This year my Chinese has improved quickly. One consequence of this that I did not predict was serving as a translator between my male foreign friends and their Chinese...interests. This varies from translating test messages like, "What's up?", "I don't understand what you say.", and "I'm at work now.", to setting up dates and telling them that a translator will be coming as well.
This is an awkward situation for me. Every day I hear about the foreign men and their Chinese conquests. I watch these business deals that are masked as relationships and don't know what to do or think. If I put on my feminist glasses it is outraging. But I cannot afford to be outraged because that would be all consuming and would make life here impossible. (Like being afraid of riding in taxis and crossing the road and germy kitchens - if I fear them, I cannot live my day to day life here.) It is a fact of life here that women are for sale.
These women make lots of money; much more than me. It is a very lucrative career. Can I despise them for wanting a better life and taking advantage of (foreign) men to obtain their goal? I don't know. I waver between pity, disgust, and anger at the men who go to the clubs looking for these women and treat them like objects.
As abhorent as it is, both of them are getting what they desire - the girls get money and the men get "companionship". Both are using one another in ways that I was taught were completely wrong, but they do this within a moral void. China seems like a huge moral void to me at times. Even more so than in Las Vegas: what happens in China stays in China, and it is improper to judge people on their actions here. Away from their home country and people who keep them morally in line, foreigners can do whatever they want. Watching all of this places severe doubt in my mind of the innate morality of human beings.
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