4.4 Case Study II: The Story of Tien You-ren, Chen Fu-yu,
4.4.2 Narrative: Caught in the Act
Chen Fu-yu (陳語馥), a woman trained as a nurse, was married to a doctor, Fang Ching-li. They lived in Taoyuan in a building several floors above the offices of Fang’s private practice. Sometime in November of 2010, Chen discovered items of a personal nature belonging to an unknown woman, and began to suspect that her husband was having an affair with one of his nurses. On November 15, Chen went to the clinic to confront her husband, but he sent her away. Later in court she claimed that he grabbed her off of a chair and hit her against a wall and the main door. She was bruised and received abrasions in multiple places.
Perhaps Chen felt powerless after having attempted to confront her husband twice and being met with physical force. Sometime around November, she hired Ta-ai Zhengxinshe to investigate. On December 27, 2010, Chen contacted the police, and along with some zhengxinshe employees, went to attempt to apprehend her husband and Tien in flagrante. The dramatic scene that transpired merits close examination.
187 楊宗灝（註185）。
188 臺灣桃園地方法院刑事判決100年度易字第1350號。
According to her testimony, at 1:00am Chen entered her and Fang’s fourth floor apartment and heard him and Tien having sex, that is, the sound of Tien’s moans. The living room and master bedroom were adjacent to one another, and the door to the master bedroom was partially open. Chen claimed she could see her husband on top of Tien from the living room. Tien was wearing a sexy black lace piece of lingerie on her upper body and was naked from the waist down. Her underwear was on the floor beside the bed. Her husband was wearing a shirt and had sports shorts pulled down to his knees, exposing his bear buttocks. Tien was making so much noise, Chen claimed, that the adulterers did not notice that the front door was opened and people entered. Fang and Tien became aware of the presence of Chen and her companions when they opened the bedroom door. Fang immediately got off the bed and pulled up his shorts. It is at this point in the narrative that the judge cites the testimony of Chin Hsiu-chen.
The persecutor (告訴人) had keys to the clinic so she opened the metal door and we rushed up to the fourth floor. The living room was dark. The door to the bedroom wasn’t closed. Light from outside the bedroom was shining into it. When we first went into the bedroom, we turned on the light in the living room. We saw that Fang Ching-li was on the bed on top of the defendant’s body. Fang’s shorts were down around his thighs. He was having sex, and making thrusting motions. Actually, you could hear the moans of a woman from the stairwell. It sounded like sex. At the time I thought that the woman was moaning pretty loudly. We turned on the light and went into the bedroom. Fang Ching-li was really surprised. He immediately pulled up his shorts. The defendant wasn’t wearing underwear. Her underwear was at the head of the bed. She was indeed having sex at the time, and in the present tense.
Chen and those in her employ also took pictures of and filmed the confrontation.
The pictures, the District Court stated, revealed that at the time the defendant was only
wearing black lingerie on her upper body and was naked from the waist down, and that there was something that looked like black underpants next to the pillow. The
persecutor also provided four video files of the event as evidence. The first, twenty-one seconds long, shows Fang Ching-li attempting to drive off the person filming and arguing with the persecutor (Chen) and employees of Ta-ai. The second file shows the persecutor entering the bedroom where Fang Ching-li and the defendant are. Tien is sitting on the bed wrapped in a comforter. Chen loudly yells at her “She isn’t wearing underwear.” The third video is five minutes and three seconds long, and shows Chen, Fang, and Tien arguing. Tien is sitting on the bed with a blanket over her. Chen and Fang are arguing. Also visible is clothing in the corner of the room. The last video is one minute forty seconds long, and is of the police escorting Fang and Tien to the police precinct. (Chen and the employees of the zhengxinshe also collected two wads of tissues, a pair of silk stockings, and a sanitary napkin. These, however, were not handed over to the police until later, and were therefore found not to be valid evidence by the lower court.)
