There are good cultural imports here in Shanghai, like Hooters, jazz music, and Heineken.

There are also slightly annoying cultural imports, like Burger King, American Idol, and Buicks.

Then there are the heinous: Walmart, Michael Bolton, and the preponderance of horoscopes amongst the young women of this thriving metropolis.

Nowhere else have I been where the ladies will actually ask the guys first: “What’s your sign?” This firm belief in the convolutions of astrology is akin to opium delivered in tightly wrapped Hello Kitty packages. Why do people buy into this bunk? I have personally witnessed girls literally go through an entire romance, from birth through death, in the span of 10 minutes. Below is an excerpt from an actual conversation I had with Selina, Shanghainese girl extraordinaire:

Selina: He’s a Leo, which means that he’s patriarchal, attention-grabbing, and charming at all times. I will be lured by his cockiness, and at first he’ll make sure I’m well taken care of. But then, he’ll start constricting my freedoms, telling me that how to match my socks with my outfits. I’ll eventually become suffocated, and will start sleeping with that Aquarius from my yoga class, who will be too focused on himself to really pay too much attention to me. Then, we’ll get in a huge fight because a Leo and a Pisces like myself are destined to not get along, and then I’ll leave him but still love him, because Pisces find it impossible to move on. Then I’ll get hooked on this this bootlegged DVD set of “Desperate Housewives” and gain 5 kilos from eating too many peanut butter smoothies. George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

Some girls are even nuttier; they’ll add in all these different ingredients into the astrological stew. What’s a guy like if he’s born toward the tail end of Scorpio, has a blood type of AB, was born in the year of the mouse, and has a huge lightning-shaped scar on his forehead? Well, any well respected Chinese astrology book will tell you that his name is Phil and he masturbates with his left hand, watches “The View” but never admits it, calls himself a liberal but always votes Republican, and has never really understood what was so funny about “Seinfeld.”

Frankly, I’m more of a believer that your upbringing as influenced by your family, your social network, and personal humiliation is a much greater determinant of how you are as a human being than you what your astrological sign in. However, it’s hard to convince the mass population of new, hip Chinese girls otherwise. As true believers, they really do predicate a lot of their judgments about people based off of this garbage, and as a result I’ve had to work super hard to convey an image of myself that runs contrary to the negative qualities tied to my sign. Of course, as a Leo, I’m insanely stubborn and prideful, which is why I wear a banner around my neck at all times that says “Don’t trust the heavens, Leos really do have grotesquely huge penises!”