General Info

[You69Me]

I have tasted so many pussies never an Asian. I have had Europeans, Latinas and Middle Eastern.

All with some exceptions tasted fine. One black Dominican pussy tasted like beef jerky. Never gain. Hygiene and proper diet (no drugs no alcohol) are the main factors Please share your taste experiences.

[Punk Boulala]

Hey Gang,

I've had a last minute request to go to China for work. It will be a whirlwind tour. I'll be in Beijing and Chengde. My only free night will be Saturday night in Chengde. Can anyone guide me to the action in town? A link to a report or forum would be great. Yes, I used the search function, but I've never been good with it and it didn't turn up anything. I haven't been to China in five years or so. A street full of BBS would be a dream come true.

Punky.

[Fast Eddie 48]

The following story about fake condoms has been reported in various Chinese media.

Shanghai police have busted a counterfeit ring that sold shoddily-made condoms passed off as Durex, Jissbon and other popular brands. More than 3 million fake condoms worth RMB 12 million ($1. 9 million) were seized.

The fake rubbers were sold in Shanghai, Henan, Anhui, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shaanxi. Besides the retail market, the fake condoms were supplied to small inns and hotels throughout the country.

Zhang Wenliang of the Yangpu Police sub-bureau stated "The quality of these products is extremely cheap; the smell of the lubricating oil is especially nauseating. The seized condoms have undergone testing and been determined to contain heavy metals. They pose a serious risk to human health."

Ikksman

To Ikksmam.

That is why you don't buy Condom from sex shop or st vendor, I bring my own from the US or buy them in Hong Kong or get them at Wal Mart they have the Okamoto 0. 3 or nude condom the good stuff from Japan.

Fast eddie 48.

[Ikksman]

The following story about fake condoms has been reported in various Chinese media.

Shanghai police have busted a counterfeit ring that sold shoddily-made condoms passed off as Durex, Jissbon and other popular brands. More than 3 million fake condoms worth RMB 12 million ($1. 9 million) were seized.

The fake rubbers were sold in Shanghai, Henan, Anhui, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shaanxi. Besides the retail market, the fake condoms were supplied to small inns and hotels throughout the country.

Zhang Wenliang of the Yangpu Police sub-bureau stated "The quality of these products is extremely cheap; the smell of the lubricating oil is especially nauseating. The seized condoms have undergone testing and been determined to contain heavy metals. They pose a serious risk to human health."

Ikksman

[Member #4495]

I often get shitty comments from people, usually street sellers when I am out with an Asian girl regardless or age gap. I think this always happened I just never noticed cause my Chinese sucked even more than now.

How many times have we read blanket statements like the one above? In my experience this is not true in Shenzhen! They never even notice the older Chinese guys with the SYTs. The same applies if the guy is a westerner.

In SZ, it is an extremely common sight to see older guys with younger girls. Thousands of HKers have Chinese mistresses that they support in SZ. At one time, even HK truck drivers could afford to keep young mistresses in SZ. And many older PRC guys similarly keep their young "ernai" in varying degrees of luxury. There are whole apartment blocks in SZ where there are concentrations of "ernai" residents ranging in age from 18 upwards.

At one time I frequently used to go to a coffee shop on Yanhe Nan Lu, near the HK border. There were inevitably one or more older Chinese guys there with a SYT. If the girls were very young, my current GF used to make disparaging comments about them. When I would remind her of our age difference she would respond that she was more worldly and these were just young rural kids who wrongly thought that their HK guys were wealthy, would treat them well and look after them. And of course nobody took any notice of us and the shop workers there treated us as friends...

[Ikksman]

How many times have we read blanket statements like the one above? In my experience this is not true in Shenzhen! They never even notice the older Chinese guys with the SYTs. The same applies if the guy is a westerner.

In SZ, it is an extremely common sight to see older guys with younger girls. Thousands of HKers have Chinese mistresses that they support in SZ. At one time, even HK truck drivers could afford to keep young mistresses in SZ. And many older PRC guys similarly keep their young "ernai" in varying degrees of luxury. There are whole apartment blocks in SZ where there are concentrations of "ernai" residents ranging in age from 18 upwards.

At one time I frequently used to go to a coffee shop on Yanhe Nan Lu, near the HK border. There were inevitably one or more older Chinese guys there with a SYT. If the girls were very young, my current GF used to make disparaging comments about them. When I would remind her of our age difference she would respond that she was more worldly and these were just young rural kids who wrongly thought that their HK guys were wealthy, would treat them well and look after them. And of course nobody took any notice of us and the shop workers there treated us as friends.

