谢谢贴出链接的坛友，看了满多好玩的东西，不过下面这篇看的是有点不是滋味。不知道怎么说中介好。
April 2, 2009. Thursday: Out of innocence
Shortly after midnight, a young Chinese lady flagged down my taxi on Balestier Road. After I stopped, she lowered her head and peered through the window for a second before opened the door. She came in,sat in the front seat, and told me in Chinese to take her to “You Chi”.
“You mean Yew Tee, the oil pond?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “You Chi, the KTV.”
But I had no knowledge of a KTV in that name. I asked her if she knew whereit is and she took out a phone and got somebody on line. “Let my landlord speak to you,” she said as she passed the phone to me.
A man with a hoarse voice at the other end of the line said in English,“take the girl to Orchard KTV in Orchard Tower quickly as you can, andtell her I am waiting here.” The tone was bossy and loaded with impatience. I could also hear some noisy music in the background.
“Okay,” I replied.
I gave the phone back to the girl, and started heading towards Orchard Tower.
The girl appeared to be in her early twenties. She was dressed in jeans and a T shirt, and looked nice and endearing in an innocent kind of way.The fact that she pronounced “Orchard” as “You Chi” indicated to me that she was new to the town and could not speak English, which also explained why she checked upon the driver before she got into the taxi.She had to make sure he or she speaks Chinese.
On the way, the girl confirmed that she just arrived here three days ago from Fujian,China. She came to Singapore because she believed what she was told by middle agents that she could make money here. “They told me that I can work here in Singapore earning equivalent to at least eight thousands of RMB a month,” she said.
But it first cost her and her family60,000 RMB to come. And after she came, she was very much disappointed to know there was no job of 8000 RMB waiting for her. No job at all, in fact.
I asked, “why don’t you just go back?”
“I am stuck,” she said moodily. “My family, my parents, are in deep debt now.I have to stay here to find a job to repay the money they borrowed for me.”
I had heard similar stories before. I sighed privately.
But then, her eyes lit up. “Luckily, my landlord is a kind man and he’s helping me find a job,” she smiled at me. “He has arranged an interview for me tonight. That’s where I am going to now. If they like me, I will be working in a KTV as a waitress, as soon as today.”
“I am sure they will like you,” I murmured. I started to have a bad feeling about this.
“It is not something I had in mind, but it will buy me some time.” She added, her smile still visible.
After a short period of silence, I asked, “how did you know your landlord? I mean, how did you find him?”
“Oh, he was introduced to me by the middle agent,” she replied glibly.
That surely made sense. I nodded to myself.
Iwas again quiet for a while, not sure what to say to her. Towards the end of the trip, I decided to say something which I was certain if Ikept to myself I would feel bad for the rest of the night.
I told her that during the month of my taxi driving, I drove young and good-looking girls like her from China on several occasions. Some of them, also like her, paid hefty prices, some 50 or 60 thousand RMB, to the middle agents to come to Singapore with the belief that they could work here and make more money than they could in China, only to wake up to the reality that there was no such thing in Singapore, especially the Singapore in its worst economic crisis, after they stepped on this island. The girls I met all ended up selling themselves to Chinese-speaking men, because they, like her, cannot speak any English.“You shouldn’t trust your landlord,” I cautioned, “as you shouldn’t have trusted your agents, because I think they are in this together.Melons of the same vine.”
“I don’t want to sound overly negative,” I added in the end. “But just think about it. What’s the odd of getting a normal job in Singapore without being able to speak a single word of English?”
She had kept her lips compressed into a thin line while she listened. After I was finished, she took a deep breath and said, “thanks for telling me all this. I appreciate it. I know how to protect myself.”
“You’ll need to. It is a jungle out there.” I said in earnest.
Orchard Tower was aside us now. The huge neon sign board hung on the wall of the building shone on the street below which was still crowded with partygoers at this hour. As the girl handed me with the taxi fare, I noticed that her hand trembled slightly. I knew she was still excited or nervous about the coming “interview”. I wished her luck as she stepped out of the car.
Perhaps she had also stepped out of her innocence. I hoped.
又一个去当陪酒了
99.99%中介公司
太多人因为不会英文而被骗了．
哎！！！但愿她不要陷进去了！！！不然，从此又多了一个肮脏而无奈的灵魂．
着什么急么，中国人多着呢，在TG的英明领导下，我们生活在和谐社会里，没关系的找不到工作，找到工作买不起房子，看不起病，男人都整天想着怎么捞钱，女人都想着傍大款来钱快。当初还不如给GMD干呢
1# taotaofeng
什么文笔不错啊, 不过是写了一些大家平常没有看到或关心过的阴暗一面. 跟街头小报有一比. 他的英文, 怎么说呢, 挺中国化的, 平淡但我们看得懂. 叫什么来者, 匠气!
说真的, 他们这些被新来的洋人搞下去的人, 确实也挺惨的. 他开出租车, 写博客, 好像是有意跟政府机构别苗头, 出他们的洋相. 听说从洋人来了以后, 没什么进展, 还找替罪羔羊, 新加坡这回又被人耍了
斯坦福的博士怎么着也不至于沦落到去开出租吧……
看过了
在新加坡，有多开出租的人，以前都是CEO或者是PROF来的，退休开出租车是体验生活。
的确是,很多公司或酒廊业者和中介都是同一根藤上的瓜.上当的大都是中国人
同情一下