Why I am a Scumbag

People appear to be reading this. I’m taken aback – but gratified, of course.

Here, there is a minor debate on this blog. A user called eee says:-

Good thing he’s in ‘Sex and Shanghai’ and not ‘Sex and the City’, where he’d be guarantted a one-off ’ New jersey geek’, ‘Over the hill loser’, ‘Mr. Short Penis’ or any geeky undesirable roles that are joked by the girls.
There he is in Shanghai, a self-claimed ‘Mr. Big’ no shy about his serious oriental fetish.
How about this: “40 years old Virgin - Until I Made It to Shanghai”. Or “Laowai Powers - the chinese peasant girl who shagged me”

Largely a spot-on comment. And this is part of the reason I started writing – the city is full of mediocre guys with great women on their arms. But I certainly don’t see myself as Mr. Big. I’m a totally average guy, with no looks and little money, and I am astonished by just how easy it is to get girls.

Shutty says:

wow. i had a lot of issues with china when i left - predominantly related to almost every white guy there being a.) a giant giant tosser in social exile from his own country and b.) an opportunistic freak preying on very young girls with even younger ideas about life.
you can see the guy is so super proud of himself that he can’t post his name or picture.
i can’t even begin to describe how disturbing i find that site and unfortunately, how entirely true it is because i have had the misfortune of meeting people just like him in china.

She’s totally right. Of course China is full of guys like me. We’re 90% a bunch of bastards. Naturally I do not think I am a tosser (what person does?) nor would I say I am in social exile from home.

As Shutty says it’s disturbing because it’s true. What better reason is there to write about it? I think it’s important to be honest about this. I hope that some women in China at least will read this stuff and begin to be a bit more cautious. The blog is also here, since blogspot is censored in China.

I have various friends involved with foreign guys, and at the beginning of their relationships the woman has told me ‘This foreign guy is different.’ But he never is. We all lie and cheat and chase.

For example, a few weeks ago I was sitting in a restaurant, a place with good food but not-quite-cold-enough beer (another sign of the Shanghai’s essentially provincial soul), and there were two foreigners on the table next to me, accompanied by a local woman. The one guy doing all the talking looked to be the jobbing student type, all beard and self-satisfied attitude, and was gassing on about this and that. It was all so much white noise to which I only paid half attention until I heard him say, ‘I know about this guy, he's called Sam Blake...’

The guy said that this Sam was always bragging about the number of women he has, and how he had three at the moment, and that of course they all loved him but he was perhaps getting serious about one of them, Sarah; and also said how he, Sam had come within a moment of being fired – ‘They’d written the letter and it was just waiting to be stamped…’ the loudmouth explained, but that he’d done something – which I did not catch – to stave off the blow.

My ears had pricked up at this because the talker began by giving Sam’s full name. And I knew that name, not because I know the guy but because I happened to know one of the women he was involved with, Mona. At that time Mona had broken up with him but was unsure breaking up had been the right choice. She felt she might still be in love with him. She’d told me all this because we have formed a close bond of trust and respect. And I know her well enough to say that would not change even if she read this blog.

I had already told her she likely could not trust this guy, and of course soon after this evening I told her about overhearing the conversation, restating the fact this was what foreign guys were like; this was what I was like.

Overhearing this guy was of course no more than random chance (though weak-minded people who believe there is purpose to the universe might see here evidence of a higher power) but as I sat there listening I reflected on how easy it is to be indiscreet, how often the person we are talking about, we think in confidence, is in earshot, or in earshot at a remove like this.

And I also reflected on the corrupt and venial nature of guys here – guys like me, too – who treat it as a playground. The speaker, if not quite inflecting approval into his voice, certainly had no criticism. I wondered what the woman with them, a local, thought behind her apparently amused countenance. I would imagine – I would hope – she had nothing but contempt for guys like this Sam, for the speaker, who sort of admired him; and for guys like me, too.

And I am certainly not proud, just like I do not see myself as a Mr. Big. On the contrary, I know I behave pretty shabbily. That’s unlikely to change, but writing about it is at least a way to let others know how guys like me behave.

The reason I do not put my photo up is because I would be identifiable. If I was identifiable, the women I write about would be too. That’s the same reason I give the women fake names and do not put up their photos. I do have some respect for them, even though it may not appear that way.

I assume Shutty is a Western woman. But whether this is true or not, it’s tough to be a Western woman here. Guys like me (which is most guys) simply do not look at Western women. You are invisible to us; you are just not there.

I do not mean to condone such an attitude, but that’s the way it is. For Chinese girls, white man is good; for white man, white woman is invisible. Why would we bother? Western women are too smart and savvy to put up with our sleazy bullshit, and (more to the point) in most cases, white women can’t compare physically with Chinese women. White woman wears a slinky top in a European city, she’ll likely be well aware of the guys ogling her. White woman wears a slinky top in Shanghai and I don’t even take a look.

I do not feel quite easy writing about color and race. But the fact is this is a major issue. In China, white is better. The billboards are full of ads for whitening cream; the girls carry sunshades to keep their skin pale.


Stuart says:

How can you link to that site. Even if half the stuff this guys says is true, he’s shamelessly taking advantage of naive Chinese girls. It’s disgusting.

What should I say? Of course it’s disgusting. But it’s fun for me, and fun for the thousand other white guys just like me.

And not just white guys:-

A MIDDLE-AGED man in Nanyang, Henan Province, purchased the virginity of 17 middle school girls, arousing concerns about the education of rural area youths, a Guangdong Province

Last September, parents of two girls reported to middle school officials that their daughters were wearing new dresses and had money they did not give to them.

After repeatedly asking the girls, they said the money was given to them by a man in exchange for their virginity. School officials called police.

Investigators found 10 more girls from the school who sold their virginity to the same man. The girls also gave police the mobile phone number of the man.

The victims were introduced to the man by Xiao Mei, Xiao Bao and Xiao Tong, no relation, three other girls who also sold their virginity to the man.

When they received payment for their virginity, they promised to introduce more virgins to the man. newspaper reported yesterday.

I'd say that's a fuck sight more disgusting that anything I do. Sure, this guy is an exception; but beyond his particular sickness, the way many Chinese men treat women is wholly shabby. What this guy did was mostly a legal crime whereas I am only a moral criminal, and the two things cannot really be compared. But my point is that this incident is an echo of the sexual psyche of the average Chinese man, who fetishizes virginity.

But it really does not matter whether what I write is believed or not. What should matter is that this is what life is like in Shanghai. This is what we are. Look: I am not going to change. The girls are easy, and 90% of men on the planet would take advantage of that if they could. Men of any nation, any culture; we would all do it if we could.