over 50 wounded, 33 dead at VA. State, the shooter’s possible blog:

http://www.wanusmaximus.livejournal.com

He was supposedly dumped by his chinese girlfriend for a white guy.

Shooter is possibly from Guangdong province.

April 17, 2007 @ 10:08 am | Comment

NHYRC,

I’m not sure how you know more about this than CNN but anything is possible…do you have a source for verification?

Until we know the WHOLE story, let’s not derail the thread before it even gets going.

April 17, 2007 @ 10:30 am | Comment

Dear Jeremiah,

1) To answer your first question: Yes, it does happen. Once, when we were about to leave a restaurant, some guy started shouting insults at us. I tried to ignore him, but my wife shouted back. He made a move towards her, then I pushed him against the bar, at that time my British colleague pulled both of us out of the place, preventing further damage. There have been countless other incidents when my wife was called a “foreign whore” for being in the company of a “laowai”.
2) To answer your second question: I know a few Chinese male/Western female couples and one of them is happily married, while the others have been divorced or split up. The reason is that most Chinese men from a certain point on expect their wives/girlfriends to accept the tyranny of their in-laws which is hard to take.
3) To answer your third question: There are foreigners in China who think that the term “laowai” is pretty close to “nigger”. I, personally, think it’s more like “gringo” in Spanish, a little derogative, but not that bad.
4) To answer your fourth question: I don’t loathe Dashan that much either, I think he just came to China at the right time to make a fortune out of speaking Chinese fluently. Lucky him! Good for him! I do loathe people like Phil Cunningham, but not Dashan, he was just lucky, God bless him!

April 17, 2007 @ 10:31 am | Comment

Being a spy, its my job to know.

http://wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/

April 17, 2007 @ 10:34 am | Comment

1) Stares and catcalls happen sometimes to myself and my friends, with the verbal abuse always being directed at the Chinese girl. (Among my foreign female/Chinese male friends this sort of problem never happens. Funny that.) People I know also circulate stories of foreigners being beaten in clubs by gangs of thugs for talking to the wrong woman, but in most cases I gather they were drunk and stupid and trying to hook up with a wannabe-gangster’s girlfriend.

2) Many of my female expatriate friends have tried dating Chinese men, but only a few have built successful relationships. The failures happened because the man was too controlling, saying things like, “I need to know where you are at all times,” or because the man was too aloof and distant and didn’t cater to my friend’s emotional needs.

3) Most educated Chinese I know use the term waiguoren instead of laowai because it is more polite, while older and/or less educated Chinese tend to say laowai. While many foreigners have no idea that laowai is moderately offensive, some knowingly use the term laowai to describe themselves the way some black Americans use the n-word.

4) Heh, “minstrel show” is one reason why “Da Shan” is disliked. He’s a nice guy, but the happy smiling whitey bit just seems fake. You might also add that, through no fault of “Da Shan”‘s , we tire of being judged for our appearance or accomplishments based on him. (To wit: “Your glasses make you look like Da Shan!” “Your Chinese will soon be better than Da Shan’s!”) Moreover, those of us who follow China closely have concerns about “Da Shan’s” role in helping to project an image of “normalcy” after 1989. Oh, for the good old days when Norman Bethune was the most famous Canadian in China…

April 17, 2007 @ 11:08 am | Comment

Ok, these have all been done to death down the ages but:

1. We (me & the Mrs) have never had any problems, but we are a similar age – my guess would be that the bigger the age gap, more likely the problem.

2. Ratio of Chinese girls who think “I’m gonna get me a foreign boyfriend” to Chinese boys who think “I’m gonna get me a foreign girlfriend.” is about 50 to 1.

3. It’s one of the 1st terms that people learn when they arrive in China. They then hear it all the time around them, usually behind their backs, and so assume its being used in a derogatory manner.

4. Jealousy. If I were in the same position I’d be milking that cow for all I was worth.

April 17, 2007 @ 11:54 am | Comment

[i]1) Stares and catcalls happen sometimes to myself and my friends, with the verbal abuse always being directed at the Chinese girl. (Among my foreign female/Chinese male friends this sort of problem never happens. Funny that.) [/i]

Yeah, funny, innit? Apparently the former type of relationship is “emasculating” for Chinese males to see while the latter type is “enpowering”. *eyes roll to the floor*

[i]He asked me why and I, lacking the Chinese word for “minstrel show,” couldn’t really answer effectively. [/i]

耍猴子戏给中国人看 pretty much covers what you’re trying to say, I think. (Not that we Chinese don’t appreciate it – dance, monkey, dance!)

