Saturday afternoon.

I did not get home until about 4am last night. My sleep schedule is officially fucked.

I stayed after at my favourite bar with my bartender friend and her auntie. They are from the Philippines, and therefore have some absolutely crazy stories to share.

We sat out on the street and had some drinks (very much legal and acceptable in HK) and traded stories. I asked them if they minded if I wrote down their stories and shared them on my blog. They laughed and said, “I thought you already were.”

At the end of the night, they thanked me for giving them a safe space in which to share their stories. They said Westerners usually treat Filipinas like crap. I’ve definitely noticed that since I’ve been here. They are treated like second class citizens here. They are usually working service jobs or as maids/helpers/housekeepers/nannies.

I’ve noticed I get really strange looks from other Westerners when I’m at the bar chatting with my friend. We usually go out to have a cigarette together during her break. People always give me a weird look like, “Why are you talking to The Help?”

IDK, because they’re human beings with interesting stories to tell, and you’re a boring business executive who drones on about work all the time? I guess I relate more to the bartenders and servers because those are the jobs I’ve always done to support myself as a writer.

Unfortunately, my endless experience means nothing, as I am locked out of the service industry here for the aforementioned race and class issues. They don’t give those jobs to educated white Western women here. They just don’t.

If I have to listen to one more racist rant from some old British dude, I swear to god I’m gonna lose it. Last night there was one who came into the bar at like 11pm and ordered a Bloody Mary. My first thought was, “What time of day do you think it is? This is a morning drink!” Both my bartender friend and I were judging him.

He came in with his British-Indian friend, who he proceeded to hold hostage with a rant about immigration in England. I get so annoyed when English people do this. They have ZERO self-awareness whatsoever. It always follows the same pattern of “They come to England and they don’t try to understand our culture or history or heritage.”

I’m always just like… “Now you know how it feels, oh Once-Great Colonizer of the Entire World.”

I could tell his Indian friend was just sitting there like, “I hate this fucking guy.” Needless to say, they left after exactly one drink.

I then turned my attention to the other side of the bar, where the energy was increasingly weird. In one corner, we had a group of businessmen who my friend recognized from Wan Chai. Wan Chai is now called “The Grey Area” because it is becoming increasingly common for sex workers to do business there. Being recognized from Wan Chai as a man is not a good thing.

At the bar were two sex workers, one who was working that night while the other acted as her “manager.” They were deep in conversation with another old white British dude, who would not stop making loud, obnoxious, sexually-charged comments for all the bar to hear.

He was also chatting with another one of the servers, who was off-duty at this point. Another guy tried to come in and talk to her while he was in the bathroom. When he came back, he put himself between her and the random, who looked very heartbroken when he realized he had been rejected. He took out his phone and spent the rest of his time playing chess while occasionally looking up at me with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. I was very much not into it. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.

After they all cleared out and they closed the bar down, we all went out to sit in the street. We watched people as they walked home from their various adventures out. We saw one couple coming that was quite obviously a John and a sex worker.

How do we know she was a sex worker? Let’s just say… you learn to identify the calling cards over time. It’s not always necessarily how they dress, but there is definitely a certain way they dress that stands out in a more conservative, business-oriented city like Hong Kong. There’s also the types of drinks they order and how they stand at the bar. It’s a whole vibe. I was taught how to spot them by a man when I was in Dubai. Turns out this lesson has come in very handy in SEA.

He said very loudly to her as they passed, “I don’t even know how old you are!” My friend and I went silent, looked at each other, and nodded in acknowledgement that yes, she was definitely a sex worker.

I’m not judging. I’m just here to watch the show.

My friend told me another horror story she heard about the Indonesian sex workers in Wan Chai. Here is another strange race/class differentiation I did not realize existed. She said Thais and Filipinas used to be seen as the “bottom of ladder,” so to speak. These days they have “elevated themselves,” so they mostly come to Hong Kong to work service jobs, save money, start a business, and get an education.

The bottom rung now belongs to Indonesians, who are now seen as being “lower” than Filipinas because they are so desperate they will do anything for money, including being exploited and degraded sexually. I suspect most of them are being drugged and trafficked, especially based on the level of degradation involved in some of these stories I’m hearing.

This is all brand new information to me. Racism in Asia is on another level, truly. I thought I understood what racism was after living in South Dakota, but I was wrong. I don’t know shit about shit in this world. That is the only thing I am 100% certain of these days.

As we discussed all of this, my friend turned to me and said, “This is exactly why all those men didn’t like you writing about them in Bangkok. They don’t want you to know the truth about what they’re involved in. They know you’re onto them.”

True, true.

She thinks they were actually trying to protect me from something I don’t understand. I suspect the same. My only question is, “Are they protecting me, or are they protecting themselves?”

She says she’s afraid for my safety if I go back there again. I think she might be right, especially after they started making “jokes” about how I remind them of an Irish journalist who got shot in the head while out on assignment. Grand.

Again she said to me, “I am so grateful you are listening to our stories. I feel safe with you. You can help a lot of people by getting this information out there. They don’t listen us, but they will listen to you.”

I don’t know about that, but I’m definitely trying.

As I walked home alone at 4am, I felt the weight of the world upon me once again. I knew without a doubt this is what I’m meant to be doing. This is my mission. This is my purpose. This is what gives my life meaning. I am supposed to be a writer. I am supposed to be here, listening to these stories and sharing them with the world. I just need a different outlet for it. How do I make myself into a professional writer?

I don’t know.

This is the only question I have to answer now. I must move forward somehow. I cannot remain as I am. I need to figure out how to play my hand. I guess I will just have to be patient and wait for the answer to come.