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How far - or how low - would you go to push your cause?
One woman went further than most for what she passionately believes in - she became a "prostitute" to highlight the plight of sex workers and the issue of safe sex.
It's not about courage, insists Chinese activist and blogger Ye Haiyan in a phone interview with The New Paper on Sunday from her Yulin office in Guangxi province. It's about speaking out about what's right.
She speaks in rapid Mandarin, occasionally switching to English, and frequently punctuates her conversation with booming laughter.
Ms Ye, 37, a divorcee with a teenage daughter, declares: "I must be the first person who dares to openly acknowledge that I was a sex worker.
"And yes, there are still many people who think I'm crazy."
Crazy enough, she adds, to volunteer as a "prostitute" for nearly three days, offering free sex for migrant workers in Ten Yuan Brothel, in Wuhan in Hubei province.
Wuhan is a major transport and commercial hub in central China and has many migrant workers.
It's a move, she says mockingly, that has "raised eyebrows among the common folk and the ire of the authorities".
"I can understand the feelings of the ordinary people simply because prostitution is not part of your everyday conversation," says the former primary school teacher.
Her resume includes being a secretary, Hakka culture researcher and handicraft maker.
Ms Ye wanted to create awareness of the predicament of sex workers by offering a first-hand perspective of their lives.
Her bold experiment has made her a global sensation. Her story has been featured in international media, including The Economist.
The woman who calls herself "Hooligan Yan" says adamantly: "My name is synonymous with the word 'hooker'.
"But I have no hidden agenda. I just believe in speaking up against the injustice on behalf of a group that has been oppressed for so long."
She was also fed up with being arrested (three times) just because she "advocated the legalisation of prostitution".
Providing sex for money - or in her case, for free - is not always wrong.
She explains why she offered free sex: "Since I wasn't charging a fee, I didn't have to worry about being charged for prostitution."
In January, just before Chinese New Year, she offered free sex to four men, aged between 18 and 50 in Wuhan, about 17 hours drive away from her home in Yulin.
She picked Wuhan because of the many brothels that offer cheap sex.
She had been gung-ho about it at first. But when the migrant workers started peering into the small room she had rented at the brothel, she recoiled in fear.
Ye during her time as an unpaid sex worker. (Photo: China Daily)
Ye Haiyan stands at the door of her support center in Yulin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. The center, which cares for local sex workers, was attacked by unknown assailants in June this year. (Photo: Huo Yan / China Daily)
Ye Haiyan and two of her volunteers at the support center she founded last year. (Photo: Huo Yan / China Daily)
Ye has not always been supportive of sex workers. "At that time, I looked down on them, too," she admitted.(Photo: Internet)
In 2001, she divorced and became a single mother. A friend of a friend, a sex worker, offered Ye and her 1-year-old daughter a place to stay. (Photo: Internet)
As a result, she heard a lot of "heartbreaking stories" about sex workers and started to defend them online. (Photo: Internet)
She set up a website to speak on their behalf in 2005, but later closed it because of public pressure and attacks by hackers. (Photo: Internet)
Ye was about to give up, but the murder of Yaoyao, a 23-year-old sex worker and supporter of the website who was killed by a client in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, made her determined to continue. (Photo: Internet)
"The first man was someone who looked like he was in his late 50s or early 60s, and he was so shabbily dressed.
"His pants looked like it was going to drop, but the sides were held together by an elastic band." He didn't quite fit her perceived notion of what a customer would be like, she adds with a sigh.
"I have a great deal of respect for the elderly and I couldn't see myself having sex with someone who reminds me of my father," says Ms Ye.
"All his teeth were gone. I couldn't take my eyes off his toothless mouth as he spoke in a strong local accent.
"I knew I couldn't do it, so I turned him down."
As he walked away dejected, she thought about backing out. She rejected another three or four men who walked in.
She remembers starkly another man who walked up to her door several times.
"He looked so dirty and off-putting in his torn and tattered clothes. I made up my mind right away that there was no way I'd have sex with him.
"I told him, you come here looking for girls, you should at least clean yourself up."
The man hurried off to wash his face before returning to her door again.