April 17, 2007 @ 12:54 pm | Comment

Whups, “empowering”. Darn typos.

April 17, 2007 @ 12:56 pm | Comment

“over 50 wounded, 33 dead at VA. State, the shooter’s possible blog:

http://www.wanusmaximus.livejournal.com

He was supposedly dumped by his chinese girlfriend for a white guy.

Shooter is possibly from Guangdong province.”

if so, the cheaters got what they deserved, but the other 30?? that’s insane..

April 17, 2007 @ 2:00 pm | Comment

Can we leave the shooter for a more appropriate thread?

Anyway:
1: Had a few odd looks, nothing more than that. Maybe we’re lucky, I don’t know.
2: No idea. But there do seem to be more foreign girl/Chinese guy couples out there than people realise.
3: I don’t see “laowai” as being particularly derogatory. Essentially neutral, but irritating, but mostly depends how it’s used.
4: I think the constant comparisons to Dashan are the big killer. There’s plenty more performing monkeys these days, anyway.

April 17, 2007 @ 2:48 pm | Comment

1) I speak enough Chinese to know that we got A LOT of racist comments as we go around town. Never had any physical altercations but then again, I’m a 300 lbs. weightlifter.

4) I try to explain it to my students this way: “Imagine a Chinese person who can use a knife and fork well came to America and got on TV because he could use cutlery. Imagine if Americans all thought that it was amazing that a foreigner could use a knife and fork. Wouldn’t that seem a little weird to you?”

Also, he’s a dork. And the Chinese have no concept of “nerd” or “dork.” When they compare us to Da Shan, they are comparing us to a world class dork. As evidence of this, I site my mother who when she came to China, with no previous knowledge of anything Da Shan, turned on the TV, saw Da Shan, and said “who’s this dork?”

April 17, 2007 @ 2:55 pm | Comment

Given China’s acute demographic challenges, I imagine hostility towards non-Chinese men in any relationship with a Chinese woman is going to grow more intense.

April 17, 2007 @ 3:09 pm | Comment

1. Guess I’m pretty lucky, too. Just now asked the wife if she ever hears comments behind our backs. She said that she’s never hard anything very derogatory, but if she ever did she’d “kick their fucking ass!’ Nice being married to a former cop (usually!)

2. I can’t give my comments here in a politically correct way. I’ll have to do that over at Sinocidal.

3. I use the term with my students like Eddie Griffin uses the N-word! Good? Bad?? Dunno. Gets a laugh for the monkey boy.

4. Da Shan is not only a dork he is also a dweeb. But damn…so is Bill Gates for that matter! THEY ain’t gotta entertain like us Z-visa types, but hey right place right time. Can’t fault that.

April 17, 2007 @ 3:25 pm | Comment

“4) I try to explain it to my students this way: “Imagine a Chinese person who can use a knife and fork well came to America and got on TV because he could use cutlery. Imagine if Americans all thought that it was amazing that a foreigner could use a knife and fork. Wouldn’t that seem a little weird to you?”

William Hung

April 17, 2007 @ 3:29 pm | Comment

Funny thing, here in LA I had lunch with my Chinese classmates, one of whom recently married a Chinese woman from Beijing. She’s living here now, learning English, etc. She saw my jade that has my Chinese animal sign on it and guessed my age 12 years younger than I am – I’m sure she was being polite, but you gotta like that! She got kind of embarrassed and said to her American husband that she couldn’t help it, “Waiguoren” all look the same to her! And we all busted up because this is Los Angeles, and I’m not the “waiguoren” here.

But she’s allowed to guess my age any time.

April 17, 2007 @ 3:41 pm | Comment

1. I haven’t found it to be much of a problem here in Beijing, though one guy did once chuck a beer bottle at my head on Gui Jie — more because he was drunk out of his skull than anything else, I suspect. On the other hand, in smaller, dare I say shittier places like Harbin, it definitely becomes an issue.

2. I think it’s a feedback loop. Supposedly Chinese males are simultaneously hypercontrolling and emasculated, or at least so the story goes. A lot of Chinese guys I know feel inadequate or intimidated by Western girls, in part because they’re the victims of their own bad press, and in part because Western girls are supposedly not interested in Chinese guys. I know a couple of happy Chinese guy / Western girl relationships, but not nearly enough.
The law of averages probably also plays a role — there seem to be more cracker guys than girls over here. It may also be a language thing: of the foreigners I know here with good Chinese, only two are girls.