I have travelled with Chinese SYTs widely across SZ (and China) and am a keen observer of human nature and culture. So please don't tell me I just failed to notice the sneers and snide comments in SZ even though I noticed them in other places. The guy in the photo below (in Guangzhou) nearly fell off his gas bottle laden bike when he slowed and glared at us, and then the balloon bike lady rear ended the guy because she was looking elsewhere! Hilarious! Actually, my 'SYT' was a 40 yo married woman (I have posted more revealing photos of her previously), but you get the idea!

There are always a few exceptions of course. Sometimes migrant construction workers new to SZ might stare and whisper to their mates. Sometimes tourists from rural areas would stare at us, but I don't know if they were staring because I was a curiosity, or because I was with a SYT. I remember going to Window of the World with two SYTs and was surprised that I never got one single open-mouthed stare for the whole day.

So, in SZ, Chinese do not take much notice of an older guy with a SYT, whether the guy is asian or caucasian. I get many more stares and disparaging comments from dumbass western tourists!

Ikksman.

[Member #4495]

This is very interesting read Intransit.

Very long article from ChinaFile on prostitution as part of business culture in China.

http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-o...tcard/bro-code

The Bro Code.

Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China.

By James Palmer.

Turning down an after-dinner invite to a brothel is always a social minefield. But the city's Party Secretary, a 50-something man with baby-soft hands, had been gently fondling my thigh underneath the banquet table for the past 45 minutes, making me even more eager than usual to make my excuses and leave.

Perhaps the spa in the small-town Shandong hotel where I was dining with a cluster of businessmen and officials was an entirely legitimate establishment, and I was misreading the nature of the invitation. But the neon sign outside advertising the "Health Body Center" (24247;20307;20013;24515 had replaced the upper strokes in the character 心 with flashing red hearts...

[MrClen]

Got some information from a friend. Rumor or fact, who knows! But it is an interesting take on the situation anyway.

It seems that in many cities, and even the one I frequent, that some of the more non veggie KTV's are being forced to close. The story is as follows!

The huge economic impact that Dongguan / CP / CA / Guangzhou, etc; felt, and still feels from the massive crackdown has caused some rethinking on the part of the officials. The story is that most, if not all, of the venues throughout China have been directed to shut down 2 or 3 KTV's per year or get them changed over to family type. This will eventually (years?) accomplish the same goals but will lessen the impact of massive people out of work. Not to mention the traditional business of entertaining guests and buyers in the more open KTV environments.

So who knows, if the government changes in the next few years we may still have a playground, and if they shut enough down to get it to a lower level of operation, it may be enough. But whatever happens, it will be a long time before everything dies and there is still plenty of fun to be had, just maybe not in the hard strike center.

And if this is true, at my age it won't matter anyway!

[Pushkin13]

After reading a few posts China seems to have gone down when it comes to "official" paid banging opportunities.

There used to be so many girls who needed the money, so they did that job.

Those girls must still be around, but just the places for them to work closed down.

What I am thinking is that why don't any of you guys just get a girl off the street, and than pay her privately some pocket money?

Of course you have to put in some effort to look nice, but still can be direct and tell her that you want to take her home with you.

This is not illegal but serves your purpose and helps the girl out and gives her fun.

Most chinese people understand the concept of giving money to a girl as a sign of respect when she sleeps with you. You can just tell her that you want to do something nice for her by giving her the money, and than she will come back again the next time to be with you.

If you give a western girl money she won't be happy unless she is a professionell. But most poor mainland chinese girls don't think and feel like "rich" westernized people. Rich girls don't want and don't need your money.

Some poorer than us girls I met did not want to have any money, only one girl said she does not want money and than asked for money later, like 3000 RMB which is of course a scam, and you should refuse to give scammers like this any money, or they think they can screw any foreigner over anytime they want and will also tell their friends about their succesfull scams.

You might even get a better GFE out of it than before when you had a professionell in China.

Oh, of course you would need to speak some chinese for talking to those girls, which may be the biggest obstacle for most of you.

What is your definition of "freebie"?

How much money are you prepared to spend? Hahaha.

Looking forward to your answers.

P13.

[Tightway]

After reading a few posts China seems to have gone down when it comes to "official" paid banging opportunities.

There used to be so many girls who needed the money, so they did that job.

Those girls must still be around, but just the places for them to work closed down.

