Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

Dear Stephen,
" Does the fact that this thread is only a quarter ot the length of the thread on antecedents to relative clauses, reflect on EFL's teachers high moral stnadards, their passionate intellectual interests, or simply the parlous state of their finances? "

Hmm, my guess would be that SOME of us are more passionately aroused by syntax than by sin. To paraphrase a long-forgotten American vice-president: a woman is only a woman but a a good argument about grammar lasts longer, is less expensive and doesn't require Viagra. They both, however, can be ego-bruising experiences.
Regards,
John

[Wolf]

[Sunpower]

When I was living in South Korea I always got a kick out of going up to Hoooker Hill.

No doubt, we were were looking for trouble.

It was alwasy interesting, though.

[Roger]

Wolf,
everybody is entitled to having an OPINION, of course! I just wish that on a board like this people do not start apportioning blame to one class, gender or race. Prostitution is a multifaceted phenomenon. For us Westerners there is the danger of being manichean, and the feminists have been exploiting this for decades. If we were to accept their wisdom we would all have to write a contract with our wives, specifying how much we owe her for bearing children, preparing breakfast, making the bed, cleaning the home and shopping. We would not be discussing what men should get in return, of course, since men would as providers assume responsability for themselves. That is the sore point with Asian women - even girls richer than men do not share their material wealth with them.
I do know that some women are being badly exploited. In China, some end up being traded like cattle - between their parents and some taker (an old peasant man). BUt there is much worse. In Sudan I was once taken to a brothel by two local business upstarts. You would think there is no brothel in a Muslim society. The men were devout practising Muslims with 2 and 3 wives respectively. They told me they would go to Mecca every year to wash the sin off them.
And the women in the brothel? They were Ethipian refugees, most probably kindapped by Arabs and enslaved!
That's a far cry from the nonchalant attitudes prevailing in East Asia where sex is never linked to sin and punishment!
It simply is a commodity. And as with other commodities, ownership affords power. Have you ever met a woman who despises the exercise of power?

[arioch36]

Someone wrote "these girls make a business decision to be a prostitute"

very convenient for the conscience of the person using such a service. I would challenge you to do just a little online research. Some items to think about and maybe do a little soul-searching over. Every country, the girls need to be young young young. 20 years old is often over the hill. And that is very conservative. Do you know what age these girls usually start at? If I told you that the average prostitute started when she was 12-13, usually at the manipulation of a trusted family member, who either had sex with her or sold her, would you still say this was a business decision.

Sure, they act as if they are happy doing this...they will get beated and tortured if they don't. In China, the girls that phone you at night, you really believe they are free entrepaneurs?
China ...young people don't have much say about what happens to them. A young Henan girl (14) is kidnapped or sold by her parents, "trained for her occupation. You have heard of the stories of such girls shipped to America in freight boxes, often dying on the way?

It is sad to see what is happening in China. Yes, prostitution used to be legal in China. The movies would give us this heartwrenching story of a beautiful professionally, very talented courtesan. The real story has been documented, brothals where women must sleep with 50 men a day just to have enough food to survive. Any attempts to leave resulting in severe punishment. By the time they are 30 they have the body of a 60 year old women, diseased and crippled. It saddens me that China is gradually creeping back to this way of life.

Go to your classroom, and ask the girls , "how many of you want to be like this" How many of you want your daughter to be like this? Your sister? Your wife? Of course the girl pretends to enjoy having a fat old man slobber all over her. You have been watching too many porno movies.

What is interesting is...go to a girl, talk to her. tell her you would like to take her to dinner, not have sex, but still give her money. Often she will become scared. these are not independent operators. Don't you know that. Such acceptance of kindness will get them severely beaten.

Instead of using them to get your thrills, show love towards them, and see the heartwrenching confusion appear on their face, because they have never known love.

get your head out of the sand. Stop soothing your conscience by comparing them to a women who wants to be married. Admit the truth. They are a piece of meat to be bought and sold...and that is what you want. Some of you want her to ACT scared. Most of you want her to act as if she enjoys what she is doing. And if she doesn't , she will be sverely punished by her boss. No girl can just go to a place on a street, or work in a hotel on her own. This is all controlled. She DOES NOT KEEP THE MONEY. Attempts to hide it will cause her to be beaten tortured. If tat the end of the day she does not produce enough money to please her "boss" her boss will accuse her of holding out, and cause her to be punished...severely. Of course she will be desperate to please you. If someone stuck a cattle rod up your ass, would not you do the same?

[MissMolly]

Hear, hear Arioch!!!