3. I tend to think of “laowai” as being like “gringo.” There are periodical blog storms on the topic of whether or not it’s offensive, so forgive me if I sound a bit bored: the question got old for me years ago. The debate is usually accompanied by little bursts of self-pitying crackers posting in their blogs because someone said something that they think was probably supposed to be offensive. I remember in particular Andres Gentry, who at one point a few years back compared being white in a small city in China to being black in the American South in the early 20th century. Really.
In my experience, “laowai” is a basically neutral term that can take on whatever tone the speaker wants. Who knows — maybe I’m wrong; maybe it really is intended to offend — but so what then?

4. When I see Dashan, I think of something my dad once said about some jazz musician or another: “If I could play like that? I wouldn’t play like that.” The guy has the skills; he made it in early; he is, from what I hear from people who’ve met him, a class act in real life. More power to him.
I find that when people hate Dashan, it tends to be because they’re always being told that they’re “good…but not as good as Dashan.” And in most cases, only the second half of that statement is true.

April 17, 2007 @ 3:45 pm | Comment

1. only on the internet have i heard of anything other than staring and glaring. i have no problems believing that in an altercation, the presence of a female chinese would have a bearing on the situation.

2. a numbers thing (more men than women) and chinese guys have a bad press and are less forward than westerners. fear of losing face if she turns you down? i don’t think you can have this discussion without it turning into stereotyping or race-baiting

3. laowai, i think, depends on the speaker’s tone of voice. but i think it would be better if chinese said waiguoren, or simply didn’t bring attention to the fact you are a foreigner.

4. da shan. he is a geek, with a touch of the performing monkey, but he isn’t related to anything political, and let’s face it, we are all envious of his chinese. i have no problem with the man. fair play to him

April 17, 2007 @ 5:54 pm | Comment

3 rehashed: I think the problem with laowai is it’s heard most often in that incredulous tone, as in, “My God! That’s one of those white people you occasionally see on TV! Who would’ve thought I’d see one across the road from Beijing Language and Culture University!” There’s also the occasional “There goes the neighbourhood” tone, and combine that with it being used as the identifier in restaurants and similar places all too often (“Who ordered the gongbao jiding?” “That’s the laowai’s”) I can see how people come to find it offensive, but still, as Brendan said, it can be used in any tone of voice.

And Brendan: Did you really need to raise Andres Gentry? I remember that ranting of his a little too well. Ugh. I was glad when he got blocked- Oh darn, Andres is on the other side of the firewall, I’ll need a proxy… Nah, bugger it.

April 17, 2007 @ 6:14 pm | Comment

@ ferins:

“”4) I try to explain it to my students this way: “Imagine a Chinese person who can use a knife and fork well came to America and got on TV because he could use cutlery. Imagine if Americans all thought that it was amazing that a foreigner could use a knife and fork. Wouldn’t that seem a little weird to you?”

William Hung”

And it was more than a little weird.

Nothing against dorks by the way. I’m at least part dork myself.

And I think it’s ok to put down Da Shan. Sure, he’s just doing his thing but “his thing” affects us Laowai because we are endlessly being compared to him.

April 17, 2007 @ 6:35 pm | Comment

When I first saw this posting without any comments, I thought about rushing in and giving my experience, but I guess so many have stated it for me. I can relate to Mor’s comment most of all.

I truly believe if you have a Chinese wife, it’s perhaps better–not perfect–to reside in the very large cities of Beijing or Shanghai or Guangzhou where one can find other Chinese-Foreign couples. That doesn’t mean incidents won’t happen. There will be just less of them.

However, living in a country of of vast ignorance, wanton verbal abuse, and social intoleration is no way to go through life, and no way to put her through all of that, so yes, we left, and haven’t regreted it since.

Although I do miss the cheap beer, the cheap haircuts, the food, her family, and many friends, I don’t miss hearing my wife labeled a whore or ostracized for her marriage.

Anyway, We just got tired of all that, and most especially, foreigners and Chinese that rationalize it.

April 17, 2007 @ 7:45 pm | Comment

Damn Richard. First I thought you were nutso for putting all four of those potentially explosive queries in one post. Now I realize everyone had to give pocket answers, and thus, had to be less provocative. Brilliant.

