You will see many a beautiful girl — sometimes lines of them and all toting small fashion handbags — idling conspicuously on street corners near major hotels and their car parks. In your own hotel at any hour you may note couples who, after having met first at reception, then head off to a room only to re-emerge shortly thereafter looking flushed, and with an air of embarrassment should you catch their eye.
In Karaoke bars, especially those annexed to hotels, pretty ladies lurk and lure willing clients. In Little India, on certain days, you may come across a group of small adjoining shops and see through the open doors demure ladies most, appearing somewhat shop-worn seated gazing out, patiently waiting for your selection. And in areas with large-scale, long-term construction projects with live-in migrant workers — there are many of these under way — the adventurous will encounter compartmentalised buildings in the back streets with a steady flow of males entering and departing the cubicles in rapid succession.
These latter are the contemporary version of the old, pre Lee Kuan Yew, winky-wank bars, where rapid sexual relief was handed out to mostly drunken seamen. Sarong Party Girls. They, too, use this venue to find a foreigner to marry. Alas, few are successful because the majority of customers here are young sailors and navy personnel on a dare, or wide eyed travellers on their first OE.
Hello sailor. In the days before the ascension of tourism, merchant ships could be in this busy port for weeks at a time. Therefore, at any time of the day or night, there would be a thousand or so randy seamen roving the streets and bars looking for a good time.
A controlled explosion of tourism, a massive construction boom with its contingent of migrant workers, and an increasing influx of businessmen. These, combined, have ensured an ongoing supply of predatory males. Day-time or night-time, twenty-four-seven, both demand and supply are sustained. I see it all as being somewhat analogous to the old fast-food trade, where street hawkers now replaced with Food Halls and Hawker centres catered low-cost delicious food at a fast pace.
