Tales of Dongguan City in 1999

In the summer of 1999, I left my village in Hunan for Dongguan to look for relatives, only to be tricked by my great-uncle into working as a waiter at the Golden Age nightclub.

It was my first glimpse of a world of lavish excess: Hong Kong businessmen lighting cigarettes with banknotes, and northeastern hostesses in high heels forcing foreign liquor on their customers.

Sister Hong, the head waitress, wore a qipao slit up to her thigh. She looked at me with a sneer. “Around here, tears are cheaper than toilet water.”

Then one night, I found half of a yellowed photograph in the storeroom. The woman in it looked exactly like the portrait of my mother that I treasured.

And on the back of the photo was Sister Hong's real name.

On a stormy night, clutching the photograph, I burst into Sister Hong's office, only to see her pointing a gun at my great-uncle's head.

“Boy,” she said, blowing out a ring of smoke. Then she turned the gun toward me. “Do you know why Dongguan's neon lights never reach the bottom?”