Last year we had a flap over a foreign teacher at my university who complained that lao wai was a racist phrase and he felt insulted. Naturally everyone turned to ask me how I felt. I shrugged and said it didn’t bug me one bit. Lao so often prefaces terms of endearment — lao ba, lao pengyou, lao gong that when I hear it I am not offended — it seems almost a term of affection — like when you’re out, you’re a waiguoren but when you’re in it’s lao wai. That’s overstating it some, but to me lao wai signals a foreigner that the speaker feels no great distance from. That’s just me speaking, though.

I find that when people hate Dashan, it tends to be because they’re always being told that they’re “good…but not as good as Dashan.” And in most cases, only the second half of that statement is true.

Brendan, I’m going to pay you the ultimate compliment: I wish I’d said that. Orz.

Michael

April 17, 2007 @ 9:59 pm | Comment

Regarding Da Shan, I believe the resentment is that he is so successfull and so beloved by the Chinese. He’s actually a wonderful guy — I worked with him a little. He’s applied a lot of entrepreneurial skill to his hanyu and media talents, for which he’s been well rewarded. That must stick in the craw of foreign business persons who are jumping through hoops with little progress and foreign wannabe media stars in the Chinese market who slog through TV commercials and bottom of the barrel movie and TV projects for a pittance. My 2 yuan.

April 17, 2007 @ 11:37 pm | Comment

i personally think it is because of money or the perception of money.

here is a personal story. i work on wall street and there is a partner interested in china. he is about 60 and does not have a very good reputation in the firm. rumors has it people saw him looking at hard core porn in his office while wacking off. i did not know this when i went out drinking with him one night. i just thought he was big dork with an interest in china. after a few drinks, he started talking to me about his sex conquests with younger chinese women. he commented to me that no younger amercian girl would go for him. However, chinese girls unlike american girls appreciates a man with knowledge and talent. these girls are not just hoes off the streets but graduates of beijing university/tsing hua with graduate degrees from ivy league institutions.

i guess my beef is not chinese girls going for white guys but at least go for the quarterback instead of the third string kicker. if it is not for money, then many chinese girls see dating a white guy as a status enhancement. i have rarely seen a chinese girl with rich black, hispanic or inidian dude.

i am sure there are many true love stories between chinese girls and white guys. but speaking for myself because of frequent past experiences, the initial impression is negative until proven otherwise.

April 18, 2007 @ 6:51 am | Comment

Westerners:

I never felt insulted by “lao wai” and even if it is a minor insult, so what. Let’s show that we are not as overly sensitive to any perceived insults or slights as some people in a certain country are. Let’s set the better example.

As for “yang gui zi” or “guai lo”, I only heard that once in Xiangyang market. I told the little trite I understood “guai lo”, walked over to the next booth and bought a shirt AT COST from them instead of at her booth, the neighboring stall heard the whole affair and beamed with pride.

April 18, 2007 @ 11:23 am | Comment

>>many foreigners have no idea that laowai is moderately offensive,

Entirely wrong.

>>It’s one of the 1st terms that people learn when they arrive in China. They then hear it all the time around them, usually behind their backs, and so assume its being used in a derogatory manner.

Entirely correct.

April 18, 2007 @ 12:12 pm | Comment

I don’t even think ‘guai lo’ is that offensive. I first heard it a lot in some nongcuns in yunnan, where is was just used instead of laowai. The last time I heard it was in a car of fashionite girls, not older than 30, who just use it to sound more hip, more HK-style. One of the girls (the one that used it first in this conversation) is married to my white classmate.

April 18, 2007 @ 1:16 pm | Comment

@Mister Tea
We also left China and my wife loves her new home. We do miss our friends, of course. I don’t miss Chinese beer, the local brew here is much better. We don’t have to miss Chinese food, because we do that ourselves. Besides, we’ve come to appreciate a clean environment, fresh air and car drivers who (are made to) respect traffic rules.

April 18, 2007 @ 7:25 pm | Comment

I was insulted by the word laowai for about my first 5 minutes in China. Then I grew up.

Likewise, I have had run ins with locals when with my wife, but were these because my wife is Chinese or because I am an argumentative and impatient arsehole who is very prone (in any country) to getting into verbal fights ?

