Shane Travels

分红 Salons or pink salons were something that my Chinese tutor made me aware of via a humorous story regarding a female western／外国人 student/学生. (No more characters I promise). This student was walking down the street with her husband, who is also western and much bigger than she is. She was walking on the street side of the side walk and her husband was at her side next to the stores. They passed a salon and a couple of girls came out of the salon to flag her husband down. Once they got out of the salon they saw the “wife” and stopped immediately. The student didn’t know what to make of this so asked my tutor. My tutor explained that this was a “pink salon” and that they had nothing to do with cutting hair. The girls were in fact prostitutes… or as my Chinese tutor prefers “whores”. After being informed of this my tutors female student surveyed her local neighborhood and reported back to my tutor that there were at least four such establishments on her street.

Before being made aware of these establishments, I hadn’t noticed them in my own neighborhood. Those who know me, know that I am a bit of a power walker. I tend to put my head down and go quickly from point A to point B and since Shanghai sidewalk traffic and road traffic is dangerous I tend to keep my eyes focused on the ground and the moving things immediately around me. Of course once I found out about these establishments I decided to take a slower walk around the neighborhood. There are at least 8 of these establishments on my normal walking route. They are easily identified by the pink light that emanates at night from their front doors. A quick glance in the front door would usually reveal a couple of couches filled with girls dressed for success and one or perhaps two salon chairs. So what’s with the salon chairs… when it’s obvious that this is not a place to cut hair??

Well… prostitution is illegal in China. What goes on in the salons is illegal… so they present themselves as salons in order to give the police (who it seems likely… either make use of or profit from in some way from them) an excuse not to shut them down. Or at least this is what my tutor explained to me. For a more complete background check out this wikipedia article on the various forms / tiers of prostitution in China: Prostitution in the PRC

I was already aware of at least one of the other tiers of prostitution. “Dirty KTV”. My tutor pointed out to me that there was at least one “dirty KTV” right at the entrance to my building complex. I asked her how she knew it was a dirty one vs. a regular karaoke establishment. Her tips we’re quite practical: The door is open and you don’t hear any music coming out, and they usually have lots of neon. I suspect that it’s probably easier to find the dirty KTV places than the regular ones. Dirty KTV is often where largish groups of business men go to get drunk and hang out with pretty girls that they pay for.

So what’s with all of the prostitution going on in the neighborhood? And I do mean in the neighborhood. There is a pre-school across from one of establishments on my road. Men come and go from these establishments without a second thought to who observes their entrance or egress. These establishments seem to be everywhere and granted everywhere means everywhere that I can walk from around our apt and the downtown (市中心 - couldn’t resist). Is this a good thing… a bad thing?

My girlfriend (gf), who visits factories as part of her job, on more than one occasion has had girls sent to her hotel for her “Mr.”. The factory bosses assume my gf has a male boss who chose to stay at the hotel rather than come to the meetings at the factory. My gf takes this kind of thing in stride.

I’m not particularly prudish, selectively prudish perhaps, but something about how integrated the sex industry is into the local community and how “normal” it is… seems a bit odd. Unfortunately I don’t have many local Chinese friends to ask about this. My tutor (a woman) who is quite open with me explains that while Chinese girls/women may not like the fact that their husbands / boyfriends may visit these establishments… it’s just the way it is right now.

I’ve heard/read the argument that this is related to the one child policy, demographics and social stability. That there are not enough women for all of the men to marry, but I suspect it may be simpler than that. People (in this case exclusively men) are willing to pay for sex/companionship. If someone is willing to pay… most likely you’ll be able to find someone willing to sell. (So if you’re for free markets ??) Of course I know nothing of what working conditions are like for the women (girls??) working these places. I’m going to try and find the time to do some reading on the subject. The wikipedia article linked to above includes a number of references.

Hope this finds you happy and healthy…

shane