Asian Uncle
Welcome to Asian Uncle, the unfiltered dive into Asia - from the back-alley brothels to the shadowy underworld gang, from hardcore military life to the spiritual mystique of Tibet. This isn't your grandma's history lesson on sanitized travel guide. Asian Uncle pulls back the curtain on the continent's most controversial, misunderstood and surreal corners.
Each episode, we explore the raw, untold stories - whether it's the truth behind Thailand's nightlife, untold life of pimping in China or Yakuza's business empire. Come with me on my journey that explored the hidden and dark world of Asia that you never learned about in school.
Asian Uncle
S1E2 - China's Heaven & Hell: Working as a pimp - Part 2
Step behind the velvet curtain of China's high-end nightlife as a former KTV assistant manager reveals the raw, unfiltered reality of managing an elite entertainment establishment. From the hidden door concealing hundreds of hostesses to the intricate social hierarchies that determine every interaction, this candid account offers rare insight into a world where business deals happen over karaoke, alcohol, and female companionship.
Working under a manager described as "the OG of pimps" – suave, ex-military, and bipolar in his approach – our narrator learned to navigate this complex ecosystem as the self-described "head manager's bitch." His responsibilities included the delicate task of selecting appropriate hostesses for clients based on their status and preferences, often receiving uncomfortably specific requests for "innocent looking young" women or those with "nice skin, preferably from the north."
The hostess selection process itself resembles a meat market – women lined up for inspection, categorized by price tier ($40 for "regulars" versus $70 for the "prettier ones"), and presented to clients for approval. Meanwhile, the narrator developed an uncanny ability to "sniff out" social status, learning to distinguish between the working-class "dà gōng zài" with their cheap suits and rowdy behavior and the true power players who commanded respect and premium service.
What makes this story truly fascinating isn't just the glimpse into a shadowy industry, but the narrator's personal transformation. As his father advised, success in China required learning "how to build relations with strangers, and learn it fast." Through this unlikely education, he encountered "the bad, ugly and greedy" – the very people he would later deal with in his own business ventures. It wasn't a conventionally positive experience, but as he reflects, "I couldn't say it was a good experience, but it was a worthwhile one."
Curious about what really happens after hours in China's business world? This raw, honest account pulls no punches in revealing how relationships are built and deals are made in the private rooms of a high-end KTV club. Subscribe now to hear more untold stories from Uncle Wang's adventures navigating Chinese business culture.
I was the assistant manager of the floor. So, like I said before, I was the head manager's bitch. I did whatever was needed and whatever hole was missing I filled. My manager was very experienced. He worked 20 years in the industry. When I met him it was probably around his 10th year, middle of it. He was suave, laid back, ex-military and knew the business so well. And he was chill, he wasn't shady, he wasn't cheap and he treated everybody fairly.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if you guys know Iceberg Slim. He was this pimp in the 1950s. He published a book called Pimp, the Story of my Life in 1967. If you get a chance to read it, do it. It's a great book, especially the glossary. Anyways, my manager was exactly like him. I didn't know at the time, but when I read the book I was like man, this is the OG of pimps. He could become bipolar, meaning he acted one way, but when it was time for work he was a complete different person. He started drinking like a whale singing, but deep down his personality is very shy.
Speaker 1:So, yes, chinese people love singing, as do most parts of Asia, and that's normally the main event after dinner Singing, women, alcohol. It's also where a lot of the business gets done. It's also where a lot of the business gets done. We open at 7.30, but normally people would start shuffling in around 8 to 9. So once we took them in, they sat down and felt comfortable as they ordered their alcohol. It became the mama son's job next to arrange the ladies, and so this part is pretty interesting. There wasn't a specific term we used for the ladies or hostesses. We just call them Xiao Jie or ladies for short. In the US we call them PRs, so I'll call them PRs or ladies and you'll know what it means. And their job was to keep you company at the club while you sang maybe let you grow up a bit drink with you for tip. But before they came in, somebody had to go and pick them out and grab them. That would typically be the mama-son's job, but because I was in training, my manager sent me most of the time, not saying he didn't have capable mama sons, but he kind of just wanted to pick on me, and every time he did that I would see mama sons giggle in the back because they knew I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.
