The Japanese waltz into the Karaoke bar like they are presenters of some kinky game show.
Even the Japanese owner of a large complex, that has Karaoke, a massage parlor and a ramen noodles restaurant, likes to enter his establishment on an electric scooter.
The Saudi Arabian across the road, who runs a headhunting business for Philipinos working abroad, prefers to drive in his new white Mercedes Benz.
The Koreans by all accounts are more low key.
The Chinese, they are floating around.
They are by far the less ostentatious. It will only be a matter of years when they’ll be looking down at the Koreans and Japanese as pretenders. I suspect that’s the case now.
Local seaman tell me about their trips on supertankers, carrying 100 000 tonnes each load from Port Headland Western Australia to Shanghai in China.
A van pulled up outside of Coconuts.
Two Japanese jumped out, one in his fifties, the other, who cares.
As they waltzed into the bar, the hostesses, all of them hot and wearing pink dresses, said in chorus welcome in Japanese.
This isn’t Thanya Plaza in Bangkok.
Sure you got the big fake boobs and nice nose jobs, but there’s none of the elitism and more of the fun.
I”m waiting for the Chinese to consolidate themselves.
Talk amongst the Koreans suggests that China is worth considering and befriending.
The Japanese are not quite on the wane.
The battle of the Northern Asian countries continues on the street.
China hasn’t yet to flex its muscle.
But they aren’t running bars or restaurants. They are running supertankers and employing Philipino seaman who are talking about the wealth mined from the Australian deserts and turned into amazing consuming machines by the Chinese.
I ate in one of those hostess bars across the road from Seven Eleven. In the daytime, they sell food. I got to talk to the hostesses. They gave me generous portions of vegetables. And last night I got a little chorus from them of my own as I walked past them.
Eventually the two drunk Japanese leave the bar, pissed as drunken seamen given a day pass to the whore pits of Manila.
They are still being lavished with sweet nothings in Japanese.
The hostesses have fleeced them well.
A Korean at my hotel looks on in disgust.
'We just pick up the whores and fuck them,' he says, 'none of this wasting cash on lady drinks.'