In a separate suit against Fang, Chen would state that her husband used physical force during the events described above. He pushed Chen away from Tien, who was on a bed wrapped in a comforter, to prevent her from collecting evidence or confronting him. “This is my house and my bed. Why is this woman sleeping on my bed?” she claims to have said to Fang at the time. Chen pressed charges against her husband for domestic violence for both this instance, and the injuries she allegedly sustained while confronting her husband at the clinic the previous month. She later dropped charges against her husband for both instances. It is not clear what concessions he may have received in return.
Chen pressed charges for criminal adultery against both Fang and Tien. It seems that at some point during their out-of-court negotiations she asked them to together pay 1,300,000 NTD. Fang settled out of court, agreeing to pay 800,000 NTD to his wife. In return, she dropped the charges against him. She maintained the suit against Tien. In the criminal adultery case against her, Tien claimed that she had not had sex with Fang Ching-li. She had not been feeling well at the time, but since the clinic was hiring at the time, she was discussing the matter with Fang Ching-li. She was on the bed wrapped in the comforter, some distance away from Fang, who was standing next to the bed talking to her. The court, however, rejected this testimony on the grounds that it was
unreasonable that Fang and Tien should chose to discuss work-related matters after midnight when Tien was ill and in such a state of undress.
As mentioned above, Tien also challenged the testimony of Chin Hsiu-chen, referencing a September 7 news report that linked Chin to organized crime and fraud related to extramarital affairs investigations. The judge, however, rejected this argument. On February 10, the Taoyuan District Court convicted Tien You-ren of criminal adultery and sentenced her to four months of penal servitude commutable to a fine. She appealed, but following the same line of reasoning, the High Court handed down a decision upholding the Taoyuan District Court’s decision on May 9, 2012.
Fang also sued Tien for civil damages. As stated above, at some point before the Taoyuan District Court convicted Tien of criminal adultery, Fang Ching-li paid 800,000 NTD to his wife and signed an settlement agreement (和解書). In exchange, his wife dropped the suit against him. (It is also possible that she dropped the domestic violence charges against him.) It seems that at the time, she wanted both of them to pay a total of 1,300,000 NTD. Perhaps if Tien had also paid part of this, Chen would have dropped the criminal suit against her, but this did not happen. On August 14, 2012, the
High Court found against Tien and ordered her to pay 500,000 NTD to Chen, just the amount she had asked for out of court.
判決日期 字號 案由 原告/上訴人/告訴人 被告/被上訴人 結果
The case of the intimate dispute among Tien You-ren, Fang Ching-li, and Chen Fu-yu in many ways fits the stereotype of extramarital affair-related disputes involving zhengxinshe. In summary, the events transpire from a wife’s attempt to catch her
husband and his mistress in the act. Along with several zhengxinshe employees, the wife waits for just the right moment to “catch” the “adulterers”; in fact, she admits to having prepared for the zhuajian an hour ahead of time.189 At just the right moment—
when the mistresses throws of carnal pleasure are audible through two doors to the
189 臺灣桃園地方法院刑事判決100年度易字第1350號。
exterior of the apartment building—Chen and Chin, camera in hand, creep into the apartment. They can see lovemaking—“in the present tense”—through the crack in the door. After the two burst into the bedroom, they record the scene including Tien and Fang in varying states of undress, and pick up tissues that may contain bodily fluids.
Furthermore, at least at first blush, the legal disputes that transpire roughly correspond to the notion of “a husband escaping legal responsibility” and the dispute becoming a
“war between two women.” The wife presses charges against her husband and his mistress, but after out-of-court bargaining, drops charges against the husband in
exchange for a large sum of money. The mistress is convicted of adultery and then sued for damages and loses. All of this, but especially the dramatic zhuajian, seems almost perfectly scripted. But this scripted-ness is indeed something that should give us pause.
