Love Moon

Last month I was standing outside the bank when two women came by and struck up a conversation. They told me they worked for Mary Kay and asked for my phone number, which I gave them, telling them to send me a text message so I could take my time deciphering the Chinese. On Tuesday the text message arrived. Even after I called back, I wasn't totally sure it was them since I hadn't written down their phone numbers, but we made plans to meet anyway.

A woman met me at the bus stop and I followed her to a nearby apartment, fully expecting a pitch for Mary Kay. During our initial meeting they kept pointing to my face and using the word makeup (huazhuang), a word I had only learned the previous week. Okay, I'll just listen politely, I thought, but I won't buy anything.

There were four other people there when we arrived: a woman I had previously met, plus three men sitting in the corner and looking on curiously. The woman sat me on the couch and opened her laptop to show me a brief video promoting a company calling itself, I kid you not, Success Unlimited. It was the kind of slick corporate video that talks about mission and philosophy without ever saying what the company actually does.

It does not sell Mary Kay. Since our first meeting, the woman had joined another network marketing company that sells one product and one product only: sanitary napkins. She and her partner proceeded to read from their English script while I sat through various absorbency tests. The product line is called Yuelang, which means Love Moon.

They also showed me bilingual company literature, some of which was probably not meant for me to see. Flipping through it, I quickly found this gem: "The principle of making money according to the Jews - it is 10 times easier to make money from women than men." The next page elaborated that since women run the family, they hold the power to consume.

At the end I explained that I was about to leave the country for four weeks and really had no place for a bulk maxi pad supply. They said they were happy just to tell me about their company. Amway and similar companies have really taken off here in the last few years, often offering enterprising employees substantially higher incomes.