As part of my new year’s resolutions, I have decided that my credo for 2006 will be “do it now”.
I have often found myself to not do something, because I would say to myself “do it later”, “do it tomorrow” or “do it next time”. I have missed too many things this way and have decided no more.
I was on my way to go shopping for some insence this evening, when the bus passed an establishment which, from the neon signs at least, looked like it was a place to dance in the style of two-two. Lara liked this style of dancing so much, I thought it would be fun to do it with other people dancing the same way (as apposed to on the club dance floor where the rest could only gawk and shake their heads).
So, in the spirit of “do it now” I walked passed on my way back from the shop. I approached the person at the door, which was a guy and for this reason slightly suspicious, as every other decent place would have a girl or two to welcome guests. I asked in my best Chinese if this was a dance place where people dance two-two. “Yes” was his informative answer. “Oh,” I said, “mind if I take a look”. “Sure”, was his curtious reply.
I ascended the stairs, light getting less with every set of stairs. At the top another gent greeted me. “Ni hao”, he said and “ni hao” I replied. “Hu!” he exclaimed in Chinese “you speak Chinese?”. It always amazes me when people deduce that you speak the language from the two Chinese words that even natives on the Inca Trail know. I answered in a perfect accent “yes, but only a little”.
This, in Chinese, aparently, means “yeah, sure I speak Chinese. You just go ahead and talk as fast as you like about whatever you like and I will be able to understand you”. Because that is exactly what he did. Luckily for me, I have a degree in non-verbal communications (or I should have, really, as I’m so qualified on the subject).
I continued to ask him why it was so quiet, where all the people were and when there would be many people (wouldn’t want Lara and I to be the only people on the dance floor). He continued to speak at a speed and from a vocabularly which are beyond my reach.
As we walked into the establishment though, I saw couch-and-table type arrangements ala Karaoke Bar, and on the right, what looked like a waiting room. At first I only saw the pink light (!) and rows of chairs, but as we passed futher along I saw a group of maybe 8 or so ladies, dressed like… er… professionals. Some more alarm bells rang in my head.
We continued into what had now become virtual darkness. In the glow of several cellphones, I could make out the faint outlines of a dance floor, and beyond that more space, which I was unable to make out clearly. He asked me if I was alone or with a woman, and I said alone. We continued to talk, until I recocnised the phrases “50 yuan”, “200 yuan” and “300 yuan”.
From an experience that a friend of mine relayed to me about a restaurant where “200 yuan” and “300 yuan” was the going rate for, er… “dates”, I could put the pieces together. I firgured out that he was saying that if you bring your own date, the entrance fee (I asume) would be 50 yuan. For what? This I don’t know. The 200 yuan and 300 yuan referred to ladies, aka ‘dates’, in the room.
Not prostitutes per se, but ‘dates’ you could ‘hire’ to dance with you and, based on my friend’s information, could negotiate any other activities with, at an additional cost. At that restaurant, he said, it was 100 yuan for ‘ugly’ local girls, 200 yuan for ‘beautiful’ local girls, and 300 yuan for beautiful girls important from a province where it is said all the women are beautiful.
As the pieces fell in place and I realised where I was, I casually started to make my way to the entrance, host still talking, hoping that nobody that knows me saw me enter this place. Back in the safety of the well-lit sidewalk, the parting words of the ‘host’ was that there was a place, a block down, where there were lots of people and beer – something his establishment obviously didn’t offer. He was referring to a proper club.
Walking to the next nearest bus-stop I decided that perhaps a blunt credo, like “do it now”, might dull my gut feelings for unsavoiry places like that.
A credo with perhaps a measure of caution, is well advised.