Friday, June 26, 2009

Life in Xiamen...

Cruising through the headlines over at WhatsonXiamen when we ran across the headline "Xiamen police strike hard on street walkers". Since I know that you guys won't click into that article I'll post a copy of it here for you all -

Street walkers soliciting along a street is not a rarity, although they are illegal in China. Recently, 24 street walkers were caught for soliciting in Dajingjiao Alley near Zhongshan Road, one of Xiamen’s popular shopping streets.


According to the Lujiang police post, they sent out more than 40 policemen for the operation. A total of 24 women were taken to the police station on suspicion of soliciting on the street.


In addition, a patrol team will soon be set up to patrol and stand guard around the area 24 hours a day, according to the police post.


A few years ago, there were many illegal venues disguised as hair salons around the alley which made some of the old tenant's move out of there leaving empty houses with relatively cheap rent. Thus it has become a paradise for streetwalkers to hang out.


So there you go - they're cracking down on the many streets of prostitution here in one of the best livable cities in all of China. Since I didn't include the photo from the article, I'll post one Tina snapped a while back when we were strolling through the alleys.
Legs - apparently soon to be a vanishing sight. Where now will we take our guests to show them the "real China"?

If the rains hold out we will have to take to the alleys this weekend for a few last photos of a dying breed. Unless, of course, this is just another short lived crackdown the likes of which one sees quite often in China - bad this week, fine again in about a month. Time will tell.

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