Invisible Trade II by Gerrie Lim

Author:Gerrie Lim [Lim, Gerrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-981-4358-03-3
Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.

Filipina Fiesta

How can one man’s life be so profoundly changed by a single, seemingly innocuous building in Singapore?

To understand the world view of Dave Robinson, though, one needs to see it through his eyes. Bespectacled and bookish-looking, he could be mistaken for a college professor, except for the way his pupils will spontaneously dilate whenever he’s within earshot of that one particular building located off East Coast Road.

Old habits die hard, it seems, in light of how his relationship with that building has cost him dearly with one relationship after another hitting the rocks and finally gave him a new lease on life when he met the girl of his dreams. The last two women happened to be working at bars in that building— known to the general public as Paramount Shopping Centre.

Could it have been worse? Sure, there could have been more women thrown into the mix, not that he doesn’t fraternize with enough already. The common denominator is that they all happen to be Filipina.

That’s what happens to it at night. By day, Paramount Shopping Centre happens to be a typical air-conditioned consumer hub, so common to this ultra-clean city-state aiming to uplift itself from Third Worldhood. Basically, it’s the mall that sits next to the Paramount Hotel (“Your ideal getaway with a tradition of impeccable hospitality,” as the hotel’s brochure proudly declares. “Walking distance to idyllic beaches. Near mega-malls, shopping centres and various food-centres, famous local eateries and restaurants . . . Once you’ve tasted the allure of this part of our island paradise, you’ll always want to make Paramount your home away from home!”) But by night, the ground floor of bars and pubs is gleefully transformed, some say, into dens on iniquity, watering holes suitable only for those of ill repute.

In some of the other bars, the girls will strip semi-naked and dance with customers or, more brazenly, undress to the booming hip-hop beat and boogie down for everyone to ogle, right on top of the bar counter. Singapore’s openness to bar-top dancing, as was the fashion in recent years, had on many a night certainly been given brand new meaning.

“Well, hmm, how did I discover it?” Dave replies when asked. “I think I must have walked by and saw it. I do remember that I rounded up two friends, an English guy who worked in the oil industry and this Italian friend, and we went there one night, and we had a good time. This was quite some years ago, probably around 1999. At that time, there were only a handful of bars in there, nowhere near what there is now. Now, I believe there are 23 of them. Well, it’s 23 if you count one of them that got busted by the cops and suddenly got ‘closed for renovation.’ I was told an undercover cop saw someone getting a blowjob under the table.”

“At the time, there were only six or seven, maybe eight bars open. It was a bit more open back then,

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