Here we go! Now even the janitors and security guards were driving Porches and running up 100K bar bills back in the Golden Nineties. I guess with all those side jobs the dish washers had arranging IPOs for Lehman Bros, money was never a concern.

We are talking about the "club" scene and everyone that was going there for fun and social interaction.  Obviously it did not include dish washers but there were plenty of blue collared workers in those clubs too, just not as often as businessmen.  Perhaps you never saw the scene but for those of us who were there knows what we are talking about before the 2000 crash.  It was a different place in all it's glory.  It is slowly coming back but only because of the money flowing in from the mainland, I don't know if it will ever be like yesteryears but for those who have seen it, will always know that it was much bigger back then in comparison with today's shitty club scene.  I don't even recall any mainland girls when I was there in the mid 90's, and the girls were incomparable in comparison with today's girls in HK.  If you were not hot and under 24, there was no way in hell you were going to work at one of these clubs, btw... ALL were locals.

Bro Mars. you must remember that alot of the bills were expensed off. you are correct that the average income could not justify that kind of spending. problem is all it took was one guy with an expense account. that person would invite others to come and not even caring who they were. also alot of people made money on the stock market then which was multiples of their salary income. my income was HK100k per month and my expense bill allowance was HK200k a month and my side pocket was well over HKD500k a month. so u see the spending that people made did not equate to their salary. that also explains why post 97 crash alot of the night clubs folded cause no expense accounts and no side pocket and salary cut or worse lost jobs.

I hear the current Korean RS scene is very expensive too. bills of like 30-40k with no sex. cannot confirm this but if it so then it is similar to the 90s.

Sexpert, you were 20 yrs-old at that time. Weren't you in college in the States?

In any case, comments like the one quoted above really make me doubt you know what you're talking about. The Asian financial crisis that put an end to what you remember in such vivid detail, took place in 1997-98, not 2000. In HK, the Hang Seng stock index went from 16,400 in July 97 to 7,300 in Aug 98.

   In those days, the old men working in the men's bathroom of the top night clubs, handing out
hot towels and chatting with you were making $1000 to $2000 per day in tips and this was for 8 hours of work
from 9 pm to 5 am !!!
Every time one went for a leak one would be tipping at least $20 - $50 and if one threw up there it would be
at least $100 form his friends bringing him back out ! Crazy spending !!!

i dont think it will ever comeback to that insanity of spending. reason is you can find decent girls for alot cheaper now cause we have opened the borders. supply outstripped demand. 141 girls now make more than club girls on a per monthly basis. so guys who still have that power cant find super high quality girls in clubs. well thats what i have been told.

Sybian, truthfully, how many people do you think, what percentage of HK's population, had a 200K/mth expense account and 500K/mth in side income back in 1995-97? Keep in mind the actual size of the HK economy at the time.

As I've said, time and time again, I've no doubt at all that people with the kind of money you had at the time frequented the club scene back then. My point, from start to finish, is to question the extent of the phenomenon. It is simply mathematically impossible that this behavior extended beyond a limited set of elite earners. Go back and read my post #39. How many of these night clubs were there? Did they have sufficient seating capacity to accommodate 2/wk's more than 10% of HK's white-collar workers out every night partying till dawn? And how did those guys manage to work the next day? What is that you say, no they didn't all spend 100K/wk in the clubs, and no they didn't all do the club thing every night, and of course a tenth of HK's white-collar work force didn't spend that kind of money on pussy and brandy each mth? Oh, then I guess we don't disagree after all.

In any case, this thread has got way off track. Back then, it wasn't necessary to spend 100K/wk for sex. It's just that a lot of guys had the extra income to indulge in a club scene that involved a lot of expenses that had little to do with getting laid. Even those of you extolling the good old days point out that the money given to the girls for sex was only a tiny fraction of that 100K. In fact, from what you say, a large portion of that expense involved the big earners hosting friends and buisness contacts. Whenever I visited HK in those days, I got laid for much, much less.

Mars, you and I should grab a cup of coffee (well ... tea for me) sometime !

In HK, it's tea for me as well. Too bad this isn't 1996, with all that easy money sloshing around, you could have flown us both over to Italy in your private jet for a real espresso    - I know this great cafe in Rome.    (Did we ever establish if it's the coffee or the milk in the coffee that gives you problems?)

