Mr. Mei Lanfang, a master of Peking Opera, is famous at home and abroad for his interpretation of 'noble concubines', and has become a legend of men dressed as women on the stage. In recent years, the artist Li Yugang has also become popular throughout the country with his interpretation of male and female costumes, and even went out of the country to win a wave of fans. However, if a man dressed as a woman is in life, to seduce a man? What about that?
A Chinese girl, and a big French boy, today, meeting and falling in love is not a rare thing, and even will make many young people envious. But in China in the 1960s, falling in love, getting married, and even having unmarried children was a kind of romanticism, and what kind of legend and suffering would lead to. The story begins in the winter of 1964, two days before Christmas, at a foreign-related reception ball in Beijing, and it begins to happen.
Shi Peipu, male, was formerly a screenwriter of the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe Youth League, a Danjiao actor and secretary of the troupe. Graduated from Yunnan University, majoring in French and Spanish, he liked Peking Opera as a student and performed with Guan Sushuang. He later worshiped Xiaosheng Jiang Miaoxiang as a teacher, and once performed "Odd Double Society" in the Peking University Auditorium.
The golden wind and jade dew first met
Bernard Michel Emile Paul Boursicot, a devout Catholic, was born on August 2, 1944 in the town of Vannes in the Brittany region of central France, dropped out of school a year ago to work, had just moved from Algeria to Beijing, and worked as the lowest-ranking employee at the French Embassy in China, an accountant and bookkeeper, at this time 20 years old.
The girl called herself Shi Peipu, who was 26 years old, with a small and exquisite figure and a beautiful appearance, and in a moment someone told Bernard that 'she' was a relative of a deputy ministerial-level cadre, and some people said that 'she' was born in the old district of Shandong, in short, there must be something unusual about 'her' family, because 'she' actually spoke French, although she stuttered, but it was rare in that era. At this moment, she is dressed in green clothes and has just finished the performance of entertaining foreign guests.
Bushiko had originally come with a British female companion, who was the secretary of the British chargé d'affaires in China, and had some good feelings for him, but at this moment the young Bushico was obviously deeply attracted by Shi Peipu, and he leaned over to talk and handed over a note with his address and telephone number. The two began to communicate at intervals, citing the overuse of the word used by almost every pair of transnational lovers in China: learning a foreign language.
It is worth mentioning that since that dance, Shi Peipu has been appearing in men's clothing. However, the stubborn Bushico firmly believes that the other party is an oriental woman worth pursuing. The young couple soon crossed the boundaries of friendship and became a pair of glue-like lovers. In May 1965, the two moved in together.
A Gavroche was expecting to find his father
Two young people met, fell in love, and then kissed each other, according to Bernard's later memories, the two rarely had sex during their relationship, and every time they were blind and sneaky. Shi Peipu explained that at that time, he thought that this was because Oriental women were shy. Three months later, Shi Peipu told Buchiko that she was pregnant, which made Buchiko feel both excited and nervous, and the two young people discussed "coping measures" all day long, but neither of them could work. Soon after, Pepple made Buchiko believe that he had miscarried, and Bušiko, who did not know whether to be sad or relieved, soon expired his 1-year contract, and due to his mediocre job performance, he did not get a renewal and had to leave China. Before leaving, Pei Pu told him that she was pregnant again.
Since childhood, Bushiko has traveled to many countries, but he has always paid attention to his lover in China. In the autumn of 1966, while on business in Brazil, he received a letter from Shi Peipu in which he wrote, in phrases from the novel Les Misérables, that "a Gafroche was expecting to find his father." Bušiko was so excited that he understood that it was a hint that he already had a son.
Bushiko felt his responsibility to take good care of the mother and son, so he did everything he could to find an opportunity to return to China. In September 1969, he finally returned to Beijing as he wished, still working at the French Embassy in China. He soon found Shi Peipu, but did not see his son, who was said to have looked too much like a foreigner and was sent to the countryside to avoid accidents in the special atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution. In special times, they can no longer be as painty as glue as in the past. The city is full of "vigilant eyes", and the pair of lovers cannot be guarded at all, and can only meet once a week on the street, nothing more than benches sitting opposite each other, without words. This scene is too similar to "Seventeen Moments of Spring", where the hero looks deeply at his wife in the café, but does not dare to go over to recognize, hug, and pour out his heart.
In the spring of 1972, when even this happiness could not last, Bushiko lost his contract again and had to leave China, and until then he had not seen his son, but he vowed to do so. In 1973, Bushico returned to Beijing as a tourist and finally met his 7-year-old son, blonde, who was very clingy to him, curious and excited about the novel gifts he brought.
