Bo Xilai and the Devil Woman

In a move congruent with Chinese history, the wife of Bo Xilai, the Chinese princeling accused of corruption while he was running Chongqing, will be put on trial for her misdeeds.

This phenomenon of blaming the female should not surprise scholars who understand the Chinese attitude towards “dragon ladies.” I mentioned this in my novel, ”Shanghai Rose:”

Settling in on the train, I attempted to read a Chinese poem about a beautiful woman who threatened a man because of her sexuality.  He eventually left her because he knew a woman like that could drain his life forces.

It seems that at least as far back as the Zhou dynasty, a very sexual woman was a threat to a man’s purity and ethical behavior. There was a story in which an empress had a fox inside her that turned the Zhou emperor into a merciless, brutal failure, in a time when B.C. was a useful chronological tool.

In the West, a man could take a woman’s honor and leave her behind, or a woman could use a man as a toy, but the Chinese only saw women as capable of taking souls and clouding minds.