，资金的紧张导致侦探社最终关门。

目前，57岁的张在北京郊外的一所小公寓中独自工作。她运营着一个“中华全国民间反二奶同盟”，这个组织承接侦探工作，并提供咨询，专门为受害妻子们服务。她依然只收取基本的费用。有人给这位精力充沛、健谈的女人其绰号叫“二奶杀手”。她说，多年来，有数千个女人找到她，要求收集丈夫搞外遇的证据，以迫使他们给予补偿。但并不是所有的人都愿意诉诸法律。


2008年，遭背叛妻子们的合影。照片中间的就是调查丈夫不轨行为的张玉芬。

她说：“我能理解为什么女人不愿意离婚。在小地方，人们总会嚼舌头。他们会嘲笑离婚的女人，但不会谴责丈夫。她们觉得这是羞耻和丢脸。”

她的方法算不上高科技，属于劳动密集型工作，非常辛苦。她拿出两个便携式录音机、两个望远镜、一个廉价的照相机和一个笔记本。她说她曾经藏在树后和电线杆后面，长时间监视目标，还曾经步行或乘坐出租车跟踪目标。在调查中国行政机构内部的官员时，张说她曾经遭到过暴力和逮捕的威胁。她的证据被法官丢在地上，因为那些人更同情丈夫，或者与官员有勾结。

但是她也有成功的案例。

2009年，一位铁道部高官的妻子找到她，她发现丈夫与当地电视台的一位主持人有染。她说：“我让这位妻子到现场去，结果她捉奸在床。她拿到了丈夫的手机，发现里面有很多女人的照片，还有她们的电话号码。”这位妻子发现，丈夫在不同的城市共有17名情妇，他还在铁路系统内部任人唯亲，通过建筑合同收取巨额回扣。张说，妻子最终与他离婚，但是腐败的证据一直没有在法庭上得到认可，他的上级也从未进行深入调查。

在另一个案件中，张帮助了一名来自西安的女人。她的丈夫与她离婚，尽管丈夫有外遇在先，但法院还是把两人共有的土地判决给丈夫。之后，在张的帮助下，这个女人——她要求保持匿名，因为担心她的话会让共产党遭到批评——说她整整跟踪了丈夫两年。最终找到了他的住址，破门而入，收集到了他偷情和腐败的证据。

她说：“跟踪的过程很艰难，因为他有汽车，而我们只能步行，或乘坐出租车。但是张和其他几位受害妻子一直和我在一起，不管刮风下雨，她们坚持跟踪，从未放弃。”

但是张说，她在曝光官员腐败问题上的努力往往会遭遇到不可逾越的障碍。一家法庭竟然“丢失”了她提交的证据，另一家法庭提前通知丈夫，让他有时间清空夫妻双方共有的银行账户资金。有时候，她把官员腐败的证据提交给上级领导，而领导根本不想听她说完。她说，或许他自己也在搞腐败。

1993年，国家禁止了私家侦探这项职业，但这项业务在地下发展兴旺。朱瑞峰是一位“公民记者”，他运作着一个专门曝光腐败问题的网站，他说很多人在婚姻问题上都会聘请私家侦探。“通常是官员的妻子试图在离婚时保护自己的利益，或者掌握丈夫外遇的证据，作为确保婚姻得以维系的把柄；，还可能是情妇收集证据以备不时之需。”

近几年，这项工作变得越来越危险了。尽管习发动了针对腐败官员的大规模运动，但政府对于自由侦探职业依然严厉打压。朱说：“有迹象显示习的反腐运动有一些选择性，目标都是政治上的对立面。”

张在她简陋的房间里回忆起共产主义中国的创始人毛泽东，和那个年代。“在毛泽东时代，我们从不需要锁门，公务员真正为人民服务。不像现在，如果没有反对你，或者敲诈你，就算是幸运的了。一切都是以钱为导向，腐败横行。”

但是来自西安的那位妻子说，习的反腐运动让她看到了改变的希望。那些把晚上时间挥霍在豪华宴会和一连串的歌厅饮酒——与业务伙伴或者小姐——的官员们，现在因为担心被曝光而有所收敛。“人们说习挽救了很多家庭，因为官员们现在下班后都直接回家。”

张的丈夫在西安市税务局工作，她说她跟踪了他和情妇5年，最后发现那个女人竟然是她的好朋友。她试图以重婚罪起诉他，但没有成功。但法院在2007年判决他们离婚，并让她得到了一笔补偿金。后来，她当面问前夫，究竟为什么要放弃这段婚姻。

“他说：‘税务局里每个人都有情妇，如果我没有，那就太丢脸了。’”



原文：

Zhang Yufen of the Alliance Against Mistresses, shown in 2008, carries out private detective work on behalf of wives to gather evidence of their husbands' infidelity, in order to win better divorce settlements.

When Zhang Yufen’s husband finally admitted to having an affair and left her to live with his mistress, clearing out his possessions and emptying their joint bank account, she felt as though the sky had fallen on her head.

But after a week in which she barely ate or slept, her pain and anger were channeled into a new determination: to find out who his mistress was, where they were living and why he had turned his back on 16 years of marriage — and to force him to provide proper financial support for her and their young son.

There was only one way to do that, she decided — good old-fashioned detective work — and only one person to do it, and that was her.

In the search for her husband and his mistress, and in her long court battle with them, Zhang embarked on a journey that led her to establish what could be China’s only women’s detective agency, working on behalf of wronged wives.

