S1E7 - China's Heaven & Hell: Working as a pimp - Season Special

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Ever heard of Dongguan? Few Westerners recognize this southern Chinese megacity that operates as a manufacturing powerhouse—but for years, it harbored a secret economy built around what might have been the world's most organized prostitution industry.

Join me as I pull back the curtain on my three visits to this remarkable city between 2005-2010, where I witnessed a system so thoroughly structured it functioned like a corporation. Within a walking radius of just one or two miles, entire districts operated as adult playgrounds centered around massive KTV establishments resembling Disney palaces. These venues regularly hosted between 1,200-1,500 women each night—a scale that dwarfed similar establishments in first-tier Chinese cities.

The selection process itself, known locally as "Flower Street" (Hua Jie), involved walking through grand ballrooms with crystal chandeliers while women lined both sides wearing numbered plates. The infamous "258" pricing system made services surprisingly affordable: 200 yuan for companionship, 500 for a quickie, and 800 to spend the night—attracting middle-class tourists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Malaysia who couldn't afford premium venues elsewhere.

But this world wasn't without darkness. Violence lurked beneath the surface, with stories of gangsters mutilating those who crossed them. The lifestyle of constant drinking, sleep deprivation, and transactional relationships created psychological effects that lingered long after leaving. Around 2015, government crackdowns transformed this landscape, replacing open access with exclusive venues where Instagram-ready hostesses now charge $500-600 just for their company.

Whether you're fascinated by hidden aspects of Chinese culture, international vice economies, or the intersection of business and pleasure, this raw glimpse into a vanished world reveals how economic development created unique social phenomena that few outsiders ever witnessed. Subscribe to hear more uncensored stories from my years living and working across Asia.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And welcome to this special episode that I've
created, because I thought itwas unfair to mention all this
about Pimping, about KTV,without mentioning the most
insane city I've been to.
For people in the West you willnot be familiar with the city.
It's a key manufacturing andexport megacity on the south tip

(00:22):
of China, in the Guangdongprovince, and to locals, it was
not only a megacity forproduction, it was also
something else Prostitution andthe city is called Dongguan.
I went there three times, oncefor work and twice well, you

(00:44):
know, to host and for pleasure,and though the majority of its
GDP or its economic activitycomes from export and
manufacturing, as it wasreported, but many didn't know
that this city was so massive interms of the population coming

(01:05):
in for just the prostitutionindustry.
To give you a glimpse of what Imean, before I mentioned how a
KTV joint in Shenzhen wasmanaged and how well they were
managed and if that managementwere taken to a regular business
.
Well, they were managed and ifthat management were taken to a

(01:26):
regular business, they probablywould have done just as well.
But in Dongguan's case, thiswasn't just a joint, it
stretched across an entiredistrict.
So within a one mile radius oneto two mile radius at most
walking distance, a non-sweatywalking distance you can find
everything you need, frombarbershops to food.

(01:48):
It's like an all-inclusiveCancun hotel, except there's no
beaches, there's justprostitutes and middle-aged and
middle-income men.
There was a KTV at the center ofmost of these so-called
district and the one I went to.

(02:09):
It was fucking ginormous.
It was like a small Disneypalace and I don't even mean
that to exaggerate, because theminute you walked in there was
like these arched doors and youwalked in and on the wall
paintings it was just MickeyMouse, bugs, bunny, shit all

(02:29):
over the wall.
It was ridiculous.
And it was like a playgroundfor horny men.
And only here I saw for thefirst time that there were no
tryouts.
You went to tryout and what didI mean?
It's called Flower Street.

(02:51):
It's a time for us to go pickflowers.
In Chinese we call it Hua Jie.
But before you even go into theroom you have to go into this
so-called street.
It's hard for me to evenexplain the image.
It was just so grand.
It was not as insane as walkinginto the Colosseum in Rome, but

(03:13):
it felt just like it because itwas so hard to explain.
It was like a giant assemblyhall, grand ballroom, with kind
of chandeliers on the window andjust hanging ceiling lights
made of crystal.
It was beautiful.
And in here it wasn't thestreets that we were talking
about before.
There was actually not streets.

