I gave my students a group project. They got into their groups, and I just kind of wandered around checking their work and answering their questions. I let them choose their groups. Chinese have a weird phobia of the opposite sex, so almost all of the groups are all guys or all girls.
As I was answering questions, I noticed some English written on the cover of a notebook in the center of a group of guys. It's weird, but they often doodle in English on their notebooks. These are often curse words or grammatically incorrect sentences about random things.
This one, however, said "G.S. God of Sex". I just turned the notebook toward myself, read it, and turned it back. The boys shuffled the book around for a minute trying to give it to the person it belongs to, who was blushing that wonderful Asian glow.
I walked away wondering.
These guys wouldn't get in a group with girls, but they are claiming titles about their expertise. Once when we were studying the terms always, never, and sometimes, I asked them to write sentences using these words. One student stood up and said, "Chinese people always think about sex." Luckily, the bell rang right after he said it, so I just glossed over it.
When we had "game day" before a holiday, one of the games was to get into groups hugging a certain number of people. I would yell "Three!" or "Five!" and they would, in turn, hug that number of people. At one point, I yelled "Seven!" and there were six guys. They immediately hugged each other, and a girl (the only person not in a group) just hung back. They were all giggling not wanting the girl to join their group to make it the appropriate number.
My friend, You, is a high school student. One night we were talking on instant messagener, and she told me that there are signs in her high school saying, "Don't marry a girl who's not a virgin!" She said it's completely normal.
God of sex? Perhaps it means something different in Chinese.
Or maybe it means the same. I recently read an article about young Chinese women getting an average of six or seven abortions because the idea of having a child out of wedlock is simply nonexistant.
