General Info

[Sammon]

Check it out at: http://blog. Minitofu.com/2010/11/Ch...xposed-online/

Sammy

Well, It will cost more than 20, 000 RMB per year. What the girl is referring to is the cash amount she want.

Apartment, electricity, cable, costs money. Besides she will hit you for her incidental expenses like clothes, jewellery, personal items etc. When she becomes your GF how can you refuse these demands.

I lived with a young 18 year old girl from Hubei in Shenzhen. I had my own apartment. This girl was cheap. I just paid her 1000 RMB for all her expenses but I had to buy food, eating out, entertainment like bars and disco, travel on vacation etc. This girl did cook the food and also we went out to eat. In shenzhen some restaurents cost less than you cooking at home. I had a maid come to clean and wash clothes etc before she moved and I continued with the maid. This girl had a part time job in a department store but was hardly making any money. No regular hours on call only. I am sure if I had forced her to look for a full time job she would have got one.

Although we had perfect chemistry and good sex there are some drawbacks.

It is like being married. Need to explain constantly where you are. Going on trips means she wants to go with you.

My total expenses with her including everything averaged out to 15, 000 RMB per month.

Without her I can get by with 8000 RMB including some mongering.

In Shenzhen it is cheap. In Shanghai it will be double.

[Sammy_T]

Check it out at: http://blog.minitofu.com/2010/11/chi...xposed-online/

Sammy

[Cooler Wolf2]

Happy Monkey/John Huk,

I have info on BBS/1912 in Wuxi but have chosen to post it in the Suzhou thread - don't want Jackson wagging his finger at me for posting a location report in the general info thread! :-)

[Happy Monkey]

Normal barbershps do not offer anything extra, most of the one's I've seen have very gay looking guys anyway.

BBS have a pink light outside, you will not miss it and they have nothing to do with cutting hair.

Which 1912 area are you on about?

I hear there is a nightlife area called 1912 (in Chinese at least). I have been trying to find some red light districts but I think they are hidden due to crackdowns or whatever. The 1912 area I think is near an area called Bao Li (Bow Lee). I haven't been there yet and I don't know if in the nightclubs they have freelancers dancing looking for johns. Coming from Thailand where everything is in your face is an adjustment to try to find the hidden mongering areas in China.

[Janchrister]

I think this website translater is better.

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindic...page=translate

I heard a friend mention a QQ translator and did some searching and found this website

http://qq.bur.st/qqtranslator.php

Can be used on a mobile phone or computer, great for people learning chinese to flirt and learn the language with!

[Clandestine782]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2322...sy-being-green
Michael Pettis.

The seemingly imminent and inexorable rise of the renminbi as a major, even dominant, reserve and trading currency, has been almost as widely heralded as the equivalent rise of the Japanese yen just twenty years ago. Even my normally skeptical friend Nouriel Roubini seems to think so. Here is an article from last year’s Telegraph:

The Chinese yuan is preparing to overtake the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, economist Nouriel Roubini has warned. Professor Roubini, of New York University’s Stern business school, believes that while such a major change is some way off, the Chinese government is laying the ground for the yuan’s ascendance.



Known as “Dr Doom” for his negative stance, Prof Roubini argues that China is better placed than the US to provide a reserve currency for the 21st century because it has a large current account surplus, focused government and few of the economic worries the US faces.

As my reference to the Japanese yen might suggest, I am pretty skeptical about the likelihood of this happening, at least with some of the more excited predictions. So, by the way, is the ADB, whose recent report (“The Future Global Reserve System — An Asian Perspective”), suggests that by 2035, the RMB may comprise about 3 to 12 per cent of international reserves. This is a pretty reasonable prediction, in my opinion, and far from the more feverish claims we see reported almost daily.

If the renminbi ever becomes a major trading or reserve currency, it is going to take a long time for this to happen and will require a radical transformation of the Chinese economy and the role of the government. This may seem like a surprising statement. After all nearly every week we see reports about a new breakthrough for the renminbi, and almost every day someone important somewhere speculates publicly about what the world will be like when (never if) the renminbi displaces the dollar.

