Battle of the mamasans

IT had been a long morning in the Supreme Court high above Queensway. The witness had a headache after nearly three hours in the stand and the wigged heads of the barristers appeared to be slumping downwards, victims of the increasingly torpid atmosphere. Relief was to come from an unlikely source with the thoughts of judge, lawyers, defendants and plaintiffs in the airless court most probably on lunch. Through the interpreter the witness, Ms Debra Cheung Wai-fun, who is married to a policeman, told the court her last job as a mamasan, before she moved to the Club Deluxe nightclub, was at the ''Club De La Say''. The barristers and the judge, Mr Justice Barnett, looked up in mild surprise. Club De La Say - where was that? Ms Cheung, tired and feeling unwell because she had to resume her testimony at 10 am leaving her with little chance to sleep after finishing work in the small hours of Friday morning, mumbled the name again. Barrister Mr Anthony Ismail, acting as a junior for two of the three defendants, hurriedly reached for his files, asking Ms Cheung if she meant Club Versailles. Meanwhile, the worldly Mr Nicholas Pirie was sure he knew better. Someone mentioned the nightclub no longer existed, but the name was ''like the famous street in Paris''. ''Was it Club d'Elysee?'' Mr Pirie asked with the air of a man who knows he is right, before spelling it aloud. It was perhaps one of the stranger exchanges in a legal case where the mysterious night time world of Hongkong's glitzy hostess clubs has been exposed to the dry scrutiny of the legal system. Essentially Club Metropolitan in the Chinachem Golden Plaza in Tsim Sha Tsui East is accused of poaching Ms Mona Chan Chun-yin and her husband Mr David Yu Tak-yuen from the Club Deluxe, where they worked as a mamasan and public relations manager respectively. The Metropolitan, who gave Ms Chan $750,000 and her then-boyfriend Mr Yu $150,000 as a transfer fee to move to Club B-Boss' sister club back in 1990, is being sued, along with the couple, for damages for breaching their contracts with Club Deluxe. With five barristers, up to six assistants, four administrative staff from Club Metropolitan, as well as several firm-jawed, taciturn gentlemen in ill-fitting bright blue suits sometimes present, the proceedings are rather better attended than most civil cases. With the per diem rate of a Hongkong barrister comparable to the gross national product of several African countries, those of you whose idea of night life is watching Music Motion before turning in, might question the value of pursuing something through the courts that happened nearly three years ago. ''What you have to remember is that a good mamasan is worth her weight in gold,'' commented one Yau Tsim district police officer. ''When she leaves she will take her girls with her and that could be up to 20 hostesses. ''The big Hongkong nightclubs are much of a muchness - what makes the difference is the girls and the clients will often follow a mamasan who moves. ''If these are the sort of businessmen who are spending $20,000 to $30,000 a night maybe four or even five nights a week entertaining clients that adds up to a lot of money for a club.'' As one of Ms Chan's regulars when she was at Club Deluxe, Mr Fok Kin-yi, told the court: ''We make a request for a few mamasans and request for a few special girls . . . the quality of the hostesses is the prime consideration.'' The policeman suggested commercial pressures were making things tougher for the clubs. ''The last two years have not been good for business in the clubs,'' he said. ''Business is not as good as it was in the late-1980s and the nightclubs have suffered because people go to karaoke lounges instead. ''This sort of case is to warn other mamasans who might want to move and also to preserve Club Deluxe's face.'' Thoughts of Tsim Sha Tsui nightclubs conjure up images of achingly beautiful hostesses with names such as Venus, Mimi and Cat persuading customers to drink XO cognac at $1,700 a bottle, eat peanuts at $70 a bowl and plates of fruit for $100 each, while they decide if they want to pay for an escort fee of $1,700 for seven hours or settle for conversation at $220 an hour. Hand in hand with this is the grubby reality of business - achingly dull ledgers and computer printouts, itemising each $100 plate of fruit, each hostess drink and the name and telephone number of every fun-loving man who left his business card with a mamasan. Mr Leo Wong Bing-lee, Club Deluxe's accounts supervisor, is the sort of unsung foot soldier who labours while most of the establishment's staff sleep after their night's work. Mr Wong spent nearly two days in the witness chair, his fingers often clicking over figures with his calculator like the sound of a heavy-footed beetle scrambling for purchase on a parquet floor. Mamasans and hostesses are usually paid a small monthly salary with the bulk of their income based on commission. It emerged during the case that Mr Wong was the man who collated the points earned by the women each night in order to see what they should be paid. Seven hours as an escort for a client earned a hostess 42 points. In his cross-examination Mr Pirie wanted to know how points were matched to earnings. If, for example a hostess was absent one night she might still be credited with the points, at least unless she provided a reason to prove she was not on escort duty - otherwise she would have to produce the fee to the management. For Club Metropolitan, barrister Ms Audrey Eu, whose straight-backed posture and finely-enunciated, English accent put one in mind of a head girl on speech day, at one point berated Mr Wong for recalling how he saw a mamasan called Judy at the venue whenshe insisted he had told the court he had never been there at all. From the public gallery Mr Wong appeared to quiver slightly and reached for his calculator as a sort of comforter before Justice Barnett saved him from further punishment by telling Ms Eu: ''Mr Wong is a back room boy; I don't think this is very profitable; he does the bookkeeping.'' The couple at the centre of the storm remained practically immobile at the back of the court, by the entrance. Mr Yu, round-faced behind his horn-rimmed spectacles would sometimes break into a smile, but his wife remained impassive, other than when her former workmate, Ms Cheung, was told to point her out to the court, at which point she looked distinctly uncomfortable. What emerged during the proceedings last week was that while her transfer fee appeared exorbitant to outsiders, others have been offered more. Ms Cheung admitted she had been told over the telephone in the late 1980s she could get $1 million to move to what was then Club Volvo, now known as Club B-Boss. Justice Barnett recalled that period too, in an aside to the court late on Friday morning, when Club Volvo's aggressive hunting for staff led them into his courtroom. ''I waved a magic wand and everyone went away happy,'' he recalled. He must have done so with affection for the brevity of the case since the present one, originally scheduled to end last Friday after eight days, is very likely to stretch into June.