On The Turning Away

We were alerted to some excerpts of the now infamously on-the-run blogger, China Bounder, whose blogging manifesto, “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”, seems to have taken on a life of its own. For those of you who can’t be bothered with links, read on.

So far the best blog-sleuth is Mark Baker, who followed China Bounder’s digital trail in the blogosphere, e.g. where he dropped comment. Marc van der Chijs also has a good roundup in his blog - and one comment left on August 28 was particularly telling:

Why would you even care, he is being a jerk to women - does it matter that they are Chinese? Anyone that may have taught English in Japan knows that this happens all the time there with ‘former studnets.’

Anyone ever stumbled upon a racy Japan Bounder Blog? Or the “bounders” are just too busy doing it to blog? For better or worse, the Japanese may not be irked by their women’s (well-known) attention, if not preferences, to white males but it’s downright patronizing to hold up the Japanese as the paragon of Asian sensibilities.

After the jump, the excerpts from “Sex and Shanghai Blog” -

Excerpts from Sex and Shanghai Blog - with no time stamp attached - and since Google’s cache version is now empty, read at your peril.

……In spite of the title of this blog, my whole life is not purely a quest for sex; the company of women is simply more enjoyable than that of men. It seems to me the men in this culture have, mostly, rather little to say for themselves, but the women are confident, articulate and nuanced. Each woman is different; most men are the same. That’s why 95% of my friends are women.

No attention can be worse than unwanted attention, sure. But in this case, Ceecee did seem rather disturbed by it. I think the problem is that Chinese guys can often be freakish and weird in their attentions. China’s got a pretty fucked-up culture. There’s a vicious little tradition in the country of jilted lovers attacking the person who spurns them with acid, on the basis of `If I can’t have you, I’ll make sure no-one else will want you.’ Guys here often mix their wooing with threat of violence, sometimes to themselves but more often to the woman.

And so Chinese society is stuck in deep denial, and the people who know least about modern China are the Chinese themselves. Chinese people, in general, know nothing about their society and are simply not interested in finding out. For example, I have asked 50 people in the last week what is happening at Shengda University(Ed. note: Italics are ours. Anyone heard of this school?). Not one knew. They simply do not care, are notinterested in finding out. Eyes shut, blindness all the way.

The following are China Bounder’s responses to readers’ comment -

Anonymous said..Every male who’s interacted with the various women of China knows Shanghai women are the biggest whores in China.

ChinaBounder - A lazy piece of stereotyping. Shanghai girls are different to what you suppose. And in any case, neither Mona, nor Tingting, nor Lucy nor Jingjing were Shanghai girls. You, rather like BMPC have a puritanical and prescriptive attitude towards sex. You seem to have decided that Shanghai women behave in a way of which you disapprove and that all women who behave like this must therefore be Shanghai girls.
　　
　　You are wrong, and you show that you neither understand the women of Shanghai in particular nor the women of China in general.
　　
　　Of course no population can be understood as a whole, since everyone is an individual. And so I do not claim to ‘understand’ women in any especially profound way. But I would hesitate to make such a sweeping and ill-informed statement as you.

Anonymous said… What’s your purpose of you writing such fucked blog you’ve nothing to show off,cause you are just a fucking animal.

ChinaBounder - Why not? This is the life I lead. I am not showing off. And we are all ‘fucking animals.’

Anonymous said: you think making love with a wrong guy is not a big matter,that’s just your opinion,actually to many Chinese girls it’s a big thing, …and you will probablly destroy her future life!

ChinaBounder - To some it is. To some it is not. Ellen, or Mona, for example – for them sex is fun, passion, excitement. It’s not the be all and end all of human existence.

Anonymous said…and you will probablly destroy her future life!

ChinaBounder - You exaggerate.
　　
　　This kind of attitude is a mistake. People who make sex so very important are certain to be let down. Treating love, sex and marriage as some sort of holy trinity is the key reason why so many Chinese women regret their marriages. They have brought into all this society bullshit about how important sex is. But then, in their marriage, they find sex is no big deal at all; and thus comes disappointment and disillusion.

