Me Ol' China (week 9)

Hello guys,

this week has been very interesting. After filling up my life with work, classes, gym, massages and acupuncture, business dinners and Gawd knows what else, I realised that I do not know enough people to hang around with in the evening. The risk of becoming impotent in front of a TV set is getting higher and higher... Oh well, impotent... There was an Italian singer, Lucio Dalla, that use to claim that watching too much Tv makes you impotent... I know some people that spend all of their lives watching TV, especially blue movies and seem not to get enough of it... anyway, I just need to talk to someone. So I took action. I discovered a website where they advertise from Real Estate to Jobs to Personal and friend ads and I placed this advert:

Married man in Beijing looking for friends

Hello, I am a 40 years old man in Beijing. I have been here nearly two months and I am trying to settle and meet some friends. I am alone here, my family is overseas and I am not looking for a replacement in my sentimental life and I am not filthy rich and intentioned to offer money in exchange of smiles and more. I find very difficult to meet ladies and guys around my age bracket to hang around. I am looking for F R I E N D S. Anyway, if you want to have someone to go out for a bite or a drink drop a line. I got pictures available but due to previous scum, I need a proof that you really are whoever you claim you are. Talk soon This advert is open to couples, groups and more as well, not for sex, as I mentioned. Cheers

Well well well... I had a good response, I have to admit, but before I show you the responses, look at the other ads I found on this site.

Need a lover?
You are a mature business owner woman, who already established her life, rich enough to not need to work hard anymore, you have time for pleasure. You are very cultured and hygenic person, with pretty looks. Age does not matter as long as you are magnanimous and intelligent person with passionate sexual culture and also generaly cultured with good manner and hygenic body and elegant apperance.I am a very cultured european, intelligent, good talker with wide range of interest and knowledge. I like sports, dance and I have huge appetite of sex and very experimented in it. I am used to be rich and get used the high life and society. I am tall (182cm) blue eyed, dark hair, athletic body. Feel free to send me an e-mail if you are seriously interested to:xxxx

What strikes me about this advert is the fact that he clains to be intelligent... I really wonder if people think to be intelligent because someone once told them or because they have some references in life to measure the intelligence. Well, if someone, like this guy, has got Rambo, you choose 1 2 3 or 50, as benchmark, of course he is intelligent. If he chose Einstein I would doubt.

But this is another interesting one:

a gay is seeking language exchange

i am a editor employed in a publishing house. i am looking for language exchange. you don't have to be a native english speaker, but you must speak a fluent and standard english. my years of working experience in a publisher and great patience ensure that i can be a qualified chinese teacher for you.also, i hope to become your bosom friend. by the way, you are unnecessarily a gay , because sexaul tendency makes no difference to making friends. one point i'd like to make clear is that i don't want to seek bf here. if you are interested, contact me. i believe we can learn a lot from each other. i am just waiting for u

So if you are not looking for sex why do you point out to be gay? Who gives a shit about your tendency? I haven't asked my teacher if she is a Lesbian and nobody at work has ever asked me if I am gay or I prefer oral or alternative sex! amazing!

But read this one. It takes the cake for the best ad published around this month:

Are you an attention whore?Are you a vacuous, empty shell with no personality?Do you regularly enjoy Vics or Suzie Wongs?Wear ugly white boots and eighties blazers (bonus points if they are multi-colored)?Yes?Then I am the man for you.Me?...White. 31.Business dude, have a car to take you to Sanlitun in.I got yellow fever and no particular plan for my life except blowing fat sticky wads of cash all over your face.Mail me.No PIC No Nuthing

this other one tells a lot about how picky and choosey women can be:

If you are 35-50 yo, healthy, from the USA, have a college degree and a stable job, ready to get married soon, then let's meet. I'm 32 yo good-looking well-educated good wife and mother type Chinese girl. Please reply only if you are serious, with your name, age, marriage status, occupation, telephone number and a recent photo. Thanks and have a good day.

Of course the lady thinks to be the last woman left on this planet...

Let me tell you that the intelligent guy will certainly receive hundreds of responses if my ad received 7...


Here they are, the answers I received. I have removed the names for obvious reasons. Please note that all emails are as written and they are not in response to a mail or anything else I wrote: these are answers to my advert.

Email nr 1.

I read your advert with very attention. How much you pay for company? You do not say it. tell me price and I give you picture of me and my a**.

Email nr 2.

Really nice you write what. I am a gay in Bei Jing and i like married man too much. You need no pay me, you sound good for me and my friends. We change language
and you learn chinese and we learn european man ^-^ so all we happy. my email good only for you. wait you.

