Global Nanpa

From the Asia Times Online, 26th of February, 2008 :

HONG KONG - First of all, how stupid was it for one of this city’s hottest young celebrities to take hundreds of nude photographs, many of which appear to show him engaging in sex with a stunning variety of Hong Kong starlets? Then how could he compound the error by allowing those photos to wind up scoring a prodigious number of hits on the Internet and to turn up in the print media as well?

Those are the big, career-stopping rhetorical questions for Edison Chen, the 27-year-old actor and singer at the center of Hong Kong’s juiciest-ever sex scandal. Apparently, Chen saved the photographs on a computer that he sent to a shop for repairs. Soon thereafter the world was witness to the revolving door of Chen’s bedroom triumphs.

After weeks of self-imposed exile (some might say hiding) in the
United States, the once supremely confident playboy returned to this celebrity-crazy city last Thursday as a miserable penitent, admitting that he had taken most of the offending photos and begging forgiveness for his astonishingly doltish role in the affair.

If this were a city in the United States - where several years ago a young celebrity by the name of Paris Hilton used an initially embarrassing sex video of her and a former boyfriend to enhance her image as a fun-loving party girl - Chen might find a way to boost his career as a result of the scandal. But this is paradoxical (and sometimes provincial) Hong Kong, where fascination with sex and celebrity manages to coexist quite comfortably with puritanical prudishness. So, while many Hong Kong people are properly appalled and revolted by Chen’s photos, that is only after they have had a good, long look - and, in a lot of cases, multiple good, long looks.

Therefore, it was necessary for the Canadian-born Chen to prostrate himself before this city’s population of 7 million at the press conference, attended by more than 200 members of the local and overseas media, that he called last week. Chen is perhaps best known for his superb performance in the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, a highly successful crime thriller directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak that was remade by Martin Scorsese as The Departed, which won best picture, among other honors, at the 2007 Academy Awards. But he has starred in many other popular films and also built a successful recording career, in recent years branching out from Canto- and Mando-pop into hip-hop.

But that career now lies in a shambles. Not only did the pop icon apologize for his role in the nude photos affair, but he also announced that he would quit show business and devote his life to charity in the next few months.

“I would like to say sorry to all the people in Hong Kong,” Chen said. “I give my apologies sincerely to you all, unreservedly and with my heart. I hope you all will accept my apology. Give me a chance.”

Chen was particularly contrite in addressing his young fans, saying: “I know young people in Hong Kong look up to many figures in our society and, in this regard, I failed as a role model.” Chen added that he planned to bow out of the Hong Kong entertainment industry “indefinitely” to “heal myself and search my soul”.

Miserable is the only way to describe the way the once-proud star appeared during his seven-minute confession to the media. But, if misery loves company, there is plenty of it to go around in Hong Kong’s celebrity world these days. The reputations - and perhaps the careers - of some of the city’s brightest young female stars have been jeopardized by Chen’s photographic indiscretions.

Those compromised include Chen’s current (but perhaps soon-to-be former) girlfriend Vincy Yeung, the niece of Emperor Entertainment Group chairman Albert Yeung, as well as Gillian Chung of the Canto-pop duo Twins, former actress, singer and model Bobo Chan, model-actress Rachel Ngan and singer-actresses Candice Chan and Cecilia Cheung. Cheung happens to be the wife of another Hong Kong pop star, Nicholas Tse.

Twins star Chung is so far the only other celebrity involved in the scandal to publicly apologize. Not that it did her much good. With outraged moralists now calling for a boycott of her performances, Chung canceled an appearance over the weekend at a charity event promoting Hong Kong as host of the Summer Olympic Games equestrian competition this summer - although her Twins partner, Charlene Choi, did appear. According to her management group, Chung missed the event because she was stricken by a fever, but many suspect the real reason was the rising temperature of criticism she has prompted on the Internet.

Returning to the stupidity theme, what were Chung and her fellow nubile starlets thinking when these photographs were snapped? Or were they thinking at all? Were they even aware that their kinkiness with Chen was being recorded and could wind up as cyber fodder for a global community of vicious voyeurs? That part of the story is still unknown, so the revelations will no doubt continue. The sex- and scandal-crazed Hong Kong media will see to that. The story, now a month old, may have peaked with Chen’s mea culpa, but it promises to live on. There is simply too much money to be made for it to die.

