Kept girls in Kuching
Today I met someone that if I stayed at home, I would never meet in my social circle. I don’t know how to call them. Prostitutes? No, they are too nice to be called that way. Labor workers? No, some of them are not even working. The only word I can think of is “kept girls”. I don’t want to call them “kept women” because they are too young. They didn’t bother to ask for my name or tell me theirs. To make it simple, I will just call them Blue, Red nd White. They are Filipina and yes, they are beautiful.
White stays at the same place where I’m staying. As I had nothing much to do today, she asked me to join her to her friend’s place. It was a shop house (a small building whose ground floor is used for a shop while upper floors are used for housing) near Padungan, widely known among locals as the red light area. When we arrived, Blue just woke up. I tried to smile at her several times but she didn’t even smile back. Red was still sleeping. When White introduced me, she just said “uh huh” and then continued talking in Tagalog. I was kind of intimidated and disheartened, so I just sat there with my puppy eyes wide opened, trying to catch up with their conversation in an alien language. About half an hour later, Red walked out and White passed her all kinds of stuffs: whitening soft, slimming pills, soaps, etc. Red is a very big size girl. She became fat after her 2nd kid. She received slimming pills from White with a thankful smile and started eating chocolate.
Red was very caring. She looked at me worriedly: “Are you traveling alone? Are you not scared?” - “No, I’m not. People are very nice to me.” - “Wow, you are so brave! What did I do when I was 19? Ah, I was raped and got pregnant.”
I was shocked, not only because of the news, but more because of the way she talked about it. She told her tragedy of being raped and having a baby at 19 as if that’s what happens everyday to everyone. They all told me their stories in a casual tone without any resentment or mournfulness. Blue got her daughter with her boyfriend at 17 who later married to another girl. They both stayed in Philippines with her Mom. White married at 19 to a Singaporean man in Philippines, who later dumped her after she was pregnant for 3 months. This man was married back home in Singapore. Recently she heard that he was with another Filipina and dumped her after she had 3 kids. Sometimes between their stories, they made a joke and laughed. I didn’t know what to do, should I laugh with them or should I cry for them?
When I asked about their job, they first told me that they were working on some “personal business” here. But after we talked for a while, probably they thought that I’m trust worthy, they told me that they worked in night clubs, pubs, restaurants, etc. After lunch (yes they cooked for me), White & Red walked in Red’s room to talk, leaving me with Blue alone most of the time. After I asked Blue about her tattoo, listened to her story of encountering a ghost and gave her some compliment about her beauty (she’s really beautiful), she became much more friendly. She told me that she had been here for 11 months without a work permit which means she has to have her tourist visa chopped every month. It costs RM200-RM400 each time.
- “I used to work in a club, but now my boyfriend doesn’t want me to work anymore.” She met her boyfriend when she was “working” and they fell in love. Her boyfriend is 45, more than 20 years older than her. He is a policeman and he already has a family with 2 kids.
Her eyes became bright and she couldn’t help smiling when she told me how much her boyfriend loved her, and how she always won over an argument when she told him that she wanted to go back to Philippines.
- “No, I don’t think I will go back to Philippines anytime before next year. I just want to scare him so that he has to beg me to stay. He’s very jealous, he doesn’t want to me to go out with any guy. But most of my friends are guys. I go out with them just for fun, for clubbing and drinks. I don’t follow them to have sex with them. Sometimes I go clubbing with other guys, my boyfriend calls but I don’t even pick up the phone. He gets mad but I like it. I want to see him jealous.”
When I asked if his wife knew about her, she told me that his wife found out the affair from his phone. His wife called her, very politely, asking her to leave her husband. But Blue told her that: “I didn’t know that he had a family. I just fell in love.” She told me that if she had known that he was married, she wouldn’t get herself into it. When she found out, she wanted to go back to Philippines but her boyfriend didn’t let her go. When I told her that leaving or not was her choice, not her boyfriend’s, she didn’t answer.
There are a lot of girls like that in Kuching, most of them are from Philippines. They all come and stay in Malaysia for a long time. They told me that there was a club that hosted 160 girls. Sometimes they get road-blocked, policemen stop them to ask where they are from, what they do in Kuching. If the police find out that they are working here, they will be arrested before be sent back to Philippines. It’s in case they have money or someone to pay for flight tickets, else they will stay in jail for God knows how long. Blue once worked in Singapore for 4 months. She entered Singapore 3 times successfully but was rejected the 4rd time. They sent her back to Philippines for free.
I asked Blue: “Do you ever think of getting married?”
- “Yes, someday I will have to get married, to someone I love.”
- “What if this guy cheats on you with another girl?”
- “I will shoot him dead, oh yeah, both of them.”
Blue answered with a triumphant look on her face. She should have been relieved that her boyfriend’s wife didn’t do the same.
Life is not easy for some.
