Ye, Sang.  Candid
China: The People on the People’s Republic. Berkeley, CA:

University of
California Press, 2006. 

 

 

“Come on, lets go in.  Give me a hundred yuan and I’ll buy the tickets.  The twenty yuan change can buy me an ice cream.  I won’t ask for any more after we’re inside.  I’ve said one hundred up front, and that’s it.  If you have a good time and want to give me more, that’d be very nice.  If you don’t have a good time, you don’t have to give me any extra.  I won’t complain.  We were meant to meet.  It’s up to you whether you give me more or not.  You’ll soon find out how good I am.  I’ve got a great body, satisfaction guaranteed. I work this cinema every day.  It’s no scam.  I guarantee you’ll be satisfied.  This is Shenzhen after all.  The first place to have an open door; we’ve got the most experience when it comes to trade and fair play.  We have professional ethics, too. 

You want to go somewhere else to talk? Where? It’s too dangerous hanging around the hotels.  I don’t want to go there.  They’re swarming with police, and the local mafia is in there as well—they don’t like you bringing your own girl in.  If you don’t take care of things beforehand, you might get past the cops, and then you’ll be fine, but the girl could land in big trouble.  Bars and cafes are even worse.  They’ve got their own hostesses to look after the customers.  I operate out of this cinema, and that’s it.  It’s no good trespassing on someone else’s turf and stealing out of their rice bowl.  If you don’t want to see a film, all right, treat me to a meal, then. 

Shenzhen is inGuangdong
Province, so everyone speaks Cantonese.  You have to speak it, even if you’re not fluent.  The clients don’t always understand Mandarin, and if they’re unhappy they’ll make trouble.

I work days on the assembly line.  I couldn’t really tell you all the things we make.  It’s always changing.  They’re all circuit boards, all different sizes…My job is to slot in the components.  The pay is okay as long as I do it right.  I don’t really care what they’re called.  It’s hard work though.  If you don’t mess it up, you can earn over a thousand a month.  That’s not much by Shenzhen standards, but it gets me a Shenzhen ID.

You know how it works.  The cinema doesn’t want to know what’s going on in the lower booths.  All they care about is turning a profit.  They set up booths so that people can grope.  If they tried to control what you did in there, they wouldn’t make any money.  Anyway, it’s me that’s being groped, not them, so why do they care?  Once someone has paid, they can feel as much as they like.  Or we can go somewhere else and have sex.  But that has to be arranged beforehand and paid for in advance.  That doesn’t happen every night.  Most of the guys who turn up are workers, or people on business from the inland provinces.  They’re all pretty tight with their money.  They can’t bear to spend all that money on a fuck, so they usually settle for a hand job.

Look—even this late, there are hookers out waiting for customers.  It’s not easy working this strip.  There’s less than a hundred of us.  Just a few dozen really.  Going in, scoring twenty yuan, coming out again…I don’t let them keep their fingers in me forever.  I wait till they’ve got such a hard on that they can’t stand it, and then I ask if they want to go somewhere and fuck.  Guys from the inland are penny pinchers, and they won’t spend the extra for a fuck.  They workers who have been in Shenzhen a few years know the ropes, so when they want a fuck they go straight to the barbershops, saunas, or brothels.  It’s safe and cheap.  They only come to the cinema for cheap kicks; they check out a film, have some tea, get a hand job, and go.  Men can’t argue with their pricks”

By a few of these pieces from my primary document you can see a bit of how the business works.  I find it interesting that she is trying to get the interviewer to sleep with her.  And if he doesn’t want to then he needs to pay her for her time because she could be making money.  I also find it interesting that sex only occurs in private places and in many instances many prositutes on the street do not perform intercourse regularly, but sell more sexual acts.  But in a time where money is crucial and hard earned, many men do not want to pay for full intercourse if they can get off with other sexual acts.

 

The film “Blind Shaft” today showed how prevalent hookers were in this time period.  They went to a KVT (Karoke bar with private rooms) where they only enjoyed the company of the women.  But for sex, they had to return to the hotel room or a secluded place.  In my guess, it eliminates the chance of getting caught by the police or authorities.