(03:35):
Instead there were just rowsand rows of women.
Why one on left side and one onthe right side?
So when walked in, you walkedin all the way to the end and it
broke off and you walked allthe way back, kind of like
circling a ride for Disneyland.
At the KTV in Shenzhen there wasprobably two to 300 women on

(03:56):
every given night.
I'm telling you here.
I already asked the manager, soI confirmed the number at any
given night there were 1200 to1500 women in that room.
It was fucking insane.
The room was so big.
You could hear echoes of themama sons chatter and the fur

(04:18):
moan, the perfume, along withthe horny men.
That air just stung and thescent was just so much stronger
than the scent.
And the girls stood in line,like me, ready to be picked out.
And the mama sons here were thereal pimps and they were the
only ones that could speak.

(04:38):
There was a hidden rule thegirls on the line.
They just stood there withtheir hands crossed and looked
pretty, and the mama sons willgrab you while you're making
your way down the lines to showyou their product.
She would be like, ah, look ather tits, look at that ass, you
know, she's young and plump sortof talk.
And as I made my way very, veryslowly down the aisle, I felt

(05:03):
like I was in a garden of pureevil.
It was a crazy feeling.
The girls had number plates ontheir dress and the plates were
either, of course, had numberson them.
The plates were either in whiteor red, and red means that they
were inconvenient to go out.
Normally means that they wereon their period, and white means

(05:27):
that they're free to go out.
And here the girls weredifferent.
Unless it was that time of themonth they had to go out.
There was no 50-50 demographicsplit.
You didn't have to convincethem, it was required and it was
the rule.
The standard of living there wasvery low.
Things were cheap and there wasso much more supply than there

(05:51):
was demand.
There was a famous acronymknown by the locals for Dongguan
.
We called it 258, or Erwu Ba inChinese, meaning $200 for them
to sit and chill and drink andsing with you $500 to take them
out for a quickie and $800 tospend the night with you.

(06:14):
And it was so cheap muchcheaper than Shenzhen, which is
only an hour and a half awaythat it attracted more tourists
from Hong Kong, primarily theones that could not afford to go
to Shenzhen and TaiwaneseMalaysians.
They all ended up there and,like I said before, it was
primarily the middle to lowerclasses that went there.

(06:36):
The people who had money wentto Beijing, went to Shanghai,
went to Shenzhen, but the scenein these big cities were nothing
compared to Dongguan Absolutelynothing.
It was a very twisted culture,and so all you had to do while

(06:56):
you were walking down the linewas tell the mama-san your room
number.
For instance, she grabs you andyou see number 20.
You're like okay, I like number20.
And then she asks you your roomand they write it down and
that's it.
And then she asks you your roomand they write it down and
that's it.
And when you went upstairs, thegirl will be already waiting in
the room for you.
But the lines took at least 30minutes to 45 minutes to zigzag

(07:22):
out.
Like I said, just like waitingfor a ride at an amusement park.
The first time I went, I waswith three other of my college
buddies and we were so amazedand speechless by what we saw
that we just kept ordering.
We didn't know what we weredoing.
Everything just looked good tous and when we ended up back in

(07:44):
the room, there were 24 girlsthere that we ordered.
It was way too much and none ofus even know who ordered what,
and the girls could have snuckin there and no one would know.
But $200 a girl for the nightto sit and chill and drink with
you that's like $25 for thewhole night.

(08:05):
Now, keep in mind this wasaround 2005 to 2010.
Even then that was.
You know, that's dirt cheap,especially if you're making US
money spending it there.
My college roommate, my buddy,said it the best.
He said $25, that's like a packof cigarettes back in New York.