Anonymous said…Chinese girls made themselves ‘cheap’ and I as a chinese girl sometimes am ashamed..

ChinaBounder - this is a curious attitude. Why should you be ashamed for what other Chinese people do? Why can you not see beyond the idea of `being Chinese’ and be an individual? You have no more need to be ashamed of what you perceive as a Chinese person acting in a bad way (though I dispute that they are) than a Muslim has any need to be ashamed of the people who attempted the recent terrorist attacks in Britain.

Anonymous said…But what I really want to comment is your disgusting attitude against the Chinese men. They are completely false, just flat out wrong.

ChinaBounder - You argue well and there is a lot of truth in what you say. Yes, my friends are mostly men, not women, and so you are well within your rights to call me on it. You are also wholly right to point out that since I seem to talk to women in unhappy relationships, I will have a skewed perspective.
　　
　　But as I have mentioned in my blog, I often ask my classes about this, and 70% of women or so do tell me Chinese guys lack passion. Bear in mind that this is 70% of a whole class, not just 70% of a group I have selected, of a group that has selected me. and these groups are not undergraduates alone, but range from high school pupils to senior managers.
　　
　　Also I often talk about the type of cultural preconceptions you mention here in my classes. The general opinion seems to be the Western guys are more fun, more passionate, more creative – and much less trustworthy, decent, and honest. And Chinese guys are rather undemonstrative, passionless and stodgy – but much more reliable, trustworthy and family-oriented. Generalizations, of course, should never be believed wholesale, but often hold a grain of truth.
　　
　　And perhaps you knew the special reputation Shanghai men have. They are held to be somewhat effeminate. Among the male friends I do have, I find northern guys to be much more interesting than southern guys.

And a sharp critique of China’s business culture

But in this country it does not matter how good you are; it matters who you know. From top to bottom, China is stuffed with incompetent and idle buffoons who hold their jobs by mere virtue of having the right friends.
　　
China does not reward talent (which is of course a blessing for me), and this is the reason so many people leave the country. Time and again I have heard it from students (most often female students, for the connections club is mostly male) — `I can’t get ahead in my company, I don’t have the right connections.’
　　
Example of this enough with Gloria; by far the most capable person in the office, she lacked the right friends. And without that protection she had no defence against the spiteful backbiting, the dirty jostling and sniping, the petty viciousness and cowardice that is so much a part of the impotent and raging history of China.

Commentary on politics -

But given that 99% of everyone I know here would agree with this stand, would puff and fuss and strut at the idea Taiwan was a separate country, in spite of the clear and obvious truth that it is, in every meaningful way, separate, what can one do? I can explain it step by step, that it has its own laws, its own government, that Beijing has no political or legal or monetary control over it, and they will follow me, will agree. I can say that it has its own history and native language and, less readily, they will agree; yet with all this they will still not accept it is a separate country. And, faced with that level of obtuse ignorance, that stubbornness, what can one do? It is as futile as arguing with creationists.
　　　　　　
　　So few people here are truly able to think, able to see beyond the pabulum whipped up by the government. It’s easier to keep it simple, China good, Japan bad; China right, rest of the world wrong. For example, I tried to pin down Tingting over Beijing’s appalling cover-up of the news must be allowed to get in the way of the outrageous parade of filth and lies they initial SARS outbreak, to see if she would accept that China owed the world an apology since, as a doctor, she must accept that it was the initial cover up that stymied efforts to stop the spread of the disease, letting it leap to Hong Kong and then the world. Doctors in the region wanted to announce the disease so that people could take safety measures; but they were shut down by the government since this happened at the time of a big Communist Party meeting.
　　
　　These wretched events are wholly choreographed, and no bad generate – days of rubbish about how good the Party has been for China, when in truth it has created vast misery, suffering, pain and the deaths of millions upon millions.
　　　　　　
　　But while Tingting accepted Beijing was at fault, she would not accept it owed anyone an apology – while being quite sure Japan, which (unlike China) has attacked no-one in the last 50 years, did.
　　　　　　
　　This rising tide of Nationalism is dangerous. When people as educated as Tingting buy into the lies, anger and hate, then the future is worrying indeed.