iPhone you long time...

A somewhat delicate topic for discussion today...

...but Urban Dirt can exclusively reveal that the world's oldest profession has taken a giant and eye-catching leap into the 21st Century digital economy. The Apple machine has suddenly become the toast of Hong Kong's harlotry. And though I'm not a betting man, I'd be prepared to wager that Steve Jobs will not be basing a major marketing push on the very particular commercial use to which his precious iPhones are being put in the Far East.

To put this in some context, Urban Dirt is currently in sunny Hong Kong, admiring the vast container ships slipping out to sea and trying to make head or tail of the wildly divergent views I've garnered  on the future of the Chinese economy. I've heard "apocalypse", I've heard "decoupling" and I've heard "steady as she goes": all with compelling arguments, but none quite compelling enough to be sure that anyone is right.

But if there were ever any doubt about the sheer ingenuity and opportunism at the street-level of the greater Chinese economy, then it has been convincingly and spectacularly dispelled today. Well, late last night...

You see for reasons that relate chiefly to the travel budget of The Times, Urban Dirt's regular visits to Hong Kong have their base of operations at the very modestly-priced Novotel. A perfectly excellent business hotel with good broadband connectivity, but which just happens to be plonked in the very heart of the Wan Chai red light district.  In fact, it's precisely next door to one of the most notorious pick-up bars in town.

And sure enough, as I was strolling back from dinner with a couple of lawyers, we were approached by an altogether different gaggle of solicitors. But what began as a traditional approach - a negotiation process whose script and body language has stood more or less unchanged since the dawn of mankind -  quickly took a strange and interesting digital turn.

Historically, hookers have tended to rely on the power of speech to inform prospective clients of the services on offer. Sometimes the menu is delivered as a series of blunt, staccato Anglo Saxon phrases, other times it is couched in professional euphemism and insider's cant. Occasionally hand gestures may be brought into play for the more complex expositions. More often than not, as so memorably rendered in the film Full Metal Jacket the description takes place in horribly broken English: something of a liability in these globalised times of intensified international competition. Generally though, the potential buyer is left using his imagination based upon the words he has heard.

No longer.

You see, the multi-national neo-nightwalkers of old Hong Kong have realised that Steve Jobs has sent linguistic salvation their way. Gone are the days where they were forced to cope with cut-throat competition by blabbering incoherent descriptions in a slew of unfamiliar tongues: a short video speaks an international language and conveys the message far more effectively. So now, rather than urgently cranking their way through awkward conversations in a dozen languages, the ladies simply and silently whip out their iPhones and play their prospective customers a short - extremely high resolution - video of themselves performing the services on offer.

Before excuses were made and leave taken, one of the lawyers did remark that the new iPhone strategy being employed by the ladies throws up potentially thorny legal questions. The showing of a "video menu", he said, might constitute an implied contract in a way that a poorly-worded verbal description would not.  It would be a singularly bold and unashamed litigant who took one of the girls to court for breach of contract, but I now know a lawyer who would be prepared to take the case...

Comments

[Visitor]

Hmm, sounds like someone made a visit to Fenwicks!