A Milestone

So today, Shuai and I were walking through downtown Guilin on what he likes to call the walking street. There are plenty of vendors and shops to be found, and there are in fact plenty of people walking on it and no cars are allowed.

As we are walking, we see this older man begin to approach, which is pretty normal, as there are plenty of people trying to sell jade and other jewelry on the street.

He looks to be about in his 50s, he's dressed like he's living in Del Boca Vista, and he is carrying with him a tiny tattered umbrella to protect himself from the light drizzle of rain.

He starts off talking to me by saying, "hey, how are you?" This caught me off guard, as almost everyone trying to sell things only will say "hello" and/or the English name of the item they are selling, so this made him stand out from other vendors.

I respond by telling him that I'm doing good and try to offer him a jumble of Chinese words that just don't come out right.

He just smiles and responds, "Massage? Sex?"

I just laugh and quickly respond “不要不要”, which means "don't want, don't want". And at that point, it all made sense why he was carrying absolutely nothing in his hands to sell me. Shuai and I hurried off and he kept talking in Chinese for a little until he faded into the background searching for another potential customer.

And now I've finally reached a milestone where I've been offered a prostitute in China.