'Local men have a special liking for foreign girls - but they want it cheap'

Ah-Fang, an illegal Chinese migrant, works as a housekeeper in an 'Oriental' brothel in Cheam. She earns £180 a week - a step up from the £50 she got picking leeks. And at least she doesn't suffer the degradations of the brothel's 'Misses' who sell sex for 14 hours a day. In the first of two extracts from her new book, Hsiao-Hung Pai hears what life is like for the 3,000 Chinese women who work in Britain's sex industry

* Hsiao-Hung Pai
* The Guardian,
* Tuesday April 22 2008

One night about a year ago, Ah-Fang sat up studying the job advertisements in the free paper she had picked up in Birmingham's Chinatown. "Oriental Massage", "China Red", "One Night Passion": Ah-Fang circled them all with her pen.

"Massage parlour", as every Chinese worker knows, is a euphemism for "brothel". There are more than 600 Chinese parlours in London alone - half the number of Chinese takeaways in the capital, as Chinese like to joke. Most of them advertise vacancies in the Chinese papers.

Ah-Fang, a 52-year-old Malaysian-Chinese woman, had a little experience of working as a massage-parlour housekeeper. It was one of the less appallingly paid jobs she had had since arriving in Britain in 2005. She felt she could continue with this kind of work.

"Are you sure you can handle it?" I asked her, when she told me what she was planning. The first time I met her, she had been picking vegetables for a living, and the advertisements she was scouring were the lonely hearts.

"It isn't for everyone," she said. "It's one of the toughest and most dangerous jobs for Chinese women in England. But I'm helped by my age. Usually being old is a disadvantage in job-seeking, but in this job it's an advantage. My age is what protects me."

The next day she started to call the parlours. "Sorry, the job's gone," she was told each time. It surprised her how quickly the vacancies had been filled. So she turned to the page where the agencies advertised, and phoned a firm called Xianglong ("Fortunes and Prosperity"). After some haggling over the fee, she was eventually put in touch with the owner of a parlour in London.

Mr Lee was Malaysian-Chinese, and liked the fact that Ah-Fang was also from Malaysia. He told her she would be paid £180 a week. This was riches compared with the £50 a week she had been earning picking leeks. "At last," Ah-Fang said to me on her mobile phone as she took the coach to London, "I've achieved my dream of leaving the world of work in the Midlands. But," she said with a giggle, "I'm not sure whether I'm moving up or down the career ladder."

Lee picked her up at Victoria and drove her to her destination. Ah-Fang had no idea which direction they were going in. "Are we still in London?" she kept asking. After more than 40 minutes, they arrived in an affluent-looking suburban town, which Ah-Fang later discovered was Cheam. All she could see then, however, were rows and rows of houses, with hardly anyone about. "A massage parlour in this quiet place?" was her initial reaction.

Lee turned into a narrow lane that looked so sleepy and residential that she thought they must have made a wrong turn. But the boss parked outside a small block of flats. When he put the key in the door of a second-floor flat, Ah-Fang asked if he owned the place. He scowled and shook his head. She was later to learn that all Chinese massage parlours rent their premises: impermanence is of the essence.

As they entered the flat, the airless humidity of the place and a stench of cheap perfume assailed Ah-Fang. She avoided breathing through her nose for the first few minutes, as she tried to adjust. A middle-aged Chinese woman came out into the reception area. "You've done this sort of work before, I hear." Ah-Fang could tell from her accent that she came from northern China. She had sharp, thin eyes, and stuck out her chest in a self-assured way. Ah-Fang soon understood that she was the manager, and much more the boss than Lee.

"You're in charge of this place every day," the manager told her. "You make sure you're at the counter at 9am. You open the door to customers, sit them down and ask them if they want tea or coffee. Then you take them up to the Misses [xiao jie is the Chinese term commonly used to refer to female sex workers]. When the customer takes his pick, you come back to the counter. In the evening, you clean the place and cook supper for the Misses. If it's not too busy, you can finish work at around midnight. When it's busy, you finish when the last customer leaves."

"Which is my day off?" Ah-Fang asked.

