By QU JIA
Travel Correspondent

Howard is willing to expand his horizons – even if that includes dating 22-year-olds

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – A middle-aged US male has struck romantic gold, after visiting China and discovering he is actually remarkably handsome.

Howard G. Hallbecker, who has never considered himself anything other than average-looking, had only ever previously dated two women: one his high-school sweetheart, the other a brief fling with a colleague following his divorce.

But that all changed after Hallbecker visited China.

“Turns out I’m actually ‘handsome, rugged and mature,’” a perplexed Hallbecker told media yesterday. “I just wish someone had told me this a few years ago. Then maybe I wouldn’t have had that breakdown.”

Hallbecker’s visit to China was arranged through Hearts Abroad, a US travel agency that specializes in group tours for singles. Their Wonders of the Orient package offers middle-aged singletons a 21-day holiday with like-minded citizens at reasonable rates.

“I decided to give myself a treat after three years of agonizing and expensive legal battles with my ex-wife,” explained Hallbecker. Just how much of a treat only became apparent after the group arrived in the People‘s Republic, however.

“I had hoped to maybe make a connection with one of the other American ladies on the trip,” the 48-year-old kitchen salesman admitted. “Sadly, none seemed interested. In fact, most of them only seemed to care about whether or not they would be forced to eat dog.”

Instead, the slightly overweight, heavily bearded East Coaster found love in the most unlikely of places: a Chinese hospital.

“Hankie come in with nervous heart, and he walk too much, I think!” giggled student nurse Mai Li, whose English name is ‘Joyful Peach.’ The 21-year-old treated Hallbecker for suspected heart palpitations following a hike on the Great Wall –and the two quickly became close.

“I practice my English with him and, quickly, I see he is very handsome man: big beard, big belly, big nose.. just all big, actually, yes,” Mai explained.

Now Hallbecker has abandoned his fellow tour groupies – currently bound for a tour of the Terracotta Army in Xian – in favour of spending more time with Mai.

But not everyone supports his decision.

“I think it’s a disgrace – yes, I do!” fumed fellow traveller Grace Palmetto, a 47-year-old divorcee from Florida, also booked on the Hearts Abroad tour. “A man of his age behaving that way… why, it makes my blood boil. This has completely put me off singles’ holidays. Forever.”

And after seeing a picture of Mai Li, Hallbecker’s ex-wife Jolene Peterson – currently studying for her real estate license – has advised China Daily Show to direct all future communication through her lawyer.

Follow this and other top China stories at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By Jin Dabenda
Tourism Correspondent

Discovering “He’s a she” can be the ultimate disappointment

BANGKOK (China Daily Show) — Wang Ge was excited: For months, the junior government official had been reading of his compatriots’ adventures in the steamy Thai capital. Now he was finally visiting himself.

Particularly of interest were the country’s many post-op transsexuals, or “ladyboys,” an object of enduring fascination to many holidaying Chinese.

Which is how Wang ended up at a drag show on the capital’s famous Soi Cowboy, cradling a cold Singha in one hand and a six-foot, 140-pound “woman” in the other.

Except “she” wasn’t a “woman” at all – she was, in fact, an actual woman.

“When I took her back to her cramped apartment, I had drunk many beers, maybe three, so I was dizzy and confused. I didn’t know what I was doing, as we began kissing and taking off each others’ clothes,” Wang admitted.

Things progressed to the bedroom, where Wang undressed his companion, only to find a pair of magnificent breasts – and a neatly trimmed vagina.

“I immediately rushed to the bathroom and was violently sick,” Wang recalled. “Maybe it was the beer but one thing I do know is: she was no ladyboy.”

Wang’s experience is not uncommon. A surge in tourism from the Chinese mainland has exposed an apparent shortage of proper, anatomically correct male-to-female transsexuals in Thailand, experts say, and many clubs and bars are now resorting to using real-life women to make up the shortfall.

“A proper ladyboy should look, smell and feel like a fraulein but have small identifying marks only a connoisseur could recognize,” waxed gender-reassignment expert Dr Klaus Von Eimmenheim.