(08:28):
It was cool, too, how the hotelwas designed.
So the hotel was designed onthe perimeter of the KTV, like
if you go to a resort in Cancun,in the middle of the hotel, the
Hilton, whatever it would be apool.
Well, in Dongguan, the middlewas a KTV, and so it made it
very convenient for you to bringgirls back to your place after

(08:49):
you drink the night out the nextday during breakfast.
It would just be so many walksof shame.
You just see girls gettingdressed, looking all busted up,
guys walking down not evenwanting to say goodbye and the
girls walking out the side doorwhile the guys go to get
breakfast.
You'd normally be pretty hurtthe next day next morning after

(09:12):
drinking all night.
So we went to breakfast prettylate and afterwards we would
normally end up in the saunawhile walking around or going
back to get some more sleep.
We could not stay there forthat long.
Normally the trip would be fourto five days before we couldn't
take it anymore and, like Isaid, we went to the sauna.
It was like a regular massageplace just down the block and

(09:34):
after we would go to thisCantonese spot for some lunch
and drink some of that stomachwarming soup.
And what's interesting isafterwards we go flower picking
again, but this time it's not ata KTV.
The KTV have not opened yet.
It's still early afternoon.
Instead we will go to a sauna.

(09:56):
Now this is going to get sort ofgraphic and that's why it's
called a bonus episode, right,and you walk into this building.
When you walk in, it's like ahotel.
So we wait behind this kind ofglass waiting area and it was
kind of like a hotel settingwhere the rooms were all in the

(10:19):
middle of the structure with alland then the hallway was the
perimeter, the diameter aroundthe rooms.
Get what I mean?
Kind of like it was just asquare that you can walk around
and then the rooms would be inthe middle.
But anyway, we'll go into whatit's actually inside the room.

(10:40):
So the flower picking here youdon't actually walk.
When the time came, normallyaround 1.30, 2 o'clock, the
chimes would go off and then youwould see girls in bikinis walk
down the hallway around 70 to100 of them or so.

(11:01):
It wasn't a big place but therewere many of them and then they
would walk and pose and circlearound the center structure and
people like us behind the glass.
We could see them and it wasridiculous selling sex in the
open.
So they also had plates ontheir waists with their numbers

(11:22):
on them and then the mama-san orthe manager would be standing
next to you as you pick them out.
You'd be like, okay, I likenumber five right there there
and she'll write the number down.
And that was that.
You had to pick them out quicksometimes because there was
sometimes there was not thatmuch sheep, at times there was
more wolves.
I remember walking in there alittle early once and there were

(11:44):
just so many dudes in there.
I was like what the hell?
This is just disgusting and Ifelt uncomfortable, so I left.
This was probably like thesecond, third time I went, but
anyways, once you get that done,you can pick as many girls as
you like and they startdiscounting it.
If you wanted two, three, four,it will go down by like 50
bucks every time.
So the entire service was like$100 for an hour and a half half

(12:05):
.
So after you go into the roomsat the center of the corridor
that I mentioned before, it wasa huge studio room with a
massage bed in the shower.
The shower room stood maybehalf of that.
There's a lot of toys in therelike pillows and just things you
could put in the shower prettycool, not pillows but bouncy
balls and you could lie there.

(12:26):
There was a massage chair inthe middle where they bathe you
and massage you and, like I saidbefore, it was an hour and a
half of sexual service foraround a hundred dollars a girl
and one of my friends he calledeight of them.
It was pretty crazy, and therewere certain procedures that
well, certain procedures, if youwill, that they have to follow

(12:49):
as they're providing the service, and if you don't know what's
going on, you are going to be infor a surprise.
There's at least 20, 30activities for them to do.
Right, you can like it, you canskip it, whatever, but they
offer it.
You can have them dress up instockings and rip them off, you

(13:11):
know, have them tie them up,have them dress like school
girls, you know any crazy shityou can think of, as long as it
wasn't brutal, as long as itdidn't hurt the other person.
The funniest thing out of thisexperience is that once my
friend came out after theservice and we all came out
happy except him he was very sadand I thought the service was

(13:33):
bad.
So I asked him and he justmumbled out of his mouth the
number 26.
I was like what he said?
26, the girl that he was with.
She was perfect and if only shedidn't do this, he'd marry her.
Those are the exact words thatcame out of my friend's mouth

(13:55):
and I was like what the fuckdude?
You American kids have to comeout more.
It's crazy, because you cameout of there cleaner than when
you went in.
They cut your toenails, theybrush your teeth, everything.
They wash your hair.
It's just, it's no more, it'slong gone.

