PROSTITUTES and karaoke bars in a small Chinese town are luring growing numbers of cashed-up construction workers from the Chek Lap Kok construction site.
Once-sleepy Kwai Shan, near Lantau Island, is spinning illicit profits from the thousands of male workers living on ships and in dormitories at the new airport site.
Tung Chung police, on western Lantau Island, say they are powerless to stop workers and locals from slipping across the waters in sampans hired from Tai O village.
''It takes about half-an-hour by motorised sampan. It's very close,'' said an officer of the Port and Airport Development Site branch.
''I think they pay corruption money to the Public Security Bureau, because they don't have to go through immigration.'' The ramshackle outpost is home to about 100 to 200 permanent residents, but at weekends it swells dramatically with the influx of male customers.
Ethnic Chinese workers from Chek Lap Kok take advantage of the proximity of cheap beer, prostitutes and the nightlife. Workers use the mainland town as a quick escape from weeks of isolation in all-male work teams.