Seymour Totti’s Foreign Policy

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Tracking down this classic Hong Kong novel, even in Hong Kong, was something of a chore. I finally picked a copy up at the Star Ferry pier. Not the one where Robert Lomax first met Suzie, a recreation of the original Central pier which is now in what would have been the middle of the harbour back in the 1950s when the book was written.

In the twenty years since I first read it Hong Kong has changed dramatically. It would be unrecognisable to Lomax and Suzie. There are still pockets of old Hong Kong but they are few and far between and diminishing every year. Squeezed out by soulless steel and glass that the HK government likes to call urban renewal.

That said, characters that populated Richard Mason’s novel are still very familiar. Their names, complexions and the range of languages they speak have changed but their business in Wanchai is flourishing.

The book has won considerable acclaim, not for the love story between a British painter and a prostitute, but for the authors keen observation of a place that was about to transform itself from a small trading post into the vibrant commercial hub that it is today. And of the hypocracy and rascism that was characteristic of of the era.

What makes the book special for me is the richness and depth of Mason’s characters, not just of Lomax and Suzie who have been widely recognised, but of the entire cast. In particular the other girls that worked the bar of the Nam Kok Hotel.

In the years since I first read this book I have spent more than my fair share of time in the company of their sisters in the real world. Reading it again I realise just how beautifully delineated their characters are:

“I could not help liking old Lily Lou. She reminded me of an old theatre pro, who had grown up in a narrow professional world, took pride in the old fashioned thoroughness of her technique, and looked down on on the present-day youngsters for skimping their job. She remembered her own training at a smart brothel in Shanghai - oh, in those days you’d got to know how to please a man, you’d got to take trouble and time. It had been a real vocation; none of these modern girls would have lasted a minute. “They’ve got no mystery dear,” she would whisper huskily, confidentially, patting my hand. “And that’s what a man likes - mystery.” And she would smile her carefully enigmatic smile that, despite the old whore’s shabbiness and over-rouged cheeks, could still just pass for mystery in the low diffused light of the bar.”

Into all the girls the author breathes a life so convincing that, in most of them, I can see the faces of counterparts that I have actually met. Rather than stocking the bar with one dimensional background characters he has crafted, with a great deal of affection, each individual person. It is this empathy, the warts and all humanity, that brings the bar of the Nam Kok hotel to life.

Only Suzie herself remains elusive, the one character you reach for but can’t quite grasp. Mason always maintained that Suzie was not based on any particular girl but was a composite of several. And while she has her own very human frailties she remains the dream-girl. The mystery that still draws men to places like Hong Kong in search of a Suzie of their own.

*The cover shown is the 1994 edition published by Pegasus Books featuring Nancy Kwan who played Suzie in the 1960 Paramount movie

Read also: Wanchai
Read also: The Red Lips bar

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The night markets in and around Temple Street in Kowloon are very popular with tourists. I caught this enterprising gentleman setting up his stall this afternoon, obviously in anticipation of doing good business and providing some people with happy memories of their stay in Hong Kong.

Read also: Wanchai
Read also: Going for the ball
Read also: The Red Lips bar

The spirit of Sappho lives on in Japan. Click for more

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A court in Athens has ruled that Lesbians can still be gay. Residents of the island of Lesbos had been trying to get the word lesbian, when used as a term for gay people, banned saying it was an insult to their identity. But a court in the Greek capital disagreed. So did Vassilis Chirdaris, lawyer for the Gay and Lesbian Union of Greece who said; “This is a good decision for lesbians everywhere.”

The islands name was given to gay women in recognition of the female poet Sappho, who wrote love poems about both women and men around 600 BC.

Lesbos is a popular gathering place for gay women from around the world particularly the village of Eressos where the poet is said to have been born. I think the residents of Lesbos should loosen up a bit and say thanks for tourist dollars.

Video: The disease of lesbianism
Website review: Shaved Japanese pussy movies

China: Florence Fong

Philippines: Edmilyn and Carla

Japan: Rumiko

Thailand: Uan

India: Asha Kumara

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It’s been a bit quiet round here lately, I haven’t seen anything particularly amusing in the news and I’ve been up to my bollocks in work. I mean regular work, the nasty stuff that gets the bills paid. This work just pays for beer and hookers and I’ve been celibate for 48 hours chaps!!!!

Anyway, I know how much you all love shaved pussies so here is a little round-up of sweet edible cunts from around Asia. Don’t dribble on your keyboard.

Review: Inside Asha Kumara
Review: Momo Sengen - Japanese shaved pussy movies
Review: Little Brown Fucking Machines
More pics: China Shaved

Gratuitous porn, nothing to do with the story. Click to see her shaved Chinese pussy

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If the earth didn’t actually move for them at least the car in which they were humping did. In fact it rolled off the edge of a cliff.

According to Today News Lin Gu, 25, and Lee Shin, 29 had driven to the edge of a hill in XinDian, Taiwan to engage in a spot of clandestine nookie. Unfortunately they forgot the hand-brake. As their passions intensified the car bounced clean over the edge and down a 150 foot cliff face into the valley below.

Amazingly they survived. They managed to scramble back up to the road where, battered, bruised and covered in mud, Lee asked Gu to keep walking while she sought help at a nearby house. Homeowner Chen Chenggang said Lee pleaded with him not to reveal how the accident happened as her husband “would definitely sue for divorce”.