I love an alliterative title, and this seems a fitting way to close the book on prostitution in China and move on with the rest of the Sex and Sexuality theme. Because of the breadth of the topic, I’ll almost certainly end up touching on the issue again in later posts but this blog is supposed to be about the larger topic of China and not an endless litany of material regarding sex work, so for now this is the last one.



Back in 1996, the Shanghai Police Department went to work and decided to define seven (count them!) levels of prostitution inside the country. This framework has now been adopted throughout the country from a legal perspective and also in discussion, though it certainly does not cover all types of sex work. It must have been a fascinating meeting where the scale was invented – with a load of guys each determined that their preference for an evening’s entertainment didn’t end up on the bottom of the scale, and the boss ensuring his was on top (so to speak).

At the top, are the second wives or er nai – which have been the subject of a couple of posts in this series already. It is debatable whether all these women are in fact sex workers, as many fulfill the same role as a “mistress” in Western culture –where they would not be considered to be prostitutes. However these ladies essentially sell their time exclusively to a single client, in exchange either for money or gifts or a combination of both.

Next you have the escorts or as they are known locally bao po (literally contracted wives) these ladies are much like second wives but are contracted for a shorter term basis, usually as much for impressing businessmen with their looks as for the actual sex.

The third tier is the KTV Hostess level (peinu) these girls work in KTV parlors throughout China. In the first instance, and to preserve propriety, they are there to be paid company whilst in the KTV itself and can earn from a few quai to thousands of quai just to drink and play dice with rich businessmen. In reality most (though not all) of these girls can be persuaded to earn a little extra by accompanying those businessmen home at the end of the night. KTV girls are in a position of relative privilege in that they can say; “no” without causing offence.

Moving on down the list, next up you have the Hotel Hookers (dingdong xiaojie – the “ding dong” is the sound of a doorbell, rather like anywhere in the world), these girls work in and from hotels, often knocking on the door of single male guests or calling them from inside the hotel to offer their services. This kind of work is pretty popular amongst students trying to make ends meet during their run through university.

The fifth tier probably does the most work, the Barbershop Girls (falangmei) though they aren’t limited to barbershops, but also appear as happy ending girls in spas, saunas, massage houses, etc. These girls often offer non-sexual services as well as sex as part of their cover in these businesses. However the down side for these ladies is that their earnings tend to depend on the numbers of men they “service” daily and as such they compensate in volume for their low wages.

The penultimate profession is street walking (jienu) and these girls make their living outside of bars, clubs, etc. touting for business. They normally have to hold down a day job too in order to make ends meet. Normally street walkers are those girls who have been thrown out of other types of sex work and they can bring real problems to their clients.

And yesterday we looked at the poor unfortunate souls serving at the bottom of the ladder, the xiagongpeng who eke out a miserable living serving those at the bottom of China’s financial ladder.

As I said at the start the list obviously leaves out several types of sex worker, but this is the definitive guide for classification of prostitutes in China at this moment in time.





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source: shardsofchina.wordpress.com





So how about the “xiao san”? Are they considered in the same category as the “er nai”? Or didn’t this phenomenon exist at the time of the survey?

That’s unusual – the “ding dong” girls in Bahrain used to run three hundred miles when I told them my wife would be arriving shortly. But the girls in bars, would try and convince you it didn’t matter that you were married, and you could probably fit in a short time while she was shopping. Their death wish is stronger than mine…



I actually mentioned this to a few older students and they gave me the 411 on the whole deal. Apparently male prostitutes are called “ducks” which I thought was funny. Anyway, yeah, like is hell for the ladies towards the bottom. I think one of my students might be jienu. She works in a bar and is ashamed of it for some reason that she refuses to talk about. =/



It’s certainly possible – though for her sake, I rather hope not.



Blah. I really hate staying in many of the hotels in China. I end up paying an extra one to two hundred kuai per night just to avoid the ding dong girls. There is nothing worse than when you have to stay in a hotel for a couple weeks on a guest job (they put you up in a hotel of their choosing) and you get a phone call while you are still sleeping. Or just as you fall asleep at night with this fake breathy voice asking in Chinese if you want some company. And no matter how much you beg the front desk to stop the calls… they don’t. You touched on the er nai’s… did you read the latest study put out by a woman’s group in Beijing? They estimate that the first wives are seeking divorces from the husband because they are not sexual satisfied (along with husbands having a second wife) and are actually taking the risk of being alone in their futures wanting to find happiness? I actually shouted with glee when I read it. Best news I’ve heard in a while about China!!! A friend of mine her husband while trying to seduce me said, “its acceptable for a man to have many women”. I just replied, “it is acceptable for a woman to have many lovers whose cocks are not owned by their wives”. He wasn’t too happy that I made sure everyone at the table heard. Ohh… how I love Chinese face. (oozing with sarcasm here!!!)



Yes, surveys show that most Chinese women aren’t happy with their sex lives (that’s another topic coming up soon on here). Face culture is a frustrating thing too – and will also be coming up later on, on this blog. Thanks for commenting, it’s nice to get a strong female view on these things.



Thanks for this post. Very informative. I was walking home one evening a while back and saw a bunch of the barbershop places you mentioned. Wrote up an article on it at http://www.asiacurious.com/shanghai-sex/ and mentioned your article.









Sex in China – The Second Wife