7.10.2005
Sex sells.
Or at least, that's what they say. I guess we'll find out soon, since sex--or at least, strange Chinese newspaper stories about sex--will feature heavily in this post. Do you find yourself more interested yet? Just wondering.
Anyway, the English-language newspapers here always have a wide variety of interesting stories, and not just because of the sometimes questionable English phrasing, which--while amusing--is often not as entertaining as the actual content. For example, any story about Taiwan (AKA the Renegade Province of Taiwan) always features lots of qualifiers and quotation marks, so instead of saying something like the President of Taiwan, the papers here would say the so-called "president" of Taiwan. Amusing, isn't it? The alleged "supreme court" is also another popular target, and don't even get me started on the "independence" movement because I could go on all day.
But luckily for you, I won't. Go on all day, that is. What I will do is say that while I generally don't post or mention these stories--they're chuckle funny, but not really ha-ha funny--the other day I ran across one that was so strange that I simply had to share, not only with the ten or so of you who actually read what I write, but also for the rest of you who get here by accident, usually--if my stat counter/tracker is to be believed--by searching for something sex related and who no doubt stopped reading long before this paragraph, making the majority of that last sentence completely pointless. I know, I know: such a waste. (Seriously, some variant of "sex massage"--be it "Beijing sex massage," "Shanghai sex massage," or whatever--seems to be a very popular search term. Someday I will have to do a post on just that. Well, maybe.)
Either way, once I saw the headline, I knew this was something I just had to tell you all about. So without even further ado, here is the story, taken word for word from the Xinhua news agency, which is sort of like the AP here.
Sex Ignoramus Outnumbers Illiterate in China
BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- More Chinese are ignorant to sex than to other knowledge, even including those having received high education and experts of other fields, according to Xu Tianming, the president of China Sexology Society.
"In the survey we conducted, not only youngsters, but many grow-ups are sex idiots, which is really dangerous and woeful," Xu was quoted by Wednesday's Nanjing Morning Post, a local newspaper in east China's Jiangsu Province, as saying, at a seminar on sex culture held there.
"Many Chinese are too shy to talk about sex and take it as an 'evil' matter, which greatly distorted the society's objective recognition to sex and shed bad influence to those immaturities," Xu was quoted as saying.
Both Chinese culture and western's have a tradition to treat sex as a "forbidden" thing, and many sex related words are largely adopted as the most vicious attacking words, Xu said, all these will prevent younger generations from having a healthy sex knowledge and sex life in future.
Boys and girls become sexually capable at an average age of 15, however, they could only enjoy normal sex life till about 25, so the right way to guide puberty in sex is very critical during the 10 years in between.
"Parents and society should allow them to have normal contacts with the opposite sex, such as dancing, and to read some books with certain sex descriptions, thus to reasonably release their sex tension in puberty," Xu said.
Great story, isn't it? And funny how, despite the headline, illiteracy is never mentioned. While there are several lines that I really like, my favorite part, without question, is the last paragraph. Because really, what better way for a bunch of randy teenagers to relieve their "sex tension" than by dancing with the opposite sex and reading books with "sex descriptions." I mean, that could never backfire and have the opposite effect, could it? No, I didn't think so ...
Anyway, the English-language newspapers here always have a wide variety of interesting stories, and not just because of the sometimes questionable English phrasing, which--while amusing--is often not as entertaining as the actual content. For example, any story about Taiwan (AKA the Renegade Province of Taiwan) always features lots of qualifiers and quotation marks, so instead of saying something like the President of Taiwan, the papers here would say the so-called "president" of Taiwan. Amusing, isn't it? The alleged "supreme court" is also another popular target, and don't even get me started on the "independence" movement because I could go on all day.
But luckily for you, I won't. Go on all day, that is. What I will do is say that while I generally don't post or mention these stories--they're chuckle funny, but not really ha-ha funny--the other day I ran across one that was so strange that I simply had to share, not only with the ten or so of you who actually read what I write, but also for the rest of you who get here by accident, usually--if my stat counter/tracker is to be believed--by searching for something sex related and who no doubt stopped reading long before this paragraph, making the majority of that last sentence completely pointless. I know, I know: such a waste. (Seriously, some variant of "sex massage"--be it "Beijing sex massage," "Shanghai sex massage," or whatever--seems to be a very popular search term. Someday I will have to do a post on just that. Well, maybe.)
Either way, once I saw the headline, I knew this was something I just had to tell you all about. So without even further ado, here is the story, taken word for word from the Xinhua news agency, which is sort of like the AP here.
Sex Ignoramus Outnumbers Illiterate in China
BEIJING, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- More Chinese are ignorant to sex than to other knowledge, even including those having received high education and experts of other fields, according to Xu Tianming, the president of China Sexology Society.
"In the survey we conducted, not only youngsters, but many grow-ups are sex idiots, which is really dangerous and woeful," Xu was quoted by Wednesday's Nanjing Morning Post, a local newspaper in east China's Jiangsu Province, as saying, at a seminar on sex culture held there.
"Many Chinese are too shy to talk about sex and take it as an 'evil' matter, which greatly distorted the society's objective recognition to sex and shed bad influence to those immaturities," Xu was quoted as saying.
Both Chinese culture and western's have a tradition to treat sex as a "forbidden" thing, and many sex related words are largely adopted as the most vicious attacking words, Xu said, all these will prevent younger generations from having a healthy sex knowledge and sex life in future.
Boys and girls become sexually capable at an average age of 15, however, they could only enjoy normal sex life till about 25, so the right way to guide puberty in sex is very critical during the 10 years in between.
"Parents and society should allow them to have normal contacts with the opposite sex, such as dancing, and to read some books with certain sex descriptions, thus to reasonably release their sex tension in puberty," Xu said.
Great story, isn't it? And funny how, despite the headline, illiteracy is never mentioned. While there are several lines that I really like, my favorite part, without question, is the last paragraph. Because really, what better way for a bunch of randy teenagers to relieve their "sex tension" than by dancing with the opposite sex and reading books with "sex descriptions." I mean, that could never backfire and have the opposite effect, could it? No, I didn't think so ...
