Shipped to Shanghai! Vol. 18 -- Pregnant Porno Peddlers

The original title of this post was "What they don't teach you in Asian Studies class," but insanity prevailed. In school they teach the magnificent history, the cultural achievements, etc. But what about the fake DVDs, the rampant spitting, not to mention the pregnant porno peddlers? This is the down and dirty stuff that's really interesting.

Some of these stories come from my own experiences, others are gossip I picked up on the backpacker circuit.

* * *

"What does 'slut' mean?" Athena asked. She was one of my higher-level English students.

She was looking at my notebook, where I write take notes during Mandarin lessons. I often make lists of words I want to know, so that Miss Zhang can translate them for me in our next class. It's so useful, I use it more often than my textbook. I end up using my restaurant and taxi notes at least once a day.

"A slut is a woman who has many boyfriends," I said, trying to be politically correct.

"Ah!" Athena said. "In China, we would call her a 'broken shoe.'"

"Huh?" I didn't get the meaning. "Why's that?"

"Because she's been walking on the street for too long!"

"Oh."

* * *

"When American man is with girl, does he keep score?" Jason asked. These students were engineers from Taiwan.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

His friend Dabou jumped in. "Like kissing is the first level, then the second level--"

"I got it!" I said. "In America, they use baseball. First base, second base, until the home run."

"Really?!" They smiled and said "yi lei, er lei, san lei," then really loudly, "quan lei da!" They laughed like maniacs and high-fived each other.

"What'd you say?" I asked, not getting it.

"Just like America!" Dabou said. "We say the same thing in Chinese!"

* * *

My company started assigning me to corporate training, where I get sent to companies to train their staff in English. Twice a week I go to a Korean company that specializes in paint and coatings for electronics. Their sales team wanted to learn English and "enter the American market."

I always try to be serious and professional, but it never works. These Koreans work 12 hours a day, not counting their English classes with me. After a long day of work, the last thing they want to do is study hard. They usually want to talk about something fun instead:

"Let's talk about dating!" Hoon suggested.

"All right, what do you want to know?"

"When American man go to bar, look for girl, how do they do it?" Hoon asked. He was a sales manager.

"What is the strategy?" Hyun-Sik said. He was a salesman.

"The classic way is to go in a team," I said. "It consists of two men: the gunner and the wingman." I wrote those words on the white board.

I brieftly went through the operation. An attractive girl is with her friend, who is not attractive. The wingman talks to the unattractive girl, getting her away from the pretty girl, who is the target. That clears the way for the gunner to go in and approach the pretty girl.

The Koreans were taking copious notes. "Hey! We do the same thing!" Hoon exclaimed.

"Really?" I was surprised.

"Yeah! The man who talks to the ugly girl is 'The Bomb.'"

"What do you call the gunner?" I asked.

"The Bomb Squad!"

* * *

"You have adult movies in America. They're called 'blue movies,' right?" Rachel asked. She was one of the high-level students.

"Yes," I answered. How did she know that?

"We have those movies too, but we call them 'yellow movies'" Rachel said.

"Yellow movies. Where do people buy them?" I asked.

"They have them in subway stations."

I remember seeing fake DVDs at subway stations, but no porno DVDs. "I haven't seen them at the subway stations I go to."

"Oh, you have to go to the stations out in the suburbs, like Xinzhuang and Meilong," Rachel said. "You can buy yellow movies from pregnant women."

I did a double take. "Pregnant women?" I asked, flabbergasted.

"Yes. Policemen don't bother them as much."

* * *

I was explaining the concept of swingers when one of my students interrupted:

"They often do that in Hong Kong," he declared.

"Really?" I asked.

"Rich men in Hong Kong often do that. If they see other rich man with young, beautiful wife, they approach and ask to swap wives."

"Why?" I asked.

"To save money. Chinese people, it's always about money. Do you know how much a 'model' or student costs?" He demanded.

I confessed that I didn't know the going rate for Chinese whores. "I don't know. How much?"

"1000 RMB to 2000 RMB! ($125-$250 USD). Cheaper to get another man's wife instead."

* * *

Julie is a fellow English teacher who works with kids. As an exercise, she asked one of her students what she does to help herself go to sleep. Playing computer games, reading, hitting the airplane--

"Wait," I said. "What's 'hitting the airplane' mean?"

"That's how Chinese say masturbation," Julie replied.

"But I thought your student was a girl," I said.

"They don't have a female equivalent, so they have to use the same term as boys."

"That doesn't make sense," I protested. "Girls don't have airplanes. They have . . . hangars?"

* * *

I was hanging out with Phil, an English teacher from Canada, between classes:

"So my friend and I checked into a cheap shit hotel in Bangkok. We went down to a bar for some drinks. My friend picked up some girl and took her back to his room. I thought she looked a little strange, but what the fuck, eh?

I'm sleeping in my room when I hear someone banging on my door. What the fuck? I opened it and it's my friend. He totally lost it, just wouldn't stop blabbering about something. I asked him where his new girlfriend was.

He said he'd taken her to his room. Gave him the best blowjob he's ever had, he swears. Then when he started banging her, something went wrong. The girl grunted hard, like a man's grunt. She was a post-op transexual! No shit."

* * *

I had the misfortune of hearing this story while I was eating dinner. We were at Rendezvous Cafe, which has the best cheeseburgers in the city. Andy is an Englishman who's been teaching in Shanghai for a few years. Before that, he worked in Japan:

"I was at a subway station looking through the magazines. Then I opened one magazine, said "Holy shit! I can't believe that's in a magazine," and put it back right away. I couldn't believe it was out in the open like that. Not sealed in a package or anything. Any kid could have picked it up.

I told my friend at work. He thought it was total bullshit. The next day he comes in says, "Andy, holy shit! They really put that shit in a magazine."

Are you sure you want to find out while you're eating, Marcus? Well, the picture was of a girl. Black hair, pale skin, a really beautiful girl. Dressed in a schoolgirl outfit. Such a Japanese thing.

This was on the street. She had her legs spread and she was taking a shit on the sidewalk. One piece was in mid-air, and there were several specimens already on the ground. Jesus Christ, I've never forgotten that picture. "

* * *

Mark, another English teacher, spent a vacation in Cambodia and had this to report:

"I spent two weeks in Phnom Penh for about $200 USD. I wasn't even trying to save money. This is drinking every night, all night long. It was great.

There's a place in the middle of the jungle called Sharkey's. Biggest cesspool I've ever seen. People having sex on the floor, in every room, everywhere. A guy walked up to me and opened a suitcase on the bar. Hash, weed, coke, heroin, he had everything for real cheap.

If you start to go nuts, they put you into this special room. The walls are padded. The people in there were on bad trips, man. Screaming and thrashing around. There's all these neon lights too, which only make it worse.

Seriously, people go to Cambodia and get twisted, real twisted. Once you take five hookers to bed with you, you can't go back to civilization. Who would want to?"