But away from all “qualitative” arguments about why this is unlikely, and there are many, I think there is a problem with the arithmetic of reserve currency accumulation. If the rest of the world is going to use the renminbi as a reserve or trading currency, clearly it needs a mechanism by which to accumulate renminbi. This is something on which a surprisingly large share of people who talk about the future of reserve currencies don’t seem to focus.

Leave aside the fact that foreigners are prevented from having renminbi accounts and that it will probably be many years, if not decades, before the PBoC is willing to allow full convertibility, with limited government intervention and no control over the setting up and trading of its currency. The world still needs a way to accumulate renminbi in order for it to be a major trading or reserve currency.

How does the world accumulate sufficient renminbi to acquire reserve status? There are basically two ways. First, China can run a current account deficit. Second, foreign capital inflows into China can be matched by Chinese capital outflows. The second way does not result in a net foreign accumulation of Chinese assets, but it allows foreigners to hold renminbi bonds and other assets to the same extent that Chinese hold assets abroad (above the current account surplus, of course)

Let’s examine the first. Since the 1950s the US has typically run current account deficits of, I think (this is a back-of-the-envelope calculation), around 0.25-0.50% of global GDP which also, needless to say, is the rate at which net foreign acquisition of US dollar assets has occurred (in the past decade it rose to around 1.5% of global GDP).

There have been periods in which the US current account was substantially lower, or even positive, for example in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but during these periods the world complained mightily about a dollar shortage and its impediment in the development of world trade. In fact one of the driving reasons for the US Marshall Plan was to provide dollars to foreigners to facilitate trade.

The rise and fall of the yen

What would that imply about the accumulation of the renminbi? There is a fierce race on among US and European investment banks to predict the earliest date by which China will be the world’s leading economy, and I think the winners say that China will be around 20% of the world in 2020.

I am very skeptical that this will occur, but let’s say that it does. This would imply that to replace the dollar sometime after 2020 China would probably need to run a current account deficit of 1.2-2.5% of its GDP. Of course the renminbi might not replace the USD but simply match it. In that case let’s assume China needs to run a current account deficit of half that amount.

Can it? Maybe, but I am not sure that is very likely. Look at the case of Japan. Twenty years ago Japan already represented nearly 18% of the world (China and Japan are both 8% today) and it was widely assumed that it would overtake the US within one or two decades and that the yen would replace, or at least reach par with, the USD.

But this didn’t happen. The huge Japanese domestic imbalances – similar to but much lower than China’s today – forced the country into a long and difficult adjustment. Here is what an article in Sunday’s New York Times says:

In 1991, economists were predicting that Japan would overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2010. In fact, Japan’s economy remains the same size it was then: a gross domestic product of $5.7 trillion at current exchange rates. During the same period, the United States economy doubled in size to $14.7 trillion, and this year China overtook Japan to become the world’s No. 2 economy.


What happened to Japan’s then unimaginably large current account surplus? It came down significantly, but it never became a current account deficit.

In fact the evolution of the Japanese surplus is interesting. Two things drove it down relative to the global economy. First, Japan’s size as a share of the world economy dropped by more than 50%. Second, Japan’s surplus as a share of GDP declined, although not nearly as dramatically.

In other words there was a slow, painful rebalancing within Japan as household consumption growth declined over the past two decades (I think to about 1.5-2.0% annually) but still outpaced GDP growth, which declined much more sharply (close to 0%). And there was a sharper global rebalancing as Japan’s current account surplus dropped even more as its share of global GDP fell.

By the way, the contraction in Japan’s surplus was expansionary for the rest of the world, which I think is at least part of the reason why the world was able to grow so quickly in spite of Japan’s lost decade. Remember that nearly everyone in 1990 would have insisted that a lost decade for Japan (if such a thing were even imaginable) would have been terrible for the world economy. They would have been wrong.

