BlacksmithBooks - Hong Kong independent publishers

Home ] Back ] Authors ] Events ] FAQ ] Press ] Ordering ] About Us ]


Whispers and Moans

Cover photo: Tim McConville

ISBN-13: 9789628673285
Paperback: 276 pages
Size: 20.2 x 15 x 1.9 cm
Published: July
2006

Price: HK$140 / US$17.95
Choose your location:


Free shipping

+ US$6.00

OTHER SOURCES
Buy Whispers and Moans from these alternative vendors:

Barnes & Noble (US)

Waterstones (UK)

Amazon France

Amazon Germany

Amazon Japan

 
Whispers and Moans: Interviews with the men and women of Hong Kong's sex industry
by Yeeshan Yang
NON-FICTION

Hong Kong has a bewildering range of sex businesses offering services to suit all imaginable tastes: from the glitzy nightclubs of Tsim Sha Tsui East, through the saunas, karaoke lounges and one-woman brothels of Mong Kok, to the streets and short-time hotels of Sham Shui Po. 

Chinese-language sex magazines print reviews of individual prostitutes, and promote an ever-widening array of bizarre sexual practices. Even mainstream newspapers engage pimps as columnists. Business appears to be booming -- but there are hungry newcomers to this underground economy. How do local prostitutes deal with the ruthless competition posed by an endless supply of girls from mainland China? 

To find out, Yeeshan Yang spent a year gaining the trust of the city's sex workers, interviewing nearly 50 hookers, hostesses, toy boys, transsexual prostitutes, mama-sans and brothel owners. 

The result is an eye-opening book which shows the human side of sex for sale. Whispers and Moans contains tales of easy money, financial ruin and desperate love -- and rare first-hand insights into Hong Kong's huge but hidden sex industry.

NEW! Look inside this book
Click on the links below to view sample pages from Whispers and Moans. You will need a pdf reader to view these excerpts.
A rose by any other name  What's on the menu?  Northern girls  Fertility for sale

Available in all major Hong Kong bookshops. Or order online securely with any credit or debit card, or with Paypal, by clicking the 'Add to Cart' button on the left. For other methods of payment, please see here.


MEDIA ATTENTION

"Yang has spent many hours talking to many different people in Hong Kong's sex industry, from Sham Shui Po street hookers addicted to heroin to fetish models, from gigolos who make over $100,000 a night to Japanese mamasans, from suicidal transsexuals to mainlanders on 7 day visas. The author has clearly tried to exhaust every avenue of this most intriguing of professions in order to provide us with a comprehensive and truthful guide to the oldest profession in the world in Hong Kong." DS magazine

"Whispers and Moans premiered at this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival and is currently playing in cinemas as this issue goes to print. The celluloid work’s co-scriptwriter Yeeshan Yang is the author of Whispers and Moans: Interviews with the Men and Women of Hong Kong’s Sex Industry, a non-fiction tome published last year but currently getting display and shelf space in certain local bookstores. Retailing at HK$140, the book may be several times more expensive than the price of a cinema ticket but even were you to buy what should make for interesting bedside reading in the high rent areas of Central, Causeway Bay or Tsim Sha Tsui, it is still $60 cheaper than the set price of street hookers in areas like Yau Ma Tei, Sham Shui Po and Tuen Mun." bc magazine

Film Adaptation:
Director Herman Yau has brought Whispers and Moans to the big screen in a movie starring Athena Chu, Candice Yu and Monie Tung. (Chinese title: 性工作者十日談). The premiere took place at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in March 2007, and general release in Hong Kong cinemas began in May. Read a review of the movie here.

"There is a theory that we are all prostitutes. We all sell ourselves for whatever we can get. Looking at the lurid pink cover and cheap title of Yeeshan Yang’s Whispers and Moans, we might think book publishers are no different, peddling volumes of smut thinly disguised as academic works. But anyone after prurient thrills or the ‘human sexual response’ that made Masters and Johnson’s publisher its virtuous fortune will be in for a disappointment. This is not a book about sex. It is about stupid people exploiting each other and feeling sorry for themselves – but delivered with a feisty detachment that makes it more entertaining than depressing.
...
As Yang notes, not all whores are even considered hookers. The ones who live in apartments in Shenzhen and juggle a small stable of Hong Kong married clients are called concubines. The ones who work their way up the film industry are called stars. The ones photographed by paparazzi escorting ageing billionaire tycoons are called lucky.
...For those that sell their minds or souls – the ones called upstanding members of the workforce – this is a book that will amuse and possibly amaze rather than arouse, provided they join the author in having a sense of humour, a thick skin and no sociological or feminist axe to grind."
Hong Kong blogger Hemlock. Read the review in full at Hemlock's Diary.

Tricks and the Trade
Lee Wing-sze found that there is no such thing as a happy Hong Kong hooker when she interviewed Yeeshan Yang for the South China Morning Post. Read the story here.

Exploring Hong Kong's sex industry
Lee Wing-sze also talked about Whispers and Moans on the 'SCMP Today' podcast. Listen here at 17:11 onwards.

Up Close
Whispers and Moans author Yeeshan Yang was interviewed by HK Magazine's Alexandra Carroll on 11th August. Read the full article.

Naked Lunch
Sarah Passmore interviewed Yeeshan Yang on RTHK Radio 3 on 4th August 2006. Listen in by clicking here and moving to 0:34:40 on the slider.

 

 

Blacksmith Books is an imprint of Blacksmith Media Limited
Tel: (+852) 2877 7899  //  Fax: (+852) 2522 6691  //  5/F, 24 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong
* This site is best viewed at a screen resolution of 800x600 or greater *