[Roger]

You have a bleeding heart, CHris, but it is in the wrong part of your body! I have heard such stereotypes enough of my adult life, not to mention even before (my folks hailed from Africa where girls ply this kind of business as freely as Chinese). I wholeheartedly disagree with most of what you say here although I know it is not fundamentally wrong: it merely is wrong quantitatively in that probably the majority of CHinese girls are no victims as you portrayed them!
Yes, I have seen brothels operated by mammasans and other people that control their working girls, but these houses are not safe for you or me! I have seen many more other houses, ordinary dwelling structures, where a girl lives by night while she works at a shop or a hairsalon nearby. What she does in her room (which she might share with a colleague of hers, but not always so!), is her business. Her worst enemies are the police and their informers!
Why do they do this business? Oh yes, to supplement their meagre income. Some have boyfriends, some even husbands and kids. I have seen pictures. Fear in their eyes? NOt in my presence. Feigning friendship or anything? I am not that kind of man that is trying to delude girls or myself... we talked business, and sometimes we strayed into mundane topics such as where does she come from, can she cook, is she happy (the same answers as those I got from office girls: "I am so poor, I want to get a better life, anywhere...").

Now if men had a choice when it comes to working... most of the unskilled men you see have to toil themselves to a premature death, and they have to satisfy their selfish wives on top of that! Ever thought how a Henan day labourer or a peasant can survive in a country where a foreign teacher earns as much in a month as they make in 6 months to one year?
In my opinion, most impoverished women of China fare a lot better than impoverished males!

[guty]

I teach that 'often' means significantly more than 50%.
Either I need to change that beleif, or there are a lot of dead 13 Chinese girls in boxes somewhere in the Pacific

[guty]

I teach that 'often' means significantly more than 50%.
Either I need to change that belief, or there are a lot of dead 13 y-o Chinese girls in boxes somewhere in the Pacific.
I really should pay more attention!

[arioch36]

You are right Guty, often is definitely wrong. If the girls often died, the business would end. Girls are often trafficked this way. When they are too old or worn out to continue in the "profession" they are sold to work in other venues in New York City ( The only city I personally studied)

STEREOTYPES?

Yes Roger, i think about the Henan peasant worker practically every day. I saw the despair in their eyes and faces as the SARS hype stopped people from stopping and buying anything from them. I have climbed the local mountains and been embarrased. Why? because I bought cheaper water in the store. As you climb the mountain you meet boys, girls, who have rarely been to school (All you have to do is take a look at their dry cracked hands) they have no money for schools. A good day for them is if they make 5 yuan selling water. I know how Guandong and Hong Kong men buy young country girls .

Oh Roger, is this some figment of my imagination? Could be, yes? because we know how bad the press lies in China, and they were probably lying when what, about 3 months ago they arrested 20 men based in Guandong involved in the human trafficking business, supplying young country girls for men in Guangdong. Oh but they were arrested, so i am sure the problem is over. Oh but wait, us foreigners wouldn't use one of these girls. We use the local girls. because the local girls would kill a girl from another cityu trying to impede on their territory. You are right, when these girls become 25, that get normal jobs because of the skills their sexual masters so kindly taught them.

The woman us foreigners use, they don't want to go to college. All their lives they dreamed of nothing more then to try to get as many men as possible to grunt and sweat over them, while they smile and tell you how glad they are to have you, please come again. When they were 20 they decided, oh it is better money having sex with men, I think that is what I want to do for a living.

You think these women are independent opreators, that they don't either pay a fee or have a boss, who allocates the street to them, where they can work, etc.? You need to examine your stereotypes. Read some stories of ex-prostitutes to find out what really goes on. And what do you think they are going to do when they are no longer young enough and pretty enough to please the foreigners? Yes you are right, the foreigners tend to get them while they are still fresh meat. The hotel worker who of the goodness of their hearts allow these women to ring the businessman's / foreigners room has no conection at all to any criminal type

I have travelled the local trains to Zhengzhou. Just shortly before the SARS reaction, I spent an hour talking to six migrant workers from Sichuan to Shaanxi. yes they have a very hard life. When a kid is lazy in my college clasroom, he gets his ass chewd, and he gets thrown out. he doesn't appreciate what he has.

All of that makes perfect justification for supporting the prostitution business. Roger, you know much more about China then me. Truth. But I have lived on the streets. And prostitution is no different here then in America, except the girls in China have fewer chioces, and they come from a culture where they are indoctrinated they must accept, and no one will punish the people who control this trade.

I will probably never convince you about this. But oh, Roger, about this...you are so sadly wrong> I believe that from the top of my brain to the bottom of my heart. Some Johns might talk nicely to these girls, making themnselves feel better. "Look. I'm treating them good" What a sack of lying horseshit" Johns caring about them. Liar. You want to get your jollies off. The more you pay, the more they will give you the illusion that you are their best friend. and foreigners do tend to treat them better then local men.

Perhaps we should see it as sad that these women know no other way of life. And the more accepted it becomes, the more common the brothels will become. and China is starting to slip back that way. We make fun of the communist government. And they are losing stream. But check out the lot of women before Mao versus after Mao. Footbinding, legal whorehouses ( have the people who want legalized prostitution ever seen what these brothels were like?) no rights to own property, etc.