Given that China’s consumption imbalance is far worse than Japan’s, I suspect that even assuming Chinese policymakers can accept a China with current account deficits, it will take a very long time for China to eliminate its surplus and replace it with a deficit. But why did Japan continue to run surpluses after all these years, and might China not be different?

Maybe, but I am not sure. It seems to me that the longer the Japanese distortions (especially repressed interest rates) were in place, the more debt built up, the more the large and growing capital-intensive sector required cheap capital to survive, and the harder it was to adjust interest rates. China seems to me very reliant on the same set of polices, especially very cheap capital, and it may be just as hard for them to adjust. For those who haven’t read my earlier pieces and wonder what cheap capital has to do with domestic imbalances, remember that cheap capital transfers income from net savers (households) and so reduces household consumption. It is, in my opinion, the single most important cause of China’s low consumption.

To get back to Japan’s experience, remember also that when the yen was finally forced to revalue after 1985, as the renminbi will almost certainly be, Tokyo responded to the potential slowdown with the only tool it had – investment expansion and lower real rates. This is also the only tool Beijing has, and it will almost certainly use it, making the current account adjustment even worse.

Let the foreigners in

For these reasons I am not sure how easy it will be for China to run the necessary current account balances that will allow the world to acquire net renminbi assets. But what about the second way I listed above? Can’t China export renminbi investment as it imports foreign investment?

Perhaps, but how much? I don’t have numbers in front of me, but I believe that gross capital exports from the US have been over the past few decades roughly 2.0-2.5% of global GDP. That means that before the explosion in the US current account deficit in the past few years the rest of the world was accumulating gross USD assets of roughly 2.3-3.0% of global GDP (gross capital exports plus the current account deficit).

Even if China provides only half the amount of renminbi assets, it would imply a huge amount of gross foreign investment into China. The table below shows the amount of foreign capital inflows into China as a share of Chinese GDP according to four different scenarios. I am assuming that the world needs to accumulate half the gross amount of renminbi assets that the world has accumulated annually in US dollar assets (and I exclude the past decade because the numbers were exceptionally high and so any comparison would be unfair):

China’s share of global GDP 8%
20%

Current account deficit of 2% of GDP 13-18%
5-7%

Current account surplus of 3% of GDP 15-20%
8-9%


As the table shows, this is a lot of foreign investment. To read it, assume that China grows to represent 20% of the world and manages to run a current account deficit of 2%. In order to provide half the amount of gross foreign ownership that the US provided, it would need capital inflows equal to 5-7% of China’s GDP. If China ran a current account surplus of 3%, it would need gross inflows of 8-9% of GDP. Of course if China is smaller than 20% of the world, the necessary capital inflows would be a larger share of the economy.

By the way please don’t examine these numbers too closely because they are rough estimates based on lots of changing variables over many years. Their only purpose is to indicate the approximate magnitude of necessary flows relative to the Chinese economy.

And the numbers are pretty big. For comparison purposes, I believe that foreign investment into China is at the low end of the 1-2% of GDP range, mostly in the form of FDI, and many people believe that a significant share of those inflows may actually be mainland money round-tripped to take advantage of capital and tax regulations. With the exception of FDI, which is quite small in the scheme of things, China has been very reluctant to let foreign investors into the country, and almost never allows a foreign company to take control of any sizable local company.

Will China be in a position such that the combination of the current account and gross capital inflows will permit renminbi accumulation on anywhere near the scale required for the renminbi to take on half the presence of the USD today? Perhaps, but I would point out two things. First, the only other challenger to the dollar was the yen, from a country much larger than China is today, and the domestic imbalances that limited the growth of its currency as a reserve currency, though deep, may have been significantly less than China’s.

Second, if we posit gross capital inflows into China of nearly the amount required, we are also positing, it seems to me, a radical change in the nature of ownership and governance in China, as well as a radical redrawing of the role of the central and local governments in the local economy.

