Ten years after she was groped by a man on a Beijing bus, Wanda is still haunted by the memory.
Now 31, Wanda " who asked to be identified only by her first name " said she froze when a man pressed himself against her on the bus and began thrusting his lower body at her.
That was but one of several times she experienced sexual harassment on public transport.
Wanda said she had also been flashed at in public and, just last year, was forced to block a man with her purse when he tried to touch her leg on a train.
Wanda's experience is not unusual, but attempts to address the problem of sexual harassment on public transport in China have met with mixed results.
Two major cities in southern China, for example, introduced priority carriages for women on their subway trains in 2017.
But in reality, the rules on the priority carriages are seldom enforced. They have been used by men since their launch.
"When it first came out, subway staff vehemently advocated for women to use it, so many people did," said Zhang Ying, a piano teacher in Guangzhou.
Staff would hold loudspeakers and gesture for women to get on the priority carriages. But now, everybody treats it as an ordinary carriage, she said.
Shenzhen and Guangzhou, both megacities in Guangdong province, established two designated carriages " one at each end of the train " during peak times.
The carriages are decorated with pink stickers that say, in Chinese and English, "priority carriages for women."
While the authorities did not say they were intended to prevent sexual harassment " saying that the scheme was meant to "give more care and respect to women" " the carriages followed precedents set by Japan and Europe for that very reason.
Enforcement aside, feminists say, the scheme is a form of segregation rather than an attempt to solve the cause of the issue.
"The logic behind the scheme is wrong to begin with," said Xiao Meili, a Guangzhou-based feminist.
"When noticing the dangers women face in public spaces, women call for convenience in all areas, but (the government) only wants to draw you a little corner to play in, signaling they still will neglect you in most places."
"Most of the sexual harassers and rapists are men, so wouldn't it be more effective to put these offenders in a limited space?" she asked.
Zhang, the piano teacher, said she rarely uses the priority carriages because of the inconvenience of having to walk all the way to the ends of the trains.
In a survey of 443 people conducted by a group of feminists in Shenzhen in 2017, 42% of women said they had been harassed on public transport, compared with just 6% of men.
Most of the interviewees said they were dissatisfied with the police response, and 65% said they thought police should be more responsible for handling sexual harassment in public.
Xiao and others have repeatedly written to government representatives about sexual harassment on public transport.
In 2016, Xiao's feminist group received 40,000 yuan ($5,650) in public donations " just enough to buy an advertisement slot.
For two years, the group tried to put up large anti-harassment posters in the Guangzhou and Shenzhen underground systems, but they were repeatedly blocked by the authorities who said the advertisements would cause panic.
But in 2018, Xiao's group spotted advertisements in the subways in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, some placed by news organizations and others by local governments.
One advertisement in the southwestern city of Chengdu, put up by rail officials, said: "There's no groping hand here."
Another, in Beijing, said: "Prevent sexual harassment, be vocal."
Xiao said she was happy to see the changes, but pink stickers and notices were not enough.
Instead, she said, policymakers needed to think about actual ways of stopping harassment and how to handle culprits once they are caught.
"Women do not demand special care as if they are a soft and weak group," Xiao said. "They demand the safety they deserve and the right to travel conveniently."
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