LAST NOVEMBER, Penang Monthly documented in Anecdotal Accounts of Chinese Women Migrants to Southeast Asia, stories of how these women entered the prostitution trade. Their stories continue in this feature, in exploration of their misfortunate fates in a strange new land.
According to scholar Wong Sin Kiong (黄贤强)，at the tail end of the 19th century, prostitutes in Penang and in Singapore were categorically described as: i) gongzhu (公主, princess); ii) bangnian (绑年, tied by year); and iii) da deng (搭灯, put up lamp). The “princess”, as the name may suggest, was a human-trafficked victim sold to brothel houses at a tender age. To maintain the guise of these establishments, the girls had to address the brothel-keepers, who were often senior women, as “godmother”. These girls suffered deplorable conditions; in exchange for basic food and accommodation, they were forced into prostitution and were treated as personal belongings and slaves by the brothel-keepers, to whom their earnings went.
