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Once the realm of cash-strapped teenage students, Shirley Zhou meets and educated year old woman who continues to sell sexual favours in order to improve her family's financial stability. And many of them are now adults striving for a career in a cut-throat society. Her family used to be wealthy. In the s, her parents owned three apartments — two at the Mid-Levels and the other at Repulse Bay — as well as two luxury cars.
Both her parents were serious gambling addicts. Soon after she was born, the chronic gambling started to take its toll and their wealth evaporated. Mum beat me up when she got upset. The only one able to stop her from beating me was my sister, because she beat me even worse, and that made my mum kind of sympathetic about me. The houses and cars were taken away — but the gambling continued.
Soon afterwards she started working to support her family. Mui Mui worked in the finance industry, but got laid off last year. He wanted to have sex with me without paying first. Then I remembered some experienced daters told me not to agree with anything until you get the money, so I rejected him. Finally he got cranky and upset, and did nasty things with me before he walked out of the hotel room. These people always made me wonder how much pressure people in Hong Kong are under.
But I think it was still too awkward for both of us, and then we were gradually estranged. Now maybe we still have something between us, since neither of us ever suggests that we sign the divorce papers. Ching suggests that the government should integrate and reorganise all the available resources for women into a clear system with easy access. Mui Mui, however, sees younger students who do compensated dating as financially secure. Viewing unemployment as another reason why women resort to trading sex for financial gain, Bowie Lam Po-yee, the project officer of Teens Key, a non-government organisation for teenage sex workers, says the current job market is highly focused on positions in the finance and property industries for college graduates, while for those with lower education, choices are few.