What makes this case particularly noteworthy is the fact that one of the
zhengxinshe employees in this case, who had previously been reported to be a gangster
by several major newspapers, is accused of concocting testimony. This figures into the dispute with interesting implications for how we interpret the public visibility of the industry. Consider the judge’s reasoning in regard to Tien’s attempt to have Chin’s testimony excluded from evidence:
Although the defendant has proffered an online news story from September 7, 2011, and said that Chin Hsiu-chen is a member of a crime syndicate that specializes in the planting of evidence of extramarital affairs (專門栽贓外遇集團), and therefore that what she says is false, even if the “Chin Hsiu-chen” in this news report is the same person as the witness Chin Hsiu-chen, and she indeed, as the report indicates, has previously planted evidence of extramarital affairs, there is still no concrete evidence such that it may be ascertained that this matter has any bearing on this case, or that there has been the planting of evidence of an extramarital affair in this case. Therefore, this is not adequate to challenge her
testimony in this case. The court finds the complainant and witness Chin Hsiu-chen’s testimony to be reliable.190
For the sake of argument, let us assume that the Chin Hsiu-chen in the article is the same person as the witness. (The both purportedly worked for Ta-ai Zhengxinshe.) It seems well within the court’s discretion to admit her testimony. What, however, makes it possible that a news article reporting a witness’s identity as a ganger and “pro”
planter of evidence of extramarital affairs—and in the recent past—does nothing to impeach the witness’s character and credibility? And, given the fact that Chen’s testimony contains many of the most rhetorically poignant elements of the zhuajian narrative, what would be lost if her recounting were deemed inadmissible? Two counterfactual situations throw this situation into relief. First, one may imagine what would happen if Chen were not employed by Ta-ai or any other zhengxinshe at the time.
Second, we may consider what would happen if her testimony were excluded, and the judge relied solely on the testimony of Chen and the contents of the video recording to ascertain the facts of the case.
In the first instance, we may imagine, Chen would of course be only a gangster with a penchant for faking zhuajian with “professional” expertise, and not a
“professional” affair detective. It would seem then much more difficult for the judge to rely on her testimony. This suggests the power of the public visibility of zhengxinye to justify and rationalize what would otherwise be patently suspicious, if not downright illegal, behavior. In the second instance, without Chin’s testimony, the story of the zhuajian would loose some of its most vivid and compelling language, for instance, “He was having sex, and making thrusting motions,” “I thought the woman was moaning pretty loudly,” and “She was indeed having sex at the time, and in the present tense.” In
190 臺灣桃園地方法院刑事判決100年度易字第1350號。
Chapter Two, research was cited that indicates that judges often exhibit different evidentiary standards for ascertaining the fact that penile-vaginal intercourse has occurred as required by the criminal adultery statute. In this case, tissues containing Fang and Tien’s bodily fluids are not entered into evidence, and the video recording does not capture actual intercourse. One would surmise, in such cases, that rhetorically powerful testimony would be particularly helpful in swaying judges’ ascertaining of whether or not sex as required by Criminal Code §239 has taken place. The testimony of Chin, with its suspiciously scripted quality, emphasizing several times the physicality of the act of the adulterous sex seems particularly powerful. Of course, it is the judge that decides that this detective-cum-gangster is one kind of professional, and not the other.
In conclusion, let us reflect again on the graphic details of sexuality spilling out of these court documents—the lacy bit of underwear at the head of the bed, the throws of orgiastic delight echoing down the hall (or invented by a lying witness). In the criminal adultery case they function as evidence, and to great effect. But it would be a mistake to interpret the chain of events that constitutes a zhuajian such as this a merely an exercise in civilian evidence collection. Each act of witnessing, documenting, and collecting may also be read as intentional humiliation of those being “investigated.” In this case, Tien’s initial (presumed) trauma of being caught naked was extended through out-of-court bargaining, and the courtroom drama during which the details of the
zhuajian were again aired. Yet, all of this is rationalized as the investigation of a crime.
We have good reason to speculate just would happen to such zhuajian scenarios if adultery were decriminalized. Since, arguably, the burden of proof for civil damages for extramarital affairs is less than that of criminal adultery, it would be interesting
indeed to see if the judicial system would continue to implicitly condone and underwrite the humiliation of zhuajian.
4.5 Case Study III: The Story of Chu Mei-luan, Huang Sheng-ming, and