China World, Chapter 4

On the way to the bar Albion, they encountered the usual difficulties white women encountered when traveling around the city for personal reasons. They could only get so far on bus, and had to walk part of the way. At every crosswalk, each of them had to scan their smartwatch against a sensor in the traffic light – similar to hitting a crosswalk button. Except here in New Beijing, this was a way of reporting their movements to some computerized system that tracked their every step and could give or revoke freedom of movement at any time.
	It reminded her of the prison, having to scan a badge to get clearance to move.
	There was anxiety attached to this simple act of walking, because there was a chance that Hannah or Candace or Penelope's wristwatch might flash red when she scanned it at a crosswalk, indicating that for whatever reason they weren't allowed to cross the street. Maybe they were being re-assigned (a common occurrence on a white woman's day off, getting a surprise call into work), or there were too many white women on that block already. It created these breaks in their walk, a recurring dread that at each block she could be separated, contained, sent somewhere else. It was still very hot out, full sun, and Penelope was acutely aware of the Chinese women who travelled by air conditioned taxis driven by Caucasian women.
	"I can't believe how good Yumi Yamaguchi looked in that new superhero movie. It's like she's not even real!" Candace said.
	"I know! I want to BE her," Hannah added.
	Penelope hadn't seen the movie, of course, but went along with it. They didn't walk a straight path to Albion – their smartwatches gave them a route that took made them turn unexpectedly. On this route, they passed by a gambling parlor, which Hannah and Candace were unable to resist.
	"Oh I actually have some of my tips saved up. I can play a few games, do you mind if we stop in here?" Hannah asked as she was already walking into the place.
	"Sure! I want to play too... Let me just borrow some money for it," Candace said.
	The place was brightly lit, containing slot machines and card tables towards the back. It wasn't a large space, but it had a full bar and a very upscale aesthetic and powerful air conditioning. The three women approached the bar, and chatted up the Indian woman who was working there. She smiled, welcomed them, and immediately busied herself preparing something for the three of them.
	"Do you have a loan officer here, too?" Candace asked politely, using a soft voice.
	"Of course!" the bartender said, "here, have these as my gift. Then we can talk about the loan."
	She placed before each of them a rectangular gold compact mirror, open, with a line of white powder its surface. Resting on each was a gold cylinder about the size of a person's pinkie finger. Hannah and Candace both put these gold straws up their noses before leaning down to casually snort up the white powder, and Penelope followed their lead. It burned like crazy, made her eyes tear up a little and felt exactly like cocaine.
	"Thankyou thankyou thankyou!" Hanna said, tilting her head backwards a little and smiling.
	"Ok I'd like to borrow two hundred, please," Candace jumped in. She was drumming her hands on the bar and looked eager to go start gambling.
	"That's fine!" the Indian woman answered. She wore a LOT of gold and platinum jewelry, and used her smartphone to scan Candace's watch.
	"I can give you two hundred yan at twenty-two percent interest. Does that work? Also, I will give each of you another line of kowkan, even though it costs me money."
	"Yes! Thanks!" Candace chirped.
	With a tap on her watch, elfin Candace was two hundred dollars more in debt and the three of them were inhaling another line of white 'kowkan' which was perfectly legal, apparently.
	Penelope saw the place in a better light, high on drugs. The digital slot machines were flashing such bright colors, making her think about how great it was to be rich. She was never much of gambler, and just pulled once on a slot machine to see what would happen. She lost, and went to join Hannah and Candace who were back at the tables.
	The drugs made her more interested in everything, and keyed up to an extreme degree. They were playing cards – Penelope just sat and watched although she could tell the dealer didn't like it. The white girls lost badly, and then the Indian woman behind the bar took sympathy on them and gave them some more kowkan, for free. Candace might have walked away being down just 120, but this gave her the conviction to play a few more hands. She had lost her entire 200 yan within the half hour, and Hannah's losses were about the same.
	They didn't seem to know restraint very well, and kept throwing money away trying to make up for their losses. But the entire time, even though they were losing, they were vibrant and optimistic and fervently happy about each win. The music of the place, and the blinking lights all gave it this frantic feeling like everybody was winning money. The dealer, who was a mature Korean lady, treated them like winners and was becoming more and more insistent that Penelope join which she didn't want to do, so she excused herself back to the slot machines.
