How a Chinese Business KTV Works – The Pretty Girls

This is a very detailed discussion on how a Business KTV works in China. This is a pretty large multi-part post. It was originally posted HERE, but it soon became problematic as the videos would not load and the SEO flags weren’t being picked up by the search engines. So I broke it down into smaller bite-sized posts. It’s faster to load, easier to read, and you can see all the videos without problem. Enjoy.

This is part 6 of 17.

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

KTV Appearance

The KTV will be lit up like a Casino. You will typically be driven directly to the front door, and an assistant will open the door open for you to exit the car from. It is important that you take your time. Stand straight. Smile, and look around you. The manager of the girls might greet you there. Though, she would make a bee-line to the factory boss first.

You will be led into the lobby.

It will be well-attired and look like the inside of a casino or movie theater from the 1920’s. Lining both sides of the lobby, and forming a path would be two lines of girls. They would be Chinese pretty girls. One on our left, and one on your right. Big KTV’s might have a couple of hundred girls in the line up, while smaller KTV’s might only have a handful.

The Chinese pretty girls will all be wearing the same style outfit. Typically a dress. It seems like the classier places have the girls wearing long gowns. The girls will all be made up, and smiling. Every time that I go through these kinds of lines, I end up getting a great big grin on my face. The girls see this and start giggling, whispering to themselves, and smiling back.

All are stunning.

After you file though this gauntlet, you will be led to your room. The rooms have as few moving parts as possible. A big long couch lining the back wall, a couple of marble tables, a few TV’s in the front of the room (and one in the back at a classy joint) and one computer. They also have a wall panel in which you can control the temperature, the lighting (you can choose normal lighting, crazy dance lighting–disco ball, flashing lights, etc–or very dark) and the volume.

The KTV staff will wheel in a shopping cart and set up all the snacks and booze for you. This will be the bottles of liquor, the mixers, the cups. They will also give you a microphone condom to put on the microphones for sanitary reasons. This is a pretty good idea as that thing would be covered in gobs of spit by the nights end.

After a while, perhaps ten to twenty five minutes, the girls will be brought in.

Some KTV’s, especially in the smaller towns, cities and rural areas only have a few girls to choose from. You always get a better and bigger selection of girls in the bigger cities. In places like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Beijing there might have 250 to 600 girls to select from. All are stunning.

I only wish that I could have photos to post about this issue.

Only the Best Girls can be Hostesses

Only the best Chinese pretty girls can be hostesses.

That is true. Since competition to work as a KTV Hostess is so high, the KTV management can be quite picky as to whom they let work there. So forget about the propagandized notions of the “poor kidnapped sex slaves”. That’s a UK fantasy used to sell tabloid magazines.

The truth is quite different.

Hostess clubs in China are nightlife entertainment that only the rich can afford. Similar to the hostess clubs in Japan, in Chinese establishments the rich men pay for an attractive woman’s company, service, and conversations. And, if they like the woman enough, they ask for the girl to leave with them and continue businesses elsewhere. 

In Chinese, these type of hostesses are called 女公关, which translates loosely to “female public relations”. Recently, the top hostess club in Zhengzhou was shut down by the government.

HOW TO BECOME A QUALIFIED HOSTESS
To become a hostess, you would first need to have the right look,  the right figure, and be within the proper age range. Since hostess clubs depend on high-class customers, they can’t allow their hostesses to be from the lower classes, so they prefer white collar workers, models, and art school students.
 
Step 1: Interview
After meeting the initial criteria, you need to be interviewed by 3 to 5 interviewers. Good looks + good body: 60. Highly educated + high alcohol tolerance: 80. Can play the role of a flight attendant: 100. According to a report on Zhengzhou’s Huangjia Yihao, all candidates are interviewed by at least 5 interviewers who rate you based on your appearance, height, education, skills, and culture, and then the overall score is broken down into a price.
 
Step 2: Professional Training 
Physique, etiquette, smile, and conversation skills. After the training is completed, a hostess can officially start working.
 
HOW DO HOSTESSES MAKE MONEY?
Work Hours: 9PM to 2AM
Main Work Locations: High-class Hostess Clubs, KTV and night clubs, bars
Work Responsibilities: Accompany clients, drink with clients, sing, and others

The most famous hostess club in Beijing, Tian Shang Ren Jian (Passion Club), was one of the most expensive clubs in Beijing before it closed. The club was membership only. VIP customers included socialites from China and abroad, entrepreneurs, domestic and international film and TV stars, as well as ambassadors. Clients need to pay an initial fee of 1,000 to 3,000 yuan to talk to girls. To have a girl’s company for an entire night costs at least 5,000 yuan.
 