It is not just those appearing in the nude photos whose reputations have been damaged, however. The Hong Kong police have added another embarrassing dimension to the sordid saga. In their zeal to stop the rapidly metastasizing spread of the photos on the Internet and in the press, they arrested nine people and charged three. Police Commissioner Tang King-shing also made the alarming announcement that simple possession of any of the photos could constitute a crime, an assertion that Assistant Commissioner Vincent Wong seemed to contradict two days later, when he said that sharing the photos with friends would not be considered a violation of the law.

After the commissioner’s remark drew a barrage of invective on the Internet, Tang added to the confusion by saying, “Everyone has his or her own view. Some people think I was right while some don’t.”

But, at least when it comes to matters of law, shouldn’t ordinary people feel confident that their police commissioner knows what he is talking about? That is no longer the case in Hong Kong, whose police department, long considered among the best in Asia, has taken a blow along with the celebrities caught up in the scandal.

It was clear that police acted hastily when the first person arrested over the photos - Chung Yik-tin, 29, who was charged with publishing an obscene article - was released on February 15 after two weeks behind bars. His release came because the maddeningly fickle Obscene Articles Tribunal ruled that the photographs he had distributed on the Internet were not obscene.

Given the graphic nature of some of those photographs - for example, one depicts Chung naked with her legs spread while in bed with Chen - that ruling must have come as a surprise not just to the police but also to most of Hong Kong. After all, this is the same tribunal that in 1995 classified as “indecent” a photo of Michelangelo’s statue of David because the biblical king’s genitals were shown. It also gave the same classification to relatively tame photos clandestinely taken of Chung changing clothes backstage at a concert in Malaysia in 2006.

To the ordinary eye, the Chen photos were in another league that could well be considered obscene. Still, why didn’t police seek a ruling from the tribunal before making their arrests? In light of the far more extreme smut that is easily available in cyberspace and in print, there was a public perception that police had acted precipitously in this case because of the big names and reputations involved. Instead of quelling the scandal, then, the police response only added fuel to the fire.

At this point, the scandal has reached such epic proportions that Hong Kong parents, not noted for their sexual openness, have started talking about it with their children. Meanwhile, educators are considering using Chen’s humiliation as an object lesson in the classroom to promote sexual modesty and responsibility. Conservative religious groups see the affair as yet another sign that Hong Kong has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Mostly lost in all the sexual titillation, police bungling and largely hypocritical moral posturing is the fact that Chen’s photos were quite likely stolen and that the privacy of all those depicted in them has been grossly violated. This, apparently, is the price of celebrity (combined with stupidity) in Hong Kong. With this scandal now so thoroughly burned into the collective conscience of the city, it should be a long time before another Hong Kong star hands over a computer for repairs.

Just buy a new one.

Here is a torrent to download all pictures :

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1197577

A youtube video of some of the pics with Gillian Chung :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGa42Ufkof4

The following text is from the newspaper Martlet :

The first time Jordan Clark ventured to Thailand, he saw what most Western travellers see—a backpacker’s paradise punctuated by smiling merchants and unparalleled bargains.

Knowing little about the country at the time, Clark said what he remembers most from the trip were the exotic feasts, friendly people and pristine beaches.

“The first experience I was really naive and fairly oblivious to what was going on,” he said. “The tourist trail is so thick there it’s really hard to experience Thailand outside the tourist triangle.”

That was six years ago, and since then Clark has returned to see a far different side of Thailand. Armed with a semi-professional quality video camera, the 33 year old set out in 2002 to make a film about the strange and fascinating world he remembered.

Instead, he fell platonically in love with a 19-year-old bar girl named Pla, and immediately knew he had to tell her story instead.

“The film was supposed to be about the tourist trail,” said Clark, “but I met Pla and she ended up being the sculptor of the film.”

The documentary that emerged from the filmmaker’s three-month adventure turned out to be a hard look at the human cost of the Thai sex trade.

Over 800,000 girls and women currently work Thailand’s night scene in order to survive, and Clark said he made it his mission as soon as he met Pla to put a face to an industry that is often normalized. This proved no easy feat.

“Everybody’s trying to make a living, so it’s a little more difficult to really get to know people,” he said. “It’s ‘How do you get people to break through that separation? How do you get people to break through that barrier?’ My intention was to do that by getting people to get to know Pla.”

Pla, as it turned out, was on the cusp of entering the sex trade industry when Clark met her. She had worked as a bar girl at a pickup joint for westerners from the age of 13, and managed to live off the meagre wages she made pouring drinks, but when her mother fell ill she had no choice but to sell her body to help pay for medical expenses.

Unaware of the direction Pla’s life was taking when he began to film her, the story Clark ultimately told was shaped by the heartbreak he felt at seeing the girl he saw as a sister slip away into the night scene.

