【SHARED】"I’m a prostitute. Today, I want to share with you the story of my life."
Writer: 8奇AlphaGo (Original article)
Illustrator: thank.kiu.very.much
Hello, I am a prostitute, or a ‘whore’ if you prefer. I don’t mind either way, since I know that I’m not worthy of love: I have no soul, nor a free will; the only thing left for me is my body in exchange for money. However, I know that I’m cute, with a relatively nice physique for an Asian girl. Some would even compliment me as the ‘Pearl of the Orient’.
My story is a bit complicated. My ancestors used to be wealthy and powerful, but the inheritance was frittered away through several generations, and up until my great grandfather, we had become poor and vulnerable. Great grandfather loved smoking, and he was a heavy addict. At some point, he got into some sort of argument with someone (I think that person was a foreigner), and ended up in a physical fight. Defeated, great grandfather surrendered and sold out a group of people from his bloodline to the foreign merchant for 99 years. As part of that bloodline, I was abandoned, parting from my great grandfather for 99 years. Just like that.
At first, we were so upset about it, as we were literally given up by our own family. Gradually, however, we have come to realise that this foreign foster father treated us well, even providing us with education. Despite having small arguments and disputes over trivial matters at times, we got along with him pretty well—the foreigner was a civilised person, after all. Since then, we worked our fingers to the bones with our Lion Rock Spirit, and finally built our own little empire. In our glorious days in the 80s/90s, our achievements were incomparable when we look at our distant relatives (They were very behind and uncivilised. They controlled our distant cousins via excessive violence.) I felt grateful, since the life I now have is more of less thanks to the foreign merchant, who’s like my father. Just as the saying goes, ‘the parents that count are the ones who raised you’. (Later I discovered that the merchant was an Englishman).
99 years flew by in a blink of an eye, and it was 1997. We, who were supposedly sent away permanently, reunited with our great grandfather’s family. With a smile on his face, our now distant grandfather benignly promised us that our current lifestyle will remain unchanged for the next five decades. Honestly, I didn’t really want to go back and live with them, but since my elders neither opposed to or protested against the idea, I guess I’d better not say anything. I suppose they’d be dead in 50 years, so they just let it be. So, I officially went back to live with my extended family, and that was the turning point of my life.
The first few years with them was OK, we were treated with courtesy. I made a living as a stripper at that time, not quite a ‘whore’ yet. Since 1997, I’ve been through a few ups and downs in my life. I even got really sick in 2003, when the doctor told me that I had contracted SARS (also known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). We later discovered that the source of the virus was the poultry and game my distant relatives brought along, and that virus caused many deaths in the household. After the incident, my health has since worsened and I had to quit my stripper job. That was when my grandfather offered me another job—yes, as a whore…...
Well, of course, he didn’t straight up tell me to be a whore. He was humbugging me into it, telling me that I just had to serve some clients, so that they’d come over to dine and shop (something called self-guided tour/Individual Visit Scheme). All I had to do was to provide good service with a smile on my face. He said he didn’t want to waste the talent of a beautiful girl like me. He made a promise, once again, guaranteeing that I get to manage my own work with some sort of ‘high degree of autonomy’, and that I would never be forced into doing things unwillingly. At the time, I thought the offer was quite attractive, plus I was desperate for a job. Without thinking twice, I accepted grandfather’s offer.
The job did give me a decent income, bringing in a lot of easy money. Every time the clients came over, I see a sea of faces swarming, and the shop was packed! The clients walked around with huge suitcases, screaming in rude and mannerless ways, and their suitcases would run over my foot all the time. Once, I even saw a customer taking a dump in the shop—what the hell?! What barbarous creatures they are! In my entire life, I had NEVER seen anyone defecate in public and act like it’s nothing. in my shock, another customer had spit onto my skirt. I was literally stunned. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t speak up at that time, as the shop owner (appointed by grandfather, who used to say that we get to choose our shop owner ourselves) told me to be tolerant and polite. In my mind, I was like, ‘God, why are the clients so uncivilised! Let’s hope that these are only individual cases. The clients are rich after all, so just suck it up, like it’s supposed to be ‘part of the service I offer'.
Later, I realised—these are not individual cases. All of my grandfather’s friends are like that—bad-mannered. However, for the sake of my living, I didn’t care to resist. Looking back, it was then when we started to accept everything silently, without fighting back, and without caring about anything else but money.
Not long later, these clients started investing in real estates nearby, causing the rent in the vicinity to skyrocket, doubling within a few years. And since who-knows when, grandfather’s family started to treat me differently. They started touching me. Once, I even overheard a client talking to his friend, saying, ‘without her grandfather, this whore would have been long gone’.
Finally, it happened. One day, my grandfather asked me to go ‘discuss’ stuff with him in his room. He locked the door, and his hands started to wander all over my body. I said no and I tried to resist, yet what he said in return was, ‘You have been mine since 1997, who are you to say no?’ ‘You promised me that nothing would change in 50 years! You promised with “a high degree of autonomy”! Were all these lies?’ I reproached furiously. It was until that moment that I realised that he had been using me all along. At the beginning, he lusted for my beauty, and wanted to take complete control over me; these days he has just been using me to find more clients for the family to do business with, especially the foreign partners.
While I flung open the door, resisting and trying to escape, he laughed. “You can’t run away from me, you are clung to me forever. Besides, I have my people infiltrated everywhere ages ago, with my people put in places. See that DAB* person, he works for me! Ahahahaha!” he said, with a grin on his hideous face. From then on, I became his and his sex slave — I do whatever he wants me to, serve whoever he tells me to, and all the morals and integrity I have had as human are long gone. (Like the Trias Politica, freedom and human rights, Sino-British Joint Declaration, and so on — things I’ve once believed in are nowhere to be seen now.)
Time has passed as life goes on its way. I have started to see injustice emerging from within the shop. I’ve seen how governors, rich merchants, triads, local authorities all work together; how the employees’ retirement funds were peculated to build pointless white elephant projects. Like seriously—our boss has built a fountain (which nobody wants) right next to a drinking fountain, it costs almost a billion and the project was handed over to DAB’s cousin. Even worse, the water has been contaminated with heavy metals - lead, but the trashy board members in the shop were in control, and they said that it required no investigation. Having seen and endured all this, I’ve had enough. Now is the moment for me to speak up.
This June, I have officially confronted my grandfather’s family and the puppet shopkeeper. Loud have I spoken. “We want freedom and democracy! Five demands, not one less!”
Oh excuse me, I’ve forgotten to tell you my name.
“My name is—Hong Kong.”
- February 2022
- December 2021
- August 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
* DBA: Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, a pro-government political party in Hong Kong.