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Southeast Asia

BOOK REVIEW
A sex slave's story
Bars of Steel by Paul Strahan and Brandon Royal

Reviewed by Ted Lerner

MANILA - Writing about the plight of young Asian women being forced into sex slavery would seem a can't-miss opportunity to assail the evils that permeate the modern world. And surely most people could hardly imagine an article or essay on the topic to even hint of anything but bad things coming out of this seemly trade.

That isn't to suggest that the new novel Bars of Steel, by Hong Kong-based authors Paul Strahan and Brandon Royal, is any kind of promotion of sex slavery. Hardly. But the authors have managed to pull off the extremely tricky task of presenting a much more rounded view of the world of sexual servitude.

That's because Bars of Steel eschews any attempt at tackling the bigger issues involved and instead takes an extremely personal approach to the topic by telling its story through the eyes and voice of one character, Filipina Maria de la Torre. That two Western men have written a novel in the voice of an Asian female may surely seem unique. That they manage to pull off what could have easily become a cliche about the evils of sexual slavery and the loss of innocence is a testament to some superb writing and several pairs of finely tuned ears. The book's front cover actually states that Maria's is a true story "as told to" authors Strahan and Royal. Clearly the account here has been fictionalized, but the straightforward, frank prose leaves little doubt that the story you're reading is very real.

Speaking in her own voice Maria tells how, at the age of 16 and coming from a large and poor family in a Philippine province, her perpetually out-of-work father sits her down and breaks the news. The family is flat broke and the burden now falls on Maria, who is the second-eldest of seven children. Her father then tells her that it would be best if she go to work overseas, in Hong Kong, as a dancer. He has, in fact, already contacted the promotion agency and it will be sending someone over in a few days to seal the deal.

Maria has never before even left her province, and the news that she is about to go overseas to work leaves her shocked. She has no idea what she's getting involved in, nor is anyone telling her. You can almost feel her naivete as she describes the never-ending emotions of dread and hope that seem to constantly be playing off one another. This duality of emotions is a constant prevailing theme in the book and the fact that Maria relates it in such simple and honest prose makes the story move quickly and the book a page turner.

From the warm but isolated embrace of her family, she enters a six-week training program in Angeles City, where Maria and the rest of the girls are kept under veritable lockdown as they go through rigorous training to learn their dance steps. The harshness of her new environment, though, is softened by the fast friends she makes with the other girls, who in their common need to ease their predicament are all more than eager to come together.

At the end of the six-week course, the girls are taken to Manila for the test. They will have to perform a professional dance routine in front of a government agency. The girls perform and, of course, they immediately get the nod from the government judges. The girls go wild with celebration, and they can't wait to get to Hong Kong to start working and earning money.

For Maria things start to look up, and she sees her trip as a new experience. She's never been on a plane before and describes the experience in detail. When the girls arrive in Hong Kong, they go positively wild. She describes the weird kinds of food she sees, the incredible density of lights at night, the sophistication of the people, even the thrill of riding on an escalator, something none of them have ever done before.

The first day in Hong Kong makes her think things will be fine. But, of course, she's being set up for another fall, this one a long and steady ride into the abyss. The girls are introduced to the mamasan, Mimi, and the list of rules follows. The girls work seven days a week, 9pm-5am. They must be checked in and out at all times. And then there are expenses such as food, electricity and taxis to and from work and, of course, fines for just about everything from being even a minute late to having a hole in their tights. The HK$3,500 monthly salary had at first sounded like a princely sum in Philippine terms. Suddenly Maria realizes expenses will leave her with nothing to send back home.

Once in the bar, in Hong Kong's notorious Wan Chai district, she discovers more bad news: there is no professional dancing like the kind they trained a month and half for. Instead, the girls' job is to gyrate onstage, push ladies' drinks and, naturally, get the customers to pay the girls' bar fines and have sex.

One of the more brutally revealing lines of the book comes when Maria suddenly wonders whether this whole "dancing" program she has just completed back in the Philippines was a scam. She doesn't take the topic any further, but the implications to the reader are clear. The Philippine government is part of the whole charade here, even going so far as to "pass" the girls when everyone but the girls knows there is nothing to pass. Only the girls don't know they will be expected to have sex with men and that they will live like slaves. Maria's silent thoughts serve as a vicious indictment against the Philippine government, which acts as a willing party in pimping off their own women to sleep with men in foreign countries.

Maria, still a virgin, insists she will not go out with any man from the bar. But then comes another shock: the bill from the promotion in the Philippines arrives and she and all the other girls are three months in debt. Trapped and in a state of shock, she quickly calculates how many ladies' drinks she will have to solicit just to pay off her bill. But then she finds out it's impossible to make real money if you don't go out with the customers. And the mamasan is constantly levying fines for the pettiest of reasons. It's all part of the system: keep the girls in debt so they will sooner or later break down and be forced to go out and have sex with customers, where the bar makes the real money.

"To them we're all just pieces of meat," a desperate and despondent Maria says of the mamasans. Then later: "It was like playing cards with Mimi, and in her hands were all the high cards." The more the mamasan manipulates her into giving up her virginity, the more Maria tries to fight it. But the inevitable becomes glaringly apparent. After several attempts at getting her to go out with a customer, Mimi threatens to send Maria back to the Philippines if she doesn't give in. Knowing her family has no money to pay off such a huge debt, Maria realizes she has been defeated. Finally she relents.

The resulting scene is beautifully and powerfully written, with the reader privy to the most intimate thoughts of a young lady suffering the agony of being forced to give up her virginity to a total stranger. Once in bed with the customer, Maria consistently tries to refuse his advances. Then comes a chilling line.

"Look," the man tells her, "I have paid ten thousand Hong Kong for you and whether you like it or not, I am going to make love to you." What follows is at once graphic, painful, pathetic and disgusting. It is clearly a horrific experience.

After suffering through the darkest of the dark night, however, a few rays of light begin to appear, and here the authors show their deft touch of presenting the wider story. Maria's initial experience, and several other subsequent experiences with customers, lead to her life soon changing. Now that the pressure is off to sell her virginity, she settles into the bar life, which soon becomes commonplace to her. Maria never warms up to the idea of making love to a total stranger, but then she meets several customers who are nice to her and give her HK$100 notes as tips. She quickly pays off her bill and starts to earn some money and even goes shopping. She even finds moments away from the bar and is able to see the good side of Hong Kong.

After a year in Hong Kong working in the sex industry, Maria returns to the Philippines a changed person. Amazingly, she doesn't let the harshness of what she went through get the best of her. She has learned how to take control. She has grown up and discovered things about herself she never knew. She has experienced the big, wide world. She has had to suffer but she came through it. She says she even enjoyed herself over the last three months.

Bars of Steel works because Strahan and Royal were able to capture the voice of Maria, who speaks in such a believable, straightforward and disarming manner that you'd have to be a robot not to feel for her. Another reason is that the book is not simply a total indictment of the bar scene itself. Although the bare-knuckle harshness of the bar world and the insidious nature of the trafficking of women is exposed in graphic detail, Bars of Steel, because it is told through Maria's voice, is as much about more personal concerns as well: growing up, how good can come from bad, the value of friendship, the indomitable spirit of Filipinas.

Riding in a tricycle on her way back to her native village, a now wiser Maria expresses that duality that makes Bars of Steel such a thoroughly entertaining and captivating novel: "It was a strange feeling realizing that I was returning a stronger person."

Bars of Steel by Paul Strahan and Brandon Royal, SNP International, Singapore, 2003, ISBN: 981 248 003 X, price US$8, 198 pages.

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Sep 27, 2003

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