April 9, 1988

SUZIE WONG IN PLASTIC

Eric Ellis, Hong Kong

WHATEVER a reporter does in the daily line of work, it's best not to announce that you're undertaking an article about the blow-up -PVC-doll-and-sex-gadgets industry. All the office sickos come out of the woodwork, making terrible puns and tasteless one-liners at your professional expense. "Are you going to test the products?"; "Ask them how they do their market research?"; "Have you got to the bottom of the story?"; "They could have used a few of them on the Titanic". Modesty and good taste forbid going on.

Sex gadgets are a touchy subject, or so the Hong Kong Government's Trade Development Council (TDC) seems to think. Having gathered information about the handful of Hong Kong firms which makes such erotica, the press officer, smirking behind her hand, provided a computer print-out of a dozen companies which market their wares through the TDC. The material was delivered to our office by a little man in a blue suit, clutching a brown paper bag stamped "By Hand". The TDC had apologised for not having any pictures "of these products"on file. Hong Kong is one of the sex-aid capitals of the world, a strange bedfellow for the British colonial government's slightly Victorian attitude about the overt selling of sex. Homosexual acts, for example, are illegal in Hong Kong under an 1865 statute which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment; nudity is rarely seen on the screen and even American Penthouse still comes in a plastic wrapper with its centrefold either torn out or taped over. All rather curious for a place which would have boasted the world's first publicly-listed girlie bar, Club Volvo, if not for the October share market crash.

Despite a traditionally seedy "Suzie Wong" reputation as a red-light area of some repute, Hong Kong is a producer/exporter rather than a consumer of sex gadgets. Most of the "plastic fantastics" are for overseas, er, consumption -Copenhagen, Hamburg's Reeperbahn, Amsterdam's Canal Street, the Pigalle in Paris, Soho in London, Kings Cross in Sydney, Prospekt Marx in Moscow, Tokyo's Ginza or, as one jaded globetrotting brothel-creeper put it, "any street in Naples". From peephole bras for Adelaide to studded manacles for Zanzibar, Hong Kong's "love-toy" exporters reach across all borders except their own.

"It's a cultural thing," says Baby Chan, sales manager of Hong Kong's largest manufacturer of blow-up PVC dolls, the Tak Shing Vinyl Industrial Company. "Chinese do not seem to like this sort of thing but the gweilo(Cantonese literal translation "foreign devil") people do." And just because Hong Kong people don't use them is no reason not to make them. Cheap labour, a unique geographical position at the centre of the world's trade routes and a laissez-faire business environment, have Hong Kong competing with near neighbour Taiwan for the lion's share of the world market. In absolute terms, Japan is believed to be the world's leading producer but most of its output is for the domestic market.

Interestingly, Hong Kong and Taiwan's increasing prosperity and, with it, costs, has given rise to a new player in the sex-aid market - China. The strict revolutionary morals of the People's Republic are being loosened by the influx of Hong Kong entrepreneurs on the lookout for new ways to cut already threadbare costs.

The sex products industry brings Hong Kong an estimated $HK450 million($A90 million) in export earnings. One of the biggest manufacturers of genital substitutes, massagers, dildos and all the other paraphernalia found in those suburban "Venus" shops with the red love-heart that no-one ever admits to entering, is the J.B.Latex Co. Ltd.

Going under such imaginative names as the Pulsating One, Tormentor, Vinyl Vera and Maximum, Latex's products are nothing if not colourful, particularly the Big Black Mamba, a generous item best left to the reader's imagination.

With dildos of assorted sizes as far as the eye can see, this is no place for Fred Nile or Mary Whitehouse. The topic was also too hot for Latex's leather-clad, limousine-driving boss, Peter Tseng. Bundling me out of his office, he declined to be interviewed in person, preferring to answer questions by fax.

A Latex competitor is Sealand Industrial which, according to its production supervisor, Lam Wai-Lung, has cornered the market in vibrators. Sealand's best-selling line is the "Slim-Line Multi-Speed" which comes in ivory white, kinky gold and designer black. The Slim-Line production line is four floors up in a shabby industrial area in Kowloon, directly under the flight-path of nearby Kai Tak International Airport. The noise combination of airline engines and whirring vibrators makes for an interesting visit.

