The ghost of Suzie will still be seen

WAN CHAI, long synonymous with Suzie Wong, is a somewhat reformed character these days. Mainstream bars such as Joe Bananas, BB's and Carnegies have broken the tradition of girlie bars in the red-light district.

But a hardy contingent is hanging in, particularly along the stretch of Lockhart Road known as The Strip. Can it all survive post-handover Hong Kong? 'Wan Chai will probably clean up its act and a lot of the girlie bars may go, although I hope that doesn't happen. The girlie bars give the place character,' said Billy Dock, who luxuriates in the title of director of operations at Joe Bananas.

He added wistfully: 'If it wasn't for the girlie bars, there might not have been an opening for Joe Bananas.' Set up in 1986, JBs was the first bar to intrude on the girlie-bar monopoly.

'Sometimes things work as a carousel and come back to the beginning,' Mr Dock mused. Would a girlie-bar revival be possible? Interior designer Andrew Scattergood has already considered the possibility: 'There is an opportunity to do a straight bar based on Suzie Wong: I have spoken to someone about the idea of a Suzie Wong bar.

'We were thinking of calling it Mamasans, the girls would be in 50s style, wearing cheongsams.' And why not? There are girlie bars all over East and Southeast Asia and, as entrepreneur Allan Zeman points out, 'as long as you have men and tourists there will always be girlie bars: there are girlie bars all over Asia'.

Their mainstay - the sailors - will still be coming in: agreement has been reached at the very highest diplomatic level between the United States and China that the men of the US fleets will still dock in the 'Fragrant Harbour'.