Huh?
Wow.
Zenster, sounds like it was a great trip.
**Eva Luna[/d], more tales of burly north Caucasians, I insist. Please? Pazhalista?
I’ve been slacking too much today, so this is one I’ll mostly have to leave to your warped imaginations for now:
When one is 5’1” and 115 lbs., and one is dating a large and muscular North Caucasian who is also a veteran of Spetsnaz (the Soviet equivalent of the Green Berets) in Afghanistan, it is generally a bad idea to challenge him to a wrestling match by announcing that no guy has ever managed to pin you. Especially if he’s a bit tipsy.
Dang, Japan abounds with stories such as the no panties shabu-shabu dinner courtesy of Goldman Sachs or the transexual hostess bar courtesy of Swiss Bank Corp or many other deviant type activities. Naw, we won’t go there.
However, circa 1985, China was just opening to the West. Yours truely is in the middle of the freaking country, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province and home to about 12 million people. You couldn’t fraternize closely with the locals as the neighborhood watch was still very much in place and the communist apparati still operating at that time. You certainly couldn’t touch the local women, as they would be thrown in jail for such heinous crimes as consorting with Westerners even sans doing the nasty. I’m not talking hookers, I mean just a holding hands type girlfriend could get arrested and do time. Hookers actually started showing up in the foreigner hotels around 1988. (Actually it was quite noticeable as one summer there were no hookers and the next Spring they were every where. There were hookers in 1985 that the locals were using but wouldn’t touch foreigners. I digress)
I confess I was hosing an Australian woman at the time whilst the two of us were backpacking around China. I also didn’t plan ahead on encountering and then traveling with an Ozzer luv muffin and soon ran out of condoms. My English Chinese dictionary didn’t have condoms as an entry. China was probably a decade away from openly selling condoms or even having convenience stores to sell condoms at.
Since my dictionary didn’t have condom as an entry, and I didn’t want to ask the hotel people the word as I might get kicked out of the hotel or reported to the police, I went to the only local source that seemed appropriate – the black market money changers. When I explained in Chinese what I wanted, they laughed their asses off. In fact, they laughed so hard we quickly had a crowd of at least a hundred people (not uncommon in those days when a foreigner in China could scratch his nose and get a crowd of hundreds watching and commenting on the action). Now, these money changers were shall we say of the uneducated type. So, when I asked them to write out the characters for “condom”, they were unable to and got all embarrassed at being illiterate. A grandmotherly 60-ish type from the watching crowd in proletarian blue one-size-fits-all-shapes-and-sexes-bag masquerading as Chinese clothing stepped up to the plate and authoritatively started writing out the characters. Then of course the crowd had to look at what she was writing and comment on her calligraphy as well as argue for half an hour whether or not the characters were correct. At that point I kinda regretted asking for someone to write out the characters but I did want to learn them.
Okay, so I finally get my piece of paper and slink off to a pharmacy. At least it was a big city and the pharmacy carried condoms, as I found later in small towns they weren’t even sold - rather they were prescribed by one’s work unit.
I kinda ditched the crowd although I’m sure there were a few that followed me to the pharmacy as nothing that exciting had happened since Mao went to get some pointers from Gengis Khan on how to really oppress a population. Anyhoo, I get into the pharmacy and do my best impersonation of an awkward teenager and sidle up to a counter. In a low voice, I ask the clerk for condoms and show her my piece of paper with the characters on it. This 50 year old wide-as-she-was-short battle axe with a horrendous bob haircut yells at about 500 decibels across the store “Hey, this foreigner wants to buy condoms, help him out.” So I had to go to another counter and of course now all the people in the shop are closing in and people off the street are starting to notice a crowd swelling so felt compelled like lemmings to join in.
So, the condom counter lady says: so, what size do you want?
China Guy: Huh???
Putting most good American tourists to shame, she said again very slowly and very loudly: WHAT SIZE DO YOU WANT? LARGE, MEDIUM, SMALL OR EXTRA SMALL?*
Of course feeling that my manhood, race and nationality were being challenged, and that my answer would be discussed ad nauseum for months if not years after, I stood tall and in just as loud a booming voice, replied: LARGE
Counter lady: So how many boxes do you want?
Me: well how many in a box?
Counter lady: 12
Me of course thinking that my manhood, race and nationality were being challenged and also realizing that I didn’t want to go through this process again: Well, gimme 4 boxes ‘cause they have to last through next week.
Counter Lady: That will be a dollar, pay over there.
