Korean massage Parlours in Queens

NEWSDAY

Newsday Article on Korean Massage Parlors (August 24, 2004)

PART I: A RISING TIDE

The Brothels of Queens

Ex-owner of Korean massage parlors in Flushing discloses how they worked

By Anthony M. Destefano

It was early fall, but the waiting room in the upstairs Flushing "health club? near Northern Boulevard seemed unusually chilly. At one end of the room a thin, long-haired woman in a red miniskirt and a sweater sat uncomfortably, folding her arms tightly around her body. She ignored the two sheepish-looking male customers who sat quietly in red velvet chairs across the room.

By a small bar, other short-skirted women were more animated, flirting with several other men, flashing thighs to no one in particular, chatting about recent breast enlargement surgery and answering an array of cell phones that were constantly chirping.

A few women emerged with men from cozy rooms furnished, teenager style, with pictures of movie stars like Leonardo DiCaprio and fluffy comforters on the beds. What went on in those back rooms, massage and more, was done strictly in private. Whatever happened cost -- at least $200 for an encounter and more with tips. As the men left, the women slipped the cash into envelopes to be placed in a small wooden box by the wet bar in the waiting room.

Another woman -- call her Nana Lee -- owned the place, as well as a second massage parlor in Flushing. A small-statured Korean-American in her 40s, she filled her clubs with young women -- mostly South Korean, but also some Chinese and Thai nationals -- who had entered the country in assorted legal and illegal ways to work in what police say is an entrenched immigrant sex industry in Queens. Her ads in Korean language papers drew a steady stream of customers, from young immigrants to established businessmen, as well as reputed gang members, seven days a week. From this trade some of her workers said they made as much as $10,000 a month.

For much of the last year, Newsday has been talking with Lee and some of the women who worked for her. In Queens Boulevard coffee shops, at her Flushing home, in criminal court and at her business locations, she discussed the business she has known for a dozen years. The only condition her attorney set was that her real name not be used and that the pseudonym "Nana Lee? be used instead.

What emerged from the interviews is a unique look at how one part of the immigrant sexual economy operates in New York.

Lee denied running brothels, and in fact never has been convicted of a prostitution offense although police raids finally drove her to shutter her clubs. What happens behind closed doors, she insisted, is the business of the women and their clients. She offered no explanation for the containers of condoms police found during raids at her businesses.

Such raids can make revenues spotty for businesses like hers, she noted.

"Sometimes three months' work, and they close for eight months,? Lee said. "One year may only work five to six months, and business is good.?

Although some women's advocates and police characterize immigrant women working in brothels as "sex slaves,? the situation in the city appears more complex, ranging from those who knowingly agree to work as prostitutes to those who expected to find jobs in restaurants or garment factories but found themselves instead working in sexual servitude.

The majority of the nearly dozen women in Queens who talked to Newsday over the last year, including those working for Lee, said they were doing the job voluntarily and had not been forcibly coerced.

"People don't grab people to say ?ou come here,'? explained a woman who had worked in one of Lee's Flushing brothels. Now married and living in Atlanta, she wanted to be identified only as "Kim.?

Sok Kang, head of the Coalition for Korean-American Social Services Inc., said he thinks the Korean women working in the sex business are more willing participants than Chinese prostitutes. His organizations, Kang said, are available to help the women, but so far only one or two have sought assistance, mainly for drug problems.

The immigrant sex business in New York is organized largely along ethnic lines, with many Eastern Europeans and Latin Americans participating, as well as Asians. Whatever the group, those involved are far outnumbered by immigrants from their homelands who have nothing to do with the sex trade. And no matter the group, information about the trade, particularly its structure and organization, is hard to come by, according to city detectives who make prostitution arrests.

In New York, brothels are known as "working? places and "stores? to Koreans in the trade, and as "chicken houses? to Chinese participants. There is also a substantial "out call? business, telephone referral services that link customers to women but do not involve brothels. In trade parlance, Lee is considered a "mommy,? a manager and owner of a working house who hires and takes care of the women working for her. One step above the mommy is the "big mommy,? usually an older Asian woman who assembles investors for the sex businesses. Other elderly women -- known as ajuma, an honorific title in Korean -- provide cooking and cleaning.

Men are believed to be key players in the industry as well. Police and attorneys familiar with the prostitution business believe some Asian businessmen are pumping money into the trade. City police are just now beginning to probe the way the businesses are organized and funded.

New York City -- Queens in particular -- is an important destination for women lured by the promise of big money for sex work, according to Lee, other sources in the sex trade, lawyers and police.

The brothel workers, who range in age from their early 20s to late 30s, include some who had worked as prostitutes in Korea, according to workers, investigators and others familiar with the businesses. Others, driven by financial need, had limited job potential at home because of South Korea's economic problems or their own lack of training and education. Many of them compartmentalize their activity and think of it as work, not sex. Though some marry clients, they usually have few emotional attachments to the men they meet on the job, and some have husbands or boyfriends who do not object to their sex work.

In Korean society, the working girl life is considered "low class,? Lee said during one interview, nursing a glass of water. But a lot of the women who do it are very poor and see it as a way to big money. "Some girls want to have fun,? she said, explaining what she said was another motivation of some women.

A key link in the trafficking of young women to the city are some Korea-based immigration brokers who, according to Lee, will advance the women up to $15,000 for a travel package that includes a tourist visa, airline ticket and referral to a brothel owner who can employ them. Interest rates charged by the brokers are usurious by American standards, and can add $10,000 to $30,000 to an initial bill of $5,000 to $15,000, Lee said.

