a*o
发帖数: 25262 | 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world/asia/10mistress.html?re
China’s New Wealth Spurs a Market for Mistresses
By DAN LEVIN
BEIJING — Jian, a 42-year-old property developer in the booming southern
metropolis of Shenzhen, had acquired just about everything men of his
socioeconomic ilk covet: a Mercedes-Benz, a sprawling antique jade
collection and a lavishly appointed duplex for his wife and daughter.
It was only natural then, he said, that two years ago he took up another
costly pastime: a beguiling 20-year-old art major whose affections run him
about $6,100 a month.
Jian, who asked that his full name be withheld lest it endanger his 20-year
marriage, cavorts with his young coed in a secret apartment he owns, a price
he willingly pays for the modern equivalent of a concubine.
“Keeping a mistress is just like playing golf,” he said. “Both are
expensive hobbies.”
As China has shed its chaste Communist mores for the wealth and indulgences
of a market-oriented economy, the boom has bred a generation of nouveau-
riche lotharios yearning to rival the sexual conquests of their imperial
ancestors. Even the Chinese term for mistress — “ernai,” or second wife
— harks back to that polygamous tradition of yore.
Judging from the embarrassing revelations to emerge in recent months, such
arrangements appear to be commonplace among the corporate titans, rags-to-
riches entrepreneurs and government officials whose inordinate and sometimes
ill-gotten gains can maintain one or more lovers — many of whom are
sustained through stipends, furnished apartments and luxury sports cars.
But these relationships — and their sometimes messy devolutions — have
ignited a growing backlash as the public stews over the incessant tales of
morally compromised officials, greedy lovers and vengeful wives regularly
splashed across newspapers and published on the Internet — unless censors
get to them first.
In July, Xu Maiyong, the former vice mayor of the capital of Zhejiang
Province, Hangzhou, was executed for bribery and embezzlement worth more
than $30 million. Nicknaming him “Plenty Xu,” the Chinese press reported
that he kept dozens of mistresses.
Just a few weeks before, an official in Jiangsu Province and his mistress
were caught making detailed plans for a hotel-room rendezvous on the
microblog Weibo after mistakenly believing their messages were private.
In February, Railway Minister Liu Zhijun, a 58-year-old with a combover, was
removed from his post after news reports said he had embezzled $152 million
over the years. But a leaked directive from the Central Propaganda Bureau
revealed a more salacious side to his misconduct: “All media are not to
report or hype the news that Liu Zhijun had 18 mistresses.”
A month earlier, the mistress of a party official in Guangdong Province
sentenced to death in a $4.5 million bribery scandal was herself jailed for
the Land Rover and property she had received from him.
And in one of the most shocking cases, an official in Hubei Province was
detained in December on suspicion of strangling his mistress — then
pregnant with twins — and dumping her body in a river after she demanded he
marry her or pay $300,000, according to media reports.
The phenomenon has been an official concern for some time now. In 2007,
China’s top prosecutor’s office said that 90 percent of the country’s
most senior officials felled by corruption scandals in previous years had
kept mistresses.
Faced with a spate of legal disputes between mistresses and their lovers
over money and with growing public disgust that threatens to tarnish its
authority, the Communist Party is trying to stanch the mistress tide through
carrots and sticks aimed at women and men alike.
The Supreme People’s Court has considered a draft interpretation of the
country’s marriage law that would for the first time acknowledge mistresses
, stating that they have no legal right to their patron’s money, property
or other expensive trinkets, legal experts said. Likewise, married men would
not be able to use the courts to regain the cash and other niceties they
had lavished on affairs gone bad.
In an effort to combat the growing lure of the sugar daddy, some local
governments have gone on the offensive, preaching against moral turpitude
and trying to encourage young women to rely on less carnal skills to survive
. To that end, officials in Guangdong announced in March that starting this
autumn all girls in elementary and middle school would be required to take a
new course in “self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-
improvement.”
Such efforts are inspired by what many see as a ballooning moral crisis.
Indeed, an entire industry has sprung up that lures young women with
promises of sexually-oriented shortcuts to success. In April, the police in
Beijing broke up one such “college concubine agency” that claimed to
connect university students with wealthy admirers for up to $100,000
annually.
“Walk around Beijing and what do you see? ‘Buy a new Audi, look at this
Rolex, you need some clothes from Gucci,’ ” said Zhou Guanquan, a law
professor at Tsinghua University. “Such things are simply unaffordable, but
becoming a mistress can solve this problem.”
Those who see mistresses as victims of the nation’s frayed moral fabric and
a glaring income gap say the legal system is merely compounding the problem.
Zheng Beichun, a Beijing-based lawyer who has represented mistresses in
court, said the nation’s elite, including judges and government officials,
have little desire to tinker with the status quo.