So it takes at least 5 more minutes to wade through the gathered crowd already eagerly discussing every iota of an event that was still being played out to the payment counter. I pay my dollar or whatever it was at the time, wade back through the crowd to the condom counter and presented the clerk with my paid receipt to claim the prize.
[*Please note: later in another shop I actually bought all four sizes to prove this was true. Alas, lost them in a move years ago and this historic product no longer exists.]
I had the best post. Really, I took the time to write well (for me)…and then freeze!
Oh, well.
The punchline was…
“I am a pen.”
Said to me by a very hot Japanese guy in Al’s Bar in Sapphoro. He was wearing all-in-one red fireman’s longjohns.
A joke I have played several times: cut off the finger of a latex surgical glove and roll it like a condom. On a first date pull it out casually and ask"you don’t mind if I use a condom, do you?" Uncomfortable silence always follows.
But actually, that size would be considered “large” in China
Anahita, please share and don’t despair!
A tip: whenever I write anything longer than a few sentences, I always do in in Word first and then copy & paste. Saves a lot of frustration.
Which could be the title of a video series, now up to volume 25
But there ARE circumstances then, eh?
(In my case, if they’re rich Japanese fuck chicks, it would dramatically increase the range of circumstances!)
Coll, you’ll go in the ledger as owing an edited, elaborated version of the story at a later date 
China Guy, thank your lucky stars your Ozzie love muffin didn’t send you to the store for some tampons. You’d never have gotten out alive.
PS: Great story.
Come one folks. Duck in with some more deranged sex stories or I will have to tell you all the one about a rock in the middle of Upper Hell Hole Reservoir.
Hrmm… I thought this post was about my job!
Well all righty then!
Tell us about your job already. If it has the least resemblance to this thread’s title, inquiring minds want to know!
Ack! Now you have gone and lit the fuse. Pandora’s box is like a fruitbasket in comparison to the horror you are inviting.
Mhuwahahahahahahahahhaahahahaha!!!
There WAS A CAMEL in MEXICO once, it WAS STOLEN by BILL CLINTON and the PLEADEANS, WHO want to STEAL ALL of the MEXICANS because of DRAGONS in MEXICO that the GREYS like to EAT! IT is in the BIBLE!
Ice Cream in Darkness …
And we’re not talking about hot sludge fundaes.
HOT CHICKS WHO WANT TO F…
Nevermind.
Mail Order bride flunky >.<
I’m not exactly sure where the camel master part comes in but… ooohhhh boy…
Sorry, no. Not my schtick here. Later, perhaps I will tell a story about an amigo though. Sort of cheap man’s James Bond.
Very well, a story worthy of this thread. It is not my own, my policy being I only tell my own stories over liquor. As none of you have liquored me up, neither this, nor tales of getting fondled in al-Azhar during a moulid will be told in this venue….
A certain friend of mine formerly, perhaps still with a well known intelligence agency, although I have to generally give credence to his indication he separated, was on assignment in Copenhagen back in the day.
As it happens he was making contacts and doing whatever he was doing (on site analysis he said, whatever that meant) during a major conference in which “East” folks were bopping round, and very happy being in Copenhagen. Except unlike in the past, he was on constant duty rotation, and further had been warned that they had not cleared his room, so he should expect it was “live” – especially the chandeliers. No fun, they said.
So, as he told me, after coming off his first long rotation, he found he couldn’t sleep. Just staring up from his bed at the chandelier above. As he related his thinking, he felt he needed to spank the monkey, so to speak, to relax and drift off. But there was this damned chandelier and all that implied. Above his bed.
Then, as he related the events, he thought, ‘fuck it, I gotta relax’ – and then he adds, “But those poor bastards watching me, hah, I’m sure it was “Oh my god, not again!”
I suppose all the untouchable babes can provoke one to excess.
No. Not in a good way.
I may have a Chinese Karaoke story or two floating around in my brainpan somewhere. I’m not sure I have the time to do them justice or make them fit for consumption. Maybe.
I don’t suppose there’s any way to buy you a drink, or several, by mail-order where you are? I’m sure some of your stories are real doozies. Well, if you’re ever in Chicago, consider it a standing invitation.
I can sympathize about the chandelier. During my initial student days in Leningrad, when there were few enough Americans around that the Consul could still invite most of them over for Thanksgiving dinner and hold safety briefings himself for each incoming student group, we often wondered how closely we were being watched. We weren’t worried about cameras so much, but we did have our suspicions about the dorm’s “sprinkler system.”