More Thoughts on Sex and Shanghai

There's something macabre about this online character, China Bounder.  While I appreciate his blog as a kind of "Kinsey report" of the sexualized environment of today's Shanghai, something is eerily disturbing about his particular line of thinking.  Certainly I'm not a trained psychoanalyst, but in mulling over his case last night while tossing and turning in the wee hours, I came up with the following observations.

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Sex and Shanghai

He's back.  The man who inspired a witchhunt last August for his controversial blogsite about shagging in Shanghai.  We know him as China Bounder.  If you believe his story, he is a British Caucasian in his 30s and a former (if not current) English teacher in Shanghai.  If you're somewhat more susceptible to rumors and innuendo, he is in fact a team of clever, mischievous blogsters making it up as they go along (or maybe even a team of monkeys relentlessly pounding on the keyboard?).  I for one don't believe that tripe for a minute.  In my humble, unenlightened opinion, this guy is real, and so are his stories. 

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On Chinglish

Recently a member of H-ASIA, an academic online forum for which I'm currently an editor, posted an inquiry asking for examples of Chinglish.  This provoked a flurry of brief responses, some quoting horribly misspelled or otherwise ungrammatical English translations of Chinese signs, which in turn led a few members to write in stating that they found these postings offensive or unscholarly. 

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Shanghai's mad dash: University Admission

SHANGHAI-It's June 7, 2007, a day you've prepared for your entire life. Over the next three days, 12 hours of exams will determine your future, forever. Sound melodramatic? For the 1.5 million university hopefuls in Shanghai, it is the reality they've always lived with. Unlike at U of T, where 63 per cent of undergraduate applicants were offered admission last year, the limited number of places in prestigious Chinese universities has enormous numbers of students jostling for a spot. In China, entrance into the nation's top universities is a stepping stone to a successful career.

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