"You must be joking. You work seven days a week. You live here. I thought you understood."

"Where do I sleep?"

"That's your bedroom," the manageress said, pointing to the other side of the sitting area, where a partition of thin wood created a small sleeping area with no window. No room for anything but a folding bed in there, thought Ah-Fang. "But at least I've got it to myself," she said to me later on the phone. "Could be worse, could be a lot worse." In the Midlands, she had shared a double bed with other migrant workers.

The two Misses had slightly bigger rooms, with windows. Ah-Fang didn't begrudge them that. Their work isn't easy, she thought. They should be allowed some real privacy after they have finished.

A week or so after Ah-Fang started the job, I asked her if it would be possible to have a quick look at the workplace and a chat with the Misses. She was hesitant. Visits by anyone except customers were strictly forbidden. Risking her job, she said I could come for a few minutes.

The following day I made my way to Cheam. I was half expecting frilly, pink lace curtains, but the flat was bare, lifeless and beige. There were no pictures on the walls, just a television and a sofa for the waiting customers. Only the smell hinted at the flat's current function.

The two Misses were reluctant to talk. I reassured them that they and their workplace would not be identified. The older of the two (I'll call her Xiao Fen) broke the ice. She told me she was from "the countryside". She never revealed her real origin or her real age to anyone in the parlours, and certainly not to me. Her accent suggested a southern province, perhaps Hunan. I guessed she was in her early 40s. Her eyes, puffy from lack of sleep, were heavily daubed with black eyeliner.

She had been in England for three years, and had spent most of that time working in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant in London for 10 hours a day, to support her 10-year-old son in China. Like so many migrants without the paperwork to work legally, she had felt enslaved by the low wage but had not dared to give up the job. She had been constantly numb with exhaustion. "It was so slow making that money," she told me, "slaving away in that dark place, day in, day out. When was I ever going to send enough money home?"

Then one day, seven months ago, she had seen an advertisement in a Chinese newspaper for a massage-parlour job. Back home in China, prostitution was frowned on, to say the least. People said it took a certain kind of mean, low woman to do such work. But Xiao Fen knew she was no different from other women, wanting to earn a living not only for herself, but more importantly for her son. She knew that in two years of such work she would be able to make as much as she would in eight years in a kitchen.

As she walked into the restaurant the next day, she wondered what it would be like to strip naked in front of strangers. Would it be so very bad? As a divorcee, did she feel a moral duty towards anyone? No one at home would ever need to know. While she was weighing the pros and cons, fate made the decision for her: her employer decided to lay her off. A few days later, she dialled the number of the massage parlour. She got the job at once.

She did not tell the boss that she had never worked in the trade before. She thought that would make her more vulnerable. On her first day (fortunately it was a weekday) she was given only three customers - two middle-aged men and a man in his 20s, all locals. Luckily, the men were all quite straightforward and undemanding. Xiao Fen's inability to speak English acted as a protection, helping her to detach herself mentally from what she was doing.

After surviving that first day she thought, "Well, it's not so bad after all. It's just a matter of pleasing men, and women have been doing that since time began."

But the workload grew rapidly. By the end of the week she was working 13 or 14 hours a day. It was hard to cope. Showers after each session didn't seem to help her get her strength back. She had to carry on doing the job through her periods, with a dull pain lasting through the sessions. A customer could pick her at any time of day or night. And she was moved from parlour to parlour, to ensure variety for the customers.

"These men come to the parlours because they're bored with their wives and girlfriends," Ah-Fang later explained. "You know what men are like. They like a change. So the Misses get rotated each week, sent to different parlours. They have to perform well in their week's slot, to make sure they'll be invited back again. At the moment, our two Misses have got themselves completely booked up for months."

"The hours are a little longer than in the restaurant," Xiao Fen said to me, "and we always have to give half our earnings to the boss. The price is £60 per half-hour, but I get paid half that amount, in spite of the fact that I do all the work. But on the whole I'm making much better money than in the restaurant. Even on a quiet day, I'm earning about £100." That's more than some undocumented workers make in a week.

