Over the years I’ve met quite a few fellow expats who have experienced the wonders of China. Many of them have had similar experiences to myself, and of course, they have their own random stories to tell.
Hence I thought I’d relate some of these. I’ll stress that these aren’t my tales, and I can’t vouch for the accuracy of them, but they do sound like things that would happen here!
I can’t remember who actually told me this tale, but let’s call him Lenny.
Now, there are sex shops in China, legal ones I mean, and, from my limited knowledge of them, they aren’t like the ‘dirty old man’ shops in the west. They sell sex aids mainly, some viagra pills too perhaps, but no porn.
These places are, again, from walking past them, small shops, though not necessarily tucked away, and they’ve never seemed like places people are embarrassed about here. However, maybe I’m wrong.
Lenny, who used to be an English teacher (Like many foreigners here) told me he’d just finished a class at a new school they’d sent him to. He gathered his gear and put it in his bag and, because it wasn’t easy to get a cab outside the school for some reason, walked down the road a bit.
At a random point he stopped and started to try and flag down a taxi, not usually something that takes very long here (unless it’s rush hour/raining). However, on this occasion, they all just drove on by.
Not one to give up easily, Lenny carried on trying and was somewhat alarmed then, when a police officer stopped by him and started, in Lenny’s words: ‘Having a go’ at him.
As Lenny didn’t speak any Chinese, or enough to placate this fellow anyway, he was getting all hot and bothered. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. He tried to explain he was just trying to get a cab.
Luckily for Lenny, one of the teachers from the school happened to come out and see this exchange, and rushed over to help. After a great deal of talking, the police officer, with one final finger wave at Lenny, left, and the Chinese teacher explained.
Unbeknown to Lenny, he was standing outside one of these small sex shops, and people passing by had all assumed he’d just come out of it (he was clutching a bag remember). Such is the shame, apparently, of this social faux pas, that no one would pick him up, and the police wanted to drag him off!
The teacher had explained that Lenny didn’t know there even was a sex shop there, and he’d just finished teacher a class at the school! It was all an honest misunderstanding.
So, traveler take heed! Watch out where you try and catch a cab!
Tags: living in China, sex shops
I would rather much be standing inside a sex shop than outside one….!