The foreign woman, identified as Lily, was drugged and sold into prostitution in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region before being rescued. Afterwards, she was kidnapped in Shenzhen’s Shekou area and a foreign man was beaten for trying to come to her rescue, Shaanxi Satellite Television reports.

The beating took place on the first day of Chinese New Year at around 6:30 p.m. when at the gate of a residential community near Shekou’s Rose Garden, a group of armed men kidnapped Lily. The foreign man, Scott, who tried to come to her resuce was then set upon by the gang. The gang then fled with Lily, according to a source close to the matter.

A subsequent investigation exposed the extaordinary story behind the incident.

Earlier, Lily’s foreign boyfriend had drugged her food, causing her to lose consciousness. When she came to, her boyfriend had gone and she discovered she had been sold into prostitution in Guangxi, a source told the TV station. Scott was responsible for rescuing her, first to Wuhan and eventually to Shenzhen.

When Lily was resuced, she insisted that her rescuers also help her friend, who had been sold into prostitution. When in Shenzhen, she would often sob while talking about her friend’s plight. Scott promised her he would do what he could to rescue her friend.

At this point, the television report puts the question: “Why did nobody get the police involved?” Rescuing a woman who has been sold into prostitution takes more than bravery and good will.

After Lily was kidnapped from Shekou, the police were finally notified. The report says that Lily and her friend have both been rescued and those responsible for the kidnapping were arrested in Dongguan.

As information emerges – such as the nature of Scott’s relationship with Lily and which country they are from – we will try to bring it to you.

No talking at the back.

Like many classes, it involved a stern teacher and a couple of students giggling and whispering at the back. This particular lecture included a screen that may have been a PPT and focused on how to use social media services such as Momo, WeChat and Sina Weibo.

The bespectacled lecturer also emphasized the importance of using a photoshopped picture to attract customers’ interest, stressing the value of having an ovular face and attractive eyes.

The points on the whiteboard also included a reminder that students should maintain contact with their higher-level customers and avoid wasting time on “diaosi,” an internet slang word for loser.

Attentive students.

The video has been forwarded well over 1,000 times on Sina Weibo and watched over 1 million times. One Sina Weibo user said: “Life is all about selling. We all need to learn to sell ourselves.” Another said “The corporate training industry really is frighteningly competitive nowadays.” Another said: “Does this mean the women I’ve been chatting with on Momo are all hookers?”

Photo: SCMP

When one says they’re going on a trip to Dongguan, it’s often greeted with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge.  Such is the reputation of the city; while it has world-class golf courses and famous shopping markets, the PRD city has become synonymous with sex.

Reporter Vivienne Chow with the South China Morning Post has published a story (behind a paywall) on a new movie coming out called Due West, which is based on a book of the same name.  It documents Hong Kong men who seek sex on the Mainland, particularly Dongguan.

“Simon” serves as one of the extras in the film, and explains why men head north for sex, even when they’re married:

“You know, tenderness is not to be found from your wife,” he says. “A wife is not as good as a concubine; a concubine is not as good as a secret affair; and a secret affair is not as good as one that you desire, but who’s beyond your reach. It is this excitement that makes men want to go to these places. In here, you can enjoy the lifestyle of a king that you will never have at home with your woman.”

Interestingly enough, the men interviewed in Chow’s article seem to indicate they are seeking more than just sex.  They also blame Hong Kong women for their attitudes, which they claim are forcing them to go elsewhere for affection.

Despite all the hassles – and the risk of getting caught – some men cannot resist making the trip to Dongguan every now and then. “That’s because you don’t find this tenderness in reality… such as feeding you a piece of melon,” says 34-year-old “John”, another extra in Due West.

“You can never get that [from Hong Kong women]. Men are egoistic. We need to be respected, and these venues give us the respect that we need. It’s true that I pay for it. It’s a kind of service. It’s fake. But it’s worth it,” John says.

“Men are afraid of being controlled. Many Hong Kong women suffer from the ‘princess syndrome’. They want to tie their men down, but it never works,” Simon says.

Sex can cost anywhere from RMB300 to RMB1,100 depending on the girl, venue, and service provided, the article said.  Many are paraded out for men to select as though they were picking players for a middle-school flag football team.

Prostitution is rampant in China, but one wonders how Dongguan became one of the country’s sex capitals.  Its proximity to Hong Kong certainly doesn’t hurt, but Shenzhen is even closer (although it, too, has a large-scale sex industry).  Aside from what is on offer in Dongguan, it would be interesting to read how the industry developed to such a degree in the city.

No word on when the movie will be released.

When police raided the building which the women were emerging from, they found that three rooms on the second and third floors were being used for prostitution. In one room on the second floor, two men and two women were found together naked on a small bed. A large stash of condoms was also found. At the same time, the 85 year-old, identified as Lin, was found with a 62 year-old prostitute, the oldest woman the city has ever arrested for prostitution.

