Whenever I tell my Chinese friends that the swimming pool in my hometown is rather deserted during the week and even on Saturdays, when bathing costumes have to be donned, but that the pool is teeming with eager swimmers on Sundays when such garments are optional and worn by absolutely no-one, young or old, they look at me in disbelief.

"That could never happen in the Middle Kingdom" nine out of 10 would retort; "we are conservative, we are Chinese, you know!"

"Well, yes, but under that yellow or black or brown or white skin, we all function pretty much the same", I might opine, to no avail however and again, nine out of 10 would try to convince me that the Chinese have had a culture of 5,000 years of chastity, of wholesomeness and of goody-good behaviour.

Worse, I get the impression that they earnestly believe this themselves too.

Many expatriates, unlike most local Chinese, have been to the Shanghai Sex Museum and are thus much better informed about the intrinsically "Chaste Chinese".

From my observation in that museum, China has been rather a lascivious place throughout the various dynasties and, indeed until as recently as 1949.

One of the late Chairman Mao Zedong's first jobs in the new China was to clean up Shanghai's world famous and wildly popular red-light districts and dispatch the ladies residing there to the countryside to not only assist the peasants but also to learn from them. Since then, on the surface and for about half a generation, China has, indeed, been a rather puritan, albeit dull, place.

"Alas", I venture to suggest then: "It is devilishly difficult to suppress mankind's biological urges to procreate in order to ensure the survival of the species, imprinted on us over some 80 million years, based on the now changed requirements for an orderly civilization going back a mere 5,000 years or 0.006 per cent of the time it took Homo Sapiens to develop."

On my way to New Zealand, I stopped over in Singapore and had the pleasure of being invited by a business associate to a popular downtown bar to "wind down", whatever that means. As it happens, I feel I am rarely ever "wound-up", actually.

Singapore has changed unrecognizably; the place is alive and well and there is now the "Durian", the new and beautiful and expansive centre for the performing arts.

Indeed, the Singaporeans (around 70 per cent ethnic Chinese) had it also drummed into them, until recently, that: "Sorry, no sex, we are (substantially) Chinese".

While Singapore, at this time, still cannot be considered racy, the government has come to understand that few international investors want to touch the place when a pious Sunday school atmosphere prevails and now, much is possible, provided the horses are not publicly startled!

Well, there I was, perched high on a leather-clad bar stool, enjoying the sight of the fashionable and young and gyrating crowd, the music and the, thank God, smoke-free atmosphere, while my host was off to the washroom to answer a call of nature.

His seat had not cooled off before a rather beautiful and slender young lady with luscious long black hair, pussy-cat eyes and a captivating smile sat down next to me and gave me one of the most melodious and suitably perfumed "Hellohh's" that had wafted my way for some time.

Such initiative; such luck!

It turned out that this stunning model came from Beijing, was in Singapore on holiday, had reputedly lost her travelling companion, had nothing much to do tonight and would I like to have a relieving massage and whatever else I fancied at a honorarium to be mutually agreed upon!

By this time, my host re-emerged from his tour of relief and my noble nymph melted into the crowd again. Sigh!

My host told me then that my experience was not at all unusual and that currently, the number of Chinese ladies descending on such profitable export markets as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia had reached such alarming numbers that, last month, the Malaysian Government had enacted a law stipulating that single Chinese maidens below something like 35 years, would be refused entry into Malaysia unless accompanied by a male relative. This rule, he believed, has been rescinded only last week, "in the interest of good bilateral relations between the governments of Malaysia and China".

But in Singapore, too, this pleasurable problem had reached nigh epidemic proportions.

Some Mainland Maidens had the commercial panache to even open the doors of cars waiting at busy city intersections, nestling down in the passengers' seat, buckling up and cooing to the single (male) occupant if he would like to get to know her a little better.

The Singapore Government, too, is trying to dream up ways to curb the novel but rather direct "marketing" activities of these capricious, leggy, luscious and lusty Mainland ladies.

In the final analysis though, methinks, across the nations, most of mankind functions in not too dissimilar ways, below that thin veneer of religion, yellow or colored or white skin that is.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum Est.

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