"I was shocked, so I told him that I was actually on holiday," she recalls. "He was smart to call my bluff but really, I couldn't do it with him."
Such incidents helped deepen her respect for the women working in the Ten Yuan Brothel, so named because of the rate they charge. Ten yuan is about S$2.00.
"Another worker would have serviced him," she says.
Her first customer was an 18-year-old, a regular at the brothel.
"He's paid for the other women before and has his favourites. But seeing that I was 'new', he decided to approach me.
"We chatted a bit and I asked him why he'd have sex with women who are old enough to be his aunts. 'Do you not worry about sexual diseases?' I wanted to know, too.
"But he didn't seem to understand what I was saying. Maybe he felt worried that I was going to talk too much. He was about to walk off.
"I quickly told him to come in and that I'd do it for free. When I insisted that he wear a condom, he reacted like, 'What's that?'
"That's how it is in the rural areas - most of them don't even know what a condom is. I helped him put on one that I'd prepared earlier."
Another customer was a middle-aged man who had three layers of clothes.
Her voice drops as she relates: "His clothes had holes everywhere but they were clean.
"As he stripped, my heart went out to him. You could tell that he'd been feeling cold because the clothes barely covered him."
He also put on a brave front and asked Ms Ye: "You are so beautiful, are you sure you are willing to do it with me?"
When they began to have sex, he started to shiver.
"I didn't know know if it was from the cold, or whether he was tense, but I just felt so sorry for him.
"So I hugged him tightly," she says.
"I just wanted to keep him warm, physically or emotionally."
It was an act that touched the man.
"When he left, he told me, "You are the best person among the people I've met so far. Thank you'.
"But if you ask me, I don't think I really did anything extraordinary."
She has nothing to gain, insists Ms Ye Haiyan, who describes herself as an advocate for sex workers in China.
"I just want to speak up against the heavy-handed, moralistic approach that the authorities here have towards the sex industry," she says.
She admits that she expected the controversy when she decided on her stint early this year.
"That's why I decided to be open about my experience and share it (on her Weibo microblogs)," says Ms Ye.
Weibo is China's answer to Twitter.
"I knew the outreach of the Internet and how powerful it is."
True enough, her story went viral. It also cast the spotlight on the plight of sex workers in China.
But the reactions were mixed.
She says: "The (letters of) encouragement and support poured in, many of which declared that I was brave, that I wasn't just all talk and no action.
"Then there was the other group of people who felt that I'd debased myself. They slammed me for being immoral and shameless."
Ms Ye, who founded the China Grassroots Women's Right Centre in 2006, says she was appalled to find out that many of the sex workers refused to use condoms.
"We wanted to promote safe sex and HIV-preventive measures, but these women were afraid of being caught with the evidence (the condoms)," she says.
According to the China Daily Asia Pacific in June, prostitution is illegal in China "but the World Health Organisation estimates that there are some four million sex workers in the country".
Some experts suggest that the real figure may be higher.
Ms Ye says many of these women who have to resort to prostitution often don't have a choice.
"Unless you are in their shoes, you can never understand how much courage it takes."
All too aware of the cynical views, she says: "It's easy to condemn the prostitutes.
"But for those who (sell their bodies) in the rural areas, the sanitary conditions are so deplorable that you don't even want to set foot inside a room.
"Then there are the occasional clients who can turn violent or abusive. No one can really tell from first impressions until it happens. Then it's too late.
"Adding to the prostitutes' woes is the fear that the police will come knocking on their doors."
Prostitutes face fines of up to 3,000 yuan (S$600) if they are caught. Ms Ye points out: "Do your math and you'd know that for someone working, say in the Ten Yuan Brothel and who has to pay $15 a day for rental (of the room), you know how crazy that is."
Her motive is simple: Legalise the trade, drop the monetary penalty.
But she recognises that she has a "near-impossible mission". She says, with a sneer in her voice: "The authorities don't take too kindly to people like me, so they continue to invite me for a visit to the police station. For now, it's good enough to keep raising awareness of these women's predicament."
How does a mother tell her 13-year-old daughter that she is going to be a prostitute?
It's not easy, admits Ms Ye Haiyan.
