40 Million Horny Chinese Men

[manfarang-old]

Asia's Hormonic Convergence
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 28, 2006; C01

It's bad enough that we have to worry about birds with flu, mad cows, deer ticks, global warming, global terrorism, globalization, suicide bombs, suitcase bombs, shoe bombs, dirty bombs, the federal deficit, baby boomers bankrupting Social Security, Iran getting nukes, North Korea getting nukes and al-Qaeda getting nukes.

Now, Foreign Policy magazine has come up with a new worry to chew your nails over -- hordes of hormone-addled, sexually frustrated Asian men.

This nightmare scenario appears in an article with a wonderful title -- "The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration." But the scary part starts in the subtitle: "Asia has too many boys. They can't find wives, but they just might find extreme nationalism instead."

The problem began 20 years ago, when ultrasound technology gave Asian women a cheap way to determine the sex of their unborn babies, writes Martin Walker, editor of United Press International. In China and other Asian nations, millions of women chose to abort female fetuses so they could instead give birth to boys. Consequently, those countries will soon have millions more men than women.

The result, says Walker, will be "mass sexual frustration." By 2020, he writes, China alone could have "40 million frustrated bachelors."

That's sad. But why should we care about the love life of Chinese bachelors?

Because, Walker says, young men tend to misbehave when they're suffering from what he calls "testosterone overload."

Back in the 19th century, famine caused a rash of female infanticide in northern China, Walker writes, citing the work of Valerie Hudson, a Brigham Young University scholar. The result was unmarried guys forming "bandit gangs" and running amok in what came to be known as the Nien Rebellion.

This time, Walker writes, the hordes of horny bachelors could cause a war: "A Beijing power struggle between cautious old technocrats and aggressive young nationalists may be decided by mobs of rootless young men, demanding uniforms, rifles, and a chance to liberate Taiwan."

Hudson agrees: "In 2020, it may seem to China that it would be worth it to have a very bloody battle in which a lot of their young men could die in some glorious cause."

That's a scary scenario. But I'm an optimist and I believe we can solve this problem with good old American know-how.

In fact, we've already solved the problem in the United States. Sure, we, too, have millions of sexually frustrated young bachelors. They're sitting in their mom's basements in their underwear right now, eating reheated Chinese takeout and channel-surfing, searching for sports or "Baywatch" reruns. But they're not begging to invade Taiwan, or anyplace else. In America, it's not sexually frustrated young men who want to invade other countries, it's happily married middle-aged politicians.

In this great country, we've developed massive industries to keep our frustrated bachelors sedated. And we can sell this stuff to the Chinese, thus solving their bachelor problem while improving our nasty balance of trade deficit.

Here's what we do: First we send the greatest minds on Madison Avenue to China to do what they do so well here -- convince young guys that the way to attract hot babes is to drink the right kind of beer and drive the right kind of car.

After that, we export tons of the great American stuff that keeps our lonely guys calm -- Doritos, nachos, microwave pizza, video games, light beer, Internet porn and cable TV packages that include the Spice Channel and 24-hour coverage of every sport known to man.

That ought to do the trick. But if it doesn't, we can try Plan B, which is an exchange program: The Chinese send us all of their sexually frustrated young men who can hit three-point jump shots or throw 95 mph fastballs or do cool kung fu moves in movies. And we send China our sexually frustrated young women who like to complain that all the good men are either married, gay or in jail.

The good news is: Due to the glories of globalization, these women can still work for American corporations. The bad news is: They'll have to work for 37 cents an hour.

┬й 2006 The Washington Post Company

This reads like another journalistic beat-up. There was an article in a reputable science journal recently where it was estimated that a certain number of female foetuses had been aborted in India, leading to gender imbalance. This article reads as if a journalist has gone on the usual rampage of making up "facts" as he goes along (China rather than India, for example) and then throwing in some popular "science" and a lot of speculation to come up with some genuine scare-mongering. I'm surprised we haven't seen it over on the Bog of Shame. Come to think of it, weren't we told of a "wonderful new career in writing" at one stage?

Why not just dub Brokeback Mountain in Chinese?

Cool solution. All the Chinese have to do is promote same sex relationships for males. Part of the problem has been caused by enforcement of their one child per couple policy. The downside of that is that whilst the male of the species has been the offspring of choice, and lets not look too closely at what happened to first born of the wrong gender, the sole children have not been brought up very well.

Being the compulsorily only child they have been lovingly nurtured. Overfed from an early age and their every whim pandered to by two doting parents. The result is too often a fattie with overdeveloped attention expectations. So don't expect some invasion of lithe young kung fu stars tumbling out of the PRC anytime soon. They've probably come to a campus near you already, but you'd still do better to cross the room to chat up that nice young man from Taiwan or Korea or maybe even Thailand.

On the other hand there is one of them for every three of everything else so choice for coming generations is going to be rather limited.

[Aunty]

............ the sole children have not been brought up very well.

Being the compulsorily only child they have been lovingly nurtured. Overfed from an early age and their every whim pandered to by two doting parents. The result is too often a fattie with overdeveloped attention expectations.

I work with a lot of Chinese students from the mainland and NorthStar you are absolutely right. In fact the Chinese have a term for these kids, Little Emperors. Some of them are just down right demanding, selfish, materialistic, superior, catty and shallow. Not all of them are like that of course, but some are just shockers. What amazes me and distresses a lot of older Chinese immigrants from the mainland that I talk to is how little knowledge many of these kids have about China's recent history. I first went to the mainland in 1981, so I know what China was like then, and what it's like now. Most of these kids who can afford to study overseas know nothing, apart from their unshakable belief in Chinese nationalism, which I can see having potential problems for China's Asian neighbours in the years to come when these kids get into positions of power.

Not all of them are like that of course

...and you,sir, are right about that. I number among my colleagues more than a few scholars from the PRC who are great people both socially and professionally.

But we seem to be witnessing a bit of a student flood of spoilt brats

All the Chinese have to do is promote same sex relationships for males

I think it was Anthony Burgess who wrote a futuristic novel in which the government promoted population control by encouraging homosexual relationships, under the slogan "It's sapiens to be homo"

choice for coming generations is going to be rather limited

So eveyone's going to be a rice queen?