- (AFP) -- The Chinese government has ordered Japan to
teach its citizens how to behave following an "extremely odious"
mass orgy between hundreds of Japanese tourists and Chinese prostitutes.
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- Responding to mounting fury over the three-day orgy in
a hotel in the southern city of Zhuhai on the anniversary of Japan's occupation
of China, the Chinese foreign ministry said it had launched a formal investigation
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- The Chinese media and Internet chatrooms have been crackling
with anger over reports of the September 16-18 sex marathon which reportedly
involved 380 male Japanese tourists and 500 prostitutes at a five-star
hotel.
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- "This case is of an extremely odious nature,"
foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan said in a statement late Sunday.
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- "Foreign citizens in China must abide by Chinese
laws," Kong said. "We hope the Japanese government will improve
their citizens' education about this."
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- The incident has ignited a wave of nationalistic and
anti-Japanese sentiment, with many people convinced the orgy was timed
to humiliate China on September 18, the anniversary of the start of Japan's
occupation of northeast China in 1931.
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- Newspapers quoted Chinese witnesses as saying the Japanese
tourists admitted coming to Zhuhai purely for sex. They said the five-star
Zhuhai International Convention Center Hotel was overrun with tourists
openly groping and hugging prostitutes in elevators and other public places.
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- Reports said doors between hotel rooms were left open
and that up to three or four girls could be seen or heard servicing clients
in each room.
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- The public security bureau in the southern province of
Guangdong has also launched an inquiry into the incident, while the hotel
has been temporarily shut down.
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- The incident underlines sensitive the relationship between
the Chinese people its Asian neighbors, despite booming trade and the fact
that Japan is China's largest trade partner.
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- Anti-Japanese sentiment forever simmers under the surface
of increasing trade, tourism and cultural exchanges between the two countries.
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- Memories of Japan's wartime atrocities, including rapes
and use of Chinese women as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers, remain strong
among the older generation, and the history of the Japanese occupation
until 1945 is regularly taught to the younger generation.
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- Despite the official outrage over the incident, China's
booming southern cities are a well-known magnet for sex tourists from within
China as well as from places such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.
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- Media reports said the hotel's marketing and sales department,
using its contacts in Japan, had organized the group of all-male Japanese
tourists to come to Zhuhai. The "madame" of the hotel's nightclub
allegedly prepared the large group of prostitutes.
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- More than 15,000 messages by angry Chinese have been
posted on one Chinese website alone, denouncing the incident as "national
shame" while some called for a boycott of Japanese products.
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