Reader Submission

Here's a post by Margot. Keep sending those emails ladies!

Thanks for a great blog - I've been really enjoying it, and given the dating scene here, you'll never run short of material.

My greatest piss-off these days is the aggressive expat males down at the nightclub, who seem to think that any Asian girl is fair game for their pathetic advances.

I take a lot of my Chinese female friends to the nightclub to have a good time and dance, but unfortunately I'll spend most of my time protecting them from the unwanted physical attention of these expat losers. Because of a few loose Chinese girls, these guys don't seem to recognize that their attempts at leg humping or butt grinding on the dance floor aren't being appreciated. A note to these guys: When the girl is shrinking away from you, looking at the floor and protectively crossing her arms over her chest and looking scared, she's not into you! She's just too polite to tell you to fuck off! So don't give me the evil glare when I have to physically interpose myself to get you off of her - you never had a chance anyway!

Oh - and to the 50+ something geezer who physically hauled my friend (25 yr old law graduate) on to the dance floor at Alfa, against her continuing protestations, so that I actually had to push you away from her so she could go back to her table, at which time you smirked at me and said, "Oh, is that not allowed?": NOT ALL CHINESE GIRLS ARE PROSTITUTES, YOU PATHETIC LOSER!! Go back to the all-service massage parlour where at least the girls get paid to put up with you!

The Cry on my Shoulder Man

We've gotten a lot of questions lately about the purpose of this blog...it all began when a few disheartened and disenchanted young women got together and began venting our frustrations about the men around us. As we shared our stories, we noticed common threads of loserness, (yes, in our world that's a word) among the male characters in our lives. We felt the need to document the phenomena, in case anthropologists in the future ever decide to study the mass exodus of expat women from Beijing. But seriously, we all found great comfort and strength in our sisterhood and realized there are some things that only other women can understand. There are indeed some great guys out there who make wonderful friends but as hard as they try they can never truly empathize and relate the way girlfriends can. So this site is an extension of our sisterhood for all the down and out women of Asia (and our male supporters). We hope the site will grow to contain a good dose of humor as well as heartfelt submissions. Thanks for your support.

So, speaking of guy friends who are there for you in your time of need....here's a story we heard recently...

The Cry On My Shoulder Man

"So I hear you two broke up," the guy friend says over the phone. Funny, I hadn't told him. Guess word got out. That was fast. Is there a BBS somewhere documenting my relationship status?

"It's going to be ok. I will be right over," he cooes into the phone.

"But it's 1am and I'm actually about to sleep," I protest.

"No, no, you must not be alone at a time like this. I will be there for you."

That's awfully sweet, I think. Maybe not all men are pigs. I prepare my flat for company. Throw the mound of wet tissues into the basket, take down the dartboard mounted with the ex-boyfriend's head shot, etc.

The friend shows up with a bottle of Great Wall red wine. "To calm your nerves," he says.

Barely fifteen minutes and a few gulps of acidic wine later, my stoic mask cracks and I'm sobbing on his shoulder. He holds me tight. Somewhere in between hysteria and hyperventilation he takes my head in both hands, looks me straight in the eyes and says "Listen, you're too good for him. You're beautiful and smart and sweet and funny and he doesn't deserve you."

I perk up, the way a starving cat perks up upon hearing the distant chime of a dinner bell. After having my ego sliced and diced recently, it's a relief to hear something like that. What a great friend, I think again. I give him a little hug and am about to release to blow my nose when suddenly, he was on top of me like a wrestler going for the final pin. His mouth is on mine, trying to suck my lungs out. I flop about under him like a dying fish until I manage to slide out from under his roving limbs.

"What are you doing!?" I scream.

"I just want to help you feel better, " he says, disturbingly calm. He reaches for me once more. "Come here, baby."

"If I wanted this kind of comfort I'd be sitting at Bar Blu in a push up bra and tank top right now! Go, just go!" I seethe.

After he leaves I pull out the dart board. I wonder if it can fit two pictures...

Not all men in china are... dirtbags?

This is in response to James A's comment in "Myspace is for Creeps and Wierdos" post:

Dear James,

Thanks for your comment. Being our first male commenter and a laudatory one at that, you are now the darling of the China Dirt posse. Praising will get you love! Criticisms will be met with scathing retorts! Just kidding... or are we?

Anyways, after receiving some suggestions, we're opening the forum for China dating stories from both sexes, although we'll still be most partial about ones about assholes of the male variety.

Even in our bitterness, China Dirt admits that there are a few good men out there. Unfortunately, it always seems that 70% of the few are in rewarding relationships already. Well, I suppose with every loser there's an even better rant. Silver lining girls, silver lining.

