Now Hiring: Live-In Girlfriend
Posted by Aaron Lopin on Thu, Dec 06, 2007 @ 12:35 AM
I've been in China for a long time and I'm starting to think I've been desensitized. The following is an example of something which now looks quite normal to me, but somehow I have the nagging feeling that it's just not right.
The Chinese imitation of craigslist.org is called zhantai.com and is a breeding ground for advertisements like this one, which I found under the seeking friends category: "真诚想找个同居女友一月5000." The poster of this ad is 'sincerely' looking for a live in girlfriend, and is offering 5,000RMB per month. Word by word, the ad reads: (Zhen1)真(Cheng2)诚‘sincerely,' (Xiang3)想‘want,' (Zhao3)找‘find,' (Ge4)个‘a,' (Tong2)同(Ju1)居‘together live,' (Nv3)女(You3)友‘girlfriend,' (Yi2)一(Yue4)月‘one month,' 5,000RMB.
There are tons of ads like this, some ‘business men' looking for college student girlfriends offer as much as 15 or even 20,000 RMB per month. Lots of girls put their numbers up too, because they recently, 'ran into some financial difficulty,' etc. etc. Here's a girl who is looking for someone to (Bao1)包 her. 征人保养我，每月5万，没钱的勿扰. She says she is looking for someone to 'take care of her,' and it will cost you 50,000RMB per month to do so. The Chinese reads: (Zheng1)征‘seeking,' (Ren2)人‘person,' (Bao3)保(Yang3)养‘take care of,' (Wo3)我‘me,' (Mei3)每‘every,' (Yue4)月‘month,' (Wu3)5‘five,' (Wan4)万‘ten thousand.' She also warns those without money not to bother her: (Mei2)没‘Not have,' (Qian2)钱‘money,' (De)的 (Wu4)勿‘do not,' (Rao3)扰‘disturb.' The character (De)的is simply a grammatical place holder. The final character (Rao3)扰 is the second half of the word for 'disturb' or ‘bother,' (Da3)打(Rao3)扰.
Now, I'm not so naïve as to think that this kind of thing doesn't ever happen in America, I just can't remember it being quite so blatant. But then again, I could be wrong.