guangzhou gigolo
Increasing numbers of gigolos are being recruited in Guangzhou through newspaper advertisements for public relations managers. According to Sing Tao Daily, the ads specify that applicants must be tall and good-looking and promise a monthly income of up to $60,000, but only give a pager number. When an applicant calls the number, he is instructed to go to a five-star hotel lobby, stand there for five minutes and then call the pager again. If he is considered handsome enough by his 'invisible' interviewers, he is told by way of a pager message that he has got the job and asked to deposit $350 handling fee to a bank account.Then he is picked up by a car and finally introduced to his new employer.
drugs trade A black market in medical supplies is flourishing in Beijing as state employees supplement their income by flogging their subsidised medicines, reports Oriental Daily. With state organisations paying for up to 90 per cent of their staff's medical expenses, some employees are asking for more medicines than they need and selling the excess to hawkers. But the illicit trade doesn't stop there. People from the provinces also buy cheap medicines (a $30 bottle of antibiotics, for example, costs as little as six yuan on the black market) from state employees and then sell them to private clinics in other provinces.
clever clogs A boy-genius who once won an award for China at an International Olympic Maths competition has swindled $3.6 million from a government bank, reports Sing Tao Daily. The 26-year-old allegedly created a 'small personal bank' within the Agricultural Banks of China in Nanjing, where he worked. He offered higher-than-official interest rates to more than 60 state enterprises and then loaned out their $320 million deposit at even more profitable lending rates. The cadre was a wunderkind who graduated from a top university with a computer science degree and was appointed to an important position at the bank. More than 140 people were involved in the conspiracy.
chinese whispers A Hong Kong prostitution ring blackmailed a Beijing engineer into handing over $270,000, writes Apple Daily. The 67-year-old mainlander was intrigued by colourful porn ads in a local porn magazine and called one prostitution service which claimed to offer 'pretty movie stars' for sex, but could not agree on the fee. Later, the prostitution ring demanded $700,000. Worried his bosses would discover he had tried to visit hookers in Hong Kong, the engineer borrowed money from relatives, paid the blackmailers $270,000 - and went back to Beijing.
sex tips Hong Kong Night Life magazine offers advice for men who want to have sex with gweimui (Western prostitutes). According to the magazine, the easiest way is to patronise Mongkok brothels (full-set service, $800), followed by hotels Tsim Sha Tsui East, where there are girls from Britain and America ($1,500). It claims most ads for gweimuis in local porn magazines are unreliable and likely to cheat the inexperienced, and warns men who patronise call girls listed in the Yellow Pages that they must conduct basic conversations in English and that they are likely to be asked to rent a room in an expensive hotel.
