Relax - Oasis of sleaze

Relax

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After travelling hundreds of kilometres through a barren desert highway, I stumble upon a tiny settlement in the heart of the Taklamakan Desert, Xinjiang, China. A slogan, “Conquering the Sea of Death”, on the archway welcomed me into Tazhong.

Although it is 2am, the place is a hive of activity.

Neon lights flicker from the shophouses lining the 1km-long street. Girls in bare-back tops and short skirts chat while loud music blare from the karaoke rooms, piercing the still air. I soon learn that over 80% of the businesses in Tazhong are related to the flesh trade, be it the barber shops that don’t have a single pair of scissors, the massage parlours that offer foot massage and more, the karaoke joints, the “recreation” centres, or the only hotel in town.

It’s no surprise that when I fail to secure a room in the only hotel, I end up in a brothel — the only place where I could have a soft bed and a roof over my head, and the luxury of getting a bath in the middle of the desert.

My tiny rented room at 30 yuan (S$6) a night is illuminated by a dim red light bulb and a huge poster of a half-naked couple in an intimate position decorates the wall. And on the bedside table, a table fan is spinning slowly, and there are two tubes of lubricant lying beside it. The room’s wooden sliding door muffle the sound of singing from the rooms opposite.

The actual occupant of my rented room is taking time off from her job; I’m told she needs to escape the desert for a while to the “civilised” world some 500km away. Her co-worker, Ding, took pity on me for not having a place to rest after a long day of hitch-hiking, so she cleaned up the room and boiled some hot water for me to wash up.

Ding is a chatty and cheerful 35-year-old from Sichuan province. The mother of two arrived in Tazhong a year ago. She told her family that she was going to Xinjiang to help a friend run an apparel store.

“I suspect my husband probably has an inkling what I am doing here. He knows I have no other skills except driving, but I manage to send home thousands of yuan each month,” Ding tells me when we are in her “hair salon” watching a TV drama series to pass the time.

Tazhong is a place that only comes alive at night. In the day, the heat wave sweeping in from the surrounding desert is unbearable. Only some restaurants, grocery shops and car repair shops are opened.

The word tazhong means the middle part of the Taklamakan Desert Highway. It is located at Km335 along the highway that runs for some 600km. During the Silk Road era, the camel caravan wouldn’t risk venturing this deep into the Taklamakan Desert, which was then known as the sea of death.

Tazhong was a wilderness two decades ago, until oil reserves were discovered and a Chinese state-owned oil giant funded the construction of the highway in the mid-1990s. Today, Tazhong acts like a modern caravanserai, a resting point for truck drivers and the entertainment centre for oil workers in the surrounding desert.

“Only men work in the oil fields. They remain in their bases for weeks or months on end. Tazhong is the only nearby place where they can get some fun and relief from the boredom of the desert. Prostitution is illegal in China, but here, it is a service to humanity. The police know about our activities and protect us,” says Ding, who entered the trade after the transport business she jointly operated with her husband collapsed and she became burdened with debts.

Knowing that her current job would bring shame to her family, Ding travelled thousands of kilometres from Sichuan to avoid running into people she knows. She plans to work hard for two years to pay off the debts and go home next year.

“I still feel repulsed whenever a customer requests an overnight stay. When there’s a person lying next to me, I can’t sleep the whole night, I feel disgusted,” says Ding, but overnight service could earn 260 yuan while a one-off service costs half the price.

Apart from the thick make-up, Ding hardly looks like a prostitute. She never wears a skirt or dress or high heels; she is always in T-shirt and jeans, and sports a pair of sneakers. When business is slow, she likes to sit in her “hair salon” watching TV.

Sometimes, girls from nearby salons or karaoke joints would visit each other to chit-chat. I don’t sense rivalry among the girls.

“When one is far away from home, one needs to depend on friends; we help each other,” says one of the girls.

Tazhong seems like a place that nobody would stay permanently. It’s a place where everyone has a past and where no one judges other people. It’s where people who have faced hardship can earn a future. All the girls I speak to harbour dreams of starting a new life once they have saved up.

“The best thing about working here is that you have no place to spend the money you earn,” Ding says.

The many restaurants and shops in Tazhong also change hands every few years. Some leave satisfied, while others are disillusioned. But there will always be more newcomers flooding into the tiny settlement that provides “services” for the oil industry in the desert.

While I have come as an innocent traveller to admire the beauty of the desert, the residents in Tazhong see only boredom here and can’t wait to escape.

-The Star/Asia News Network

Oasis of sleaze

By Lam Li, The Star/ANN | Sun, Aug 1 2010

In the middle of the Taklamakan Desert in China, a female writer looking for accommodation ends up sleeping in a brothel.