The reunion was short-lived, and Bushiko left China again. In 1974, Buchiko had another cohabitant in France, Thierry Toulet, but Buchko felt that his feelings for his Chinese lover never disappeared, even more deeply because of his longing. At the same time, his longing for his son has become more and more longing with the passage of time.
In 1975, Bushico was sent to the French Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, where he and Shi Peipu's mother and son resumed close contact. He sent all kinds of necessities and money to the mother and son, and every three or five minutes he found an excuse to visit China. This relationship lasted almost 4 years. In 1979, Buchiko lost his job again, returned to France, and lived with Toure again, when Pepe's mother and son temporarily disappeared from his circle of life. However, a few years later, Shi Peipu contacted him again, and out of a sense of responsibility for his son, Bushiko applied for the two to come to the law on the grounds of "family reunion". In September 1982, he finally brought the 'mother and son' to Paris, where they were reunited and began to live like a family. Buchiko loved his son so much that he took him to his hometown to see his parents, and at the suggestion of his grandparents, his son's name changed from his mother's "Shi Du Toot" to the French-style Belteran Bušiko.
If the story ends here, it may be a good romantic drama, but the real drama has just begun.
Evil descends from heaven
In July 1983, French security police suddenly appeared before the couple, arrested and took them to court, accusing them of espionage.
The 'China Shi Pei Pu Spy Case', also known as 'China's First Spy Case', shook the entire Western world.
Mr. Bushko appeared prepared for all this, confessing to the accusations, saying that he had indeed leaked embassy information to the Chinese side when he was in office in Ulaanbaatar, but that the purpose was to protect his lover and children from being persecuted more during the Cultural Revolution because of "foreign countries." The main perpetrator of the espionage case alleged by the prosecution was Shi Peipu, who alleged that she used meise to deliberately seduce foreign embassy personnel to serve Chinese spy agencies, but Bushiko denied it, saying that he had voluntarily requested information. Shi Peipu also denied that she was a spy and "deliberately seduced diplomats", but her reason shocked the whole world - she was not a woman at all, but a man!
Completely stunned, Bushiko could not believe this terrible reality, and he stubbornly believed that the prosecutors and the police were lying, deliberately striking at his will and forcing him to confess. 6 months later, when he confronted Shi Peipu in the hall, and the other party confirmed that he was a man with a calm tone, he still refused to believe it, until a medical report was placed in front of him, he completely collapsed and attempted suicide by cutting his throat.
The medical report also proved that Bertrand Bushiko was neither The son of Bushiko nor Shi Peipu, but only a Chinese child of Xinjiang ancestry. The male rabbit walked low, the female rabbit's eyes were confused, and the dramatic "male and female" scene turned the serious spy case into an absurd and pornographic lace soap opera, and the prosecutor's original basis for prosecution had to be readjusted, and finally the two were sentenced to 6 years in prison on May 5, 1986.
In April 1987, Shi Peipu was pardoned by the then President Mitterrand and has since settled in Paris. Bushico, on the other hand, was released on parole after four years and one month in prison. In 1989, he became a chef apprentice and has lived an ordinary life ever since. The two never saw each other again.
Absurd
In May 1986, as soon as Bernard and Shi Peipu were disclosed, they attracted great attention in Europe and the United States. How could Shi Peipu convince Bernard that she was a woman? Is he a Chinese spy? "It became the most puzzling problem for the French at that time."
Barbara Walters, a prominent news anchor on the ABC, bit them first and arranged a joint interview with the two. However, neither Bushko nor Shi Peipu was willing to face each other, so Waters could only talk to the two separately, and the interview, known as the "monologue of two self-talkers", caused a sensation in the world, but also buried many mysteries that cannot be solved so far.
This exotic love full of strange feelings was noticed by the Chinese-American playwright Huang Zhelun, who combined this true story with the composer Puccini's famous opera "Madame Butterfly" to write the famous Broadway stage play "M. Butterfly", which immediately caused a sensation after being staged.
The French writer Roger Farigo was a more persistent digger, and in 1990 he collaborated with others in the book "China Secret Service" to describe the unsolved case as a shocking conspiracy; in mid-2008, Sino-French relations cooled, and Farigo's timely work "From the Mao Zedong Era to the Beijing Olympics" revisited this past in a large way, insisting and even rendering his own assertions.
'Butterfly Jun' played by Zun Long
The most famous is the movie. In 1994, the American director David Cronenberg remade this story into the movie "Butterfly King" (M. Butterfly), the "female butterfly" played by Zun Long, her dual personality is impressive. People began to refer to Shi Peipu as "Butterfly Jun".
