Being a sucker for a good story and a free meal, I went to Taipei to meet him at the B52 disco club. The music in the club proved to be too loud for any serious talking, so we moved it out to the night market. Over chicken feet and stinkfruit, he told me about his personal plunge into the sordid and often sad recesses of Taipei's Men for Hire clubs.
Well, they call them Friday boys now, 'cause most of them are underage. I prefer Friday man.
OK, Friday man. But the operative word is "Friday"...Where does the word "Friday" come from?
(Laughs) Hmmm...well, really, I have no idea. Sorry. Anyway, I came into the job in June of '91.
How long did you do it?
June 1991 until Christmas, Same year. Half a year...that's longer than I've stayed at a lot of jobs.
How did you get into it?
I was modeling at the time, TV commercials, stuff like that. There was a kid who worked with me who had grown up in Taiwan.
A Taiwanese kid?
No, no, a foreigner. We had done a commercial together for (car company). He was the first one who told me about the job. He told me you could make money working at these Friday clubs.
How did he propose it to you?
Kind of off the cuff, really. At the time I needed a lot of money. I had started a business that had failed. I had been really cocky, and basically lost everything. I was deep in debt, and needed to pay some people. I was in a bind.
Were you doing any kind of work at the time?
I was doing some modeling. I had done an ad dressed up like a football player.
I can see you that you'd look like a convincing football player.
Well at the time I was working out hard. I still think I looked like kind of an asshole, though...anyhow, this guy who I had done commercials with told me how I could make extra cash.
How was the job described to you?
"Modeling". Just a way to make extra cash. "Public Relations," he said. he told me he was doing it. I found out later that he never did.
Did he mention sex?
No. Definitely not. But I had read about it, a lot of Chinese people had told me that it was all sex.
Well I had always been led to believe that that was what this kind of job was about.
That's the misconception, it's not all sex.
Where was the club?
Well, I had started out working at this club called the Mona Lisa. You know, like the painting. I think I heard about it in college. I was teaching English at the time, really desperate for money. I mean, I was teaching classes during my lunch break for, like, 250 NT an hour. Then this guy told me about this job as a PR. I guess they call them Friday boys, but we didn't use that word too much back then. He knew about my situation, and he introduced me to another PR who helped get me in the door.
Were you the only westerner there?
Yeah, at the time. I had heard that there had been others from Europe, but I think that I was the first one from America.
Tell me about your first night.
Well my first night was difficult. You have to drink with the customers...It's just that simple. If you don't drink, you don't have a job. And I was trying not to drink. The first night I tried to get away with having one of those plum teas, you know, the kind with the fruit in it. But we were supposed to get them to buy the expensive stuff, you know, the XO. So my not drinking didn't cut it with the management.
How did they phrase it?
They didn't, really. I mean, it would be impolite to ask the customer to buy a bottle of XO for 8000 NT and then not drink with her. My not drinking only lasted for two nights.
Then what happened?
Then it all fell apart...I mean I was teaching all day, trying to make money to pay my debts, then I started drinking heavily with the customers at night... [At this point a succulent young woman happens by] Hey, that girl is really beautiful! Yeah, I think she might be a prostitute.
Why?
I dunno...she talked to me while I was buying my chicken.
What'd she say?
She asked me what I was eating, and I said "chicken".
In English or Chinese?
Chinese.
This makes her a prostitute?
Well, she was looking at me suggestively. I dunno, Maybe I'm crazy. (Laughs) Maybe... Anyhow... Yeah, anyhow, the way it works is this. You've got a group of PR's sitting around, 8-10 of us. When a female customer comes down, the first thing you hear is "Why Goer Ning! Welcome, Welcome!" As soon as a customer came in, they paid a table charge, back then it was 1600 NT. I think it's up to 2000 now. This entitles her to ten beers...Taiwan beers. Then she picks out a PR. A drinking partner... Yeah, someone to have fun with.
How much did it cost for her to share her 200 NT Taiwan beers with the guy?
The PR was an extra 2000 NT, for a couple of hours or so.
And how much of that 2000 did you see?
Half.
How about the table charge?
