Shi Pei Pu
| Shi Pei Pu | |
|---|---|
| Born |
21 December 1938 Shandong, China |
| Died | 30 June 2009 (aged 70) Paris, France |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Alma mater | University of Kunming |
| Occupation | Opera singer, spy |
| Partner(s) | Bernard Boursicot |
| Children | Shi Dudu |
| Shi Pei Pu | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 時佩璞 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 时佩璞 | ||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Shí Pèipú |
| Gwoyeu Romatzyh | Shyr Peypwu |
| Wade–Giles | Shih P'eip'u |
| IPA | [ʂɻ̩̌ pʰêipʰǔ] |
Shi Pei Pu (Chinese: 时佩璞; pinyin: Shí Pèipú; 21 December 1938 – June 30, 2009) was a Chinese opera singer from Beijing. He became a spy who obtained secrets during a 20-year-long sexual affair in which he convinced an employee in the French Embassy that he was a woman, later producing a child that he insisted had been born through their relations. The story made headlines in France when it came to light and became the basis for the 1988 play M. Butterfly and the 1993 movie of the same title.
Shi's father was a college professor, and his mother was a teacher. He had two sisters who were significantly older than he was. Shi grew up in Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan, where he learned French and attended the University of Kunming, graduating with a literature degree. By 17, Shi was an actor/singer who had achieved some recognition. In his 20s, Shi wrote plays about workers.
Bernard Boursicot was 20 years old and had obtained a job as an accountant at the French Embassy in Beijing, which had just been opened in 1964 as the first Western mission in China since the Korean War. As recorded in his diary, Boursicot had only previously had sexual relations with fellow male students in school and wanted to meet a woman and fall in love. He first met Shi, who was 26 and dressed as a man, at a Christmas party in December 1964. Shi had been teaching Chinese to the families of Embassy workers and told Boursicot that he was "a female Beijing opera singer who had been forced to live as a man to satisfy his father's wish to have a son". The two developed a sexual relationship maintained quickly and in darkness in which Boursicot was convinced that he was with a woman.
After being discovered by the Chinese government, Boursicot was pressured into providing secret documents from his postings in Beijing from 1969 to 1972 and in Ulan Bator, Mongolia from 1977 to 1979, with over 500 documents taken. Boursicot was stationed outside of China and saw Shi infrequently, maintaining their sexual relationship. Shi later showed Shi Du Du to Boursicot, a four-year-old child that Shi insisted was their son who had been born to him.
...
Wikipedia