Memories of the Asian Massage Parlor scene in San Francisco twenty years ago
Recently, I've been thinking about the good times I had in the San Francisco AMPs (Asian Massage Parlors).
There are many AMPs in San Francisco with names like Lee's, Sunflower and Golden Flower. I went to one called Golden Flower many times in the early 2000s.
When you ring the bell at the entrance, the owners watch you through a one-way mirror to assess if they'd let you in. If you're not Asian, there might be a chance you'll be turned away.
Once you're in, you're asked to "sign in". Most people, including me, wrote some random name.
Then, you sit on a sofa. Opposite the sofa about 5 meters in front of you is a sofa where the girls sit. You're looking at each other. There's usually 10-20 girls. Sometimes as high as thirty. Some might give you the eye or try to get your attention or giggle or act stupid. A vast majority were Korean.
This is before cellphones were invented so they're not staring at their phones. It's intimidating looking at each other on the sofas.
Lemme tell you. Many of the ladies were FREAKING HOT, like K-Pop idols. The only thing I can compare it with are the high end saunas in Macau.
Once you pick a girl, she takes you to a room where you shower alone. Once she returns, she gives a short lame massage and then, a quick reminder it's $150 payable after the deed. Usually, CBJ following by mounting.
The performance is quite mechanical. Don't expect stellar service. BBBJ and DATY are highly unlikely.
Golden Flower was in a busy section of San Francisco. It's hard to believe it operated so openly.
Those were the good old days when the internet first began so lots of Asian guys made money in tech companies and came here to splurge. | |