Keep on dishing,
China Dirt

Myspace is a place for creeps and wierdos, Series One

This isn't so much China related as it is just creepy guy related...

Being embarassingly vain we all want to put our best faces forward even when it's only on a internet networking site like myspace.com; but as soon as you put up a halfway decent picture of yourself, you're flooded with the slimy messages from slimy men. It's funny how similar most messages are to one another yet the sender probably thinks they're being incredibly smooth or original. Heads up Myspace messagers: If you send any messages like the ones below, you are neither smooth nor original. You are a douchebag and there's no way in hell I'd ever respond to you as you probably have a nice little repetoir of STDs to accompany your repetoir of come ons. That being said, we will reply here on blogspot so the whole internet world can see what we really want to say.

SUBJECT LINE: beautiful
MESSAGE: You are so beautiful. I am coming to China in a month and would love to meet you. I find it ironic that as I leave for China I see the most beautiful girl in the world. -T

OUR REPLY: Oh how ironic it is T that you happen upon my Myspace page just as you're about to fly over here. I'm so overwhelmed by both of our lucks, I KNOW it must be yuanfen. Oh wait, out of your 300 friends about 299 are scantily clad Asian girls. As much as we would adore being part of the Asian fetish orgy you seem to be having on Myspace we're going to have to politely abstain from your invitation.

SUBJECT LINE: hi beautiful
MESSAGE: hi beautiful, are you still in Beijing or back in the US? I am looking for nice people in Beijing cause I am new there (just started a new job): I need a social life and some action.

OUR REPLY: Gee thanks! You're here for some action? By "nice people" would you possibly mean "easy girls"?

More to come later. Send in your Myspace messages! The spite-fest can only get better...

Reader Entry

Here's a submission by a Ms. Jess White to aid our men profiling. Thanks Jess!

A Cynic’s View of Sexpat Men: The Sleaze Ratings (Low to High)

Students - 18 upwards. Innocent, conscientious and game, but gone before you even know their name.
Sleaze factor - Low (sleazy is not a word to describe these ambitious young things)The

Divorcees that Do Look Back in Anger - 40s upwards. Divorced their 'bitch' of a wife back home. Bitter but bold, they arrive in China to start a afresh, disguising the move as 'exploring business opportunities.' True to a degree when they find themselves entering (quite literally) into a mutually beneficial trading contract. They realise they can get a Chinese wife way out of their league who is half their age + 5 'cause that's the result of the 'acceptable calculation' apparently? She gets money and more than one child and he gets a cum receptacle who never answers back - normally cause they cant communicate in the universal language of English, or love for that matter.
Sleaze factor - Low (they've accepted that life for them now is better than ever)

Yellow Tinted Glasses - late 20s upwards. Normally average but reasonably nice guys. Came out here cause they needed a life change but announce they're not into Chinese women. In an innocent attempt to learn some Chinese they find themselves hanging around with a language exchange, who usually comes in the form of an attractive Chinese student who is young, single and white-cock hungry. It doesn't take long then for this category to get 'into' Chinese women. When questioned on they're change in attitude, they claim to be suffering from 'yellow fever.'
Sleaze factor - Medium (they're blinkered to yellow on the colour chart, but there's always a twinkle in the back of their eye for a Western girl)

The Serious Sex Tourist - 50s upwards, and upwards. Complete social misfits back home. If they’re really serious they'll try to avoid metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai for there are too many harsh reminders of reality. Normally head to less obvious places where the local women are (more) wowed by their white, wrinkly skin and deep pockets. Take G, a sex tourist. Claimed to be 30, but on observing his dyed brown hair and comb-over a more realistic estimate puts him at nearer 60. He claims you’re no fun if you don’t allow him to grope your breasts. He has been observed trying to hit on a young Chinese girl who was passed out at the time from too much Baijiu. When told to get the hell off her and he responded with 'What? There are rules here now?' Apparently not, for people like him in Chongqing. He left that night to go home with his 19 year-old girlfriend.
Sleaze factor - High (they'll try their luck with anything that moves)

What Goes on Tour Stays on Tour - Mid-20s upwards and seemingly nice. Normally out here on a secondment or chose to come out here because there's something they're trying to get away from back home. Home being the place where they're holding a girlfriend hostage (with the help of his mates), with the promise that they'll be back in a couple of years for her hand in marriage. It's selective as to whether you get told about her or not. They behave as though they are single, but too pussy to dump that special someone for fear of returning home to a life of bachelorhood. Some of these deludedmiscreants think that praying after sex will counter their infidelity. They normally also claim they'll never go near Chinese girls, but prostitutes don't count apparently.
Sleaze factor - high risk (Choosing to utilize subtle strategies in the form of complex mind games, in keeping with the game of self-denial they're playing with themselves, in order to bed their targets)