Email nr 3

i think you can introduce a little bit, ok? I am interested in you very much.Please call me : xxxxxxxxxxxxwe can talk a little bit about that.thanks
I say that I am marride and i am more older than you. i have a husband i love very much but he doesnt understand me. i like west men and no asian. my husband is asian but i like my husband. i want to meet with friend from west only for speaking and for kiss and sleep but no sex because i love my man. and he love me so sorry you are not the right man for me. bye

(I received another email few minutes later, from this person, here it's the content)

Email nr 3bis

my husband loves me very much and i love him vey much too, but i am very intersted in foreign men i want to try with them but not make love because i am afraid of pain and aids very much i just want their hugs and kisses

Email nr 4

Hi, nice to meet you here.It is hard to make new friend at your age, similar here, i am in my late 30's and just relocated from shanghai a month ago. Although my chinese and english are fluent enough but still struggle to find friend to share laugh, stories, moment. anyway, i am looking for FRIENDS, we will see how far it goes start from here.cheers.

Email nr 5

Hi!I'm a bit in the same situation as you are. I arrived here 2 months ago from Europe, and am looking for friends to explore the town with, but without any further intentions. I'm from XXXXX but resident in YYYYY , am 41 years old, and am looking for friends I can go for dinner with, or to concerts etc. If you'd like to meet up, drop me a line.Cheers, xxxxxx PS I really do want to make clear that I am not interested in a sexual relationship of whatever kind, whether it be a short fling or a longtime relationship. And as you are married, that would definitely not be a possibility. Sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but I want to avoid any misunderstandings.

Email nr 6

Hi, Saw your ads which sounds interesting to me, have you met the one you wanted? is there still any space to know one more?:)Sth about me, a well educated single lady in her 30's, who is honest, caring, tolerant, who has good manner, knows how to respect people, who works in amultinational company in ChaoYang district BJ, who has studied, worked in Germany and the USA for 4 years, who has been to most west european countries, and Mexico, Cuba... and enjoyed exploring the differentcustom & culture, who likes nature, music, dancing, swiming, out-door activities, reading, traveling, makingfriends with interestingpeople ...who works hard but enjoys life as well...
Interested to know more about each other?? please email me at xxxxx , hopefully talk to you soon...Keep smiling & Enjoy everyday!! xxxx

Email nr 7

Like you advert because you are very sweet and you are very clear. your wife must be very happy to have you. my husband is not so good. he is in europe and i know he has many lovers. so i want to teach him a good lesson and want a west lover to. are you interested in having sex with me? i cannot pay a lot of money but i am beautiful and you will like me. thank you.


This advert has been published on March 4th and all these emails have arrived within the 2 hours after publication. I stop here with the first 7 and let the others pass.

Now, I think that these messages give you a clear idea of how difficult can be to find friends over here without ending up in trouble. Even the western lady writing had to make sure that there would have been no sex involved, the proof that all westerners seem to have a certain reputation for looking for sex relationship only.

I decided not to go ahead with this advertising and I hope to meet some people in a different way.

It is pretty difficult meeting people in Beijing. You would expect a place where people got really nothing to do all day and enjoy the evenings. Not at all. People here are very busy and if they manage to produce for the effort they punt in what they do, they will be soon the richest people in the world. Their determination in succeeding takes priority on everything in their lives.

I have been told by more people that Chinese people, once they are married, they stop seeing other people and their life is entirely devoted to the family. This explains why I cannot really meet anyone over here having my age.

I do know some people, but they are all very young. The other issue is the language, as I mentioned before. I am really tired of being misunderstood all the times and have to keep on monkey talks omitting adverbs, articles, adjectives and plurals...

This week I received my final Work Permit and Visa. This means that I had to go to the police again and I will spear you the details of the 4th or 5th traumatic encounter with the police station... they make rules as they go along and Chinese policemen (women really) are the closest to Italian policemen. Same sense of almighty power given to them by a uniform. Well, let's stop it here or I will get annoyed again.

The Prime Minister, this week, has declared that China must reduce the production to a mere 8% and inflation should be kept around 4-4.5%.

I cannot believe that a government has to ask to limit the growth! And I do not think that he will succeed anyway, unless it imposes some strict rules. The economic power will never compromise on that. They have already compromised a lot for the Olympics sake and another sacrifice will be asking too much. I think that to cool off the economy they need to act on the interest rates or increase labour costs to the industrialists. No other solution.

Anyway, this week has been really sunny and warm with temperatures constantly above zero. Seems like Spring has exploded but differently from Europe, you dont's see skirts getting shorter :))

I managed to get an ironing lady this week and I bought an iron and an ironing board: it reaches my knees when it's fully up! I really wonder if only short people iron in this country.