“In that society, if you’re a bar girl . . . you’re no better than a beggar on the street with leprosy,” he said.

Clark tried to help Pla financially, and even attempted to get her out of the country, but because he was engaged at the time, there was no legal avenue open to him.

A week after leaving Thailand, he learned that Pla had died, possibly of heart failure related to a drug overdose.

This startling revelation concluded his film, and Clark slipped into a heavy depression. He said he has to take responsibility for what happened to Pla, but feels he at least was able to give his friend a voice.

“The only way to solve any problem in the world is through understanding,” he said.

Clark’s film, Bangkok Girl, was shown at the 2005 Victoria Film Festival, and aired for the first time on CBC’s Rough Cuts Nov. 15, and again on Jan. 21. The film attracted the show’s second-highest ratings in the last two years.

Clark said he learned many lessons from Pla while visiting Thailand—most importantly patience, compassion, and understanding. He does not condemn those who participate in the Thai sex trade because so many men and women there are dependent on it, but wants to pass on what he has learned to future generations of western travelers.

“The one thing I can say is if you’re traveling through Thailand and you see a westerner doing something or acting in a way that’s inappropriate, do something,” he said. “Being in a foreign country doesn’t give you license to act like a jackass. I mean, have fun, but [remember] you’re dealing with people who are trying to feed their families.”

Ultimately, Clark hopes Pla’s death has a lasting impact on Western audiences, and that it contributes to saving Thai women some of the pain they regularly endure to stay alive.

“I would personally like to see the amount of tolerance for sexual predators in Thailand disappear,” he said, “but my goal for the film was to make people fall in love with Pla and to be affected by her death, and to generate dialogue after the fact so that hopefully there would be less tolerance of abuse.”

Here are video links of the documentary, divided into four parts :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-gwqlze5Eg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoyqbUYmw8A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMomPnMuPaA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0rJkCehISo&feature=related

An Asian posting can enhance an executive’s career. Sadly, it can also fuel infidelity, abuse–and murder

Rob Kissel thought he’d reached the top. Recently appointed to head Merrill Lynch’s new Asian distressed-debt division, he was enjoying the exalted life of an expatriate: a luxury flat in Hong Kong and a $3-million vacation home in Vermont. But the work — 16-hour days and frequent trips to Taipei, Seoul, Bangkok, China and Singapore — were taking a toll on his private life.
His wife, Nancy, was not adjusting well. Frustrated by her husband’s workaholism and isolated from family and friends, she became emotionally unstable. So unhinged, in fact, that she drugged her husband, bludgeoned him to death and hid his body in a storage locker. During her trial, which ended two years ago, Ms. Kissel claimed her husband’s sexual exploits in the region had made him violent at home.
The media went wild. The sordid tale about alleged abusive sex, adultery, cocaine and money offered a rare glimpse into the private lives of Hong Kong’s expatriate community. It also shone a spotlight on the dark secrets of Western executives transplanted in Asia: elicit sex, mistresses and dysfunctional families.
Infidelity happens around the world, but for expatriates on assignment in Asia, the combination of cultural isolation, career-obsessed spouses and a pervasive sex industry adds further pressure to a marriage. The city of Hong Kong has been called the “graveyard of marriages” and exclusive Bangkok nightclubs targeting foreigners, such as Pent Exclusive Club, have been dubbed “weapons of mass destruction for families” by local journalists.
The disintegration of families sent abroad is so well-documented that sophisticated firms are increasingly hiring relocation services to mediate overseas assignments.

“The No. 1 reason leading to assignment failure — when expatriate executives return home before their contract has ended — is spouse dissatisfaction,” says Scott Sullivan, senior vice-president of sales and marketing for GMAC Global Relocation Services in Illinois. China and Japan top the list of uncompleted assignments.
Not surprisingly, it continues to get more difficult to attract individuals and their families to go overseas, says Mr. Sullivan. While Mr. Sullivan doesn’t have statistics on extramarital affairs, ComPsych Corp., a U.S.-based provider of employee assistance programs, says marital and relationship issues account for almost a fifth of problems expats face while on assignment.
There are many reasons why married people stray, but counsellors say that these problems are exacerbated when couples are uprooted. “Living abroad is [a] challenge and most couples have no idea what [that] entails,” says Hong Kong-based psychologist and author Cathy Tsang-Feign. Although they find themselves with a glamorous lifestyle, women who move to accommodate their husbands’ careers often don’t know what to do with themselves, she adds.
More than 60% of women have jobs before they leave on assignment, but less than one-quarter find employment in their new life. The woman may have given up her career and hired a nanny, and eventually feels that all of her roles and her identity have been stripped away. “The husband’s ego gets inflated and the woman is deflated,” says Ms. Tsang-Feign.
As well, men are often asked to work longer hours and spend a huge amount of time on the road. When they come back exhausted, they find themselves coming home to angry spouses. So, the men “shut down emotionally,” says Ms. Tsang-Feign, “and eventually tell themselves, ‘I need a bigger reward for the hard work I do.’”
That reward may be sexual; an affair with a secretary or real estate agent who makes them feel like the boss. “The men seek exotic Asian women who will look after them, and the women see them [as] men with power, and ‘wow,’ because they come with a financial package,” she says.
If these unhappy spouses don’t find love in the office, they will certainly trip over it in the street.