Huangjia Yihao was praised as an ideal “platform where politicians and businessmen communicated”. Gold card holders mostly treated others to discuss contracts and projects, or to ask for a favor. The previous report quotes that the club earned over 500,000 yuan per night. The reason that visiting the club became a symbol of social status is that the hostesses only chatted, sang, and drank moderately. A girl’s company cost 400 to 800 yuan, and to take her out was extra.

-A peek into the world of Chinese Hostesses

Where a girl might make 5000 to 10,000 RMB a night, you need to appreciate that this is serious “cheddar”. A middle class salary is from 6,000 RMB to 15,000 RMB/month.

This night rate is on top of everything else. So if the girl dances, sings and meets eligible wealthy and successful businessmen, and has sex with them, they can pretty much earn in the top 5% of everyone in China by having three customers a month.

It’s no wonder that many of the older gals have their own businesses, and own Starbucks, McDonalds and KTC franchises. I don’t know about youse guys, but it would take me a century to save up to buy a McDonalds franchise on a top engineer’s salary.

Demand for the Hostesses is High

In fact, the demand for the girls to work is so high, that the KTV’s often have to turn away girls and charge them to work there. That’s absolutely right. They have to pay a monthly fee for the privilege of working there. However, it makes sense when you really think about it.

From the girl’s point of view…

The best way for a girl in her 20’s to meet a successful businessman, or middle manager is though a KTV.

That way, she can get picked, and if she likes the man, she can stay in contact with him. Often making other arrangements. Many girls date men this way, and often have a group of guys that follow them around and give them money and such. As the guys, just like the girls, want to pick a high-quality mate.

Most KTV girls have a string of guys that follow them around like puppy dogs. The combination of friendship (with benefits) and their KTV activities enable these girls to rake in enormous amounts of money.

These girls spend all of their time looking good and marketing to find the most desirable men as possible. They aren’t looking for love. They are looking for one of three types of men…

• A potential good father for their future children. He owns his own company or has a serious senior role in a company.
• A handsome guy with money. The key is that he also has money that he is easy to part with. These men can join a string of like-minded men, that the girl will keep tethered to her with the promise of sex and fun.
• A man who is fun to be with. And, of course, who has some kind of advantage that the woman could eventually leverage. Maybe he owns a chateau in France. Maybe he is the son of the owner of Amazon. Maybe, he has a Ferrari that he will let the girl keep.

Notice that love and romance was not included in the calculus above. These girls are beautiful and know it. They know to cater to men and they will have many men eating out of their hands. Be careful!

In China, it is critical that the girls get married before they turn 28. They are considered to be non-marriageable after that date. The Chinese term is “spinster”.

So what the girls tend to do is spend their 20’s looking the best that they can, and doing what they can to attract the most suitable man. Otherwise, their parents will fix them up with a date. While the girl can say no, what usually happens is the girl just gives up and shrugs her shoulders and say “well, he’s good enough”.

To prevent this from happening, many girls work as KTV hostesses if they are in any way attractive.

Attractiveness is a cultural construct. The ideas of what is attractive varies from culture to culture. In China the attractive girls tend to be pale, frail, with big eyes, long black hair and a shape that is known as “fish shaped”.  In the states, especially over the last decade or two, the ideas of female attractiveness has migrated towards dark skin, big pouty lips, big breasts and big asses. Which often causes some surprise to the girls who work at the KTV. They ask “why do Americans always pick the ugliest girls”?

Especially when there are many stunning Chinese ladies to choose from.

I’ve got to tell you, there are beautiful women all over the world. I love the girls in Australia with their big long lion manes of hair. I think that there are some amazing girls from Brazil. The girls of Eastern Europe and Russia are just stunning. But, I’ve seriously got to tell you all… China has the most attractive girls in the world.

It’s a cultural thing.

If you read my post about the r/K theory, culture and society migrates biologically towards situations that improve species survival. In the United States, it is a r-society. It is a society where there is abundance. So people act similarly to rabbits.

In a K-society, like China it is a land of scarcity. So they tend to be more predatory, like wolves.

That translates into many aspects of society. One of which is conceptions of beauty.

Now, I had best make this clear right off. A hostess doe not necessarily have sex with the clients. No. Instead, they party with them. They play games with them. They drink and dance with them. If there is a mutual interest, the manager can broker a financial payment arrangement that favors the girl.

There is no guarantee that the girl will trade sex for money. In China, the girl controls what will happen. It’s all up to her. The only thing the guy gets to do is pick her out of a line up. Everything else is fully scripted and controlled by the girl.

Whether or not a girl will have sex with a client is a decision made by the girl.

Sometimes she just feels like she wants to have sex. Sometimes she doesn’t, as it might be her period, and in China this is a big no-no. Maybe she isn’t going to have sex because one of her girlfriends in the club is not having sex. Maybe she doesn’t like you. Maybe you stink, or remind her of someone else. Maybe you are too old, too young, too poor, or just too drunk. Maybe your skin color is too dark, or you are Arabic, or you showed a lack of manners.  In all cases… she decides what will happen.