	At least at the machines, she lost money at a slower rate. The drug was dripping from her nasal passage down her throat, burning slightly then numbing. It tasted alkaline. But even under the effects of a powerful stimulant like kowkan, Penelope just didn't like gambling. Were Hannah and Candace socialized to find it addictive? With how little control they had over their lives, it made sense that they'd cling to a thrill and an opportunity like this. Not a single white woman owned property in New Beijing. Maybe a very small business, she could own, but never property.
	Asian women (and men, elsewhere) controlled the banks and the lending of money, just like they controlled all the casinos, the People's Council, the Internet. This gave them significant power to influence things: which family qualified for a mortgage, which businesses secured funding, and the right corporate cultures to emulate. In popular belief, the New Kingdom's society was a meritocracy or at least guided by market principles that would maximize profits and preserve the edict of heaven. In reality, a white woman would always have to sit down across the table from a Chinese lady if she wanted a business loan. And if the idea was too good, the Chinese woman might just steal it and do it herself, sometimes even hiring the white girl to work for her new company in a very low position. On her hands and knees, perhaps, for years as the company grows and expands hiring even more women for her to serve.
	Penelope played slots for a while, drawing out the time between each pull so she didn't have to spend so much. She didn't win once, and before the koke wore off it was time to go.
	"Come on, Penelope," Candace said, smiling at the bartender and thanking her for her hospitality.
	Being on kowkan wasn't as glamorous when they were out on the sidewalk, down 200+ yan. They struggled for something to say. Candace looked like she wanted to cry, and Hannah had a little fake smile on her face. They walked in silence, in the early evening, it was still very hot and humid. The drugs gave them a powerful need to be social, though, and they were soon talking away and enjoying each other's company as the loss became more distant.
	They walked past a mahjong parlor that was very busy.
	Mahjong had a reputation as an older woman's game – in the parlor there were mature Chinese women sitting at tables, smoking cigarettes as they gambled with considerable assets. Hannah and Candace were fine with stopping to watch, possibly because it made them think of gambling, vicariously scratching that itch.
	"Have you ever worked one of these?" Penelope asked them.
	"No," Candace said, "I've talked to people who have, though. It's a lot harder than you would think. Look: you notice all the girls working there are wearing high heels?"
	Penelope looked inside. Sure enough, each of the Caucasian women working there had on a pair of red high heels as part of their saloon girl costumes. High heeled boots, in fact, that gripped tightly to every curve of her ankles, up her calves, and were fastened by anachronistic, totally impractical buttons that were roughly the shape of beads.
	"They have those shoes on, and sometimes they just have to stand there all day behind different players, to bring them luck. And they all smoke cigarettes... the girl I know worked as a cigarette girl, so she could at least walk around. Whenever a Chinese woman is on a losing streak, it's considered good luck for her to blow her cigarette smoke in a white girl's face. Sometimes, they even gamble over white women's labor contracts to see who will hold their personal ashtrays."
	 Penelope noticed a few saloon girls kneeling down near the players holding ashtrays in their lace-gloved hands. Their costumes invariably had corsets, and most wore black silk stockings so fine that a white girl could not reasonably afford them on her own wages. The style reminded her of the wild west, or perhaps an Edwardian-era historical fashion – did Chinese women enjoy seeing this part of white culture played out for them? It was exotic but comfortable, a stereotype that happened to coincide with the period when they arrived and took over.
	Penelope watched as a woman took a drag from her cigarette then blew it towards the girl who was kneeling nearby holding her ashtray. There was a great contrast between the two: the white girl looked like she was in her early 20s, while the Chinese woman was perhaps 50. Despite the smoking, she had aged very well – still sharp, attractive, and wealthy. The white woman was thin, coltish, almost gangly, and wearing a lot of makeup. Her costume revealed enough of her body that Penelope could easily see the bones of her scapula and spine, and especially her collarbone when she turned.