Speaker 1:Next came the instructions, which was always very complicated. The mind. You haven't gotten used to the culture yet or the language, but I needed to know what to get. If the customer has wanted something special, for instance, I would hear borderline creepy shit. Like you know, mr Lee likes some innocent looking young, your Mr Wu likes some tall, nice skin, preferably from the north, and I will have to remember this. I couldn't jot it down.
Speaker 1:Once it was done, I start making my way to the back stairs, down the staff elevator to the first floor. Not everybody, not everyone, required a specific type right. Some of them were there for business or their guests. So it was up to me to count how many I was going to bring up and what type of girls I would be bringing up. So once I made my way down to the first floor, there would be a door hidden in some decoration. It was a very common door, just one way door, just enough to fit one or two people through. But behind there it was a key card and behind there was humongous, probably like Twice the size of the presidential suite.
Speaker 1:There were Hundreds of women in there at almost a begin time. There were changing rooms, showers and lockers for them. There were condoms, beverages, even Chinese herbal drunk medicine to keep you from getting shit-faced. That started at 8. They start shuffling in at 7.30. Most of them already had makeup on, dressed up, and they would start going on the next phase Once they're ready. They sat in a lounge. Next to their dressing area there were round sofas and there was a TV in the middle. They get comfortable to kind of sit there for the entire night if they had to. What were they doing there? They were waiting to be called by people like me.
Speaker 1:Normally, only the mama sons would go inside, but I was the exception. Of course, the manager could go inside too, but he rarely does, and when I made it inside I felt really embarrassed. I kind of felt degraded and shy, of course, but everybody else seemed to be okay with it. So I would work my way to the lounge area and start making my first round picks, making my first round picks, and while I'm doing that, I would think about a lot about what my dad said regarding why I'm doing this. He said if I wanted to make money in China, I would need to learn how to build relations with strangers, and learn it fast. That's one of the few good advices that he did give me and learn it fast. That's one of the few good advices that he did give me, and working there did show a lot of dark side to humanity that I wasn't accustomed to.
Speaker 1:I grew up in America, went to school, went to work, lived like a typical American and being there I saw no good. I saw the bad, ugly and greedy, and these would be the exact type of people I would deal with in the future when I start my own business. So I couldn't say it was a good experience, but it was a worthwhile one. It got a little hard on my body, especially because I had a day job too. So I get home after work around 4.35, make it back to my small apartment, order some takeout, maybe get a shut eye and start getting ready for work.
Speaker 1:I lived in a high rise, five minutes walking distance from the KTV. Very convenient. There were stores, supermarkets and restaurants all over the place. What's interesting? What's interesting is during the day I would not see many people, but at night, especially the time I went to work, as soon as I got in the elevator when it opened, normally it would be packed with girls and at first I didn't know what they were doing before I worked there and I was like wow, a lot of single girls here going out to party I must live in like a woman dorm or something. But little did I know that they were actually going to work. I knew where they were going but didn't know where I was going.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, after that walk to work and start the night, on any regular night our team would have five to eight rooms to take care of. I would say it would get busy on weekends with 10 plus rooms Very common. We have my head manager, myself and five mama sons on the team. Like I said before the first hour of opening typically eight to nine. We situate them in the room and that's where I end up In the ladies room, running frantically back and forth picking out girls.
Speaker 1:I didn't have much time to act and it wasn't easy. Not only did I have to remember the creepy instructions I would get also because the girls were split into two categories the prettier ones, the taller ones, nicer skin, etc. Would be 500 RMB at the time, so roughly 70 bucks. They chilled you for the night. For the night, the regulars were 300 RMB, 40 bucks roughly.
Speaker 1:It was up to me to judge what the client preferred and what he could afford. So the girls typically had to impress me first, otherwise I wouldn't bring them up. They're not allowed out that room unless they were with a assistant manager or mama's son or head manager. That was the rule. At first I was scrambling. I didn't know who to pick out and they would get returned a lot. But as time went on I slowly learned the ropes. So the trick is you have to pre-plan before you even enter that room, meaning you had to learn to sniff out who would be paying the bill, what they could afford and also remember quickly what they like. It wasn't that hard once you got the hang of it and Chinese people don't split the bill. They have certain criteria. Like the person paying the bill or the head guest would sit in the middle, so you would know who to host. Like the person paying the bill or the head guest would sit in the middle, so you would know who to host. It got easier as time went on. It also wasn't a place to be cheap. So everybody, regardless if you're poor or if you had money, they all acted the same to make connections and to impress.
