COOPERATION WITH JOYCE WADLER, AUTHOR OF LIAISON / BERNARD BOURISCOT / AIVAR VENDELPOMM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Boursicot
Bernard Boursicot (born 12 August 1944) is a French diplomat who was caught in a Chinese honeypot trap (seducing him to participate in espionage) by Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles, whom Boursicot claimed he believed to be female. This espionage case became something of a cause célèbre in France in 1986, as Boursicot and Shi were brought to trial, owing to the nature of the unusual sexual subterfuge alleged.[1]
The case was again back under a public spotlight when a play loosely based on this affair, M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, premiered in 1988 and yet again as the film adaptation of the play directed by David Cronenberg was released in 1993. Periodic restagings of the play and television airings of the film based on it continue to spark interest in the espionage case at the heart of the fictional works of art.
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Cooperation with Joyce Wadler, author of Liaison
Boursicot cooperated fully with reporter Joyce Wadler, who was seeking information for her book on the espionage case and affair, Liaison, granting her lengthy interviews about deeply personal subjects as well as access to all records and his closest family members. He is frequently quoted in the book.[8]
In a separate but lengthy article published in The New York Times Magazine in 1993, titled "The True Story of M. Butterfly; The Spy Who Fell in Love with a Shadow", Wadler reveals in intimate detail how Boursicot came to believe the fiction that Shi Pei Pu was a woman despite having first come to know him socially and in a close friendship as a man.
Boursicot related through Wadler that Shi first told him the story of an opera about a Chinese girl who swaps clothing with her brother so she may be educated. She falls in love with another student but is called home to participate in an arranged marriage. The male student is driven to suicide and eventually the girl does the same at the grave of her true love. The opera is called the Story of the Butterfly.
Boursicot reported that it is only when he had the opportunity to leave his dull job that Shi Pei Pu told him the Story of the Butterfly again with an added twist that he, Shi Pei Pu, had been a woman masquerading as a man all his life to prevent her father from taking a second wife and shaming her mother who had two older daughters. Upon Shi's birth, this fiction was created. Boursicot accepted the lie, their affair began, and all that came after ensued.[2]
Boursicot's and Shi's public comments regarding their affair
In his obituary, it was reported that Shi Pei Pu disliked answering questions about the sexual specifics of the affair; in 1988 he was quoted in an interview as having said, "I used to fascinate both men and women. What I was and what they were didn't matter."[4]
About the affair, Boursicot is quoted as saying, "When I believed it, it was a beautiful story." However, when Boursicot was notified at a French nursing home of Shi's death, Boursicot said, "He did so many things against me that he had no pity for, I think it is stupid to play another game now and say I am sad. The plate is clean now. I am free."[7][4]
Legacy of the affair and espionage case
- The play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang is based on this affair. This became the basis of the film of the same name directed by David Cronenberg.
- The contemporary Chinese Music Theatre Mr. Shi and His Lover by Njo Kong Kie and Wong Teng Chi is based on this affair.
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