	She looked underweight, and then Penelope realized that the Council was the one feeding them all. So if this woman looked underweight, it was probably because they had adjusted her nutritional pink sludge to give her body that look. Or maybe she was legitimately anorexic. She definitely seemed like the type who would spend her money on kowkan. These Asian women certainly made gambling look more dignified, Penelope thought to herself.
	"But yeah. Could you imagine standing in those boots all day?"
	Penelope was more concerned that the job was being to made to act like a living ornament and also some kind of gambling chip. On top of that, it sounded terrible standing on four inch heels for so many hours a day while everyone was smoking.
	"So is this better or worse than a foot massage parlor?" Penelope asked.
	They had to think about it.
	"It depends," Hanna said, "probably worse because of the standing all day. And those corsets are really uncomfortable too. And they just keep making it tighter the longer you work there."
	"That's good to hear," Penelope said, "I don't really like cigarette smoke."
	Hannah laughed.
	"People usually don't smoke in foot massage parlors, here. I just tried to picture it and it was really weird to think about."
	They continued walking towards Albion although it was unclear if any of them had enough money for drinks anymore. Candace started telling a story about the women who processed the kowkan in other countries where it was grown. It was legal to cultivate and distribute, as long as the Council controlled its distribution.
	Candace described something like a prison camp where nude white women stood in front of enormous piles of cocaine leaves doing whatever labor was necessary to process the stuff into drugs. The white women were nude, Candace explained, to prevent stealing but Penelope was certain they only foisted this indignity onto the white prisoners. There were probably fully-clothed Chinese women in the same room, wearing green military uniforms and carrying rifles like in the jail. Overseeing it.
	Just like the cocaine Penelope was familiar with, this drug kowkan made her want more of it. Candace was thinking the same thing, based on how she couldn't stop talking about it.
	"These women see mountains of kowkan all day... But they're not allowed to do any of it. THERE's a job worse than working at a foot massage parlor, since you were asking about that," she finished.
	They stopped by a little convenience store to pick up some nutritional smoothies. A middle-aged white woman sat behind the counter watching a Korean soap opera. The store was not air conditioned, which made Penelope think that the white woman might be the owner. The Council allowed white women to own this sort of business. There was a very small profit margin on the pink shake, so the store owner made money marking up other things such as toilet paper and soap. They could sell alcohol, naturally: there was a huge collection of liquor bottles on the wall behind her and ads and promotions.
	She felt more at ease at this business since a white woman owned it, and she wondered if this was racism creeping into her belief system.
	Penelope really wanted some more cocaine now. This was the time when she would go to a bank machine and pull out hundreds of dollars to buy more. It annoyed her beyond belief that she couldn't do that now, because it would be a pretty big financial burden. The three of them stood outside the store and drank their nutritional shakes together. A few citizens gave them dirty looks, expressing their distaste at seeing three white girls standing around idly. One woman was walking her dog, a Shiba Inu, that barked at them in a show of aggression. Penelope flinched.
	"I don't think I have money for drinks anymore," Candace said.
	"Me neither," Hannah agreed.
	There was a lull in the conversation that had been cocaine manic for hours up to this point.
	They both looked to Penelope, and she understood that they were seeing if she would offer to pay for them. She thought about it. Already they had cost her money on gambling and exposed her to cocaine, on the one hand. But it was really good cocaine... Except for the pink shimmer that made it look like it belonged to a princess in a very adult-themed fairy tale kingdom. All Penelope wanted was more of that cocaine, and to find people to talk to and party with, and to get to her home world.
	"Sorry, I'm just not up to it either," Penelope said.
	She would have liked to stay but she could tell that these two would cost her a lot of money in drinks. It felt very uncharitable, refusing to pay for her new friends but whatever. These girls would definitely order multiple rounds of drinks and Penelope could be stuck working extra shifts to pay it off.
	"We'll have to do this again," Hannah said. They exchanged information and hugged goodbye.
	Penelope's smartwatch routed her home. She badly wanted to ask them about that restaurant she had seen, Di Columbus, but was scared of saying anything. Maybe her smartwatch had a microphone, and maybe Niko was still on her case. Too risky. What were these 'illegal tunnels' that Niko had mentioned? Who could be digging holes like that? The news never mentioned war, or crime, or acts of terror that would explain people digging illegal tunnels around a city. How could you even dig a hole in New Beijing without raising a ruckus and people seeing what you're doing?