(14:16):
And so after this, we would goback to our hotels and then we
would wait for the KTV to open,and that would just repeat every
single day.
Of course, it brought a lot ofmoney, it brought a lot of
tourists in, but it was stillsubjected to just prostitution,
and after 2010,.

(14:37):
Maybe around like 2015, I wouldsay, when the government started
making a more of a right turn,that's when they started
cracking down on all theseplaces, and so the ones in
Sichuan are really good, theones in Dongbei or the northern
part of China, beijing, shanghai.
There was a huge crackdown inthat time.
Not only did the Dongguan onesget cracked down, even the ones

(14:59):
that I worked at in Shenzhen,the popular ones in Shanghai,
beijing, and even the duck placethat I was talking about before
, the White Horse Club.
That also got shut down duringthat era.
So now a new era has exploded.
Now the tip is a lot moreexpensive and now they charge by
the hour, just like Hong Kongand Taiwan.

(15:20):
So going to a KTV now in thesebig cities it's very costly.
And so, for instance, you ordera girl now for $500 to $600.
Dollars okay, not RMB Dollarsto sit there for the night to
drink with you.
Their face looks like all thesame cosmetic surgeon.
They're sitting there playingwith their phones.

(15:42):
They don't want to drink withyou, they don't want to sing
with you, they just want to grabtheir tip and leave.
So for those couple hoursthey're drinking the alcohol,
showing you attitude, and youhave to tip them so much.
And if you bring like five, sixof your friends, you're paying
three, four thousand dollars intip just for this crap companion
.
So in the end this place becameNot so much for entertainment

(16:08):
but more so for a place ofbusiness where you can kind of
show off your wealth.
These places get cracked downevery so often, depending on who
the new leader of the city is,depending on what KPI they need
to hit, and of course some ofthem are protected, some of them
are not.
But there's always some sort ofturmoil in between and it's a

(16:30):
nasty industry to be in.
My son's godfather's closefriend of mine took care of my
son when he was a little kid andhe used to be a professional
manager at the first KTV thatstarted in Shanghai and the
stories that he would tell mewould be horrifying how he
managed it and how some of thefights that broke out.
How he managed it and how someof the fights that broke out.

(16:53):
One of the mama's son pissedoff this gangster so much that
they locked the doors in andthen they slit her wrist and her
achilles tendon so they madeher handicapped.
They cut her tendon off just toshow her a lesson.
So, in general, being in theseplaces it's not a good thing.
Drinking, drinking a lot, notsleeping.
It changes your mood, and onething that I did not like

(17:16):
throughout this experience isthe pressure to perform, the
pressure to look at all thesenegative things that were going
on around me all the time, andit made me want to shield myself
.
Even now I feel when I'm aroundpeople, I have trouble trusting
them and shit, especially women.

(17:37):
From my experience, right,because when your mind is filled
with nothing but lust and money, you're not getting enough rest
and you're shit-faced all day.
Life is not going to go yourway, trust me, and if it starts
messing with your head to theextent where you start losing
your temper, you start buildinga sense of your own world and it

(18:00):
sometimes could turn dangerousand not everybody turns out well
During these raids.
I know a lot of people that haveorganized underground gambling.
Do Texas hold them with theirclients?
They got bagged and then wentto jail for it.
It's a complete differentenvironment now.
If you go to China now, ifsomebody takes you there, they
really think of you as a friendbecause it's so expensive now,

(18:24):
but back then it was just openfor everyone.
So that's part of the culturethat China wants to stop now and
they're doing a good job at it.
Do I think it should be allover the place like it was
before?
Probably not, but was it fun?
Oh fuck, yeah, and thank youguys again for tuning into these
episodes.
This is the first time for mesharing this experience and I

(18:45):
hope you enjoyed it.
Please tune in for our nextsegment.
Enjoy, have a great one, peace.