VaChina

Here lies the remains of my memory of my trip to China in the summer of 2024, or as I like to call it now, my vaChina.

Skip straight to the end for 1 picture a day of my vaChina.

Like my vagina, my vaChinese is a little rusty so I went there to find a boyfriend, to improve my Mandarin. I arrived into Beijing or BJ for short, a great place to improve your oral Chinese.

It’s not true what they say about Chinese men either, they don’t have small penises, if Chinese penises were spring rolls, well then I wasn’t eating vegetarian. I won a scholarship so had money to burn and headed to the nearest Chinese restaurant, or as they call them in China, a restaurant. Met a man from Hong Kong that took me out for a sing song.

Turns out his parents were from Hong Kong, he was British-born, in Wigan precisely. I just thought he had a heavy accent but he was a Northerner, Peking out of Chinese skin.

There’s not really a drinking culture in my vaChina so dating is awkward. We headed to the Karaoke bar, his singing was terrible but despite his heavy accent he spoke good English, had good biceps and he could speak Cantonese. I was learning Mandarin, so he was technically the wong Chinese but I was 6 duck spring rolls in looking to hoi sin.

I did actually want to talk about Chinese trains but have decided that was too raunchy. They operate like a well-behaved period, on time and with a good flow. A train didn’t start my journey, that started on Hainan Airlines flight VLR2C MAN to PEK.

It was something in the way she moved, black hair in an ocean of black hairs. I think she caught my eye because between us we brought the average age of the passengers up to a modest 35. The route caters to Chinese students studying in the North West UK Universities. Her hair was in a tightly wrapped up-do with what appeared to be a metal pin chopstick in her hair, the jewels swaying frantically and she glided through the cabin.

I buzzed off her being weaponised as I was womanising.

They all wore a cream Qipao pronounced (cheap cow) a traditional Chinese bondage dress that was split down both sides of her lower body. The yellow, blue, orange and red waves of colour dancing all over the dress. Sheer skin-coloured stockings. Her faint neck highlighted by a short collar that opened out, split across her chest, her collarbones proud.

She was a good girl and she knew it.

Her complete uniform was far more interesting than her male attendees’ beige waistcoat atop of a white shirt. I wondered as she poured my red tea into a paper cup, if she would be forbidden from wearing trousers. Perhaps Hainan Airlines enforces perceived gender roles because there are no overly camp crew either. Are there no gays allowed in my vaChina?

She was a sweet aperitif before the main course, the capital city of vaChina, a city of 23 million.

北京 pronounced BJ, was a delight to my sensibilities, very modest and Han. China boasts 56 ethnic groups, but they all looked Han to me until I went West, deep into the mountains, high altitude has a habit of changing the faces of people.

This would be my 6th visit to the motherland. I could see their faces now, each unique to me and very different.

My Chinese affords me a unique insight into a colloquial spirit with some people to the point I feel the same height. No, not true, had some emotionally equal moments though. My “Chinese” date invited me in for a drink and I said, “apparently we’re all the same size in bed”.

On the subway, I often talk on the phone (because they have full bars underground, all subways have mobile signal). I have a lot of men looking up to me on the packed subway. Talking in Chinese gets them excited. This one time I made this one man’s head roll right off his shoulders.

I arrived, the June equinox of 2024. I caught the sun after a long sleep and it went down over a lake, 20 minutes walk from my hotel with a new acquaintance, I forget his name but who worked for TikTok.

Many people were using umbrellas for the heat, wearing shorts and naturally quite hairless. Fashioned in polyester domestic clothing, with a sharp tang of flagrant copyright.

My vaChina is in its 20th national congress but there has never been a woman on the politburo of the CCP (China Communist Party). Similar to my vagina, vaChina’s gender representation is cocked.

The politburo likes to boast it has 56 ethnic groups living happily penned in a single country but it has no single female representative in the highest organs of The Communist Party.

Apart from the overwhelming Han people in Beijing, I met Nixi, Moshi and Yi peoples.

Through my time in the West of China, in Yunnan — literally meaning South of the Clouds — I went to 3800m above sea level. I got close to Tibetan culture. Yak butter tea and dumplings are a great combo.

I found a gay club in Shanghai and rode that home.

That first night as I lay on my back with a dark shadow between my legs, aching for noodles, I asked if we could close the curtains, on account of the flashing neon from the restaurant below. They didn’t have any curtains, so I said,

“Well can we turn off them lights?”

They paused, smirked and softly spoke in a hefty accent,

“No, but we can Dim-sum.”

There’s a lot to be said for a Banquet B but my first oriental love was actually with Jade Dragon Snow Mountain of Yunnan.

I had perspective, mountains leave a gorge that cuts deep and the power of the Tiger Leaping Gorge is humbling. Chinese tourists take pictures with fake earnest so well here. No smiles, no creases.

Hong Kong would end my career in vaChina. The waxing crescent moon blurs in the light-polluted night sky of a city built on meagre land mass. It’s been different from my last experience when I landed in a thousand-strong demonstration. This time no one would talk to me about how far HK got in their demands from my vaChina.

I believe crimes, such as vandalism, act as a very effective pressure valve on society. Here in BJ, the political capital of China, felt like there was a complete lack of crime. I felt safe to walk down the darkest street, alone, naked and feel fine — well, maybe cold.

You have no privacy but you are safe on the streets.