Thursday, March 11, 2010

I actually spoke to the property management company about the sign and the meanings of both Star Fucks and Porn Queen. The response from the big boss, after my literal translation, was "I don't think so....". I asked if he thought I had nothing better to do than to make it up. Blank stares... I shrugged my shoulders and left.

It's always the same round here. Someone opens a new business. It takes off. So everyone else opens the same kind of business until the market gets saturated and no one makes any money! There used to be one guy in the city centre selling and attaching little protective covers for your mobile phone display. Now there are dozens. 
The other big fashion is coffee shops. Not that anyone seems to know anything about coffee. There are a million and one places which have opened in the last couple of years. Most are very average, some are terrible.  In 99% of them, they take forever to make an overpriced cup of muddy water. It's all  about the ritual - no one seems to know what the stuff is actually meant to taste like. I've only found two which are good. One for its atmosphere and the other for a really good coffee.
There are four within five minutes of my home, two of which opened next door to each other within a few days. 
But I am looking forward to visiting this one which is being built here in Liuzhou. Not so much a coffee bar, more a coffee brothel, by the sounds of it!