What I am thinking is that why don't any of you guys just get a girl off the street, and than pay her privately some pocket money?

Of course you have to put in some effort to look nice, but still can be direct and tell her that you want to take her home with you.

This is not illegal but serves your purpose and helps the girl out and gives her fun.

Most chinese people understand the concept of giving money to a girl as a sign of respect when she sleeps with you. You can just tell her that you want to do something nice for her by giving her the money, and than she will come back again the next time to be with you.

If you give a western girl money she won't be happy unless she is a professionell. But most poor mainland chinese girls don't think and feel like "rich" westernized people. Rich girls don't want and don't need your money.

Some poorer than us girls I met did not want to have any money, only one girl said she does not want money and than asked for money later, like 3000 RMB which is of course a scam, and you should refuse to give scammers like this any money, or they think they can screw any foreigner over anytime they want and will also tell their friends about their succesfull scams.

You might even get a better GFE out of it than before when you had a professionell in China.

Oh, of course you would need to speak some chinese for talking to those girls, which may be the biggest obstacle for most of you.

[Pushkin13]

The last time that I drank wine or spirits at a Chinese banquet was 1999.

Long ago, I discovered that abstaining from the inevitable drinking games at Chinese banquets, did not necessarily mean a loss of face or be taken as a sign of weakness. I have seen so many newbies to China vomiting all over the place as a result of every employee around the table toasting the 'honoured guest' in turn, causing the newbie to have maybe 5 drinks to one (of the Chinese employee). This seemed to reinforce the hosts' sense of superiority over the guest.

...

...
One unusual thing that I often noticed with these girls was that after they had a few drinks, their painful tortured English often became fluent, admitting they had gone to school in USA Or Australia. The 'limited' English was a deliberate ploy to avoid having to answer difficult questions whilst still buttering up the foreign guest!

Ikksman.

Well written Ikksman!

My experiences in China mirror your experiences.

At one memorable dinner when I was not drinking alcohol, the big boss wanted to toast and "gan bei" me. I took half a glass of water, told him I was honoured, but that I only wanted to sip on water. He stared at me, partly in disbelief and partly in amusement, and said (in Chinese, using local idiom which was later translated) "Only dishonest people don't "gan bei"! Hahaha.

Cold beer: it is better now in China than it was 8 years ago when I first arrived. Furthermore the number of foreign brands, based on my limited supermarket browsing, is more than previously. Most cheap Chinese beer for me is wet, is slightly brown, has fizz, but alas has no flavour.

Just my experience.

P13.

[Ikksman]

Very long article from ChinaFile on prostitution as part of business culture in China.{S N I P}
It comes with a sniggering puerility, even though the majority of the men involved are well into middle-age. Drinking games, groping, crude jokes, and the bullying hunt for weakness, whether over drink or women, are the norm.{S N I P}

The last time that I drank wine or spirits at a Chinese banquet was 1999.

Long ago, I discovered that abstaining from the inevitable drinking games at Chinese banquets, did not necessarily mean a loss of face or be taken as a sign of weakness. I have seen so many newbies to China vomiting all over the place as a result of every employee around the table toasting the 'honoured guest' in turn, causing the newbie to have maybe 5 drinks to one (of the Chinese employee). This seemed to reinforce the hosts' sense of superiority over the guest.

I normally told the hosts that I unfortunately could not drink alcohol (on doctors' orders). They seemed to respect this, although many still attempted to get me to partake in the stupid toasts (on the basis that just one won't hurt me). I also utterly abhorred seeing $250 or even $1,000 bottles of finest wines or spirits being gulped down without the slightest appreciation of the quality of the alcohol that they were drinking.

Sometimes, if I felt like a drink after a long hard day, I would insist on beer. Then when the tepid bottles arrived in the room, I would tell them forcefully that Australians only drink ice cold beer. Of course they would then try and put ice in the glass, but I would insist that on ice cold beers (and just not ice cold bottles with still warm beer inside). In this way I could enjoy a few beers (it took them ages to locate or chill beer to my liking). I would not get drunk swallowing the small 4 or 5 oz glasses of beer and then having to wait 30 minutes for the next ice cold bottle. Many times, the next day, the host's employees would congratulate me on being so strong. In their befuddled memories they simply remembered that I had drunk many glasses of alcohol and kept wanting more (of the nearly unobtainable ice cold beer).

