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Q: Are all hair saloons brothels?
Quite honestly, how I've been in China since November and missed this one is beyond me. 1am last night I went on the prowl to buy more beer. No success, unusually. On my diagonally-inclined journey home I noticed that the only places still open were the hair saloons. And, as if to confirm my suspicions, a guy was being led by his boxers, trousers around his ankles, from one to another.
While it may seem so, most of the saloons are legit. However, like many things, there are areas where the "extra service" ones tend to congregate giving that impression.
Also, there are many that during regular hours are regular hair salons, and then become extra service after hours.
Most are on the up and up (in my experience).
If they are cutting hair then they are legit. If they have a bunch of girls sitting on couches and they have pink or blue neon lighting inside...then they are brothels.
I have walked by enough of both to figure out the difference.
There are beauty parlours all around where I live, I call them sex stores now. The girls sit around in the front room, olaying cards, watching TV or sewing. There is no pretense of being a salon, no customer chair or hair cutting equipment.
nnnoooo...i don't think so, China is not Bangkok yet:)
I guess we each have our own pet ways to tell the difference of a "hair saloon" from a "sex depot". For me, there are two sure ways of telling what will transpire once inside:
1.- If you see in plain site massage tables within the hair saloon, that will be a sure indication that yes, they do cut hair, and yes, they will give you a massage for a fee, but nothing else will transpire. Now, if you do not see massage tables, and maybe on one corner you see a stairway leading to a mezzanine, or a closed door on the back of the store and ladies with patrons walking in and out, be sure that there is some "monkey" business going on back there.
2.- My second indication on the legitimacy of a hair saloon vs a sex parlor would be who is working there, and in general what are they doing while waiting for customers. Legit hair saloons have a combination of male and female workers, others have just female staff, no males (????). In legit hair saloons, workers when idle are either outside smoking, or doing some cleaning, or cutting each other's hairs or fixing their hairdos. In sex parlors, and I have no idea why, most female workers waiting are either knitting, sewing or waiving their arms and charms trying to attract customers to walk in.
I do not patronize the sex parlors, I am always afraid that if I do, the Police will ride the place and throw me in jail for being there, and next morning my photo will be all over China as the crazy foreigner caught corrupting the morals of Chinese workers. Besides that, I do respect my GF and need nothing else besides her.
