Rent-a-Dance/Snog/Feel (Video)

Nov 23, 2009

How do you hide illicit earnings? And indeed what makes your earnings illicit? These were two of the questions that we explored during a recent study into money and transactions and which is a roundabout lead into explaining why some of the team spent an evening trying to track down a specific Xi'an KTV (karaoke and hostess bar). Hostesses often hide their employment from family members and/or boyfriends, and because it pays relatively well compared to, say a teacher's position or shop worker it creates the illicit earnings dilemma.

The video above isn't from the KTV joint - that movie would have included short skirts, overpriced tequila, medium to bad warbling, a few solid research/human behavioural insights and a backroom gurney freshly wiped down from the exertions of the previous occupants. No, this movie is something far more subtle, delightful.

This video clip starts with what you might assume to be a regular ballroom/dance hall - off to the right are a gaggle of girls standing waiting for the guys to make the first move whilst the guys are mostly seated at tables around the dance floor trying to pluck up enough courage for the same. Except that in this venue most of the men pay the women 10RMB (1 Euro) for a dance and that for most of the time the entire venue is pitch black - not artistically lit, but rather where-the-phuck-am-I hands-in-front-of-face dark. It's an environment that provides the privacy desired for the slowest of slow dances, an actual ~snog or whatever both parties consent to, or equally the perceptions of the same should you need to report back to your possie. For the other customers in the venue it's a matter of sitting in the dark watching people's faces light up from the glow of cigarettes in the corners of the room and fervent use of imagination.

As any decent business-owner knows a consistent customer experience and a predictable profit margin come from standardising portion sizes - something that is equally applicable to what's served on a plate in a restaurnt to song lengths in a lap dancing club. (The latter learned from a long night of interviews in a Uzbekistan pole dancing joint), and as here time on the floor is tailored.

In the Chinese context this venue and the practices within sit somewhere between a regular slightly awkward high-school disco and a KTV joint offering paid sex services. Culturally a real find, and certainly not a million miles away from the paid for taxi dance halls found in 1920s and 30s era America or modern day dark rooms.

Location:
 Uzbekistan »  Tashkent
 China »  Xi'an Keywords:
 contextual norms | design research | portion | sex | video