The story of a young woman who was dumped by her boyfriend in China, only to end up being a streetwalker in Singapore sounds like the plot of "Pretty Woman", starring Julia Roberts, gone wrong was highlighted recently in the Chinese evening papers.

Whilst the character played by Julia Roberts got to walk off into the sunset with her handsome, moneyed Prince Charming, this young woman found herself returning to China regretting her stint as a prostitute.

The 20-year-old woman blogged about her experience as a streetwalker in Geylang after returning to China and titled her blog, "Midnight, my days in Geylang - a part of Singapore that you never knew".

In her entry, she described how she was jilted by her first boyfriend, who was from Hong Kong, at the age of 18. In the midst of her despair, she received a call from her girlfriend, identified as Wen Wen in her blog, who advised her to come to Singapore and make a quick buck out of men, instead of being played by the guys.

That led to her life as a prostitute in Geylang. She was brought by her friend to a cheap motel in Geylang, where she was introduced to a pimp. In her blog, she wrote how she was wined and dined by her first customer, who paid $500 to have her company for the entire night and brought her to East Coast for a seafood dinner and to take in the scenery. But after that pleasant encounter, she never got the same treatment from subsequent male customers. She noted that all of them "treated her like a tool".

However, she was shaken out of her life of prostitution by her last customer, a man who paid $100 to interview and talk to her about her experiences in Geylang. With no sex involved in the transaction, he asked her to relate her experiences to him for a book he was writing. But as she related her experiences to him, she lamented: "I'm already very dirty, my life is over!"

Her customer then told her to give up her life of prostitution.

As her social visit pass, which entitled her to stay in Singapore for one month, had also expired, she decided to heed his advice and leave home for China.

The blog also captured her remorse as she made her way to the airport - she was nervous with worries of contracting sexually transmitted diseases from her stint. It also affected her psychologically, as she felt morally degenerated.

Standing together with transvestites in the back lanes of Geylang

The story of this female Chinese national was picked up by the Chinese evening dailies. One account in Lianhe Wanbao told of how the girl had stood with transvestites in a back lane in Geylang as they waited for customers.

She said that the streetwalkers would earn $100 for each customer, and she had to offer a 'commission' of $10 to her pimp, in addition to another huge sum of money for her friend, Wen Wen, to hand over to the person in charge of the area. 

In the article, she described how the girls lined up like soldiers as night fell and they waited for customers to approach. She was told by the pimp that the further a girl stood inside the lane, the lesser she would command.

To see the entry, click here.