Parisians - 20s upwards. 'Papa' has encouraged them to move to China to further the family business. What you see is what you get with this category - womanisers whose only experience of English women is misspent holidays in Majorca. Will try to charm your pants off with their wining and dining and shocked when you fail to put out. "Bot I do not understand?" exclaimed E after a date with an English girl "I sort all English girls are slugs. Bof!"...maybe he meant slags.
Sleaze factor - High (really amusing to laugh at though, but also risky because if you hang around them for too long you become intoxicated by their garlic breath)

The Finding Himself Man

“What do you do?” That’s a question thrown about at all networking events, dinner parties, post dinner party parties, and other hook-up activities thinly veiled as something more socially acceptable. It’s asked all around the globe. In most NORMAL parts of the world, when posed to a man, they’d reply promptly. But in Beijing, when you ask an expat man this, you’re more than likely to get a) a blank stare as his brain slowly putt putts away trying to figure out what response would make him sound like he actually does SOMETHING respectable b) a frantic caught-in-the-headlight look as if you just asked him to explain the meaning of life c) a slick, well-rehearsed monologue about how China is the future and he wants a part of it, which sounds acceptable until you realize after listening to him ramble on for 30 minutes that he still has not actually told you what he does d) a list of jobs which include the words freelance, writer, artist, actor, filmmaker, DJ or English teacher (no offense to the decent guys of these professions but sadly your lesser brethren have given you a bad rep) or finally e) muttering and stammering with the phrase “finding myself” thrown in repeatedly. Girls, if you stumble upon one of these fellas, and you inevitably will if you spend even 30 seconds in Nanjie, Kai, Shooters, Bar Blu, Browns, oh hell, ANY BAR in this city, run! You have just met the “Finding Himself Man” (FHM).

The FHM can initially seem deep and philosophical. He will undoubtedly spend hours expounding on the alienation he felt in the materialistic and superficial surroundings back in his home country-the alienation that drove him to search for something more in China. Sounds beautiful doesn’t it? A modern day TK of your very own. Who cares that he doesn’t have a real job? Or dresses like a slob? Or never gets up before noon? He’s above silly social constraints like ambition, a clean wardrobe, and daylight hours, right? “Oh, he’s so deep,” you think and even begin to question your own sensibilities. Maybe I should quit my job and wander about aimlessly? Maybe I too should stop showering. Maybe there is something to living like a vampire? The months, maybe even years, will drag by, as nothing seems to change. The finding himself process can’t be rushed, right?

But one day, the light will go on. You will start asking, “Just exactly what do you expect to find night after night at Nanjie?” “Are the answers to your questions written on Qingdao bottle caps?” “Do the lyrics of Chinese punk rock songs at D-22 say something to you? I find that hard to believe since you don’t’ even speak the language after 2 years here!”

To the FHMs out there I say:

FIND some maturity by getting a real job. And no, filing one story a week to an unnamed newspaper back home, occasional modeling as the token white boy in some baijiu billboard, and “tutoring” Chinese college girls does not count!

FIND some decency by appreciating your girlfriend-the one who cooked for you after 10 hour workdays, ironed and laid out clothes for you when you had interviews, who puts up with your equally immature friends and pretends not to be lonely when you leave her four times a week to go find yourself on Sanlitun.
FIND some courage to tell your girlfriend the TRUTH about the other woman you’ve been seeing so that your girlfriend doesn’t have to hear about it from other sources and suffer a near anxiety attack in the middle of a dinner party being thrown by her boss.
If you were a real man, you’d FIND a doorway out of this little box of selfishness and oblivion in which you live. You’d FIND a way to recognize that living like a nomad does not make you deep, only pathetic. You’d FIND out that responsibility and commitments aren’t evil constraints but realities of life. You’d FIND that you can’t live like a teenager forever!

Ringing in the New Year

Hooray! It's our first submission thanks to an email from "Betsy".

Guy: Expat
Age: 21
Flaw: Bad Kisser

"I spent the early hours of 2007 getting the WORST kisses I have ever got in my LIFE from a boy born in 1985. He somehow kissed me so hard he popped out my lip ring. then, when I made the mistake of kissing him again, he ran his hand through my hair, made a fist, and then PULLED MY HAIR. Obviously, I didn't take that silently, and told him to stop it. Later in the night when I was leaving the party he asked me for my number because "Betsy, given the opportunity I'd really like to fuck you." Ugh, ugh, ugh. UGH!!!!"

LBH: Loser Back Home

Sometimes I feel like one of the main reasons expat guys come to China is because life back in their home countries had gone drastically wrong. What? you're over 30 and have never held a real job? Oh? You failed out of university in your second year and don't have any direction in life? Hm? You're addicted to cocaine and are exiled from your home country? Ah? You have mysterious twitches and smell a bit funny?

All these Oh-so-appealing guys are known as LBH's or "Losers Back Home." These LBHs however find sanctuary in the welcoming (and not-so-picky) arms of the Chinese girls here. A big "I'm Sorry" to all the sensible and awesome Chinese girls out there but you know that it's the stupid ones that ruin it for everyone. It gets so bad in China that after awhile, "Does not cheat on me" becomes an actual quality that boosts up a guy's rankings rather than an unspoken given when entering a relationship. "Will not fuck me over", "Does not have a bloated ego and a head up his ass" become moved up above the traditional "Good sense of humor" and "Smart and interesting." Rarely do you hear of a girl finding an expat guy who has achieved all these qualities at once here. There's always one. critical. flaw. But after enough time, the China goggles get foggier and foggier and standards drop lower and lower.

QUICK SEGUE
I once dated a guy who would announce every single time we fought that I should thank him for being such a good boyfriend because he could "go out and find a girl tonight" but thank GOD, he was so moral and so wonderful that he wouldn't. To that I wanted to scream "THANKS YOU GIGANTIC DOUCHE. Do you realize that back in our home countries I'd totally be out of your league?" But instead, I kept quiet because he was loyal and in China, that's a quality that is rarer than finding a blue diamond. It wasnt until 5 months of that shit before I realized that I would rather be back in the fray of shit guys than put up with this guy's shit one, minute longer.

So welcome to China ladies where a obtaing that healthy monogamy is apparently like getting a cool, decoder ring nowadays as your Cracker Jack prize. That is to say pretty much impossible. I mean, I can take tradeoffs: an uglier guy for a better personality, an amazingly hot guy who's brilliant but cheats because he has a low ego but FUCK! In China you have the 'tards that are both ugly AND stupid AND have the worst personalities AND yet still walks around like a pompous jackass, frontin like he's God's gift to women. I know Eve may have eaten the forbidden fruit and damned humankind for all eternity, but it's time for the punishment needs to end. It's getting to be cruel and unsual.

BACK ONTO LBH'S
So these Loser Back Homes seem to come to China in droves. Upon arrival they will inevitably get an unfairly pretty Chinese girlfriend. They will then choose two paths: attach themselves to the girlfriend with the despearation of a dying leech or treat girl like shit and then cheat on her with multiple other girls that are also out of his league lookwise but are obviously on the same mental wavelength since they are too stupid to realize how much the LBH sucks.

I heard from a friend in Korea that, in Korea, expat guys usually go for the first option with then Korean girl then cleaning up and dressing him in something decent so that he then at least looks like a well dressed LBH. Hey, if you're going to be a loser, you may as wear some designer brands to make your girlfriend happy. In China, guys seem to gravitate towards the later option. It's as if they step off the plane and their brain becomes addled with the smell of cheap perfume and cheap sex in the air.

I came to China with standards I swear. What those standards were seem awfully hazy and nebulous now. I won't go as far as date LBH's but I will find myself scraping not too far from the bottom of the barrel. After all, it holds all too true that, in China, high standards won't keep you warm in a cold bed. And so I find myself dating guys whose behavior would make girls back home cringe and vomit violently with only wince and a resigned shrug. "Oh well, they are in China."

POINTS OF FUCK!

China's a rough place to live if you're a girl. Sketchy, gross, clueless or just plain idiotic guys seem to cover the entire country like a bad case of the pox. A pox on the dating scene of the East!

This blog is to tell the good, bad, ugly, funny, horrifying aspects of dating in a rapidly developing country that says its adheres to traditional views of chasity but, in reality, oozes a hook-up culture. It's a forum for the women of China to rant. It's a space where we encourage you to be your bitchiest. It's a platform for you to say all the nasty things you wanted to say to that fucking asshat you were dating but couldn't because you had to seem like you were taking the break up with grace and poise (who wants to be known as the "insane ex-girlfriend?").

So after you're done bashing him to all your friends, email us and dish away. Just think of how much you can potentially save on therapy... and how much you'll be helping others who are going through the same China relationship crap.