[Eug]

Anyone hear of this?

Reports of Japanese orgy in Zhuhai spark outrage (South China Morning Post - needs registration)

CHOW CHUNG-YAN and IRENE WANG

Reports that several hundred Japanese tourists held a three-day orgy with prostitutes in Zhuhai on the anniversary of Japan's 1931 invasion of China have sparked national outrage and a police investigation.

The five-star International Conference Centre Hotel - the site of the alleged orgy - has been closed and the head of the provincial public security bureau has gone to Zhuhai with a team of officers to take charge of the investigation, according to local media.

Police have reportedly seized videotapes from surveillance cameras in the hotel and detained several people.

The flap began when media reports emerged alleging that 400 Japanese men were serviced by 500 prostitutes while in Zhuhai between September 16 and 18. The reports caused outrage.

By yesterday afternoon, nearly 96,000 messages had been posted on mainland website Netease, criticising the Japanese tourists and the local government.

One message read: "I want to cry about the sad news. And I feel very ashamed. The Zhuhai government should take responsibility for this."

The reports have acted like a lightning rod for anti-Japanese sentiment, that has been brewing over issues such as the disposal of chemical weapons left in China following the Japanese occupation during the second world war.

The fact that the alleged orgy coincided with the September 18 anniversary of the 1931 Japanese invasion added fuel to the fire.

Media censors on the mainland have let the vitriol flow, and even the Communist Party's mouthpiece People's Daily has covered the scandal. Messages posted to websites have demanded the Japanese be brought back to China to stand trial. Many others demanded that Zhuhai officials resign.

"Prostitution is illegal in China. So how can such a large-scale orgy party take place publicly?" asked a message on the Xinhua forum.

Guangdong party secretary Zhang Dejiang has waded into the fray, ordering public security officers to "handle the case in the strictest manner".

Zhuhai Propaganda Department deputy chief Gao Demin yesterday said local officials "had taken the case very seriously".

"The incident is now under investigation. The investigation will be carried out by investigators from Guangzhou and our local policemen. If we find any person breaking our country's laws, we will arrest that person and punish him or her accordingly," Mr Gao said.

A message on the China Daily website said: "This issue can't be taken as prostitution simply. Those Japanese want to challenge our nation."

A Sina.com posting read: "It's a trivial matter for Chinese prostitutes to sell sex, but the key is to look at the intentions of the Japanese devils. They came on purpose for September 18." Mainland media reports included accounts from eyewitness who claimed to have seen Japanese men cavorting with prostitutes in elevators and in the hotel lobby.

A spokesman for the hotel said the reports were exaggerated, while police said it was difficult for them to investigate the incident.

"Usually, a single prostitution case can only be confirmed if it is discovered while in progress," a Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau spokesman said, adding that it would be difficult to find the people involved in the incident since it took place days ago.

But Ge Lei, a professor at Peking University, said finding the truth would be easy using eyewitness reports, confessions made by those who organised the prostitutes and security video footage.

"The key is the Chinese government's attitude. If the government wants to take it seriously, the issue can be cleared up soon. But if it doesn't, it is hard to say what will happen," he said.

[Meneldil]

So I was right about the news.

(I'm in China, and saw a report on the news about this. I'm not fluent, though, so I wasn't sure what was going on.)

I hope they get in trouble for this. I'm not totally on China's side in these matters, but I really think Japan should take more responsibility for what it did during the war. Things like Japanese heads of state paying respects to a Japanese general who ran a biological warfare experimentation camp and a national policy of denying events like the Rape of Nanjing are really petty and insulting to the Chinese.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Meneldil:
I'm not totally on China's side in these matters, but I really think Japan should take more responsibility for what it did during the war. Things like Japanese heads of state paying respects to a Japanese general who ran a biological warfare experimentation camp and a national policy of denying events like the Rape of Nanjing are really petty and insulting to the Chinese.

Indeed.

IIRC, there was a huge outrage over the first Japanese history schoolbook ever to mention the Nanking massacre at all about five (!!!) years ago.

-s*

[Eug]

I wonder how much of this is truth and how much is fiction though. The Japanese love to get "serviced" in China, but OTOH, the Chinese do too and one wonders if it wasn't "just" a big conference where everyone decided to get serviced as always happens anyway.

Interestingly, I'm told that the prostitutes were a significant source of military intelligence back in the 30s and 40s.

IIRC, there was a huge outrage over the first Japanese history schoolbook ever to mention the Nanking massacre at all about five (!!!) years ago.

Apparently, many of the invasion scenes in Bertolluci's Last Emperor was cut out in Japan.

Interesting, on the same day's front page of that article I linked is a ruling in Japan that 1.7 million bux US is to be paid to the Chinese for dumped chemical weapons at the end of WWII.

[Meneldil]

Originally posted by Eug:
I wonder how much of this is truth and how much is fiction though. The Japanese love to get "serviced" in China, but OTOH, the Chinese do too and one wonders if it wasn't "just" a big conference where everyone decided to get serviced as always happens anyway.

Interestingly, I'm told that the prostitutes were a significant source of military intelligence back in the 30s and 40s.

Apparently, many of the invasion scenes in Bertolluci's Last Emperor was cut out in Japan.

Interesting, on the same day's front page of that article I linked is a ruling in Japan that 1.7 million bux US is to be paid to the Chinese for dumped chemical weapons at the end of WWII.

It's definitely a step, but there's still a lot of other problems. It's also probably a lot less than the full amount needed. Mustard gas especially was a favorite weapon of the Japanese during WWII because the Chinese actually had them outnumbered by a great deal.

