my sugar daddy

and I met in a somewhat ordinary way. I had a friend who was returning to Germany, and she had an offer from a business man to translate for him in Germany. She said no, but then he offered her 5,000 euros and a new cell phone for two weeks of translation, so she decided to reconsider. Her Chinese isn't that great, so she invited me and our other friend to meet him for lunch to translate for her. The lunch was somewhat of a bore, especially for me. At the end we exchanged cell phone numbers, a common formality that often has almost no meaning. However, about 2 weeks later, I got a call from the business man and he invited me out to for dinner and karaoke, as I described in an earlier post. Yesterday he called me up and invited me to his friend's house for dinner, however I didn't really have the time or energy to go, so I cancelled on him, promising to have dinner with him tonight. My cell phone has a notoriously bad connection, and combined with the language barrier, I had a very difficult time understanding what he was telling me on the phone. I met him near the school, and we took a taxi to a Xinjiang restaurant (the muslim autonomous region in the NW of China), where I had fried rice and he told me he already had eaten. At this point I was a little worried. If we weren't going to eat, what were we going to do? (I must admit some rather unpleasant possibilities crossed my mind). He spent most of the meal on his cell phone (which is called the Razor, Motorola's brand new phone about 1/8" thick that can basically perform heart surgery). I told him I wouldn't be able to stay out that late, and he told me we could be home by about 10:30. He told me the car was waiting, so we went outside. The car was black and enormous. The interior was completely black leather, and there was a small tv for the back passenger seats (the TV brand was "Chairman"). The front had a display with a satellite map, clock, weather, CD changer, etc. Between the extremely spacious back seats was a leather arm rest that unfolded with about 10 different types of seat controls. There was also a hidden panel with a space for drinks and cell phones and ashtrays and for basically anything else you could possibly do in a car. The business man removed a list from a compartment which listed how much the interior of his car had cost (which apparently he had just gotten redone). The total was in the 10s of thousands of yuan. I asked him what brand it was, and he said "shuang long," which could be a Chinese brand or a translation of a foreign one. He asked me if I could drive, and I said yes. He then asked me if I could drive stick shift, and I also said yes. I asked him if he could drive, and he said yes, but he didn't have a license, he just had a car and other people drove him around. He told me that I could borrow his car any time I wanted and drive around Qingdao in it, but somehow I don't think I would dare drive a car in an empty parking lot, much less on Chinese roads.

After picking up another of his friends, who to my relief turned out to be a young woman, I found out we were going to a bath house. In China, bath houses are extremely popular, and people often go there instead of hotels. After searching a bit for one that wasn't extremely crowded, we finally found one with space. After entering a lobby, we immediately separated into a men's area and a women's area. We removed our clothes and went into an area with showers, sauna, and massage. It was still crowded so we had to share showers. There was all sorts of shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes (in plastic wrap, of course), toothpaste, and face wash. The only soap however, turned out to be whitening soap, which everyone knows is exactly what I need for my January complexion. After washing it off, I look closely to see if I was any whiter, but it was kind of hard to tell. After exfoliating, sweating, and whitening, it was time for a massage. I lay down naked on a table and a woman rubbed me with fragrant oil. For the next half hour, she kneaded and pounded every part of my body. It was about 1 part relaxing and 2 parts painful, but I do feel better afterward. After the massage, the other woman and I went out and changed into the bath house clothes, which turned out to be oversized baby cloths. we had disposable socks and underwear, pale yellow pantaloons trimed with lace, and a matching top with puffy sleeves and more ruffles. After donning our incredibly dignified outfits, we went upstairs. The upstairs contained, as far as I can tell, facilities for any sort of activity people in oversized doll clothes might want to do at night (though the men were in slightly less ridiculous hospital gowns). There was a restaurant, bar, karaoke rooms, other rooms which were probably for other activities, and then a large massage room. We went into the room, which was dimly lit and full of the biggest easy chairs I have ever seen. The room was full of semi-comatose people getting feet, head and neck massages, as well as other people sleeping. In the front were two large screen TVs showing some sort of B-grade Planet of the Apes rip-off. We sat down and drank some tea. They asked me if there were many sort of places like this in America, and I said no. The girl said of course, corruption is not nearly as bad, then we all laughed. (As Dan pointed out, these are exactly the type of people I despise in America). I then asked the business man if he had to go to work tomorrow, and he said that he owns his own company, so he really never has to go to work at all. We were going to get foot massages, but by this time it was well past 11, so we went home. He told me to call him any time I was free so he could show me and my friends around Qingdao. Maybe I'll take him up on it, or maybe I'll just call him up to take his car out for a joy ride.