Created Nov 15, 2010
I’m going to name my next escort persona Betsy. She’ll offer golden showers and be Betsy Wetsy.
After a long private discussion on creating a test-persona for international work, I was stumped on a name. Many suggestions were made and then I came up with this one. I thought it was funny enough to Tweet and strangely, it actually grossed some out. I’m not sure why, doesn’t everyone remember the Betsy Wetsy dolls? I never had one but the name has always stuck in my head.
I still think this is funny. Escorting doesn’t have to be all serious, all the time.
Created Oct 30, 2010
Dudes — don’t wear your “No Money No Honey” t-shirt when you’re out with your girlfriend and into heavy PDA.
In Singapore, the phrase “No Money No Honey” is synonymous with prostitution. While I feel the phrase is self-explanatory, it’s popularity seems to be mostly due to a book written by an English journalist describing the huge prostitution scene in Singapore. Yes, I saw several of these t-shirts for sale and wanted to buy one but never did. However, I think my Tweet speaks for itself (the kids mentioned in my Tweet were teens and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a hooker and he wasn’t a client).
Created Sep 26, 2010
@EroticPreview Try London, Rio, Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore for serious shopping! 🙂
I was responding to another escort who wanted tips on great places to shop. This innocent Tweet sparked a semi-argument because she wouldn’t go to Asia because she was black and feared prejudice. She took offense that I wasn’t taking her ethnicity into consideration when I made my suggestions (I hadn’t realized I should).
Let me reassure everyone, especially black people, that Asians generally dislike anyone who is not from their specific country. I really don’t know that American blacks would get worse treatment than, say, Bangladeshis. Being Western gives some status, though being female lowers your status more than your race will.
Created Sep 27, 2010
In case you ever wondered: my breakfast every day http://bit.ly/b3ygwe and my favorite poster in Singapore http://bit.ly/bcfV3r
I still miss kaya toast and muddy river-water tea (one write referred to it that way and he was corrrect). My favorite place offered this breakfast for $2SGD, which is less than $2USD. A great, tasty deal no matter where in the world you are. [Since the first link no longer works, here’s photo of the kaya toast breakfast set like I had.]
Kaya toast is served with a giant pat of butter on each piece of toast. I always requested it without butter and rarely could they understand my insanity. When I ate somewhere other than my usual place (the counter ladies had become accustomed to my weirdness), I often got butter anyway, or toast with only butter, or toast with nothing. Once, I watched the counter boy remake my toast three times in an attempt to get my order correct and when he finally gave it to me, it had butter on it. He was exhausted and stressed, I smiled and said “Thank you” anyway.
Yes, they strained the tea through a long piece of pantyhose (the “sock”). It worked well and was always fun to watch. A street-level art form, I never got tired of the ritual of preparing the tea. The tea always perked me up in the mornings. My heart needed the extra push to be able to pump through the sludge of kaya blocking my ateries, I’m sure.
Oh. A word on eggs. While the Chinese have had chickens for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, they have not yet figured out how to boil an egg. The first few days in Singapore I was confused when I hungrily cracked open my breakfast eggs. Then I learned to simply ask them to “boil” for 6 or 8 minutes instead of their usual 2-4. “Boiling” means they put the eggs in a small container of very hot water, cover it with a plate and let it sit. I never got an actual boiled egg in Asia but I learned to live with the yolks just hard enough to pick out when I broke the egg. It does take some time to get used to the texture of semi-warmed whites. I’ll just leave it at that.
Created 21 Nov 11
@Ishfery Coming soon…serious work begins in Jan 2012. Finally.
That was in response to a question about Book 3. Ahem.
No, the serious work did not start January of 2012. Sorry.
Hi Amanda,
It’s not Singapore, but I met a Taiwanese MBA student when I was in college and our beautiful, “Amerasian” son is sooo handsome and has inherited his father’s gift for mastering second languages in school. Back when his father and I were dating, he would get upset with me as I attempted not to wretch while he ate. ( Canned eel over cup of noodles was his favorite, yuck!).