Murder was around before prostitution (Cain Abel) I guess since it has always been around, it must be okay

[arioch36]

Took me about 10 seconds to find this story. Just went to Yahoo.com. typed in Prostitution an China. The same is true for every country in the world. The porno movies men watch with abundance, where the women look so happy...stop lying to yourself. Of course foreigners only have sex with the prostitiute or happily engage in the business

China Daily 9 May 2003
[/quote]250 Suspects Caught in Prostitution Crackdown

Guangdong and Hong Kong police arrested more than 250 suspects on Tuesday in a joint campaign against organized cross-border prostitution.

According to police from Guangdong Province, the criminal gang was allegedly headed by Zheng Huiqiang, a member of a secret society in Hong Kong called 14K. The secret society controlled most of brothels in eastern Kowloon and Monk Kok.


Leading members of the gang colluded with criminals in Huizhou, Shanwei, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, all in Guangdong Province. They sent young women to Hong Kong by cheating, luring or coercing them. The women were forced to become prostitutes in brothels run by 14K.


Tuesday's arrests followed a careful investigation of about three months by Guangdong and Hong Kong police.


In Shenzhen, 41 suspects were arrested, including 23 alleged members of Hong Kong secret societies and 15 locals. Chief suspect Zheng Huiqiang and 212 other suspects were arrested in 49 brothels in Hong Kong.


Hong Kong police also froze a total of HK$80 million (US$10 million) in cash and other assets such as buildings owned by alleged members of the criminal gang.


According to the police, the suspects in Hong Kong and Guangdong smuggled the women to Hong Kong by sea or land or used fake passports and travel documents to get the women through customs.


In Hong Kong, the women were forced to take part in pornographic pictures or videos and then become prostitutes in brothels.


Most of their income was taken by the criminal gang, which got tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars every month.


Any woman who refused was beaten, locked up and even raped. The women's health deteriorated and some of them suffered mental disorders.


Guangdong police said the "successful destruction" of the large cross-border criminal gang, in conjunction with Hong Kong police, showed the strong determination of both sides to crack crime.


An official from the Guangdong Public Security Bureau, who refused to give his name, said: "We will strengthen our cooperation in seriously cracking cross-border crime in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong and create good public order in both places."


(China Daily May 9, 2002)

[arioch36]

WOULDN'T WANT DECENCY TO HUMAN BEINGS GET IN THE WAY OF PROFIT


The main reason for the spread of prostitution has been the severance of the cradle-to-grave welfare net and rise of unemployment as the government is tries to shed the financial burden of ailing state-owned firms.

Indeed, a U.S.-based human rights group estimates that women in China had lost out more than anyone in the country's move to a more market-based economy.

Human Rights in China said earlier this year that while women made up less than 40 percent of the formal urban workforce, they had suffered 60 percent of the lay-offs in the sector.

It quoted also World Health Organisation figures as saying China was the only country in the world where higher rates of suicide were reported for women than men: With only 21 percent of the world's women, it has 56 percent of the world's female suicides, the group's statement said

Dr Li Yinhe sees the ban on 'san pei' as a positive measure to curb rampant vice, but says it will also hurt many migrant women who come to the cities to look for a job.

It is wrong to believe that all these women out there in the bars are wicked, she says. They are young and pretty and want to make a living.

There are hundreds of thousands of 'san pei' hostesses scattered throughout the country, but Guangdong�the quasi- capitalist bastion of the south�probably has the most. As a result, nightclubs in Guangdong have been given two months to make adjustments before the new policy takes effect in September.

The Guangzhou-based 'Nanfang Daily' reported that nightclub and karaoke managers in the south were hoping that while the government now frowns at 'san pei', its new ban will remain a threat to their businesses only on paper.

Some nightclubs have already drawn up counter-measures, such as renaming the hostesses 'disc jockeys' or 'uniformed waitresses'.

[c] 1999, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

[arioch36]

STATISTICS HOW OFTEN DOES CHINA OVER_REPORT A PROBLEM?


* From 1991 to 1996, Chinese police freed 88,000 kidnapped women and children and arrested 143,000 people for participating in the slave trade. (CATW Fact Book, citing Liu Bohonhg, Dorinda Elliott, "Trying to Stand on Two Feet", Newsweek, 29 June 1998)


Thai officials estimate that there are 20,000 women and girls trafficked from Burma into Thai brothels with 10,000 more imported each year, and 5,000 women and girls from China. (CATW, Dorchen Leidholdt, Sex Industry Survivor and Coalition address United Nations General Assembly, Coalition Report, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1997)


Thai officials estimate that there are 20,000 women and girls trafficked from Burma into Thai brothels with 10,000 more imported each year, and 5,000 women and girls from China. (CATW, Dorchen Leidholdt, Sex Industry Survivor and Coalition address United Nations General Assembly, Coalition Report, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1997)

[PanamaTeacher]

Arioch--How long do you think someone can be "forced" to be a prostitute. at some point they become active participants, don't you think?

[PanamaTeacher]

Fronts for prostitution--In Panama massage parlors. I have heard a rumor that some ESL schools here are providing prostitutes disguised as teachers.
Conjugation has taken on a new meaning in these schools.