Well. They seem to. For now.
See, the thing with my memory is, it’s not the most reliable of
guardians, and if I were to indulge in some sort of faintly ridiculous simile,
I would say it sort of resembles a mouldy, threadbare sponge – neglected
through lack of use and usually losing much more than it retains.
Which is why keeping a blog is so awesome!
So, I thought I should try to memorialise another of the most surreal
places we visited during those three months. And boy, were there a few. Dalat,
in Vietnam, was one; Halong Bay, another. Vang Vieng was certainly one of the
strangest, the reasons for which I've already outlined on this blog. Sitting
astride a horse called Presley overlooking Isengard, in the aptly-named
Paradise, was pretty WTF in the best possible way, and walking around Hobbiton
is definitely up there (TOTAL GEEKGASM).
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| HELL |
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| YEAH |
But I don’t want to talk about any of those today. I want to talk about
something much more entertaining. Something that makes the world go round.
Something that sells. Something that begins with “S” and ends with “X” and isn't an abbreviation of a musical instrument OR… (desperately tries to think of other words beginning with s and ending
in x and fails miserably) … something else.
Yeah, baby. SEX.
It’s true that sex sells the world over. In the West I think we’re a
bit more insidious about it. We’re a bit more secretive, a bit more hush hush.
In one sense it’s quite blatant - we plaster images of boobs and bums across
our billboards, our television and movie screens, our tabloids, our websites,
to the extent that we have to guard ourselves against mass desensitisation to
skin, to naked bodies, all so eager for our eyes, our consumption. But it’s all
quite indirect. We acknowledge the demand with the one hand, but then suppress
it with the other. The stigma attached to porn, or to prostitution is enough to
push that side down, deep into the underbelly of our society; away where no-one
can see it, or at least no-one who’s not actively looking for it. True, we have
the odd red-light district – and Amsterdam’s is certainly renowned and bigger
than most – but mostly these are self-contained, marginal, controlled.
In certain places in SE Asia, however, the age-old adage that sex sells
becomes much more blatant. The margin becomes text. It’s on the street, it’s in
bars, it’s above your head, and it’s most definitely in your face.
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| BUM ON HEAD! - grabbing a drink at one of the many “beer bar” complexes in Patong, Phuket |
My first prolonged experience of sex tourism, Asian style, was living
in Wan Chai in Hong Kong – commonly accepted to be HK's main historical and
current Red Light District. Now, usually, if I were settling into a new country,
far away from home, and needed somewhere to live, I probably wouldn't choose
somewhere in the Red Light District. I’d be worried about weirdos, maybe
druggies, sleazy men, and my personal safety. Now that’s not to say I never
came across any weirdos or sleazy men in Wan Chai, but let’s face it, you get
them everywhere!
Admittedly, the first time I walked down Lockhart Road, I was a little
taken aback. For a couple of blocks, between MTR exits, both sides of the road
are rammed with “girlie bars”. Every evening, flashing neon signs battle with
scantily-clad ladies in thigh-high leather boots and frilly skirts to vie for
your attention and the older, no-nonsense mama-sans
pull hapless gweilos (literally
“white ghost” – Cantonese slang for White men, or foreigners) by the hand,
trying to entice them with the promise of cheap beers, winning smiles and more
besides. As a lone girl, however, I was pretty much immune to these guerrilla
tactics. I could walk down the street untouched and invincible, as if -- WARNING: geeky SF simile incoming -- I
were a lowly USS Enterprise crew member and they were the Borg; as long as I
was no use to them, they showed no interest in me. But I often wondered what
went on behind those heavy, black, velour curtains – this secret world of sex,
this titillating party to which I had not been invited.
Internet research and conversations with HK-based male friends revealed
to me that the reality was far less exciting or scandalous than I imagined.
Mostly, what you get is a very expensive conversation, to the backdrop of
bored-looking “dancers” in bikinis who are often more interested in talking to
each other than engaging with their audience, or indeed, dancing. If you see a
girl you like, you have to buy her a beverage, at a vastly inflated price (which
she might not even drink since she’s working), and if you want to continue
talking to her, you have to continue buying her drinks – kind of like
refreshing your credit in a payphone. And if you want anything more than that,
you need to negotiate with her and the mama-san and pay a compensatory fee to
the bar if what you have in mind involves taking her out of action out of her
place of work.
The other form of prostitution frequently in evidence in Wan Chai is
the freelancers – free agents, or perhaps ladies who pay the bars a fee in
order to solicit business there. These ladies more often than not come from
neighbouring South-East Asian countries, such as the Philippines and Thailand –
they enter Hong Kong on tourist visas and try to make as much money (illegally)
as they can, almost certainly sending most of it to families back home, before
their visa expires.
So on any given night out in Wan Chai, after a long, hard day’s work at
the office, I was regularly rubbing shoulders or shaking my booty alongside
these skimpy-outfitted ladies, just starting out on their long, hard night’s
work and keeping a keen eye out for a well-dressed, Western businessman looking
for a cheeky fumble and a good time. Surreal, definitely, but it’s amazing how
quickly you get used to it.
I remember one time I was waiting at the bar for my free ladies’ night
drink next to one such lady, tapping away at the keys of her phone with
immaculate nails and adjusting the hemline of her VLBD. “Waiting for a date or
looking for one?” I thought. Difficult to say. With a flick of her long, curly
black hair, she saw me and flashed me a wide grin, freely given and freely
received. I raised my glass and smiled back. For a split second I
second-guessed the meaning of such a gesture. Was it meant to be
acknowledgement? Collusion? Did she think I was “working” too? What was I
wearing?? But as I looked down at my casual get up of jeans and a top and my
slightly unkempt, humidity-frazzled hair, I didn't think anyone could mistake
me. Truth was, I had made little to no effort, so I wouldn't be doing much of a
good job if I were. So maybe she was just being genuinely friendly then; one
woman to another, out to have a good time. I reflected that perhaps there was
more sincerity in that two-second gesture than any exchange either of us might
have for the rest of the night.
There was one time, though, where conjecture became reality, when curiosity
got the better of me and I ventured into one of those girlie bars on Lockhart
Road. It was towards the end of my time in Hong Kong, and I was out on ladies’
night with friends, a mixed group of merry guys and gals. High on cheap/free
spirits and bolstered by strength in numbers, we went off in search of naked
laydeez. We walked the whole length of the district, on both sides of the road.
The girls and I hang back a little, using our gentlemen friends as bait. At
each bar, the mama-sans made their interest clear; the hint of a dollar sign
flashing in their eyes, a coy touch here, an assessing glance here. But at each
bar we faced rejection. As soon as they saw me and my girlfriends, they made
their apologies – “Sorry, too busy tonight, you know, because it’s Wednesday. Come
back another night!” Some were quite friendly, others a little more terse, but
the general message we were getting was that they were not interested in a
group of gawking tourist freeloaders, which is what we, as a whole, must have
looked like.
Eventually, finally, one bar
let us in. I forget the name, but it was really far down the road, right on the
fringes towards the darkness of Admiralty and Central. We pushed our way
through the heavy black curtain into the tiny bar area, where a waitress was
eager to get the drinks order in – it was clear we weren't staying unless at
least one or two beers were consumed.
We shifted our bums on the worn, dark red, velour-upholstered stools,
trying to get comfortable, and we put our bags and beers down on the little
ledge in front of us. Directly in front of that was the stage: effectively, a
small rectangle of floor with a few poles and three or four girls in various
states of undress (basically underwear) standing next to them. Some nondescript
music played in the background. One girl, seemingly done with her lame, standing,
non-dance, took a seat and started texting on her phone. I sat and waited for
something exciting to happen. A flash of boob perhaps. Or some sort of
impressive flexing, spinning, or dancing. Something.
But no. The girls sort of chatted to one another nonchalantly as if we weren't there. It felt as if I’d stumbled into the middle of, not in fact a titillating
sex party as earlier postulated, but rather a sedate sleepover to which I had
not been invited. Instead I sat awkwardly, nursing my beer, wondering what the
hell I was doing there.
My friend Tilda, however, seemed to be having more success on the
entertainment front as I spotted her exchanging business cards and
gesticulating enthusiastically with a pair of French business men still in
their suits, who seemed to be cheese merchants.
“CHEESE, Al!” Tilda exclaimed, perhaps given the scarcity of cheese in
dairy-phobic Hong Kong. “They sell cheese! Isn't that great?”
“Oui,” I said, bemused, and sauntered over to add my own business card
to the mix. Meanwhile the French cheese men refused to believe that the two of
us had indeed gone to Oxbridge, as our cards professed, and proceeded to give
us delightfully French shoulder shrugs and outstretched arms that screamed “NON,
ce n’est pas possible!”
However, having quickly debunked the mysterious contents of a Lockhart
Road girlie bar and been disappointed with what was inside, like a second-rate
Kinders Egg, we soon made tracks. Perhaps there was something more exciting
happening behind the second heavy black curtain to our left, which is where I
assumed you disappeared with a girl if you decided one of them took your fancy,
but to be honest, there’s something about 3am on a weeknight, once the alcohol
starts to dilute itself in your bloodstream and its merry, exciting effects are
suddenly replaced with a desperate need for a $8 (75p) double cheeseburger,
that really takes the sheen off. Time to go. And off we went.
Gosh. I meant to write about Phuket and ended up rambling on about Hong
Kong, which isn't even part of the 3 month trip! But hey, it's all related. I
still need to tell you about my night in the Philippines where I got kiss-attacked
on the dancefloor by a stripper (long story), and then, then I can go into a bit more detail about the madness of
Phuket. The blog’s called “Australasian Adventures” right? And Hong Kong and
the Philippines are Asian countries... So. Yeah. Whatever. (Phuk-et! :P)
Until then, here’s a picture of a poster proving to you that “Ladies’
Night” and all the free booze that entails is not just something I’m making up,
but is in fact, truly, a thing of legend:
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| Unlimited liver cirrhosis! Yay! ($20 is only about £1.60, by the way) |
Oh, Hong Kong. <3
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