Stop Me When I Start Lying: Restaurants 'Pimpin' Their Workers in Malaysia

Before I start passing any kind of judgment, I’m gonna describe a situation and you think about it for a second and tell me what kind of job you think it sounds like I’m describing. Someone has the pull to smuggle, well, let’s say bring (without much resistance) beautiful women over from a nearby country. They provide them with a strictly controlled housing situation. They revamp their wardrobe and try to add some more ‘sexy’ to their image to enhance their attractiveness to the customer base. They put strict weight limits (enforced by expensive fines, $75/kilogram) on the women, give them cooks so they don’t have to leave their place for food, control their transportation on a strict schedule to and from work, and enforce strict, unreasonable (9 pm for grown ass women) curfews on the women on their off days. Take a moment and let me know what you come up with. U thinking what I’m thinking? She works for Pimpin Ken off Moreland in East Atlanta; or the deep-voiced poet on HBO’s “Hookers at the Point” has told a rhyme about her. Even on the legal side, maybe high fashion or pageant model who needs to stay at 6’1, 90 lbs to make sure she doesn’t get booted out of the industry because she has enough meat that her ribs don’t show. Good guess, but wrong. This is what they do to the women who work in restaurants who do nothing more than come and sit at your table looking good, make conversation and ensure that you have a lot of fun and laughs while spending a lot of money obviously. I had a conversation with two Filipino women who are roommates and work at two different restaurants in this role. It sounds like they were granted visas to come live in Kuala Lumpur by an ‘agency’ just for the purpose of being one of a restaurant’s in-store table escorts. At first I was thinking there must be more to it than what they’re saying, like they may be turning tricks after work or something and don’t want to tell us. After all, this is the land of the reflexology massage parlors, which are constantly under investigation for ‘vice’ activities as the newspaper calls them; I guess this is where the US massage parlors (also employing most Asian women) got their “happy endings” from. But it seems like they were being honest when they said their driver is standing by precisely at the end of their shift to take them straight home when they get off work at midnight; the cook is still available if they are hungry also. Crazy. Maybe it’s legit. Maybe there’s an intense on-going competition about who has the hottest in-house escorts or something. Maybe all the guys who are legit business owners now used to be pimps and use the same business plan in their current business for how to attract men and control women that work for you. They say it’s the world’s oldest profession. I guess it wouldn’t have lasted if the business plan didn’t work. Stop Me When I Start Lying…