The other Miss at the parlour was nicknamed Yan-Erh, meaning Swallow. No one knew her real name. She was heavily made-up, and probably in her mid-30s. She had come to England from Shenyang on a six-month business-visitor visa, and had worked as a greeter for a Chinese restaurant for a year, earning just under £4 an hour. One day her flatmates introduced her to a friend who owned a massage parlour. She was strongly tempted to take on a better-paid job, as she still had to pay back a third of the money she had borrowed to get to Britain. And she desperately wanted to send more money home to support her daughter and parents.

"The job's hard," she said to me, "but it's live-in and your food's cooked for you by the housekeepers. If you work your hardest, for 13 or 14 hours a day, you can make £500, just in a day. That would take you three weeks to make in any restaurant job. I'm sending a lot more cash home. My daughter thinks I'm now working in a better-paid restaurant. But I'm so happy to know she is able to buy things she needs."

There are something like 3,000 undocumented Chinese women working in the sex trade in Britain, according to massage-parlour owners I spoke to. The majority are in their 30s and 40s, with a child or children in China. They have never worked in the sex trade before, and did not plan to. What motivates them is the need to earn fast to pay off their borrowings and to improve the living standards of their families at home. Most stay in the job for two to three years, then return to China.

Ah-Fang asked Xiao Fen some searching questions, such as how she coped with the men, physically and emotionally. Xiao Fen tried to smile the questions away, but she did admit that the work could put a huge strain on you. "We get these sickos, the kind who are fixated on oriental women. They make you do all kinds of crazy things. You have to pose and tease before he gets into action. The whole session leaves you completely exhausted before it finishes."

"We make good money," said Yan-Erh, "but it's not easy. I don't feel my body can cope much longer. I'm going to have to take a break for a few months after the summer. My working life has to continue in England for some years yet. I can't afford to ruin my health doing a job like this."

As she spoke, a customer walked in. Yan-Erh recognised him: a white man in his 40s, a regular for her when she was at this parlour. As she went into her room with him, Xiao Fen said to Ah-Fang, "Yan-Erh's age is her advantage. That's why she has regular customers. Who doesn't like younger women? But I've got to look on the bright side. This is, after all, the only job in England where we can earn a bit more than the locals. It's the only job where we benefit from being foreign."

It seemed to be a relief for Ah-Fang to have someone from outside to chat to. She was not allowed to leave the flat, except to go down to the car park when the bosses came to pick up the takings or drop off food. Our telephone conversations were often interrupted by the sound of customers ringing the doorbell.

"Can't talk now," she said, one afternoon. "Call me after 2am."

I did, and she told me that they had had 12 men that day. "All locals. All sorts. White, black, Asian. Young as 18, old as 70. Local men seem to have
a special liking for foreign girls. The more exotic, the better."

"A long day for you and the Misses," I said sympathetically.

"Yes," she said with a yawn. "First we get the early-bird types. They drop in on their way to work, some of them in their smart suits. Could be estate agents working in a busy office in central London. At the other end of the day we get the ones looking for fun after a night out. Maybe they just didn't manage to pick anyone up in the bars. It doesn't matter what sort of men ring the bell: we have to welcome them all. For the Misses, it's easier with the well-dressed middle-class ones. At least they're clean and tidy. But even with the smelly drunks they still have to put on a smile."

To me, she didn't conceal her contempt for the customers.

"Some pay for an hour's session, but finish halfway through and demand half the money back! They want the best and want it cheap. Out of £60 per half-hour, the Misses are only getting £30. Imagine getting £30 for letting these men walk all over you! Occasionally you get customers who don't want the full service - either because they're first-timers or because they don't have enough cash. Then I have to tell them about our mai lingjian [selling parts] service."

What did she mean?

"We sell body parts here, just like most brothels do. It's called 'making the best use of goods'. I say to customers, 'If you don't want to do the whole session, you can just pay for parts. Three pounds for touching the Miss's face and hair, £10 for touching the upper part of her body, £20 for fondling the lower part of her body. And you can only do these in the waiting area.'"

