Ladybois and corruption

I am very fortunate to have a tutoring gig that allows me to interact with a Chinese student as well as earn money just by sitting around an having a conversation. Yesterday I was chatting with my tutee and he told me that he thinks Thai women are the most beautiful women in eastern Asia. He then told me that there are a lot of "Yao ren" there. This is the Chinese term for what many of us know as ladyboys, or ladybois if you want to put a little wordazzle on it.

Then we focused on Shanghai and an area called Zhongshan Park. My tutee, who goes by the English name of Dom, said that he has seen many girls holding hands and kissing other girls. He has also seen boys doing the same. He then told me, "it is so sexy to see two pretty girls kissing, but makes me feel disgusting when I see two guys." Being true to my nature I decided I would teach him what devil's advocate means by barraging him with questions using his words and logic. I asked him if two guys were kissing and they were sexy would he like it since he would like two girls. He told me "no." this made me laugh a bit and then he started to ask me about gays in the United States. He told me he thinks there is nothing wrong with being gay, but he was not gay...only girls.

The other topic we discussed was corruption and connections. How these two words are extremely similar, yet we behave as if they are worlds apart. The only difference is one is illegal favoritism.
Corruption is everywhere in China and if you come from an affluent family and/or a family with the proper connections than anything is possible in China. My tutee thinks that this is not fair, but it is necessary if he wants to be successful. Ultimately, it sucks for poorer Chinese, but he does not care much because he needs to do whatever is necessary for him to get good grades (assisted or not) and go to a good university.

'Twas an interesting conversation with a Chinese person for an hour of tutoring, which included 200RMB and dinner.