The temptations in Asia are greater than elsewhere. In cities like Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong and Bangkok, the sex industry centres on business districts and hotels. A single man will almost always receive unsolicited calls in his hotel room, and local bars like Pent Exclusive Club in Bangkok have developed an exclusive clientele by inviting university-educated women seeking foreign or “fareng” husbands to flirt with the men at the bar.
The trend is so pervasive that Warren Olson, former investigator and author of Confessions of a Bangkok Private-Eye, says he’s never met a wife whose suspicions were unfounded.
Robin Sears, a former headhunter in Asia and currently a political consultant for Navigator Consulting Inc., has seen many former clients revert to the “sexpat” cliche. One client, who had moved to Japan to work at one of the car manufacturing companies, moved his Japanese assistant into his home while his wife was away for a summer vacation. When his wife returned in the fall and discovered his indiscretion, she was turfed out by the husband.
“Not to let the errant husband — and usually it’s an errant husband — off the hook, but these are, in the main, guys who would never have behaved so ridiculously in their own environment,” says Mr. Sears.
“Unfortunately, they are often dumped in a place where temptation is high and the stress is higher and they do stupid things — such as the Hong Kong executive who arrived at the airport to find both his wife and mistress on hand to greet him, says Mr. Sears.
“Then there are the guys who are old, fat and bald, without any prospects of attracting the attention of a smart, young, attractive Western woman, but discover that they can be attractive because of their affluence or visa status to a whole range of [Asian] women, and strike up a relationship with one of them, not realizing that in the eyes of their friends and other Asians, they look at best [like] fools and at worst predators,” he adds.
These stories often carry a high corporate cost, says Mr. Sears. “The process of placing non-local executives in senior management roles in cultures and environments that are entirely new to them is a very high-risk enterprise,” he says. “It fails more often than it succeeds.”
Not only is it costly to relocate families, but when there is a long history of failed expat assignments, local management teams can become jaded and cynical, adds Mr. Sears. It affects morale within the host country.

Not all foreign assignments end in failure. Companies such as Siemens AG, the Germany-based engineering conglomerate, have learned to grapple with these issues. Europeans usually do it better than Americans because they have a deeper respect for cultural differences and have been at it longer, says Mr. Sears. They learn not to repeat the same mistakes. Mr. Sears says the worst cultural transgressions are usually committed by young American technology companies, although he’s encountered one major American oil company that routinely rotated executives because they “endorsed lascivious behaviour by its executives.”
“There’s a high level of hypocrisy and tolerance for stuff that was frankly quite unpleasant to observe,” says Mr. Sears. “There’s still a nudge-nudge, wink-wink mentality out there.”
Some companies are trying to offset the problem by hiring more young and single employees for their overseas positions. There is also an increased willingness by corporations to offer more pre-evaluation and pre-counselling — before problems arise, says David Campbell, senior vice-president of customers and quality at the Chicago-based Com-Psych Group.
It’s not enough to offer more financial perks, he says. Vetting employees and offering better support structures on the ground are essential. “In order for the assignment to be successful, the family needs to be well looked after,” he adds.

THE PRICE OF CHEATING
What’s the price of infidelity? From a corporate level, an executive who exits his post can cost his company hundreds of thousands of dollars. For aggrieved spouses seeking evidence, the price tag to hire a private detective is in the thousands of dollars.
Across Asia, private eyes tailing wayward spouses is on the rise.
Thailand Investigation & Information Services promotes its services online and promises to “shadow his every move and provide the evidence you’ll need to get him to confess and, if divorcing, to obtain a very favour-able settlement.” Founded in 1993, the sleuthing agency receives several inquiries a week by Western women seeking to track down unfaithful husbands, says field services director Charles Richards.
Not all women bite. “Only about 50% of the women go ahead with the investigation,” says Mr. Richards in an e-mail. Cost is a deterrent but, “when they do agree to use the services, they are like bulldogs. They never give up! They want to know literally everything about the girl or girls involved.”
How many of the spouses he’s tracked actually cheat? About 75% are involved in an affair.
“It does not matter what you look like or how old or fat or bald you are … in Thailand, farangs are treated like a film star,” says Mr. Richards.