“They are the ones running around with mistresses in the first place, so it
’s in their own interest to make defending mistresses’ rights very
difficult,” Mr. Zheng said. He said he started a Web site in 2006 offering
legal services and counseling for mistresses that drew over 600 desperate
women before it was shut down.
Not all mistresses are in it for the money. Three years ago, Lulu, 24, said
she fell for a successful artist from Sichuan Province who just happened to
be married. But his high profile in the art world, not to mention his wife
and young daughter, prevent the two from seeing each other more than once a
month, leaving Lulu, who like the others said she was too ashamed to have
her full name revealed, alone much of the time.
“I have a relationship with my phone,” she said one recent afternoon, as
she forlornly scrolled through some of his latest texts, among them “have
you eaten?” “go to bed,” and “I love you.”
Dependent on her lover for money because he forbids her to work, Lulu says
she feels trapped. “Leaving him is not an option,” she said bitterly. “I
’ve had many men propose to me, but they’re no better than him. They also
have their own secret lives.”
Li, the daughter of illiterate peasants from a remote village in Jiangxi
Province, said she grew up sharing one quilt with her parents and a brother
during winter and hearing the proverb “laugh at the poor, rather than the
whore.” At 9, she said, she began working in a brick factory for a few
cents a week.
“My parents gave me nothing,” she said. “Just a pretty face and a nice
figure.”
After graduating from a university in Guangzhou, Li found an internship at a
local electronics company, where she caught the eye of the company’s
married middle-aged owner. What began as a series of text messages about
work soon turned into clandestine nights in luxury hotel rooms, she said. A
few months later the boss gave her a debit card, followed by an apartment
near the office.
Now 26, Li has a closetful of Jimmy Choos, a new Porsche and a Cartier
diamond engagement ring. In May, after her boss divorced his wife, he and Li
got married.
But romance had nothing to do with Li’s decision to tie the knot. “You can
’t feed yourself with love,” she said, even as she was making final
wedding preparations. Rather than become a housewife, Li will continue
working at her husband’s company, where she can earn a decent salary, and
more importantly, she says, keep an eye on him.
“A woman should never trust a man, even if it’s her husband,” she said.
“A woman can only trust herself.” | g*******a
发帖数: 31586 | 2 “My parents gave me nothing,” she said. “Just a pretty face and a nice
figure.”
“A woman should never trust a man, even if it’s her husband,” she said.
“A woman can only trust herself
和平时一些女的发言多像
＂哎呀 没好男人 哎呀 找个人互相扶持＂ | l********l
发帖数: 9452 | | a*o
发帖数: 25262 | 4 克林顿不如一个中国铁路部长，他很惭愧。
【在 l********l 的大作中提到】
: 白女干这个的还少吗。。。。。。
| c*****l
发帖数: 5203 | | g**********y
发帖数: 1217 | 6 wow......
【在 a*o 的大作中提到】
: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world/asia/10mistress.html?re
: China’s New Wealth Spurs a Market for Mistresses
: By DAN LEVIN
: BEIJING — Jian, a 42-year-old property developer in the booming southern
: metropolis of Shenzhen, had acquired just about everything men of his
: socioeconomic ilk covet: a Mercedes-Benz, a sprawling antique jade
: collection and a lavishly appointed duplex for his wife and daughter.
: It was only natural then, he said, that two years ago he took up another
: costly pastime: a beguiling 20-year-old art major whose affections run him
: about $6,100 a month.
| g**********y
发帖数: 1217 | | g*******a
发帖数: 31586 | 8
杀了你嫁谁
【在 g**********y 的大作中提到】
: 怎么没有人起义，杀掉这些大蛀虫
| g**********y
发帖数: 1217 | 9 你吧
【在 g*******a 的大作中提到】
:
: 杀了你嫁谁
| g*******a
发帖数: 31586 | 10
我不娶老姑娘的
不过谢谢您的美意
【在 g**********y 的大作中提到】
: 你吧
| | | c********e
发帖数: 6158 | 11 so are u shorting china mkt? ^_^
【在 g**********y 的大作中提到】
: 怎么没有人起义，杀掉这些大蛀虫
| a*o
发帖数: 25262 | 12 谁来起义？光棍汉？领导的三四没了，大怒，横扫东莞，怎么办？
【在 g**********y 的大作中提到】
: 怎么没有人起义，杀掉这些大蛀虫
| g**********y
发帖数: 1217 | 13 你是说贪官娶老姑娘？
【在 g*******a 的大作中提到】
:
: 我不娶老姑娘的
: 不过谢谢您的美意
| g*******a
发帖数: 31586 | 14
您懂的
【在 g**********y 的大作中提到】
: 你是说贪官娶老姑娘？
| g**********y
发帖数: 1217 | 15 呵呵。1.贪官不娶老姑娘 2.我不是老姑娘。
【在 g*******a 的大作中提到】
:
: 您懂的
| D***s
发帖数: 271 | |
|
