LE Raid on Private Home in Shanghai
[QUOTE=Drainaps]Things are getting serious by the week. A couple of months back, I recommended going to local places in suburban SH as a way to avoid a LE-ending to your massage.
Well, the situation is that even remote local massage places are being raided and shut down. I'm friends w a lady that has worked in a couple of shops far from downtown, in a 300% non-laowai neighbourhood and same thing.
Last month LE came in and took away a lady friend of hers + Customer that were caught naked going at each other. 10 days in jail each and shop closed down for good. My friend been back to her hometown for the last 6 weeks, and has no intention to be back in business anytime soon.
She also told me of another laowai caught in a raid: 10 days jail, loss of work permit + expelled from country for good.
Guys, this is getting as serious as it can get. I've never seen this before. Don't risk going at it in the usual open-to-the-public places.
Only full-service option I can think of for visitors and locals alike is takeaway from TRL or similar places, as everything else is a minefield these days. Be careful out there.[/QUOTE]
I was a private dinner party in a private home last week with about 10 other foreign businesspeople. Without warning, almost 10 LE (some in uniform, some not) came to the house and asked to check our ID. Most of us did not have our passports but they took down our names/DOB etc. The whole mess took maybe 45 minutes. They called it a ROUTINE CHECK.
Yeah right.
I guess any gathering or group of (white) foreigners together is a risk in China these days. What's going on in this country?
Shanghai vs rest of country crackdowns
The whole crackdown thing has me a little worried. Is it because of Expo or upcoming Oct 1 National Day? What happened in prior years around this time? And is it just SH or are raids pretty common in the entire country around National Day?
Saunas in SH: To go, or Not to go?
In my opinion, Step 1 of the whole thing targeted the more obvious and less well connected places popular with Laowai, and this is where, for instance, B2 went down.
LE has definitely gone a few layers down, now shooting pretty much at everything that moves, even in 200% Chinese parts of the city, certainly prompted by Neighbourhood Committees that disapprove of "vulgar and obscene" behaviours that might pervert the young and hamper the way towards an "harmonious society".
Guys, do not risk it. As OAH says, use your agenda and get Service Providers to go to your place, or go for take away in places like TRL (that in my opinion will be targeted sooner or later, given the high concentration of laowai and working girls).
[QUOTE=Sixty Cent]What I was told is that there is no time, however it is more likely to happen shen there are laowai in the sauna... lot of people just calling them when foreign customers go.
The logic is that they want to close all place that could be known by future international visitors, during the expo the places that will stay open will refuse to let foreigners get in.
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