Finally, having met (or at least interviewed) da shan I can only say he is a nice, unassuming guy who does well to deal with all the bitterness other laowai have for him. Of course, what he represents is quite annoying and he could have been more choosy about his commercial endorsements.

ps. nanheyangrouchuan, I can think of far more suitable terms of endearment that could be applied to you. Some of these have put on another thread.

April 19, 2007 @ 1:21 pm | Comment

I’ve been married to a younger Asian man for seven years. We live in Los Angeles. Do we get looks from strangers at parties and in public? Hell yeah! Our hosts are ALWAYS grilled about us after we leave whatever function we’ve attended.

If we get that sort of reaction in a relatively wordly cosmopolitan area, I can only imagine what it would be if we lived in Japan or China.

Interestingly, the Asians are far more disapproving than the Caucasians. Do I give a rat’s ass about anyone’s disapproval? Nope.

April 19, 2007 @ 1:34 pm | Comment

in los angeles? that’s weird.. i’ve never really noticed something like that around here.

April 19, 2007 @ 4:22 pm | Comment

Laowai: not offensive in and of itself, but I find it annoying for a few reasons.
(1) it is a racial term – applied to white people 99% of the time, and I always (because I grew up in Britain?) give racial terms a wide berth where they\’re not necessary.
(2) it is used to depersonalize people. As a laowai, you lose your identity. I had to tell people I live with to use my name rather than refer to me as \”the foreigner,\” and that\’s fucked.
(3) it is a massive overgeneralization. I do believe that there is such a thing as \”the West\”, and it is inhabited mainly by white people, and some generalizations about it are true. But many are not. If you read a story about the USA and then ask me about it, I\’m not going to have much more of an opinion than you. I feel relatively comfortable talking about the UK, but past that I don\’t know much and I don\’t feel much connection.
I strongly discourage use of it among my friends, except where it provides useful information. In normal conversation, you should just use people\’s names; and if you\’re going to make a generalization about laowai, then just don\’t. It\’s pretty much certain to be wrong.

April 20, 2007 @ 12:01 am | Comment

I cannot tell you how many times my wife has been insulted (or attacked)…. many …many times. Most of the times were in the beginning of our relationship (married 5 years) Usually it was a woman on the bus or a cab driver (male).

[TBD, I am editing this comment, sorry. You can’t talk about the Chinese people like that. Richard]

April 20, 2007 @ 11:21 am | Comment

BUT!! Ferins can make comments about America at will?Come on man!

April 20, 2007 @ 11:41 am | Comment

Sorry, I can’t have comments saying “the Chinese people are hateful and all of you know it.” It’s not true and it’s racist, whether you meant it to be or not. If I think Ferins is being a racist I’ll call him on it, too.

April 20, 2007 @ 11:54 am | Comment

NAIVE.Very.

April 20, 2007 @ 12:05 pm | Comment

i haven’t attacked america. i just find it amusing that some people act like they’re the only ones in the world who have ever faced racism.

if people in china were extremely pleasant all the time i’d be pretty impressed, considering many of them work long hours for little pay.

some of the things a few of them do (and no, they aren’t all hateful or they’d have lynched you by now) is nasty and incredibly rude but come on, what can you expect?

April 20, 2007 @ 12:20 pm | Comment

TBD:DICKHEAD.Big.

April 20, 2007 @ 4:02 pm | Comment

4. Because deep down inside, we worry that the Chinese view each of us Laowai to a certain extent in comparision with Dashan. I have an African American friend who is driven nuts by Al Sharpton for the same reason. He cannot stand the fact that whites seem to view Al Sharpton as a spokesperson for every African-American in the country. If Al Sharpton says, it, every African-American must feel the same way kind of thing. Same thing with Dashan.

April 20, 2007 @ 10:31 pm | Comment

china law blog: that’s called paranoia. This may have had a ring of truth to it a decade ago but not since.

I lived in china for 7 years and not once, not once I add, did anyone compare me with Dashan. In fact I don’t think I have ever even had a conversation with a Chinese person about the man. I have also never worried (deep down or not) that anyone would ever compare me with him. maybe its the all about the kind of friends one keeps.

April 21, 2007 @ 1:07 pm | Comment

People bring up Dashan with me all the time, probably once a month, with no prompting on my part. It is annoying, and I think the China Law Blog is partially right. I don’t think it’s necessarily annoying because you’re insecure about being compared to him, but rather because you don’t like so many people drawing their conclusions about an entire region of the world from just one person. And this does happen. It’s astonishing how frequently you hear people draw conclusions about ALL Americans or ALL Westerners because of something they saw on TV, or from something that you yourself have done.

