Hong Kong's Sex Rumours Exposed

The Prodigy

The Rumor: Tycoon Cecil Chao has slept with 10,000 women.

Double-confirmed? Ish.

Cecil Chao once claimed to have slept with 10,000 women—a fact that’s been consistently featured in every interview he’s done since then. Well, until that whole lesbian daughter dowry thing, anyway. It’s certainly true that the 77-year-old is rarely seen without a lady by his side. In February 2011, he told East Week Magazine, “If I had to bring all of them [girlfriends] out, you’d need an Olympic stadium to seat them all.” Among his partners, the most notable are the mothers of his three children: actresses Kelly Yao Wei (Gigi’s mom) and Ying Ying, and model Terri Holladay. Even if we assume he hadn’t remained faithful to them, is it still possible for Chao’s brag to be true?

Let’s do the math. Say Chao was with his first partner at the tender age of 16. So that’s 61 years of virility for 10,000 ladies, or 149 women per year: i.e. 2.87 different women per week, year in, year out—while also building Cheuk Nang Holdings into a real estate powerhouse. Honestly, who has the time? Possible? Yes. Probable? Eh.
 

Ecstatic Feet

The Rumor: Foot massage parlors with a smiley face in their sign indicate that the shop provides “happy endings.”

Double-confirmed? :-)

Local forums and a 2012 Apple Daily report point to Jordan, Sham Shui Po and Tsuen Wan as hotspots for these “happy” massage parlors. We visited two parlors without smiley faces and three with smiling signs. Most employees were genuinely surprised that the smiley face meant anything, but there’s at least some truth to the rumor: those without the sign insist they’re “proper businesses,” while two of the shops marked with a smile confirmed that sexual services are on the menu. One massage parlor just shooed us away.

An owner of a “proper” upstairs massage shop tells us that the placement of smiley faces is mostly random now: “Those who want those services will know where to go; there’s no need for a smiley face.” A man in his 20s shares a patron’s perspective with us. He’s paid more than five visits to happy ending parlors, and he agrees that there’s no sure way to tell one kind from the other. “We usually know through word of mouth,” he says.
“It’s better for rookies to have someone lead the way.”

It may be tricky to identify the place, but once inside, things are straightforward enough. We caught up with a woman in her 30s, who was attracting customers on the street. She’s been giving happy ending massages for four years, and she explains how it works: “Every man expects these services when they visit our massage place,” she says. “It starts with either a foot or a full-body massage, and then I do it—but only with my hand.” Just like that? The patron describes it in more detail: “The girls touch the inside of your thighs to provoke you. Then you can just hint that you want it.”

The massage parlor where the woman works charges $138 for 45 minutes. “There’s no additional fee,” she says. “I get paid $30 to $40 for each customer. On a good day, I get four to five customers.” She tells us she’s ashamed of her job, but she finds it less embarrassing as she doesn’t have many friends here, having moved from the mainland to Hong Kong four years ago. “To be honest, I wouldn’t want to be doing this if I could help it. I was a saleslady at a cosmetics shop in the mainland, but no one would hire me in Hong Kong because I can’t speak English,” she says. “I took up this job mainly because of my financial troubles—I have to repay my debt and take care of my son.”

Her experiences at work, the masseuse tells us, have led her to see most men as “dirty-minded, fickle, and unreliable.” “Some men ask that we use stockings to help them get off,” she says. “A man tried to force himself on me once, and I told him to get out. Some girls might be willing to sleep with the customers, but not me.”

 

Booty Hall

The Rumor: Hong Kong’s university dorms are home to “Hall Prostitutes” who engage in sex work on campus.

Double-confirmed? Failing grade.

In 2008, local Chinese-language magazine FACE talked to a security guard and students at a Kowloon Tong university, who claimed that students engaged in prostitution within their halls of residence. We called five men in their 20s who live or have lived in dorms at a local university. Two denied it outright, but the other three all said they knew of students part-timing as sex workers. One of the men says: “There’s a girl who’s known as one—she’s slept with most of the people in this hall, my friend included.” Another: “My friend’s flat mate is sort-of one. She always brings people to her room for sex.”

Surprised by how common it seemed, we pressed for more. How do you tell if someone is engaging in prostitution? Do they put up a sign? How much do they charge? The men had similar reactions: “Oh.” “She doesn’t charge anything,” one says. “I don’t know any then,” another admits over the phone.

Other than the disturbing realization that these college-educated men think of promiscuous women as prostitutes, we got nowhere on this one. Busted.