Land sakes. We just came this close to having the first Mr. Gay China competition. In terms of invisible demographics, the only event more shocking would be a Ms. Courtesan of China competition. Unlike many western countries, where prostitution is relegated to the seedier parts of a city, in Chinese cities one never has to wander farther than half a dozen blocks to find sex for sale. It's an interesting phenomenon, more so in that it's virtually never mentioned in polite society.

Not that anyone here is hypocritical enough to deplore prostitutes; too many can recall hungry times too vividly for that kind of self-righteousness, and there are still far too few opportunities for too many young women to make prostitution anything less than an inevitability. But in a more objective world, there would be a Ms. Courtesan pageant in every country, maybe a Ms. Courtesan Universe. And if there were ever a Courtesan Hall of Fame, Sai Jinhua would be a shoe-in.

 Yep, that's her, folks.

We at China Expat are far too sophisticated and world-weary to deny that prostitutes provide an essential service to mankind; the bloody shame lies in the opportunity cost, the potential squandered. Like millions of unwanted girls in poor families before her, Sai Jinhua was sold off to a brothel before properly into her pubescence.  No matter which society or its strictures, though, the greatly talented  always find ladders out of the holes fate has dug them. Sai Jinhua no doubt had world-class reserves of both personality and bedroom prowess, enough to secure marriage to a well-connected scholar named Hong Jun when she was just fifteen.

"OK, she got the fairytale. Cut to the closing shot." This would be the point in her life where your average Hollywood exec would run the credits. In a much more compelling reality, this is just where Sai Jinhua's adventures began. Hong Jun won a post as a Qing ambassador to Europe, where his retired professional wife redeployed as a diplomatic asset. She picked up German and English far faster than her eminently scholastic husband, fluently enough to display razor wit and lotus charm to those who could actually appreciate it, the upper-crust and nobility of fin de siècle Europe. She disarmed walrus-mustachioed counts and melted the icy reserve of Victorian duchesses.  Hong Jun and the Qing benefitted, but who knows the heights his wife would have attained with more than a whorehouse for a finishing school.

A sick husband put an end to her champagne and caviar days. Hong Jun died, and predictably uncharitable in-laws saw her back on to the streets. Not one for hand-wringing, Sai Jinhuan returned to her old hustle and quickly built a franchise of ill fame; her bordello empire had branches in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai at its peak. And those were in times as economically as they were politically chaotic. As far as her Han subjects were concerned, Empress Cixi  had not only made a whore of China, but one that any foreigner with a breech-loading rifle could plunder for a grain of opium. The Boxer Rebellion was feudal China's last display of defiant bravado - occupation by the Eight-Nation Alliance, the result.

It was during Beijing's dark days of retribution for the Boxers' ineffectual assault on the foreign legation quarter that Sai Jinhua put herself in the history books, hard-to-find books though they now are.  Battles fought according to time-honored pomp and ritual Europeans can understand; sneak attacks, such as that of the Boxers, were perfidy to be punished by greater perfidy. Soldiers of the eight armies despoiled Beijing as Hebrews do vanquished Philistines.  With no David to stand up to the foreign Goliath, Beijing had to settle for Esther, in the form of Sai Jinhua. It just so happened that German Marshal  Count Waldersee, chief-in-command of the occupation forces, was a personal client and number one fan of the inimitable Ms. Sai, who prevailed on her high-ranking trick to cease hostilities and force terms.

Saved from the ravaging barbarian by a dame, a street-walking dame to boot. Chinese at the turn of the century, their glorified patriarchy finally castrated after decades of impotence, could appreciate the ironic heroism of Sai Jinhua. Her urban legend turned to street opera, to revolutionary plays, and finally to Shanghai-movie fodder. But somewhere between the Japanese invasion and the  founding of the PRC, Sai Jinhua turned from patriotic savior to shameful family secret. A once-shriveled China now standing firm and proud wants no hooker-heroine at hand for knowing comparisons.

Ms Sai herself never even lived to see the struggle for independence. She did a stretch in prison for torturing and murdering some of her working girls, and died alone and destitute in Beijing, in 1936. The greater the icon, the longer its shadow, and Sai Jinhua grew up in the shadows. As with drugs, though, prostitution's underbelly melts away in the light of legalization. Of course, as in America and England, prostitution is still illegal in China. Then again, not long ago, so was being gay.