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Japanese âorgyâ claims spark outrage in China
Me love you long timeAn inflammatory blend of sex, war and the internet have fired up anti-Japanese feeling in China after reports that hundreds of tourists from Tokyo held a two-day orgy with Chinese prostitutes on the eve of the anniversary of the Imperial Armyâs invasion of Manchuria in 1931. According to the Communist Party newspaper, the Peopleâs Daily, 400 Japanese men were serviced by about 500 local women at the five-star Zhuhai International Convention Centre Hotel in Guangdong province between September 16 and 18. They are said to have paid between 1,200 and 1,800 yuan (£90-£130) each night - more than double the rate for a single room at the plush hotel. Police have ordered the closure of the hotel, which denies involvement in the orgy, while they look into the allegations. "We are conducting an investigation into the case to find out whether media reports tally with reality," a spokeswoman for the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau told reporters. Exactly what happened is unclear. The only witness quoted in the local media told of Japanese men "flirting" with Chinese women in a lift. Something racier is not inconceivable. Prostitution is nominally illegal in China, but huge red light districts are growing openly on city streets throughout the country as communist ideology wears off and a get-rich-quick capitalist mentality takes hold. Much of the business centres around expensive hotels catering to foreigners. In Japanese magazines, sex tours to Asian destinations, including China, are advertised just as they are in publications in the west. But the details appear to matter less than the nationality of the alleged perpetrators and the timing of the incident. In China, September 18 is remembered as "the day of shame" - the anniversary of the 1931 Mukden Incident, which led to the Japanese Imperial Armyâs invasion of Manchuria, the atrocities of the germ warfare unit, and the use of Chinese sex slaves. It is also a time when it is easy to stir up anti-Japanese sentiment. The strength of that feeling has already been made apparent on several occasions this year, most recently after the death of a Chinese labourer who uncovered a Japanese chemical weapon discarded after the war. Last month, a million people signed an online petition calling on the Chinese government not to pick a Japanese rail company to build the Shanghai to Beijing high-speed rail link. But while Chinese students are taught the bitter significance of September 18, few Japanese are aware of its importance. Unless the tourists were historians or ultra-nationalists, it is unlikely that the trip was timed to mark the anniversary. None the less, media reports of Japanese "sex rites" and "orgies" so close to such a sensitive date sparked outrage in China, especially on the internet, where surfers said the "Japanese devils" wanted to celebrate their countryâs wartime behaviour. "The Japanese are animals. They deliberately selected the date to humiliate the Chinese people," one chatboard contributor wrote, claiming that the tourists had attempted to raise their national flag at the hotel. Posted by: rg117 2003-09-29 |
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