In any event, the girl’s manager will know exactly what is going on and will steer more willing and able girls your way if need be.

Sorry for this digression. Ok, now where was I? Oh…

When you enter the KTV, you will typically walk through the gauntlet of girls, totally overwhelmed, and be led to your KTV room. These are nice private rooms with bathroom facilities, food trays and all sorts of drinks. As you go in, you pick a seat and make yourself at home.

Soon enough, they will start bringing the girls in. They will bring them in at 20 a time. They girls will parade in front and form a line. Then upon command they will turn around so that you can see their back. They will then strike a pose. There are numerous poses that they take on. All are very becoming and quite attractive.

Nothing out of Jerry Springier, and no fat girls waving their enormous spandex tight asses. That is reserved for President Obama’s America. No. Here, the girls are demure, polite and act respectful. After all, day in and day out, they are paraded in front of factory bosses, internet CEO’s, Directors of banks, and other managers of high regard.

They want to look their best, and be their best.

A Paradise for Sex? – Hardly

Contrary what the news media or the internet might say, China is not a “sex monger” paradise. It just isn’t. China is a nation of hard working nerds. If you want to experience some of the rewards of hard work, labor and study, then come to China. Otherwise and else look elsewhere.

These girls will smell a fake a mile away. You had best be working hard. Show that you know your stuff, and are willing to provide fun and entertainment to your business contacts. China is all about hard work, and relationships. If you are willing to work hard, and have built up a presence in China, and going to a KTV would be your reward.

They only respect and admire achievers. And if the personality match is there, perhaps there might be something more in the future. The truth is that this is the way for many a poor girl to latch on to a very wealthy man and greatly and substantially improve their lifestyle.

Some notes on the songs…

Just a word on the song selection. For the most part, they are surprisingly diverse for China. It’s one of the first things that a foreigner notices. As most foreigners have never heard of Kougu or YouKu. They are unaware as to how metropolitan the Chinese are in musical taste. The music is quite different than would you would find in the States for example.

In China the music is updated every couple of days, while in the USA, the music selection in a (so called) karaoke bar might be months or even years old.

Of course, there are the big wigs, like Lady Ga Ga, and Justin Bieber. There is also a surprising number of smaller less known hits (internationally I mean). Things like TLC, Bee-Gee’s, R.E.M., and a ton of classic rock.

I typically make a bee-line for the American Country & Western songs and I like to sing them, as well as some hits from the 1980’s, and Aerosmith. But, that’s just me. (Shrug.)

The songs play in the order that you choose them. The music video starts with the words on the bottom just like any karaoke anywhere.

About the Videos

Also, regarding the videos, I don’t know why, but some songs don’t get the rights or permission to use the real music video so they have some hilarious stock footage instead.

The song Barbie Girl has a video of people from the 80‘s at an amusement park for instance. These videos are a hoot. The older the song, the cheesier the video. I’ve got to tell ya.

Being Wild and Crazy

As everyone’s drinking, and singing, things can tend to get a little crazy. And, that is just how I like it, I’ll tell you what.

Yeah, Bottles and glasses get smashed, but the staff checks in regularly (the doors have windows) and they try to keep things clean.

Meanwhile, of course, people in the other rooms are also getting drunker and drunker and going out to find the bathroom can be quite funny. KTV places are just a winding, twisting maze of rooms and it’s near impossible to find your way around.

But, not to worry. They have workers stationed all over helping you find your way, but of course some calamity ensues; Guys stumbling drunkenly with their girlfriends on their backs, people walking into utility closets thinking it is the bathroom.

Many times I would help hold up a drunk Chinese stranger at the urinal so he can pee. It’s what friends are for, and it really builds your guanxi, don’t ya know.

Duration of the Party

In general, all KTV’s work within a certain set of hours. For all KTV’s, whether they are business or family KTV’s, you pay in advance. You pay for the room in a set number of hours. In short, you rent the room for a certain numbers of hours, and once your time is up the computer locks itself and you cannot choose any more songs. When that happens, the waiters will come in and start cleaning up. If you STILL don’t get the hint, which happens at times, they turn on the lights and eventually a manger or someone comes in and harasses you until you leave.

In all the big cities the KTV’s are open all night, and we would leave at around 6am. Smaller cities might shut down earlier, with 2 and 3am being the norm.

This is not a problem with Business KTV’s, as eventually you do want to go to your room to chill and have a decidedly different kind of party there.

Continue reading for some of the more (ahem) interesting aspects of the nightly pleasures…

If you want to return to the start of this series, please go HERE.

Do you want more?

I have more posts in my Business KTV Index here…

Business KTV's

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

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