The corruption and decadence entwined with Communist Party rule here have fueled the phenomenon of the ernai, or second wife, and xiao san, literally the “little third,” or mistress. Party officials commonly have a mistress or multiple mistresses, showering them with luxury gifts and renting them plush apartments, all financed by the spoils of corruption. Research by scholars at Renmin University of China in 2012 found that 95 percent of officials under investigation for corruption were cheating on their wives.

Zhang Yufen, who works alone from her apartment just outside Beijing, says her work often brings her into conflict with corrupt Communist Party officials.

Their wives are often pushed aside, neglected and forgotten. Divorce carries stigma for a woman, although not for a man, and divorce law and the courts are often stacked in the husband’s favor. Zhang’s detective agency was an attempt to redress the balance.

“There is no protection for wronged wives,” she said. “In most cases they are left with no money, no house and no guarantees.”

Inspired by her own experience, Zhang in 1997 gradually started taking other people’s cases. Word of her work soon spread: She remembers being approached early on for help by an elderly woman whose daughter had drunk pesticide because her husband was cheating on her. “I asked her why they didn’t take the husband to court, and she said they didn’t have the evidence.”

To gather the evidence, Zhang established the Fire Phoenix agency in 2003 with nine friends, but she says she charged only for basic expenses, and a lack of finance eventually forced it to close.

These days, Zhang, 57, works alone from her small apartment outside Beijing, running the Alliance Against Mistresses, an organization that combines detective work with advice and advocacy for wronged wives. She still only charges for expenses.

Some have nicknamed this lively, talkative woman the ernai shashou, or “mistress killer.”

Over the years, she says, thousands of women have come to her for the evidence they need to prove their husbands were cheating — and to force them to pay compensation. But not all want to go to court.

Cheated women take pictures of themselves in 2008. At center is Zhang Yufen, who investigates husbands suspected of cheating on their wives.

“I understand why a lot of women don’t want a divorce,” she said. “In smaller places, people gossip. They often laugh at the wife, but they don’t necessarily judge the husband. She often feels shame and loss of face.”

Her methods are low-tech, labor-intensive and painstaking: While speaking, she showed off two hand-held tape recorders, two pairs of binoculars, a cheap camera and a notebook. She talks of hiding behind trees and electricity poles, of long stakeouts and of following her quarry in taxis and on foot.

In the course of investigating officials throughout China’s civil service, Zhang says she has been threatened with violence and arrest; her evidence has been thrown out of court by judges who are sympathetic to the husbands or in collusion with them.

But she has had successes.

In 2009, she was approached by the wife of a senior railway official, she says, and discovered that he was having an affair with a local television anchor.

“I told the wife to go there, and she caught them in bed together,” she said. “She grabbed her husband’s phones and found pictures of many women, and their phone numbers.”

Zhang said she found that he had 17 mistresses in the different cities where he worked. He was promoting his relatives inside the railway system and raking in huge kickbacks from construction contracts. His wife got the divorce, Zhang said, but the evidence of corruption was never admitted in court or acted on by his superiors.

In another case, Zhang helped a woman from Xi’an whose husband had divorced her. Despite his cheating, the judge had awarded him the family land.

Subsequently, and with Zhang’s help, the woman — who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared her remarks would be taken as criticism of the Communist Party — said she followed her husband for two years before finally tracking down where he lived, breaking in and gathering evidence of infidelity and corruption.

“It was really difficult because he had a car, and we had to move on foot and by taxi,” she said. “But Zhang and the other wronged wives stood up for me. Come heavy snow or scorching sun, they followed him, they never gave up.”

But Zhang says her efforts to expose official corruption often run into brick walls. One court mysteriously “lost” the evidence she had presented, while another, she alleges, warned the husband, who had time to empty a bank account of savings well beyond his earnings. Sometimes she presents evidence of corruption to an official’s boss, and the boss won’t want to listen, probably because he is corrupt himself, she says.

The profession of private detective was officially banned in 1993, although the business flourished, largely underground. Zhu Ruifeng, a “citizen reporter” who runs a Web site aimed at exposing corruption, said many people hire private detectives — mostly men — in marital cases.

“Often it’s the officials’ wives who want to protect their interests in case of a divorce; or to hold the evidence of infidelity as a card to secure the marriage; or sometimes mistresses have private detectives get evidence just in case,” he said.

In recent years, the work has become more dangerous. Even while President Xi Jinping wages a campaign against official corruption, the government has cracked down hard on freelance private eyes.

“It shows Xi’s anti-corruption campaign is highly selective, and aimed at clearing out those not on his side,” Zhu said.

In her simply furnished living room, Zhang reminisced about Communist China’s founder, Mao Zedong, and his era.

“Back in Mao’s time, we never used to lock our doors, and civil servants would serve the people,” she said. “Not like now — you would consider yourself lucky if they don’t gang up on you and fleece you. Everything is about money, and corruption is everywhere.”

But the woman from Xi’an said Xi’s anti-corruption campaign has given her hope that things might improve. Officials who used to spend their evenings at lavish banquets and in marathon drinking sessions at karaoke bars — with business associates and prostitutes — now worry about being exposed.

“People say Xi has saved many families, because officials now have to come home directly after work,” she said.

Zhang’s husband worked in the district taxation bureau in the city of Xi’an. She says she spent five years following him and his mistress, who turned out to be her best friend.

She tried unsuccessfully to sue him for bigamy. She finally won a divorce and received a payout in 2007. Later, she confronted her former husband and asked him why he had broken their marriage.

“He said: ‘Everyone in the taxation bureau had a mistress. I would have lost face if I didn’t have one.’ ”