	As she made her way home, she became particularly jealous of all the women she passed in her commute. Citizens of New Beijing had so much leisure time: Yoga studios abounded, along with nail salons, designer shoe stores, clothing boutiques, spas, places to get makeup or hair done professionally. Staffed for the most part by white women, which kept the cost of services incredibly low for the countless Asian professionals who came in and out of them,
	Penelope looked at a young Chinese woman who was standing on the sidewalk, waiting for a ride. She caught Penelope's attention because she looked so helpless. She was young, and pretty enough to be on the red carpet: jet black hair with flawless makeup and a stylish but playful pink summer dress. Even if she worked an entry-level job, a woman like this in New Beijing could easily afford to live like royalty, with an army of white women falling over themselves to do services for her.
	Why were these pampering services always so busy? Wouldn't people tire of this sort of thing after a while and patronize salons less? Apparently not. A big part of culture in that city was that a (yellow) woman look 'presentable' – pedicured, waxed, with full makeup and embodying the latest fashion trends. So when that girl at Lotus Nails had to detail clients' shoes with a toothpick, it  actually helped to bolster those women's image in the eyes of their friends and peers. Like they were so immaculate that their shoes didn't even dirty!
	Women in New Beijing would nitpick and police each other over this sort of thing: a chipped manicure or a stain on one's outfit were sure to attract negative comments. Penelope had seen it – sometimes women delighted in calling each other over stuff like that. Maybe this beautiful girl waiting for her cab with her guarded, bored expression was nervous. Like for all her beauty and the things that she had done right, her friends might find something to point out in a catty way. The fact that there were no men in the city certainly created a different social dynamic where unexpected things got out sized importance.
	Grimly, Penelope thought that if this young Chinese beauty did receive some backhanded compliment tonight, she could certainly take it out on her waitstaff later giving them her own back hand. Furiously lashing out with her riding crop until she was sure they would polish her jewelry to a shimmer next time. Didn't they know that the trend right now is for gold to shimmer?! And the white girls would tolerate it because they knew or believed in no better life than this. Penelope continued walking home, careful to step out of the way of every Asian woman she passed by rather than thinking they would move aside. There were beggar girls too, and it vaguely bothered Penelope that she already preferred to ignore them like she did in her home world.
	It was after sunset when she got to her apartment. The timing wasn't great – crashing off of cocaine and walking into that cramped mess. The place smelled delicious, which was something that only annoyed Penelope because white servants weren't allowed food except the pink shake.
	Sarah was in the kitchen, stirring some kind of fried rice. That was a surprise; usually the girl was out drinking or passed out on the sofa. She had red hair cut to a pixie length, and she wore cotton short shorts and a tank top that didn't look appropriate for the kitchen. Other dishes were on the burners; Penelope saw shrimp chow mein noodles and a large pot of tom kha soup. Penelope was still kind of annoyed at the girl for making her take that extra day at work – she hadn't even been thanked for it.
	"I thought you would be in earlier," Sarah said when she noticed Penelope was home, "I've had to do this alone. Would you help me please?"
	"Sure," Penelope answered. "Wow, you did all of this yourself?"
	"It's no big deal," Sarah demurred, not even smiling at the compliment.
	"You can help me get ready for delivering. Go get serving trays and utensils for three families."
	"Sure thing," Penelope said, going into the bedroom that had been converted into a storage unit for other Chinese tenants in the building.
	Space was such a premium in New Beijing that oftentimes Asian women would insist that white girls donate an entire room of their apartment to be converted to a collective storage unit. Penelope went and got out three large serving trays and the requisite utensils: bowls, serving spoons, tongs. She staged all these things on the table in the dining room.
	"Lai Fu is having a dinner party this evening. These are actually all for her. She ordered enough for three families," Sarah explained.
	Penelope's roommate was so deadpan it was hard to tell if she had an opinion on this -- like was she implying it was extravagant? She ate a generous spoonful of her own cooking reflecting a rare time a white woman was allowed normal food.
	"Do you want to try some? To see if I made it correctly for Miss Fu?"
