Sometimes it’s amazing the weird things you can run across on Youtube. I recently came across Sexy Beijing, an web series in China and while the video above is suitable for work, some of the interviews may be questionable due to the content. In any case, I was totally enthralled for whatever reason because a laowai was speaking in a Northern accent, which brought me back to the days of taking collegiate Chinese when the TA liked to give me hell because I didn’t speak with the Beijing accent like he was taught. In any case, it was fascinating since Sexy Beijing not only brings out how China has grown, but as a people, what sort of internal revolutions they’ve had due to opening up to the world.
For example, one of the videos was the interviewing of a comedy film called Red Light Revolution. It’s basically about how a businessman opens a sex shop to make ends meet. What’s interesting about this interview is that the older actor said he actually remembers one of the first sex shops opening up in Beijing and it was probably around ten years ago. This also coincides with the beginning of the China Adult-Care Expo back in 2004 which began because China produces 70% of the world’s sex toys.
Many Westerners still believe that China continues to be a very closed off and isolated country due to government restrictions. But on the ground with Sexy Beijing, it seems apparent that change has been rampant in the last decade and continues to steamroll through.