Sometimes we saw half, sometimes none. The way that we made our money was by encouraging them to buy the top shelf booze, the XO and the Napoleon Brandy. If They bought a bottle of XO for 8000, the club gave us 2000.
I see what you mean about not being able to separate drinking and working. Not an easy job for someone for someone inclined to stay sober.
(Laughs) No, no. Not at all. Impossible in fact.
What time did you do business?
We came in at 11:00 at night. We usually stayed until six, maybe seven.
When did you sleep?
During the day. I was trying to do some teaching during the day too, but it didn't work. It's hard to teach a noon class when you've been drinking XO until seven AM that morning. I still taught some in the evenings, though.
I'm interested to find out about what goes on inside the club. What kind of treatment does a client expect?
Well first off, let me tell you about training. I went through a week of training before I was allowed to go to work. We had to be taught how to work a table. Before you can even go out there you have to know how to work a table.
What was the first rule?
Always be a gentleman. You don't do anything like chew binlang, spit, curse, anything like that.
I'd imagine most women could get that at home for free.
Yeah, probably. The waiters were very important, always coming up with clean towels, bringing things right away. Cleanliness was the key...nothing dirty ever stayed on the table. Napkins, tissues, towels. Everything had a certain way to be folded up for disposal...(Demonstrates with a napkin) Like a sailor's tie... Yeah. Just like this. Lighters...lighters were very important. Everybody had to have a nice lighter. Anytime the woman went for her cigarettes, you got one for her and lit it with your lighter. So it was a romance trip, not a sex trip. Yeah, there's this whole scene to it. You're always looking into her eyes, commenting on her hair. They wanted to be wined and dined.
Another big thing was games, we played a lot of drinking games. The PR had to know a lot of Chinese finger games. Drinking and having fun with handsome men, that was the reason most clients came.
Drinking played a big part?
The biggest. First, we had to try to get the clients to buy the most expensive liquor. Of course we wanted them to drink, because that way they'd spend more money. A lot of times the women would get really drunk and go into the bathroom to puke.
And what were you expected to do in this event?
Wait outside with a warm towel to clean the vomit off her face.
Sounds charming.
Oh, it was. Really. Then they would sit down and drink some more. Some women did this every night.
I guess now is a good time to ask you -- I hear that your Chinese is very fluent now. How was it then?
Hai hao. It really took off then. That's where my Chinese took off. I learned all of my Taiwanese on the job.
Did any of your clients speak English?
Yeah, some of them could. But once people start drinking I think that they are more comfortable speaking their native tongue, so I used Chinese mostly.
What were your customers like?
Beautiful. Most of the women were very beautiful. A lot of them were working girls, Monday nights especially.
What was so special about Monday nights?
Monday nights were their nights off from the KTVs, so they would come to our club to be wined and dined. A lot of my clients were older women, wives of rich businessmen. I was older than most of the men there at the time, so a lot of the older women felt more attracted to me.
What else went on, besides the wining and dining?
When a customer goes up to dance and sing, you go up and applaud. When she sings, you sing with her. Most of the time I just stood next to her and turned the pages like an idiot. You've gotta have a good voice to sing, which I don't. I used to make a joke that I sang so bad that customers would pay me not to sing.
Did that really happen?
No, no, everyone said I sang great. Very polite.
How many customers did you have in a night?
Each night I usually worked three tables. Another thing I found out is that I could work different clubs. The gangsters who ran the club owned other clubs. ("Gangster" is such an ugly word. I'd prefer to use the term "legitimate businessmen".) OK. These legitimate businessmen chewed binlang and drove BMW's wearing plastic sandals. I would rotate from club to club. I found I could make more money that way. I'd go to each of these places and sing a few songs, work a few tables, and go to the next club.
What songs?
I don't know..."Pretty Woman", stuff like that. Because I was a foreigner, people wanted to hear me sing.
Was the table charge for you the same, or more because you were a foreigner?
All the same...We were all the same. Not like teaching English.
I'm glad to see that democracy is thriving in all aspects of Taiwanese society. Now about sex...we've been talking for nearly an hour and sex hasn't been mentioned once. I'm afraid that I won't be able to sell this interview without some.
You got hired out from the club. Back then it was 2000 NT an hour.