In 2009, Shi Peipu passed away quietly in Paris. On July 1, on the 2nd, TV5 TV, Echo and other French media reported the news of "Butterfly Jun's death" continuously. The people of the past have gone with the butterflies, and there are still many sorrows left here. People really can't understand how a man can't even tell if his sexual partner is male or female for 20 years, which also makes Bernard a big laughingstock. The Paris Competition Pictorial even tried to technically explain why he could not discover the truth. Bernard's sexual orientation has also been questioned by the media. The Us "New York Times" said on the 2nd that Bernard had publicly cohabited with another man when he brought Shi Peipu's "mother and son" back to Paris in 1982. Bernard's diary revealed that he had never slept with a woman before the age of 20, had very little sexual experience with same-sex alumni, and had made up his mind to find a woman to really love, and ended up falling in love with Shi Peipu. Bernard adamantly denies that he is gay, stating that Although Pepe originally appeared as a man, he told him that it was a last resort because his father wanted a son and forced him to wear men's clothing.
Why did Bernard disclose intelligence to China? The 1987 edition of the Paris Competition Pictorial once said that Shi Peipu pleaded with Bernard to provide information on the grounds that "it is difficult to ensure the safety of mother and child without intelligence." This information includes express mail and materials written by the French ambassador on "Mongolian Foreign Policy in the Context of Sino-Soviet Confrontation." French newspaper Le Croix said on June 30 that Shi Peipu firmly denied that he was a Chinese spy at trial, claiming that he had "deceived" Bernard only to give himself a chance to leave China during the Cultural Revolution. After Bernard was released from prison, he asked the writer Wadel to write a memoir called "Fornication", in which he did not mention who took the initiative to ask for information, but only said that "I will never regret paying for love." A special program broadcast by Tv5 in France also said that Bernard himself was a spy himself.
So what did It take for Pepp to convince Bernard that Beltran Buschko was the crystallization of their love? The October 2006 French edition of Time magazine made a variety of assumptions, including one that suggested that Shi Peipu deliberately used the story of "Liang Zhu" to suggest to him that she was dressed as a man, and successfully deceived the other party with a fake miscarriage and two false pregnancies. The article even mentions a rumor that they themselves think is absurd: Shi Peipu can learn some kind of Chinese magic that can make her physically imitate women without being detected by sexual partners.
China's Global Times correspondent in France interviewed several French people at random when Shi Peipu died, and they all heard about the "Butterfly Jun" case. Elena, a parisian teacher, said the incident made her feel that "Chinese may really have two shots." French geopolitical scholar Picard told the Global Times reporter on the 2nd that the story of "Butterfly Jun" can cause such a big response in France, mainly because of the mystery of China at that time. Coupled with the stimulation of spying, love, men and women and other factors with a very storyline, the most bizarre spy story in France in recent years was born.
China's '007' compiled just for curiosity
Compared with the French people's familiarity with this matter, the Chinese people seem to be much stranger to the story of "Butterfly Jun". The Global Times reporter interviewed in Paris at the same time, and also randomly interviewed several Beijing citizens in Beijing, all of whom said that they had never heard of the incident. Mr. Zhang, a 27-year-old photography enthusiast, said that if this was true, he did not understand why China would send a man posing as a woman to approach Bernard. Chinese netizens who rarely see the movie "Butterfly Jun" prefer to interpret this story from the perspective of the cultural conflict between the East and the West and human nature. An expert from a Chinese authority told the Global Times that the story described by the French media was too absurd, and it could not be the Chinese government. The expert said that Premier Zhou set a fundamental policy when China's security department was established, that the CCP's intelligence department would never use 'swallows' and 'crows', that is, China's intelligence work would never use beauty or beauty. Another Chinese intelligence expert believes that the so-called "Chinese spy pei pu case" is really "more than 007 007", which is not in line with the basic laws of international intelligence and espionage operations, and if nothing else, the marriage and emotional life of French diplomats is closely monitored by the French mainland vigilance bureau and the counter-espionage department of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since Bernard and Shi Peipu met in the era when the West was most wary of "Red China", Shi Peipu's background could not have been strictly censored. The most outrageous thing is that after Bernard changed to other countries, he could actually come to China to meet Chinese citizens like "walking in his own back garden".
As the sun sets, only the people are at the end of the world
The New York Times reported on July 2, 2009, that after learning of Peipu's death, Bernard was interviewed by the media, and the 64-year-old was living in a nursing home in France. When asked by a reporter if he was saddened by Shi Shi's death, he replied: "He has done so much to me, never pitied me, and now that the dishes have been washed, I am free." However, Bernard once said after learning the truth, "I regret that the story is not the one I believed, and when I believed it, it was a very beautiful story.".
It's a divorce, it's love and hate, and there's no need to guess. In the simplest of human nature, we respect the sincere love of this old French man and pay the price of a lifetime of suffering for soul and flesh. For Pei Pu in China's Danjiao, maybe he has also fulfilled his dream, as for what is this dream?
As the sun sets, only the people are at the end of the world.