In my perfect style of jumping between things as they come to my mind, let me tell you a little about my commuting adventure every day. I was told to avoid the subway during rush hour. Rush hour is something not clearly definable in this city. It is a bit of a lottery. Some days goes from 7 to 10 am and 15 to 19 pm and other times you cannot get in a carriage even at 9 in the evening. Anyway, every morning I leave home around 9:15 and I need to be wide awake for the task. I am lucky enough to have direct access to the subway station from my apartment building. Nice innit? Yes... it was! Get the elevator, push floor 1 (which is equivalent to Ground Floor, nearly everywhere, not everywhere) get through a few glass doors, a few "ni hao"'s and here you are ready to get 3 escalators to get to your train. 4 escalators in line, 2 going up and 2 going down, that follow random pattern. Sometimes those going up are the central ones, sometimes the lateral onese, sometimes every other one. It depends on the guy in charge that morning. sometimes the escalator 1 goes down but the escalator 1 and 2 at the end of that come up so you have to cross with the other people coming up, clogging up the whole platform and forcing the man in charge to block all the elevators. And you know what the most surprising part is? Nobody gets annoyed! I dread the idea of thinking how tough being blind can be in this city. So, if you are not very awake there are good chances that you hurt yourself. But the cherry on the cake goes to the delays in opening the accesses to the subway vai the building. During the last week they have blocked the internal access in the morning but without any warning. They have done in a way that nobody can come through the subway to the building directing all the escalators towards the ticket area, going down. So, I went down but when I reached half way, on the platform where accident happen, I was blocked by the security guard asking me to go back. Well, I had two main problems. 1. impossible to go up with the 4 sets of escalators coming down and 2. even if I had managed there was no other exit and I should have stayed in the atrium until they would have opened it as it was not possible to go back through the same way I came. I am not sure if the guard understood that I told him to fuck off but for sure he didn't look very pleased that he had to stop the escalators so that I could go up when he understood that I had no intention of running up the escalators moving in the opposite direction.

If everything goes smooth, I get to the train ok not before buying the tickets and get them checked by lady that must have smiled, or given the impression of smiling, when she passed wind the first time in her life. It is one of my challenges making her smile but seems like I will have to give up the challenge. once I am on the platform flocks of people carrying all sort of cases, boxes, suitcases, rudimental form of cases made with bed sheets, move in an erratic way as if moved by a mysterious and not understandable force. It reminds me of ants but with a big difference: ants seem very organised in their movements, unless you place an obstacle in front of them or remove their landmarks. Here seems like everyone is an obstacle and without many compliments they go through them as if they were not there. Once you reach the yellow line, there is a guard making sure that you are behind it and, something really surprising, the passengers enforce the "behind the yellow line" policy themselves, kicking your feet if you are stepping on it. I am afraid not the same behaviour when the train arrives. It is really tough to get out of the train. They are so good at congesting everything that even a bunch of Italians and Indians could do a better job! Sometimes despite empty carriages, you might miss the train! When trains are really packed and the speaker shouts to stand clear of the door, the guards intervene and they become the official bouncers: they push you in, without too many compliments. What really strikes me is that nobody complains and pushing is just normal. Sometimes you get pushed around even if there are spaces. Some mathematic tests proved that random is not so random and if a group of people is placed in a room and gets asked to dispose themselves randomly, they will still stay a meter or so away from each other. This is true as I had the chance of experimenting it in many occasions but here in China this is not the case. The disposition is different. They stop wherever they please and even if there is plenty of space they stop close to you and, in my case, they even enjoy taking a good look at me in a very indiscreet way. I wouldn't be surprised if they would ask me to check my teeth and my hand palms... Once you are in the train the taped voice wishes you a welcome on board and tells you about the next station in both Mandarin and English. When the train stops, it informs that you are going to arrive to that station. No, it's not a mistake, it really tells you that you are going to arrive when effectively at that time the train is already there. If you are lucky to get off a small station, the sense of freedom is immediate, but if you are getting off to an interchange station, your sufferance is not over yet because you have to fight to get out. Thanks to my size I win all the times. Then you have to get out and there is really no sense of march, they go in all directions so it's inevitable to be pushed around... When you are out of the station you can thank God for having made it another day! Yes, 18 Euro cent for all this excitement is really a bargain! I haven't tried yet the bus ride that for 4 cents seems to be very promising in term of enjoyment! I will and tell you about that too.