Another advantage of keeping sober was that the host company usually assigned pretty young employees to 'look after' (soften up) the guests, and being sober I would concentrate on winning the hearts of the girls (who appreciated not having some drunken Chinese or foreigner pawing them all night). Some memorable events followed! And as a result I even got the reputation in some companies, as a guy who could charm the girls (just because I was sober)!

One unusual thing that I often noticed with these girls was that after they had a few drinks, their painful tortured English often became fluent, admitting they had gone to school in USA Or Australia. The 'limited' English was a deliberate ploy to avoid having to answer difficult questions whilst still buttering up the foreign guest!

Ikksman.

[Intransit]

Very long article from ChinaFile on prostitution as part of business culture in China.

http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-o...tcard/bro-code

The Bro Code.

Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China.

By James Palmer.

Turning down an after-dinner invite to a brothel is always a social minefield. But the city's Party Secretary, a 50-something man with baby-soft hands, had been gently fondling my thigh underneath the banquet table for the past 45 minutes, making me even more eager than usual to make my excuses and leave.

Perhaps the spa in the small-town Shandong hotel where I was dining with a cluster of businessmen and officials was an entirely legitimate establishment, and I was misreading the nature of the invitation. But the neon sign outside advertising the "Health Body Center" (24247;20307;20013;24515 had replaced the upper strokes in the character 心 with flashing red hearts.

"Health Body" is an approximation; I was sloshed on baijiu, the near-undrinkable spirit ubiquitous at social events, and my memory of the evening is dubious. I had been doing the rounds of provincial cities as my boss' token foreigner for the whole summer, though, pitching training courses to the dim children of the rich so that they could study at foreign universities, and the routine of hard drinking followed by a group excursion to a brothel was becoming a familiar one. My status as a foreigner was enough to excuse me from the sex itself after only a light barrage of gay jokes from the others, but not from the social obligations around it.

That was in 2004, but the routine of much interaction between businessmen and officials has remained the same over the past decade. An initial banquet and heavy drinking provides social lubrication, until, at about 10-11 pm, the party shifts to a KTV, a spa, or a club. Another two or three hours are spent in a shared social space, either accompanied by hostesses making professionally flirtatious conversation, or naked together with other men in a hot bathtub. By 2 am, some of the party collapse in bed, and some retire with the girls.

Prostitution is illegal in China, but also ever-present, masked in varying degrees of ambiguity. Sociologists Yingying Huang and Pan Suiming have highlighted the multiple layers of sex work for women in China, describing seven types that range from "factory girls" and "street-walkers" patronized chiefly by poor migrant workers, to "massage girls" and "beauty parlor girls" who work out of small parlors. At the top are "second wives" and "courtesans," who are younger, better-educated, and charge far more. Businessmen mix at the higher end of the scale, especially with Pan's third-ranking type, "karaoke dancing girls. ".

The KTV, a form of karaoke parlor, comes in two flavors, sometimes mixed in the same establishment. One is bawling "Mice Like Rice" with friends, the other involves socializing.

Brothel visits are not the be-and-end-all of business relationships, but for many years, they've been as essential a part of Chinese business culture as golf was in 1960's America.

And occasional singing, with "hostesses" expected to provide sexual services later in the evening. Similarly, a spa that offers family discounts during the day may well be a de facto brothel at night. In 2004, I saw the same framed print, apparently sold to every reputable and disreputable establishment across Northern China, about a dozen times; it showed a demurely sexy young southeast Asian woman. In the restaurants, a tied white top covered her breasts; in the brothels, they were perkily exposed.

Brothel visits are not the be-and-end-all of business relationships, which require far more expensive gifts, shared entertainment, outright bribes, and even long trips together paid for by one party. But for many years, they've been as essential a part of Chinese business culture as golf was in 1960's America, albeit with slight shifts over the last decade toward more "sophisticated" tastes, such as the rise of foreign spirits or wine in preference to baijiu.

Some of this may be a thing of the past, at least for officials. Before this year, periodic crackdowns on the sex trade would close down businesses for a couple of weeks or months, before all went back to business as normal. The ongoing purge of officials and "anti-corruption campaign" under President Xi Jinping, however, has put a freeze on what was once standard business practice. The fall of many high-level leaders has been accompanied by recitations of their moral failings, especially their keeping of mistresses. While shared brothel visits were once the norm, officials, especially policemen, are now terrified to be seen at clubs, KTVs, or even expensive restaurants.