Speaker 1:First thing I had to learn was to sniff out the working class, or the worker bees. We call them dà gōng zài in Chinese, and that's what it translates into. For these type of people, I would bring the 300s or the typically the uglier ones that are not welcomed in the more expensive rooms, and for the bosses or the ones that had more money, I'd bring them the 500s, and sometimes it would be even some specials like 700, 800. And these would be models or some eighth string actress of some sort. We had those very common too.
Speaker 1:So a trick of how to tell if they were poor I don't wanna say it, but that's how it was is, besides ordering cheaper alcohol, right, they would always come in with this smelly suit like they just got off work. It'd be cheap, you can see. Their shoes, their belt were some shit you would buy on the streets, and they would always carry like a cheap briefcase that would stick under their armpit or carry in their hand. Most of all, they were the rowdiest people when they were drunk, we hated them, the girls hated them and the managers did too. They're on the bottom of the white-collared food chain. So many times they would take it out on servers, waiters, waitresses, even the managers, because they were probably looked down upon at their jobs, so they needed to come here to rebalance their ego. I don't know. They would get drunk and often brag about how great they are, and when the bill came he would pay for the beers. So very stereotypical and nobody liked them. But we had to serve them because every night the room was full.
Speaker 1:Some weeknights were very slow, so some girls would get pissed off at me because they came in, got all dressed up, sat in the lounge for an hour and didn't even have the chance to try out. And so what is trying out? Chinese is called or, and there were literally hundreds of them at any given time. But some rooms were small, some rooms were bigger. You could probably fit around 10 to 20 per room, and by fit I would mean I would bring them up and they would line up in front of the TV, in front of where the customer was sitting, one by one, file it one row or two, and they would start by saying welcome, like how you met at the door, and they would start saying where in China they're from Hubei, sichuan, chengdu, harbin, it didn't matter and they went one by one, by one, and then typically it would just be a push and shove game. After that the boss the person who's paying or the person who's trying to make the connection asked the guest to go first. After several shoves, the dude picks one out and then they all start taking their picks.
Speaker 1:But not everybody would like that group and most of the time it would not satisfy just bringing one group of girls. So during that hour I would just be running back and forth, taking this group and going back down. But making it back down with the same group took too much time. So what I did was, let's say, I had five rooms and I would make a line and I would take that group into the first room the people who were drinking more expensive shit and I would make my way down to the last room with the same group of girls I had and if there were leftovers I would go back downstairs. I had to take them back downstairs and pick another group and run that entire session all over again.
Speaker 1:It was kind of like selling meat right, you had the meat shuffle in and a lot of these customers ask creepy questions besides where you're from. Nobody asked age. Not stupid enough, because nobody would tell you. They would ask for horoscope signs. They would ask questions like can you sing, dance, play the piano, shit like that On the back of my head. I'm just like bro, it's $40 fucking dollars. Relax, man.
Speaker 1:It was hard to juggle when business was slow because we had too many girls and it was too busy. We didn't get to go home until sometimes the early morning hours. But one thing there was always a supply of was women. There were just so many, all different types, from everywhere in China. It just felt like heaven to a single 22, 23 year old me.
Speaker 1:So finally, everybody settled, all the girls are arranged and, last but not least, I would go downstairs to check who's left and we would take care of some of them and tell them to stay a little extra because there would be swaps.
Speaker 1:There would be some girl in there that would piss off the customer within an hour and take a swap for free, and once they did, we would take care of the ones that are still left in the room, typically the uglier ones. All that's done. The next part of the ritual is we would all meet in a room and discuss the plan of the night, and it would normally be an empty room where we would all meet in a room and discuss the plan of the night, and it would normally be an empty room where we would all light up a cigarette. The head manager would preach who's in this room, who's in that room, who's in charge of this? That all this shit. It'd be very hectic because the next part of the night would be the most tiring. It's called the patrols, or, in Chinese direct translation, xun luo xun fang, and that's when we just took turns touring around the rooms, playing games, drinking, singing and pretend we're having fun with these clients. Thank you for tuning in and please follow for updates. Uncle Wang, wishing you all the best.