Of which you saw how much?
None.
So what was your incentive?
The incentive was, once you got out of the club you were making money for yourself. Whatever you negotiated with the client was your own. Keep in mind that the client is still paying 2000 NT an hour for each hour that you're out.
So the client had to "buy you out"?
Exactly. But the club doesn't want that, because if your popular you're going to be making at least that if not more for the club. The club figures it's losing money every hour that you're out. Sometimes they refused to let you go.
How often were you bought out?
Never.
Not one time?
I was always asked to go out on my days off. But I have a daughter, plus I had a girlfriend.
No way. You had a girlfriend during this time?
I was living with her.
What did she think?
She helped me to get the job. I just needed to make money. She didn't care. I was desperate for money, and she wanted me to make money. That was just the type of girl she was.
So that's it for the sex aspect?
I mean, a few women wanted to feel me up. They had never experienced a westerner before, and had the idea that I would be larger than the other men. They would feel me up and say "oh, so big," that sort of thing. They'd usually give me 1000 dollars.
Inside the club?
Inside the club, but not inside my pants.
So that's it for sex, really.
Basically, there was no sex inside the clubs, period. It was all about fun, all about romance. This is something I really want to make clear to anybody who reads this interview. There is no sex inside a Friday club.
And if a client had this expectation?
If sex was something that a client wanted, she had to negotiate with the club owners to get the PR out of the club, and in my case this never happened. I mean, like many of the PR's, I was always waiting for that rich patron to come in and fall in love with me, be my nest egg. But it never happened. Not to me.
Bummer...but you made some money, right?
From every customer I'd make about a thousand tip, plus whatever I could get from the bottle charge. That's the big misconception, you don't really make a lot of money. Sometimes you don't get paid at all. Sometimes the customer doesn't pay the club, and the club doesn't pay you.
In a month you could make, what, 100,000?
I wished! On paper, maybe, assuming that every table charge was paid, and that the club paid you, maybe that much. But in reality I never came close.
So how much?
Theoretically, I was making 80,000 a month. But in reality I only saw about 40,000, and at the end of the month I got paid 30,000 from the club, and even if they owed me sixty, they always said "we'll pay you next month" because "so-and-so didn't pay yet", or "this person still owes us money". This went on for about six months. At the end they owed me about 200,000.
I imagine that you're not holding your breath waiting to be paid.
No, that was in 1991. I've written it off.
How did it all end?
The boss of one of the clubs started having problems. One night the police came in, started checking I.D.'s. You can imagine what kind of problem I would have had, being a foreigner. But I was lucky, they didn't grab me. But I had had enough at this point.
Did you get out of the business?
No, I just got out of the clubs. Another guy and I got together and got a BBS number. We put an ad in the papers that said "four male models for hire" with our BBS number.
How did this work out for you?
Pretty poorly. Most of the people who called didn't really have that much money. Not the kind of money that we wanted, anyway. We wanted to be picked up by women in Mercedes', we got picked up by the women on scooters. This gig didn't work out.
How long did you keep at it?
About three months. But I also had to get a regular job.
What kind of job?
Teaching. I had stopped working at the clubs at this point. Kept drinking, though. That was what really screwed me up. I also kept trying to work as a host, but without the clubs.
But any money you were earning as a teacher just went to pay the debts you had incurred before you even got into Friday club work, right?
Yeah, it was pretty fucked up. I was running around, suit and tie, beeper, the works, hoping to get a customer who could help me out of the hole I was in, but I didn't have 10 NT to my name. It was pretty pathetic. I had gotten used to drinking expensive booze working the clubs, and now I was chugging ten or twenty cans of Taiwan Beer just to get a buzz. I still owed money, and I had become severely alcoholic as well. Not a pretty picture.
Did you ever turn to out-and-out prostitution at this time?
No, but I would have. I was desperate.
I guess I need to ask you a question at this point. Did girls like you in the country you came from?
(Laughs) Yeah...I was well liked. If anyone out there is thinking about trying this job, even after reading this, know this: If they didn't like you in the country you came from, don't even bother. No matter what kind of looks you might have. It's all charisma.
Joshua Samuel Brown, Hsinchu
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