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Sex and the Lion City
In decline: The colonial buildings, including the curious blocks with curved concrete outside staircases, are being smashed down to build more hotels and apartments
In decline: The colonial buildings, including the curious blocks with curved concrete outside staircases, are being smashed down to build more hotels and apartments.
Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini has closed Dolly, the East Java city's red-light district, once labeled the biggest in Southeast Asia. That position has now been assumed by our neighbor.
At dusk in an open lane alongside a busy restaurant and well-lit road, the market was open.
Four women, who might once have been young, shuffled into line and stared through the crowd. They wore the standard uniform ' stilettos, tiny skirt and tinier blouse. Gesticulating wildly, the pimp spruiked their physical virtues to the ogling men. To overcome language problems he raised three fingers, then circled thumb and forefinger. Thirty dollars a session.
Some red-light spot in San Francisco or Sydney's King's Cross? Maybe Amsterdam's notorious De Wallen district, where girls pose in shop windows? Or could it be Bangkok's Soi Cowboy?
Adults only: Yet Geylang is doomed, not through a campaigning mayor, but because new hotels will push prices into the stratosphere.
Those sex centers are too dignified. This one's base, yet it's in prim, clean, image-conscious Singapore, the heartland of Asia's conservative values where failing to flush a public WC will relieve you of S$500, a Rp 4.6 million (US$389) fine.
The little red dot where the media is controlled, graffiti vandals get whipped and chewing gum is banned, is also a center of sleaze.
You won't discover the wares and whores of Geylang listed in the splendid brochures handed out by the Singapore Visitors' Center, though the suburb's many hotels are located between two MRT (subway) stops just a few minutes ride to upscale attractions like museums and galleries, and relatively cheap.
Important issues for budget-conscious travellers, because Singapore is now the costliest city in the world according to The Economist magazine.
Geylang is also awash with eateries. No posh waiters to call you 'sir' and 'madam' as they shake out your serviette, only sweating girls in shorts and bum belts pointing at pictures on laminated menus; but the food is plentiful, great value and absolutely authentic Singapore.
However Singapore Police Commissioner Ng Joo Hee reckons Geylang is less secure since last December's riots in Little India, a suburb just 5 kilometers distant.
The riots were the first major public disturbance in the city-state since 1969; they followed a fatal traffic accident and involved 300 migrant laborers trashing emergency vehicles.
A Straits Times account of a Committee of Inquiry investigating the event revealed the situation in Geylang is also a concern.
'If Singaporeans are irked by the littering, the noise and the jaywalking in Little India they'll certainly and quickly sense that there exists a hint of lawlessness in Geylang,' Commissioner Ng reportedly said.
Police statistics appear to uphold his claim. Last year 135 serious crimes were reported in Geylang (including 'outrage of modesty' meaning offences like groping) compared with 85 in Little India, while the number of public order offenses was double.
How many of these involved tourists is not known. Those in Geylang just to sleep and eat tend to be ignored, particularly if accompanied by their spouse. Soliciting is illegal.
The raw confrontational aggression that's part of Australasian city nightlife in the early hours appears absent. Visitors (including respectable tour groups using the hotels) seem to be more concerned with value than vice.
There's so much to see in Geylang, and it's non-stop. You won't encounter Dior or Chanel here; the stores sell most things, but this is not Orchard Road which doesn't start functioning till way after 10 a.m.
A regulation prohibits alcohol sales between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Yet the streets stay busy, and open-front coffee shops keep trading. Passersby flop into plastic chairs, dribble their way through soft-boiled eggs and rice porridge, then doze off till the fridge is unlocked.
Love for sale: Despite its baseness, this sex center is in prim, clean, image-conscious Singapore.
Along with the prostitutes, mainly Chinese whose English doesn't extend to more than a few terms essential to their business, there's a resident population of pensioners exchanging banter with the girls.
These harmless oldies spend their days in the cafés reminiscing of virilities lost while nursing icy S$6 Tigers. The local bottled beer is twice the price of its Indonesian equivalent.
The old fellows' days in their alcoholic arcadia are numbered because Geylang is being gentrified. The colonial era buildings, including the curious blocks with curved concrete outside staircases, are being smashed down to build more hotels and apartments.
The men who do this work, mainly Tamils and Bangladeshis, are the sex workers' main customers. They wander Geylang in their company T-shirts, picking their way through the sidewalk trade in bootleg cigarettes, video porn and drugs that allegedly enhance masculine performance.
The law says such medicines can only be dispensed by chemists handling doctors' prescriptions. Regulations also prohibit pornography and tobacco sales outside registered shops, but this is Singapore, a city built on business.
The police claim they now deploy five squad cars in Geylang every weekend, though blue uniforms are seldom seen. Presumably they're busy elsewhere sniffing out unflushed toilets.
Singapore's Manpower Ministry says the total foreign workforce is now more than 1.3 million in a nation of just 5.3 million. Around a quarter of the outsiders work in the construction industry. These are mainly single young men who find freedoms in Singapore they'd never encounter back on the subcontinent.
Those who step out of line lose their jobs and are on the next Boeing out of Changi before the ink has dried on the blacklist. After the Little India riot many men were jailed and 55 deported. That tends to ensure some respect for the law.
Yet Geylang is doomed, not through a campaigning mayor, but because new hotels will push prices into the stratosphere. By then the district will be dead, its sunset folk dispersed, the girls back in Shanghai, and Geylang just another boring suburb in an emasculated Lion City.
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- Accommodation prices rise and fall depending on whether there's a convention in town. Rack rates start around S$150 (US$118) not including tax or breakfast, but Internet prices can be below S$100.
- The rooms are small when compared to Javanese hotels, but usually clean, secure and well maintained.
- Most of the foods familiar to Indonesians can be found in Geylang; Westerners who fumble with chopsticks will have to adapt or go hungry. S$15 will get you a spectacular feed served on a chipped laminate-top.
- Metered taxis from the airport cost under S$20 and take about 30 minutes. It's more fun and cheaper at S$2.40 to take the efficient MRT direct to Aljunied or Kallan ' provided it's not rush hour.
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' Photos by Duncan Graham