This list shall not be seen as a complete guide to the SEA gogo scene. I only list a few places I recently visited and that I find worth mentioning. I will extend this list from time to time.

I believe that describing gogo bars in words does not make much sense except giving a bit of background information. You mostly have to check out the places yourself and find out if you like it or not. I can only give you a first idea what might be a good spot and then you have to see if that could be a place to visit or not.

Thailand

Pattaya :

1. HAPPY AGOGO, Soi Happy, Walking Street

2. CLUB BOESCHE, Soi 16, Walking Street

3. AIRPORT CLUB, Walking Street

4. SECRETS, Soi 14, Walking Street

5. HEAVEN ABOVE, Soi Diamond, Walking Street

Bangkok :

1. RAINBOW 1 and 4, Nana Plaza, Sukhumvit Soi 4

2. BACCARA, Soi Cowboy, between Sukhumvit Soi 21&23

3. TILAC, Soi Cowboy, between Sukhumvit Soi 21&23

Philippines

Angeles City :

1. ATLANTIS, Fields Avenue

2. CLUB ASIA, Fields Avenue

3. CRYSTAL PALACE, Fields Avenue

4. DOLLHOUSE, Fields Avenue

5. CAMELOT, Fields Avenue

6. PONY TAILS

Manila :

1. FLAMINGO’S, Burgos Street

2. BANDITOS, Burgos Street

3. FIREHOUSE, Edsa Entertainment Complex

4. LA Cafe, Ermita

Indonesia

Jakarta :

1. TOP GUN, Blok M

2. MY BAR, Blok M

3. D’s, Blok M

From my point of view japanese girls are the highest class Asians, they have the sexiest bodies, best skin tone, cutest voice and make the best wives, especially if they have their own money. I also love all other Asian girls, but J-girls are simply special and a true challenge to nanpa attack.
35.000 Japanese live in Germany (from Federal Statistical Office), one third of them live in Duesseldorf.
Maybe 3500 girls have the right age and maybe 350 of them are decent looking ones.
So it is kind of hard and special to find and date them in Germany.

I was lucky that i recently was able to enjoy an evening with two cute J-girls at a Karaoke place in Berlin. I am a terrible singer, but it was fun : we had the right vibe and I also had a nice cigare plus a few good drinks.
Playing nanpa in western countries is much more difficult than in Asia, but this example shows again that it is not impossible if you put in some effort.
A friend of mine watching the video and seeing the pics actually believes that those J-girls must have been Nintendo market researchers doing a study on young male Nintendo Wii addicts. LOL.

Here is a video inside of the karaoke room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuoJP8P4Ido

This posting is not based on my own first-hand experience. I will go more into detail later this year after my Japan trip.
Love hotels can be found all over Japan, the highest density of them is in Shibuya, Tokyo.
The places are designed for folks to shack up and get it on.
In the love hotels people can escape from the crowded and often tiny apartments where families or neighbors might spy on them. The rooms also offer a fantasy of luxury.
The bright-lit neon signs of the hotels often display funny English or French names. There are three different price categories : shorts stays, long stays and overnight stays.
In the lobby you are not supposed to see any people, there is a large room menu on the wall.
If a picture of a room is lit up, the room is available. In case you like the room, press a button next to the picture. A faceless person behind dark glass hands you a key after you hand them the cash.

While they might seem to be somewhat sordid for a foreign visitor, in Japan they are only somewhat perverted. People simply like to have some privacy in a country with tiny dwellings and still some rice-paper walls.

The love hotels rooms are decorated in multifaceted ways : they have bevelled edges, many mirrors, large TVs with karaoke, big bathtubs. Ocassionally you will find a hotel with a roman temple built around the bed or a bath and shower designed to resemble a mountain stream or perhaps a circular bed under a functioning carousel.

After a few nights in expensive and often tiny business hotel rooms, staying an overnight in a love hotel can make financial and experiential sense.

Check out the video of this young Canadian dude. It gives a good impression how you have to imagine a love hotel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ullEkxNT3fY

Here is a list of a lot love hotels in Shibuya, Tokyo :

http://gmap.jp/gmap/shibuya/dir/26/03/list1.html