Kyle Chen may well be the best-dressed homeless man in Beijing. He is also a prostitute.
The 20-year-old left his home village near Nanjing in August despite his parents' protests, hoping to make a name for himself as a model in Beijing. Too embarrassed to return home after failing to land enough modelling work, Kyle decided to capitalise on his looks in a way that seemed a sure-fire moneymaker.
'I'm 100 per cent heterosexual,' said Kyle, not his real name. 'But 'money boys' such as me rarely, if ever, find female clients. If I want to eat, I must sell myself to men. I hate myself for it, but I don't see any way out.'
In Beijing, 'money boys' typically look for clients in one of the city's gay bars - Half and Half or Drag-On - or at one of the many large discos such as Rock-and-Roll or Nightman.
Homosexuality is still a taboo subject, but the gay community is growing rapidly in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. In venues such as Half and Half and Drag-On, it is common to find about 30 money boys hanging out at weekends.
'It's not as easy as you might think to find clients,' Kyle said. 'If I'm lucky I will have one or two customers a week, and I get between 500 yuan (HK$470) and 1,000 yuan for the night. Many are repeat clients.'
His income has become too sporadic to pay rent, rendering him homeless. Finding customers has become more than an economic imperative. Only when he has a customer or when a friend takes pity on him does he have a place to stay for the night.