Guangzhou karaoke bars fall silent in vice purge

Mainlanders are supposed to celebrate 52 years of communism this week by consuming. Department stores are busy and planes, trains and hotels are booked solid as people heed the party's instruction to spend money.

But in Guangzhou, where materialism is a way of life rather than a week-long break from routine, at least one industry is not benefiting from the consumer frenzy. The city's karaoke bars and the thousands of young women they employ to entertain clients are reeling from a vice sweep by police.

Since September 17, when the Ministry of Public Security formally launched a three-month campaign to 'rectify' entertainment venues, Guangzhou police have been raiding karaoke bars almost nightly.

Such sweeps are conducted routinely in most cities throughout the year, especially in the run-up to national holidays. But the crackdown in Guangzhou is particularly intense, as the city prepares to host a major athletics event, the Ninth National Games, on November 11. Guangzhou police said they had closed more than 8,000 of the city's estimated 20,000 karaoke bars, discos and clubs in the past year.

Their employees, of course, are also affected.

'If you're done asking questions can I go sit with someone else?' a young woman said in one karaoke bar. 'It's been a bad week and I really need to make some money tonight.'

The woman, surnamed Wang, is a 20-year-old native of northeast China who came to Guangzhou earlier this year to work in a shoe factory.