	Penelope nodded, eager to taste something so delicious even if it was just a taste. She missed  restaurants so much.
	"It's so good!"
	"Thanks, now help me get it ready to go. Best if we can get it all up in one trip. Have you served for Miss Fu before? At one of her dinners, I mean?" Sarah asked.
	Penelope shook her head.
	"I will give you an overview," Sarah said as they worked together to get the food ready to go.
	"She's from a very wealthy family. She just stays in Yorktown because she enjoys it here. Her family was really strict on their servants, though, and she's the same way. We will place the food on the table for the guests, then we will go and stand facing against the wall while they eat. If one of them calls out to us, then you or I can go see what she wants, but otherwise we are supposed to remain totally still, just facing the wall. Miss Fu doesn't like it when the servants watch her eat and drool over the food."
	"We just stand facing the wall?" Penelope asked.
	"Yep, that's what she wants," the red-haired woman answered. By her sarcastic expression, it was obvious she found this annoying too. Neither of them dared to make a critical comment out loud, though. Sarah changed into a pair of yoga pants and a pink top, then the girls carried the heavy food trays up a few flight of stairs to Lai Fu's apartment.
	"Oh, and they have this thing they like. One of us gets on their hands and knees and crawls beneath the table. Then each guest at the dinner drops something on the ground for us to eat. We make our way across the table like this, eating something at each woman's feet. They don't always do this, but if they want to 'do charity,' this is what they mean."
	Penelope snorted. This was ludicrous.
	Lai Fu, who was a petite Chinese woman, answered the door wearing a vintage black dress and pearls. She ushered them into her apartment and right away Penelope could feel the air conditioning. It was heavenly.
	They removed their shoes, and were barefoot when they came to place the trays onto the table. Lai's apartment was so much nicer than Penelope's she couldn't believe this was the same building. This was one of the most surreal experiences so far: serving a dinner party of six Asian women who treated her like a lowly servant. They were all impeccably dressed, in their 20s, and beautiful like their hostess and friend Lai Fu.
	The guests were seated already, and began serving themselves while Penelope and Sarah padded over to a nearby wall to stand against it. Penelope was outraged to be made to stand with her nose against the wall and she became bored, and very jealous of the party guests who got to eat freely and do whatever they wanted. They spoke to each other in Chinese, only switching to English when they wanted something from their white servants. It was such a lousy place to be coming off of cocaine.
	"More wine, please!" one of the women would call out, not caring who brought it as long as she was quick and obsequious.
	They called for it pretty often. Sarah and Penelope would take turns helping the table. Pouring a glass of wine maybe, refilling a water, then walking right back to the wall. Miss Fu didn't seem to mind them shifting their body weight around while they were standing still but at one point, Penelope had to scratch her nose.
	"Don't move your hands," Sarah told her, calling her her out with surprising speed.
	Penelope just bit her lip – her nose really itched! Why couldn't she move her hands? It's not like the dinner party was paying attention to her, they were ignoring her completely! She wrinkled and contorted her face into preposterous shapes trying to scratch it without the use of her hands. Sarah noticed it and laughed softly.
	"Just scratch it the next time you walk back here," she whispered, traces of laughter in her voice.
	"Screw it," Penelope said under her breath, then decided to scratch her nose by  leaning forward and rubbing it against the wall in front of her.
	It felt great, and nobody seemed to notice. She looked over to see that Sarah was trying very hard not to burst out laughing. Somebody called for more wine, which Penelope went to take care of. Part of this might have been a power trip on Lai Fu's part, Penelope reasoned. A way of demonstrating her control over her white servants; this was an extension of her own glory according to some interpretation of the Five Principles. Penelope didn't want to believe that this was normal, even for New Beijing. But nobody else seemed perturbed by the servants being made to stand facing the wall. If anything, the women seemed more interested in seeing if the white women remained completely still, as Lai had boasted about.
	Penelope was staring at a wall, with nothing to do but think and listen to this fun dinner party happen without her. Then the cocaine blues really set in, and she started to miss her family and pity herself.
	"Wine, girl," one of the guests called out; a Korean woman who was already glowing from the alcohol. Things were starting to get more rowdy. Penelope hurried to refill her glass.