"I thought about how much I wanted my daughter to know and if I should hide the truth from her, but I decided being honest with my baby was better than hiding or hinting about it," she says.
It helped that shortly after Ms Ye was divorced in 2001, she and her daughter were given a place to stay by a prostitute. Ms Ye didn't have much money then.
Her daughter was then only a year old. The woman was a friend of a friend.
Ms Ye says of her daughter: "She grew up basking in my love and care, but she also saw how I was gradually moving into this area (of being an advocate)."
Once she had confirmed her plan, she sat her now 13-year-old daughter downfor a chat.
"I told her I was going to try and work on this new idea and what I hoped to achieve from it.
"At first, she looked confused. Then she asked me, 'Must you really do it? Isn't it very shameful?'
"In that instant, something shot through my heart but I also knew I wasn't going to give up (on the idea). And I told her that it was important."
To her relief, her daughter told her: "Go ahead then. Just take care of yourself."
Ms Ye believes that her daughter does not fully comprehend the extent of the impact.
"I think she is too young to really understand it. Not that I'm terribly bothered by it because I know for certain that she'd be able to understand the rationale and reason behind it later."
Her voice softens as she shares brief details of her divorce - three years after she was married.
"Midway through my pregnancy, I suspected that my then husband and his ex-girlfriend were having an affair," she recounts.
"I was mad but I waited for the right time and finally caught them in bed one day."
Ms Ye concedes that, like all mothers, she wants the best for her daughter. Which explains why she is worried that her daughter may just take after her.
"I don't want her to be like me, or to follow in my footsteps," she says.
She is, however, confident that her daughter will be able to accept her work as an activist.
Says Ms Ye: "I've not lived a decadent life deliberately. I've tried to live right and I work hard for the money and for my belief.
"I've not done anything to disgrace myself or my child."
But it looks like she may not have much to worry about.
In an interview with Apple Daily last week, Ms Ye's daughter, who was also present, told the reporter: "My mother calls herself Hooligan Yan, but she is not a hooligan.
Her plight as a 'prostitute' activistby Maureen Koh
Just two years ago in July, Ms Ye Haiyan headed a campaign that saw several sex workers taking to the streets to demand that prostitution be legalised.
It was an eye-opener for the usually conservative Chinese society, especially when the protesters asked curious onlookers to sign a petition supporting their cause.
The police quickly stepped in. Ms Ye was detained for a day and then let off with a warning. In seven years, she has been arrested three times because of her activism.
And shortly after she posted about her sex stint on her Weibo microblog, her account was terminated.
She says: "Of course you'd never be able to find out what really happened."
But more was to follow. In March, she received several threatening calls demanding that she shut down her office in Yulin, in Guangxi province, near her home.
She had set up the centre, Fuping Health Workshop, offering counselling services.
On another morning that month, she returned to the office to see that the signboard was destroyed.
"Not that I was really surprised, I expected there was unhappiness.
"I also wasn't surprised that I didn't ever find out who the culprits were, despite making a police report."
The harassment continued.
In May, eight men barged into the centre and attacked her. They also destroyed a cabinet and other furniture.
"It was early in the morning, my back was to the door and I was talking on the phone, so I didn't notice the men rushing in.
"They knocked over a cabinet (where condoms were kept), and pushed me against the edge of my work desk."
Ms Ye demanded to know what the men wanted.
"One of the men slapped me, while the others ransacked the office.
"As we argued, one of them pulled out a knife and pointed it at me.
"I was stunned momentarily because I didn't expect it. I mean, I didn't really think it was that serious at first."
She reacted by picking up a chair and throwing it at the man.
"I challenged the man to come and kill me if he dared, but at that moment, the first man (with the hat) threw a bicycle at me," she says.
"Luckily for me, a crowd had gathered outside and the men fled."
Ms Ye believes it was the work of the police - the legal mafia, as she calls them.
She says: "The real mafia would just kill me. They wouldn't threaten. But you are right, I don't have any evidence."
She is determined to continue with her work.
"I have done nothing wrong, so don't expect me to retreat even at the threat of death. I will continue until something is done," she declares.
"If they want me to stop, there's only one way to do so: Kill me."
by Maureen Koh