As to the conference, I realize I'm getting a severly twisted version of the story at the moment, but given how much weight factors like that have in this culture, I doubt the conference organizers didn't realize the significance of the date.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Meneldil:
As to the conference, I realize I'm getting a severly twisted version of the story at the moment, but given how much weight factors like that have in this culture, I doubt the conference organizers didn't realize the significance of the date.

True, but the Chinese law enforcement agencies themselves deserve a lot of the blame. Nearly every major hotel in China these days has a "beauty salon" which is a front for prostitution. And you can't go to a hotel without being woken up at midnight by some woman selling sex. I've learned to just ignore the knocks (anyone who needs to contact me for business or whatever has my number so they can just call), but it's damn irritating nonetheless. Both the police and the hotel staff look the other way, probably partially because they get bribed.

I remember hiring a masseuse for... a massage. I had quite a frank discussion with her about the situation in China. She said that she was a dying breed in the major cities... working as a masseuse just as a masseuse. Prostitution is rampant, but none of the authorities really seem to care. It's extremely difficult for a poor girl from the rural areas to do anything else, besides ultra low-paying waitress jobs or something like that.

Simply put, if the easy availability of this weren't there in China, the Japanese wouldn't go there for this purpose. And that's what the Chinese merchant class is afraid of.

[Meneldil]

According to our dear friend, the unbiased *ha* CCTV 9 (English language channel) reports* that the 1.7 million is compensation to a group of people exposed to a mustard gas shell after it was dug up in a construction site. They also had to sue to get it, so it doesn't impress me as much as it did. I'd like to see Japan helping with preventative cleanup- disasters like this happen every few years in China, and the consequences of mustard gas exposure are incredibly debilitating.

*Note: I admit they're biased as hell, but they don't tend to lie, and I see no reason to disbelieve what they said about this case. Normally they just pretend things they don't like never happened.

[Meneldil]

The feeling I've gotten is that a lot of people in the party would like to see it stop (though I have no doubts quite a few of them like it, as well), but it's also a way for these women to support themselves. China has too many people, period. The number of people with purely pointless jobs here is amazing.

As to them being employed by the hotel, I may be wrong, but I have a problem believing the hotel had a quarter that many prostitutes available. Even if the size of the orgy is being exaggerrated, that probably took a little work to pull in that many prostitutes. I've had to deal with prostitutes a lot here- they do make themselves readily available to foreigners if you go to certain places, and they are persistent. I've just never heard of anything of this scale before - and I think a big deal would have been made of it at most other times as well; the Japanese are probably the least loved nationality by the average Chinese person, for obvious reasons. It just seems like something that would have taken a bit of organization, and Japan really doesn't have to worry that much about the repercussions- China needs their investment to keep their ridiculous economy growing.

[Eug]

Yeah, the hotels would not have that many prostitutes available in-house, and 500 does seem high. OTOH I'm sure it wouldn't be impossible to get maybe a hundred or so (or even more) on relatively short notice. It'd take some organization, but all the organizers would have to do is flash some bills and other people would take care of the rest.

The feeling I've gotten is that a lot of people in the party would like to see it stop (though I have no doubts quite a few of them like it, as well), but it's also a way for these women to support themselves. China has too many people, period. The number of people with purely pointless jobs here is amazing.

True, but that masseuse is a good example. The problem is that foreigners don't want a massage. They want a massage and extra. Why bother paying a masseuse 80 yuan when you can get extra for 100?

[thunderous_funker]

Is there really any indication that they intentionally did it to commerate the invasion? Or is it just coincidence?

[Eug]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Is there really any indication that they intentionally did it to commerate the invasion? Or is it just coincidence?

Well, this stuff happens ALL the time, but just not on such a large scale. (The Japanese are among the best customers of Chinese prostitutes.) I wouldn't be surprised if it was simply a terrible coincidence. That said, I'm sure the local Chinese there would still find it pretty insulting.

[Sealobo]

Originally posted by Meneldil:
As to them being employed by the hotel, I may be wrong, but I have a problem believing the hotel had a quarter that many prostitutes available. Even if the size of the orgy is being exaggerrated, that probably took a little work to pull in that many prostitutes.

A typical "hotel" in southern China (Guandong) could easily spare 200 prostitutes even on the weekdays. The largest one that i know of have more than 1000. Yes it sounds crazy but there is a market for it. I am not surprised at all when the news came out. it's just a matter of time before some shxt like this get reported.

It just seems like something that would have taken a bit of organization, and Japan really doesn't have to worry that much about the repercussions- China needs their investment to keep their ridiculous economy growing.

China does not need Japanese investment. In fact the Japanese is not investing in scale in China. The current situation is that the Chinese are buying a lot of stuff from the Japanese (cars, eletronics in general). So maybe you should say that the Japanese needs Chinese strong market demand to keep their ridiculous economy getting out of the trough.

[Meneldil]

Originally posted by sealobo:
A typical "hotel" in southern China (Guandong) could easily spare 200 prostitutes even on the weekdays. The largest one that i know of have more than 1000. Yes it sounds crazy but there is a market for it. I am not surprised at all when the news came out. it's just a matter of time before some shxt like this get reported.

I meant to say on hand. I wouldn't have guessed a thousand (there's Guangzhou for you...) but I could see a couple hundred, maybe a few more, at some of the big hotels. But all ready to go? I'd be willing to bet there was some sort of 'reservation' made.

BTW- on the mustard gas issue, Japan is apparently appealing the court's decision to award compensation to the victims.