Regulations against "adultery" are being enforced for the first time in decades. A mild transgression has become a serious offence. And with lower-level officials, especially within China's bloated State-owned enterprises, taking fierce advantage of the "anti-corruption" campaign to snitch on their superiors and open up their posts, the game is no longer worth the candle.

In late 2013, a series of police raids, public closures, and new instructions to officials began to shut down spaces previously essential to business. I assumed, at first, that the crackdown efforts would be limited to Beijing and Shanghai, like many other campaigns, and to a few other key towns like Dongguan, long infamous for the sex trade, which saw a massive raid last February.

Reaching out to contacts in Chengdu, Chongqing, Tangshan, Shijiazhuang, and Harbin I found the same story: officials were terrified of being seen at establishments where they had previously been welcome guests. A long-established business norm was now, at least for anyone with ties to the government, a dangerous hobby. But what had drawn them there in the first place?

Alcohol, food, and sex are fun. But in China, the culture of banquet and brothel has become largely joyless, a business tool chiefly directed at transactional relationships with other men.

It comes with a sniggering puerility, even though the majority of the men involved are well into middle-age. Drinking games, groping, crude jokes, and the bullying hunt for weakness, whether over drink or women, are the norm. Anthropologist John Osburg spent several years mixing with the rich in Chengdu, Sichuan province for his book Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality Among China's New Rich. "These events are like a junior high school party—but with booze and hookers," he told me.

In private conversation, many businessmen confirm that the process is often a chore. (I include gangsters, the prime subject of Osburg's research, in the general category of businessmen here; crime, business, and government are often effectively indistinguishable in China.) Especially outside of the metropolises, few of the establishments involved are particularly seductive. Instead, there's a sweaty griminess of wipe-down sheets and 1970's floral wallpaper, as these photos from one small-time scandal show. In classier establishments, Western pin-ups hang in gold-tinted frames. And endless going out is physically wearing; my old boss would take the train, rather than the plane, because travelling "soft sleeper" gave him a rare chance to rest after two or three nights of "entertainment" for work.

But the purpose of these visits isn't a good time. It's to cement business and personal ties, binding men together through the power of taboo and mutual self-exposure, or at least the pretense of it. It lets them judge that the others involved in a potential deal are men of the same stripe.

Guo (a pseudonym), a friend's cousin, greeted me ebulliently this May when we met in a smoky restaurant in the outskirts of Beijing. He works as a salesman of industrial-sized air conditioners and purifiers, mostly to local governments at inflated prices. "You know until now," he told me in enthusiastic English, "I want to do business, I take a guy (from the government) out, we have drinks, we go to somewhere good, we find girls, he thinks I'm cool guy, I know he's a guy likes girls, we're friends. Business!

In part, the power of the experience comes from the mutual pleasure of shared transgression, the feeling of a shared secret. Like schoolboys' playing hooky, being bad together moves a relationship along fast. As one saying that went rapidly around the Chinese Internet in 2011 put it, "It's better to do one bad thing with your boss than a hundred good things for your boss. ".

Over time, this can extend to an actual exchange of what criminologist Diego Gambetta in his pioneering Codes of the Underworld calls "hostage-information," mutual knowledge of each party's sins that acts as a powerful guarantee neither will break their agreements. But brothel visits in and of themselves give only slight leverage over the other party. These ties can be deepened through more serious offences, like sharing drugs, most popularly ketamine. There are cases of blackmail over visits to sex workers, but these are done through hidden cameras and the gathering of secret information, well outside the social sphere. Sex workers sometimes threaten to expose a man to his wife or make a scene at the office, but for another businessman to do it would be completely outside the pale.

But vice serves as a kind of screen, weeding out the rare few who might have moral qualms about future dealings. It tells both sides that they're playing by the same rules. In contrast with the embarrassment of being caught re-gifting in the West, a businessman's handing over "gifts" often highlight that he is already part of a network of giving. A standard phrase is "This is just a little something, somebody else gave it to me. " Refusing to play the game, on the other hand, comes at a sharp cost. Businessmen who convert to evangelical Christianity and make a commitment to avoid vice or bribery describe sharp business losses as a result, as former partners turn away from them, fearful of their newfound probity.

For many businessmen, an evening out also acts as a kind of test of character. "If you go out together, you really get to know a guy," explained Tao, a factory-owner visiting Beijing from Baoding who would give me only his family name. "You see how he handles his drink, you see how he deals with women. " I felt that I was getting to know Tao slightly too well, as he was drying his saggy balls with a towel in front of me at a hotel spa. His companion, heavily tattooed and with the build of a thuggish Buddha, nodded. "I wouldn't trust a man I didn't drink with," he said.

In a society where trust of strangers is minimal, contract law is fragile, contracts themselves regarded more as guidelines than binding commitments, and the civil courts largely swayed by personal influence rather than legal right, the shared fraternity of the night out is one route to trust between partners. It may not, as businessmen admit, be a particularly effective or reliable way, but it's all they've got to work with.

Amid businessmen, just being somebody's "friend" (pengyou) isn't that close. Casual acquaintances and uncertain contacts are "friends. " A "brother" (xiongdi), on the other hand, is somebody inside the circle, a man who can be trusted. "It's like the distinction between 'a friend of mine' and 'a friend of ours' in the mafia," explains Osburg.

The punishing alcoholism of Chinese banquets is a ripe chance to judge the other side of a business deal. Partially this is the simple belief that in baijiu veritas, though experienced businessmen guard their tongues closely when drunk. Drinking often takes on a competitive edge, pitting each side against the other in round after round of toasts. Lacking the numbers to compete is a basic error; one of my sources was unsympathetic after an American friend, working with a sole colleague, was on the brink of hospitalization following a banquet with Hunanese officials. "What an idiot," she said, "Bringing only one other person to drink with the government!

Many institutions, especially State-owned enterprises, maintain staff whose job is effectively to be professional drinkers, sacrificing their livers for the sake of the firm. One of my near-neighbors in the hutong of central Beijing holds down this post for a major energy company. But the drinking phase of the evening isn't just about pure endurance. It's also a chance for the host to show off a particular kind of leadership, guiding the conversation and the drinking so that everyone is having a "good time"—and most importantly, so that everyone is taking part.

The evaluation continues in the confines of the brothel. Zheng Tiantian, an anthropologist who spent several years working as a KTV hostess as part of her Ph. The. , notes the importance of the "proper" treatment of sex workers in her book Red Lights. "(M) en's ability to dominate these jaded women with the force of their personalities and charm is seen as a demonstration of a man's prestige, power, and status. " This is as subject to artifice as everything else in mainland business deals. "Shi (one of Zheng's sources) bragged to his business partner that he played the hostesses without paying them. It was a flat lie because I knew that Shi's mistresses (had gleaned a great deal of money from them. ".

And, of course, the evening's costs have to be covered. If dealing with officials, footing the bill for a night of sex is a relatively small sum compared to the volume of bribes that the business side is likely to fork out over the course of the relationship, and even smaller compared to the rewards the bribes can reap. If dealing with other businessmen, however, it's a chance for one-upmanship and evaluation of "generosity," like paying at a restaurant. It also gives a chance to see who's important, and who isn't, in the other side's hierarchy; I once came downstairs in the early morning to find my boss beating one of his underlings around the head while holding the bill, verbally abusing him for having the effrontery to include himself and another of his low-ranking buddies in the night's expensive entertainment.

As Zheng details in her book, getting overly sentimental or romantic toward women is seen as a sign of weakness and lack of masculinity. If a businessman is unfortunate enough to love his wife or girlfriend, using it as an excuse to avoid sex is a massive faux pas. I've seen some instead plead tiredness or drunkenness, a more acceptable excuse, or use everyone's 2 am exhaustion as a chance to slip away. Yet it's not unknown, according to sex workers, for men who have retired with the girls for the night to pay for "special services" the next morning that they never received, instead spending the night watching television or sleeping chastely.

Perhaps that's why some bosses demand a more public performance. The ultimate are what participants describe as frequent forays into group sex, often with more male than female participants. Sharing women appears to bring men closer to each other, in a perversely familial fashion. As one northeastern saying goes, "Once two men share a woman, they're brothers. " And when it comes to building up mutual trust, the photos often taken during these miniature orgies provide a rich source of mutual blackmail material that can prove explosive if exposed, as in the 2007 photos of one group of pasty officials leaked online in 2012.

While never explicitly stated, such activities often seem to push the homosocial into the homoerotic. Sam (a pseudonym), a handsome American in his early 40's, is married to a Chinese multi-millionaire. He told me of an incident earlier this year. "One of her friends was opening this new cinema, and we (the men) all headed out after dinner to celebrate. We went to a top-class brothel, and these girls, man, you wouldn't believe how beautiful they were. So these two guys—I can't stand either of them, but they think I'm their buddy—go 'Sam, pick one. Pick any of them. And then we'll watch you with her. ' I said 'Hell no! I'm not going to cheat on my wife, and even if I was, I wouldn't want you to watch. '.