This is an awful lot of Chinese assets to be owned by foreigners, and it requires that a lot more assets than currently available be open to foreign ownership (and, not insignificantly, to the desire of foreign ownership). The total value of the stock market is about 40% of GDP, and the government owns most of this directly or indirectly. For how many years can foreigners acquire assets in the amount of even 3-5% of GDP before running into some significant limits?

I am not sure that it will be easy for China to accept foreign investment levels anywhere close to the levels the US accepts (even without taking into consideration that the US runs a current account deficit and China a surplus). Remember that foreign ownership of assets has a long history in the US, and a very large amount of assets in the US are marketable and in private hands, whereas foreign ownership has a very brief and complicated history in post-1949 China and a much smaller share of Chinese assets is private.

But if foreigners don’t own tens of trillions of dollars of Chinese assets, the only way they can accumulate tens of trillions of dollars of renminbi assets is with a cumulative Chinese current account deficit in the tens of trillions of dollars, a feat which even the US would have trouble managing.

It isn’t impossible, of course, but nor should it be thought of as inevitable

[Blacklisted]

I live in Wuxi and I always hear of the bbs that you can go to but all I see are real barbershops. Do the real ones offer extra services? How do I know if it offers extras or not? How does a shady one look different than a normal bbs?

Also with massage and SPA places. Is there a way that I know which offer extras? I try the finger in hand gesture but sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

Does 1912 area offer all the action?

Getting tired of getting real massages, lol!

When you see a real BBS, you will be able to tell from the rows of chicks sitting around waiting for ur money in short skirts and low cut tops!

[John Huk]

Normal barbershps do not offer anything extra, most of the one's I've seen have very gay looking guys anyway.

BBS have a pink light outside, you will not miss it and they have nothing to do with cutting hair.

Which 1912 area are you on about?

I live in Wuxi and I always hear of the bbs that you can go to but all I see are real barbershops. Do the real ones offer extra services? How do I know if it offers extras or not? How does a shady one look different than a normal bbs?

Also with massage and SPA places. Is there a way that I know which offer extras? I try the finger in hand gesture but sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

Does 1912 area offer all the action?

Getting tired of getting real massages, lol!

[Happy Monkey]

I live in Wuxi and I always hear of the bbs that you can go to but all I see are real barbershops. Do the real ones offer extra services? How do I know if it offers extras or not? How does a shady one look different than a normal bbs?

Also with massage and SPA places. Is there a way that I know which offer extras? I try the finger in hand gesture but sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

Does 1912 area offer all the action?

Getting tired of getting real massages, lol!

[Eaglestar]

5 Things You Didn't Know About Your Penis
Medical experts reveal interesting facts that men and women will find educational -- and surprising.
By Martin F. Downs
WebMD Feature
Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD

Here are some things you might have wondered about your penis, but were afraid to ask.

No. 1: Your Penis Does Have a Mind of Its Own

You've probably noticed that your penis often does its own thing. You may remember times when it was completely inappropriate to have an erection; and yet you couldn't wish it away.

It's true that you have less command over your penis than body parts like your arms and legs. That's because the penis answers to a part of the nervous system that's not always under your conscious control. This is called the autonomic nervous system, which also regulates heart rate and blood pressure.

Sexual arousal usually isn't voluntary. The conscious mind is complicit in it, but a lot of sexual arousal goes on in the sympathetic nervous system. In addition, impulses from the brain during the REM phase of sleep cause erections, whether you're dreaming about sex or about a test you forgot to study for. Heavy lifting or straining to have a bowel movement can also produce an erection.

Just as the penis grows without your consent, sometimes it shrinks. "The flaccid penis varies in size considerably within a given man," says Drogo Montague, MD, a urologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Exposure to cold water or air makes your penis shrink. That's a function of the sympathetic nervous system.