“Her delicate hands seem a trifle large, perhaps. Her jaw might be firm –a little too firm. And of course, when you remove her underwear, there should be a very distinct, yet small, pizzle. This is most important.”

As Western economies struggle to recover from the 2008 financial crisis, nouveau riche and cadres in China are enjoying a travel boom. Many signs in go-go bars and brothels across South-East Asia now feature Chinese characters alongside the usual Thai, English and Bavarian.

But the sudden transgender shortage threatens this boom period for Thailand’s vital tourism industry.

Sexually ambivalent Chinese men are now finding themselves even more confused when, after an alcohol-fueled night, they end up in bed with someone they assumed was a young girl, realized was a man, hoped was a ladyboy but turned out, instead, to be none of the above.

Tourist chiefs have urged calm.

“We welcome Chinese and all foreigners to enjoy our fine array of prostitutes –  of every conceivable gender,” read the Twitter feed of the Pattayan Tourist Board on Wednesday.

Deputy Minister of Health Somboon Pakchala said there was absolutely no cause for alarm.”There’s no actual shortage of potential Thai ladyboys,” he assured.

“We have thousands of  effete young men ready, willing and able to make the cut,” Pakchala told China Daily Show.

In the interim, long-term farang offered their advice on avoiding any unpleasant surprises.

“There’s one failsafe way to check and that is to ask,” advised amateur  expert Bill Wiggins. “If it’s a woman, she’ll maybe shout at you. But if it’s a ladyboy, she’ll kick the shit out of you.”

Follow this and other Asian news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By Shen Hou
Aviation Correspondent

Shenzhen Airline staff practice their new 'Crouching Tigress, Hidden Dildo' routine

SHENZHEN (China Daily Show) – “Sultry red uniforms,” “thigh-high dominatrix boots,” and “half-closed ‘fuck me’ eyes” were among the many reasons cited for Shenzhen Airlines (SA) topping a recent poll to uncover the world’s “Sluttiest Flight Attendants.”

A longitudinal survey of mainland travelers, inbound tourists and Hong Kong executives has ranked SA’s staff as having the “most Zhang Ziyi-esque” staff, the poll claimed. The findings yesterday sent SA stock spiraling, as netizens rushed to book unnecessary long-haul flights with the airline.

The 16-year study, commissioned by the Chinese Ministry of Tourism, relied on data taken from thousands of passengers, who were randomly given altered Arrival/Departure cards, bearing additional questions inquiring on the overall looks, luster and licentiousness of their mile-high hosts.

Han Ziwei, CEO of Kowloon Technologies, said that it was the first time he had filled out the customs forms both honestly and correctly. “I did pay more attention to the pre-flight announcements when they were combined with elements of burlesque,” Han told China Daily Show. “That was a very nice touch.”

Others cited SA’s Buddha-jumps-over-the-cleavage jade trinkets, worn and sold by the Shenzhen xiaojie on all international flights, and the needless but generous amounts of ass-to-shoulder bumps while sashaying up and down the aisle.”

The airline narrowly beat previous front-runners Cathay Pacific, who in 2009 responded to the recession-hit airline industry by replacing their entire fleet of flight attendants with the Cathay Vodka Miniature Minxes, a bevy of laid-off white-collar workers who serve up sky-high Smirnoff-with-a-smile to tired businessmen.

Labor costs meant Cathay's Minxes (above) were only available in Business Class

Bottom of the poll was British Airways, whose entourage of bleached-blonde housewives offering warm Zinfandel and cold comfort was deemed “rundown on the runway” by irate pollsters.

SA plans to celebrate the win with a series of gala private flights and has promised to replace current in-flight movie The Founding of the Republic with the “zestier” new 3D version of Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy.

The move is part of  the airline’s ongoing series of re-branding in response to the poll, which will see powdered rhinoceros horn served instead of the usual packet of wasabi-coated peanuts, and SA’s trademark red caps updated with a barber’s pole protruding from their peak.

Follow this and other leading China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter