There is a saying in Hong Kong…but since the extent of my Chinese consists of ordering General Tso's Chicken from the buffet at Jade Palace, I don't know what it is. Still, I'm sure it probably goes something like this: "In the daytime, go to the park; go to Victoria Peak; go to the museums in Kowloon, see the city when it is awash in people and commerce and culture. At night, go to festivals; go to the boardwalk along the harbour (British spelling, since it hasn't been that long since Hong Kong was British); go to the Night Market to buy knockoffs of name-brand electronics; but do not go to Wan Chai."
Wan Chai is an area of downtown Hong Kong that is notorious for its bright neon, its Americanized clubs…and its hookers. They're everywhere, these purveyors of the world's oldest non-401k profession. They're on street corners; they're on busses; they're on, as bewildering as it may seem, bicycles. Mostly, though, they're sitting on chairs outside of clubs wearing clothing that would make a Buddhist monk -- and even many a seasoned sailor -- blush.
"Hey, you want to come in? Price for beers is cheap," says one. Or maybe she just darts from her chair and grabs a likely target out of the passing crowd (no one seems to listen to that Chinese saying that I speculated on earlier). She'll tug at his arm, pull him toward the door, and say, "You'll like. Come in, yes?"
Or the madam of the establishment, usually an older woman with graying hair wearing the outfit of a matronly grandmother from the 50s, jumps up off of her own chair just as quickly and leaps in front of a group of men. "These girls very nice, yes? You come in, have drinks. Very cheap," she'll say. Then, the man or men will either smile, brush off any clinging hands, and walk away, or go inside to the dubious pleasures awaiting for him or them there.
Now, don't get the wrong idea here and scowl disapprovingly at our story's protagonist (or protagonists). You see, there are two types of prostitutes in Hong Kong. The first kind is the usual kind. Because prostitution is legal in Hong Kong, but brothels are not, all deals between the hookers of this first type and their prospective Johns (I wouldn't want to guess what the slang term for a, er, "John" is in Chinese) must be done one on one. No madams, no pimps, no…well…no whatever else there might be. So that conversation might go a little like this:
"Hey, you a hooker?"
"Yes."
"Cool, let's go."
And then the deal will be struck and so on and so forth.
The second kind of prostitute in Hong Kong is of a more insidious sort. She is, as I heard one say, "an escort." These are the ones who wait outside of the clubs, trying to lure in the unwary. Once inside, they sit and chat with their mark, maybe even dances with them, while the mark pays for the girl's drinks. And, yes, although the mark's drinks are quite inexpensive, the girl's drinks are…well…not.
The reason I know all of this is because, as you might have guessed, I found myself in the Wan Chai district in the middle of the night, sitting at a table outside one of those Americanized clubs (the Ugly Coyote or some such thing, in this case) waiting on a friend of mine. Said friend had become addicted to Chinese massages. The legitimate kind -- not the other sort. The day before, in Kowloon, he'd had, quote, "The best massage of my life." Fifty dollars U.S. (four hundred-ish Hong Kong dollars) had purchased him ninety minutes of massage-y bliss, and he was wishing to repeat the experience.
However, I wasn't sure that the massage parlor he'd picked in Wan Chai wasn't of the "other sort" -- despite the illegality of the practice -- and so I'd decided to stick it out at Coyote Unpleasant-to-Look-at (or whatever it was called). I whiled away the time drinking water drawn from a possibly poisonous well, nodding to people I knew as they passed on the street (which means I didn't nod to many people at all), and watching the hookers ply their trade.
It was most educational. I thought I had it all figured out: the hookers, the marks, the Johns, the theses and the thatses.
Then the most surprising thing happened about midnight. The madam came out of the club, carrying a metal bucket. She sat this down on the sidewalk and started a small fire in it. The hookers who had been sitting on their chairs or tugging on the arms of marks leapt up, squealed and joined their madam. They all knelt down beside the bucket and started dropping strips of fake paper money into the flames.
Soon enough, people in the street joined in, burning pieces of paper for luck and prosperity. There was laughter and smiles, jokes and good-natured conversation.
Then the last piece of paper blistered up, the fire died to embers, and the small gathering dispersed. There was a pause of a moment or two.
"Hey, you want to come in? Price for beers is cheap."
The Hong Kong morning was still hours and hours away.