Psychological stress also involves the sympathetic nervous system, and stress has the same effect as a cold shower, Montague says. When you're relaxed and feeling well, your flaccid penis looks bigger than when you're stressed out. Psychological stress can result in loss of libido and problems with erections. Both stress and anxiety are leading causes of temporary erectile dysfunction or ED. Being able to manage stress and control anxiety will help you get your erectile function back.

Of course, not all ED is caused by psychological problems such as stress. Physical problems such as atherosclerosis or high blood pressure can inhibit the flow of blood to your penis. Type 2 diabetes can damage both blood vessels and the nerves involved in getting an erection. Excessive alcohol consumption can also interfere with getting an erection.

The penis is "kind of a barometer of the sympathetic nervous system," Montague says. So the greeting, "How's it hanging?" is more apt than you might have realized.
No. 2: Your Penis May Be a 'Grower' or a 'Show-er'

Among men, there is no consistent relationship between the size of the flaccid penis and its full erect length.

In one study of 80 men, researchers found that increases from flaccid to erect lengths ranged widely, from less than a quarter inch to 3.5 inches longer.

Whatever the clinical significance of these data may be, the locker-room significance is considerable. You can't assume that a dude with a big limp penis gets much bigger with an erection. And the guy whose penis looks tiny could surprise you with a big erection.

No. 2: Your Penis May Be a 'Grower' or a 'Show-er' continued...

An analysis of more than thousand measurements taken by sex researcher Alfred Kinsey shows that shorter flaccid penises tend to gain about twice as much length as longer flaccid penises.

A penis that doesn't gain much length with an erection has become known as a "show-er," and a penis that gains a lot is said to be a "grower." These are not medical terms, and there aren't scientifically established thresholds for what's a show-er or a grower.

Kinsey's data suggest that most penises aren't extreme show-ers or growers. About 12% of penises gained one-third or less of their total length with an erection, and about 7% doubled in length when erect.

No. 3: Your Penis Is Shaped Like a Boomerang

Your penis is shaped like a boomerang. Just like you don't see all of a big oak tree above ground, you don't see the root of your penis tucked up inside your pelvis and attached to your pubic bone.

In an MRI picture, the penis looks distinctly boomerang-like, as noted by a French researcher who studied men and women having sex inside an MRI scanner.

One method of surgical "penis enlargement" is to cut the ligament that holds the root of the penis up inside the pelvis. This operation may give some men a little extra length if more of the penis protrudes from the body, but there are side effects. This ligament, called the suspensory ligament, makes an erection sturdy. With that ligament cut, the erect penis loses its upward angle and it wobbles at the base. The lack of sturdiness can lead to injury.

No. 4: You Can Break Your Penis

There is no "penis bone," but you can break your penis all the same. It's called penile fracture, and it's not a subtle injury. When it happens, there's "an audible pop or snap," Montague says. Then the penis turns black and blue. And there's terrible pain.

Penile fracture is rare, and it typically happens to younger men because their erections tend to be quite rigid.

Here's how to avoid penile fracture: don't use your penis too roughly. A common way that penile fracture happens, Montague says, is when a man is thrusting too hard and fast during sex, and slams into his partner's pubic bone. Also, a woman who moves wildly while on top of a man during sex can break a man's penis.

Peyronie's syndrome is a related condition that tends to show up more in older men, Montague says. An older man's erection may not be as rigid, but still is hard enough for sex. Over time, if the penis bends too much a certain way during sex, small tears in the tissue can form scars, and the accumulated scar tissue gives the penis an abnormally curved shape.

Not all penis curvature is a problem, however. "There is a lot of variability in what normal is," Cummings says.

No. 5: Most Penises in the World Are Uncut

A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that worldwide only 30% of males aged 15 and up are circumcised.

Rates vary greatly depending upon religion and nationality. Almost all Jewish and Muslim males in the world have circumcised penises, and together they account for about 70% of all circumcised males globally.

The United States has the highest proportion of males circumcised for non-religious reasons. A whopping 75% of non-Jewish, non-Muslim American men are circumcised. Compare that to Canada, where only 30% are. In the U.K. it's 20%; in Australia it's merely 6%.

