I can’t really remember what led to the topic on host clubs in Singapore during our lunch. But curiosity got the better of us, and our team (ladies only ahem…) decided to head down to a host club in Orchard on a fateful Friday night.
Credit: Tumblr Korean Virgins Party Hard
What are host clubs?
For the uninitiated, host clubs are the male version of hostess clubs, where female customers pay for the company of male counterparts. We managed to find a friend who frequents host clubs to show us the way before we blur queens embarrassed ourselves while we were there.
Credit: USA Today 10 Best
The place was just like any other clubs, dimly lit with mostly black colour decors. There wasn’t a dance floor, but there was a small stage, and sofa seats filled the rest of the club. The high backs on the sofa seats made the seating areas pretty private.
Picking your host
The six of us settled down and ordered a bottle of Martell. To our pleasant surprise, it was priced reasonably. We were expecting the price to be higher than usual. The club manager then brought around 10 to 15 Korean hosts over, and lined them up in front of us and told us to “pick your boy”.
Except for the veteran amongst us who already had a regular host that she likes, the five of us sat there and looked at each other not knowing how to react. I could almost hear the cricket chirping after our long pause. It was rather embarrassing for us to pick a host like how we pick groceries from the supermarket. I even told the manager that we were too shy to pick, so anyone was fine. As though he was used to this already, he laughed and told us to take a closer look at them and pick our favourite. With that, he took out his phone to shine the torchlight on the boys’ faces so that we could see their faces clearly in the dark. Oh gosh… more awkward.
Boyfriend, Credit: Onehallyu
Did I mention that they all looked like Kpop stars?
Trying to cut the awkwardness short, I started the ball rolling and picked the tallest one of the lot. He had small eyes, high nose, a the coveted V-shape face. Let’s call him K, and he is quite an eye candy. The rest of the girls followed suit and the boys walked in to sit beside us.
The hosts and you
Pouring drinks, chit-chatting, and playing games went on throughout the night. They gave us a total boyfriend experience. Even when you want to head to the ladies, expect to have them escort you there and wait for you outside. Some even came in to press the tap for you. K-drama prince charming fairytale experience, but bear in mind, you paid for this service, so don’t fall into the trap.
Most of the hosts in this Korean host club speak English, but some not particularly well. K’s english was very basic and we could only talk about very simple things. There were so many times that we had to give up on a topic because of the language barrier. Lucky my colleague who was sitting beside me had a host who spoke really good english and playing games together with them stopped the awkward conversations between K and me. Phew.
Credit: Tumblr Korean Virgins Party Hard
For the curious ones, there were no touchy feely moments. They try to get close to the girls but that depends entirely on whether the ladies allow it. They were very gentlemanly and kept all hands to themselves. I guess that is very much the difference between a host club and a hostess club.
Hanging flowers
There were three times throughout the night that the hosts had to leave the table to go on the stage. They were called out in groups to perform, and if you like their performances (or them), you “hang a flower” for them. The “flower” looked like the sash a pageant queen wears, with the money value printed on it. These flowers aren’t cheap at all, with the lowest priced one starting at $100.
There is a pressure on you to hang the flowers for the boy who entertained you. You felt obliged to do it because he was with you the entire night. Did we hang flowers for our boys? Yes we did. But definitely not repeatedly. We only hung once (Ouch on my pocket!) since we only came for the experience. However, it was interesting to see how the veterans and the other ladies in the club spend so much a night just to hang flowers for the boys.
We noticed an interesting phenomenon where some ladies “counter-hang” the flowers. It was like a war to hang flowers for the boy:
Lady A hangs $100 for the Host Z.
Seeing that, jealous or egoistic Lady B hangs $200 for Host Z.
Angered by that, Lady A hung another $400 for Host Z.
All of us had a jaw dropping moment witnessing that. Ladies, you are either very rich or you are eff-ing rich.
Conclusion
Remember that you are paying for the handsome boy’s attention and services, and do not think that he is actually taking an interest in you. I don’t know how many blossom into true love, and I’m not going to be cynical and say that it is impossible. But I do hear of many cases in the Thai Clubs in Singapore where customers fell into debts because of the excessive spendings in the clubs.
We had quite a good time there but it felt more like making new friends on our usual girls’ night out. Oh well, except for the hole burnt in our not very fat pockets.