TAIPEI, Taiwan - Down a flight of dimly lit stairs, reflected by mirrors and reverberating with bass from an aging sound system, the women of a “bar” in Greater Taipei sit at smoky booths and wait for the first Friday night customers. Two sisters, the youngest looking of the five women sitting around the backroom table, brush their hair and try on jewelry brought over from the mainland by a former employee.

“My sister say she think I should buy this necklace,” says one of the two girls while holding up a knock-off Chanel amulet, “but I don't like (the chain) … It's too little. Will get caught in my hair.”

One of the women, who looks around 30 years old and wears a tight skirt with see-through stockings, stands up as Mamasan (a term common in Asia referring to a brothel's madam) dips through the curtain and leans in to tell her a group of mainland Chinese businessmen wants a round of drinks and a girl to sing karaoke with them. Mamasan looks to the elder of the two sisters and asks her to come too. For now, the two girls will sit with the men and sing and drink watered-down scotch, at a cost per glass of NT$400 (S$16.60). The men, of course, pay. Even if they do nothing more than drink and sing, it is sure to be an expensive night out.

Two of the three remaining women continue to rifle through the box of cheap jewelry, while the younger sister pours a pitcher of Taiwan Beer into the glasses on the table. “Rita” has been working at the bar for nearly a year, and has gotten used to foreigners asking questions about her work. “I have drinks with Chinese, and sometimes sing. But here (this booth) is VIP for foreigners. Sometimes Chinese come back here looking for me, but Mamasan say for them to go out and she bring them a girl.”

Most of Rita's customers are foreigners, she says, though occasionally locals come in with big money. Not all the patrons to the bar, of course, play by the rules. “(The customers) say to me, 'Come to my hotel, but don't tell Mamasan, OK? Just between you and me.'” She says she turns them down, but will oblige if they're willing to take care of business in the booth with the curtains drawn. Rita claims the men want to purchase sex, but seek to cut out the expensive premium that Mamasan charges for the introduction. “Mamasan can tell if the customer is a good man. She works very hard too, so she need to make money.”

Rita is 24 years old, but Mamasan tells her never to reveal her actual age and instead say that she is 22. When asked, she tells customers that she has worked at the bar for only two months. In reality, she has been there for nearly a year. This is a conversation that takes place with almost every man.

“I think maybe men like younger women, so Mamasan say to tell them I'm 22 … just like my sister say she's 23, but she's really 27. Maybe old for working in bar, but she is so beautiful.”

Rita makes most of her money drinking with customers. For every drink a man orders, another is bought for her. Usually watered-down scotch or mixed with Coca-Cola, the customers pay NT$400 for each of her drinks, and she takes home NT$200.

The price for sex, and its iterations, depends on the night, the man and what Mamasan thinks he will pay. Prices for the most basic sexual services at this establishment usually begin at around NT$3,000 and can go as high as NT$12,000.

“Some nights, I make maybe NT$9,000, sometimes nothing.” She makes a “zero” with her fingers then flicks open a pack of Dunhills and pulls out her fifth cigarette for the hour. Swirls of smoke are caught in a thin beam of light from a spotlight that shines above the booth's brass tabletop. Through the curtain can be heard one of the two women who left earlier attempting a rendition of a Teresa Teng song. Rita giggles as a high note cracks in failure.

Rita says she began at the bar after her sister told her she could make more money than at the electronics factory where she was working. She says it took her a few months to become comfortable with the work, noting that she is still a little nervous around customers whom she's never met. She says that even though she made decent money at her previous job, her family was in financial trouble and needed the extra income.

“My father fell in love with another woman, so my mother and him always fighting,” Rita says. She explains that her father is not abusive, and that she works with him every afternoon, cooking food for his night market stall. But the money her father makes in a week is nothing close to what Rita can sometimes make in a single night.

Asked if helping the family was the main reason she chooses to work in the bar, she says “Yes.”

Asked if the work was difficult, she laughs, saying “not really.” After a short pause and with a hushed voice, she adds “Sometimes, maybe.”