Group sex can also directly demonstrate a man's relative standing in the group. A friend's husband, formerly involved in the coal business in Shaanxi province, described this. "You're there (in the KTV) with these jumped-up thugs. One of them picks a girl, and then he fucks her, and everybody else has to watch. The most important boss there goes first. At least it's over quick. " Other members of the group then have to follow the bosses' lead with the woman. Those who can't perform in front of other men, he added, are mocked.

In these social spaces, the young women involved are props in a ritual directed mostly at other men. The conversational element of their work protects them from some forms of abuse, as well as ensuring that they only see one or two partners a night. For straight sex, it's regular practice for them to be referred to only by number, not name. ("I'm number 16, please ask for me again next time. ") When hostessing, however, they assume nom de guerre, usually a "cutesy" name associated with the sexy childishness some cultivate, doubled-up ("Lili," "Maomao") or "Little (xiao) X" (Xiaoxue, Xiaohua) or even in English.

But group sex strips away those protections. "We hate being with more than one guy," Shanshan, a former KTV girl, explained to me, "The more guys, the less safe the girl is. When there are other men in the room (for sex), it's like the men are competing with each other, and they get rougher, so the girls can get really hurt. Two girls, one man is much better. Then you get the same money for half the work. ".

Even with two women, attention is strictly directed at the man. "Perverted!" Shanshan said when I asked. "We don't touch each other, and the men don't ask for it. But the two of you can talk and make faces at each other when he isn't looking. That's why the girl will always say 'Oh, why don't I go get my friend? The two of us will treat you just like an emperor!' Or you go in and the mama-san says 'Why not have two girls, a rich man like you, twice as good!

Some group activities exclude women altogether, creating purely male and weirdly childlike social spaces. "Sometimes everyone strips off and you lie around naked together in comfortable rooms. The lower ranking members of the group then serve the other ones food and drink. On other occasions, we got high together, took off our shirts, and danced around in a circle holding hands," one Western observer commentated, preferring anonymity.

Whatever the iteration, for many Chinese business owners the brothel is not optional. Every country has its own corrosive intersections of money and power, illegal or otherwise. But in China colluding with officials is a necessity, not an anomaly. For local businesses, a connection with the government is vital to protect themselves from predatory officials exploiting the country's haze of regulations. Regular pay-offs are as ubiquitous as income tax elsewhere.

My friend Yiping, now living in Australia, used to run a small but profitable IT training school in Shijiazhuang. "On a regular basis" she told me, "people from the government would try to shake my business down. I was paying off the dean of my graduate school and a high-ranking official at the local labor bureau that I had made contact with through my parents, so when other officials came to try their luck, I could refer them to my protectors and they would back off. ".

"But to maintain relationships, I had to go out for regular evenings with officials," Yiping explained, "Because I was just 22 and a girl, though, I could only stay till about 10 pm. Instead, I had to hire male students from my university, and pay them to go out with the officials to the KTV, so that the officials would trust me. ".

The world of bonding through vice is especially difficult for women to negotiate, especially with their reputation intact. Female entrepreneurs in China are often believed to have used their sexuality for business advantage, a problem worsened by the strategies needed to negotiate the homosocial world of vice. As well as solutions like Yiping's, Osburg says, "some successful younger businesswomen play a dual role. They act like the men during the banquet, drinking and joking, but then if they accompany them to the KTV, they switch into the role of hostess. They start flirting with the men and playing up their femininity. ".

Older businesswomen sometimes assume a semi-joking role as a "mama-san" negotiating between the hostesses and their male colleagues, or instead mandate that younger female colleagues attend the KTV as part of their work duties. While this usually stays only on the level of flirting or bawdy talk, arranging a date with a "nice girl" from your own firm for a business colleague provides a powerful bond, especially if she then becomes a permanent mistress.

"Such relationships are valued much more highly than those with former sex workers," Osburg noted. But the incentives offered are often still financial. My friend Wu, a young and stylish Beijing PR representative, escorted a visitor from Shanghai to dinner at her boss' request, only to have to fend off his groping in the cab afterward. A week later, he offered, via her boss, a 40 percent pay rise if she moved to Shanghai to work with him.