Brother Mars, the point is it doesnt have to be how many as long as that ONE is willing to offer the rights to many. If you knew me then we wouldnt be having the conversation cause i would offer you the same so that you can see for yourself. anyway as you say we are spinning off from this original Q&A posting

Just make sure you get coffee OR tea. Is Hong Kong the only place where they mix it in the same drink.

I was here in the 90s but can't comment on the mongering scene. I was salaried and couldn't afford the nightclubs but I
went to Volvo, later BBoss, twice when colleagues from Singapore were paying. I know it cost a fortune and, each time,
they paid for me to take a girl home.   There was no 141 so I couldn't find any local WGs. I was still flying out to Thailand
and the Philippines. But spending was certainly on a different scale. I always remember the lavish wedding banquets. Unlimited
XO Brandy all evening. They actually served it in tumblers and it flowed like water. I go to a wedding receptions now - no sign
of any Brandy.

" Is Hong Kong the only place where they mix it in the same drink "

No, most places where there are local influence ... Hongcouver is one place that comes to mind   


Local people have cought on and wine is the in thing now so sales of brandy has just plummeted. I haven't seen
anyone drinking XO in functions anymore ... just lots and lots of wine !

Man !!! oh man !!!

i just read through this topic and i can't believe what u guyrs are saying.
I come from a EU country where we never had such an opulence time since 50 years ! all that money u r talking about is like crazy. i'm really wondering how this is possible.

Even now, guys spending >10K a month ... man we r living on different planets really.

I was interning for a company over the summer at the time and spent a month in Hong Kong at the time.  Actually I went back 3 times with the same company.  The crash from 97-98 was on everything including the Hang Sang and the real estate market but the real crisis was during 2000 when people were jumping off roofs and salaries dropped dramatically.  Although Hong Kong crashed during 97-98, anyone from Hong Kong can clearly tell you that in 2000 it was 10Xs worse.

Brother Himeji,  the thing about the 90s was alot of people who had to stay in HK (people who could not immigrate) thought that the money they had in HK would go to zero post 97. so people spent it. and we know it becomes an economic cycle upwards.  for example twiceaweek spends on WG. WG spends at shops. shop spends..etc etc.   etc etc spends the money that helps twiceaweek's finances. and then the cycle repeats.

i have seen customers pay 10k just so that the WG would not SIT with another customer. 10k for sit down time not meat gold. if you think that is crazy it's all relative. remember in the 90s when people could sell their ticket to be number one in line to buy an apartment for hundreds of thousands of dollars? there was no skill. all you had to do was be willing to stand in line for a few days.

The question isn't which crisis was the worst, but what put an end to all that exaggerated spending, and it was clearly the Asian financial crises of 97-98 that brought things down. Why do you think 2/wk and sybian talk about club life in 95-97?

By the way, from 97 to 98, the Hang Seng Stock Index dropped 55%, by 2000 stocks had recovered all of their loses.

And by 2000, property prices had already declined by 50% from their 97 peak. Property prices would continue to decline, tho at a less frenetic pace, until 2003. So the property market was in continual decline from 97 to late 2003.

Tho you may very well be correct that the economic situation in HK was perceived to be 10x worse in 2000, by that time the club scene was long dead.

These people are living in a memory bubble, the average guy in HK did not benefit from all of this frenetic spending. If that much money was floating around HK, inflation would have been 10,000%. Just because someone and his business contacts could afford to drop huge sums in the clubs didn't mean squat to the average guy. If you had come to HK at that time, and I was continually in and out of HK in the late nineties, it wouldn't have seemed any different than any other well-off Asian economy. Listening to these guys talk, you'd think that the streets were littered with Krugerrands.

[ Last edited by  Marsupial at 26-4-2008 05:58 ]

this is absolutely correct. I am sorry bro mars i wasnt able to know you then is all i can say. maybe you would feel differently. and on the inflation front. we didnt have food inflation cause we had cheap china imports. an example of how the cost of a poke is so low NOW even though we have such high inflation.

sorry this was what i was trying to say was correct

Hi,I'm new to this site but I live in Asia for more than 10 years now(Hong Kong,Thailand).

I'm spending more than HK$ 10k every month for sure no matter where I am.And since I don't do walk-ins it's actually a lot more because when I go out to pick up some girl I'm spending a lot of money on booze for me and for a girl too.

Btw,great site!