While traveling in Edinburg, I was having breakfast in a little spot when I noticed a very handsome and well dressed man sitting nearby and I couldn’t help but stare. A little later outside, I noticed the man parked in front of the Royal Bank of Scotland, inside a car where he sat with his personal driver and I figured I had just sniffed out greatness in my usual adept way. ( I have radar for exceptional men ). Your comments on eggs reminded me of Ennis, Ireland where I was entranced my a dept. store diner that looked like something from the 1950’s and the waitresses wore uniforms and hair covers you don’t see nowadays. We got cyber stuck in a big hotel where the girls serving the poached eggs would giggle and gossip about me, Irish people tended to drive me a wee bit crazy with their two faced mannerisms. I have been all over Europe a total of three times and I miss the selection of food there so much.
I’m getting ready to launch my “Lingerie Massage” website when my son goes off to college next month. I love dressing up in pretty little nothings and I have some beautiful sundresses to greet my new clients at the door in and fortunately not a long way to walk in stiletto heels from the front door to my massage table.
I used to be a dental assistant in the military, surrounded by newly graduated dentists. We had to wear sheer smocks and the dentists were always finding ways to look down inside my cleavage! One day, a dentist friend of mine told me about when he went to Thailand and got a “squishy”. I now include a squishy with my massages and I noticed another girl advertising that term in her body rub ad.
Massue — Some great stories! Thanks a lot for sharing.
First thing that comes to mind — what’s a squishy???
It’s true that each Asian country has its own favorite treats that gross out most Westerners, but also plenty that are really tasty and can’t be easily found elsewhere. By and large, I’m still enchanted with southeast Asian food. Most Asian cultures just don’t do breakfast right (the English and Scottish do). I still miss the “Japanese breakfast” served in most hotels.
You’ll have to share your site when it’s launched! Here or privately. 🙂
I think I may have to hunt for that coffee sign now. I love it!
Dante — 🙂 I’ve seen it for sale in places in Singapore. I’m sure you can get it online.
No Money, No Honey: Study of Street Traders and Prostitutes in Jakarta was published in 1991 by Australian Alison J. Murray.
Laura — I linked to the book I was referring to. I guess he took the title from that study. He certainly helped popularize that phrase!
i have sent you an email to the address I used to use. let me know if that’s no good anymore. i’m at the same nodo50 address.
Wow, I love that new picture of you! Have to get accustomed to you with dark hair.
The kaya sounds delish. The tea looks interesting but I’d love to try it. How strong is it?
Re: blacks in Asia. A lot of black Americans, especially, have had negative encounters with various Asian groups here in the States. From my observations and discussions with people who have a similar hesitancy as expressed by the escort on Twitter, most of the animosity tends to be between blacks and Koreans.
Though a lot of this depends on the neighborhood one lives in. Many stores in black neighborhoods are owned by Koreans who tend to stare down everyone who enters. While this may just be an admittedly shitty business practice that would happen even in other neighborhoods, for a lot of blacks it is no different than the treatment from racist whites in THEIR stores.
During the 1986 Seoul Olympics, more than a few black American athletes talked about the noticeably horrible treatment they experienced in Korea versus their non-black counterparts.
Then of course, there is also the history of the Mississippi Chinese (back in the 1800s), their initially very positive interactions with the black community (lots of intermarriage!) which turned decidedly nasty after the Mississippi Chinese won the right to be legally white and as such many black-Chinese families were broken up due to miscegenation laws. I would assume there are still aftershocks in MS thanks to this part of American history.
Yet, I know black women who have lived in various Asian countries and rarely had issues. That said, they were in large cities that are strongly influenced by the West.
And that’s all I can think about right now. I personally haven’t had any demonstrable problems interacting with Asians anywhere but then there are things about me that are different enough that may give me better treatment in certain cases.
Aspasia — Kaya IS yummy and I fell in love at first taste (until I bit into the mound of butter at the center). Most Westerners don’t care for the flavor, but most don’t like the smell of durian and I do.
The tea is almost as strong as a cup of coffee, in my non-caffiene-addict opinion. It also varies widely by who makes it and if they were paying attention when they made your batch.
Thank you for that interesting bit of history of black/Asian relations in America. I speak without firsthand knowledge on black/Asian tensions, but it seems that the racism is worse in America than in Asia. Asians, for the most part, are equal-opportunity bigots and sexism is a way of life, however it rarely gets to the personal and violent levels of racism in America. If they don’t like you, they just pretend you’re invisible in the hopes that you’ll eventually go away.
I’m sure it’s not appropriate, but I’m so disappointed i missed Betsy in HK….
Norman — If you are who I think you are, I missed you too!
If I am who you think I am, I hope you have your invite reinstated….
Norman — You do! 🙂