The values of business culture can extend into personal life. Sam's wife made her own fortune, and "is a better shot than me. She's fierce. " Yet "the first thing she said after we got married," he told me, "was 'I don't mind if you sleep with other women, but only as long as you're always paying them. '" Wives sometimes visit psychologists asking for help accepting their husbands' womanizing, seeing their failure to cope with the cheating as a flaw in themselves, not their husbands, according to one USA Psychologist working in Beijing.

A few female entrepreneurs, however, explicitly reject the values pushed by businessmen. "One of my husband's business friends got married just two years ago," explained Li, in her early 40's, who co-owns a steel business with her husband, "We went to his wedding. But when we hosted an event last year, he came with a young girl who was obviously his mistress. I told my husband that if he cheats on his wife only after a year, he will cheat us. He said no way, he's a good guy, we can trust him!" She looked a little smug. "Now this man owes us a lot of money that he won't pay. ".

The current anti-corruption campaign has had a chilling effect on some of the high-end sex trade in the metropolises. On online forums, punters lament the shut-down of favorite haunts or the sudden disappearance of services. "This is why I only do business with foreigners now," explained "Bianca," a Beijing mama-san, to me over the phone, lamenting the instability of government clients. "No Chinese! Nobody cares if foreigners see girls. ".

But whether business as a whole has suffered or not from the campaign is hotly debated. There's no doubt that certain sectors—liquor, luxury, high-end hotels, the travel industry—have been severely hit. Yet even as businesses find it harder to strike new deals, they're also enjoying something of a relief period from the predations of officials. The impact on the entertainment sector, while visible, may have been lessened since in many cases services were expected to be provided for free to officials, who would regularly run up massive, never-to-be-paid tabs in restaurants and clubs alike. "Karaoke bars and hostesses are our sources of livelihood," one police officer told Zheng Tiantian, "We basically cannot live without them. ".

But efforts to permanently change the conditions that produce corruption, and its attendant vice, such as higher salaries, a free press, or interdependent watchdogs, are being actively discouraged by the authorities. Instead, lectures on Marxism and reminders that officials should be "noble, pure and virtuous persons who have relinquished vulgar tastes" are expected to override officials' greed or lust.

And while officials are scared away for the moment, businessmen themselves seem as keen to head to the KTV as ever. Paid sex remains trivially easy to find at all levels. Even in Dongguan, the hardest target of the campaign, some brothel owners are maintaining their girls on the books, often shifting to less visible locations for favored and trustworthy clients. Outside my workplace in Beijing, prostitutes leaving the nearby hotel, who vanished for a few months during the most recent crackdown, are once again grabbing up the taxis at half past midnight.

Guo, the enthusiastic air-conditioning salesman, got gloomy at the prospect. "Right now I can't make new friends. The old ones, ok, they trust me, maybe we can't go out for fun together, but we can still do business. But nobody new. Fuck!" he brightened up. "But one year, everything gets back to normal. ".

[Bnlee2]

I have several fond memories of the Catacombs. I always enjoyed taking newbies on the tour to watch the expressions on their faces.

One of my favorite stories was with a Danish guy we took once. As we walked through the hutongs he was wavering back and forth if he shouldtry it. At the top of the hill, he had built his confidence and decided to go for it. Finally, he selected his girl and she refused to service him. By this time we had created a bit of a scene and some local guys were urging her to take the business. She turned to these guys and said and I quote, "Why don't you guys take him up the ass for 30 RMB?" It was a priceless moment I will never forget.

Just my POV.

OAH.

P.S. Yes, it was Johnnykon666 (aka Superforce99) who coined the phrase Catacombs.

OAH.

Yes I remember those days walking through the catacomb. I prefer the environment to be a bit cleaner and more upscale. The old days of Sha Tsui. I guess that is the past. Oh well. All things must come to an end. I'm glad that I found a niche in hooking with freebies. Real freebies. With a need for some discreet loving.

[FreebieFan]

The blocking of VPN services is actually being done very crudely. China simply blocks transmissions to / from the servers that they know are being used by the private VPN providers.

I am successfully again using StrongVPN, by utilising an updated software service that they have developed or simply using mirror servers that are not blocked.

So I guess that the future is a merry-go-round of China blocking servers or VPN-like systems, and then VPN providers developing new work-arounds, etc etc.

Ikksman.

Had several chats with the customer contact people at Strong (and why do they all have Russian type names. ?). My location has been moved a few time in past week to indicate I'm from San Francisco to LA to New York and then to the Windy city, where my connection now seems to work fine, albeit a tad slower than before.