[wiradikusuma]

I don't understand.

== Stereotyping alert ==

At least in Malaysia and Singapore, even though there are a lot of Chinese (but not China national), "China girls" (from China) carries negative connotation. The reason is, many of them work in brothels, dodgy massage parlors, etc (you get the idea), and they're also known to "steal people's husbands" and being "gold diggers".

In China itself, it's "common" for rich people to have mistresses, and prostitution seems to be "common" (I have few friends who regularly visit China for this purpose).

Is it _because_ of that the China govt puts censorship, or _despite_ of that, or totally unrelated?

[rtuulik]

Its totally unrelated. Like most issues with prostitution, it is simply caused by poverty.

China is a very materialistic society with incredibly high inequality and it lacks any sort of welfare support network.

If you just walk around in shanghai, then the country might seem pretty close to first world levels of development. But if you go deeper inland, you will find hundreds of millions rural people who have been left behind, and still live in grinding poverty.

When you are that poor, then becoming a prostitute can be a acceptable option for you.

[malnourish]

I would imagine that people choose sex work even if they are not destitute.

For example, look at the American porn industry or "high-end" call girl/escort scene. Often, it seems, these women (and men) come from means, or at the very least, not squalor.

Poor sex workers are of course more open to exploitation, but you would still find sex workers in developed nations with high social welfare (Australia, for example).

[jinqueeny]

Here in China, we are not to understand, we just accept, obey, and keep silent.

It's not because China girls (at least most of them) want to work in those places, sometimes there simply seems to be no other means. Too sad to continue, sorry.

[raverbashing]

People are going to be people, regardless of what a government does.

Those behaviours can be associated with a certain socio-cultural origin, but on the list of reasons I'd say "internet censorship" is down the list

[Santosh83]

I think gold diggers and prostitutes are a thing in practically every society or culture. "Outsiders" in most societies are also burdened with negative perceptions by the "insiders."

China is a huge country and we cannot generalise on any matter, except perhaps that history shows that vast nations crumble soon enough. Their very size seems to bring out inherent hurdles. This not just applies to China but all such similarly big countries... unless going forward we can evolve sufficiently to stave of death by a thousand paper cuts, but I'm not optimistic there...