That being said, Dashan is hardly a bad representative to have.

April 21, 2007 @ 9:58 pm | Comment

I am one of those who strongly dislike laowai and I have stopped feeling guilty about it. Many years ago, I asked a Chinese friend, who is a university teacher, about “laowai” and she told me that it is neutral “at best.” If you check a good Chinese dictionary, it will state that it is term that makes fun of foreigners (xicheng 戏称). So quite rightly many foreigners in China feel that it sounds patronizing.

That a lot of Chinese say laowai without any bad intentions is one thing. The fact that many insist on using it even though they know that a lot foreigners hate the word is quite another. Language is a two-way street and to continue using a term that many find condescending is bad manners.

April 22, 2007 @ 9:07 am | Comment

Maybe, the term “laowai” could be compared to “Chinaman”? I might use it without any bad intentions, but Chinese people still might feel offended. I have Chinese friends who think there is nothing wrong with “laowai”, but I also have Chinese friends who consider it impolite. It also depends on the situation and the context, I’d say.

April 22, 2007 @ 9:30 pm | Comment

laowai is probably the equivalent of “oriental”. never offensive, never meant to be, but there’s a growing negative reaction to the term for reasons i can’t really understand.

“chinaman” and “negro” are about the same caliber.

April 23, 2007 @ 12:01 pm | Comment

“Oriental” and “Chinaman” are probably the closest analogies, but I don’t understand why we should be surprised that many foreigners in China resent the word “laowai.” It is simply connected to the fact that you are constantly reminded of the fact that you are a foreigner and that the word is closely connected to that experience. It is fine if kids yell “laowai” at you, but if fully grown men and women do it, you start to wonder what is going on.

In my experience, most Chinese abroad do not like to be singled out as foreigners when they are abroad, so it is a mystery to me why so many Chinese think that foreigners in China should accept that kind of treatment. The only conclusion I can draw is that they simply do not care what foreigners think or feel.

April 24, 2007 @ 6:58 am | Comment

“In my experience, most Chinese abroad do not like to be singled out as foreigners when they are abroad, so it is a mystery to me why so many Chinese think that foreigners in China should accept that kind of treatment. The only conclusion I can draw is that they simply do not care what foreigners think or feel.”

you mean things like “Go back to China”? Said to Koreans, Japanese, Filipinos and Mexicans?

April 24, 2007 @ 9:41 am | Comment

and 88, there are 1.3 billion people in china, you can find someone that says anything. are you quoting him for amusement or were the two of you in agreement? sorry if i misunderstood your point.

April 24, 2007 @ 9:45 am | Comment

@Ferins

I am not thinking about anything in particular. I’m just saying that I think it’s peculiar that many Chinese want foreigners to accept behavior they would never accept themselves. As simple as that. And it has happened in China that people have told me to go home to a country I have never been to.

April 24, 2007 @ 9:46 pm | Comment

Stumbled upon this thread on another unrelated search. I was the one who made the casual comment about laowai on H-ASIA, only to see it develop into a fascinating conversation on the nature of this term. I’ve posted my own observations on my blog:
http://shanghaijournal.squarespace.com/journal/2007/4/15/on-the-true-meaning-of-laowai.html

Personally the term laowai doesn’t bother me much. It’s only natural that a people with little if any exposure to Westerners will make bold generalizations about us and “objectify” us. Of course this is done in the States and Australia where I now live as well–only reversed, where people make unwarranted generalizations about “those Asians”.

As for your other questions, I think it’s obvious why white men are attracted to Asian women far more than white women are to Asian men. Reasons being: status, power, culture, and looks. Of course there are exceptions. A good read for those who want to see things the other way round is Rachel Dewoskin’s book _Foreign Babes in Beijing_. It’s definitely not high literature or even high journalism, but still it’s worth a read. Who knows if the situation will change as Asian societies continue to accumulate status and power. Already in Japan (at least in Tokyo) it’s common for women from developed Western countries to find jobs in hostess clubs, serving Japanese men. In China, Russian women work in nightclubs. I bet if you went to post-Soviet countries like Poland, you’d find a lot of happy Asian businessmen arm in arm with local girls, not all of whom would be practicing prostitutes. Nothing like a country in the advanced stages of post-socialist decay to attract bottom-feeders from abroad.

April 25, 2007 @ 10:04 pm | Comment