Lady men

February 2003

She was grotesque. Actually he was grotesque. This close it was obvious.

‘The lady man, don’t you think honey?’
‘What do you mean by lady man? I asked
‘Like in Thailand’ she said. ‘Honey, we could go to Thailand, then you can see the lady man’
She didn’t explain what a lady man was.
‘Well we could go to Thailand, but I’ll pass on the lady men’

We didn’t talk for a while. I sat there eating the peanuts. No-one else came in. Then another of the ladies came over, and spoke to Maggie.

‘She asked if we wanted anything else, but I tell her no. Otherwise you will be the drunk, aye honey?’

As we walked back, we looked into one or two of the other bars, some of which had lady men too.

‘So strange huh honey? Don’t expect to see the lady men in mainland China’
I suppose I didn’t

Back at the hotel, Maggie telephoned her mother. Afterwards she said ‘my mother asked where I am. I said I was sat on your lap. So funny huh’

We made love in the small bed, it was just a single, and then she fell asleep in my arms.

We were up early, but by the time we got downstairs, we had missed most of the breakfast. What was left didn’t look edible. Then we were back on the coach heading for what was described as an art gallery.

In fact it was another souvenir shop. Maggie and I decided to go for a walk. The streets in this area were all but deserted, except for a few women sat outside of what looked like derelict buildings. Some of them waved, as we passed by.

‘You see how poor are these mainland China people?’
‘Yes I can see’
‘See how dirty they are?’
This always irritated me. ‘It must be difficult living in these conditions’
‘You don’t need to worry honey, as we know, the mainland China people don’t care about being dirty’