Chinese mistresses facing layoffs (Corrected)

Truly, no one is safe from the long reach of the financial crisis. Time‘s China Blog reports: With the flagging economy, no one’s job is secure, not even for a mistress. A Qingdao newspaper reported that a Qingdao businessman facing money problems decided to “fire” four out of his five mistresses last December. According to ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

Truly, no one is safe from the long reach of the financial crisis. Time's China Blog reports:

Truly, no one is safe from the long reach of the financial crisis. Time‘s China Blog reports:

With the flagging economy, no one’s job is secure, not even for a mistress. A Qingdao newspaper reported that a Qingdao businessman facing money problems decided to “fire” four out of his five mistresses last December.

According to the paper the man, surnamed Fan, was “inspired by those talent challenge programs he saw on TV”, and arranged similar competitions for his five mistresses. Only the top winner would remain Fan’s mistress and enjoy a monthly income of US$800 and an apartment. The five women then presented themselves in front of a professional model trainer, gave speeches, sang songs and even gulped down liquor to show their drinking capacity.

Read the whole post for the story’s strange and tragic conclusion.

Update: Looks like this one was too good to be true. Time has learned that the story was fictional.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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