Vibrator production starts with a bored moulder, churning out plastic casts and dials by the thousands in a sweatshop that looks like a Hogarth oil of London during the Industrial Revolution. The rough mould is then whittled back by a team of elderly women, who put in the wiring, the motors and then cap it and package it for export. Sealand's production supervisor, Lam Wai-lung, reckons his team of 10 (monthly salary $A500) can assemble up to 10,000 vibrators in a 10-hour shift.

Far from being furtive, Sealand's principals approach the sex-aid business just as they do their sideline, aquarium equipment. Despite his halting English, Lam knows how to put people on the spot. Inspecting my business card, he says, "Ahh, you come from Oh Chau (Cantonese for Australia)?"

Me: (enthusiastically) "Yes, yes I do."

Lam: "So you have been to the Venus shops in Oh Chau then?"

Me: (less enthusiastically) "Er, um, I've seen them; I've never actually been in one but I, er, know of them."

Lam: (beaming) "The Venus company is one of our best customers."

Sealand has been in the vibrator business since 1976. Lam says it is very profitable, particularly since the spread of AIDS.

Across the harbour on Hong Kong Island, Tak Shing Vinyl Industrial Co Ltd(Tak Shing means "righteous" and "success" in Chinese) does a vigorous line in 56 styles of PVC blow-up dolls of various nationalities. Tak Shing also produces party favourites such as Whoopee cushions, and "squirting" male dolls for female customers.

Although the concept is far-fetched, to say the least, should Tak Shing's yearly output of PVC dolls suddenly turn mortal at midnight, the company could populate a city the size of Wollongong. Marketing its products under the(apparently) well-known brand of "Love Productions", Tak Shing's sales manager, Baby Chan, says sales have leapt 200 per cent since AIDS and the fall in the US dollar, which made Hong Kong prices very competitive for export. "AIDS is good for us," Chan laughs, half-jokingly. "It has had a very good effect on business."

Chan's big market is Europe, which buys half of Love Production products, including creations such as a perfumed "Super Shirley", complete with fake pubic hair, and the talkative Ms Black Love Doll, who'll coo, "baby, you'll never be lonely with me. Whenever you feel like it, just cuddle up" (after you've outlaid $A40 for her and pressed her PVC posterior).

Chan is enthusiastic about Tak Shing's new lines - six varieties of Chinese sex girl, which she says are a hit with European men. The recent introduction of a new product raises the inevitable question: "How do you do market research?" "We have agents all over the world who think of ideas for us," says Chan. "They tell us what sort of hairstyles are in fashion, what countries are becoming popular, and we design our dolls to their advice. When sales start to go down, we stop making the doll."

Despite recent press reports from France and the US suggesting that high-achieving yuppies no longer have as much time or inclination for (real)sex, Chan says last October's stock-market crash has had no effect on business. "Our dolls are the perfect lovers for busy people and selfish people because you don't have to buy them flowers and fur coats and other nice things," explains Chan, very straight faced.

Tak Shing's 70, mostly female, employees appear to be more content with their lot at Sealand, despite the meagre monthly salary of $A500.

Tak Shing's owners, the Cau family, are well-regarded as employers and many staff are in their second decade with the firm. One employee's sole purpose is to check whether the finished product has any holes in it. She does this by shoving a draught of compressed air into the doll at a point somewhere near the doll's backside. Once it is full, the woman hurls the pumped-up doll on to a pile where hundreds of other dolls lie in various stage soft deflation. The ones that deflate the most after a few days are rejected.

Neither Tak Shing's Baby Chan nor Sealand's Lam Wai-lung see anything unusual about their business, although they recognise that ensuring that blow-up dolls have life-like breasts and vibrators are suitably ribbed is not a typical everyday occupation. (Dealing with quality complaints can be a delicate matter.) "It's a living," shrugs Lam. "There will always be a market for our products."