Meet Jin Xing, a 57-year-old ballerina and choreographer who has been at the pinnacle of her profession in China for many years, but who is suddenly, and without explanation, facing cancellations by local authorities of scheduled appearances by her dance troupe.

Unexplained, yes; but not inexplicable . . . because Jin Xing is a transgender woman — one of very few in China who has, until now, been accepted not only by the public, but by Chinese Communist Party officialdom as well.

Look at her: she is beautiful, elegant, talented. Her concerts sell out; she hosts TV talk shows; and she has 13.6 million followers on her Weibo social media account. Even Chinese state media have referred to her as one of the”10 legendary figures of Chinese modern dance.” [Chris Lau, CNN, January 3, 2025.]

The recent cancellations are stirring renewed fear among China’s LGBTQ+ community of increased crackdowns. Transgender people already face social stigma, have difficulty in finding work, and find themselves being stared at and ridiculed in public. And under the increasingly harsh authoritarian rule of President Xi Jinping, their future is uncertain at best.

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Reading about Jin Xing this week brought to mind another incident — this one a major scandal — in the 1980s, when male Chinese opera singer Shi Pei Pu was found to have been obtaining secrets from an employee in the French Embassy in Beijing, one Bernard Boursicot, throughout . . . you may want to sit down for this one . . . their 20-year-long sexual affair in which Boursicot believed that Shi was, in fact, a she.

I kid you not. Shi was not transgender; he claims to have merely disguised the fact that he was a man. He even claimed to have had a child from his relationship with Boursicot. Needless to say, the story made headlines in France. [Wikipedia, Shi Pei Pu.]

I know . . . I know. It requires a serious stretch of the imagination, but it really happened. Look it up.

And now, moving on . . .

Both Shi and Boursicot were tried in France and convicted of espionage in 1986; each was sentenced to six years in prison. However, in an effort to improve relations with China, French President Mitterrand pardoned both after they had served about a year of their sentences.

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But you must know that that story was too good not to have caught the attention of at least one writer. In this case, that clever fellow was playwright David Henry Hwang, whose adaptation of the tale was titled “M. Butterfly.” (Yes, the name was a takeoff on the Puccini opera.) It opened pre-Broadway in 1988 at Washington, D.C.’s National Theatre, with noted actor John Lithgow starring as Boursicot. And I had tickets for opening night, which is where this whole long story has been leading all along.

You see, at the time, the law firm in which I was working had dealings with the Chinese Embassy on behalf of clients doing business in China. And the senior partner of the firm — my immediate boss — was consulted on some of the legal and diplomatic aspects of the case. So I had a personal interest in seeing how it had all been turned into a theatrical production.

I was able to talk my sister into going with me — actually, I just bought two tickets and presented her with one of them — and we decided to have an early dinner before the theater at the restaurant in the nearby Marriott Hotel. The dining room was divided into an upper section — a sort of mezzanine — which looked out onto Pennsylvania Avenue (just a block from the White House), and a larger lower area. Our table was in the lower section, just at the foot of the two or three steps leading . . . well, to the upper section, of course. And I was seated with my back to the steps.

We were halfway through a lovely meal when there was a sudden clamor behind me, and I immediately felt a large, heavy hand grasping my right shoulder. And as I looked around, there was none other than the star of “M. Butterfly,” John Lithgow, who — having just finished his own dinner — had tripped on his way down the carpeted steps, lunged forward, and nearly landed in my lap, only managing to avoid sprawling face-first by grabbing onto the nearest solid object: me.

Very red-faced, he could not have been more apologetic — in fact, he was more concerned that I might have been hurt. Which I wasn’t . . . and luckily, neither was he. I recall saying something brilliantly witty, to the effect of, “That’s not part of the show, is it?” as we both laughed it off. I did manage to tell him we’d be seeing him, from the audience, in a little while.

After he left, my sister asked what I would have done if he had actually fallen on top of me, and I honestly had no answer. But I was sure he would have handled it with the same grace and good humor . . . though possibly with the messy addition of some mashed potatoes and gravy.

The show, by the way, was excellent, and no actors were hurt during its presentation.

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Such is life in the big city. You never know who you might bump into — literally — on a street corner, in a supermarket, or in the middle of dinner. There were always stories to tell at the end of the day.

And I really miss that.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
1/7/25