After being arrested, Lin told police he would accept punishment, but tearfully begged them not to tell his family because he “could not face them.”  Aside from Lin, two other prostitutes and two other Johns were also arrested.

A policeman told the Fuzhou Evening Post that society needed to stop marginalizing old people and be more sensitive to their needs.

Once stigmatized as a sign of lack of filial piety, an increasing number of Chinese are putting their elderly parents in retirement homes as the country develops and people’s working lives get busier.

The two girls wore uniforms from the local technical school in Sanshui District and reported to their 23-year old female ringleader known as “Hei Mei”.  The girls both admitted they were ashamed of their profession, but had no other source of income.  They said they could demand a high price if they went out dressed as school girls, with one of them saying “anything is better than being poor”.

This isn’t the first time young teenaged girls have been found soliciting sex.  A similar case was reported in Shanghai last fall.

Xinhua brought this sad story to light last week as Wang went on trial for murder.

According to testimony presented in court, Wang went with Ying (alias) to her room at around 8 in the evening. When they finished sex, Wang pulled out a knife and stabbed Ying, who reportedly hails from Jiangxi province, first in the abdomen and then again in the throat as she tried to call for help. Ying died of her wounds shortly after.

Forensic results show a cut on Ying’s neck about 10 centimeters long and that her intestines were ripped out. Wang was detained by police on June 1 last year. Police later discovered that Ying was the mother of three children.

Wang says his conscience made him do it, but later admitted to having brought two knives with him: one for slicing fruit, he said, and the other for his job as a cook, as if that were some sort of reasonable explanation. He told police he paid Ying the agreed upon 60 RMB for her services, and was only overcome with the impulse to try and force her to give up sex work after doing so. Oh, and stabbing her only happened by accident: “She called out for help and there were people outside; I was scared so I cut her throat.”

Nuns in Shenyang marks World AIDS Day.

The Shenzhen City Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has released the city’s HIV/AIDS statistics to mark World AIDS Day, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.  While only four expatriates were diagnosed with HIV over the past year, overall numbers are up “significantly”.

The Shenzhen Daily has the details:

The center reported 957 HIV carriers in the first 10 months of the year, 24.9 percent more than the same period last year. Of these, 266 were AIDS patients, 90 percent more than a year ago. Nine of these had since died, four more than last year, the report said. Thirty-three percent of the HIV carriers were male homosexuals.

By Oct. 31, there had been 6,035 HIV carriers reported, 1,508 of whom were AIDS patients while 203 had died. CDC specialists said there could be 6,200 HIV carriers in the city, similar to last year’s estimate.

The main route of infection has shifted from drug addicts sharing needles to sexual intercourse.

More than 84 percent were infected through sexual intercourse while only about 11 percent were the result of shared needles. Last year about 70 percent were infected through sex.

The four expatriates were from Norway, Nigeria, Britain and Thailand.

With prostitution rampant in many parts of China, educating sex workers and their clients is becoming a top priority.  The report even names particular districts in Shenzhen where the risk is higher: Longgang and Bao’an, in particular, because of their large migrant populations, and Luohu because of its seedy “entertainment” area.

It’s expected there are 780,000 HIV carriers in China.

The girls were stopped at the HK-SZ border

We know prostitution is officially illegal in the Mainland, but then again so are pirated DVDs, and we know how hard they are to get.

With living standards in poor rural areas still well below developed-country standards and wages failing to keep up with inflation, there seems to be a never-ending supply of prostitutes who migrate to China’s larger and wealthier centres looking for money for themselves and their families. Two of China’s more renowned cities for prostitution – Dongguan and Zhuhai – are right here in the Pearl River Delta.

What many people might not be aware of is the high number of Mainland women who are smuggled into Hong Kong, where punters tend to pay a lot more for a prostitute’s services. The city, which permits prostitution as long as it is between only two consenting adults in a private room, has become a hot spot for the sex trade. Sites like this (VPN may be needed) are well-known in Hong Kong, and a vast majority of the women come from Mainland China.

Which makes this next story not terribly surprising. The Nanfang Metropolis Daily reported this past weekend that several Mainland women were picked up at the Lo Wu border crossing in Shenzhen as they attempted to cross into Hong Kong.

Sixty Mainland girls from poor villages were caught at the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border by a joint force comprised of the Shenzhen and Hong Kong police. The girls were arranged to enter Hong Kong by a Hong Kong citizen surnamed Zeng, who runs a big prostitution and smuggling ring bringing Mainland girls to work as prostitutes in Hong Kong. The 60 girls were all sent back to their hometowns.

One has to assume that Zeng is running one of several similar smuggling rings. The sad part of the story is that many of these girls are from small villages and are likely unequipped to deal with the harsh realities of prostitution, especially in a big city like Hong Kong. And they are not alone: prostitutes are routinely smuggled into the city from places such as the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and even Russia, giving Hong Kong its seedy reputation.

Many thanks to @MissXQ for the translation.