"Some girls are very hard working and pay broker in six months,? Lee said. "Some are working for two years, just pay interest.?

About one-third of the women have tourist visas (which do not permit work), another third have false papers, while the remainder entered the United States with no immigration documents, said Lee. They come in either through Mexico or Canada, which do not require visas of Korean nationals. Visa-fraud investigators from the U.S. State Department and the South Korean government believe that at least one travel agency, and possibly others, in Korea are using visa fraud to send women to the United States for prostitution, according to a State Department spokesman.

With the sex business so brisk, the women who pay back their loans are able to stay in the United States and travel a brothel circuit that includes New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and Hawaii, Lee said.

Still, Lee indicated that a not so subtle form of control is sometimes at work: Brokers sometimes keep the women's passports until their debts are paid. Some brokers also dictate where the women live so that they can be watched, said Lee.

When the women first make it to New York, they are met at the airports and taken to a special sauna in Queens that caters to women in the sex trade, as well as other clientele, sources said. It is at the sauna that the women spend their off hours, sleeping and getting beauty treatments, said the sources, adding that one or two Queens nail salons also serve the same function. Donald Hu, manager of the Korean American Nail Salon Association, said he has never heard of any salon being used for that purpose.

The women typically start their days after 9 p.m., when limousine services around Flushing pick them up for work. In fact, some limousine services are vital to the sex business because they bring new clients to the brothels and arrange for the women to send money back to Korea through special bank accounts, one prostitute told Newsday.

Once at work, the women may find themselves with as many as 10 to 20 clients a day -- three an hour is not unusual for an attractive woman -- for a minimum price of $200 a client. Most of the money, about $120, stays with the individual prostitutes, with the house getting the rest. The prostitutes can also rack up hefty tips.

While the money is good, expenses can be high. The house can charge $300 a week for food and $25 for the condom supply, according to a prostitute who uses the pseudonym "Bernadette Chong.? Saunas may charge $35 rent a night for a room, said another prostitute.

Competition for customers is tough, and animosity among women, particularly along ethnic lines, is common.

Chong, who is Vietnamese, told Newsday that the Korean women in the brothels seem ruthless in their quest for money and expect others to work with the same intensity. An older Korean prostitute, who did not want to be identified, agreed and said her younger compatriots approach the job with a frenzy.

Their attitude, she said, was: "Oh, America, make a lot of money!? While the older prostitutes are intent on satisfying their customers, the women new to the business have an assembly-line approach, she said.

Frank Bari, an attorney from Bayside who has represented several Korean and Chinese clients accused of prostitution, said brothels staffed by smuggled Chinese women are generally massage parlors where the only sexual contact might be customer "relief of stress,? a euphemism for masturbation, for which the charge is $40. Korean brothels, his clients told him, apparently allow all kinds of sexual relations, for more money, naturally. Others knowledgeable about the business confirmed this distinction.

The Chinese setups, according to police and community sources, operate in certain barber shops in Chinatown, which have sparsely furnished plywood partitions for sexual encounters. By contrast, a typical Korean massage parlor takes at least a $100,000 investment in fixtures.

From the outside, it is often difficult to spot a sex work location. Lee's "stores? were located in gritty industrial buildings near Main Street in Flushing. But inside they had been outfitted with attention to detail. One had nearly two dozen private rooms, a steam bath, dressing rooms and a large waiting room with the ubiquitous red velvet sofas. In the otherwise homey bedrooms, shower curtain bars were installed over the beds, so the women could hold on while they walked on the customers' backs during the massage service.

The bedrooms sometimes served as sleeping accommodations for the women, who whiled away the time waiting for customers by building elaborate paper sculptures, working on jigsaw puzzles or playing English word games.

Gambling is also popular, Lee said.

"About 60 percent are gambling,? said Lee, adding that some of her employees had run up debts as high as $123,000. The prostitutes often make trips to Atlantic City, which also has an Asian brothel scene.

But women who do save money may go on to study to run a nail salon or photo shop, said one brothel manager.

In a number of interviews, Lee said she hoped to run a different business herself, perhaps a nail salon or clothing store. This was particularly true when she became weary after police raided her massage parlors several times in the past year and charged her with prostitution-related offenses.

Those charges were dismissed or substantially reduced to minor, non-sex-related charges after plea bargaining.

Still, the arrests had taken their toll. During the raids Lee would be bundled off to Queens Central booking in Kew Gardens. Dressed in a wrinkled navy-blue warm-up suit, with her unkempt hair pinned up in a short pony tail, she was held in the holding cells of the courthouse, where the prostitutes slept. Court appearances sometimes caused her to hyperventilate and cry. In her "health club,? the raids had left some door frames split, and her landlord had served her with an eviction notice.

Asked what she planned to do, Lee could only shrug.

"I can't fix no more, I have no money,? she said.

To take stock of her life, Lee prayed at a Buddhist temple. There, she said, she dreamed of her dead mother who told her in a vision that "all was going to be OK.?

One day last fall, Lee insisted in an interview that she was going to do other things with her life. Aside from massage parlor management, however, she had no job skills. She had taken the time to get a makeover, with subtle shades of lipstick and blush. Her newly colored hair was subtly streaked with henna.

"I change everything,? Lee said.

Whether she was referring to her look, or her way of life, wasn't entirely clear.

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