Dear Jane Mei Mei and Liujianrui,
I always check all new posting by using the Search function and putting no name in the place where it asks for one. That way I don't miss any posts.
Your reply is sensitive and thoughtful, Jane Mei Mei. Liujianrui, I see you don't trust me. Well, that's alright. You haven't been here very long and soyou don't know enough about me. I suppose it may have shocked you to see the very frank language I used in my post about "Red Hot Sex in China." Now, you see, there is another post on the same subject by a person who doesn't appear to have read mine, yet is describing the same sort of thing.
I spoke very openly so that I would be clearly understood. I used correct words, and not slang or dirty words. It was my husband who suggested the name for the post, and that was so that many people would read it.
It is very important, friend Liujianrui for people who are going to have sex to take care and protect themselves. Unfortunately, there is only one way to do so. You may hate the word, but it is by using a good condom in the right way.No there is no advantage for me for telling about this.
In Canada this situation is far ahead of where you are in China, so I have read the articles and seen the information about it, which I am passing on to all of you to help you not to die. You know what they say: "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", and in this case, tragically, once it has moved into the AIDS stage there is still no cure at all. The end result so far is always death, and not an easy one.
Jane Mie Mei, in the West perhaps we have had this change over a longer period of time than you. This is what happened here: after the very long and uptight and decorous Victorian age which kept women, particularly, under very heavy social control there followed the Edwardian age which wasn't much different. It was still long awkward skirts, very long hair, and so on. And still old-fashioned and very decorous behaviour, particularly for women, not for men. Then came "The Roaring Twenties." It was a major shock to everybody except the young people who had thrown off all restraint. The Roaring Twenties were the 1920's and early 1930's, the time of my mother's and her sisters' youth. I think it was a complete reaction to the Victorian Age and the Edwardian period and the horrors and sacrifices of the First World War 1914 - 1918. It was a time when many young men had died, or came home gassed with damaged lungs, or other injuries. There was pent-up energy, and maybe a feeling on the part of youth that they had better live life while they could, because the horrors of war might get them. There was all that, which had to explode -- and it did.
Women bobbed their hair. Their long, long hair vanished en masse almost overnight. They looked boyish. And it was so cool, so light, and so easy to keep. That was shocking, though. Long skirts vanished. The new ones were very short. These young women were called "Flappers". The young people were called "Flaming Youth". The women wore beads and fringes, and very mini "Flapper" dresses made of thin and beaded fabrics that were cut on a bias to follow the body and clearly reveal its lines to go dancing. Some girls wore their underwear wet so it would cling and show all they could. They danced the Charleston and other new dances, they bound their breasts to be as boyish as possible. Men liked boyish women the best, and they made themselves thin and boyish. Easy sex was part of it. Women smoked cigarettes in long, black cigarette holders. (Women certainly didn't drink or smoke before.) They drank cocktails. They went to "Speakeasies" and "Road Houses" to dance till the wee small hours of the morning. Prohibition brought with it crime, (prohibition of alcohol, that is) -- the banning of the sale of alcohol made smuggling alcohol extremely profitable. People had to know passwords to get into the places where liquor was secretly served. There were strong guards at the doors of these places who looked through little peepholes to see who was out there and hear the password, before they would let you in. Thee were frequent police raids. Some places served liquor in teapots and the people drank it from teacups, looking oh, so decorous. There is a song that starts: "Knock three times, and he will know, that you and I were sent by Joe: the song is called "Hernando's Hideaway" and is about that time.
People made their own gin. That's where the term "bath-tub gin" comes from. It was the time of the criminal gangs of Al Capone and Bugsy Siegal, and shoot-outsin places like Chicago. It was a wild time. Men were just as wild. I just haven't described them and their dress and ways. Don't blame it all on women.
Suddenly the Second World War erupted. Hitler had turned Europe into an armed camp full of frightened people. He moved to occupy France and other places. TheBritish tried to bargain with him. (Neville Chamberlain failed at it.) The Brits realized he might march right to the French shores and fly and take ships toconquer England. There were German planes over England.
Suddenly life became extremely serious again. The Roaring Twenties ended as warmoved closer and closer in the mid and later 30's. 1939 - 1945 was the Second World War. Women put on overalls and went into munitions factories and airplanefactories to weld metal seams. They did all the kinds of work men had done, while men went overseas to fight. The women were called Tillie the Toilers, afte a comic strip heroine who did the same kind of work.
So, that was how what you are going through now began here. There was anotherwave of free love, hippy youth, and drug culture in the late 60's, early '70's. So I understand what the shock China is suffering now. I was a younger married woman in the 60's-70's. We had four children, the eldest, was 12 and the youngest was 2. We held a weekly open house for street youth in our home. Lots of wild young people came. We didn't allow drugs or alcohol or sex in our house, but we played all the latest rock music (Woodstock, Grateful Dead, etc.) I wore a long "Othello Robe" to put them at ease. We burned candles and incense. It was quite an interesting time. I learned so much about street life and what young people were up to, what the effects were, what Speed, LSD and other drugs did, that my children were never able to put anything over on me in the future when they got into their own teen years. I knew more about it all and could always top them, so they had to respect me. We had every kind of person youcan imagine in our house. Some of those kids decided to became Baha'is and stopped drinking, smoking, drugs, and loose sex. A couple of Baha'i youth began to come to our open houses and if somebody was interested in talking they would go out later and talk half the night, so our house was where they met and where they experienced a Baha'i home. And a lot of them were homesick for a regular homewith parents and children in it, poor kids. People used to ask me if it was alright for our kids to be present, but it was very good for them. After they saw how drugs could fry a person's brain as they fried George's, so he was never able to function normally again, and things like that, our kids never, ever had anyinterest in drugs. Quite a lot of the youth who became Baha'is stayed with it and became steady and excellent people. I see the names of their kids still at it today. One fellow I knew as "Big Al", was uncomfortable when I met him, was glad to see him and called him that because he was now a teacher and married to the daughter of people we knew, and was completely ashamed of the name. I didn't know when I used it, of course. I liked him when he was "Big Al", too. :-) Very many others dropped out, of course. So I don't know what happened to them. Anyway, there will be people who will escape their mistakes, others who will have a lot of trouble from them. Some will die, as they did then, from lots of kinds of things that came upon them as a result of their wild behaviour.
But then, there was no HIV/AIDS. Now there is.
Dear liujianrui, who asked me if I worked for a condom factory. Of course not. I just want you all to remain healthy so you can continue to have normal, happyand contributing lives.
Warm and friendly greetings to you, Jane Mei Mei, and to you, too, Liujianrui. I hope you will come to like and trust me one of these days. I would like to know you better, so why not write more little posts.
Mary