One day Ah-Fang told me about her background. She had grown up quite lonely and neglected, although she was the fourth of seven children. Throughout her teenage years, her father was working all his waking hours as a delivery man. She had never had a conversation with her mother about the opposite sex. The only person she could talk to was her younger sister, who needed advice herself. Ah-Fang found consolation in Buddhism. She often visited a temple and asked for advice on her future. Religion was her only emotional support when she left home to work in an electronics assembly factory in Singapore. "My beliefs sustained me through those dark days. I saw my colleagues getting hurt at work, losing their fingers in terrible accidents. I was lucky to survive intact." Her faith was still sustaining her now in England and, whenever she could, she visited the True Buddha temple in Willesden Green in north-west London. As a Buddhist, she told me, she found it almost unbelievable to hear herself talking about prices for sex services with customers.

"I can't help worrying that I might catch something from this place," she added. "I even get worried when the Misses wash their underwear in our kitchen basin. I can't help feeling a bit nauseous. I have to tell them to wash their pants in the bathroom."

The hardest thing of all was the confinement. The only time she could sneak out of the flat for a few minutes of fresh air in the car park was before 9am - if no one was around. Only when her working day was finished, long past midnight, did she finally feel free to make a few calls to friends. But she couldn't see a way out.

Ah-Fang was gradually losing all sense of what was happening in the world outside the dreary flat. She couldn't even tell me what day of the week it was when I called her. She didn't know anyone in the area, and had not the slightest idea about the neighbourhood she was living in. "The Misses are the only human beings I talk to here," she said. "At least they give me variety. When there are no customers, and if the Misses aren't trying to have a nap in their rooms, we chat for hours, about everything under the sun."

Another problem for Ah-Fang was the risk of violence. It was not the customers who were the real danger, Ah-Fang told me, but local gangs bent on robbery. "If you're a Chinese-run massage parlour," she explained, "your business will be known to the locals in the area, no matter how secretive and secluded you try to be. We are an excellent target because we always have cash around and we never report any attack to the police. What would we say to them? In the eyes of the authorities, we're illegals doing an illegal job, and we have no right to ask for any protection."

The Cheam parlour had been robbed two weeks before Ah-Fang's arrival. According to the Misses, two customers had come in and had their sessions. Afterwards, instead of paying, they had taken out knives and told them to hand over all the cash. "These people are brutal," Ah-Fang said. "Every day we live in a state of fear that something bad is going to happen to us. I know a woman who was a housekeeper, like me. The men had guns. They took all her cash and one of them raped her."

Yet Ah-Fang had no choice but to carry on working, waiting for payday. After a month and a half, the manager still hadn't coughed up. Ah-Fang was getting worried, because housekeepers were supposed to be paid weekly. She also knew that managers could underpay housekeepers if they decided they didn't like them. "There's no real set wage," she said to me. "It doesn't matter how much the boss has verbally agreed to pay you." That wasn't unique to massage parlours, though. Ah-Fang's counterparts in factories, farms and restaurants could all tell you of unpredictable pay packets, unexplained deductions, unpaid hours, shifts or even weeks.

"Are you thinking of leaving?" I asked her.

"No way. If I stay, she might pay me soon. If I leave, I get nothing from her."

One busy week, Ah-Fang told the popular new Misses that she envied their earning power. "I wish I could make a few hundred pounds a day like you do. The bosses depend on your bodies for profit, so they must pay you. It's a different story for a dispensable housekeeper like me."

"If you want quick cash," one of the Misses agreed, "you're in the wrong job. Housekeepers never make much. Why did you come here?"

"Well, I'm old," said Ah-Fang, "with no real skills. I can't see myself getting any other work, except a domestic job like this."

And one day even that was gone. The manager informed Ah-Fang that she was going to be replaced by a new housekeeper. Ah-Fang was paid £20 less per week than agreed as a result of her "poor performance".

"I can finally have my day off now!" Ah-Fang almost sang to me on the phone as she left the parlour. Two weeks later, desperate for money, she got a new job at a brothel in north London.

· Extracted from Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain's Hidden Army of Labour by Hsiao-Hung Pai, published by Penguin. To order a copy for £8.99 with free UK p&p go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0870 836 0875.