At the entrance, a rusty iron gate fends off visitors. On a recent night, a reporter came to investigate this mysterious establishment in the company of a friend. After pressing the doorbell several times, the pair were buzzed in. Like many other massage parlors, a video camera is installed on the ceiling at the entrance.
Another wooden door looms up at the end of the stairs leading to the basement, seemingly impregnable. After a few minutes, it too opens into a dim yellow light. A medium-sized man dressed in black sizes up the reporter. Although not bulky, he is quite muscular, and seems well-trained in fist fighting, ready to launch an attack on any intruders.
He is quite calm, but not friendly, perhaps trying to get rid of the reporter and her friend: "Sorry, we usually don't offer service for two. The man's face changes. He frowns but at last steps back and calls: "Madam! Suddenly out of one room comes Madam. A lady in her later 20s or early 30s, she greets us politely.
A native of Taiwan, she is dressed in a gaudy scarlet two-piece dress with golden buttons. Recognizing the reporter's Chinese accent, she begins to chat in Mandarin Chinese. But sorry no Hong Kong ladies," the madam says apologetically. The Hong Kong Health Spa is just one of 20 or so massage parlors in Tenderloin District, a low-income area known for its illicit life, be it drugs or sex.
The massage parlors here account for fully a third of the city's total. Most women working in massage parlors here are Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Chinese immigrants. In the 70s, Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees fleeing their war-torn countries flooded the Tenderloin.
