Prostitution In China
Prostitution is illegal but practiced openly. Prostitutes work out of five-star hotels, karaokes, entertainment centers, dance halls, boxing clubs, beauty parlors, hairdressers, barbershops, saunas, bathhouses, massage parlors, nightclubs and on the streets. Prostitutes operate openly in almost every major hotel in China. In one survey, 10 percent of sexually-active men admitted having paid for sex with a prostitute. Single foreign men often receive phone calls from prostitutes in their hotel rooms.
The sex industry is growing rapidly. Even small cities have their own entertainment districts. Estimates of the numbers of prostitutes in China range from 3 million according to officials estimates by the government to 10 million by the U.S. State Department to 20 million by one Chinese economist. By one count there around 1 million full-time prostitutes in China and perhaps 8 to 10 million more that sometimes accept money and gifts for sex. One marker of the booming sex industry in Shenzhen—both in terms of prostitutes and misstresses—is the high number of children born out-of-wedlock.
Prostitutes work at all levels of society from the grandest hotels to the poorest neighborhoods and lowliest villages. Prostitutes with beepers and mobile phones openly solicit sex at truck stops on the main highways. Movie houses have girls who charge $12 for petting and more for after movie entertainment. The beaches on Hainan have "swimming escorts" and the economic free-zones near Hong Kong have "concubine villages."
Prostitutes from northern China earn $25 a trick working out of the backroom of beauty parlors near the Burmese border in Yunnan. In Shenzhen you can dance three songs and “touch me anywhere you want” for $1.20 or have a female factory worker visit your hotel room for $25. In the Golden Star neighborhood of Kunming the girls walk the streets and patronize men that cruise by in taxis. The girls usually charge around $20.
Rise in Prostitution
Prostitutes used to be found mostly in well known bars and karaokes in the major cities. Now they are found everywhere: on university campuses, in residential neighborhoods and even at Wal-art stores in almost every town in every province Customers are often secured through cell phone and Internet services.
These days there are so many prostitutes that an oversupply has forced prices down. Workers that earned $30 a trick in 2005, could only make $20 in 2006 and were earning only $13 a trick in 2007. There are some prostitutes that are so desperate they service scores of migrant workers for $1 a piece under bridges and overpasses.
One 22-year-old prostitute told the Washington Post, “Though the price has gone down, the number of customers is up. I used to receive two visitors before, and now I have to do three to four a day. My income is the same. I just have to work a little harder.”
The rise in prostitution is more a manifestation of a lack of well-paying jobs than a loss morality. Many prostitutes send a large portion of their income to their families and to their hometowns. One prostitute who worked in a textile factory and as a dishwater in a hotel before turning tricks told the Washington Post, “There was a karaoke parlor in the hotel.. .And all the girls didn’t have to work at all. Yet they made big money. I worked all day and made 400 yuan [$53] a month. it’s because of money that I became ‘bad,’ and joined the business.”
Prostitutes are called "xiaohie," or “miss.” In Beijing there are sometimes called "chicken girls." In parts of southern China they are known as "cows." Popular brothels often shuffle in new girls every week to attract repeat business. Many prostitutes are migrants from rural areas to the cities. Many willingly chose to work as prostitutes for $50 per trick rather than work for $50 a month in a factory.
A study of the sex industry in rural China found “ a lot of young girls want to get rich so badly and want to make use of their beauty before it slips away. They consider working hard a waste of time and feel their looks are a waste if they don’t take advantage of them immediately.”
In industrial towns many of the prostitutes, hostess and dance hall girls are women who have been laid off from factory jobs. A 20-year-old women in Shenzhen who works out of a back-alley. two-room massage parlor and has sex with four or five men a day told the New York Times she took up prostitution after she lost her factory job and was unable to get a new job unless she paid a bribe she couldn’t afford because she lost her identity card. “I was really terrified at first, and I was really embarrassed and didn’t even know how to use a condom. I didn’t have any choice, though. Little by little you get used to it.”
One prostitute told Time, “I’m always a little scared. Sometimes men beat me up or they’ll refuse to pay after we have sex.” The goal that many prostitutes have is find a sugar daddy and get off the street and become a concubine.
Sometimes Chinese girls don’t like foreigners. One American man told Theroux that a Chinese pimp had told him, Americans "are too big in their penis. The girl is Chinese. She is very small. It will hurt her too much."
Women Willingly Seeking Work as Prostitutes
An increasing number of young women in Yunnan Province are willingly going to Thailand and Malaysia to work as prostitutes or are being ordered by their families to work in brothels in these countries because the money is good. Girls from the Dai minority are particularly sought after in Thailand because they are regarded as beautiful and their language is similar to Thai.
One 20-year-old woman in the Mekong River village of Langle told the New York Times, “If you can’t go to Thailand and you are a young woman here, what can you do? You plant and you harvest. But in Thailand and Malaysia I heard it was pretty easy to earn money so I went....All the girls would like to go, but some have to take care of their parents.”
Some do quite well and this is often reflected by the nice homes—with satellite television, air conditioning, generators and tile designs—owned by their parents. Some families with several daughters live in chateau-like homes with chandeliers, leather-covered sofas, golden Buddhist altars and fancy home entertainment centers.
Prostitutes, Barber Shops and Karaokes
Many brothels are fronted by saunas or karaoke bars and many massage parlors are located in barber shops or beauty salons. A reporter for the Washington Post walked by a beauty salon and was told by a tout, "Hey, foreigners. I've got the best you can imagine—virgins, experienced pros, cheap and they are ready for you. Come try one." Pimps outside barber shops boast that their girls are cheap, beautiful and da pao ("set off a bang"). The usual charge is around $25.
Prostitution and karaoke often go hand and hand. By one count there are over a thousand karaokes in the Guangzhou-Shenzen area that offer the sexual service of 300,000 women, most of them migrants from Sichuan. The Enjoy Business Club karaoke parlors in Shenzhen have singing rooms in the downstairs rooms and sex upstairs in private rooms.
Prostitutes work places that cater to all kinds of clients: businessmen, foreigners, professionals. The owner of one massage parlor told the Washington Post he makes about $2,000 a month and is supported by local officials who take a cut of his profits.
If love hotels or back rooms of a karaoke are not available there is always the local park. One man asked Theroux if he wanted a girl and then told him "I can get you a very dark and private corner in the park, so you can be alone with her." Theorux said he was told about one brothel run by public security police where "customers can feel safe that they won't be raided."
Freelance prostitutes, who work out of beauty parlors, often meet different clients at different places, taking calls from different salon managers on their cell phones. Pimps sometimes solicit foreign customers in the sock department of Wal-Mart in Shenzhen, at first asking for $150 a night for girls displayed on their cell phones and then dropping the price to $80 a night.
First timer Mongering in Chang Ping, Dongguan, China
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