Walking around with friends. This is really an experience. A Chinese person in a hurry is like the supermarket trolley with the funny wheel. They walk randomly and it is inevitable that while you are talking you will not see that person anymore because she is on the other side, or you get pushed without too many compliments just because the "funny wheel" is giving problems.
They do tend to walk very close to the person they are in company of and I find rather embarrassing having these ladies walking as close as if were a couple. But, I have been told it's really normal so no illusions or allusions to the reasons why this happens.

Another thing to get used to it's receiving compliments. Being told "handsome" is everyday’s' thing over here. Same being told "ugly" or "fat", just to be fair. But the embarrassment starts when Chinese people assume that Westerners are very open minded so they can talk as they would never do with a fellow countryman. I have been TOLD that the size of the nose reflects the one of the penis so, due to the fact that my nose is HUGE, a lady told me that "your wife must be really considering herself lucky!". I didn't really know what to say, to be honest, firstly because my nose is not that huge by the western standards and this made me feel inadequate compared to my fellow "westerners", secondly because I didn't understand whether I had to reply "Thank you I will convey your compliments to my wife" or try to "minimise" the "thing". Just for your information, this lady was just one of the guest at a symposium about China's current economical situation and she was a 50 years old mother and happened to be sitting at the same table for the dinner that followed the event.

I asked a friend of mine about how open Chinese normally are about sex matters and the answer was, one again: not open at all. So, I am wondering if the comments coming out are to astray by a sort of frustration women live in. Because the "more open" ones are the ladies and not the men. I start thinking that the truth is that sexual relationships within the marriage are not similar to those in Europe. If you think of the comments made by women and read again the email I received in reply to my ad, Emails 3 and 3bis, it seems clear that women are just destined to give pleasure rather than getting pleasure themselves. I decided to browse the net and I found some interesting information about the position of the woman within the couple.

Women are ashamed of telling their partners what they really like. Many are resigned to the fact that they have to give pleasure to the husbands but not getting any back. They have sex very often with their husbands, I was reading some statistics by a condom company here in China, the biggest market in the world for condoms, where, amongst the condom users, 85% has sex between 3 and 7 times a week. The data was from 2006.

Going back to the evening at the seminar I had the chance to talk to a guy that has worked in Canada several years and that has opted to move back to China due to opportunities arising from the quick growth of this country. He claimed to be really positive about the future and reckons that China will grow enough to make it the most favourable place to live and do business. I asked him how quality of life compares to Canada, he was in Alberta, he said that except for the weather, there is no comparison between the two: Canada is much better. However for the brilliant future sake he decided to take a low paid job and try to climb positions within a Chinese firm. Anyway, the salary he currently makes is around 700 USD per month and he is 31 years old. His ambition is to become millionaire but at the moment he has just enough money to keep up with Jones. He just likes enjoying life and he struggles to reach week 3 of the month with his salary.

This is something I find hard to understand. Someone wishing to cumulate wealth, normally, will try to save... This guy instead is getting into debts because he is too sure that he will become millionaire, it's just a matter of time (according to him).

However, for those who want to get a bit more ruined, and feel like Europeans do, Standard Chartered Bank has introduced the first unsecured loan in China. Up to now all loans were secured against cash or against properties. The cash, up to 20K Euro, can only be used for some special purposes and not for debts consolidation or investments and so on. This means that the borrower has to prove and demonstrate that the money is entirely used for purchasing a car, for instance, pay some medical bills or home improvements. This is a nice step forward and some other banks will follow suite. I think that many will use cash for gambling. I am sure that controls will not be so strict.

There are some scenes that remains printed in your mind. They can be particularly pleasant, particularly unpleasant or, sometimes they just strike you in that moment and you do not know why. One of the scenes that has really struck me over here was the queue at a van. They were builders queuing for their mug of soup and some baozi (a sort of bun filled with vegetables and/or meat). They were queuing so nicely and when their mugs were filled up with that hot water they were digging into it as if it was gold and running to find a spot on the pavement to enjoy it. I am not sure if what has impressed that scene in my head is the fact that I have associated this event to poverty or if I was really surprised in seeing, for the very first time, Chinese people queuing in an orderly manner.

Grades and roles are fundamental in the work organisation and respect is always due. I realise that from small things. just to tell you one. During a meeting with some clients, a colleague of mine went to order some ice creams. She knows that I cannot take sugar so she just order a cappuccino for me while for all the others some ice creams except for the highest in rank that had a big banana split! The thing would have raised questions or comments in Europe, but not here were seniority, experience and grades are looked at with respect and I am experiencing it in my work experience. Never in my life I felt so appreciated and respecte like over here. But still I didn't get the banana split :))

Ok, me ol' Chinas, I will be in touch next week. I got things to do now and cannot spend all day writing my memoirs. Zajian!