part 2 of Save yourself I say!

Save the world? Save yourself I say! (part 2)

For one thing, you don’t pay these suckers for what they are worth because they don’t know English enough to complain to authorities. And they never go to authorities thinking it is corrupt like the “old country.” And by God, China is old. It invented the civil service exams and the bureaucracy. They had wine vats for the centuries that plums and cherries dipped into, long before the advent of missionaries.

Or, there is cleverer plan. You pay part of their wages with a paycheck from work, which say around 80% of their monthly wages. Pay the rest 20% in cash and hire all your relatives and friends, enough people so that you will lose money on the books. And where do those poor suckers go? The minute they leave Chinatown they feel watched. They stay in Chinatown but all it is amounts to concrete. I remember for the twenty-some odd years I was there I was glad to see grass growing out of the sidewalk cracks. So, they go to gambling clubs. When you only have subsistence wages, you naturally crave a bit more money, and as they say, winning is a trap, because of easy-come, easy-go. And then business is so bad they all get laid off and so they collect unemployment for a while and watch the Minnesota governor’s re-runs as a pro wrestler.

Now getting to specifics – there was a defunct hotel on King Street just up the block from the infamous Wah Mei Club where the horrendous crime took place in 1983. I was in West Seattle at the time, and the nosy dentist that day asked me what the shootings were all about. How would I know? Robbery in all likelihood? Chinese don’t talk about unpleasant subjects, my mental illness for example. Coming back to my narrative, that defunct hotel was called the Milwaukee. Like most buildings in Chinatown, it is owned by an association. That could mean it is owned by a whole village of people. The bottom floor was a restaurant and you can go back into the kitchen  via the hallway to the restrooms, and go up the secret stairs to the third floor where the illegal casino is. Now here is where you don’t monkey with me or the old ladies in Chinatown.

(I need tea money now, please drop a dime into the cup for this story to continue…)