One of the first things foreigners learn in China is that sex is available virtually everywhere--for a price. Any price. Any where. Any kind. In many ways, it's one of the best kept secrets outside of China. Inside China, it's perhaps the worst kept secret--although the Central and Provincial Governments occasionally try to shame it back into the underworld.
Due to some of my travels in China, mostly while making movies or TV mini-series, I have had precious few "vacations" in the years I've been here, I could tell a tale or two about just how prevalent--and openly so--sex for sale is. I do not mean tales of my participation in said activity, which is zero, but tales, for instance, such as an openly run brothel (with the tell-tale unused barber chairs and odd-colored barber poles, and the "merhandise" enticingly dressed and draped happily about) just opposite the elevator on the fourth floor of a hotel owned and operated by the PLA.
SHANGHAI: What's the fastest-growing industry in China? Mobile phones? Computer components? Toys? The last wouldn't be too far off, but not in the sense that the word toys is conventionally understood. Call them playthings.
Anecdotal evidence is the best one can do for a field such as this, but a bet could be placed on the sex industry. Yes, prostitution.
It is scarcely possible to walk for 10 minutes in any big Chinese city without coming across the sex trade in one of its many guises. Prostitutes work in most hotels, and are indeed employed by the hotels, including the state- owned ones. They work the streets, the clubs, and massage and sauna parlors, which range from monstrously gaudy to grimy holes in the wall.
They can be found in barber shops and beauty salons; sometimes they are the only people working in such establishments. And they are present -- no, ubiquitous -- at every class level of society, down to the poorest neighborhoods of Shanghai and the lowliest villages.
As you will see, the article was published a few weeks ago; it was just brought to my attention by a colleague on the faculty at Beiwai. A tip of the keyboard to you David, and many thanks.
I also want to point out that Mr. French has a really fine blog, which, I am chagrinned to say, I just learned about today while tracking down this story, A Glimpse of the World, check it out.
