China is a huge country that is teaming with commercial sex services. While I have reported on the special administrative regions of Macau and Hong Kong for years I only started reporting on the Chinese mainland this year.
While there are erotic establishments all over China the repressive climate that exists in the country forces most of them to operate below the radar. There was a time when cities like Dongguan were lined with sex saunas that could even outshine the Macau saunas. A wave of crack downs has more or less put an end to that.
Today adult entertainment venues in China can be even be tricky for locals who speak the language to find thanks to the use of general locations and passwords intended to throw off the authorities. For foreigners who do not speak Mandarin things are much more difficult.
Entrance to the totally foreigner-friendly Chinese sauna I reviewed here a few months ago requires customers to contact a manager for directions to a nondescript office building where they must say a secret word to a plain clothed lookout.
Because of the difficulties and hassles involved many foreigners rely on bars known to attract freelance working women and escorts to serve their needs. One of the most prominent collections of escorts working with foreigners can be found on the Shanghai Nightlife Blog.
One set of escorts on the site is found on an “escort agencies” page. The other is found on an “independent escorts” page. A few of these escorts like the Filipina featured seem to be genuinely independent since they list their own contact information. I don’t know if the same is true for all of the others since appointments are arranged with them all through an English speaking contact named Judy. Her contact info is listed for the mast majority of the women on the independent escort page.
This is why I’ve decided to group the “independent escorts” as a whole for the purposes of this review. Whatever their level of relation and connection they are all at least dispatched through the same person.
Customers contact this contact person through phone calls or emails. They can also make contact through the use of smartphone apps like Wechat which leads to the quickest responses. Customers can select one of the available women listed on the website and try for a booking. The ladies do get booked pretty regularly and even when they are not the size and amount of traffic in Shanghai can make it so they’re not available for a few hours so customers have the best chance at making an appointment by doing so in advance of the actual time they want to have a session.
Prices vary from one lady to the next and according to the length of session. An average short session runs between 1300 Yuan ($198-$365 USD). Deeply discounted sessions are advertised on the website with regularity though customers do not find out until their actual sessions that appointments made under these cheaper arrangements may not include all services listed. For example a woman listed as being an expert in backdoor entry may only offer regular full service to a customer who books her on the cheap. To their credit the Shanghai Nightlife independent escort webpage says “There is no 100% guarantee, that all the options will be available for all the clients at any time!”
Once customers make contact with the booking person they can arrange their meetings. Contact is sometimes returned immediately though at other times it can take a while. In any situation the contact is usually straight to the point. There is little in the way of cheerfulness or the kind of warm customer service one might expect in Asia to be found. To book a session customers must give their names and locations. They may also be asked other questions like their nationality and skin color to make sure they don’t run afoul of the requirements of the women they are booking time with. As careful readers will note some of the women on the site have notes in their profile saying things like “no blacks and no Indians.”
When the women arrive for their booked sessions the contact person lets the customer know through the phone. The women are usually punctual to the point of even showing up early.
The ladies speak varying levels of English with some being nearly fluent and others barely being able to construct a sentence. The latter group use body language and occasionally phone apps to communicate.
The aforementioned website has pictures of each of the women on staff that it claims are “100% confirmed accurate.” In some cases that seems to be true. In others not so much. At least two of the women who work through the website are significantly larger than their pictures may suggest. It is common for photographs of adult entertainment workers to be edited all around the world but a large women advertising with a heavily touched up photo taken at an angle that makes her look like an average sized Chinese woman could easily leave a customer feeling duped.
At least the photographs are of the people they claim to be. There is no use of photographs lifted off of the internet. Some are totally clear and honest. A lot of the women are very attractive. Many others are average or a little above. None seem to be unattractive. One may wonder why so many of the women are bold enough to openly show their faces on the website. There may be little threat to them due to their methods of work. I can only speculate.
Sessions typically go as one would expect. Full service is the norm with oral services also being regularly provided. Things can of course go any way as adults interacting can have different results depending on the exact situation. I can only speak in generalities. At least one of women working through the website only offers handjob happy endings though she is clear about that up front and her prices reflect her lesser services.
The women by and large seem to be enthusiastic about their work. Some are true experts with the skills to pay the bills while others look like they’re in it all for fun and some extra spending money. None appear to be out to rip off or short their customers as the mainly positive reviews in the comments section of the women’s pages suggest.
Few of the women seem to be clock watchers either. This shows a sort of customer based orientation that is lacking elsewhere.
After sessions conclude customers pay their service providers the rates they agreed on before booking. Tipping is not expected or required though some of the women may ask for a little extra money if they feel they can get it. For what it’s worth locals usually don’t tip escorts or anyone else. Foreigners are free to do what they want and no one can fault a woman for trying to make as much as she can but this is worth noting.
This independent escorts operation has a wide variety of women who are relatively easy for customers to book sessions with. Prices are not out of line for a city the size of Shanghai either. Considering all of this and the above I give it two-and-a-half-stars.
The score may be higher if the outfit was located in some sexual desert. On the other hand if this operation was located somewhere like Germany or Thailand where adult services are readily available it would undoubtedly score lower.
Independent Escorts via Judy. Shanghai, China. Open every day with various availabilities. Website: Phone: (+86) 0185-213-142-68. Email: booking@shanghai-nightlife-guide.com