The practice of circumcising baby boys for medical and cosmetic reasons has become controversial in the U.S. But recently the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UUNAIDS recommended circumcision for adult men, based upon evidence that men with circumcised penises have a lower risk of being infected with HIV.

The CDC estimates that about 65% of all newborn boys get circumcised in the U.S

[Just Seven]

I heard a friend mention a QQ translator and did some searching and found this website

http://qq.bur.st/qqtranslator.php

Can be used on a mobile phone or computer, great for people learning chinese to flirt and learn the language with!

[Kajos]

In China, it is nearly impossible as a foreigner to register in a hotel with a different name. ID is required on check in and all foreigner guests should be reported to the local PSB. Some ST hotels may be a little lax about this if you know them.

Yes, I've had ST hotels not register me when I told them I didn't have ID on me. But I did have cash on the desk and the girl registered with her ID. I've also tried once to check in to a very low end hotel in Chaoyang district and was just told, "Sorry, we don't have the proper permissions to allow foreigners to enter here". And that was that. No can go in. MF'ing loss of face hehe.

[OldAsiaHand]

The local Police guy comes around and gets a list of all foreign occupants in the hotel. However I have stayed in small hotels and they never ask Passport or deposit. Just gave me the key to the room after telling me how much is the price. When I checked out I paid cash. I never stayed in short time hotels , so i do not know the procedure.
In china it is normal to have a girl or mistress. Many a time when I went to the meeting and after the meeting they take me to dinner and sometimes KTV, they ask me how come my GF did not come with me. There is no loss of face per se in China if you are with a girl.

Sammon,

You misunderstood my post. I am talking about loss of face for patronizing the low end of the market when you can afford better.

OAH

[Sammon]

Ritzfactor,

First of all, mongering in Asia is much more acceptable than in the West. You find that many of your business associates and colleagues are mongers, as well. That said, I am still cautious about bringing up the subject and wait for a sign from the other side.

I monger everywhere. I am more concerned about being seen coming out of a BBS or picking up a SW due to loss of face rather than the mongering per se. Most Chinese businessmen do not patronize BBS/SW and consider them to be too cheap and dirty. They prefer KTV or Sauna.

In China, it is nearly impossible as a foreigner to register in a hotel with a different name. ID is required on check in and all foreigner guests should be reported to the local PSB. Some ST hotels may be a little lax about this if you know them.

Just my POV.

OAH

The local Police guy comes around and gets a list of all foreign occupants in the hotel. However I have stayed in small hotels and they never ask Passport or deposit. Just gave me the key to the room after telling me how much is the price. When I checked out I paid cash. I never stayed in short time hotels , so i do not know the procedure.
In china it is normal to have a girl or mistress. Many a time when I went to the meeting and after the meeting they take me to dinner and sometimes KTV, they ask me how come my GF did not come with me. There is no loss of face per se in China if you are with a girl.

[OldAsiaHand]

I am sure many people on this board have jobs as well as colleagues that frown upon our hobby. However, I am interested in what the community as whole does to protect their identity/livelihood here in China while still mongering?

Do you monger in the city you work?

Do you use a hotel with a different registered name?

I would imagine how it would be slightly awkward running into a business associate on the way in or out of a BBS...

Ritzfactor,

First of all, mongering in Asia is much more acceptable than in the West. You find that many of your business associates and colleagues are mongers, as well. That said, I am still cautious about bringing up the subject and wait for a sign from the other side.

I monger everywhere. I am more concerned about being seen coming out of a BBS or picking up a SW due to loss of face rather than the mongering per se. Most Chinese businessmen do not patronize BBS/SW and consider them to be too cheap and dirty. They prefer KTV or Sauna.

In China, it is nearly impossible as a foreigner to register in a hotel with a different name. ID is required on check in and all foreigner guests should be reported to the local PSB. Some ST hotels may be a little lax about this if you know them.

Just my POV.

OAH