Mention the phrase 'September 18 incident' to Zhuhai residents and their faces will turn red. This date was when the infamous sex scandal took place, in which 300 Japanese tourists descended on the city's most luxurious hotel to meet an estimated 500 prostitutes from southern China. The orgy sparked a national backlash, not only because of its scale, but because it occurred on the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
The scandal is slowly fading from the headlines, and last week a Zhuhai court handed down sentences ranging from two years to life for 14 people charged over the event. But the '9-1-8 incident', as it is known locally, has left the resort city struggling to repair its tainted reputation.
Since then, Zhuhai has held business conferences, car rallies and, in November, issued the Zhuhai Economic Manifesto on global prosperity at the end of an international conference.
But the unfavourable image of Zhuhai as a city in which the sex industry comes before national pride lingers on. 'Everybody knows about the 9-1-8 incident,' complained a local taxi dirver. 'The whole country knows and the whole world knows.'
The scandal has provoked a lively debate among local people about what is right or wrong in an industry that, despite being officially banned, is booming in every corner of China.
Some feel the crackdown by Zhuhai authorities was overblown and hypocritical. 'It was revenge by people in our business who are jealous of our success,' said Luo Mei, a waitress at the Zhuhai International Convention Centre (ZICC), where the fateful event occurred.
